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diff --git a/23033-0.txt b/23033-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55ce3ce --- /dev/null +++ b/23033-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9401 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Classic French Course in English, by +William Cleaver Wilkinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Classic French Course in English + +Author: William Cleaver Wilkinson + +Release Date: October 14, 2007 [EBook #23033] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLASSIC FRENCH COURSE IN ENGLISH *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +=_THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES._= + +CLASSIC FRENCH COURSE + +IN ENGLISH. + +BY + +WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON. + + NEW YORK: + CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, + C. L. S. C. DEPARTMENT, + 805 BROADWAY. + 1886. + +COPYRIGHT, 1886, + +BY PHILLIPS & HUNT. + +_OTHER VOLUMES IN THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES_ + + BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + + *PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH $1.00 + **PREPARATORY LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH 1.00 + *** COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH 1.00 + ****COLLEGE LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH 1.00 + +_The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by a Council of +six. It must, however, be understood that recommendation does not +involve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of every +principle or doctrine contained in the book recommended._ + +ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED +BY RAND, AVERY, & COMPANY. +BOSTON. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The preparation of the present volume proposed to the author a task more +difficult far than that undertaken in any one of the four preceding +volumes of the group, THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES, to which it belongs. +Those volumes dealt with literatures limited and finished: this volume +deals with a literature indefinitely vast in extent, and still in vital +process of growth. The selection of material to be used was, in the case +of the earlier volumes, virtually made for the author beforehand, in a +manner greatly to ease his sense of responsibility for the exercise of +individual judgment and taste. Long prescription, joined to the +winnowing effect of wear and waste through time and chance, had left +little doubt what works of what writers, Greek and Roman, best deserved +now to be shown to the general reader. Besides this, the prevalent +custom of the schools of classical learning could then wisely be taken +as a clew of guidance to be implicitly followed, whatever might be the +path through which it should lead. There is here no similar avoidance of +responsibility possible; for the schools have not established a custom, +and French literature is a living body, from which no important members +have ever yet been rent by the ravages of time. + +The greater difficulty seen thus to inhere already in the nature itself +of the task proposed for accomplishment, was gravely increased by the +much more severe compression deemed to be in the present instance +desirable. The room placed at the author's disposal for a display of +French literature was less than half the room allowed him for the +display of either the Greek or the Latin. + +The plan, therefore, of this volume, imposed the necessity of +establishing from the outset certain limits, to be very strictly +observed. First, it was resolved to restrict the attention bestowed upon +the national history, the national geography, and the national language, +of the French, to such brief occasional notices as, in the course of the +volume, it might seem necessary, for illustration of the particular +author, from time to time to make. The only introductory general matter +here to be found will accordingly consist of a rapid and summary review +of that literature, as a whole, which is the subject of the book. It was +next determined to limit the authors selected for representation to +those of the finished centuries. A third decision was to make the number +of authors small rather than large, choice rather than inclusive. The +principle at this point adopted, was to choose those authors only whose +merit, or whose fame, or whose influence, might be supposed +unquestionably such that their names and their works would certainly be +found surviving, though the language in which they wrote should, like +its parent Latin, have perished from the tongues of men. The proportion +of space severally allotted to the different authors was to be measured +partly according to their relative importance, and partly according to +their estimated relative capacity of interesting in translation the +average intelligent reader of to-day. + +In one word, the single inspiring aim of the author has here been to +furnish enlightened readers, versed only in the English language, the +means of acquiring, through the medium of their vernacular, some +proportioned, trustworthy, and effective knowledge and appreciation, in +its chief classics, of the great literature which has been written in +French. This object has been sought, not through narrative and +description, making books and authors the subject, but through the +literature itself, in specimen extracts illuminated by the necessary +explanation and criticism. + +It is proposed to follow the present volume with a volume similar in +general character, devoted to German literature. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +I. + PAGE +FRENCH LITERATURE 1 + +II. + +FROISSART 18 + +III. + +RABELAIS 28 + +IV. + +MONTAIGNE 44 + +V. + +LA ROCHEFOUCAULD (LA BRUYÈRE; VAUVENARGUES) 66 + +VI. + +LA FONTAINE 81 + +VII. + +MOLIÈRE 92 + +VIII. + +PASCAL 115 + +IX. + +MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ 134 + +X. + +CORNEILLE 151 + +XI. + +RACINE 166 + +XII. + +BOSSUET, BOURDALOUE, MASSILLON 182 + +XIII. + +FÉNELON 205 + +XIV. + +MONTESQUIEU 225 + +XV. + +VOLTAIRE 238 + +XVI. + +ROUSSEAU 255 + +XVII. + +THE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS 282 + +XVIII. + +EPILOGUE 288 + +INDEX 293 + + + + +CLASSIC FRENCH COURSE IN ENGLISH. + + + + +I. + +FRENCH LITERATURE. + + +Of French literature, taken as a whole, it may boldly be said that it +is, not the wisest, not the weightiest, not certainly the purest and +loftiest, but by odds the most brilliant and the most interesting, +literature in the world. Strong at many points, at some points +triumphantly strong, it is conspicuously weak at only one point,--the +important point of poetry. In eloquence, in philosophy, even in +theology; in history, in fiction, in criticism, in epistolary writing, +in what may be called the pamphlet; in another species of composition, +characteristically, peculiarly, almost uniquely, French,--the Thought +and the Maxim; by eminence in comedy, and in all those related modes of +written expression for which there is scarcely any name but a French +name,--the _jeu d'esprit_, the _bon mot_, _persiflage_, the _phrase_; in +social and political speculation; last, but not least, in scientific +exposition elegant enough in form and in style to rise to the rank of +literature proper,--the