A Short History of French Literature
interruption is not felt to be annoying. Even now, when the zest of
personal malice, which, as Malezieux remarked to the author, made him
sure beforehand of 'plenty of readers and plenty of enemies,' is past,
it is a most interesting book to read; and it is especially interesting
to Englishmen, because there is no doubt that the English essayists of
the Queen Anne school directly modelled themselves upon it.
It has been objected to La Bruyere that he is less of a thinker than of
a clever writer, and there is truth in the objection. He was possessed
of a remarkable shrewdness, common sense, and soundness of taste; thus,
for instance, he protests energetically against the foolish pedantry
which rejected as obsolete many of the most useful and most picturesque
words in French, and so sets himself directly against the dominant and
very unfortunate literary influence of his time, that of Boileau. Yet he
himself wrote in the fashionable style, and in the language rather of
Racine than of Corneille. A further objection, also a just one, is that
his characters are too much of their age and not of all time. This
objection, indeed, applies to almost all writers after 1660, except
Moliere, and La Fontaine, and La Rochefoucauld. But La Bruyere (though
there are some sarcastic insinuations which seem to hint that his range
was wider than he chose to show) is as unwilling to disentangle himself
from Versailles and Paris as his English followers are to extend their
gaze to something beyond 'the town.' Nor is there the force and vigour
about La Bruyere's moral reflections that there is about La
Rochefoucauld's. They are frequently commonplace, sometimes even
platitudinous, and the author occasionally falls into what is perhaps
the most dangerous pitfall for a moralist and social satirist, the
adoption of stock butts and types. It is indeed most probable that La
Bruyere was one of those who, according to a famous phrase of his enemy
and successor, Fontenelle, 'may have their hands full of truth, but may
not care to open more than their little finger.' He was not, like La
Rochefoucauld, a great noble with the liberty of the Fronde in his mind,
but a man of no exalted rank, living in the most absolute period of
Louis the Fourteenth's rule. His remark that 'les grands sujets sont
defendus' is a pregnant one, especially when it is remembered how near
to the 'grands sujets' (as, for instance, in his oblique denunciation of
the misery of the French peasantry) he sometimes goes. But his style,
though looser than that of his forerunner, and destitute of the
character of sharp and enduring sculpture which is impressed on the
_Maxims_, is a model of ease, grace, and fluency without weakness[271].
FOOTNOTES:
[265] He has not recently been re-edited, but a selection was published
in 1822.
[266] Editions of Pascal are numerous, but a complete and definite one
is still wanting. Of the _Pensees_, etc., the editions of Faugere,
Havet, and Rocher may be mentioned; of the _Provinciales_, the edition
of 1867.
[267] Ed. Giraud. 3 vols. Paris, 1866. (A selection only, but containing
almost everything of importance.)
[268] Perhaps Anthony Hamilton should be added, as a channel of
communication with Saint Evremond and some of the seventeenth century
coterie-writers.
[269] Ed. as before noticed. The _Maxims_ have been constantly reprinted
by themselves.
[270] Ed. Servois. Paris, 1865-1882.
[271] Under the head of this chapter, in an exhaustive history, not a
few classes of writers might be ranged. Such are, besides great numbers
of miscellaneous writers of criticism from Corneille in his _Examens_
downwards, the classical commentators, editors, and translators. Few of
these have left a very enduring reputation. In the earlier part of the
century Perrot d'Ablancourt, a fertile translator, may be mentioned. His
work was so free that his versions were called 'les belles infideles,'
but Boileau himself admitted that he was a master of French style. In
the latter part the best-known and perhaps the most remarkable name is
that of the still famous Madame Dacier. Many of the early members of the
Academy, and some who never attained to its ranks, have left a
reputation more anecdotic than strictly literary, such as Menage (a
representative of the class), Cotin, Costar, Bautru, etc. But they can
only be alluded to here. Law also contributed in the person of Patru, a
writer for the most part on professional topics, but occasionally on
literature, who is ranked by Boileau with Perrot d'Ablancourt in respect
of style.
CHAPTER VI.
PHILOSOPHERS.
The history of literature and the history of philosophy touch each other
only at certain points of their course. There are periods (the
nineteenth century itself is perhaps an example) when the study of
philosophy is almost divorced from style. There are others when the two
are intimately wedded. Nowhere is this latter more the case than in the
seventeenth century, and in France. Much of the most excellent writing
of the time was directed to philosophic subjects. But it so happened
that the great reformer of philosophy in France was also the greatest
reformer of her prose style, and that his greatest disciple carried
philosophical writing, as far as style is concerned, to very nearly, if
not quite, the highest pitch which it has yet attained in French. We
shall not have to concern ourselves in more than the very slightest
degree with the subject of the writings of Descartes and Malebranche,
but they have as legitimate a place in the history of French literature
as they have in that of European philosophy.
[Sidenote: Descartes.]
