A Short History of French Literature

Historians. Thierry.

In history a group of distinguished names, besides a still larger number of names only less individually distinguished, deserve notice. First among these, in order of time, may be mentioned the two brothers Amédée and Augustin Thierry, the former of whom was born in 1787, and died in 1873, while the latter, born in 1795, died in 1856. Both devoted themselves to historical studies. But, while Amédée employed himself almost wholly on the history of Gaul during Roman times and on Roman history, Augustin, who was by far the more gifted of the two, took a wider range. He was born and educated at Blois, and for some time devoted himself to politics and sociology, being a disciple of Saint Simon, and a fellow-worker of Comte. He soon, however, betook himself to history, and in 1825 published his 'History of the Norman Conquest in England.' Blindness followed, but he was able to continue his work. In 1835 he published Dix Ans d'Etudes Historiques, and in 1840, what is perhaps his best work, Récits des Temps Mérovingiens, a book which has few rivals as exhibiting in a fascinating light, but without any sacrifice of historical accuracy to mere picturesqueness, the circumstances and events of an unfamiliar time. His last work of importance was an essay on the Tiers Etat and its origin. Thierry is an excellent example of an historian handling, with little guidance from predecessors, a difficult and neglected but important age.

Thiers.

Far less important as a historian, but distinguished by his double character of statesman and littérateur, in which he was more fortunate than his two rivals in the same double career, Guizot and Lamartine, was Louis Adolphe Thiers, who was born at Marseilles, of the lower middle class, in 1797. He was brought up for the law, being educated at Marseilles and at Aix. Then he went to Paris, and after a short time obtained work on the Constitutionnel as supporter of the liberal opposition during the Restoration. His Histoire de la Révolution Française appeared between 1823-1827, and brought him much reputation, which was very ill deserved as far as fulness and accuracy of information are concerned. French readers, however, have ever been indifferent to mere accuracy, and are given to admire even a superficial appearance of order and clearness; at any rate, the book, added to his considerable reputation as a political writer, made him famous. A paper, which he founded in the beginning of 1830, the National, had much share in bringing about the Revolution of that year. After it Thiers was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Aix, and in a short time became a renowned debater. He held office again and again under Louis Philippe, and was believed to be in favour of a warlike policy. When he retired from office he began his principal literary work (a continuation of his first), 'The History of the Consulate and the Empire.' He took no part in the Revolution of 1848, and accepted the Republic, but was banished at the coup d'état, though not for long. In 1863 he re-entered the Chamber, having constantly worked at his History, which tended not a little to reconstruct the Napoleonic legend. Yet he was a steady though a moderate opponent of the Second Empire. On its downfall, Thiers, as the most distinguished statesman the country possessed, undertook the negotiations with the enemy – a difficult task, which he performed with extreme ability. He then became President of the Republic, which post he held till 1873. He died on the 3rd of September, 1877. The chief fault of Thiers as a historian is his misleading partiality, which is especially displayed in his account of Napoleon's wars, and reaches its climax in that of the battle of Waterloo. He has, however, great merits in lucidity of arrangement, in an eloquent, if rather declamatory style, and in a faculty of conveying a considerable amount of information without breaking the march of his narrative.

