A Short History of French Literature
deficient in personal characteristics or personal attractiveness, but
that his personality is still, so to speak, generic rather than
individual. He is still the Trouvere of the nobler class, dallying with
half-imaginary woes in the forms consecrated by tradition to the record
of them. Not so the vagabond whose words after four centuries appeal
directly to the spirit of the modern reader. That reader is cut off from
Charles d'Orleans' world by a gulf across which he can only project
himself by a great effort of study or of sympathetic determination. The
barriers which separate him from Villon are slight enough, consisting
mostly of trifling changes in language and manners which a little
exertion easily overcomes.
The latter portion of the fifteenth century, or, to speak more
correctly, its last two-thirds, have frequently been described as a
'dead season' in French literature. The description is not wholly just.
Even if, according to the plan just explained, we throw Charles
d'Orleans and Antoine de la Salle, two names of great importance, back
into the mediaeval period, and if we allow most of the chroniclers who
preceded Comines to accompany them, there are still left, before the
reign of Francis the First witnessed the definite blooming of the
Renaissance in France, the two names of consummate importance which
stand at the head of this chapter, a few minor writers of interest such
as Coquillart, Baude, Martial d'Auvergne, an interesting group of
literary or at least oratorical ecclesiastics, and a much larger and,
from a literary point of view, more important group of elaborate
versifiers, the so-called _grands rhetoriqueurs_ who preceded the
Pleiade in endeavouring to Latinise the French tongue, and whose stiff
verse produced by a natural rebound the easy grace of Clement Marot.
Each of these persons and groups will demand some notice, and the
mention of them will bring us to the Renaissance of which the subjects
of this chapter were the forerunners.
[Sidenote: Villon.]
Francois Villon[154], or Corbueil, or Corbier, or de Montcorbier, or des
Loges, was certainly born at Paris in the year 1431. Of the date of his
death nothing certain is known, some authorities extending his life
towards the close of the century in order to adjust Rabelais' anecdotes
of him[155], others supposing him to have died before the publication of
the first edition of his works in 1489. That Villon was not his
patronymic, whichsoever of his numerous aliases may really deserve that
distinction, is certain. He was a citizen of Paris and a member of the
university, having the status of _clerc_. But his youth was occupied in
other matters than study. In 1455 he killed, apparently in self-defence,
a priest named Philip Sermaise, fled from Paris, was condemned to
banishment in default of appearance, and six months afterwards received
letters of pardon. In 1456 a faithless mistress, Catherine de
Vausselles, drew him into a second affray, in which he had the worst,
and again he fled from Paris. During his absence a burglary committed in
the capital put the police on the track of a gang of young
good-for-nothings among whom Villon's name figured, and he was arrested,
tried, tortured, and condemned to death. On appeal, however, the
sentence was commuted to banishment. Four years after he was in prison
at Meung, consigned thither by the Bishop of Orleans, but the king,
Louis the Eleventh, set him free. Thenceforward nothing certain is known
of him. He had at one time relations with Charles d'Orleans. Such are
the bare facts of his singular life, to which the peculiar character of
his work has directed perhaps disproportionate attention. This work
consists of a poem in forty stanzas of eight octosyllabic lines (each
rhymed a, b, a, b, b, c, b, c) called the _Petit Testament_[156]; of a
poem in 173 similar stanzas called the _Grand Testament_, in which about
a score of minor pieces, chiefly ballades or rondeaux, are inserted; of
a _Codicil_ composed mainly of ballades; of a few separate pieces, and
of some ballades in _argot_, collectively called _Le Jargon_. Besides
these there are doubtful pieces, including a curious work called _Les
Repues Franches_, which describes in octaves like those of the
Testaments the swindling tricks of Villon and his companions, an
excellent Dialogue between two characters, the Seigneurs de Mallepaye
and Baillevent, and a still better Monologue entitled _Le Franc Archier
de Bagnolet_. The Little Testament was written after the affair with
Catherine de Vausselles, the Great Testament after his liberation from
the Bishop's Prison at Meung. Many of the minor poems contain allusions
which enable us to fix them to various events in the poet's life. The
first edition of his works was, as has been said, published in 1489. In
1533 he had the honour of having Marot for editor, and up to the date of
the Bibliophile Jacob's edition of 1854 (since when there have been
several editions), the number had reached thirty-two.
The characteristics of Villon may be looked at either technically or
from the point of view of the matter of his work. He had an
extraordinary mastery of the most artificial forms of poetry which have
ever been employed. The rondel, which Charles d'Orleans wrote with so
much grace, he did not use, but his rondeaux are generally exquisite.
The ballade, however, was his special province. No writer has ever got
the full virtue out of the recurrent rhymes and refrains, which are the
special characteristics of the form, as Villon has. No one has infused
into a mere string of names, such as his famous _Ballade des Dames du
Temps Jadis_ and others, such exquisitely poetical effects by dint of an
epithet here and there and of a touching burden. But the matter of his
verse is in many ways perfectly on a level with its manner. No one
excels him in startling directness of phrase, in simple but infinite
pathos of expression. Of the former, the sudden cry of the Belle
Heaulmiere after the recital of her former triumphs--
Que m'en reste-t-il? honte et peche;
and the despairing conclusion of the lover of La Grosse Margot--
Je suis paillard, paillardise me suit--
are examples in point; of the latter the line in the rondeau to Death--
Deux etions et n'avions qu'un coeur.
