A Short History of French Literature
mediaeval times, early becomes apparent. The mysteries, however, as they
became more and more a favourite employment of the time, increased and
grew in length. The narrative of the Scriptures being more or less
continuous, it was natural that the small dramas on separate subjects
should by degrees be attracted to one another and be merged in larger
wholes. It was another marked characteristic of mediaeval times that all
literary work should be constantly subject to _remaniement_, the facile
scribes of each day writing up the work of their predecessors to the
taste and demands of their own audience. In the case of the mysteries,
as in that of the _Chansons de Gestes_, each _remaniement_ resulted in a
lengthening of the original. It became an understood thing that a
mystery lasted several days in the representation; and in many
provincial towns regular theatres were constructed for the performances,
which remained ready for use between the various festival times. In the
form which these representations finally assumed in the fifteenth
century, they not only required elaborate scenery and properties, but
also in many cases a very large troop of performers. It is from this
century that most of the mysteries we possess date, and they are all
characterised by enormous length. The two most famous of these are the
_Passion_[122] of Arnould Greban, and the _Viel Testament_[123], due to
no certain author. The _Passion_, as originally written in the middle of
the fifteenth century, consisted of some 25,000 lines, and thirty or
forty years later it was nearly doubled in length by the alterations of
Jean Michel. The _Mystere du Viel Testament_, of which no manuscript is
now known, but which was printed in the last year of the fifteenth
century, is now being reprinted, and extends to nearly 50,000 verses.
Additions even to this are spoken of; and Michel's _Passion_,
supplemented by a _Resurrection_, extended to nearly 70,000 lines, which
vast total is believed to have been frequently acted as a whole. In such
a case the space of weeks rather than days, which is said to have been
sometimes occupied in the performance of a mystery, cannot be thought
excessive.
[Sidenote: Heterogeneous Character of Mysteries.]
The enormous length of the larger mysteries makes analysis of any one of
them impossible; but as an instance of the curious comedy which is
intermixed with their most serious portions, and which shocked critics
even up to our own time, we may take the scene of the Tower of Babel in
the _Mystere du Viel Testament_[124]. Here the author is not content
with describing Nimrod's act in general terms, or by the aid of the
convenient messenger; he brings the actual masons and carpenters on the
stage. _Gaste-Bois_ (Spoilwood), _Casse-Tuileau_ (Breaktile), and their
mates talk before us for nearly 200 lines, while Nimrod and others come
in from time to time and hasten on the work. The workmen are quite
outspoken on the matter. They do not altogether like the job; and one of
them says,
On ne peut en fin que faillir.
Besongnons; mais qu'on nous paie bien.
A little further on and they are actually at work. One calls for a hod
of mortar, another for his hammer. The labourers supply their wants, or
make jokes to the effect that they would rather bring them something to
drink. So it goes on, till suddenly the confusion of tongues falls upon
them, and they issue their orders in what is probably pure jargon,
though fragments of something like Italian can be made out. In the very
middle of this scene occurs a really fine and reverently written
dialogue between Justice and Mercy pleading respectively to the Divinity
for vengeance and pardon. Instances such as this abound in the
mysteries, which are sometimes avowedly interrupted in order that the
audience may be diverted by a farcical interlude.
[Sidenote: Argument of a Miracle Play.]
Of the miracles, that of _St. Guillaume du Desert_ will serve as a fair
example. It is but 1500 lines in length, yet the list of _dramatis
personae_ extends to nearly thirty, and there are at least as many
distinct scenes. William, count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, has
rendered himself in many ways obnoxious to the Holy See. He has
recognised an anti-pope, has driven a bishop from his diocese for
refusing to do likewise, and has offended against morality. An embassy,
including St. Bernard, is therefore sent from Rome to warn and correct
him. William is not proof against their eloquence, and soon becomes
deeply penitent. He quits his palaces, and retires to the society of
hermits in the wilderness. These enjoin penances upon him. He is to have
a heavy hauberk immovably riveted on his bare flesh, and with sackcloth
for an overcoat to visit Rome and beg the Pope's forgiveness. He does
this, and the Pope sends him to the patriarch of Jerusalem, William
taking the additional penance as a proof of the heinousness of his sin.
After this he retires by himself into a solitary place. Here, however, a
knight of his country seeks him out, represents the anarchy into which
it has fallen in his absence, and implores him to return. But this is
not William's notion of duty. He refuses, and to be free from such
importunities in future, retires to the island of Rhodes, and there
lives in solitude. Irritated at the idea of his escaping them, Satan and
Beelzebub attack him and beat him severely; but he recovers by the
Virgin's intervention, and serves as a model to young devotees who seek
his cell, and like him become hermits. At last a chorus of saints
descends to see his godly end, which takes place in the presence of the
neophytes. The events, of which this is a very brief abstract, are all
clearly indicated in the short space of 1500 verses, many of which are
only of four syllables[125]. There is of course no attempt at drawing
any figure, except that of the saint, at full length, and this is
characteristic of the class. But as dramatised legends, for they are
little more, these miracles possess no slight merit.