Guizot

By a curious coincidence, the chief rival of Thiers in politics (at least during the greater part of his life) was of his own class and condition, and, like him, primarily a man of letters. François Pierre Guillaume Guizot was, however, ten years the senior of Thiers, having been born in 1787, at Nîmes. Guizot was a Protestant, and his father perished in the Terror. He was educated at Geneva, but went to Paris early, and produced in 1809 (being then only twenty-two) a dictionary of synonyms. After this he did miscellaneous literary work of various kinds, and at the Restoration filled, as a moderate Royalist, various posts under government, being appointed, among other things, to a history professorship at the Sorbonne. He became more and more liberal, and in 1824 his lectures were forbidden. His literary activity, was, however, incessant, his greatest work being a collection of early French historical writings in thirty-one volumes. He also paid much attention to the history of England, and published, in 1826, a Histoire de la Révolution d'Angleterre. This was followed by many other works, of which his 'History of Civilisation in Europe,' and 'History of Civilisation in France,' are the best known. He had been elected a member of the Chamber before the Revolution of 1830, and after it he was appointed minister of Public Instruction, having the powerful support of the Broglie family. He was afterwards ambassador to London, and then Prime Minister, being, it is said, very much to blame for the Revolution of February. He escaped to London with some difficulty, and, though he revisited France, had to return to England at the advent of Louis Napoleon. He was not, however, a permanent exile, but was allowed to enjoy his estate at Val Richer in Normandy. He died in 1874, having been incessantly occupied on literary work of all kinds (chiefly connected with French and English history) for the last half century of his life. The chief of these in bulk was a voluminous history of France not completed till after his death. Guizot's enormous fertility (for not a twentieth of his works has been mentioned) perhaps injuriously affected his style, which is not remarkable. Sound common sense and laborious acquaintance with facts are his chief characteristics.

Mignet.

A companion of Thiers at college, and a protégé of his during his years of power, was François Mignet. Born a year before his friend, he outlived him. Mignet, too, wrote, and at the same time as Thiers, a History of the French Revolution of curiously different character. He became secretary of the Institute, and in 1837 a member of the Academy. His chief later works were on the 'Spanish Succession,' on Mary Stuart, and on Charles the Fifth after his abdication, with, last of all, the rivalry of Charles V. and Francis I. Mignet is as trustworthy as Thiers is the reverse. But his historical manner is exceedingly dry, as also is his style, though it is correct and not inelegant.

Michelet.

A very different writer was Jules Michelet, the most original and remarkable historian in point of style that France has ever produced. Born at Paris, in 1798, he was also educated there, and became a schoolmaster. Soon after he came of age he was transferred to the Ecole Normale. The Revolution of 1830, owing to the influence of Cousin and Guizot, opened great opportunities for historical students, and Michelet was enabled to publish not a few historical treatises, some of a rather specialist nature, others popular abstracts of French history. In 1838 he was appointed to a chair in the Collège de France, and, in conjunction with his friend Quinet, he took part in the violent polemic against the Jesuits which distinguished the time. He had already for some years begun his strange and splendid Histoire de France, 1833-1867, but he accompanied its progress with a crowd of little books of a controversial and miscellaneous character. Shortly before the Revolution of 1848 he began, and soon after the coup d'état finished, his Histoire de la Révolution. He declined to take the oaths to the Empire, and so lost the place in the Record Office which he then held. He died in 1874, and, notwithstanding his incessant literary activity during his life, various unpublished works have appeared since, one of which, describing the hunger-pinched population of the Riviera, is a masterpiece of his volcanic style. This style is characteristic not only of his great history, but also of his smaller books, of which Des Jésuites, Du Prêtre, Du Peuple, L'Oiseau, L'Insecte, L'Amour, La Sorcière (the last perhaps the most remarkable of all), are especially noteworthy. It is entirely unlike the style of any previous French writer, except that of Lamennais, who was, however, rather Michelet's contemporary than his predecessor, and that of Victor Hugo, in some of his more recent work. Broken and irregular in construction, it is extraordinarily vivid in colour, and striking in the outline of its presentment. The History of France is a book to which little justice can be done in the space here available. It is strongly prejudiced by Michelet's republican and anti-Catholic views, and, like all picturesque histories, it brings into undue relief incidents and personages which have happened to strike the author's imagination. But it is extraordinarily stimulating, full of energy and life, and almost unequalled in the power with which the writer restores and revives the past.

Quinet.

