A Short History of French Literature
giving his enemies a great hold on him. After six years' fighting,
however, the enemies made peace, and, indeed, it does not seem that
Perrault at any time bore malice. He produced, besides some memoirs and
the charming trifles to be presently spoken of[252], a good many
miscellanies in prose and verse of no particular value, and died in
1703.
His first tale, _Griselidis_ (in verse, and by no means his best),
appeared in 1691, _Peau d'Ane_ and _Les Souhaits Ridicules_ in 1694, _La
Belle au Bois Dormant_ in 1696, and the rest in 1697. These are _Le
Petit Chaperon Rouge_, _La Barbe Bleue_, _Le Maitre Chat ou le Chat
Botte_, _Les Fees_, _Cendrillon_, _Riquet a la Houppe_, and _Le Petit
Poucet_. It is needless to say that Perrault did not invent the subjects
of them. What he contributed was an admirable and peculiar narrative
style, due, as seems very probable, in great part to the example of La
Fontaine, but distinguished therefrom by all the difference of verse and
prose. The characteristics of this style are an extreme simplicity
which does not degenerate into puerility, great directness, and at the
same time vividness in telling the story, and a remarkable undercurrent
of wit which is never obtrusive, as is sometimes the case in the verse
tales. Perrault's stories deserve their immense popularity, and they
found innumerable imitators chiefly among persons of quality, who, as M.
Honore Bonhomme, the best authority on the obscurer fairy-tale writers,
observes, probably found an attraction in the style because of the way
in which it lent itself to cover personal satire. This, however, is
something of an abuse, and little or nothing of it is discernible in
Perrault's own work, though later, and especially in the eighteenth
century, it was frequently if not invariably present.
NOTE TO THE LAST THREE CHAPTERS.
Although the list of names mentioned here under the respective heads of
poets, dramatists, and novelists is considerable, it is very far indeed
from being exhaustive. It may, indeed, be said generally that it is only
possible in this history, especially as we leave the invention of
printing farther and farther behind, to mention those names which have
left something like a memory behind them. The dramas and novels of the
seventeenth century are extremely numerous, and have been but very
partially explored. In regard to the poems there is an additional
difficulty. It was a fashion of the time to collect such things in
_recueils_--miscellaneous collections--in which the work of very large
numbers of writers, who never published their poems separately or
obtained after their own day any recognition as poets, is buried.
Specimens, published here and there by the laborious editors of the
greater classics in illustration of these latter, show that with
leisure, opportunity, and critical discernment, this little-worked vein
might be followed up not without advantage. But for such a purpose, as
for the similar exploration of many other out-of-the-way corners of this
vast literature, conditions are needed which are eminently 'the gift of
fortune.' These remarks apply more or less to all the following chapters
and books of this history. But they may find an appropriate place here,
not merely because it is from this period onwards that they are most
applicable, but because this special department of French literary
history--the earlier seventeenth century--contains, perhaps, the
greatest proportion of this wreckage of time as yet unrummaged and
unsorted by posterity.
FOOTNOTES:
[242] Not _du_ Tendre, as it is often erroneously cited in French and
English works.
[243] The learned editor of Tallemant des Reaux calls her Marie
Hortense. She also wrote verses and plays. There were many other romance
writers of the period now forgotten, or remembered only for other
things, such as the Abbe d'Aubignac.
[244] I cannot boast of an intimate or exhaustive acquaintance with the
'heroic' romances; but I have taken care to satisfy myself of the
accuracy of the statements in the text.
[245] Ed. Dillaye. 2 vols. Paris, 1881.
[246] The full title is _Histoire Comique des Etats de la Lune et du
Soleil_. Cyrano's works have been edited by P. L. Jacob. 2 vols. Paris,
1858.
[247] Ed. Colombey. Paris, 1877.
[248] Ed. Jannet. 2 vols. Paris, 1878.
[249] Ed. Garnier. Paris, 1864.
[250] Madame de la Fayette also wrote _La Comtesse de Tende_, and
interesting Memoirs of Henrietta of England. _Zaide_ was published under
the name of Segrais, who was a _nouvelle_-writer of no great merit,
though a pleasant poet.
[251] See H. Bonhomme, _Le Cabinet des Fees_.
[252] Ed. Lefevre. Paris, 1875. Ed. Lang. Oxford, 1888.
CHAPTER IV.
HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS.
Although the seventeenth century did not witness the acceptance in
France of what may be called a philosophical conception of history, and
though few or none of the regular histories of the time (with the
exception of that of Mezeray) hold high rank as literature, no period
was more fruitful in memoirs, letters, and separate historical sketches
of the first merit. The names of Madame de Sevigne, of the Cardinal de
Retz, of La Rochefoucauld, and at the extreme end of the period of Saint
Simon, rank among those of the most original writers of France, while
the historical essay has rarely assumed a more thoroughly literary form
than in the short sketches of Retz, Sarrasin, and others. The subject of
the present chapter may, therefore, be divided into four parts, the
historians properly so called (the least interesting of the four), the
historical essayists, the memoir-writers, and the letter-writers, with
an appendix of erudite cultivators of historical science and of
miscellaneous authors of historical gossip and other matters.