Rene Descartes[272] was born at La Haye in Touraine on the 31st of
March, 1596. His family belonged by descent to the province in which he
was born, but by occupation and official position (as well it would seem
as by possessions) to Britanny. It was of noble rank, though only of
_noblesse de robe_, and possessed enough landed property to leave
estates and territorial designations to two sons. Thus Rene was Seigneur
du Perron, though, quite contrary to the wont of the day, he never made
use of the title. He was of weak health both at this time and
afterwards, and, unlike most of his contemporaries, did not begin his
studies very early. In 1604 he was sent to the Jesuit College of La
Fleche, and remained there nearly eight years. After a short stay at
home he was sent to Paris, where he divided his time between ordinary
pursuits and amusements on the one hand, and hard study on the other. In
1617, when he had just attained his majority, he joined the army as a
volunteer, and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War soon gave him
plenty of employment. He visited various parts of Europe, partly on
duty, partly as an ordinary traveller. First he served for two years at
Breda under Prince Maurice of Nassau, pursuing the same mixture of study
and routine employments. Then he went to Germany, where in his winter
quarters his great philosophical idea, as he has told in memorable
words, flashed across him. He served in various parts of the empire, and
in Hungary and Bohemia, but left the army in 1621 and went to Holland,
experiencing on the way a curious and dangerous adventure. After a year
at the Hague he went home, and was put in possession of his share of his
mother's property. He visited Italy, where he made a pilgrimage to
Loretto, then returned to France, and dwelt in Paris for some time;
resuming however his military character for a while, and serving at the
siege of La Rochelle. At last, in 1628, being then thirty-two years old,
he left the service finally, and gave himself up wholly to the study of
philosophy. For this purpose he retired to Holland, where he was still
somewhat restless[273]. But his chief centres were successively
Amsterdam, Egmond, not far from Alkmaar, and Endegeest, within easy
distance of the Hague. He returned to France more than once, and was
asked to settle at court, receiving from Mazarin a pension of 3000
livres. But the troubles of the Fronde made Paris a distasteful and
unsuitable residence for him. He then accepted, at the end of 1649, an
invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden and went to Stockholm, where
the severe weather and the gracious habit which the queen had of
summoning him for discussion at five o'clock in the morning (he had all
his life when not on active service made a point of not rising till
eleven), put an end to his life, by inflammation of the lungs, on Feb.
11, 1650.
The works of Descartes are numerous, though few of them are of very
great extent. He wrote a treatise (not now extant) on the art of fencing
when he was but sixteen; and during the succeeding years small treatises
on different points, chiefly of mathematics and natural theology,
constantly issued from his pen, though he was not a ready writer. The
works which alone concern us here are his famous _Discours de la
Methode_, 1637, and his letters. The _Meditations_, of equal importance
philosophically with the _Discours_, and the _Principia Philosophiae_, a
rehandling of the two, were originally published in Latin. No attempt
can here be made to give any account of Descartes' mathematical,
physical, and metaphysical speculations, or of the means by which he
endeavoured to work out his great principle, that all knowledge springs
from certain ideas clearly and distinctly conceived, and is deducible
mathematically, or rather logically, from these principles.
Until and including Victor Cousin, who, though his own style has some
drawbacks, was a keen judge and a fervent admirer of the best classical
French, French writers have always regarded the style of Descartes as
one of the most remarkable, and above all the most original in the
language. There cannot be the slightest doubt in the mind of any one
historically acquainted with that language, and accustomed to judge
style critically, that the opinion is a thoroughly sound one. Of late,
however, there have been dissidents, and their opinion has been
strangely adopted by the latest English biographer of Descartes[274].
Controversy as a rule is out of place in these pages, but on this
particular point, involving as it does one of the most important
questions in French literary history--the proper distribution of the
epochs of style--an exception must be made. According to Mr. Mahaffy's
view it is Descartes' few letters to Balzac which have gained him a
reputation for style, but he is 'seldom more than clear and correct;' he
is 'seldom grand, not often amusing.' The temptation to enlarge on this
singular definition of style as that which is grand or amusing must be
resisted. Those who have followed the foregoing pages will perceive
that the refusal to recognise in a writer who is 'seldom more than clear
and correct' (Descartes is a great deal more than this, but no matter)
the characteristics of a master of style arises from ignorance of what
the characteristics and drawbacks of French style had hitherto been.
Prose style may be divided, as conveniently as in any other way, into
the style of description or narration, and the style of discussion or
argument. The former deals with the imagination, with the passions, with
outward events, with conversation; the latter with the reason only. The
former propounds images, the latter ideas. The former constructs a
picture, the latter reduces words to their simplest terms as symbols of
thought. French had been making very rapid progress in the former
division of style, though there was much left to be done; in the latter
it was yet entirely at its rudiments. Before Descartes there are three
masters of this latter style, and three only, Rabelais, Calvin, and
Montaigne. There is little doubt that Rabelais might have anticipated