A Short History of French Literature
isolated expressions betray at once an intimate knowledge of the human
heart, and a hardly surpassed faculty of clothing that knowledge in
words. Bossuet no doubt is more of a speaker than a writer. His
excellence lies in the wonderful survey, and grasp of the subject
(qualities which make his favourite literary nickname of the 'Eagle of
Meaux' more than usually appropriate), in the contagious enthusiasm and
energy with which he attacks his point, in his inexhaustible metaphors
and comparisons. He has not the unfailing charm of Malebranche, nor that
which belongs in a less degree, and with more mannerism, to Fenelon; he
is very unequal, and small blemishes of style abound in him. Thus, in
his most famous passage, the description of the sudden death of
Henrietta of Orleans, occurs the phrase 'comme un coup de _tonnerre_
cette _etonnante_ nouvelle,' a jingle of words as unpleasant as it is
easily avoided. But blemishes of this kind (and it is, perhaps,
noteworthy that French is more tolerant of them than almost any other
language of equal literary perfection) disappear in the volume and force
of the torrent of Bossuet's eloquence. It is fair to add that, though he
is almost always aiming at the sublime, he scarcely ever oversteps it,
or falls into the bombastic and the ridiculous. Even his elaborate
eulogy (it would hardly be fair to call it flattery) of the great is so
cunningly balanced by exposition of the nothingness of men and things,
that it does not strike the mind's eye with any immediate sense of
glaring impropriety. The lack of formal perfection which is sometimes
noticeable in him is made up to a greater degree almost than in any
other writer by the intense force and conviction of the speaker and the
imposing majesty of his manner. It is pretty certain that most attempts
to imitate Bossuet would result in a lamentable failure; and it is not a
little significant that the only two Frenchmen who in prose have shown
themselves occasionally his rivals, Michelet and Lamennais, are among
the most unequal of writers.
[Sidenote: Fenelon.]
The contrast between Bossuet and his chief rival was in all respects
great. To begin with, Fenelon was a much younger man than Bossuet,
belonging it might be said almost to another generation. He inherited
some of the noblest blood in France, while Bossuet was but a _roturier_,
and this may have had something to do with the more independent
character of Fenelon. Bossuet was a vigorous student of certain defined
branches of knowledge, but of general literature he took little heed.
Fenelon was a man of almost universal reading, and one of the most
original and soundest literary critics of his time. Fenelon felt deeply
for the misery of the French people; Bossuet does not appear to have
troubled himself about it. Finally Bossuet, with all his merits, had
grave faults of moral character, while to Fenelon--quite as justly as to
Berkeley--every virtue under heaven may be assigned. Francois de
Salignac de la Mothe-Fenelon[280] was born at the castle of the same
name in the province of Perigord, on August 16th, 1661. He was educated
first at home, then at Cahors, and then at the College de Plessis at
Paris. He finally studied in a theological seminary for some years, and
did not formally enter the Church till he was four-and-twenty. He then
devoted himself partly to the poor, partly to education, especially of
girls, and his treatise on this latter subject was his first work. In
1687 he was appointed preceptor to the Duke de Bourgogne, son of
Bossuet's pupil, and heir to the throne. For the duke he wrote a great
number of books, among them _Telemaque_ (or at least the first sketch of
it). In 1697 he was appointed archbishop of Cambray. Into his connection
with Madame Guyon, the celebrated apostle of quietism, and his
consequent quarrel with Bossuet, there is no need to enter further.
Whichever of the two may have been theologically in the right, there are
no two opinions on the question that Bossuet was in the wrong, both in
the acrimony of his conduct and the violence of his language. In the
latter respect, indeed, he brought down upon himself a well-deserved
punishment. Fenelon was the mildest of men, but he possessed a faculty
of quiet irony inferior to that of no man then living, and he used it
with effect in the controversy against Bossuet's declamatory
denunciations. When, at last, the matter had been referred to the Pope,
and judgment had been given against himself, Fenelon at once bowed to
the decision and acknowledged his error. Louis, however, had many more
reasons for disliking him than the mere odium theologicum with which
Bossuet had inspired him. Fenelon was known to disapprove of much in the
actual government of France, and the surreptitious publication of
_Telemaque_ completed his disgrace. He was banished from court and
confined to his diocese, in which he accordingly spent the last part of
his life, doing his best to alleviate the misery caused on the borders
by the war of the Spanish succession, and dying at Cambray in 1715.
Fenelon was an industrious writer. Few of his finished sermons have been
preserved; but these are excellent, as are also his fables written for
the Duke de Bourgogne, his already-mentioned _Education des Filles_, and
his _Dialogues des Morts_, also written for the Duke, in which the form
is borrowed from Lucian, but in which moral lessons are substituted for
mere satire. Like Bossuet, Fenelon was a Cartesian, and his _Traite de
l'Existence de Dieu_ is a philosophico-religious work of no small merit.