A bosom friend of Michelet, and his compeer in the attack on the Jesuits, was Edgar Quinet, who was born near Bourg in 1803, and died in 1875. He was brought up for the most part at his country home in a retired situation, where he early showed not only great devotion to literature, but a curious tendency towards philosophic mysticism. He travelled in Germany when young, and his translation of Herder's Philosophie der Geschichte introduced him to Cousin, and gave him some profit and much reputation. He was sent to Greece on a government mission, and after a time received a professorship, first at Lyons, and then at Paris, though his republicanism did not recommend him. He was an active supporter of the Revolution of February, and a consistent opponent of the Empire, during which he remained in exile. Quinet's works, both in poetry and prose, are numerous. The chief are a great prose poem, or dramatic allegory, called Ahasuerus, 1834, a work on the early French epics (insufficiently informed, but appreciative and enthusiastic), Le Génie des Religions, 1843 (a series of discourses full of the widest and vaguest generalisation, but stimulating and generous), Les Révolutions d'Italie, Merlin l'Enchanteur, 1861 (another curious book something after the fashion of Ahasuerus), a nondescript miscellany on history and science entitled La Création, 1869, and La Révolution, 1865. His poems (in verse) are Prométhée, Napoléon, Les Esclaves, of which the first and last are dramatic in form. His style and thought were strongly tinged with mysticism, and with a singular undogmatic pietism, as well as with strong but speculative republicanism in politics. He is thus not a historian to consult for facts (though his knowledge both of history and literature was accurate and wide), but an inspiriting generaliser on the philosophy of history. Both in Michelet and in Quinet there is an affectation of the seer, as well as an undue fluency of language, and an absence of precision in form and place, which detract from their otherwise high literary value. The collected works of the first exceed fifty volumes, those of the second fill nearly thirty; and much of this vast total is ephemeral in interest and unchastened in form. Although neither was a journalist, both exhibit the defects of a period of journalism.

Tocqueville.

The last of the greater names calling for mention is that of Alexis de Tocqueville, who was born, of a noble Norman family, at Verneuil, in 1805. Tocqueville was educated for the bar, and called to it after the Restoration. But after the revolution of July he exchanged his appointment in the magistracy for a travelling mission to America, to examine the prisons and penitentiaries of the United States. He, however, studied something else than prisons, and, in 1835, published his famous work on 'Democracy in America.' He married an Englishwoman, and soon afterwards entered the Chamber. During the Republic he occupied positions of some importance. The Empire dismissed him from public life, but gave him the opportunity of writing his second great book on the Ancien Régime. His health was, however, weak, and he died, in 1859, of consumption. The characteristics of Tocqueville as a historian (or rather as a philosophic essayist on history) are great purity and clearness of style, unusual logical power, and an entire absence of prepossession. He is one of the few historians who have treated democracy without either enthusiastic love for it on the one hand, or fanatical dislike and fear of it on the other; and his two books are, and are likely to remain, classics.

Minor Historians.

A very rapid survey must suffice for the remainder of the names in this division. A. de Barante, among numerous other works of merit, is best known by a careful and detailed history of the Dukes of Burgundy; J. A. Buchon, Petitot, J. A. Michaud, and J. Poujoulat, produced invaluable collections of the chronicles and memoirs in which France is so rich. J. J. Ampère occupied himself chiefly with Roman history, and with the history of France and French literature in the Gallo-Roman time. A. Beugnot, besides other work, arranged a precious collection of feudal law. Emile de Bonnechose wrote a good short history of France. Louis Blanc (an important actor in the Revolution of 1848) produced an elaborate and well-written history of the Revolution from the moderate republican side, and afterwards reprinted from newspapers some curious letters from England during his exile here. In opposition chiefly to Thiers, P. Lanfrey, in a laborious history of Napoleon, entirely overthrew the Napoleonic legend, and damaged, it would seem irreparably, the character of its hero. Philippe de Ségur gave a history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon. Mortimer-Ternaux accomplished a valuable history of the Terror. M. Henri Martin was the author of the only recent history of France on a scale which challenges comparison with Michelet. It has no extraordinary literary merit, and its author was something of a partisan. But it is full, sober, and fairly accurate. In recent days M. Taine, deserting literary and philosophical criticism for history, executed a new and remarkable history of the Revolution, which, by once more putting its horrors in a clear and fair light, very much irritated the partisans of the 'ideas of 89.' The Duke d'Aumale has made something more than a mere addition to the works of 'Royal and Noble Authors,' in his History of the Princes of Condé. The Duke de Broglie, a politician, upon whom the political changes of France enforced political retirement, has produced a series of historical works on the 18th century and has edited the interesting memoirs of his father, the patron of Guizot. Of other recent memoirs by far the most remarkable, whether as literature or history, are those of Madame de Rémusat, mother of Charles de Rémusat, who died early in the Restoration period, but whose memoirs and letters, not published till after her son's death (but already referred to here), have given her a posthumous reputation hardly inferior to that of any of the literary ladies before her and not likely soon to wane.

