A Short History of French Literature

was indeed expiring of simple old age, and most of the names of its practitioners, which emerge during the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth century, are those of innovators in their measure and degree, whose innovations, however, were obliterated and made forgotten by the great romantic reform. Marie Joseph Chenier followed Voltaire's manner very closely (substituting for Voltaire's bait of insinuated free-thinking that of republicanism more or less violently expressed) in _Charles IX._, _Cyrus_, _Caius Gracchus_, _Henry VIII._, _Tibere_, the last a work of some merit. Legouve dramatised Gessner's _Death of Abel_ on the principles of Boileau. Nepomucene Lemercier, the strange failure of a genius who has been already noticed in the last chapter, produced much more remarkable work. His _Agamemnon_, his _Fredegonde et Brunehault_ and some others display his merits, and show that he was striving after something better. But, like most transitional work, they are unsatisfactory as a whole. The _Hector_ of Luce de Lancival, the _Templiers_ of Raynouard, and many other pieces, were once popular, but are now utterly forgotten. [Sidenote: Lesage.] The list of comic writers, along with whom, for convenience' sake, those of the authors of opera and _drame_ may be included, is far longer and more important. It includes two men, Lesage and Beaumarchais, of European reputation, half-a-dozen others, Destouches, Marivaux, Piron, Gresset, Sedaine, who have produced work of remarkable character and merit, and a crowd of clever playwrights who amused their own times, and would amuse ours, if it were not that all comedy, save the very highest, is of its nature ephemeral. The list is worthily opened by Lesage, who, during the greater part of his life, earned by vaudevilles and operettas, composed either alone or in co-operation for the Theatre de la Foire, the bread which his incomparable novels would hardly have sufficed to procure him. This lighter dramatic work is, it may be observed, among the chief products of the century, and it has continued up to the present day to form one of the staple elements in the journey-work of French literature. Little of it has permanent qualities, yet the remarkable talents of many of the men who composed it make it, ephemeral as it is, interesting historically and even intrinsically. It derived partly from the indigenous farce, partly from the Italian comedy of stock personages, and partly from the merry-andrew performances already mentioned. The theatres at which it was performed were the object of much jealousy from the Comedie Francaise, and restrictions of the most annoying kind were placed on it. Once an edict forbade more than a single actor to appear--a condition surmounted by the ingenuity of Piron. Sometimes it was confined to dumb show, illustrated by songs on placards which the audience chanted. Often the audience joined in the chorus, and it may be said generally that singing was always included. Besides this rapid and perishable kind of work Lesage has left two pieces in the true style of Moliere. The more extravagant and farcical side of the master's genius is represented by _Crispin Rival de son Maitre_, 1707, a lively piece, the subject of which is indicated by its title, and which carries off the extreme and probably intentional improbability of its plot by its brisk and rapid action, its vivid pictures of character, and the shower of wit which the dialogue everywhere pours out. _Turcaret_, 1709, is a regular comedy of the highest merit. It has been found fault with by some French critics, enamoured of the ruling passion and central situation theory; but this is really a testimony to its merit. _Turcaret_ is in the strictest sense a criticism of life at the time, and the author shows the true prodigality of genius in filling his canvas. It is often described as a satire on the corruption and vices of the financiers, who were the curse of France at the time; and this it is in part. But there are combined with this satire of the loose morals of the nobility, the follies of provincial coteries, the meanness of the trading classes; while each character, instead of being an abstraction, is as sharp and individual as Gil Blas himself. Like Lesage, Piron worked much for the theatre; indeed he made his _debut_, as has been said, by venturing on a task which even Lesage had declined,--the writing of a comic opera with a single actor only. Like Lesage, too, he has left one comedy of durable reputation, _La Metromanie_, which, if it falls short of _Turcaret_ in holding up the mirror to nature, equals it in wit, and has for a French audience the attraction of being written in very good verse, while _Turcaret_ is in prose. With perhaps less genius than Piron, and certainly with less than Lesage, Destouches devoted himself to a higher class of work on the whole, and has left more pieces that are remembered. _Le Philosophe Marie_, 1727, and _Le Glorieux_, 1732, are among the classics of French comedy. _Le Dissipateur_, _Le Tambour Nocturne_, _L'Obstacle Imprevu_ have also much merit; and if _La Fausse Agnes_ has something of the farcical in it, it is farce of the right kind. Destouches wrote seventeen comedies; and, if bulk and general merit of work are taken together, he deserves the first place among the comic dramatists of the century in France. [Sidenote: Comedie Larmoyante. La Chaussee. Diderot.] In contrast to these three writers, who all followed the traditions of the comedy of Moliere and Regnard, Nivelle de la Chaussee invented, or at least brought into fashion, what was called _comedie larmoyante_, or _drame_. La Chaussee was a good deal ridiculed by his contemporaries, notably by Piron, who devoted to him some of his most admirable epigrams. But he was popular, and not altogether undeservedly popular, though his drama occupied in French literary history something of the same place as that of Lillo and Moore in English. La Chaussee was followed by a greater writer, but a worse dramatist, than himself. While La Chaussee was a clever versifier and an adroit playwright, Diderot understood the theory both of poetry and of the theatre much better than he understood the practice. Thus _L'Ecole des Meres_, _La Gouvernante_, _Le Prejuge a la Mode_ are better plays than _Le Pere de Famille_ or _Le Fils Naturel_. It ought to be said that Diderot succeeded better in two small pieces, _La Piece et le Prologue_ and _Est-il Bon? Est-il Mechant?