A Short History of French Literature

Although many of the practitioners of this classical tragedy, notably Jodelle, Grevin, and Jean de la Taille, produced work of interest and merit, it contributed only one name which can properly be called great to literary history. This was that of Robert Garnier[207], who brought the form to the highest perfection of which it was capable in its earliest state. Garnier was born at La Ferte Bernard in 1545, and died, apparently in his native province of Maine, in 1601. He was a lawyer of some distinction, being a member of the Paris bar, then Lieutenant Criminel at Le Mans, and finally Councillor of State. He was an immediate disciple and favourite of Ronsard, who has spoken of him in those terms of magnificent eulogy of which he was liberal, but which here, if somewhat exaggerated, are by no means altogether misplaced. His dramatic works, extending to eight plays, were all composed in his earlier manhood, between 1568 and 1580. There is, however, a wide difference between the first six plays and the last two. The former, _Porcie_, _Cornelie_, _Marc-Antoine_, _Hippolyte_, _La Troade_, and _Antigone_, are all, as their titles show clearly, tragedies of antiquity closely modelled on Seneca and Euripides, especially Seneca. The _Cornelie_, it may be observed, was translated into English by Kyd. They do not differ much in arrangement from each other, or from Jodelle's _Cleopatre_. In his two last plays, however, produced in 1580, much greater power and originality appear. These were _Les Juives_, a Biblical tragedy on the fate of Zedekiah and Jerusalem, and _Bradamante_, a romantic tragi-comedy on a subject taken from Ariosto. The latter was apparently the first of its kind, dramatists having hitherto confined themselves to classical, contemporary, and Biblical subjects. There is, moreover, a curious incident connected with it. It contains no choruses, and in the preface of the published edition the manager is requested to have the want supplied in case of its being acted. Here too appears the confidant, a dubious present to the French theatre, but one of no small importance. The play is a remarkable one. The mixture of comic with tragic models gives the author much more liberty, of which he duly avails himself; the scenes are more numerous, the action more lively and complicated, the interest in every way greater. Yet it would seem, from the remark made above, that there was some doubt in the mind of the author whether it would ever be acted. Nor does it seem to have had much, if any, effect on the general character of stage plays. These continued to follow the Jodelle model until Hardy brought in the influence of Spain. Of that model _Les Juives_ is assuredly the masterpiece. The choruses are of great beauty, admirably diversified in metre and rhythm, and occasionally all but equalling the best lyrics of the Pleiade. There is interest in the story, which deals with the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar on the Jewish king, and its chief drawback is its unrelieved gloom. The first act too, which consists of a monologue by the Prophet (unnamed) relieved only by the chorus, is justly open to that charge of monotony and absence of action, which is the great drawback of this class of drama. Subsequently, however, a real interest is created in the question whether the conqueror will or will not give up his sanguinary purposes in consequence of the remonstrances of his general, Nebuzaradan, and the entreaties of Zedekiah's mother and his own Queen. The stiffness of the dialogue, which is remarkable in most of the tragedies of the period, is here a good deal softened. The speeches are still sometimes too long--Garnier was indeed a great offender in this way, and in his _Hippolyte_ has inflicted an unbroken monologue of nearly two hundred lines on the hapless spectators. But very frequently the dialogue is fairly kept up, and sufficiently varied by the avoidance of the practice of concluding the speeches uniformly at the end of lines. [Sidenote: Defects of the Pleiade Tragedy.] On the whole, however, despite the literary excellence of at least some of the work composing it, it is impossible to give high rank as drama to the model of Jodelle. Although the unities were not by any means followed with the strictness which prevailed afterwards, the caution of Horace about awkward transactions on the stage was rigidly observed, and, with the usual illegitimate inference, carried out so as almost to exclude all action whatever. The personages were generally few, the acts divided into but a scene or two at most, the set _tirades_ mercilessly long, and the whole thing, as it would appear to a modern spectator, dull and spiritless. [Sidenote: Pleiade Comedy.] [Sidenote: Larivey.] The dramatists of the Pleiade school, though they chiefly cultivated tragedy, did not by any means neglect comedy, their leader, Jodelle, having, as has been shown, set them the example in both kinds. Their comedy was, however, for some time a somewhat indeterminate kind of composition, and did not for the most part show much sign of the extraordinary excellence which French comedy was to attain in the next century. They seem to have hesitated between three models, the indigenous farce, the Italian comedy, which was a graft on the Latin, and the Latin comedy of Plautus and Terence itself. Yet _Eugene_, as has been said, is a great deal better as a play than either _Didon_ or _Cleopatre_. Its manner was closely imitated in the already-mentioned comedies of Grevin. The _Reconnue_ of Belleau is a work of merit. Baif turned the _Miles Gloriosus_ into French under the title of _Taillebras_, which was acted with the curious accompaniment of choruses composed by, among others, Desportes, Belleau, and Ronsard himself. All these pieces kept the octosyllabic verse which the farce had consecrated. Afterwards it