A Short History of French Literature
than of any other man who lived before the seventeenth century, and,
with the exception of his greater follower, La Fontaine, of any man who
came after him at any time[177].
FOOTNOTES:
[165] _De_ Belges, though the less usual, is the more accurate form. We
are at length promised a complete edition of him in the admirable series
of the Belgian Academy, one of the best in appearance and editing, and
by far the cheapest of all such series. He was born in 1475, held posts
in the household of the Governors of the Netherlands, was
historiographer to Louis XII., and died either in 1524 or in 1548.
[166] See _Poetes Francais_, i. 532. It is perhaps well to say that M.
C. d'Hericault, though a very agreeable as well as a very learned
writer, is particularly open to the charge that his geese are swans.
[167] Ed. C. d'Hericault. Paris, 1855.
[168] See _Poetes Francais_, vol. i. _ad fin._, for the poets mentioned
in this paragraph and others of their kind.
[169] He was in his old age conspicuous among the enemies of Etienne
Dolet. See _Etienne Dolet_, by R. C. Christie. London, 1880.
[170] Ed Jannet et C. d'Hericault. 4 vols. Paris, 2nd ed. 1873. M.
d'Hericault has prefixed a much larger study of Marot than is to be
found here to his edition of the 'beauties' of the poet, published by
Messrs. Garnier. The late M. Guiffrey published two volumes of a costly
and splendid edition, which his death interrupted.
[171] The _blason_ (description) was a child of the mediaeval _dit_.
Marot's examples, _Le beau Tetin_ and _Le laid Tetin_, were copied _ad
infinitum_. The first is panegyric, the second abuse.
[172] Ed. Frank. 4 vols. Paris, 1873-4.
[173] i. 651.
[174] Ed. Tross. Paris, 1871.
[175] Ed. Blanchemain, 3 vols. Paris, 1873.
[176] This great collection, which awaits its completion of glossary,
etc., was published between 1855 and 1878, and is invaluable to any one
desiring to appreciate the general characteristics of the poetical
literature of the time.
[177] Much help has been received in the writing of this chapter, and
indeed of this book, from the excellent work of MM. Hatzfeld and
Darmesteter, _Le Seizieme Siecle en France_ (Paris, 1878), one of the
best histories extant in a small compass of a brief but important period
of literature. We may hope for a still more elaborate study of the same
subject in English from Mr. Arthur Tilley, of King's College, Cambridge.
An introductory volume to this study appeared in 1885.
CHAPTER III.
RABELAIS AND HIS FOLLOWERS.
[Sidenote: Fiction at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.]
At the beginning of the sixteenth century prose fiction in France was
represented by a considerable mass of literature divided sharply into
two separate classes of very different nature and value. On the one hand
the prose versions of the Chansons de Gestes and the romances, Arthurian
and adventurous, which had succeeded the last and most extensive verse
rehandlings of these works in the fourteenth century, made up a
considerable body of work, rarely possessing much literary merit, and
characterised by all the faults of monotony, repetition, and absence of
truthful character-drawing which distinguish late mediaeval work. On the
other hand, there was a smaller body of short prose tales[178] sometimes
serious in character and of not inconsiderable antiquity, more
frequently comic and satirical, and corresponding in prose to the
Fabliaux in verse. It has been pointed out that in the hands, real or
supposed, of Antoine de la Salle this latter kind of work had attained a
high standard of perfection. But it was as yet extremely limited in
style, scope, and subject. Valour, courtesy, and love made up the list
of subjects of the serious work, and the stock materials for satire,
women, marriage, priests, etc., that of the comic. Although we have some
lively presentment of the actual manners of the time in Antoine de la
Salle, it is accidental only, and of its thoughts on any but the stock
subjects we have nothing. There was thus room for a vast improvement,
or rather for a complete revolution, in this particular class of work,
and this revolution was at a comparatively early period of the new
century effected by the greatest man and the greatest book of the French
Renaissance.
[Sidenote: Rabelais.]
Francois Rabelais[179] was born at Chinon about 1495 (the alternative
date of 1483 which used to be given is improbable if not impossible),
and at an early age was destined to the cloister. He not only became a
full monk, but also took priest's orders. Before he was thirty he
acquired the reputation of a good classical scholar, and this seems to
have brought him into trouble with his brethren the Cordeliers or
Franciscans, who were at this time among the least cultivated of the
monastic orders. With the consent of the Pope he migrated to a
Benedictine convent, and became canon at Maillezais. This migration,
however, did not satisfy him, and before long he quitted his new convent
without permission and took to the life of a wandering scholar. The
tolerance of the first period of the Renaissance however still existed
in France, and he suffered no inconvenience from this breach of rule.