The general literary peculiarities of the miracle and mystery plays do
not differ greatly from those of other compositions in verse of the same
time which have been already described. Their great fault is prolixity.
In the collection of the _Miracles de la Vierge_, the comparative
brevity of the pieces renders them easier to read than the long
compositions of the fifteenth century, and the poetical beauty of some
of the legends which they tell is sufficient to furnish them with
interest. Even in these, however, the absence of point and of dignity
in the expression frequently mars the effect; and this is still more the
case with the longer mysteries. Of these latter, however, the work of
the brothers Greban--for there were two, Arnould and Simon,
concerned--contains passages superior to the general run, and in others
lines and even scenes of merit occur.
[Sidenote: Profane Drama.]
[Sidenote: Adam de la Halle.]
Although the existence of the drama as an actual fact was for a long
time due to the performance and popularity of the mysteries and
miracles, specimens of dramatic work with purely profane subjects are to
be found at a comparatively early date. Adam de la Halle, so far as our
present information goes, has the credit of inventing two separate
styles of such composition[126]. In _Li Jus de la Feuillie_ he has left
us the earliest comedy in the vulgar tongue known; in the pastoral drama
of _Robin et Marion_ the earliest specimen of comic opera. Independently
of the improbability that the drama, once in full practice, should be
arbitrarily confined to a single class of subject, there were many germs
of dramatic composition in mediaeval literature which wanted but a
little encouragement to develop themselves. The verse dialogues and
_debats_, which both troubadours and trouveres had favoured, were in
themselves incompletely dramatic. The _pastourelles_, an extremely
favourite and fashionable class of composition, must have suggested to
others besides the Hunchback of Arras the idea of dramatising them; and
the early and strongly-marked partiality of the middle ages for pageants
and shows of all kinds could hardly fail to induce those who planned
them to intersperse dialogue.
The plot of _Robin et Marion_ is simple and in a way regular. The
ordinary incidents of a _pastourelle_, the meeting of a fair shepherdess
and a passing knight, the wooing (in this case an unsuccessful one) and
the riding away, are all there. The piece is completed by a kind of
rustic picnic, in which the neighbouring shepherds and shepherdesses
join and disport themselves. Marion is a very graceful and amiable
figure; Robin a sheepish coward, who is not in the least worthy of her.
In Adam's other and earlier drama he is by no means so partial to the
feminine sex, and his work, though equally fresh and vigorous, is more
complex and less artistically finished. It is in part autobiographic,
and introduces Adam confessing to friends with sufficient effrontery his
intention of going to Paris and deserting his wife. This part contains a
very pretty though curiously unsuitable description of the wooing, which
has such an unlucky termination. Suddenly, however, the author
introduces his father, an old citizen, who is quite ready to encourage
his son in his evil ways provided it costs him nothing, and the piece
loses all regularity of plot. Divers citizens of Arras, male and female,
are introduced with a more or less satiric intention, and the last
episode brings in the personages of Morgue la Fee and of the _mesnie_
(attendants) of a certain shadowy King Hellequin. There is a doctor,
too, whose revelations of his patients' affairs are sufficiently comic,
not to say farcical. Destitute as it is of method, and approaching more
nearly to the Fabliau than to any other division of mediaeval literature
in the coarseness of its language, the piece has great interest, not
merely because of its date and its apparent originality, but because of
numerous passages of distinct literary merit. The picture of the
neglected wife in her girlhood is inferior to nothing of the kind even
in the thirteenth century, that fertile epoch of early French poetry.
The father, too, Maitre Henri, the earliest of his kind on the modern
stage, has traits which the great comic masters would not disown.
The classes of later secular drama may be thus divided,--the monologue,
the farce, the morality, the _sotie_, the profane mystery. The first
four of these constitute one of the most interesting divisions of early
French literature; and it is to be hoped that before long easy access
will be afforded to the whole of it. The last is only interesting from
the point of view of literary history.
[Sidenote: Monologues.]
The monologue is the simplest form of dramatic composition and needs but
little notice, though it seems to have met with some favour from
playgoers of the time. By dint also of adroit changes of costume and
assistance from scenery, etc., the monologue was sometimes made more
complicated than appears at first sight possible, as for instance, in
the _Monologue du Bien et du Mal des Dames_, where the speaker plays
successively the parts of two advocates and of a judge. The monologue,
however, more often consisted in a dramatisation of the earlier _dit_,
in which some person or thing is made to declare its own attributes. Of
very similar character is the so-called _sermon joyeux_, which, however,
preserves more or less the form of an address from the pulpit, of course
travestied and applied to ludicrous subjects.
[Sidenote: Farces.]
The farce, on the other hand, is one of the most important of all
dramatic kinds in reference to French literature. It is a genuine