French language has abundant achievement to +show, that puts it, upon the whole, hardly second in wealth of letters +to any other language whatever, either ancient or modern. + +What constitutes the charm--partly a perilous charm--of French +literature is, before all else, its incomparable clearness, its +precision, its neatness, its point; then, added to this, its lightness +of touch, its sureness of aim; its vivacity, sparkle, life; its +inexhaustible gayety; its impulsion toward wit,--impulsion so strong as +often to land it in mockery; the sense of release that it breathes and +inspires; its freedom from prick to the conscience; its exquisite study +and choice of effect; its deference paid to decorum,--decorum, we mean, +in taste, as distinguished from morals; its infinite patience and labor +of art, achieving the perfection of grace and of ease,--in one word, its +style. + +We speak, of course, broadly and in the gross. There are plenty of +French authors to whom some of the traits just named could by no means +be attributed, and there is certainly not a single French author to whom +one could truthfully attribute them all. Voltaire insisted that what was +not clear was not French,--so much, to the conception of this typical +Frenchman, was clearness the genius of the national speech. Still, +Montaigne, for example, was sometimes obscure; and even the tragedist +Corneille wrote here and there what his commentator, Voltaire, declared +to be hardly intelligible. So, too, Rabelais, coarsest of humorists, +offending decorum in various ways, offended it most of all exactly in +that article of taste, as distinguished from morals, which, with +first-rate French authors in general, is so capital a point of regard. +On the other hand, Pascal,--not to mention the moralists by profession, +such as Nicole, and the preachers Bourdaloue and Massillon,--Pascal, +quivering himself, like a soul unclad, with sense of responsibility to +God, constantly probes you, reading him, to the inmost quick of your +conscience. Rousseau, notably in the "Confessions," and in the Reveries +supplementary to the "Confessions;" Chateaubriand, echoing Rousseau; and +that wayward woman of genius, George Sand, disciple she to both,--were +so far from being always light-heartedly gay, that not seldom they +spread over their page a sombre atmosphere almost of gloom,--gloom +flushed pensively, as with a clouded "setting sun's pathetic light." In +short, when you speak of particular authors, and naturally still more +when you speak of particular works, there are many discriminations to be +made. Such exceptions, however, being duly allowed, the literary product +of the French mind, considered in the aggregate, will not be +misconceived if regarded as possessing the general characteristics in +style that we have now sought briefly to indicate. + +French literature, we have hinted, is comparatively poor in poetry. This +is due in part, no doubt, to the genius of the people; but it is also +due in part to the structure of the language. The language, which is +derived chiefly from Latin, is thence in such a way derived as to have +lost the regularity and stateliness of its ancient original, without +having compensated itself with any richness and sweetness of sound +peculiarly its own; like, for instance, that canorous vowel quality of +its sister derivative, the Italian. The French language, in short, is +far from being an ideal language for the poet. + +In spite, however, of this fact, disputed by nobody, it is true of +French literature, as it is true of almost any national literature, that +it took its rise in verse instead of in prose. Anciently, there were two +languages subsisting together in France, which came to be distinguished +from each other in name by the word of affirmation--_oc_ or _oïl_, +yes--severally peculiar to them, and thus to be known respectively as +_langue d'oc_, and _langue d'oïl_. The future belonged to the latter of +the two forms of speech,--the one spoken in the northern part of the +country. This, the _langue d'oïl_, became at length the French language. +But the _langue d'oc_, a soft and musical tongue, survived long enough +to become the vehicle of lyric strains, mostly on subjects of love and +gallantry, still familiar in mention, and famous as the songs of the +troubadours. The flourishing time of the troubadours was in the eleventh +and twelfth centuries. Provençal is an alternative name of the language. + +Side by side with the southern _troubadours_, or a little later than +they, the _trouvères_ of the north sang, with more manly ambition, of +national themes, and, like Virgil, of arms and of heroes. Some +productions of the _trouvères_ may fairly be allowed an elevation of aim +and of treatment entitling them to be called epic in character. +_Chansons de geste_ (songs of exploit), or _romans_, is the native name +by which those primitive French poems are known. They exist in three +principal cycles, or groups, of productions,--one cycle composed of +those pertaining to Charlemagne; one, of those pertaining to British +Arthur; and a third, of those pertaining to ancient Greece and Rome, +notably to Alexander the Great. The cycle revolving around the majestic +legend of Charlemagne for its centre was Teutonic, rather than Celtic, +in spirit as well as in theme. It tended to the religious in tone. The +Arthurian cycle was properly Celtic. It dealt more with adventures of +love. The Alexandrian cycle, so named from one principal theme +celebrated,--namely, the deeds of Alexander the Great,--mixed +fantastically the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome with the then +prevailing ideas of chivalry, and with the figments of fairy lore. (The +metrical form employed in these poems gave its name to the Alexandrine +line later so predominant in French poetry.) The volume of this +quasi-epical verse, existing in its three groups, or cycles, is immense. +So is that of the satire and the allegory in metre that followed. From +this latter store of stock and example, Chaucer drew to supply his muse +with material. The _fabliaux_, so called,--fables, that is, or +stories,--were still another form of early French literature in verse. +It is only now, within the current decade of years, that a really ample +collection of _fabliaux_--hitherto, with the exception of a few printed +volumes of specimens, extant exclusively in manuscript--has been put +into course of publication. Rutebeuf, a _trouvère_ of the reign of St. +Louis (Louis IX., thirteenth century), is perhaps as conspicuous a +personal name as any that thus far emerges out of the sea of practically +anonymous early French authorship. A frankly sordid and mercenary +singer, Rutebeuf, always tending to mockery, was not seldom +licentious,--in both these respects anticipating, as probably also to +some extent by example conforming, the subsequent literary spirit of his +nation. The _fabliaux_ generally mingled with their narrative interest +that spice of raillery and satire constantly so dear to the French +literary appetite. Thibaud was, in a double sense, a royal singer of +songs; for he reigned over Navarre, as well as chanted sweetly in verse +his love and longing, so the disputed legend asserts, for Queen Blanche +of Castile. Thibaud bears the historic title of The Song-maker. He has +been styled the Béranger of the thirteenth century. To