_ which were never acted. It should perhaps also be explained that the peculiarity of what was almost indifferently called _tragedie bourgeoise_ and _comedie larmoyante_ is the choice of possible situations in real life, which neither of the two conventional treatments of heroic tragedy and comedy purely comic can afford. Many writers followed La Chaussee and Diderot. Of these the most important perhaps was Saurin, who, not content with regular tragedy and comedy, obtained much success with _Beverley_, an adaptation of Moore's _Gamester_, of which Diderot wrote an unacted version. _L'Ecole des Bourgeois_ and _L'Embarras des Richesses_, by D'Allainval, one of the few French writers who experienced the privations of their English contemporaries in Grub Street, are good pieces, and so are the short _La Pupille_ and the _Originaux_ of Fagan, a clerk in the public service, who, like Lesage and Piron (Colle and Panard may be added), wrote vaudevilles, _parades_, etc. for the Theatre de la Foire. In the titles of most of these pieces the close following of Moliere, which was usual, and wisely usual, during the first half of the century, may be noticed. [Sidenote: Marivaux.] The same tradition is observed in one of the best comedies of the century, the _Mechant_ of Gresset, which, like his poem of _Ver-Vert_, had a great success, and deserved it, being equally good as literature and as drama. Marivaux, without, perhaps, attaining as positive an excellence, was more original, and very much more productive. The fullest edition of his dramatic works contains thirty-two pieces, and even this is not complete. Several of them, _Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard_, 1730, _Le Legs_, 1736, _Les Fausses Confidences_, 1737, have continued to be popular. All the work of Marivaux, dramatic and non-dramatic, is pervaded more or less by a peculiarity which at the time received the name of Marivaudage. This peculiarity consists partly in the sentiment, and partly in the phraseology. The former is characteristic of the eighteenth century, disguising a considerable affectation under a mask of simplicity, and the latter (sparkling with abundant, if somewhat precious wit) is ingeniously constructed to suit it and carry it off. Of the three greatest literary names of the time, Diderot, it has been seen, tried the theatre not too happily. Voltaire, as successful in tragedy as his models permitted him to be, was not successful at all in comedy, and, indeed, rarely tried it. His best piece, _Nanine_, a dramatisation of _Pamela_, or at least suggested by it, is chiefly remarkable for being written in decasyllabic verse. The third, Rousseau, who lived to denounce the theatre, wrote a short operetta, _Le Devin du Village_, which is not without merit. Desmahis, a protege of Voltaire, produced, in 1750, a good comedy, _L'Impertinent_, on a small scale; and La Noue, another of his favourites (for he was as indulgent to his juniors as he was jealous of men of his own standing), the _Coquette Corrigee_. A third member of the same class, Saurin, already twice mentioned, must be mentioned again, and still more deservedly, for _Les Moeurs du Temps_. The best dramatists, however, among the immediate followers of the _Philosophes_ were Sedaine and Marmontel. Sedaine is, indeed, with the possible exception of Beaumarchais, the best dramatist of the last half of the century. _Le Philosophe sans le Savoir_, 1765, and _La Gageure Imprevue_, 1768, are both admirable pieces. The author, like many of his predecessors, was a constant worker for the Opera Comique, and one of the best of the class. Marmontel also adopted this line of composition, to which the musical talent of Gretry gave, at the time, great advantages. His best light dramatic work is a kind of comedy vaudeville, the _Ami de la Maison_. [Sidenote: Beaumarchais.] Beyond all doubt, however, the most remarkable, if not the best, dramatist of the late eighteenth century is Beaumarchais. Some critics have seen in the enormous success of the _Barbier de Seville_, 1775, and the _Mariage de Figaro_, 1784, nothing but a _succes de circonstance_ connected with the political ideas which were then fermenting in men's minds. This seems to be unjust, or rather it is unjust not to recognise something very like genius in the manner in which the author has succeeded in shaping his subject, without choosing a specially political one, so as to produce the effect acknowledged. The wit of these two plays, moreover, is indisputable. But it may be allowed that Beaumarchais' other productions are inferior, and that his _Memoires_, which are not dramatic at all, contain as much wit as the Figaro plays. As a satirist of society and a contributor of illustrations to history, Beaumarchais must always hold a very high place, higher perhaps than as an artist in literature. Of his life, it is enough to say that he was born in 1731; became music master to the daughters of Louis XV.; engaged in a law-suit, the subject of the _Memoires_, with some high legal functionaries; made a fortune by speculating and by contracts in the American war, and lost it by further speculations, one of which was the preparation of a sumptuous edition of Voltaire. Besides the Figaro