A Short History of French Literature

In a rank not much below those mentioned must be placed the so-called Mémoires de Vieilleville, the Chronologies of Palma-Cayet, the Registres-Journaux of Pierre de l'Estoile, the Letters of Duplessis-Mornay, Cardinal d'Ossat, and Henri IV. himself, and the Négotiations of the President Jeannin.

Vieilleville.

The Maréchal de Vieilleville was one of the foremost French generals of the sixteenth century, and, considering the violent and unscrupulous ways of the time, he had a good reputation for moderation, probity, and patriotism, as well as for courage and ability. His Memoirs are not his own work, but that of his secretary and lifelong companion, Vincent Carloix. They have some of the defects of a deliberate panegyric; but Carloix is a vigorous and able writer, who, without completely emancipating himself from the tyranny of the long involved sentence, contrives to write clearly, and often with much picturesque effect.

Palma-Cayet.

Pierre Victor Palma-Cayet was of mean extraction, but received a good education, and was introduced by La Noue to Jeanne d'Albret as a suitable assistant-tutor for her son. After the accession of his pupil, he was appointed to various offices, one of which, that of Chronologer Royal, no doubt occasioned the odd titles of his two principal works, Chronologie Novénaire and Chronologie Septénaire, which give the history of Henri's reign, dividing it into two portions, the one of nine years, the other of seven. Cayet also wrote several minor works, and divides with D'Aubigné the doubtful honour of being the author of the Divorce Satirique, a scurrilous pamphlet against Marguerite. The Chronologies are extremely full of matter, and admirably precise in their information, but their literary value is not great.

Pierre de l'Estoile.

From this point of view Pierre de l'Estoile221 is of a higher class. He was a lawyer of rank and an indefatigable writer. Day by day he put down in his Tablettes all sorts of public and private affairs, as well as literary extracts, obituary notices, and, in short, almost the entire material of a modern newspaper. Pierre de l'Estoile, much more than Brantôme, is the French Pepys. Although occasionally prejudiced, the writer seems to have been acute and well-informed, and his manner of dealing with his heterogeneous materials is light and lively.

D'Ossat.

Of the three correspondence-writers just mentioned, though Henri himself is a vigorous and fertile writer, the most important by far is Cardinal D'Ossat. He was born in the south of France in 1536, and had not, unlike many of the diplomatist ecclesiastics of the period, the advantage of high birth. Like many of his contemporaries, he began as a lawyer and only subsequently took orders. He began diplomatic life as Secretary to the Archbishop of Toulouse, who was ambassador at Rome, and later on conducted the negotiations which led to the conversion of Henri IV. He then became Bishop of Rennes and cardinal. His letters are almost entirely devoted to subjects connected with his profession, and have always held a position as one of the earliest models of diplomatic writing. D'Ossat's style, especially in respect of its vocabulary, was long regarded as a pattern, but it has less character than that of some other sixteenth-century writers.

Sully.

The last two books to be named belong, in point of date, to the next century, but were written by, or for, men who were emphatically of the sixteenth. The extraordinary form of Sully's Memoirs is well known. They are neither written as if by himself, nor of him as by a historian of the usual kind. They are directly addressed to the hero in the form of an elaborate reminder of his own actions. 'You then said this;' 'his Majesty thereupon sent you there;' 'when you were two leagues from your halting-place, you saw a courier coming,' etc. It is needless to say that this manner of telling history is in the highest degree unnatural and heavy, and, after the first quaintness of it wears off, it makes the book very hard to read. It contains, however, a very large number of short memoirs and documents of all kinds, in which the elaborate farce of 'Vous' is perforce abandoned. It shows Sully as he was – a great and skilful statesman: but it does not give a pleasant idea of his character.

Jeannin.

Pierre Jeannin was, like D'Ossat, a diplomatist in the service of Henri IV. He had previously discharged many legal functions of importance, and subsequently he was Controller-General of the Finances. His Négotiations contain the record of his proceedings on a mission to the Netherlands to watch over the interests of France. The book consists of letters, despatches, treaties, and such-like documents, very clear, precise, and written in a remarkably simple and natural style.

Minor Memoir-writers.