Thibaud is said +to be due the introduction of the feminine rhyme into French poetry,--a +metrical variation of capital importance. The songs of Abélard, in the +century preceding Thibaud, won a wide popularity. + +Prose, meantime, had been making noteworthy approaches to form. +Villehardouin must be named as first in time among French writers of +history. His work is entitled, "Conquest of Constantinople." It gives an +account of the Fourth Crusade. Joinville, a generation later, continues +the succession of chronicles with his admiring story of the life of +Saint Louis, whose personal friend he was. But Froissart of the +fourteenth century, and Comines of the fifteenth, are greater names. +Froissart, by his simplicity and his narrative art, was the Herodotus, +as Philip de Comines, for his political sagacity, has been styled the +Tacitus, of French historical literature. Up to the time of Froissart, +the literature which we have been treating as French was different +enough in form from the French of to-day to require what might be called +translation in order to become generally intelligible to the living +generation of Frenchmen. The text of Froissart is pretty archaic, but it +definitely bears the aspect of French. + +With the name of Comines, who wrote of Louis XI. (compare Walter Scott's +"Quentin Durward"). we reach the fifteenth century, and are close upon +the great revival of learning which accompanied the religious +reformation under Luther and his peers. Now come Rabelais, boldly +declared by Coleridge one of the great creative minds of literature; and +Montaigne, with those Essays of his, still living, and, indeed, certain +always to live. John Calvin, meantime, writes his "Institutes of the +Christian Religion" in French as well as in Latin, showing once and for +all, that in the right hands his vernacular tongue was as capable of +gravity as many a writer before him had superfluously shown that it was +capable of levity. Amyot, the translator of Plutarch, is a French writer +of power, without whom the far greater Montaigne could hardly have been. +The influence of Amyot on French literary history is wider in reach and +longer in duration than we thus indicate; but Montaigne's indebtedness +to him is alone enough to prove that a mere translator had in this man +made a very important contribution to the forming prose literature of +France. + +"The Pleiades," so called, were a group of seven writers, who, about the +middle of the sixteenth century, banded themselves together in France, +with the express aim of supplying influential example to improve the +French language for literary purposes. Their peculiar appellation, "The +Pleiades," was copied from that of a somewhat similar group of Greek +writers, that existed in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Of course, +the implied allusion in it is to the constellation of the Pleiades. The +individual name by which the Pleiades of the sixteenth century may best +be remembered is that of Ronsard the poet, associated with the romantic +and pathetic memory of Mary, Queen of Scots. Never, perhaps, in the +history of letters was the fame of a poet in the poet's own lifetime +more universal and more splendid than was the fame of Ronsard. A high +court of literary judicature formally decreed to Ronsard the title of +The French Poet by eminence. This occurred in the youth of the poet. The +wine of success so brilliant turned the young fellow's head. He soon +began to play lord paramount of Parnassus, with every air of one born to +the purple. The kings of the earth vied with each other to do him honor. +Ronsard affected scholarship, and the foremost scholars of his time were +proud to place him with Homer and with Virgil on the roll of the poets. +Ronsard's peculiarity in style was the free use of words and +constructions not properly French. Boileau indicated whence he enriched +his vocabulary and his syntax, by satirically saying that Ronsard spoke +Greek and Latin in French. At his death, Ronsard was almost literally +buried under praises. Sainte-Beuve strikingly says that he seemed to go +forward into posterity as into a temple. + +Sharp posthumous reprisals awaited the extravagant fame of Ronsard. +Malherbe, coming in the next generation, legislator of Parnassus, +laughed the literary pretensions of Ronsard to scorn. This stern critic +of form, such is the story, marked up his copy of Ronsard with notes of +censure so many, that a friend of his, seeing the annotated volume, +observed, "What here is not marked, will be understood to have been +approved by you." Whereupon Malherbe, taking his pen, with one +indiscriminate stroke drew it abruptly through the whole volume. "There +I Ronsardized," the contemptuous critic would exclaim, when in reading +his own verses to an acquaintance,--for Malherbe was poet himself,--he +happened to encounter a word that struck him as harsh or improper. +Malherbe, in short, sought to chasten and check the luxuriant overgrowth +to which the example and method of the Pleiades were tending to push the +language of poetry in French. The resultant effect of the two contrary +tendencies--that of literary wantonness on the one hand, and that of +literary prudery on the other--was at the same time to enrich and to +purify French poetical diction. Balzac (the elder), close to Malherbe in +time, performed a service for French prose similar to that which the +latter performed for French verse. These two critical and literary +powers brought in the reign of what is called classicism in France. +French classicism had its long culmination under Louis XIV. + +But it was under Louis XIII., or rather under that monarch's great +minister, Cardinal Richelieu, that the rich and splendid Augustan age of +French literature was truly prepared. Two organized forces, one of them +private and social, the other official and public, worked together, +though sometimes perhaps not in harmony, to produce the magnificent +literary result that illustrated the time of Louis XIV. Of these two +organized forces, the Hôtel de Rambouillet was one, and the French +Academy was the other. The Hôtel de Rambouillet has become the adopted +name of a literary society, presided over by the fine inspiring genius +of the beautiful and accomplished Italian wife of the Marquis de +Rambouillet, a lady who generously conceived the idea of rallying the +feminine wit and virtue of the kingdom to exert a potent influence for +regenerating the manners and morals, and indeed the literature, of +France. At the high court of blended rank and fashion and beauty and +polish and virtue and wit, thus established in the exquisitely builded +and decorated saloons of the Rambouillet mansion, the selectest literary +genius and fame of France were proud and glad to assemble for the +discussion and criticism of literature. Here came Balzac and Voiture; +here Corneille read aloud his masterpieces before they were represented +on the stage; here Descartes philosophized; here the large and splendid +genius of Bossuet first unfolded itself to the world; here Madame de +Sévigné brought her bright, incisive wit, trebly commended by stainless +reputation, unwithering beauty, and charming address, in the woman who +wielded it. The noblest blood of France added the decoration and +inspiration of their presence. It is not easy to overrate the diffusive +beneficent influence that hence went forth to change the fashion of +literature, and to change the fashion of society, for the better. The +Hôtel de Rambouillet proper lasted two generations only; but it had a +virtual succession, which, though sometimes interrupted, was scarcely +extinct until the brilliant and beautiful Madame Récamier ceased, about +the middle of the present century, to hold her famous _salons_ in Paris. +The continuous fame and influence of the French Academy, founded by +Richelieu, everybody knows. No other European language has been +elaborately and sedulously formed and cultivated like the French. + +But great authors are better improvers of a language than any societies, +however influential. Corneille, Descartes, Pascal, did more for French +style than either the Hôtel de Rambouillet or the Academy,--more than +both these two great literary societies together. In verse, Racine, +following Corneille, advanced in some important respects upon the +example and lead of that great original master; but in prose, when +Pascal published his "Provincial Letters," French style reached at once +a point of perfection beyond which it never since has gone. Bossuet, +Bourdaloue, Fénelon, Massillon, Molière, La Fontaine, Boileau, La +Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère,--what a constellation of names are these, to +glorify the age of Louis XIV.! And Louis XIV. himself, royal embodiment +of a literary good sense carried to the pitch of something very like +real genius in judgment and taste,--what a sun was he (with that talent +of his for kingship, probably never surpassed), to balance and to sway, +from his unshaken station, the august intellectual system of which he +alone constituted the despotic centre to attract and repel! Seventy-two +years long was this sole individual reign. Louis XIV. still sat on the +throne of France when the seventeenth century became the eighteenth. + +The eighteenth century was an age of universal reaction in France. +Religion, or rather ecclesiasticism,--for, in the France of those times, +religion was the Church, and the Church was the Roman Catholic +hierarchy,--had been the dominant fashion under Louis XIV. Infidelity +was a broad literary mark, written all over the face of the eighteenth +century. It was the hour and power of the Encyclopædists and the +Philosophers,--of Voltaire, of Diderot, of D'Alembert, of Rousseau. +Montesquieu, though contemporary, belongs apart from these writers. More +really original, more truly philosophical, he was far less +revolutionary, far less destructive, than they. Still, his influence +was, on the whole, exerted in the direction, if not of infidelity, at +least of religious indifferentism. The French Revolution was laid in +train by the great popular writers whom we have now named, and by their +fellows. It needed only the spark, which the proper occasion would be +sure soon to strike out, and the awful, earth-shaking explosion would +follow. After the Revolution, during the First Empire, so called,--the +usurpation, that is, of Napoleon Bonaparte,--literature was well-nigh +extinguished in France. The names, however, then surpassingly brilliant, +of Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël, belong to this period. + +Three centuries have now elapsed since the date of "The Pleiades." +Throughout this long period, French literature has been chiefly under +the sway of that spirit of classicism in style which the reaction +against Ronsardism, led first by Malherbe and afterwards by Boileau, had +established as the national standard in literary taste and aspiration. +But Rousseau's genius acted as a powerful solvent of the classic +tradition. Chateaubriand's influence was felt on the same side, +continuing Rousseau's. George Sand, too, and Lamartine, were forces that +strengthened this component. Finally, the great personality of Victor +Hugo proved potent enough definitively to break the spell that had been +so long and so heavily laid on the literary development of France. The +bloodless warfare was fierce between the revolutionary Romanticists and +the conservative Classicists in literary style, but the victory seemed +at last to remain with the advocates of the new romantic revival. It +looked, on the face of the matter, like a signal triumph of originality +over prescription, of genius over criticism, of power over rule. We +still live in the midst of the dying echoes of this resonant strife. +Perhaps it is too early, as yet, to determine on which side, by the +merit of the cause, the advantage truly belongs. But, by the merit of +the respective champions, the result was, for a time at least, +triumphantly decided in favor of the Romanticists, against the +Classicists. The weighty authority, however, of Sainte-Beuve, at first +thrown into the scale that at length would sink, was thence withdrawn, +and at last, if not resolutely cast upon the opposite side of the +balance, was left wavering in a kind of equipoise between the one and +the other. But our preliminary sketch has already passed the limit +within which our choice of authors for representation is necessarily +confined. + +With first a few remarks, naturally suggested, that may be useful, on +the general subject thus rather touched merely than handled, the present +writer gives way to let now the representative authors themselves, +selected for the purpose, supply to the reader a just and lively idea of +French literature. + +The first thing, perhaps, to strike the thoughtful mind in a +comprehensive view of the subject, is not so much the length--though +this is remarkable--as the long _continuity_ of French literary history. +From its beginning down to the actual moment, French literature has +suffered no serious break in the course of its development. There have +been periods of greater, and periods of less, prosperity and fruit; but +wastes of marked suspension and barrenness, there have been none. + +The second thing noticeable is, that French literature has, to a +singular degree, lived an independent life of its own. It has found +copious springs of health and growth within its own bosom. + +But then, a third thing to be also observed, is that, on the other hand, +the touch of foreign influence, felt and acknowledged by this most +proudly and self-sufficiently national of literatures, has proved to it, +at various epochs, a sovereign force of revival and elastic expansion. +Thus, the great renascence in the sixteenth century of ancient Greek and +Latin letters was new life to French literature. So, again, Spanish +literature, brought into contact with French through Corneille and +Molière with others, gave to the national mind of France a new literary +launch. But the most recent and perhaps the most remarkable example of +foreign influence quickening French literature to make it freshly +fruitful, is supplied in the great romanticizing movement under the lead +of Victor Hugo. English literature--especially Shakspeare--was largely +the pregnant cause of this attempted emancipation of the French literary +mind from the burden of classicism. + +A fourth very salient trait in French literary history consists in the +self-conscious, elaborate, persistent efforts put forth from time to +time by individuals, and by organizations, both public and private, in +France, to improve the language, and to elevate the literature, of