No one has bolder strokes of the picturesque, as for instance--
De Constantinoble
L'emperier aux poings dores;
and no one can render the sombre horror of a scene better than Villon
has rendered it in the famous epitaph of the gibbeted corpses--
La pluie nous a debues et laves,
Et le soleil desseches et noircis,
Pies, corbeaulx nous out les yeux caves
Et arraches la barbe et les sourcils.
These are some of Villon's strongest points. Yet in his comparatively
limited work--limited in point of bulk and peculiar in style and
subject--he has contrived to show perhaps more general poetical power
than any other writer who has left so small a total of verse. The note
of his song is always true and always sweet; and despite the intensely
allusive character of most of it, and the necessary loss of the key to
many of the allusions, it has in consequence continued popular through
all changes of language and manners. Of very few French poets can it be
said as of Villon that their charm is immediate and universal, and the
reason of this is that his work is full of touches of nature which are
universally perceived, as well as distinguished by consummate art of
expression. In the great literature which we are discussing, the latter
characteristic is almost universally present, the former not so
constantly.
[Sidenote: Comines.]
The literary excellence of Comines[157] is of a very different kind from
that of Villon, but he represents the changed attitude of the modern
spirit towards practical affairs almost as strongly as Villon does the
change in its relations to art and sentiment. Philippe de Comines was
born, not at the chateau of the same name which was then in the
possession of his uncle, but at Renescure, not very far from Hazebrouck.
His family name was Vandenclyte, and his ancestors (Flemings, as their
name implies) had been citizens of Ghent before they acquired seignorial
position and rank. The education of Comines was neglected (he never
possessed any knowledge of Latin), and his heritage was heavily
encumbered. He was born before 1447, and entered the service of Philip
of Burgundy and of his son Charles of Charolais, the future Charles le
Temeraire. Comines was present at Montlhery and at the siege of Liege,
while he played a considerable part in the celebrated affair of
Peronne, when Louis XI. was in such danger. Before 1471 he had been
charged with several important negotiations by Charles, now duke, in
France, England, and Spain. But, either personally disobliged by
Charles, or, as seems most likely from the Memoirs, presaging with the
keen, unscrupulous intelligence of the time the downfall of the headlong
prince, he quitted Burgundy and its master in 1472 and entered the
service of Louis, from whom he had already accepted a pension. He was
richly rewarded, married an heiress in Poitou, and at one time enjoyed
the forfeited fief of Talmont, a domain of the first importance, which
he afterwards had to restore to its rightful owners, the La Tremouilles.
The accession of Charles VIII. was not favourable to him, and, having
taken part against the Lady of Beaujeu, he was imprisoned and deprived
of Talmont. But with his usual sagacity, he had in the Duke of Orleans,
afterwards Louis XII., chosen the representative of the side destined to
win in the long run. The Italian wars gave scope to his powers. He was
sent to Venice, was present at the battle of Fornovo, and met
Machiavelli at Florence. In the reign of Louis XII. he received new
places and pensions, and he died in 1511 aged at least sixty-four.
Comines is not a master of style, though at times the weight of his
thought and the simplicity of his expression combine to produce an
effect not unhappy. He has odd peculiarities of diction, especially
inversions of phrase and sudden apostrophes which enliven an otherwise
rather awkward manner of writing. Thus, in describing the bad education
of the young nobles of his time, he says, 'de nulles lettres ils n'ont
connaissance. Un seul sage homme on ne leur met a l'entour.' And in his
account of the operations before the battle of Morat he says, 'Il (the
Duke of Burgundy) sejourna a Losanne en Savoie ou vous monseigneur de
Vienne le servites d'un bon conseil en une grande maladie qu'il eut de
douleur et de tristesse.' On the whole, however, no one would think of
reading Comines for the merit, or even the quaintness of his style, nor
can he be commended as a vivid, even if an inelegant describer. The
gallant shows which excited the imaginations of his predecessors, the
mediaeval chroniclers from Villehardouin to Froissart, find in him a
clumsy annalist and a not too careful observer. His interest is
concentrated exclusively on the turns of fortune, the successes of
statecraft, and the lessons of conduct to be noticed in or extracted
from the business in hand. With this purpose he is perpetually
digressing. The affairs of one country remind him of something that has
happened in another, and he stops to give an account of this. To a
certain extent the mediaeval influence is still strong on Comines,
though it shows itself in connection with evidences of the modern
spirit. He is religious to a degree which might be called ostentatious
if it were not pretty evidently sincere; and this religiosity is shown
side by side with the exhibition of a typically unscrupulous and
non-moral, if not positively immoral, statecraft. Again, his reflexions,