There were many other writers of memoirs during the period, most of whose works are comprised in the invaluable collections of Petitot, Michaud, Poujoulat, and Buchon. But few of them require a separate mention here. Guillaume and Martin du Bellay, two brothers, have left a history of Francis I.'s reign, of which the part belonging to Guillaume is only a small fragment of an immense work which he entitled Les Ogdoades, it being divided into seven batches of eight books each. The imitation of the classics is obvious, and the constant intrusion of classical parallels rather tedious. The Memoirs of the Duke of Guise, composed in great part of what we should call his secretary's letter-book, are very voluminous, but not of much literary value. François de Rabutin, author of Commentaires des Guerres de la Gaule Belgique, has the fault, common to his time, of enormous sentences, but is often lively and picturesque enough, as becomes a member of the family of Madame de Sévigné and of Bussy-Rabutin. The famous Marshal de Tavannes, on whom more than on any single man rests the blood of St. Bartholomew's Day, found a biographer in his son Jean de Tavannes, whose work, though somewhat too elaborate, is interesting. Another son, Guillaume de Saulx-Tavannes, has written his own memoirs on a smaller scale. The memoirs of Michel de Castelnau show more of the tradition of Comines than most of their contemporaries, and are remarkably full of political studies. Boyvin du Villars, of whom little is known, left voluminous memoirs which have some literary merit. The last book of memoirs of some size which needs to be mentioned, is that of Nicholas de Neufville, Seigneur de Villeroy, a politician of eminence and a vigorous writer. Some short pieces may be noticed, such as the Siege of Metz, by Bertrand de Salignac, that of St. Quentin, by Coligny himself, the only literary monument of the Admiral (an excellent specimen of the military writing of the time), and a very curious history of Annonay in the Vivarais by Achille Gamon, which gives perhaps the liveliest idea obtainable of the sufferings of the French provincial towns during the religious wars.

General Historians.

The general histories, which make up a second class of historical writings, are, as a rule, of very much less value than these personal memoirs. Not till the extreme end of the period did the historical conception take a firm hold in De Thou, and the Thuana was written in Latin, which excludes it and its author from detailed notice here. D'Aubigné's Histoire Universelle of his own time has been mentioned for convenience' sake already. Lancelot de la Popelinière attempted in the last quarter of the century a general history of France, and incidentally of Europe during his own day. He is said to have spent all his fortune on getting together the materials, but his literary powers were small. About the same time Bernard Girard, Seigneur du Haillan, published a history of France from the earliest times, which an extract of Thierry's, giving the speeches of Charamond and Quadrek, Merovingians of Du Haillan's own creation, who speak on the advantages of different forms of government at the election of Pharamond, has made known to many persons who never saw the original. The source of this grotesque imagination is of course obvious to readers of Herodotus, and similar imitation of classical models is frequent in Du Haillan's work. François de Belleforest also wrote a general history of France, which was long read, and the names of Du Tillet, Jean de Serres, Charron, Dupleix, etc. may be mentioned. But they represent writers of little importance, either from the point of view of history, or from that of literature.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SATYRE MÉNIPPÉE. REGNIER

Satyre Ménippée.

The period of the Renaissance in France closed with two works (one for the most part in prose and due to various authors, the other wholly in verse and the work of one only) which exhibit the highest excellence. The Satyre Ménippée and the satires of Regnier are separated in point of date of publication by some fifteen years, and the contributors to the first-named work belong for the most part to an earlier generation, and represent a less accomplished state of the language than the great satirist who, after fifteen centuries, took up the traditions of his Roman masters. But both are satirical in substance, though the Ménippée is almost wholly political, and Regnier busies himself with social and moral subjects only. Both possess in a high degree the characteristics of the period which they close. Both exhibit a remarkable power of treating ephemeral subjects in a manner calculated to make their interest something more than ephemeral. Both have met with the just reward of continuing to be popular even at times when the most unjust unpopularity rested on work scarcely less excellent but less calculated to please the taste of those who, however much they may sympathise with the fashions of their own day, are unable to sympathise with those of a day which is not theirs.