the +nation. We know of nothing altogether comparable to this anywhere else +in the literature of the world. + +A fifth striking thing about French literature is, that it has to a +degree, as we believe beyond parallel, exercised a real and vital +influence on the character and the fortune of the nation. The social, +the political, the moral, the religious, history of France is from age +to age a faithful reflex of the changing phases of its literature. Of +course, a reciprocal influence has been constantly reflected back and +forth from the nation upon its literature, as well as from its +literature upon the nation. But where else in the world has it ever been +so extraordinarily, we may say so appallingly, true as in France, that +the nation was such because such was its literature? + +French literature, it will at once be seen, is a study possessing, +beyond the literary, a social, a political, and even a religious, +interest. + +Readers desiring to push their conversance with the literary history of +France farther than the present volume will enable them to do, will +consult with profit either the Primer, or the Short History, of French +Literature, by Mr. George Saintsbury. Mr. Saintsbury is a well-informed +writer, who, if the truth must be told, diffuses himself too widely to +do his best possible work. He has, however, made French literature a +specialty, and he is in general a trustworthy authority on the subject. + +Another writer on the subject is Mr. H. Van Laun. Him, although a +predecessor of his own in the field, Mr. Saintsbury severely ignores, by +claiming that he is himself the first to write in English a history of +French literature based on original and independent reading of the +authors. We are bound to say that Mr. Van Laun's work is of very poor +quality. It offers, indeed, to the reader one advantage not afforded by +either of Mr. Saintsbury's works, the advantage, namely, of illustrative +extracts from the authors treated,--extracts, however, not unfrequently +marred by wretched translation. The cyclopædias are, some of them, both +in articles on particular authors and in their sketches of French +literary history as a whole, good sources of general information on the +subject. Readers who command the means of comparing several different +cyclopædias, or several successive editions of some one cyclopædia, as, +for example, the "Encyclopædia Britannica," will find enlightening and +stimulating the not always harmonious views presented on the same +topics. Hallam's "History of Literature in Europe" is an additional +authority by no means to be overlooked. + + + + +II. + +FROISSART. + +1337-1410. + + +French literature, for the purposes of the present volume, may be said +to commence with Froissart. Froissart is a kind of mediæval Herodotus. +His time is, indeed, almost this side the middle ages; but he belongs by +character and by sympathy rather to the mediæval than to the modern +world. He is delightfully like Herodotus in the style and the spirit of +his narrative. Like Herodotus, he became a traveller in order to become +an historian. Like Herodotus, he was cosmopolite enough not to be +narrowly patriotic. Frenchman though he was, he took as much pleasure in +recounting English victories as he did in recounting French. His +countrymen have even accused him of unpatriotic partiality for the +English. His Chronicles have been, perhaps, more popular in their +English form than in their original French. Two prominent English +translations have been made, of which the later, that by Thomas Johnes, +is now most read. Sir Walter Scott thought the earlier excelled in charm +of style. + +Jehan or Jean Froissart was a native of Valenciennes. His father meant +to make a priest of him, but the boy had other tastes of his own. Before +he was well out of his teens, he began writing history. This was under +the patronage of a great noble. Froissart was all his life a natural +courtier. He throve on the patronage of the great. It was probably not a +fawning spirit in him that made him this kind of man; it was rather an +innate love of splendor and high exploit. He admired chivalry, then in +its last days, and he painted it with the passion of an idealizer. His +father had been an heraldic painter, so it was perhaps an hereditary +strain in the son that naturally attached him to rank and royalty. The +people--that is, the promiscuous mass of mankind--hardly exist to +Froissart. His pages, spacious as they are, have scarcely room for more +than kings and nobles, and knights and squires. He is a picturesque and +romantic historian, in whose chronicles the glories of the world of +chivalry--a world, as we have said, already dying, and so soon to +disappear--are fixed forever on an ample canvas, in moving form and +shifting color, to delight the backward-looking imagination of mankind. + +Froissart, besides being chronicler, was something of a poet. It would +still be possible to confront one who should call this in question, with +thirty thousand surviving verses from the chronicler's pen. Quantity, +indeed, rather than quality, is the strong point of Froissart as poet. + +He had no sooner finished the first part of his Chronicles, a +compilation from the work of an earlier hand, than he posted to England +for the purpose of formally presenting his work to the Queen, a princess +of Hainault. She rewarded him handsomely. Woman enough, too, she was, +woman under the queen, duly to despatch him back again to his native +land, where the young fellow's heart, she saw, was lost to a noble lady, +whom, from his inferior station, he could woo only as a moth might woo +the moon. He subsequently returned to Great Britain, and rode about on +horseback gathering materials of history. He visited Italy under +excellent auspices, and, together with Chaucer and with Petrarch, +witnessed a magnificent marriage ceremonial in Milan. Froissart +continued to travel far and wide, always a favorite with princes, but +always intent on achieving his projected work. He finally died at +Chimay, where he had spent his closing years in rounding out to their +completeness his "Chronicles of England, France, and the Adjoining +Countries." + +Froissart is the most leisurely of historians, or, rather, he is a +writer who presupposes the largest allowance of leisure at the command +of his readers. He does not seek proportion and perspective. He simply +tells us all he had been able to find out respecting each transaction in +its turn as it successively comes up in the progress of his narrative. +If he goes wrong to-day, he will perhaps correct himself to-morrow, or +day after to-morrow,--this not by changing the first record where it +stands, to make it right, but by inserting a note of his mistake at the +point, whatever it may be, which he shall chance to have reached in the +work of composition when the new and better light breaks in on his eyes. +The student is thus never quite certain but that what he is at one +moment reading in his author, may be an error of which at some +subsequent moment he will be faithfully advised. A little discomposing, +this, but such is Froissart; and it is the philosophical way to take +your author as he is, and make the best of him. + +Of such an historian, an historian so diffuse, and so little selective, +it would obviously be difficult to give any suitably brief specimen