A Short History of French Literature
plus belle chose en amour,' etc. These discourses are, however, in
reality little but a congeries of anecdotes, often scandalous enough.
Besides these, his principal works, Brantome left divers _Opuscula_,
some of which are definitely literary, dealing chiefly with Lucan. None
of his works were published in his lifetime, nor did any appear in print
until 1659. Meanwhile manuscript copies had, as usual, been multiplied,
with the result, also usual, that the text was much falsified and
mutilated.
The great merit of Brantome lies in the extraordinary vividness of his
powers of literary presentment. His style is careless, though it is
probable that the carelessness is not unstudied. But his irregular,
brightly coloured, and easily flowing manner represents, as hardly any
age has ever been represented, the characteristics of the great society
of his time. It is needless to say that the morals of that time were
utterly corrupt, but Brantome accepts them with a placid complacency
which is almost innocent. No writer, perhaps, has ever put things more
disgraceful on paper; but no writer has ever written of such things in
such a perfectly natural manner. Brantome was in his way a
hero-worshipper, though his heroes and heroines were sometimes oddly
coupled. Bayard and Marguerite de Valois represent his ideals, and a
good knight or a beautiful lady _de par le monde_ can do no wrong. This
unquestioning acceptance of, and belief in, the moral standards of his
own society, give a genuineness and a freshness to his work which are
very rare in literature. Few writers, again, have had the knack of
hitting off character, superficially it is true, yet with sufficient
distinction, which Brantome has. There is something individual about all
the innumerable characters who move across his stage, and something
thoroughly human about all, even the anonymous men and women, who appear
for a moment as the actors in some too frequently discreditable scene.
With all this there is a considerable vein of moralising in Brantome
which serves to throw up the relief of his actual narratives. He has
sometimes been compared to Pepys, but, except in point of garrulity and
of readiness to set down on paper anything that came into their heads,
there is little likeness between the two. Brantome was emphatically an
_ecrivain_ (unscholarly and Italianised as his phrase sometimes appears,
if judged by the standards of a severer age), and some of the best
passages from his works are among the most striking examples of French
prose.
[Sidenote: Montluc.]
Next to Brantome, and in some respects above him, though of a somewhat
less remarkable idiosyncrasy, come Montluc, La Noue, and D'Aubigne, with
Marguerite de Valois not far behind. Blaise de Lasseran-Massencome,
Seigneur de Montluc[220], was a typical _cadet de Gascogne_, though he
was not, strictly speaking, a cadet, being the eldest son of a
fortuneless house. He became page to Antoine of Lorraine, and made his
first campaign under the orders of Bayard, fighting through the whole of
the Italian war, and being knighted on the field at Cerisoles. In the
next reign he was promoted to high command, and held Sienna against the
Imperialists with distinguished gallantry and skill. When the civil war
broke out he was made Governor of Guyenne, where he maintained order
with the strong hand, 'heading and hanging' Catholics and Protestants
alike, if they showed signs of disloyalty. Ruthless as he was, he was
one of the few great officers who refused to participate in the massacre
of St. Bartholomew. He was made a marshal in 1574, and died three years
later. Montluc's Memoirs are purely military, and the most famous
description of them is that of Henri IV., who called them the soldier's
Bible. His style is concise, free from the slightest attempt at
elaborate ornament, but admirably picturesque and clear. His account of
his exploit at Sienna is one of the capital chapters of French military
history. But almost any page of Montluc possesses eminently the
characteristics which great generals from Caesar downwards have almost
uniformly displayed, when they possess any literary talent at all. The
words and sentences are marshalled and managed like an army; everything
goes straight to the point; there is no confusion, and the whole
complicated scene is as clear as a geometrical diagram.
[Sidenote: La Noue.]
The Memoirs of La Noue are usually spoken of separately, though in
reality they form a part of his _Discours Politiques et Militaires_.
Francois de la Noue, called Bras-de-Fer (a surname which he deserved not
metaphorically, but literally, having had to replace one of his arms
shot off during a siege), was a Breton, and of a good family. He was
born in 1531, fought through the religious wars, escaped St. Bartholomew
by being Alva's prisoner in Flanders, took an active part against the
League, and died at the siege of Lamballe, Aug. 4, 1591. His defence of
La Rochelle was one of the chief of his many feats of arms. The
'Discourses' were published during his life. They are of a more
reflective character than those of Montluc, and display much greater
mental cultivation. The style is not quite so vivid, the sentences are
longer and more charged with thought. La Noue, in short, is a
philosophical soldier and a politician. His style is perhaps less
archaic than that of any of his contemporaries, and is distinguished by
a remarkable strength, sobriety, and precision. He was very highly
thought of by both political parties, and was not unfrequently employed
in schemes of mediation. It is a pleasant story, and not irrelevant in a
history of literature, that a scheme for his assassination during one of
his visits to Paris was discovered by Brantome, who warned his future
craftsfellow of it.
[Sidenote: Agrippa d'Aubigne.]