CONCLUSION

In the five books of this History the reader has, it is believed, before him a sufficient though necessarily brief description of the various men and works whereof knowledge is desirable to enable him to perceive the main outlines of the course of French literature. In the interchapters some attempt has been made to sum up the general phenomena of that literature as distinguished from its particular accomplishments during the chief periods of its development. Beyond this neither the scale of the book, nor its plan as indicated in the preface, has permitted of indulgence in generalising criticism. But it has been suggested by authorities whose competence is not disputable that something in the nature of a summary of these summaries, pointing out briefly the general history, accomplishments, and peculiarities of the French tongue in its literary aspect during the ten centuries of its existence, is required, if only for the sake of a symmetrical conclusion. It may be urged on the other side that the history of literature – like all other histories, and perhaps more than all other histories – is never really complete, and that there is consequently some danger in attempting at any given time to treat it as finished. He must have been a miraculously acute critic who, if he had attempted such treatment of the present subject sixty or seventy years ago, would not have found his results ludicrously falsified by the event but few years afterwards. But this drawback only applies to generalisation of the pseudo-scientific kind which attempts to predict: it can be easily guarded against by attending to the strict duties of the historian and, without attempting to speak of the future, dealing only with the actually accomplished past.

The first thing, and perhaps the most important thing, which must strike anyone who looks upon French literature as a whole, is that, taking all conditions together, it is the most complete example of a regularly and independently developed national literature that presents itself anywhere. It is no doubt inferior in the point of independence to Greek, but then it has a much longer course, considered as the exponent of national character. It has a shorter course than English, and it is not more generally expository of national characteristics; but then it is for a great part of that course infinitely more independent of foreign influences, and, unlike English, it has scarcely any breaks or dead seasons in its record. Compared with Latin (which as a literature may be said to be entirely modelled on Greek) it is exceptionally original: compared with Spanish and Italian it has been exceptionally long-lived and hale in its life: compared with German it was exceptionally early in attaining the full possession of its faculties. Just as (putting aside minor and somewhat pedantic considerations) no country in Europe has so long and so independently developed a political history, so in none has literary history developed itself more independently and for a longer space of continuous time. No foreign invasion sensibly affects the French tongue; no foreign influence sensibly alters the course of French literature. It has been shown at intervals during this history how little direct influence classical models had on the original forms of literature in France, how completely German and Celtic contributions of subject were assimilated, how the Provençal examples of form were rather independently followed than literally or slavishly adopted. The dawn or rather the twilight of the Renaissance seemed to threaten a more powerful and dangerous admixture. But the native genius of the language triumphed, and finally, in the Pléiade reforms, reduced to harmlessness the Rhétoriqueur innovations and the simultaneous danger of Italianising. The criticism of Malherbe, harmful in some ways, served as a counterpoise to the danger of Spanish influence which was considerable in the early years of the seventeenth century, and by the eighteenth the idiosyncrasy of French was so strong that, great as was the effect successively produced by English and by German, it was unable to do more than slightly modify French literature itself. Yet again the singular αυταρκεια of French may be seen by turning from its general accomplishments at different times to its particular forms. No one of these was directly adopted from any foreign, not even from any classical example, with the doubtful exception of the classical tragedy. The French made their own epic, their own lyric, their own comic and miscellaneous drama. They may be said almost to have invented the peculiar and striking kind of history called the memoir, which has characteristics distinguishing it radically from the classical commentary. They apparently invented the essay, and though they only borrowed the beast-fable, they are entitled to the credit of having seen in it the germ of the short verse tale which has no direct moral bearing. All the nations of Europe, so to speak, sent during the middle ages their own raw material of subject to be worked up by French or French-speaking men into literary form. France therefore gives (next to Greece, and in some respects even before Greece) the most instructive and trustworthy example extant of the chronology and order of spontaneous literary development – first poetry, then drama, then prose: in poetry, first epic, then lyric, then didactic and miscellaneous verse: in drama, first ceremonial and liturgic pieces, then comedy, then artificial tragedy: in prose, first history, then miscellaneous work, and lastly artificial and elaborate fiction. It is a curious and somewhat complex phenomenon that the cycle which began with verse fiction should apparently end with fiction in prose, but the foregoing pages will have shewn sufficiently how dangerous it would be to generalise from this.