that +should seem to present a considerable historic action in full. We go to +Froissart's account of the celebrated battle of Poitiers (France). This +was fought in 1356, between Edward the Black Prince on the English side, +and King John on the side of the French. + +King John of the French was, of course, a great prize to be secured by +the victorious English. There was eager individual rivalry as to what +particular warrior should be adjudged his true captor. Froissart thus +describes the strife and the issue:-- + + There was much pressing at this time, through eagerness to take the + king; and those who were nearest to him, and knew him, cried out, + "Surrender yourself, surrender yourself, or you are a dead man!" In + that part of the field was a young knight from St. Omer, who was + engaged by a salary in the service of the King of England; his name + was Denys de Morbeque; who for five years had attached himself to + the English, on account of having been banished in his younger days + from France, for a murder committed in an affray at St. Omer. It + fortunately happened for this knight, that he was at the time near + to the King of France, when he was so much pulled about. He, by + dint of force, for he was very strong and robust, pushed through + the crowd, and said to the king, in good French, "Sire, sire, + surrender yourself!" The king, who found himself very disagreeably + situated, turning to him, asked, "To whom shall I surrender myself? + to whom? Where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales? If I could see + him, I would speak to him."--"Sire," replied Sir Denys, "he is not + here; but surrender yourself to me, and I will lead you to + him."--"Who are you?" said the king. "Sire, I am Denys de Morbeque, + a knight from Artois; but I serve the King of England because I + cannot belong to France, having forfeited all I possessed there." + The king then gave him his right-hand glove, and said, "I surrender + myself to you." There was much crowding and pushing about; for + every one was eager to cry out, "I have taken him!" Neither the + king nor his youngest son Philip were able to get forward, and free + themselves from the throng.... + + The Prince [of Wales] asked them [his marshals] if they knew any + thing of the King of France: they replied, "No, sir, not for a + certainty; but we believe he must be either killed or made + prisoner, since he has never quitted his battalion." The prince + then, addressing the Earl of Warwick and Lord Cobham, said, "I beg + of you to mount your horses, and ride over the field, so that on + your return you may bring me some certain intelligence of him." The + two barons, immediately mounting their horses, left the prince, and + made for a small hillock, that they might look about them. From + their stand they perceived a crowd of men-at-arms on foot, who were + advancing very slowly. The King of France was in the midst of them, + and in great danger; for the English and Gascons had taken him from + Sir Denys de Morbeque, and were disputing who should have him, the + stoutest bawling out, "It is I that have got him."--"No, no," + replied the others: "we have him." The king, to escape from this + peril, said, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, I pray you conduct me and my + son in a courteous manner to my cousin the prince; and do not make + such a riot about my capture, for I am so great a lord that I can + make all sufficiently rich." These words, and others which fell + from the king, appeased them a little; but the disputes were always + beginning again, and they did not move a step without rioting. When + the two barons saw this troop of people, they descended from the + hillock, and, sticking spurs into their horses, made up to them. On + their arrival, they asked what was the matter. They were answered, + that it was the King of France, who had been made prisoner, and + that upward of ten knights and squires challenged him at the same + time, as belonging to each of them. The two barons then pushed + through the crowd by main force, and ordered all to draw aside. + They commanded, in the name of the prince, and under pain of + instant death, that every one should keep his distance, and not + approach unless ordered or desired so to do. They all retreated + behind the king; and the two barons, dismounting, advanced to the + king with profound reverences, and conducted him in a peaceable + manner to the Prince of Wales. + +We continue our citation from Froissart with the brief chapter in which +the admiring chronicler tells the gallant story of the Black Prince's +behavior as host toward his royal captive, King John of France (it was +the evening after the battle):-- + + When evening was come, the Prince of Wales gave a supper in his + pavilion to the King of France, and to the greater part of the + princes and barons who were prisoners. The prince seated the King + of France, and his son the Lord Philip, at an elevated and + well-covered table: with them were Sir James de Bourbon, the Lord + John d'Artois, the earls of Tancarville, of Estampes, of Dammartin, + of Graville, and the Lord of Partenay. The other knights and + squires were placed at different tables. The prince himself served + the king's table, as well as the others, with every mark of + humility, and would not sit down at it, in spite of all his + entreaties for him so to do, saying that "he was not worthy of such + an honor, nor did it appertain to him to seat himself at the table + of so great a king, or of so valiant a man as he had shown himself + by his actions that day." He added, also, with a noble air, "Dear + sir, do not make a poor meal, because the Almighty God has not + gratified your wishes in the event of this day; for be assured that + my lord and father will show you every honor and friendship in his + power, and will arrange your ransom so reasonably, that you will + henceforward always remain friends. In my opinion, you have cause + to be glad that the success of this battle did not turn out as you + desired; for you have this day acquired such high renown for + prowess, that you have surpassed all the best knights on your side. + I do not, dear sir, say this to flatter you; for all those of our + side who have seen and observed the actions of each party, have + unanimously allowed this to be your due, and decree you the prize + and garland for it." At the end of this speech, there were murmurs + of praise heard from every one; and the French said the prince had + spoken nobly and truly, and that he would be one of the most + gallant princes in Christendom if God should grant him life to + pursue his career of glory. + +A splendid and a gracious figure the Black Prince makes in the pages of +Froissart. It was great good fortune for the posthumous fame of +chivalry, that the institution should have come by an artist so gifted +and so loyal as this Frenchman, to deliver its features in portrait to +after-times, before the living original vanished forever from the view +of history. How much the fiction of Sir Walter Scott owes to Froissart, +and to Philip de Comines after Froissart, those only can understand who +have read both the old chronicles and the modern romances. + +It was one of the congenial labors of Sidney Lanier--pure flame of +genius that late burned itself out so swiftly among us!