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A Short History of French Literature

George Saintsbury

compiler of late versions of the Arthurian legend, and who thus had some skill in French composition. [Sidenote: Fiction] The prose fiction of the period has been kept to the last, because it expresses a different order of literary endeavour from those divisions which have hitherto been treated. The language of the middle ages was ill-suited for work other than narrative; for narrative work it was supremely well adapted. Yet the prose fiction which we have is not on the whole equal in merit to the poetry, though in one or two instances it is of great value. The medium of communication was not generally known or used until the period of decadence had been reached, and the peculiar defects of mediaeval literature, prolixity and verbiage, show themselves more conspicuously and more annoyingly in prose than in verse. We have, however, some remarkable work of the later periods, and in the latest of all we have one writer, Antoine de la Salle, who deserves to rank with the great chroniclers as a fashioner of French prose. The French prose fiction of the middle ages resolves itself into several classes: the early Arthurian Romances already noticed; the scattered tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which are chiefly to be studied in two excellent volumes of the _Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_[144]; the versions of such collections of legends, chiefly oriental in origin, as the _History of the Seven Wise Men_ and the _Gesta Romanorum_; the longer classical romances in prose; the late prose _remaniements_ of the great verse epics and romances of the twelfth century; and the more or less original work of the fifteenth century, when prose was becoming an independent and coequal literary exponent. The first class requires no further mention; of the third, the editions of the _Roman des Sept Sages_, by M. Gaston Paris[145], and of the _Violier des Histoires Romaines_, by M. Gustave Brunet[146], may be referred to as sufficient instances; of the fourth a very interesting specimen has been made accessible by the publication of the prose _Roman de Jules Cesar_ of Jean de Tuim[147], a free version from Lucan made apparently in the course of the thirteenth century, and afterwards imitated by the author of the verse romance; the fifth, though very numerous, are not of much value, though the great romance of _Perceforest_ and a few others may be excepted from this general condemnation. The second and the last deserve a longer mention. The tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as published by MM. Moland and Hericault, are eight in number. Those of the second volume are on the whole inferior in interest to those of the first. They consist of _Asseneth_, a graceful legend of the marriage of Joseph with the daughter of the Egyptian high-priest; _Troilus_, interesting chiefly as a prose version of Benoist de Ste. More's legend of _Troilus and Cressida_, through the channel of Guido Colonna and Boccaccio; and a very curious English story, that of the rebel Fulk Fitzwarine. The thirteenth-century tales consist of _L'Empereur Constant_, the story with which Mr. Morris has made English readers familiar under the title of the 'Man born to be King;' of a prose version of the ubiquitous legend of _Amis et Amiles_; of _Le roi Flore et la belle Jehanne_, a kind of version of _Griselda_, though the particular trial and exhibition of fidelity is quite different; of the _Comtesse de Ponthieu_, the least interesting of all; and lastly, of the finest prose tale of the French middle ages, _Aucassin et Nicolette_. In this exquisite story Aucassin, the son of the count of Beaucaire, falls in love with Nicolette, a captive damsel. It is very short, and is written in mingled verse and prose. The theme is for the most part nothing but the desperate love of Aucassin, which is careless of religion, which makes him indifferent to the joy of battle and to everything, except 'Nicolette ma tres-douce mie,' and which is, of course, at last rewarded. But the extreme beauty of the separate scenes makes it a masterpiece. [Sidenote: Antoine de la Salle.] Antoine de la Salle is one of the most fortunate of authors. The tendency of modern criticism is generally to endeavour to prove that some famous author has been wrongly credited with some of the work which has made his fame. Homer, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Rabelais, have all had to pay this penalty. In the case of Antoine de la Salle, on the contrary, critics have vied with each other in heaping unacknowledged masterpieces on his head. His only acknowledged work is the charming romance of _Petit Jean de Saintre_[148]. The first thing added to this has been the admirable satire of the _Quinze Joyes du Mariage_[149], the next the famous collection of the _Cent Nouvelles_[150], and the last the still more famous farce of _Pathelin_[151]. There are for once few or no external reasons why these various attributions should not be admitted, while there are many internal ones why they should. Antoine de la Salle was born in 1398, and spent his life in the employment of different kings and princes;--Louis III of Anjou, King of Naples, his son the good King Rene, the count of Saint Pol, and Philip the Good of Burgundy, who was his natural sovereign. Nothing is known of him after 1461. Of the three prose works which have been attributed to him--there are others of a didactic character in manuscript--the _Quinze Joyes du Mariage_ is extremely brief, but it contains the quintessence of all the satire on that honourable estate which the middle ages had elaborated. Every chapter--there is one for each 'joy' with a prologue and conclusion--ends with a