A Short History of French Literature
grace of language, tender and elegant sentiment, and suppleness, ease,
and fluency of style.
[Sidenote: The School of Marot.]
Marot formed a very considerable school, some of whom directly imitated
his mannerisms, and composed _blasons_[171] and _Coq-a-l'Ane_ in
emulation of their master and of each other, while others contented
themselves with displaying the same general characteristics, and setting
the same poetical ideals before them. Among the idlest, but busiest
literary quarrels of the century, a century fertile in such things, was
that between Marot and a certain insignificant person named Francois
Sagon, a belated _rhetoriqueur_, who found some other rhymers of the
same kind to support him. One of Marot's best things, an answer of which
his servant, Fripelipes, is supposed to be the spokesman, came of the
quarrel; but of the other contributions, not merely of the principals,
but of their followers, the _Marotiques_ and _Sagontiques_, nothing
survives in general memory, or deserves to survive. Of Marot's
disciples, one, Mellin de Saint Gelais, deserves separate mention, the
others may be despatched in passing. Victor Brodeau, who, like his
master, held places in the courts both of Marguerite and her brother,
wrote not merely a devotional work, _Les Louanges de Jesus Christ notre
Seigneur_, which fairly illustrates the devotional side of the Navarrese
literary coterie, but also epigrams and rondeaux of no small merit.
Etienne Dolet, better known both as a scholar and translator, and as the
publisher of Marot and (surreptitiously) of Rabelais, composed towards
the end of his life poems in French, the principal of which was taken in
title and idea from Marot's _Enfer_, and which, though very unequal,
have passages of some poetical power. Marguerite herself has left a
considerable collection of poems of the most diverse kind and merit, the
title of which, _Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses_[172], is
perhaps not the worst thing about them. Farces, mysteries, religious
poems, such as _Le Triomphe de l'Agneau_, and _Le Miroir de l'Ame
Pecheresse_, with purely secular pieces on divers subjects, make up
these curious volumes. Not a few of the poems display the same nobility
of tone and stately sonorousness of verse, which has been and will be
noticed as a characteristic of the serious poetry of the age, and which
reached its climax in Du Bartas, D'Aubigne, and the choruses of Garnier
and Montchrestien. Bonaventure des Periers, an admirable prose writer,
was a poet, though not a very strong one. Francois Habert, 'Le Banni de
Liesse,' must not be confounded with Philippe Habert, author of a
remarkable _Temple de la Mort_ in the next century. Gilles Corrozet,
author of fables in verse, who, like many other literary men of the
time, was a printer and publisher as well, Jacques Gohorry, a pleasant
song writer, Gilles d'Aubigny, Jacques Pelletier, Etienne Forcadel,
deserve at least to be named. Of more importance were Hugues Salel,
Charles Fontaine, Antoine Heroet, Maurice Sceve. All these were members
of the Lyonnese literary coterie, and in connection with this Louise
Labe also comes in. Salel, famous as the first French translator of the
Iliad, or rather of Books I-XII thereof, distinguished himself as a
writer of _blasons_ in imitation of Marot, as well as by composing many
small poems of the occasional kind. Charles Fontaine exhibited the fancy
of the time for conceits in the entitling of books by denominating his
poems _Ruisseaux de la Fontaine_, and was one of the chief champions on
Marot's side in the quarrel with Sagon, while he afterwards defended the
_style Marotique_ against Du Bellay's announcement of the programme of
the Pleiade. But perhaps he would hardly deserve much remembrance, save
for a charming little poem to his new-born son, which M. Asselineau has
made accessible to everybody in Crepet's _Poetes Francais_[173]. He also
figures in a literary tournament very characteristic of the age. La
Borderie, another disciple of Marot, had written a poem entitled _L'Amye
de Cour_, which defended libertinism, or at least worldly-mindedness in
love, in reply to the _Parfaite Amye_ of Antoine Heroet, which exhibits
very well a certain aspect of the half-amorous, half-mystical sentiment
of the day. Fontaine rejoined in a _Contr'Amye de Cour_. Maurice Sceve
is also a typical personage. He was, it may be said, the head of the
Lyonnese school, and was esteemed all over France. He was excepted by
the irreverent champions of the Pleiade from the general ridicule which
they poured on their predecessors, and was surrounded by a special body
of feminine devotees and followers, including his kinswomen Claudine and
Sibylle Sceve, Jeanne Gaillarde, and above all Louise Labe. Sceve's
poetical work is strongly tinged with classical affectation and Platonic
mysticism; and his chief poem, _De l'Objet de la plus haute Vertu_,
consists of some four hundred and fifty dizains written in what in
England and later has been, not very happily, called a metaphysical
style. Last of all comes the just-mentioned Louise Labe, 'La belle
Cordiere,' one of the chief ornaments of Lyons, and the most important
French poetess of the sixteenth century. Louise was younger, and wrote
later than most of the authors just mentioned, and in some respects she
belongs to the school of Ronsard, like her supposed lover, Olivier de
Magny. But the Lyons school was essentially _Marotique_, and much of the
style of the elder master is observable in the writings of Louise[174].