--to edit a +reduction or abridgment of Froissart's Chronicles dedicated especially +to the use of the young. "The Boy's Froissart," he called it. This book +is enriched with a wise and genial appreciation of Froissart's quality +by his American editor. + +Whoever reads Froissart needs to remember that the old chronicler is too +much enamoured of chivalry, and is too easily dazzled by splendor of +rank, to be a rigidly just censor of faults committed by knights and +nobles and kings. Froissart, in truth, seems to have been nearly +destitute of the sentiment of humanity. War to him was chiefly a game +and a spectacle. + +Our presentation of Froissart must close with a single passage +additional, a picturesque one, in which the chronicler describes the +style of living witnessed by him at the court--we may not unfitly so +apply a royal word--of the Count de Foix. The reader must understand, +while he reads what we here show, that Froissart himself, in close +connection, relates at full, in the language of an informant of his, how +this magnificent Count de Foix had previously killed, with a knife at +his throat, his own and his only son. "I was truly sorry," so, at the +conclusion of the story, Froissart, with characteristic direction of his +sympathy, says, "for the count his father, whom I found a magnificent, +generous, and courteous lord, and also for the country that was +discontented for want of an heir." Here is the promised passage; it +occurs in the ninth chapter of the third volume:-- + + Count Gaston Phoebus de Foix, of whom I am now speaking, was at + that time fifty-nine years old; and I must say, that although I + have seen very many knights, kings, princes, and others, I have + never seen any so handsome, either in the form of his limbs and + shape, or in countenance, which was fair and ruddy, with gray and + amorous eyes, that gave delight whenever he chose to express + affection. He was so perfectly formed, one could not praise him too + much. He loved earnestly the things he ought to love, and hated + those which it was becoming him so to hate. He was a prudent + knight, full of enterprise and wisdom. He had never any men of + abandoned character with him, reigned prudently, and was constant + in his devotions. There were regular nocturnals from the Psalter, + prayers from the rituals to the Virgin, to the Holy Ghost, and + from the burial service. He had every day distributed as alms, at + his gate, five florins in small coin, to all comers. He was liberal + and courteous in his gifts, and well knew how to take when it was + proper, and to give back where he had confidence. He mightily loved + dogs above all other animals, and during the summer and winter + amused himself much with hunting.... + + When he quitted his chamber at midnight for supper, twelve servants + bore each a lighted torch before him, which were placed near his + table, and gave a brilliant light to the apartment. The hall was + full of knights and squires, and there were plenty of tables laid + out for any person who chose to sup. No one spoke to him at his + table, unless he first began a conversation. He commonly ate + heartily of poultry, but only the wings and thighs; for in the + daytime, he neither ate nor drank much. He had great pleasure in + hearing minstrels; as he himself was a proficient in the science, + and made his secretaries sing songs, ballads, and roundelays. He + remained at table about two hours, and was pleased when fanciful + dishes were served up to him, which having seen, he immediately + sent them to the tables of his knights and squires. + + In short, every thing considered, though I had before been in + several courts of kings, dukes, princes, counts, and noble ladies, + I was never at one that pleased me more, nor was I ever more + delighted with feats of arms, than at this of the Count de Foix. + There were knights and squires to be seen in every chamber, hall, + and court, going backwards and forwards, and conversing on arms and + amours. Every thing honorable was there to be found. All + intelligence from distant countries was there to be learnt, for the + gallantry of the count had brought visitors from all parts of the + world. It was there I was informed of the greater part of those + events which had happened in Spain, Portugal, Arragon, Navarre, + England, Scotland, and on the borders of Languedoc; for I saw, + during my residence, knights and squires arrive from every nation. + I therefore made inquiries from them, or from the count himself, + who cheerfully conversed with me. + +The foregoing is one of the most celebrated passages of description in +Froissart. At the same time that it discloses the form and spirit of +those vanished days, which will never come again to the world, it +discloses likewise the character of the man, who must indeed have loved +it all well, to have been able so well to describe it. + +We take now a somewhat long forward step, in going, as we do, at once +from Froissart to Rabelais. Comines, lying between, we must reluctantly +pass, with thus barely mentioning his name. + + + + +III. + +RABELAIS. + +1495-1553. + + +Rabelais is one of the most famous of writers. But he is at the same +time incomparably the coarsest. + +The real quality of such a writer, it is evidently out of the question +to exhibit at all adequately here. But equally out of the question it is +to omit Rabelais altogether from an account of French literature. + +Of the life of François Rabelais the man, these few facts will be +sufficient to know. In early youth he joined the monastic order of the +Franciscans. That order hated letters; but Rabelais loved them. He, in +fact, conceived a voracious ambition of knowledge. He became immensely +learned. This fact, with what it implies of long labor patiently +achieved, is enough to show that Rabelais was not without seriousness of +character. But he was much more a merry-andrew than a pattern monk. He +made interest enough with influential friends to get himself transferred +from the Franciscans to the Benedictines, an order more favorable to +studious pursuits. But neither among the Benedictines was this +roistering spirit at ease. He left them irregularly, but managed to +escape punishment for his irregularity. At last, after various +vicissitudes of occupation, he settled down as curate of Meudon, where +(the place, however, is doubtful, as also the date) in 1553 he died. He +was past fifty years of age before he finished the work which has made +him famous. + +This work is "The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel," a grotesque and +nondescript production, founded, probably, on some prior romance or +traditionary tale of giants. The narrative of Rabelais is a tissue of +adventures shocking every idea of verisimilitude, and serving only as a +vehicle for the strange humor of the writer. The work is replete with +evidences of Rabelais's learning. It would be useless to attempt giving +any abstract or analysis of a book which is simply a wild chaos of +material jumbled together with little regard to logic, order, or method +of whatever sort. We shall better represent its character by giving a +few specimen extracts. + +Rabelais begins his romance characteristically. According as you +understand him here, you judge the spirit of the whole work. Either he +now gives you a clew by which, amid the mazes of apparent sheer +frivolity on his