Agrippa d'Aubigne belongs to this section of the subject by his _Vie a
ses Enfants_, often called his memoirs, by his _Histoire Universelle_,
and by a great number of letters. The same qualities which distinguish
D'Aubigne in verse are recognisable in his prose, his passionate and
insubordinate temper, the keenness of his satire, the somewhat turbid
grandeur of his style and images, the vigour and picturesqueness of
occasional traits. The _Histoire Universelle_ and the _Vie a ses
Enfants_ were both works written in old age, but there is hardly any
sign of failing power in them. The _Vie_ in particular contains many
passages, such as the vision of his mother and the passionate charge
which his father laid upon him at the sight of the victims of the
Amboise conspiracy, which rank very high among the prose of the century.
The _Histoire Universelle_, like the book which Raleigh wrote almost at
the same time, and under not dissimilar circumstances, is necessarily in
great part a compilation, but has many passages worthy of its author at
his best.
[Sidenote: Marguerite de Valois.]
The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois contain what is perhaps the
best-known and oftenest quoted passage of any memoirs of the time, that
in which the Princess describes the night of St. Bartholomew. There are
not many such stirring passages in them, but throughout Marguerite gives
evidence of the remarkable talent which distinguished the Valois. Her
evident object is to justify herself, and this makes the book somewhat
artificial. It is dedicated to Brantome, but shows in its manner rather
the influence of Ronsard and the Pleiade by the classical correctness of
the style, the absence of archaisms, and the precision and form of the
sentences. According to the principles of the school, the vocabulary is
simple and vernacular enough, for the Pleiade regarded ornate
classicisms of language as proper to poetry.
In a rank not much below those mentioned must be placed the so-called
_Memoires de Vieilleville_, the _Chronologies_ of Palma-Cayet, the
_Registres-Journaux_ of Pierre de l'Estoile, the Letters of
Duplessis-Mornay, Cardinal d'Ossat, and Henri IV. himself, and the
_Negotiations_ of the President Jeannin.
[Sidenote: Vieilleville.]
The Marechal de Vieilleville was one of the foremost French generals of
the sixteenth century, and, considering the violent and unscrupulous
ways of the time, he had a good reputation for moderation, probity, and
patriotism, as well as for courage and ability. His Memoirs are not his
own work, but that of his secretary and lifelong companion, Vincent
Carloix. They have some of the defects of a deliberate panegyric; but
Carloix is a vigorous and able writer, who, without completely
emancipating himself from the tyranny of the long involved sentence,
contrives to write clearly, and often with much picturesque effect.
[Sidenote: Palma-Cayet.]
Pierre Victor Palma-Cayet was of mean extraction, but received a good
education, and was introduced by La Noue to Jeanne d'Albret as a
suitable assistant-tutor for her son. After the accession of his pupil,
he was appointed to various offices, one of which, that of Chronologer
Royal, no doubt occasioned the odd titles of his two principal works,
_Chronologie Novenaire_ and _Chronologie Septenaire_, which give the
history of Henri's reign, dividing it into two portions, the one of nine
years, the other of seven. Cayet also wrote several minor works, and
divides with D'Aubigne the doubtful honour of being the author of the
_Divorce Satirique_, a scurrilous pamphlet against Marguerite. The
_Chronologies_ are extremely full of matter, and admirably precise in
their information, but their literary value is not great.
[Sidenote: Pierre de l'Estoile.]
From this point of view Pierre de l'Estoile[221] is of a higher class.
He was a lawyer of rank and an indefatigable writer. Day by day he put
down in his _Tablettes_ all sorts of public and private affairs, as well
as literary extracts, obituary notices, and, in short, almost the entire
material of a modern newspaper. Pierre de l'Estoile, much more than
Brantome, is the French Pepys. Although occasionally prejudiced, the
writer seems to have been acute and well-informed, and his manner of
dealing with his heterogeneous materials is light and lively.
[Sidenote: D'Ossat.]
Of the three correspondence-writers just mentioned, though Henri himself
is a vigorous and fertile writer, the most important by far is Cardinal
D'Ossat. He was born in the south of France in 1536, and had not, unlike
many of the diplomatist ecclesiastics of the period, the advantage of
high birth. Like many of his contemporaries, he began as a lawyer and
only subsequently took orders. He began diplomatic life as Secretary to
the Archbishop of Toulouse, who was ambassador at Rome, and later on
conducted the negotiations which led to the conversion of Henri IV. He
then became Bishop of Rennes and cardinal. His letters are almost
entirely devoted to subjects connected with his profession, and have
always held a position as one of the earliest models of diplomatic
writing. D'Ossat's style, especially in respect of its vocabulary, was
long regarded as a pattern, but it has less character than that of some
other sixteenth-century writers.
[Sidenote: Sully.]
The last two books to be named belong, in point of date, to the next
century, but were written by, or for, men who were emphatically of the
sixteenth. The extraordinary form of Sully's Memoirs is well known. They
are neither written as if by himself, nor of him as by a historian of
the usual kind. They are directly addressed to the hero in the form of
an elaborate reminder of his own actions. 'You then said this;' 'his
Majesty thereupon sent you there;' 'when you were two leagues from your
halting-place, you saw a courier coming,' etc. It is needless to say
that this manner of telling history is in the highest degree unnatural