After studying medicine and natural science under the protection of
Geoffrey d'Estissac, Bishop of Maillezais, he went to Montpellier to
continue these studies, and in the early years of the fourth decade of
the century practised regularly at Lyons. He was attached to the suite
of Cardinal du Bellay in two embassies to Rome, returned to Montpellier,
took his doctor's degree, and again practised in several cities of the
South. Towards 1539 Du Bellay again established him in a convent,
probably as a safeguard against the persecution which was then
threatening. But the conventual life as then practised was too repugnant
to Rabelais to be long endured, and he once more set out on his travels,
this time in Savoy and Italy, the personal protection of the king
guaranteeing him from danger. He then returned to France, taking however
the precaution to soften some expressions in his books. At the death of
Francis he retired first to Metz, and then to Rome, still with Du
Bellay. The Cardinal de Chatillon, soon after gave him the living of
Meudon, which he held with another in Maine for a year or two,
resigning them both in 1551, and dying in 1553. Such at least are the
most probable and best ascertained dates and events in a life which has
been overlaid with a good deal of fiction, and many of the facts of
which are decidedly obscure. Rabelais did not very early become an
author, and his first works were of a purely erudite kind. During his
stay at Lyons he seems to have done a good deal of work for the
printers, as editor and reader, especially in reference to medical
works, such as Galen and Hippocrates. He edited too, and perhaps in part
re-wrote, a prose romance, _Les Grandes et Inestimables Chroniques du
Grant et Enorme Geant Gargantua_. This work, the author of which is
unknown, and no earlier copies of which exist, gave him no doubt at
least the idea of his own famous book. The next year (1532) followed the
first instalment of this--_Pantagruel Roi des Dipsodes Restitue en Son
naturel avec ses Faicts et Proueses Espouvantables_. Three years
afterwards came _Gargantua_ proper, the first book of the entire work as
we now have it. Eleven years however passed before the work was
continued, the second book of _Pantagruel_ not being published till
1546, and the third six years later, just before the author's death, in
1552. The fourth or last book did not appear as a whole until 1564,
though the first sixteen chapters had been given to the world two years
before. This fourth book, the fifth of the entire work, has, from the
length of time which elapsed before its publication and from certain
variations which exist in the MS. and the first printed editions, been
suspected of spuriousness. Such a question cannot be debated here at
length. But there is no external testimony of sufficient value to
discredit Rabelais' authorship, while the internal testimony in its
favour is overwhelming[180]. It may be said, without hesitation, that
not a single writer capable of having written it, save Rabelais himself,
is known to literary history at the time. It has been supposed, with a
good deal of probability, that the book was left in the rough. The
considerable periods which, as has been mentioned, intervened between
the publications of the other books seem to show that the author
indulged a good deal in revision; and, as the third book was only
published just before his death, he could have had little time for this
in the case of the fourth. This would account for a certain appearance
of greater boldness and directness in the satire as well as for
occasional various readings. In genius both of thought and expression
this book is perhaps superior to any other; and, if it were decided that
Rabelais did not write it, much of what are now considered the
Rabelaisian characteristics must be transferred to an entirely unknown
writer who has left not the smallest vestige of himself or his genius.
It is not possible to give here a detailed abstract of _Gargantua_ and
_Pantagruel_: indeed, from the studied desultoriness of the work, any
such abstract must of necessity be nearly as long as the book
itself[181]. It is sufficient to say that both Gargantua and his son
Pantagruel are the heroes of adventures, designedly exaggerated and
burlesqued from those common in the romances of chivalry. The chief
events of the earlier romance are, first, the war between Grandgousier,
Gargantua's father, the pattern of easy-going royalty, and Picrochole,
king of Lerne, the ideal of an arbitrary despot intent only on conquest;
and, secondly, the founding of the Abbey of Thelema, a fanciful
institution, in which Rabelais propounds as first principles everything
that is most opposed to the forced abstinence, the real self-indulgence,
the idleness and the ignorance of the debased monastic communities he
knew so well and hated so much. Pantagruel is Gargantua's son, and, like
him, a giant, but the extravagances derived from his gianthood are not
kept up in the second part as they are in the first. A very important
personage in _Pantagruel_ is Panurge, a singular companion, whom
Pantagruel picks up at Paris, and who is perhaps the greatest single
creation of Rabelais. Some ideas may have been taken for him from the
Cingar of Merlinus Coccaius, or Folengo, a Macaronic Italian poet[182],
but on the whole he is original, and is hardly comparable to any one
else in literature except Falstaff. The main idea of Panurge is the
absence of morality in the wide Aristotelian sense with the presence of
almost all other good qualities. After a time, in which Pantagruel and
his companions (among whom, as in the former romance, Friar John is the
embodiment of hearty and healthy animalism, as Panurge is of a somewhat
diseased intellectual refinement) are engaged in wars of the old romance
kind, a whim of Panurge determines the conclusion of the story. He
desires to get married; and an entire book is occupied by the various
devices to which he resorts in order to determine whether it is wise or
not for him to do so. At last it is decided that a voyage must be made
to the oracle of the Dive Bouteille. The last two books are occupied
with this voyage, in which many strange countries are visited, and at
last, the oracle being reached, the word _Trinq_ is vouchsafed, not
only, it would seem, to solve Panurge's doubts, but also as a general
answer to the riddle of the painful earth.
Besides his great work, Rabelais was the author of a few extant letters,
and probably of a good many that are not extant, of a little burlesque