A Short History of French Literature
over-refinements. The forms of Ballade known as Equivoquee, Fratrisee,
Couronnee, etc., culminating in the preposterous Emperiere, are
monuments of tasteless ingenuity which cannot be surpassed in their
kind, and they have accordingly perished. But both in France and in
England the Ballade itself and a few other forms have retained
popularity at intervals, and have at the present day broken out into
fresh and vigorous life.
[Sidenote: Jehannot de Lescurel.]
[Sidenote: Guillaume de Machault.]
[Sidenote: Eustache Deschamps]
The chief authors of these pieces during the period we are discussing
were Jehannot de Lescurel, Guillaume de Machault, Eustache Deschamps,
Jean Froissart, Christine de Pisan, Alain Chartier, and Charles
d'Orleans. Besides these there were many others, though the epoch of
the Hundred Years' War was not altogether fertile in lighter poetry or
poetry of any kind. Jehannot de Lescurel[111] is one of those poets of
whom absolutely nothing is known. His very name has only survived in the
general syllabus of contents of the manuscript which contains his works,
and which is in this part incomplete. The thirty-three poems--sixteen
Ballades, fifteen Rondeaus[112], and two nondescript pieces--which exist
are of singular grace, lightness, and elegance. They cannot be later and
are probably earlier than the middle of the fourteenth century, and thus
they are anterior to most of the work of the school. Guillaume de
Machault was a person sufficiently before the world, and his work is
very voluminous. As usual with all these poets, it contains many details
of its author's life, and enables us to a certain extent to construct
that life out of these indications. Machault was probably born about
1284, and may not have died till 1377. A native of Champagne and of
noble birth, he early entered, like most of the lesser nobility of the
period, the service of great feudal lords. He was chamberlain to Philip
the Fair, and at his death became the secretary of John of Luxembourg,
the well-known king of Bohemia. After the death of this prince at
Cressy, he returned to the service of the court of France and served
John and Charles V., finally, as it appears, becoming in some way
connected with Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus. His works were very
numerous, amounting in all to some 80,000 lines, of which until recently
nothing but a few extracts was in print. In the last few years, however,
_La Prise d'Alexandrie_[113], a rhymed chronicle of the exploits of
Lusignan, and the _Voir Dit_[114], a curious love poem in the style of
the age, have been printed. Besides these his works include numerous
ballades, etc., and several long poems in the style of those of
Froissart, shortly to be described. On the other hand, the works of
Eustache Deschamps, which are even more voluminous than those of
Machault, his friend and master, are almost wholly composed of short
pieces, with one notable exception, the _Miroir de Mariage_, a poem of
13,000 lines[115]. Deschamps has left no less than 1175 ballades, and as
the ballade usually contains twenty-four lines at least, and frequently
thirty-four, this of itself gives a formidable total. Rondeaus,
virelais, etc., also proceeded in great numbers from his pen; and he
wrote an important 'Art of Poetry,' a treatise rendered at once
necessary and popular by the fashion of artificial rhyming. The life of
Deschamps was less varied than that of Machault, whose inferior he was
in point of birth, but he held some important offices in his native
province, Champagne. Both Deschamps and Machault exhibit strongly the
characteristics of the time. Their ballades are for the most part either
moral or occasional in subject, and rarely display signs of much
attention to elegance of phraseology or to weight and value of thought.
In the enormous volume of their works, amounting in all to nearly
200,000 lines, and as yet mostly unpublished, there is to be found much
that is of interest indirectly, but less of intrinsic poetical worth.
The artificial forms in which they for the most part write specially
invite elegance of expression, point, and definiteness of thought,
qualities in which both, but especially Deschamps, are too often
deficient. When, for instance, we find the poet in his anxiety to
discourage swearing, filling, in imitation of two bad poets of his time,
one, if not two ballades[116] with a list of the chief oaths in use, it
is difficult not to lament the lack of critical spirit displayed.
[Sidenote: Froissart.]
Froissart, though inferior to Lescurel, and though far less remarkable
as a poet than as a prose writer, can fairly hold his own with
Deschamps and Machault, while he has the advantage of being easily
accessible[117]. The later part of his life having been given up to
history, he is not quite so voluminous in verse as his two predecessors.
Yet, if the attribution to him of the _Cour d' Amour_ and the _Tresor
Amoureux_ be correct, he has left some 40,000 or 50,000 lines. The bulk
of his work consists of long poems in the allegorical courtship of the
time, interspersed with shorter lyrical pieces in the prevailing forms.
One of these poems, the _Buisson de Jonece_, is interesting because of
its autobiographical details; and some shorter pieces approaching more
nearly to the _Fabliau_ style, _Le Dit du Florin_, _Le Debat du Cheval
et du Levrier_, etc., are sprightly and agreeable enough. For the most
part, however, Froissart's poems, like almost all the poems of the
period, suffer from the disproportion of their length to their matter.
If the romances of the time, which are certainly not destitute of
incident, be tedious from the superabundance of prolix description, much
more tedious are these recitals of hyperbolical passion tricked out with
all the already stale allegorical imagery of the _Roman de la Rose_ and
with inappropriate erudition of the fashion which Jean de Meung had
confirmed, if he did not set it.
[Sidenote: Christine de Pisan.]