[Sidenote: General Historians. Mezeray.]
[253]It is said not unfrequently that the only historical work of this
particular period, combining magnitude of subject with elevation and
originality of thought and literary excellence of expression, is
Bossuet's discourse on universal history. There is not a little truth in
the saying. Still there are a few authors whose work deserves mention.
The great history of De Thou was written in Latin. But the century
produced in Mezeray's History of France the first attempt of merit on
the subject. Francois Eudes de Mezeray was the son of a surgeon, who
seems to have been of some means and position. Mezeray was educated at
Caen (he was born in 1610), and he early betook himself to historical
studies. After beginning by supervising a translated history of the
Turks, he set to work on his masterpiece, the _History of France_, which
appeared in three huge and splendid folios in 1643, 1646, and 1651. He
was accused of treating his predecessors with too great contempt; but
this was more than justified by the superiority, not merely in style but
in historical conception and attention to documentary evidence, which he
showed. Mezeray had been protected and pensioned by Richelieu, but under
Mazarin he became a violent pamphleteer and author of _Mazarinades_.
Later, when Louis XIV. was settled on the throne, he published an
abridgment of his own history, in which the keen scent of Colbert
discovered uncourtly strictures on the fiscal abuses of the kingdom.
Mezeray refused to alter them, and was mulcted accordingly of part of
his pension. He died in 1683, having earned the title of the first
historian, worthy of the name, of France. With due allowance for his
period, he may challenge comparison with almost any of his successors,
though his style, excellent at its best, is somewhat unequal. Perefixe
(who may have been assisted by Mezeray) is responsible for a history of
Henri IV.; Maimbourg for a history of the League which has some interest
for Englishmen because Dryden translated it. The same great English
writer projected but did not accomplish a translation from a much more
worthless historian, Varillas, who is notorious among his class for
indifference to accuracy. It is indeed curious that this century, side
by side with the most laborious investigators ever known, produced a
school of historians who, with some merits of style, were almost
deliberately unfaithful to fact. If the well-known saying ('Mon siege
est fait') attributed to the Abbe Vertot is not apocryphal[254], he must
be ranked in the less respectable class. But his well-known histories,
the chief of which is devoted to the Knights of Malta, were not wholly
constructed on this principle. Pellisson wrote a history of the Academy,
of which he was secretary, and one of the living Louis XIV., which, as
might be expected, is little more than an ingenious panegyric. The Pere
Daniel wrote a history of France, the Pere d'Orleans one of the English
revolutions; while Rapin de Thoyras, a Huguenot and a refugee, had the
glory of composing in a foreign language the first book deserving the
title of a History of England. Superior to all these writers, except to
Mezeray, are the ecclesiastical historians Fleury and Tillemont. Fleury
was a good writer, very learned and exceedingly fair. Tillemont, with
less pretentions to style, is second to no writer of history in
learning, industry, accuracy, and judgment.
[Sidenote: Historical Essayists.]
[Sidenote: Saint Real.]
The historical essay, like much else of value at the time, was in great
part due to the mania for _coteries_. In these select societies
literature was the favourite occupation, and ingenuity was ransacked to
discover forms of composition admitting of treatment in brief space and
of the display of literary skill. The personal 'portrait,' or elaborate
prose character, was of this kind, but the ambition of the competitors
soared higher than mere character-drawing. They sought for some striking
event, if possible contemporary, which offered, within moderate compass,
dramatic unity and scope for something like dramatic treatment.
Sometimes, as in the _Relation du Passage du Rhin_, by the Count de
Guiche, personal experiences formed the basis, but more frequently
passages in the recent history of other nations were chosen. Of this
kind was the _Conspiration de Walstein_ of Sarrasin, which, though
incomplete, is admirable in style. Better still is the _Conjuration de
Fiesque_ of the Cardinal de Retz, his first work, and one written when
he was but seventeen. Not a few of the scattered writings of Saint
Evremond may be classed under this head, notably the Letter to Crequi on
the Peace of the Pyrenees, which was the cause of his exile, though this
was rather political than historical. Towards the end of the century,
the Abbe Vertot preluded his larger histories by a short tract on the
revolutions of Portugal, and another on those of Sweden, which had both
merit and success. It will be observed that conspiracies, revolutions,
and such-like events formed the staple subjects of these compositions.
Of this class was the masterpiece of the style--the only one perhaps
which as a type at least merits something more than a mere mention--the
_Conjuration des Espagnols contre Venise_[255] of Saint Real, a piece
famous in French literature as a capital example of historical narration
on the small scale, and not unimportant to English literature as the
basis of Otway's principal tragedy. Cesar Vichard, Abbe de Saint Real,
was born at Chambery in 1631, and died at the same place in 1692. He was
sent early to Paris, betook himself to historical studies, and published
various works, including certain discourses on history, a piece on Don
Carlos, and the _Conjuration des Espagnols_ itself, which appeared in
1672. Shortly afterwards he visited London, and was for a time a member
of the _coterie_ of Saint Evremond and Hortense Mancini. He returned to