A Short History of French Literature
peculiar union of heterodoxy and caution, 'I may have my fist full of
truth, and yet only care to open my little finger,' may be immoral or
not, but it expressed very early, and with singular force, the
intellectual attitude of two whole generations.
[Sidenote: La Motte.]
Inseparable from Fontenelle's name in literary history, as the two were
long closely united in life, is the name of La Motte. La Motte was a
much younger man than Fontenelle, and he died more than thirty years
before him, but during the first thirty years of the century the pair
exercised a kind of joint sovereignty in the Belles Lettres. They
revived the quarrel of the ancients and moderns, inclining to the modern
side. But La Motte's translation of Homer, or rather his adaptation (for
he omitted about half), is not of a nature to inspire much confidence in
his ability to judge the matter, though his essays and letters on the
subject are triumphs of ingenious word-fence. Unlike Fontenelle, La
Motte had one considerable dramatic success with the pathetic subject of
_Ines de Castro_, and his fables are not devoid of merit. It was,
however, as a prose writer of the occasional kind, and especially as a
paradoxical essayist, that he earned and deserved most fame, his prose
style being superior to Fontenelle's own.
[Sidenote: Vauvenargues.]
The next name deserving of mention belongs to a very different writer.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, covered in his brief space of
life not a third of the period allotted to Fontenelle, who was nearly
sixty when Vauvenargues was born, and outlived him ten years. Nor did he
leave any single work of consequence. Yet his scanty writings are far
more valuable in matter, if not in form, than those of the witty
centenarian. Vauvenargues was born at Aix, in Provence, on the 6th of
August, 1715. His family was ancient and honourable, but appears to have
been poor, and his education was interrupted by the bad health which
continued throughout his short life. Nevertheless he entered the army at
the age of eighteen. After this he had scanty opportunities of study,
and it is said that he was ignorant not only of Greek but even of Latin.
He served at first in Italy, and then for some years was employed on
garrison duty. At the outbreak of the war of the Austrian succession his
regiment was sent into Germany, and he had a full share of the hardships
of the Bohemian campaign. No promotion came to him, his means were
almost exhausted, and in 1744 he resigned his commission, after taking
the curiously unworldly step of writing directly to the king, asking for
a place in the diplomatic service. An application to the minister of
foreign affairs was not much more successful, and Vauvenargues, whose
evil star pursued him, had no sooner established himself with his family
than a bad attack of small-pox destroyed the little health he still had.
He set to work, however, to write, and in the short time before his
death actually published some of his works, and left others in a
condition ready for publication. He lived in Paris for the last three
years of his life, and died in 1747, at the age of thirty-two. Latterly
he had made acquaintance with Voltaire, who entertained a very high and
generous opinion of his talents, due perhaps partly to the remarkable
difference of their respective characters and points of view.
Vauvenargues' principal work is an _Introduction a la Connoissance de
l'Esprit Humain_, besides which he left a considerable number of maxims,
reflections, etc., on points of ethics and of literary criticism. In the
last part of his work there is more curiosity than instruction. It is,
however, in its way an instructive thing to see that a man of talent and
even of genius could object to Moliere for having chosen _des sujets
trop bas_, while he speaks of Boileau in the most enthusiastic terms.
The truth (and in the history of literature it is a very important
truth) is that Vauvenargues was too little versed in any language but
his own to have the requisite range of comparison necessary for literary
criticism, and that his real interest in literature was almost entirely
proportioned to its bearing upon conduct. His maxims, his _Connoissance
de l'Esprit_, his _Conseils a un Jeune Homme_, etc., are all occupied
almost entirely with questions of morality. Vauvenargues (and in this he
was remarkable) stood entirely aloof from the sceptical movement of his
age. There was, indeed, a certain scepticism in him, as in almost all
thinkers, but it was of the stamp of Pascal's, not in the least mocking
or polemical, and even, as compared with Pascal's own, much less
strictly theological. In most of his writings he shows himself an
earnest and upright man, profoundly convinced of the importance of right
conduct, gifted with an acute perception of its usual moving springs and
directions, not remarkable for humour or poetical feeling, but serious,
sober, and a little stoical. His literary characteristics reflect some
of these peculiarities, and also betray something of his neglected
education. He is never slovenly in thought, but he sometimes shocked the
exact verbal critics of the eighteenth century by such phrases as 'les
sens sont flattes d'agir, de galoper un cheval,' whereupon his censor
annotates 'neglige. Les sens ne galopent pas un cheval.' A more serious
fault is that, in his shorter maxims especially, he does not observe the
rule of absolute lucidity which La Rochefoucauld, who was as much his
model in point of style as he was his opposite in general views, never
breaks through. His sayings (it is a merit as well as a drawback) are
often rather suggestive than expressive; they remind the reader of his
own curious comparison of Corneille with Racine, 'les heros de Corneille
disent souvent de grandes choses sans les inspirer; ceux de Racine les
inspirent sans les dire.'
[Sidenote: D'Aguesseau.]