One thing however may be safely concluded from the mere fact of this remarkable resistance to foreign influence, or rather from the still more remarkable power of assimilation which this resistance implies. The literature which has been able to exert both must have very strongly marked general characteristics of its own. As a matter of fact French literature has these characteristics: and a brief enumeration and description of them may complete, more appropriately than anything else could do, the survey of its history. French literature, notwithstanding the revolution of fifty years ago, is generally and rightly held to be the chief representative among the greater European literatures of the classical rather than the romantic spirit. It is therefore necessary to define what is meant by these much controverted terms; and the definition which best expresses the views of the present writer is one somewhat modified from the definition given by Heine. The terms classic and romantic apply to treatment not to subject, and the difference is that the treatment is classic when the idea is represented as directly and with as exact an adaptation of form as possible, while it is romantic when the idea is left to the reader's faculty of divination assisted only by suggestion and symbol. Of these two modes of treatment France has always inclined to the classic: during at least two centuries, the seventeenth and eighteenth, she relied upon it almost wholly. But the fertility of her mediaeval and Renaissance literature in strictly romantic examples, and the general tendency of the literature of the nineteenth century, have shewn a romantic faculty inferior, but only inferior, to the classical. To illustrate this statement by a contrast, it may be pointed out that in Greek the romantic element is almost in abeyance, while in English all without exception of our greatest masterpieces have been purely romantic. Or to put the matter in yet other words, the sense of the vague is, among authors of the highest rank, rarely present to a Greek, always present to an Englishman, and alternately present and absent, but oftener absent, to a Frenchman.

The qualities which this general differentia has developed in French may now be enumerated.

The first is a great and remarkable sobriety. It is true that there is nothing more extravagant than an extravagant Frenchman, but that is the natural result of reaction. As a rule, the contributions of matter which France received so abundantly from other nations are always toned and sobered by her in their literary formation. The main materials of her wonderful mediaeval literature of fiction were furnished by Wales, by Germany, and by the East; all of them, to judge by the later but more or less independent handlings which we have from indigenous sources, must have teemed with the supernatural. In the Chansons de Gestes, in the Arthurian romances, and even in the earlier Romans d'Aventures, the supernatural, though recognised as became a devout age and country, is yet to a certain extent rationalised. It rarely obtrudes itself, and it still more rarely presents itself with exaggerated attributes. A continual spirit of criticism exhibits itself throughout French literature; it always, as represented by its most numerous and on the whole most famous representatives, tends to order, to measure, to symmetry.