A Short History of French Literature
philosophical sentimentalism and miscellaneous reflection have also been
popular, may be cited.
[Sidenote: Linguistic and Literary Study of French.]
The revived study of old French literature just noticed is the only
department of the literature of erudition which can receive notice here,
for prose science and classical study fall equally out of our range of
possible treatment here. The _Histoire Litteraire_ was revived, and has
been steadily proceeded with. Every department of old French literature
has been studied, latterly in vigorous rivalry with the Germans. The
most important single name in this study has been that of the late M.
Paulin Paris, who edited reprints of all sorts with untiring energy, and
in a thoroughly literary spirit. The Chansons de Gestes have been the
especial care of M. Paulin Paris, his son M. Gaston Paris (_Histoire
Poetique de Charlemagne_), and M. Leon Gautier, who has written, and is
now republishing in an altered and improved form, a great work on the
early French epics. The Arthurian romances have been more studied in
Germany and Belgium than in France, though valuable work has been done
in them by M. Paulin Paris, M. Hucher, and others. The Fabliaux have
recently appeared in a nearly complete edition, by M. de Montaiglon. M.
P. Meyer has thrown new light on the _Roman d'Alixandre_. The _Roman du
Renart_, also published by Meon, has been undertaken again by M. Ernest
Martin. The separate authors of the later ages have, in almost every
case, been the subject of much careful work, and for some years past a
'Societe des Anciens Textes Francais' has existed for the express
purpose of publishing unprinted MSS. This society has undertaken the
great collection of _Miracles de Notre Dame_, the works of Eustache
Deschamps, and other important tasks. A great deal of excellent work in
the same direction has been done in Belgium by members of the various
Academies. The great classics of France, from the sixteenth century
onward, have been the object of constant and careful editing, such as
the classics of no other country have enjoyed. Nor has the linguistic
part of the study been omitted. The two chief monuments of this are the
great dictionary of Littre, and the complement of it, now in course of
publication, by M. Godefroy, which contains a complete lexicon of the
older tongue. Among the collections of old French literature, the
Bibliotheque Elzevirienne may be especially noticed. This, besides many
reprints of isolated authors, contains invaluable examples of the early
theatre, a still more precious collection of scattered poems of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and one of miscellanies of the
sixteenth and seventeenth. Under the Empire the government began the
publication of all the Chansons de Gestes, but the enterprise was
unfortunately interrupted at the tenth volume.
[Sidenote: Philosophical Writers.]
[Sidenote: Comte.]
The branches of literature, other than the Belles Lettres, which
naturally retain, longer than those which busy themselves with science
as it is now understood, the literary interest, are philosophy,
theology, and history. In philosophy France has produced, during the
present century, only one name of the first importance. As has been the
case with all other European nations, her philosophical energies have
chiefly been devoted to the historical side of philosophy, a tendency
specially encouraged by the already-mentioned influence of Cousin.
Damiron, the chief authority in French on the materialist schools of the
eighteenth century; M. Jules Simon and Vacherot, who busied themselves
chiefly with the Alexandrian philosophers--Cousin it should be
remembered was the editor of Proclus--and Charles de Remusat, a man of
great capacity, who, among other rather unexpected literary
occupations, devoted himself to Abelard, Thomas a Becket, and other
representatives of scholasticism, illustrate this tendency. The
philosophy of the middle ages was also the subject of one of the
clearest and best-written of philosophical studies, the _De la
Philosophie Scolastique_ of B. Haureau. The name, however, of the
century in French philosophical literature is that of Auguste Comte, the
founder of what is called Positivism. He was born at Montpelier three or
four years before the end of the last century, and died at Paris in
September, 1857. Comte passed through the discipline of initiation in
the Saint Simonian views--Saint Simon was a descendant of the great
writer of that name, who developed a curious form of communism very
interesting politically, but important to literature only from the
remarkable influence it had upon his contemporaries--but, like most of
Saint Simon's disciples, soon emancipated himself. To discuss Comte's
philosophical views would be impossible here. It is sufficient to say
that the cardinal principle of his earlier work, the _Cours de
Philosophie Positive_, is that the world of thought has passed through
successively a theological stage and a metaphysical stage, and is now
reduced to the observation and classification of phenomena and their
relations. On the basis cleared by this sweeping hypothesis, Comte, in
his later days (under the inspiration of a lady, Madame Clotilde de
Vaux, if he himself be believed), developed a remarkable construction of
positive religion. This was indignantly rejected by his most acute
followers, the chief of whom was the philologist and critic Littre.
Outside of Comtism, France has not produced many writers on philosophy,
except philosophical historians. M. Taine, in his _De l'Intelligence_,
turned his acute intellect and ready pen in this direction for a moment,
but not with much success. Perhaps from the literary view the most
important philosophical writer in French for the last half century is M.
Renan, who will find his place more appropriately in the next paragraph.