Contemporary with Fontenelle and La Motte was the Chancellor
D'Aguesseau, one of the most prominent figures of the earlier reign of
Louis XV., a steady defender of orthodoxy--yet, as was seen in the case
of the Encyclopaedia, willing to assist enlightenment--a man of
irreproachable character, and a writer of some merit. D'Aguesseau was
born in 1668, and died in 1751. He early received considerable
preferment in the law, and held the seals at intervals for the greater
part of the last thirty years of his life. He was a defender of
Gallicanism--indeed, he was suspected of Jansenist leanings--and a man
of great benevolence in private life. His legal and historical learning
was immense, and he was not without some tincture of science. He
deserves a place here chiefly for his speeches on public occasions,
which were in effect elaborate moral essays. An important part of them
consists of what were called _Mercuriales_ (that is to say, discourses
pronounced on certain Wednesdays (Die Mercurii) by the first president
of the Parliament of Paris) on the abuses of the day, the duties of
judges, the nature of justice, and similar subjects.
[Sidenote: Duclos.]
Another writer, who has been mentioned more than once before, held
somewhat aloof from the Encyclopaedists, though he was not, like
D'Aguesseau, definitely orthodox, or, like Vauvenargues, severely moral.
Charles Pinaud Duclos was one of the most miscellaneous of the
miscellaneous writers of the time. He held the office of historiographer
royal, and produced some remarkable works of the historical kind, one of
which has been noticed. He composed novels in a fanciful style midway
between Crebillon and Marivaux. He also wrote on grammar, but some of
his best work consists of short academic essays, and of a moral study
called _Considerations sur les Moeurs de Notre Temps_, which is both
well written and shows discernment. Duclos' character has been somewhat
variously represented, but the unfavourable reports (which are in the
minority) may probably be traced to the studied brusqueness of his
manners, and to his unwillingness to make common cause with the
_philosophe_ coterie, though, if some stories are to be believed, he
often conversed and argued quite in their style.
[Sidenote: Marmontel.]
Yet another typical figure of the same numerous class is Jean Francois
Marmontel, one of the most eminent professional men of letters of the
second class. Marmontel's moral tales, his _Belisaire_, and his plays
have already been noticed, but his main place in literature is that of a
journalist and critic. He was born at Bort, in the district of Limoges,
in 1723, and obtained some provincial reputation in letters. Introduced
to Voltaire in 1746, he began as a dramatist, and, after some failures,
acquired the protection of Madame de Pompadour. He was made editor of
the _Mercure_, which gave him an influential position and a competence.
He afterwards succeeded Duclos as historiographer, notwithstanding the
outcry which had been made against his _Belisaire_. He had contributed
almost all the minor articles on literary subjects to the Encyclopaedia,
and these were collected and published as _Elements de Litterature_ in
1787. He died in 1799. The _Elements de Litterature_ are, with the
_Cours de Litterature_ of La Harpe, the chief source of information as
to eighteenth-century criticism of the fashionable kind in France. They
are very voluminous, and, from the circumstances of their original form,
deal with a vast number of subjects. The style is for the most part
simple and good, destitute alike of the dryness and of the bombast which
were the two faults of contemporary writing. But Marmontel's system of
criticism will not bear a moment's examination. It consists simply in
the assumption that Racine, Boileau (though he was at first recalcitrant
to Boileau, and had to be admonished by Voltaire that _ca porte
malheur_), and their contemporaries are infallible models, and in the
application of this principle to all other nations. The passion for
finding plausible general reasons also leads Marmontel into grotesque
aberrations, as where he gives three reasons for English success in
poetry as contrasted with our inferiority in the other arts. First,
Englishmen, loving glory, saw early that poetry acquired glory for a
nation. Secondly, being naturally given to sadness and meditation, they
wish for emotions to distract and move them. Thirdly, their genius is
proper to poetry. This last remark, the reader should observe, comes
from a countryman of Moliere, a man who must have read the _Malade
Imaginaire_, and who was moreover a man of much more than ordinary
talent. Marmontel often has acute remarks, and his blunders and
absurdities are rather symptomatic of the false state in which criticism
was at the time than of individual shortcomings.
[Sidenote: La Harpe.]
Somewhat younger than Marmontel was La Harpe, who pursued the same lines
of dramatic poetry and literary criticism, the latter with more success
in his kind, so much so, that Malherbe, Boileau, and he may be ranked
together as the three representatives of the infancy, flourishing, and
decadence of the 'classical' theory of literary criticism in France. La
Harpe was born at Paris in 1739, was brought up by charity, gained a
reputation as a brilliant exhibitioner at the College d'Harcourt, and,
after the mishap of being imprisoned for a libel, obtained new success
at the Academy competitions. He acquired the favour of Voltaire, and
fairly launched himself in literature. For many years he furnished
tragedies to the stage, and criticised the literary work of others with
a singular mixture of acuteness, pedantry, and ill-temper. He was
converted from Republicanism by an imprisonment during the Terror, and
became a violent conservative and defender of orthodoxy. He died in