The Satyre Ménippée222 was a remarkable, and, for those who take an interest both in literature and in politics, a most encouraging instance of the power of literary treatment at certain crises of political matters. It appeared in 1594, at the crucial period of the League. For years there had existed the party known for the most part uncomplimentarily as Les Politiques. These persons professed themselves unable to find, in the simple difference of Catholic v. Protestant, a casus belli for Frenchmen against Frenchmen. Their influence, however, though it occasionally rose to the surface in the days of Charles IX. and Henri III., had never been lasting, and they laboured under the charge of being Laodiceans, trimmers, men who cared for nothing but hollow peace and material prosperity. The assassination of Henri III., and the open confederation between the Leaguers and the Spanish party, at last gave them their opportunity, and it was seized with an adroitness which would have been remarkable in a single man, but which is still more remarkable in a group of men of very different antecedents, professions, ages, and beliefs. The Satyre Ménippée is, in fact, the first and most admirable example of the theory of the modern newspaper – the theory that the combined ability of many men is likely, on the whole, to treat complicated and ephemeral affairs better than the limited, though perhaps individually greater, ability of any one man. The Ménippée, prose and verse, was due to the working of a new Pléiade – Leroy, Gillot, Passerat, Rapin, Chrestien, Pithou, and Durant. Most of them were lawyers, a few were more or less connected with the Church. Pierre Leroy, a canon of Rouen, of whom nothing is known, but whose character De Thou praises, is said to have planned the book, and to have acted in some way as editor. Jacques Gillot, clerk-advocate of the Parliament, received the literary conspirators in his house. Passerat and Rapin represented the mixed classical and French culture of the immediate companions of Ronsard. Florent Chrestien was a converted Huguenot, much given to translation of ancient authors. Pithou (the writer of the harangue of Claude d'Aubray, the most important piece of the whole and containing the moral and idea of the book) was, like Chrestien, a convert. He ranks as one of the most distinguished members of the French bar, and had a deserved reputation for every kind of learning in his time. Lastly, Durant, who contributed rather to the appendix of the book than to the book itself, was an Auvergnat gentleman, who preferred poetry to law, and justified his preference by some capital work, partly of a satirical kind, partly of an elegant and tender gallantry, anticipating, as has been justly said, the eighteenth century in elegance, and excelling it in tenderness.

The plan of the Ménippée (the title of which, it is hardly necessary to say, is borrowed from the name of the cynic philosopher celebrated by Lucian) is for the time singularly original and bold; but the spirit in which the subject is treated is more original still. Generally speaking, the piece has the form of a compte-rendu of the assembly of the states at Paris. The full title is De la Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne et de la Tenue des États de Paris. The preface contains a sarcastic harangue in orthodox charlatan style on the merits of the new Catholicon or Panacea. Then comes a description (in which, as throughout the work, actual facts are blended inextricably with satirical comment) of the opening procession. To this succeeds a sketch of the tapestries with which the hall of meeting was hung, all of which are, of course, allegorical, and deal with murders of princes, betrayal of native countries to foreigners, etc. Next comes L'Ordre tenu pour les Séances, in which the chief personages on the side of the League are enumerated in a long catalogue, every item of which contains some bitter allusion to the private or public conduct of the person named. Seven solemn speeches are then delivered by the Duke de Mayenne as lieutenant, by the legate, by the Cardinal de Pelvé, by the bishop of Lyons, by Rose, the fanatical rector of the University, by the Sieur de Rieux, as representative of the nobility; and, lastly, by a certain Monsieur d'Aubray, for the Tiers-État. A burlesque coda concludes the volume, the joints of which are, first, a short verse satire on Pelvé; secondly, a collection of epigrams due to Passerat; and, thirdly, Durant's Regret Funèbre à Mademoiselle ma Commère sur le Trépas de son Âne, a delightful satire on the Leaguers, which did not appear in the first edition, but which yields to few things in the book.