became fashionable to write comedies in prose. Jean de la Taille thus gave _Les Corrivaux_, Odet de Turnebe _Les Mecontents_, Francois d'Amboise _Les Napolitaines_. But the chief comic author of the century, a better playwright than Garnier himself, was Pierre Larivey, who also wrote in prose[208]. He was born at Troyes about 1540, and died probably in the second decade of the seventeenth century. His father was an Italian, of the famous printer family of the Giunti, and on settling in France he had dubbed himself L'Arrive, which soon took the less recognisable form under which the dramatist is known. Pierre Larivey held a canonry at Troyes, and translated many Italian books of the most diverse kinds into French. Among these were numerous comedies, and the genius of the translator for his task in this case produced what are in effect as original compositions as most plays which call themselves original. Larivey took the utmost liberties with his models, adding, dropping, altering, exactly as he pleased, and writing his adaptations in a style excellent for the purpose. He produced twelve plays, of which nine are extant, _Le Laquais_, _La Veuve_, _Les Esprits_, _Le Morfondu_, _Les Jaloux_, _Les Escoliers_, published in 1579, and _Constance_, _Le Fidele_, _Les Tromperies_, published in 1611. Each of these has an Italian original. But, as the originals themselves are frequently derived from classical sources, Larivey very often seems to be imitating these latter. A nearly complete idea of the character of his best piece, _Les Esprits_, may be obtained by those who know the _Aulularia_ and _Andria_, and, on the other hand, the _Ecole des Maris_ and _L'Avare_, for he stands about midway between the classical comedies of Latin and French. Moliere found a good deal of his property in Larivey, and so did other French comic authors. FOOTNOTES: [205] Ed. Hericault, Montaiglon, and Rothschild. 2 vols. Paris. 1858-1877. [206] _Ancien Theatre Francais_, vol. iv. [207] A good modern edition has appeared by Foerster. Heilbronn, 1882. [208] _Ancien Theatre Francais_, vol. vi. vii. CHAPTER VI. CALVIN AND AMYOT. [Sidenote: Prose Writers of the Renaissance.] It has been pointed out that Rabelais, in his capacity of representative author of the French Renaissance, exhibits all the characteristics of that Renaissance--its interest, half-enthusiastic and half-sceptical, in religious and philosophical questions, its devotion to ancient literature and learning, and the ardent zest with which it attacked at once the business and the pleasures of the world. The four most remarkable of the remaining prose authors of the century illustrate these characteristics as vividly but less universally. Montaigne indeed is almost as complete a representative of the entire character for the last half of the century as Rabelais is of the first. But even in him one note, the note of sceptical philosophy, is more dominant than any to be found in Rabelais. In the same way Calvin was the first, if not the most distinguished, of theologians who wrote modern French prose; Amyot the representative of erudition; and Brantome of that attention to mundane business and pleasure which produced so many admirable memoir-writers. Round each of the four, but especially round Amyot and Brantome, numerous figures, sometimes of hardly less magnitude, have to be grouped. Chronological reasons, and the convenience of subdividing the subject, make it, however, advisable to take Calvin and Amyot first, leaving the authors of the _Essais_ and the _Dames Galantes_ with their train for another chapter. [Sidenote: Calvin.] Jean Calvin[209] was born in 1509, at Noyon, in Picardy, where his father held the post of procurator-fiscal to the bishop. He took orders very early, and obtained some preferment. Before long, by a transition very usual in that age, he exchanged divinity for law; but his interest was still in the former study, and he eagerly embraced the Reformed doctrines. Like other French reformers, he was at first rewarded by the favour of Francis and his sister Marguerite, but the tide soon turned, and he left France in 1534 for Basle. It is said that it was not till then that he learnt Hebrew. At Basle his _Institution_ was published. After a year or two he went to Italy, where he was received by the Duchess of Ferrara, Renee of France, the steadiest of all the royal patrons of the French reformers. At last he established himself at Geneva, where, as is well known, he succeeded in setting up a kind of theocratic tyranny, which was for centuries the model and pattern of his faithful followers the Scotch Presbyterians. He was once banished, but recalled, and exercised his sway for about a quarter of a century. Into the too famous and much argued matters of his relations with Servetus, his intrigues with the French inquisitors to establish a kind of _Zollverein_ of persecution and the like, there is no need to enter here. He died in 1564. Calvin's greatest work in literature, as in theology, is the _Institution of the Christian Religion_, which, as has been said, was published at Basle in 1536. It was written in Latin, but four years later was republished in French, the author himself being the translator. The minor works of Calvin, both in Latin and French, are very numerous, but from the point of view of literary history they may be neglected, except certain satirical pamphlets wherein the writer displayed a considerable command of vigorous, if occasionally clumsy, satire and invective. The scurrility with which the debates of the Reformation were carried on on both sides is but too well known. Calvin was not so guilty in this respect as Luther, but he must bear a considerable portion of the blame. What is really valuable in Calvin's satiric style may be found more worthily represented in the less abstract passages of the _Institution_, notably the Address to the King.