A Short History of French Literature
Catholics alike, and though he was nominally a Cartesian, he was equally
far from yielding an implicit belief to the doctrines of Descartes. His
most famous work is the reverse of methodical. The subjects are chosen
almost at random, and are very frequently nothing but pegs on which to
hang notes and digressions in which the author indulges his critical and
dissolvent faculty. Nor is the style by any means a model. But it is
lively, clear, and interesting, and no doubt had a good deal to do with
the vast popularity of his book in the eighteenth century. Bayle had a
strong influence on Voltaire, and though he had less to do with his
follower's style than Saint Evremond and Pascal, he is nearer to him in
spirit than either. The difference perhaps may be said to be that
Bayle's pleasure in negative criticism is almost purely intellectual.
There is but little in him of the half-childish mischievousness which
distinguishes Voltaire.
[Sidenote: Malebranche.]
Cartesianism was not less likely than its opposites to lead to
philosophical scepticism, but in the main its professors, taking their
master's conduct for model, remained orthodox. In that case, however,
the Cartesian idealism had a tendency to pass into mysticism. Of those
in whom it took this form Nicolas Malebranche[278] was the unquestioned
chief. He was born at Paris, where his father held a lucrative office;
in 1638, and from his birth had very feeble health. When he was of age
he became an Oratorian, and passed the whole of his long life in study
and literary work, sometimes being engaged in controversies on the
compatibility of his system--the famous 'Vision in God,' and 'Spiritual
Existence in God'--with orthodoxy, but never receiving any formal
censure from the Church. Despite his bad health he lived to the age of
seventy-seven, dying in 1715. A curious story is told of a verbal
argument between him and Berkeley on the eve of his death. He wrote
several works in French, such as a _Traite de Morale_, _Conversations
Metaphysiques_, etc., but his greatest and most remarkable contribution
to French literature is his _Recherche de la Verite_, published in 1674,
which unfolds his system. From the literary point of view the
_Recherche_ is one of the most considerable books of the philosophical
class ever produced. Unlike the various works of Descartes it is of very
great length, filling three volumes in the original edition, and a
thousand pages of close type in the most handy modern reprint. It also
deals with subjects of an exceedingly abstract character, and is not
diversified by any elaborate illustrations, any machinery like that of
Plato or Berkeley, or any passages of set eloquence. The purity and
beauty of the style, however, and its extraordinary lucidity, make it a
book of which it is difficult to tire. The chief mechanical difference
between the style of Malebranche and that of his master is that his
sentences are shorter. They are, however, framed with equal care as to
rhythm and to logical arrangement. The metaphor of limpidity is very
frequently applied to style, but perhaps there is hardly any to which it
may be applied with such propriety as to the style of Malebranche.
FOOTNOTES:
[272] Not fully edited yet. Cousin's edition is the fullest, but the
important French works figure in many popular collections and are easily
accessible.
[273] He was 'as restless as a hyaena,' says De Quincey, not unjustly.
[274] Professor Mahaffy, _Descartes_. Blackwood, 1880.
[275] 'La philosophie donne moyen de parler vraisemblablement de toutes
choses, et se faire admirer des moins savants.'
[276] Sainte-Beuve, _Port Royal_. 6 vols. Paris, 1859-61.
[277] These men, such as Saint Ibal, Bardouville, Desbarreaux, and
others, figure largely in the anecdotic history of the time. In the
persons of Theophile and Saint Evremond they touch on literature: but
for the most part they were chiefly distinguished by revolting
coarseness and blasphemy of expression, and by a childish delight in
outraging religious sentiment, which was often changed into abject
terror or hypocritical compliance as death approached. They were
commonly called _philosophes_, a degradation of the word which was not
much mended in the next century, though it then acquired a more strictly
literary meaning.
[278] Ed. Simon. 1854.
CHAPTER VII.
THEOLOGIANS AND PREACHERS.
There is no period in the whole course of French literature in which
theological writers and orators contribute so much to literary history
as in the seventeenth century. The causes of this energy can only be
summarily indicated here. They were the various _sequelae_ of the
Reformation and the counter-reformation, the latter of which was in
France extraordinarily powerful; the influence of Richelieu and Mazarin
in politics, which assured to the Church a great predominance in the
State, while its rival, the territorial aristocracy, was depressed and
persecuted; the personal inclination of Louis XIV., who made up for his
loose manner of life by the straitest doctrinal orthodoxy; but perhaps
most of all the accidental determination of various men of great talents
and energy to the ecclesiastical profession. Bossuet, Fenelon,
Bourdaloue, Massillon, Flechier, Mascaron, Claude, Saurin, to name no
others, could hardly have failed to distinguish themselves in any
department of literature which they had chosen. Circumstances of
accident threw them into work more or less wholly theological.
[Sidenote: St. Francois de Sales.]
