A Short History of French Literature
stanzas to Chaulieu on 'La Paresse,' which he was well qualified to
sing, inasmuch as it is said that during many years of his long life he
did nothing but sleep and eat. The verses of the two continued to be
models of style, and (in a way) of choice of subject, during the whole
eighteenth century. Macaulay's rhetorical description of Frederic's
verses, as 'hateful to gods and men, the faint echo of the lyre of
Chaulieu,' is not quite just in its suggestion. Chaulieu, and still
more La Fare, wrote very fair occasional poetry. One curious application
of verse during this century requires mention in conclusion. This was
the Gazette, or rhymed news-letter, in which the gossip of the day, the
diversions of the court, etc., were recorded for the amusement and
instruction of great persons in the most pedestrian of octosyllables.
The chief writer of these trifles, which are very voluminous, and which
have preserved many curious particulars, was Loret, who was succeeded by
Robinet, Boursault, Laurent, and others.
FOOTNOTES:
[224] Ed. Lalanne. 5 vols. Paris, 1862 67; also (poems only)
conveniently by Jannet. Paris, 1874. Besides his verse Malherbe wrote
some translations of Seneca and Livy, and a great number of letters,
including many to Peiresc, a savant of the time who is best known from
Gassendi's _Life_ of him.
[225] Ed. Latour. 2 vols. Paris, 1857.
[226] Ed. Alleaume. 2 vols. Paris, 1855.
[227] Ed. Ubicini. 2 vols. Paris, 1855.
[228] Ed. Livet. 2 vols. Paris, 1855.
[229] This is in reality the beginning of the _second_ line of the poem,
though it is often quoted as if it were the first.
[230] Ed. Moland. 7 vols. Paris, 1879. Also ed. Regnier, vol. i. Paris,
1883.
[231] In previous editions this date was, by an oversight, wrongly
printed as 1662. M. Scherer in correcting it has himself made a probable
mistake in giving '1665.' That date is on the title-page, but the
_acheve d'imprimer_ is dated Dec. 10, 1664, and as a second edition was
finished by Jan. 10, 1665, it is practically certain that the book was
out before the end of the year.
[232] Ed. Fournier. Paris, 1873.
CHAPTER II.
DRAMATISTS.
While the influence of Malherbe was thus cramping and withering poetry
proper in France, it combined with some other causes to enable drama to
attain the highest perfection possible in the particular style
practised. In non-dramatic poetry, the only name of the seventeenth
century which can be said even to approach the first class is that of La
Fontaine, whose verse, except for its technical excellence, is almost as
near to prose as to poetry itself. But the names of Corneille, Racine,
and Moliere stand in the highest rank of French authors, and their works
will remain the chief examples of the kind of drama which they
professed. Nor is this difference in any way surprising. It has been
already shown that the style of drama introduced into France by the
Pleiade, and pursued with but little alteration afterwards, was a highly
artificial and a highly limited kind. It lent itself successfully to
comparatively few situations; it excluded variety of action on the
stage; it gave no opening for the display of complicated character. But
these very limitations made it susceptible of very high polish and
elaboration within its own limited range, and made such polish and
elaboration almost a necessity if it was to be tolerable at all. The
correct and cold language and style which Malherbe preached; the
regularity and harmony of versification on which he insisted; the strict
attention to rule rather than impulse which he urged, all suited a thing
in itself so artificial as the Senecan tragedy. They were not so
suitable to the more libertine genius of comedy. But here, fortunately
for France, the regulations were less rigid, and the abiding popularity
of the indigenous farce gave a healthy corrective. The astonishing
genius of Moliere succeeded in combining the two influences--the lawless
freedom of the old farce, and the ordered decency of the Malherbian
poetry. Even his theatre shows some sign of the taint with which
'classical' drama is so deeply imbued, but its force and truth almost or
altogether redeem the imperfections of its scheme.
[Sidenote: Montchrestien.]
We have seen that the early tragedy, which was more or less directly
reproductive of Seneca, attained its highest pitch in the work of
Garnier. This pitch was on the whole well maintained by Antoine de
Montchrestien, a man of a singular history and of a singular genius. The
date of his birth is not exactly known, but he was the son of an
apothecary at Falaise, and belonged to the Huguenot party. Duels and
lawsuits succeed each other in his story, and by some means or other he
was able to assume the title of Seigneur de Vasteville. In one of his
duels he killed his man, and had to fly to England. Being pardoned, he
returned to France and took to commerce. But after the death of Henri
IV. he joined a Huguenot rising, and was killed in October 1621.
Montchrestien wrote a treatise on Political Economy (he is even said to
have been the first to introduce the term into French), some poems, and
six tragedies, _Sophonisbe_, or _La Cartaginoise_, _Les Lacenes_,
_David_, _Aman_, _Hector_, and _L'Ecossaise_. Racine availed himself not
a little of _Aman_, but _L'Ecossaise_ is Montchrestien's best piece. In
it he set the example to a long line of dramatists, from Vondel to Mr.
Swinburne, who have since treated the story of Mary Queen of Scots. It
is not part of the merit of Montchrestien to have improved on the
technical defects of the Jodelle-Garnier model. His action is still
deficient, his speeches immoderately long. But his choric odes are of
great beauty, and his _tirades_, disproportionate as they are, show a
considerable advance in the power of indicating character as well as in
style and versification. Beyond this, however, the force of the model
could no further go, and some alteration was necessary. Indeed it is by
no means certain that the later plays of this class were ever acted at
all, or were anything more than closet drama.