Between Saint Simon and Comte, if space allowed, notice would have to be
taken of many political writers of the middle of the century, whose
visionary and for the most part communistic views had a considerable but
passing influence, such as Cabet, Fourier, Pierre Leroux, and the
violent and not wholly sane but vigorous Proudhon. Here, however,
nothing but bare mention, and that only for completeness' sake, can be
given to them.
[Sidenote: Theological Writers. Montalembert.]
[Sidenote: Ozanam.]
[Sidenote: Lacordaire.]
[Sidenote: Ernest Renan.]
In theology, as represented in literature, the dominant interest of the
period belongs at first to the continuators of the Liberal-Catholic
school of Lamennais. The greatest of these, beyond all question, was
Charles Forbes de Montalembert, whose mother was a Scotchwoman, and his
father French ambassador in Sweden. He was born in April, 1810, and died
on the 13th of March, 1870. Montalembert was young enough to come under
the influence of Lamennais only indirectly, and at the extreme end of
that writer's orthodox period. His immediate master was rather the
eloquent Abbe Lacordaire. His father was a peer of France, and
Montalembert succeeded early to his position, which gave him an
opportunity of supporting the great contention of the Liberal Catholics
under Louis Philippe, the right to establish schools for themselves.
Being devoted first of all to the defence of ecclesiastical interests by
every legitimate means, and having no anti-Republican prejudices,
Montalembert was able to accept the second Revolution, though not the
Second Empire, and he continued to be one of the most moderate, but
dangerous, opponents of the government of Napoleon III. His chief works,
which have much brilliancy and vigour, are his 'Life of Elizabeth of
Hungary,' his 'Life and Times of St. Anselm,' his _Avenir Politique de
l'Angleterre_, and, most of all, his great work on 'The Monks of the
West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard.' A fellow worker with
Montalembert, though earlier cut off, was Frederic Ozanam, a brilliant
student and lecturer in mediaeval history, who was the chief literary
critic of the Neo-Catholic movement during the later years of Louis
Philippe's reign. Ozanam's chief work was his study on Dante. About this
time a considerable resurrection of pulpit eloquence took place. Its
chief representative was the already-mentioned Jean Baptiste Henri
Lacordaire, who was born in 1802, and died in 1861. Lacordaire was a
partner of Lamennais in the _Avenir_. But, unlike his master, he took
the papal reproof obediently, and continued to preach in the orthodox
sense. He entered the order of St. Dominic in 1840, but was nevertheless
elected to the Assembly, in 1848, as a compliment, doubtless, to the
fervent radicalism he had displayed earlier. Lacordaire's literary
reputation is almost entirely confined to his sermons, the most famous
of which were preached at Notre Dame. Other celebrated preachers of the
middle of the century were, on the Catholic side, the Pere Felix, and on
the Protestant, Athanase Coquerel. Of the extreme orthodox party, during
the Second Empire, the chief names from the point of view of literature
were those of Monseigneur Dupanloup, bishop of Orleans, and the
journalist, Louis Veuillot. The former, one of the most eloquent and one
of the ablest men of his time in France, began with a certain
liberalism, but gradually hardened into extremer views, distinguishing
himself in his place in the Academy by violent opposition to the
admission of M. Littre, as a positivist. The latter, as editor of the
journal _L'Univers_, brought remarkable wit and a faculty of slashing
criticism, not often equalled, to the service of his party, indulging,
however, too often in mere scurrility. From this same literary point of
view, the chief name in the theological literature of this period is
once more on the unorthodox side. Since the days of Joseph de Maistre
the church had far more than held her own in the literary arena; but the
discouragement given at Rome to the followers of Lamennais seemed to
bring ill luck with it. Ernest Renan, who, with some faults, is one of
the most remarkable masters of French style in our time, was born in
1823, at Treguier in Britanny. He was intended for the priesthood, and
was educated for the most part at clerical seminaries. On arriving,
however, at manhood, he did not feel inclined to take orders; accepted
the place of usher at a school, and soon distinguished himself by
linguistic studies, especially on the Semitic languages. He also
exercised himself a good deal in literary criticism and as a journalist
of all work on the staffs of the _Journal des Debats_ and the _Revue des
Deux-Mondes_. His first really remarkable work, published in 1850, is
_Averroes et l'Averroisme_, a book injured by the author's want of
sympathy with the thought of the middle ages, but full of research and
of reflection. This gained him a post in the Paris Library. He then
produced several works, dealing more or less with the Hebrew Scriptures.
In 1860 he had a government mission to Phoenicia and Palestine, which
enabled him to examine the Holy Land very attentively. On his return he
was appointed to the chair of Hebrew at the College de France, but the
outcry against his unorthodoxy was so great that he was suspended. He
began about this time to publish his famous series of _Origines du
Christianisme_ with, for a first volume, a _Vie de Jesus_, imbued with a
curious kind of eclectic and romantic rationalism. This has been
followed by numerous volumes dealing with the early ages of
Christianity. In 1870 he made himself conspicuous by a letter to Strauss
on the subject of the Franco-German War. After the catastrophe he
confined himself for a time to literary and philosophical studies.
Recently, however, besides working at his _Origines_, which are now