This peculiarity of the century, however, belongs chiefly to its third
and fourth quarters. The first preacher and theologian of literary
eminence in this period belongs about equally to it and to the
preceding, but his most remarkable work dates from this time. Francois
de Sales was born at Annecy in 1567. He was destined for the law, and
completed his education for it at Paris, but his vocation for the church
was stronger, and he took orders in 1593. He soon distinguished himself
by reconverting a considerable number of persons to the Roman form of
faith in the district of Chablais, and at the beginning of the
seventeenth century preached at Paris, and latterly at Dijon. He was
soon made bishop of Geneva, an episcopate which, it need hardly be said,
might almost be described as _in partibus infidelium_. But in the south
of France, in Savoy, and in Paris itself, his influence was great. His
chief works are the 'Introduction to a Devout Life' (1608), the _Traite
de l'Amour de Dieu_, 'Spiritual Letters' (to Madame de Chantal), and
sermons. His style is by no means destitute of archaism, but it is
clear, fluent, and agreeable. He and Fenouillet, bishop of Marseilles,
with other preachers whose names are now forgotten, were the chief
instruments in recovering the art of sacred oratory from the low estate
into which it had fallen during the heat of the religious wars and the
League, when it had been disgraced alternately by violence and
buffoonery. But the Thirty Years' War and the Fronde were again
unfavourable to theological discussion, except of a quasi-political
kind, and the best spirits of this time threw themselves into the
unpopular direction of Jansenism. The 'Siecle de Louis Quatorze' proper,
that is the period subsequent to 1660, was the palmy time, from the
literary point of view, of theological eloquence and discussion in
France.
[Sidenote: Bossuet.]
Of the authors already named Bossuet deserves precedence in almost every
respect except that of private character. Jacques Benigne Bossuet[279]
was born at Dijon, in 1627, of a family of distinction in the middle
class. He went to school to the Jesuits in his native town, and finished
his education at the College de Navarre in Paris, receiving his doctor's
degree and a canonry at Metz in 1652. He soon distinguished himself both
as an orator and a controversialist, preached before the king in Advent
1661, and in 1669 was appointed to the bishopric of Condom. His
subsequent appointment to the post of tutor to the Dauphin made him
resign his bishopric; but on the completion of his task (in virtue of
which he had been elected to the Academy in 1680) he was made almoner to
the prince, and in the following year received the bishopric of Meaux.
He was soon after engaged in the Gallican controversy, in which he
defended not so much the rights of the Church as the claims of the royal
prerogative. The most unfortunate incident of his life was his
controversy with Fenelon. Bossuet, though thoroughly learned in some
respects, was not a man of the widest culture, and the whole region of
mystical theology was unknown to him. He, therefore, mistook certain
utterances of the archbishop of Cambray, which were neither new nor
alarming, for heterodox innovations, and began a violent polemic against
him. Supported by the king, he was able to obtain a nominal victory, but
the moral success rested with Fenelon, and still more the advantage in
the literary duel. Bossuet died in 1704. His works were very numerous,
and of very various kinds. His first reputation was, as has been said,
earned as a controversialist (his principal adversaries in this respect
were the Protestant ministers Ferri and Claude) and as a preacher on
general subjects. On his appointment to the see of Condom, however, he
struck out a new line, that of funeral discourses (_oraisons funebres_),
and produced, on the occasions of the death of the two Henriettas of
England, mother and daughter, of the great Conde, of the
Princess-Palatine, and of others, works which are undoubtedly triumphs
of French eloquence, and which, with the exception of the best passages
of Burke, are perhaps the only things of the kind comparable to the
masterpieces of antiquity. His controversial work is equal in perfection
of execution to his oratory, the _Exposition de la Doctrine de l'Eglise
Catholique_, and still more the _Histoire des Variations des Eglises
Protestantes_, being deservedly regarded as models of their kind,
notwithstanding the obvious fallacy pervading the latter. Of his other
works the most remarkable (perhaps the most remarkable of all if
originality of conception and breadth of design be taken into account)
is his _Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle jusqu'a l'Empire de
Charlemagne_. This has, though not universally, been held to be the
first attempt at the philosophy of history, that is to say, the first
work in which general history is regarded and expounded from a single
comprehensive point of view, and laws of a universal kind drawn from it.
In Bossuet's case the point of view is, of course, strictly theological,
and the laws are arranged accordingly.
Bossuet's character was unamiable, and, despite the affected frankness
with which he spoke to the king, it will always remain a blot on his
memory that he did not seriously protest either against the loose life
of Louis, or against his ruinous ambition and lawless disregard of the
rights of nations. There is, however, no doubt whatever of his perfect
sincerity and of the genuineness of his belief in political autocracy,
provided that the autocrat was a faithful son of the Church. He was a
Cartesian, and was probably not unindebted to Descartes for the force
and vigour of his reasonings, though he was hardly so careful as his
master in enlarging the field of his knowledge and assuring the validity
of his premises. The extraordinary majesty of his rhetoric, perhaps,
brings out by force of contrast the occasionally fallacious character of
his reasoning, but it must be confessed that even as a controversialist
he has few equals. The rhetorical excellence of the _Oraisons_ and the
gorgeous sweep, not merely of the language but of the conception, in the
_Histoire Universelle_, show him at what is really his best; while many