[Sidenote: Hardy.]
[Sidenote: Minor predecessors of Corneille.]
For a not inconsiderable time the fate of French tragedy trembled in
the balance. During the first thirty years of the seventeenth century
the most prominent dramatist was Alexandre Hardy[233]. He is the first
and not the least important example in French literary history of a
dramatic author pure and simple, a playwright who was a playwright, and
nothing else. Hardy was for years attached to the regular company of
actors who had succeeded the _Confrerie_ at the Hotel de Bourgogne, and
wrote or adapted pieces for them at the tariff (it is said) of fifty
crowns a play. His fertility was immense; and he is said to have written
some hundreds of plays. The exact number is variously stated at from
five to seven hundred. Forty-one exist in print. Although not destitute
of original power, Hardy was driven to the already copious theatre of
Spain for subjects and models. His plays being meant for acting and for
nothing else, the scholarly but tedious exercitations of the Pleiade
school were out of the question. Yet, while he introduced a great deal
of Spanish embroilment into his plots, and a great deal of Spanish
bombast into his speeches, Hardy still accepted the general outline of
the classical tragedy, and, though utterly careless of unity of place
and time, adhered for the most part to the perhaps more mischievous
unity of action. His best play, _Mariamne_, is powerfully written, is
arranged with considerable skill, and contains some fine lines and even
scenes; but, little as Hardy hampered himself with rules, it still has,
to an English reader, a certain thinness of interest. A contemporary of
Hardy's, Jean de Schelandre, made, in a play[234] which does not seem
ever to have been acted, a remarkable attempt at enfranchising French
tragedy with the full privileges rather of the English than of the
Spanish drama; but this play, _Tyr et Sidon_, had no imitators and no
influence, and the general model remained unaltered. But during the
first quarter of the century the theatre was exceedingly popular, and
the institution of strolling troops of actors spread its popularity all
over France. Nearly a hundred names of dramatic writers of this time are
preserved. Most of these, no doubt, were but retainers of the houses or
the troops, and did little but patch, adapt, and translate. But of the
immediate predecessors of Corneille, and his earlier contemporaries, at
least half-a-dozen are more or less known to fame, besides the really
great name of Rotrou. Mairet, Tristan, Du Ryer, Scudery, Claveret, and
D'Aubignac, were the chief of these. Mairet has been called the French
Marston, and the resemblance is not confined to the fact that both wrote
tragedies on the favourite subject of Sophonisba. The chief work of
Tristan, who was also a poet of some merit, was _Marianne_ (Mariamne),
very closely modelled on an Italian original, and much less vigorous,
though more polished than Hardy's play on the same subject. Du Ryer had
neither Mairet's vigour nor Tristan's tenderness, but he made more
progress than either of them had done in the direction of the completed
tragedy of Corneille and Racine. Scudery's _Amour Tyrannique_ is
vigorous and bombastic. Claveret and D'Aubignac (the latter of whom was
an active critic as well as a bad playwright) principally derive their
reputation, such as it is, from the acerbity with which they attacked
Corneille in the dispute about the Cid; nor should the name of Theophile
de Viaud be passed over in this connection. His _Pyrame et Thisbe_ is
often considered as almost the extreme example (though Corneille's
_Clitandre_ is perhaps worse) of the conceited Spanish-French style in
tragedy. The passage in which Thisbe accuses the poniard with which
Pyramus has stabbed himself of blushing at having sullied itself with
the blood of its master is a commonplace of quotation. Yet, like all
Theophile's work, _Pyrame et Thisbe_ has value, and so has the
unrepresented tragedy of _Pasiphae_.
[Sidenote: Rotrou.]
Among these forgotten names, and others more absolutely forgotten still,
that of Rotrou[235] is pre-eminently distinguished. Jean de Rotrou (the
particle is not uniformly allowed him) was born at Dreux in 1609, and
was thus three years younger than Corneille. He went earlier to Paris,
however, and at once betook himself to dramatic poetry, his
_Hypocondriaque_ being represented before he was nineteen. He formed
with Corneille, Colletet, Bois-Robert, and L'Etoile, the band of
Richelieu's 'Five Poets,' who composed tragedies jointly on the
Cardinal's plans[236]. He also worked unceasingly at the theatre on his
own account. Thirty-five pieces are certainly, and five more doubtfully,
attributed to him. For some time he had to work for bread, and the only
weakness charged against him, a mania for gambling, left him poor, and
perhaps prevented him from devoting to his work as much pains as he
might otherwise have given. After a time, however, he was pensioned, and
appointed to various legal posts which members of his family had
previously held at Dreux. His fidelity to his official duty was the
cause of his death. He was at Paris when a violent epidemic broke out at
Dreux. All who could left the town, and Rotrou was strongly dissuaded
from returning. But he felt himself responsible for the maintenance of
order, likely at such a time to be specially endangered. He returned at
once, caught the infection, and died. Rotrou's plays are too numerous
for a complete list of them to be here given, and by common consent two
of them, _Le Veritable Saint Genest_ and _Venceslas_, greatly excel the