In literary history he is remarkable for having directly opposed the
victorious work of Boileau. He has left several exercises in literary
criticism, such as his _Lettre sur les Occupations de l'Academie
Francaise_, one of the latest of his works; his _Dialogues sur
l'Eloquence_, and a contribution to the famous dispute of ancients and
moderns in correspondence with La Motte. He regretted the impoverishment
of the language, and the loss of much of the energy and picturesque
vigour of the sixteenth century. In his controversy with Bossuet, though
the matter is not strictly literary, there is, as has been noticed, much
admirable literary work; but his chief claim to a place in literary
history is, of course, _Telemaque_, which work he had anticipated by the
somewhat similar _Aventures d'Aristonous_. It has often been regretted
that classics in any language should be used for purposes of instruction
in the rudiments, and hardly any single work has suffered more from this
practice than _Telemaque_, for learners of French are usually set to
read it long before they have any power of literary appreciation. A
continuous narrative, moreover, is about the least suited of all
literary forms to bear that process of cutting up in short pieces which
is necessary in education. The pleasure of the story is either lost
altogether, or anticipated by surreptitious reading on the part of the
pupil, after which the mechanical plodding through matter of which he
has already exhausted the interest is disgusting enough. Yet it can
hardly be doubted that if _Telemaque_ had not, in the case of most
readers, this fatal disadvantage, its beauties would be generally
acknowledged. Its form is somewhat artificial, and the author has,
perhaps, not escaped the error of most moral fiction writers, that of
making his hero too much of a model of what ought to be, and too little
of a copy of what is. But the story is excellently managed, the various
incidents are drawn with remarkable vividness and picturesqueness, the
descriptions are uniformly excellent, and the style is almost
impeccable. Even were the moral sentiments and the general tendency of
the book less excellent than they are, its value as a model of French
composition would probably have secured it something like its present
place side by side with La Fontaine's Fables as a school-book. It is
fair to add that in the character of Calypso, where the need of the
author for a 'terrible example' freed him from his restraints, very
considerable powers of character-drawing are shown, and the same may be
said of not a few of the minor personages.
[Sidenote: Massillon.]
The third greatest name of the period in this class of men of letters
is beyond all question that of Massillon. He, like Fenelon, belongs to
the second, if not the third, generation of the Siecle de Louis
Quatorze, being nearly forty years younger than Bossuet. He was a long
liver, and his death did not occur till far into the reign of Louis XV.,
when the reputation of Voltaire was established, and the
eighteenth-century movement was in full swing. But his literary and
oratorical activity had ceased for nearly a quarter of a century at the
time of his death. Jean Baptiste Massillon[281] was a native of Hieres,
and was born on June 24, 1663. His father was a notary, and he himself
was destined for the same profession; but his vocation for the Church
was strong, and he was at last permitted to enter the Oratorian
Congregation. His aptitude for preaching was soon discovered, and when
very young he distinguished himself by _Oraisons Funebres_ on the
archbishops of Lyons and Vienne. He was of a retiring disposition, and,
wishing to avoid publicity, joined a stricter order than that of the
Oratory, but was induced, and indeed ordered, by the Cardinal de
Noailles, who heard him preach in his new abode, not to hide his light
under a bushel, but to come to Paris and do the Church service. He
obeyed, and was established in the capital in 1696. His fame soon became
great, and he preached before the king more than one course of sermons.
He was appointed bishop of Clermont in 1717, and in the same year
preached the celebrated _Petit Careme_, or course of Lent sermons,
before Louis XV. In 1719 he was elected of the Academy. He preached his
last sermon at Paris in 1723, and then retired to his diocese, where he
spent the last twenty years of his life, dying of apoplexy at the age of
eighty, Sept. 28, 1742.
Massillon has usually, and justly, been considered the greatest
preacher, in the strict sense of the word, of France. Only Bossuet and
Bourdaloue could contest this position; and though both preceded him,
and he owed much to both, he excels both in sermons properly so called.
Bossuet was, perhaps, a greater orator, if the finest parts of his work
only are taken; but he was, as has been said, unequal, and in the two
great objects of the preacher, exposition of doctrine and effect upon
the consciences of his hearers, he was admittedly inferior to Massillon.
The latter, moreover, has, of all French preachers (for Fenelon, it must
be remembered, has left but few sermons), the purest style, and
possesses the greatest range. His special function was considered to be
persuasion; yet few pulpit orators have managed the sterner parts of
their duty more forcibly. Massillon's sermon on the Prodigal Son, and
that on the Deaths of the Just and the Unjust, are models of his style.
It is, moreover, very much to his credit that he was the most
uncompromising, despite his gentleness, of all the great preachers of
the time, and, therefore, the least popular at court. Louis the
Fourteenth's famous epigram, to the effect that other preachers made him
contented with them, but Massillon made him discontented with himself,
was somewhat comically illustrated by the fact that, after the second
course of sermons preached before him, that of Lent 1704, the preacher,
though then in the very height of his powers, was never asked again to
preach at court. We are, however, more concerned with the manner than
with the matter of his orations. He had (after the example of
Bourdaloue, it is true) entirely discarded the frippery of erudition