variation on this phrase descriptive of the unhappy Benedict, 'est sy est enclose dans la nasse, et a l'aventure ne s'en repent point et s'il n'y estait il se y mettroit bientot; la usera sa vue en languissant, et finira miserablement ses jours.' The satire is much quieter and of a more humorous and less boisterous character than was usual at the time. The _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ are to all intents and purposes prose _fabliaux_. They have the full licence of that class of composition, its sparkling fun, its truth to the conditions of ordinary human life. Many of them are taken from the work of the Italian novelists, but all are handled in a thoroughly original manner. In style they are perhaps the best of all the late mediaeval prose works, being clear, precise, and definite without the least appearance of baldness or dryness. _Petit Jehan de Saintre_ is, together with the _Chronique de Messire Jacques de Lalaing_[152] of Georges Chastellain (a delightful biography, which is not a work of fiction), the hand-book of the last age of chivalry. Jehan de Saintre, who was a real person of the preceding century, but from whom the novelist borrows little or nothing but his name, falls in love with a lady who is known by the fantastic title of 'la dame des belles cousines.' He wins general favour by his courtesy, true love, and prowess; but during his absence in quest of adventures, his faithless mistress betrays him for a rich abbot. The latter part of this book exhibits something of the satiric intention, which was never long absent from the author's mind; the former contains a picture, artificial perhaps, but singularly graceful, of the elaborate religion, as it may almost be called, of chivalry. Strikingly evident in the book is the surest of all signs of a dying stage of society, the most delicate observation and sympathetic description joined to sarcastic and ironical criticism. As examples of this prose literature we may take a fragment of one of the sermons attributed to St. Bernard (twelfth century), an extract from _Aucassin et Nicolette_ (thirteenth century), and one from the _Curial_ of Alain Chartier (early fifteenth century):-- ST. BERNARD. Granz est ceste mers, chier frere, et molt large, c'est ceste presente vie ke molt est amere et molt plaine de granz ondes, ou trois manieres de gent puyent solement trespesseir, ensi k'il delivreit en soient, et chascuns en sa maniere. Troi homme sunt: Noe, Daniel et Job. Li primiers de cez trois trespesset a neif, li seconz par pont et li tierz par weit. Cist troi homme signifient trois ordenes ki sunt en sainte eglise. Noe conduist l'arche par mei lo peril del duluve, en cui je reconois aparmenmes la forme de ceos qui sainte eglise ont a governeir. Daniel, qui apeleiz est bers de desiers, ki abstinens fut et chastes, il est li ordenes des penanz et des continanz ki entendent solement a deu. Et Job, ki droituriers despensiers fut de la sustance de cest munde, signifiet lo feaule peule qui est en mariaige, a cuy il loist bien avoir en possession les choses terrienes. Del primier et del secont nos covient or parler, ear ci sunt or de present nostre frere, et ki abbeit sunt si cum nos, ki sunt del nombre des prelaiz; et si sunt assi ci li moine ki sunt de l'ordene des penanz dont nos mismes, qui abbeit sommes, ne nos doyens mies osteir, si nos par aventure, qui jai nen avignet, nen avons dons oblieit nostre profession por la grace de nostre office. Lo tierz ordene, c'est de ceos ki en mariaige sunt, trescorrai ju or briement, si cum ceos qui tant nen apartienent mies a nos cum li altre. c'est cil ordenes ki a vveit trespesset ceste grant meir; et cist ordenes est molt peneuous et perillous, et ki vait par molt longe voie, si cum cil ki nule sente ne quierent ne nule adrece. En ceu appert bien ke molt est perillouse lor voie, ke nos tant de gent i veons perir, dont nos dolor avons, et ke nos si poc i veons de ceos ki ensi trespessent cum mestiers seroit; ear molt est gries chose d'eschuir l'abysme des vices et les fosses des criminals pechiez entre les ondes de cest seule, nomeyement or en cest tens ke li malices est si enforciez. _AUCASSIN ET NICOLETTE._ Aucasins fu mis en prison si com vos aves, oi et entendu, et Nicolete fu d'autre part en le canbre. Ce fu el tans d'este, el mois de mai, que li jor sont caut, lonc et cler, et les nuis coies et series. Nicolete jut une nuit en son lit, si vit la lune luire cler par une fenestre, et si oi le lorseilnol canter en garding, se li sovint d'Aucasin son ami qu'ele tant amoit. ele se comenca a porpenser del conte Garin de Biaucaire qui de mort le haoit; si se pensa qu'ele ne remanroit plus ilec, que s'ele estoit acusee et li quens Garins le savoit, il le feroit de male mort morir. ele senti que li vielle dormoit qui aveuc li estoit. ele se leva, si vesti un bliaut de drap de soie que ele avoit molt bon; si prist dras de lit et touailes, si noua l'un a l'autre, si fist une corde si longe conme ele pot, si le noua au piler de le fenestre, si s'avala contreval le gardin, et prist se vesture a l'une main devant et a l'autre deriere; si s'escorca por le rousee qu'ele vit grande sor l'erbe, si s'en ala aval le gardin. Ele avoit les caviaus blons et menus recerceles, et les ex vairs et rians, et le face traitice et le nes haut et bien assis, et les levretes vermelletes plus que n'est cerisse ne rose el tans d'este, et les dens blans et menus, et avoit les mameletes dures qui li souslevoient sa vesteure ausi com ce fuissent II nois gauges, et estoit graille parmi les flans, qu'en vos dex mains le peuscies enclorre; et les flors des margerites qu'ele ronpoit as ortex de ses pies, qui li gissoient sor le menuisse du pie par deseure, estoient droites noires avers ses pies et ses ganbes, tant par estoit blance la mescinete.