It has been said that the plan of the Ménippée has of itself not a little originality. Satirical comment and travesty devoted to political affairs had been common enough almost for centuries in France, but no satire of the kind had hitherto flown so high, or with so well-organised a flight. The seven speeches, which form the bulk of the book, display moreover a remarkable variety and a still more remarkable combination of excellences. The first six – those of Mayenne, the legate, Pelvé, the bishop of Lyons, Rose, and Rieux, none of which is long – are, without exception, caricatures, and of that peculiar order of caricature in which the victim is made, without a glaring violation of probability, to render himself vile and ridiculous, and to give utterance to the satire and invective which the author desires to pour upon him. Butler (who beyond all doubt had the Satyre Ménippée in his mind when he projected his own immortal travesty of the Puritan party) is the only writer who has ever come near to its authors in this particular department of satire. Treated as they were by different hands, there is a curiously pleasing variety of style in the portraits. Mayenne uses a mixture of aristocratic and somewhat haughty frankness with garrulous digression. The two cardinals indulge in an astounding macaronic jargon, the one of Italian mingled with Latin, the other of Latin mingled with French. The bishop of Lyons, and Rose the rector, preach sermons, after the fashion of the time, thickly larded with quotations, stories, and so forth. Rieux (he was a noted bandit) expresses with soldierly frankness his extreme surprise that he should have become a gentleman and the representative of the nobility, and mildly reproaches Mayenne and the League for not having given carte-blanche to himself and his likes to finish off the Politiques bag-and-baggage. But in the last harangue, that of the representative of the Tiers-État, Claude d'Aubray, which is, as has been said, the work of Pithou, and which occupies something like half the book, the tone is entirely altered. In this remarkable discourse the whole political situation is treated seriously, and with a mixture of practical vigour and literary skill of which there had hardly been any precedent instance. D'Aubray denounces the condition of Paris first, and the condition of the kingdom afterwards. The foreign garrisons, the sufferings of private persons by the war, the deprivation or suspension of privileges, are all commented upon. A remarkable historical sketch of the religious wars follows, and then turn by turn the speaker attacks those who have spoken before him, and exposes their conduct. A vigorous sketch of 'Le Roy que nous voulons et que nous aurons,' leads up to the announcement that this king is no other than 'Notre vray Roy légitime, naturel et souverain, Seigneur Henry de Bourbon, cy-devant Roy de Navarre.' After this discomposing harangue the assembly breaks up in some confusion.

The Satyre Ménippée had an immense effect, and may, perhaps, be justly described as the first example, in modern politics, of a literary work the effect of which was really great and lasting. It is not surprising that such should have been its fortune. For it is a remarkably happy mixture of the older style of gaulois jocularity (in which exaggeration, personal attack, insinuations of a more or less scandalous character and the like, furnished the attraction) and the newer style of chastened and comparatively polished prose. The greater part of the first six speeches are of a more antique cast than Montaigne; and though the speech of D'Aubray exhibits a more elaborate and less familiar style, it too is definitely plain and popular in manner. Although there are the allusions usual at the time to classical subjects, the Pléiade pedantry, with which at least two of the contributors, Passerat and Rapin, were sufficiently imbued, is conspicuously absent. Rabelais is frequently alluded to; and when the style of the book and the obvious intention of appealing to the general, which it exhibits, are considered, no better testimony to the popularity of Gargantua and Pantagruel could be produced. The descriptions, too, have a Rabelaisian minuteness and richness about them; and in the burlesque parts the influence of that master is equally perceptible. But the strictly practical point of view is always maintained; and the temptation, always a strong one with French writers of the middle age and Renaissance, to lose sight of this in endless developments of mere amusing buffoonery, is constantly resisted. There is certainly less exaggeration in the Ménippée than in Hudibras, though the personal weaknesses of the innumerable individual persons satirised contribute more to the general effect than they do in Butler's great satire. The distinguishing trait of the Satyre Ménippée, next to those already mentioned, is the constant rain of slight ironical touches contributing to the general effect. Thus the arms of the processioning Leaguers are, 'le tout rouillé par Humilité Catholique;' the League scholastics and preachers 'forment tous leurs arguments in ferio.' The deputies' benches are covered with cloth, 'parsemées de croisettes de Lorraine et de larmes miparties de vair et de faux argent.' These sure and rapid touches distinguish the book strongly from nearly all mediaeval satire, in which the satirists are wont, whenever they make a point, to dwell on it, and expound it, and illustrate it, and make the most of it, until it loses almost all its piquancy. Very different from this over-elaboration is the confident irony of the Ménippée, which trusts to the intelligence of the reader for understanding and emphasis. 'Vous prévoyez bien,' says Mayenne, 'les dangers et inconvéniens de la paix qui met ordre à tout, et rend le droit à qui il appartient.' Hardly even Antoine de la Salle, and certainly no other among the authors of the preceding centuries, would have ventured to leave this, obvious as it seems now-a-days, to reach the reader by itself.