Christine de Pisan, who was born in 1363, was a pupil of Deschamps, as
Deschamps had been a pupil of Machault. She was an industrious writer, a
learned person, and a good patriot, but not by any means a great
poetess. So at least it would appear, though here again judgment has to
be formed on fragments, a complete edition of Christine never having
been published, and even her separate poems being unprinted for the most
part, or printed only in extract. Besides a collection of Ballades,
Rondeaux, and so forth, she wrote several _Dits_ (the _Dit de la
Pastoure_, the _Dit de Poissy_, the _Dittie de Jeanne d'Arc_, and some
_Dits Moraux_), besides a _Mutation de Fortune_, a _Livre des Cent
Histoires de Troie_, etc., etc.
[Sidenote: Alain Chartier.]
Alain Chartier, who was born in or about 1390, and who died in 1458, is
best known by the famous story of Margaret of Scotland, queen of
France, herself an industrious poetess, stooping to kiss his poetical
lips as he lay asleep. He also awaits a modern editor. Like Froissart,
he devoted himself to allegorical and controversial love poems, and like
Christine to moral verse. In the former he attained to considerable
skill, and a ballade, which will presently be given, will show his
command of dignified expression. On the whole he may be said to be the
most complete example of the scholarliness which tended more and more to
characterise French poetry at this time, and which too often degenerated
into pedantry. Chartier is the first considerable writer of original
work who Latinises much; and his practice in this respect was eagerly
followed by the _rhetoriqueur_ school both in prose and verse. He
himself observed due measure in it; but in the hands of his successors
it degraded French to an almost Macaronic jargon.
In all the earlier work of this school not a little grace and elegance
is discoverable, and this quality manifests itself most strongly in the
poet who may be regarded as closing the strictly mediaeval series,
Charles d'Orleans[118]. The life of this poet has been frequently told.
As far as we are concerned it falls into three divisions. In the first,
when after his father's death he held the position of a great feudal
prince almost independent of royal control, it is not recorded that he
produced any literary work. His long captivity in England was more
fruitful, and during it he wrote both in French and in English. But the
last five-and-twenty years of his life, when he lived quietly and kept
court at Blois (bringing about him the literary men of the time from
Bouciqualt to Villon, and engaging with them in poetical tournaments),
were the most productive. His undoubted work is not large, but the
pieces which compose it are among the best of their kind. He is fond, in
the allegorical language of the time, of alluding to his having 'put his
house in the government of Nonchaloir,' and chosen that personage for
his master and protector. There is thus little fervency of passion
about him, but rather a graceful and somewhat indolent dallying with the
subjects he treats. Few early French poets are better known than Charles
d'Orleans, and few deserve their popularity better. His Rondeaux on the
approach of spring, on the coming of summer and such-like subjects,
deserve the very highest praise for delicate fancy and formal skill.
Of poets of less importance, or whose names have not been preserved, the
amount of this formal poetry which remains to us is considerable. The
best-known collection of such work is the _Livre des Cent
Ballades_[119], believed, on tolerably satisfactory evidence, to have
been composed by the famous knight-errant Bouciqualt and his companions
on their way to the fatal battle of Nicopolis. Before, however, the
fifteenth century was far advanced, poetry of this formal kind fell into
the hands of professional authors in the strictest sense, _Grands
Rhetoriqueurs_ as they were called, who, as a later critic said of
almost the last of them, 'lost all the grace and elegance of the
composition' in their elaborate rules and the pedantic language which
they employed. The complete decadence of poetry in which this resulted
will be treated partly in the summary following the present book, partly
in the first chapter of the book which succeeds it.
Meanwhile this frail but graceful poetry may be illustrated by an
irregular _Ballade_ from Lescurel, a _Chanson Balladee_ from Machault, a
_Virelai_ from Deschamps, a _Ballade_ from Chartier, and a _Rondel_ from
Charles d'Orleans.
JEHANNOT DE LESCUREL.
Amour, voules-vous acorder
Que je muire pour bien amer?
Vo vouloir m'esteut agreer;
Mourir ne puis plus doucement;
Vraiement,
Amours, faciez voustre talent.
Trop de mauvais portent endurer
Pour celi que j'aim sanz fausser
N'est pas par li, au voir parler,
Ains est par mauparliere gent.
Loiaument,
Amours, faciez voustre talent.
Dous amis, plus ne puis durer
Quant ne puis ne n'os regarder
Vostre doue vis, riant et cler.
Mort, alegez mon grief torment;
Ou, briefment,
Amours, faciez voustre talent.
GUILLAUME DE MACHAULT.
Onques si bonne journee
Ne fu adjournee,
Com quant je me departi
De ma dame desiree
A qui j'ay donnee
M'amour, & le cuer de mi.
Car la manne descendi
Et douceur aussi,
Par quoi m'ame saoulee
Fu dou fruit de Dous ottri,
Que Pite cueilli
En sa face coulouree.
La fu bien l'onnour gardee
De la renommee
De son cointe corps joli;
Qu'onques villeine pensee
Ne fu engendree
Ne nee entre moy & li.
Onques si bonne journee, &c.
Souffisance m'enrichi
Et Plaisance si,
Qu'onques creature nee
N'ot le cuer si assevi,