She has left a prose _Dialogue d'Amour et de Folie_, three elegies, and
a certain number of sonnets. Her poems are perhaps the most genuinely
passionate of the time and country, and many of the sonnets are
extremely beautiful. The language is on the whole simple and elegant,
without the over-classicism of the Pleiade, or the obscurity of her
master Sceve. Strangely enough the poems of this young Lyonnese lady
have in many places a singular approach to the ring of Shakespeare's
sonnets and minor works, and that not merely by virtue of the general
resemblance common to all the love poetry of the age, but in some very
definite traits. Her surname of 'La belle Cordiere' came from her
marriage with a rich merchant, Ennemond Perrin by name, who was by trade
a ropemaker. Her poems have had their full share of the advantages of
reprints, which have of late years fallen to the lot of
sixteenth-century authors in France.
[Sidenote: Mellin de St. Gelais.]
Mellin de Saint Gelais[175], the last to be mentioned but the most
important of the school of Marot, has been very variously judged. The
mere fact that he was probably the introducer of the sonnet into France
(the counter claim of Pontus de Tyard seems to be unfounded) would
suffice to give him a considerable position in the history of letters.
But Mellin's claims by no means rest upon this achievement. He was a man
of higher position than most of the other poets of the time, being the
reputed son of Octavien de Saint Gelais, and himself enjoying a good
deal of royal favour. In his old age, as the representative of the
school of Marot, he had to bear the brunt of the Pleiade onslaught, and
knew how to defend himself, so that a truce was made. He was born in
1487, and died in 1558. His name is also spelt Merlin, and even Melusin,
the Saint Gelais boasting descent from the Lusignans, and thus from the
famous fairy heroine Melusine. In his youth he spent a good deal of time
in Italy, at the Universities of Bologna and Padua. On returning to
France, he was at once received into favour at court, and having taken
orders, obtained various benefices and appointments which assured his
fortune. It is remarkable that though he violently opposed Ronsard's
rising favour at court, both the Prince of Poets and Du Bellay
completely forgave him, and pay him very considerable compliments, the
latter praising his 'vers emmielles,' the former speaking, even after
his death, of his proficiency in the combined arts of music and poetry.
Saint Gelais was a good musician, and an affecting story is told of his
swan-song, for which, as for other anecdotes, there is no space here.
His work, though not inconsiderable in volume, is, even more than that
of Marot and other poets of the time and school, composed for the most
part of very short pieces, epigrams, rondeaux, dizains, huitains, etc.
These pieces display more merit than most recent critics have been
disposed to allow to them. The style is fluent and graceful, free from
puns and other faults of taste common at the time. The epigrams are
frequently pointed, and well expressed, and the complimentary verse is
often skilful and well turned. Mellin de Saint Gelais is certainly not a
poet of the highest order, but as a court singer and a skilful master of
language he deserves a place among his earlier contemporaries only
second to that of Marot.
[Sidenote: Miscellaneous Verse. Anciennes Poesies Francaises.]
Something of the same sort may be said of all the writers in verse of
the first half of the century. Their importance is chiefly relative. Few
of their works are conceived or executed on a scale sufficient to
entitle them to the rank of great poets, and, saving always Marot, the
excellence even of the trifling compositions to which they confined
themselves is very unequal and intermittent. But all are evidences of a
general diffusion of the literary spirit among the people of France, and
most of them in their way, and according to their powers, helped in
perfecting the character of French as a literary instrument. The advance
which the language experienced in this respect is perhaps nowhere better
shown than in the miscellaneous and popular poetry of the time, a vast
collection of which has been made accessible by the reprinting of rare
or unique printed originals in the thirteen volumes of MM. de Montaiglon
and de Rothschild's _Anciennes Poesies Francaises_, published in the
_Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_[176]. This flying literature, as it is well
called in French, lacks in most cases the freshness and spontaneity of
mediaeval folk-song. But it has in exchange gained in point of subject a
wide extension of range, and in point of form a considerable advance in
elegance of language, absence of commonplace, and perfection of
literary form and style. The stiffness which characterises much
mediaeval and almost all fifteenth-century work has disappeared in great
measure. The writers speak directly and to the point, and find no
difficulty in so using their mother tongue as to express their
intentions. The tools in short are more effective and more completely
under the control of the worker. A certain triviality is indeed
noticeable, and the tendency of the middle ages to perpetuate favourite
forms and models is by no means got rid of. But much that was useless
has been discarded, and of what is left a defter and more distinctly
literary use is made. Had French remained as Marot left it, it would
indeed have been unequal to the expression of the noblest thoughts, the
gravest subjects, to the treatment and exposition of intricate and
complicated problems of life and mind. But in his hands it attained
perhaps the perfection of usefulness as an exponent of the pure _esprit
gaulois_, to use a phrase which has been tediously abused by French
writers, but which is expressive of a real fact in French history and
French literature. It had been suppled and pointed: it remained for it
to be weighted, strengthened, and enriched. This was not the appointed
task of Marot and his contemporaries, but of the men who came after
them. But what they themselves had to do they did, and did it well. To
this day the lighter verse of France is more an echo of Clement Marot