Regnier.

A similar but a still more remarkable, because an individually complete, example of the combination of Gallican tradition with classical study was soon afterwards shown by Mathurin Regnier223. Regnier was born at Chartres on the 21st of December, 1573, his father being Jacques Regnier, a citizen of position; his mother was Simonne Desportes, sister of the poet. Jacques Regnier desired for his son the ecclesiastical, but not the poetical, eminence of his brother-in-law, and Mathurin was tonsured at nine years old. The boy, however, wished to follow his uncle's steps in the other direction, and early began to write. It is said that he wrote lampoons on the inhabitants of his native town, and, repeating them to the frequenters of a tennis-court which his father had built, got himself thus into trouble. His father's threats and punishments, however, had no more effect than is usual in such cases, and Regnier soon, but at a date not exactly known, betook himself to his uncle at Paris. By Desportes, who was in favour with many high personages, he was recommended to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, and took part in that prelate's embassy to Rome in 1593. Joyeuse, however, did nothing for him, and in 1601 he again went to Rome in the suite of Philippe de Bethune. He returned before long, and, in 1604, a canonry, to the reversion of which he had been presented long before, fell in. His first collection of satires appeared in 1608. Five years afterwards, in 1613, on the 22nd of October, he died at Rouen, having not quite completed his fortieth year. His way of life had unfortunately been by no means regular, and his early death is said to have been directly caused by his excesses.

In this short sketch almost everything that is known of Regnier, except a few anecdotes, has been included, and the total is, it will be seen, exceedingly meagre. Nor is his work abundant even for a man who died comparatively young. Sixteen satires, three epistles, five elegies, and a few miscellaneous pieces, make it up, and probably the total does not exceed seven or eight thousand lines. The relative excellence of this work is however exceedingly high. Regnier is almost the only French poet before the so-called classical period who has continuously maintained his reputation, and who has only been decried by a few eccentric or incompetent critics. He was an ardent defender of the Ronsardising tradition, yet Malherbe, whom he did not hesitate to attack, thought and spoke highly of him. In the next age Boileau allotted to him a mixture of praise and blame which is not too apposite, but in which the praise far exceeds the blame, and elsewhere declared him to be the French writer, before Molière, who best knew human nature. The approval of Boileau secured that of the eighteenth century, while Regnier's defence of the Pléiade propitiated the first Romantics. Thus buttressed on either side, he has had nothing to fear from literary revolutions. Nor will any judgment which looks rather at merit than authority arrive at an unfavourable conclusion respecting him. His satires are not indeed absolutely the first of their kind in French. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Jean de la Taille, and above all, D'Aubigné, had preceded him. But in breadth as well as, except in the case of D'Aubigné, in force, and above all in even excellence and technical merit, he far surpassed those who in a manner had shown him the way. His satire is exclusively social, and thus it escapes one of the chief drawbacks of political satire, that of dealing with matters of more or less ephemeral existence and interest. He has indeed borrowed considerably from the ancients, but he has almost always made his borrowings his own, and he has in some cases improved on his originals. He has softened the exaggerated air of moral indignation which his English contemporaries, Hall and Marston, borrowed from Juvenal, and which sits so awkwardly on them and on many other satirists. He has avoided such still more awkward followings as that which made Pope upset all English literary history in order to echo Horace's remarks about Rome and Greece. Sometimes he has fallen into the besetting sin of his countrymen, the tendency to represent mere types or even abstractions instead of lifelike individuals embodying the type, but he has more often avoided it. His descriptive passages are of extraordinary vigour and accuracy of touch, and his occasional strokes are worthy of almost any satiric or didactic poet. He is perhaps weakest, like all poets with the signal exception of Dryden, when he is panegyrical. Yet his first satire – in the order of arrangement not of writing – addressed to the King, Henri IV., has much merit. The second, on poets, has more, and abounds in vigorous strokes, such as that of the courtier bard who