part, you may follow till you win your way to some +veiled serious meaning that he had all the time, but never dared frankly +to avow; or else he is playfully misleading you on a false scent, which, +however long held to, will bring you out nowhere--in short, is quizzing +you. Let the reader judge for himself. Here is the opening passage,--the +"Author's Prologue," it is called in the English translation executed by +Sir Thomas Urquhart and Motteux; a version, by the way, which, with +whatever faults of too much freedom, is the work of minds and +consciences singularly sympathetic with the genius of the original; the +English student is perhaps hardly at all at disadvantage, in comparison +with the French, for the full appreciation of Rabelais:-- + + Most noble and illustrious drinkers, and you thrice precious + pockified blades (for to you, and none else, do I dedicate my + writings), Alcibiades, in that dialogue of Plato's which is + entitled, "The Banquet," whilst he was setting forth the praises of + his schoolmaster Socrates (without all question the prince of + philosophers), amongst other discourses to that purpose said that + he resembled the Sileni. Sileni of old were little boxes, like + those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted on the + outside with wanton toyish figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled + geese, horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, + and other such counterfeited pictures, at pleasure, to excite + people unto laughter, as Silenus himself, who was the foster-father + of good Bacchus, was wont to do; but within those capricious + caskets called Sileni, were carefully preserved and kept many rich + and fine drugs, such as balm, ambergreese, amomon, musk, civet, + with several kinds of precious stones, and other things of great + price. Just such another thing was Socrates; for to have eyed his + outside, and esteemed of him by his exterior appearance, you would + not have given the peel of an onion for him, so deformed he was in + body, and ridiculous in his gesture.... Opening this box, you would + have found within it a heavenly and inestimable drug, a more than + human understanding, an admirable virtue, matchless learning, + invincible courage, inimitable sobriety, certain contentment of + mind, perfect assurance, and an incredible disregard of all that + for which men commonly do so much watch, run, sail, fight, travel, + toil, and turmoil themselves. + + Whereunto (in your opinion) doth this little flourish of a preamble + tend? For so much as you, my good disciples, and some other jolly + fools of ease and leisure,... are too ready to judge, that there is + nothing in them but jests, mockeries, lascivious discourse, and + recreative lies;... therefore is it, that you must open the book, + and seriously consider of the matter treated in it. Then shall you + find that it containeth things of far higher value than the box did + promise; that is to say, that the subject thereof is not so + foolish, as by the title at the first sight it would appear to be. + + ...Did you ever see a dog with a marrow-bone in his mouth?... Like + him, you must, by a sedulous lecture [reading], and frequent + meditation, break the bone, and suck out the marrow; that is, my + allegorical sense, or the things I to myself propose to be + signified by these Pythagorical symbols;... the most glorious + doctrines and dreadful mysteries, as well in what concerneth our + religion, as matters of the public state and life economical. + +Up to this point, the candid reader has probably been conscious of a +growing persuasion that this author must be at bottom a serious if also +a humorous man,--a man, therefore, excusably intent not to be +misunderstood as a mere buffoon. But now let the candid reader proceed +with the following, and confess, upon his honor, if he is not +scandalized and perplexed. What shall be said of a writer who thus plays +with his reader? + + Do you believe, upon your conscience, that Homer, whilst he was + couching his Iliad and Odyssey, had any thought upon those + allegories which Plutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius, + Phornutus, squeezed out of him, and which Politian filched again + from them? If you trust it, with neither hand nor foot do you come + near to my opinion, which judgeth them to have been as little + dreamed of by Homer, as the gospel sacraments were by Ovid, in his + Metamorphoses; though a certain gulligut friar, and true + bacon-picker, would have undertaken to prove it, if, perhaps, he + had met with as very fools as himself, and, as the proverb says, "a + lid worthy of such a kettle." + + If you give any credit thereto, why do not you the same to these + jovial new Chronicles of mine? Albeit, when I did dictate them, I + thought thereof no more than you, who possibly were drinking the + whilst, as I was. For, in the composing of this lordly book, I + never lost nor bestowed any more, nor any other time, than what was + appointed to serve me for taking of my bodily refection; that is, + whilst I was eating and drinking. And, indeed, that is the fittest + and most proper hour, wherein to write these high matters and deep + sentences; as Homer knew very well, the paragon of all philologues, + and Ennius, the father of the Latin poets, as Horace calls him, + although a certain sneaking jobbernol alleged that his verses + smelled more of the wine than oil. + +Does this writer quiz his reader, or, in good faith, give him a needed +hint? Who shall decide? + +We have let our first extract thus run on to some length, both for the +reason that the passage is as representative as any we could properly +offer of the quality of Rabelais, and also for the reason that the key +of interpretation is here placed in the hand of the reader, for +unlocking the enigma of this remarkable book. The extraordinary +horse-play of pleasantry, which makes Rabelais unreadable for the +general public of to-day, begins so promptly, affecting the very +prologue, that we could not present even that piece of writing entire in +our extract. We are informed that the circulation in England of the +works of Rabelais, in translation, has been interfered with by the +English government, on the ground of their indecency. We are bound to +admit, that, if any writings whatever were to be suppressed on that +ground, the writings of Rabelais are certainly entitled to be of the +number. It is safe to say that never, no, not even in the boundless +license of the comedy of Aristophanes, was more flagrant indecency, and +indecency proportionately more redundant in volume, perpetrated in +literature, than was done by Rabelais. Indecency, however, it is, rather +than strict lasciviousness. Rabelais sinned against manners, more than +he sinned against morals. But his obscenity is an ocean, without bottom +or shore. Literally, he sticks at nothing that is coarse. Nay, this is +absurdly short of expressing the fact. The genius of Rabelais teems with +invention of coarseness, beyond what any one could conceive as possible, +who had not taken his measure of possibility from Rabelais himself. And +his diction was as opulent as his invention. + +Such is the character of Rabelais the author. What, then, was it, if not +fondness for paradox, that could prompt Coleridge to say, "I could write +a treatise in praise of the moral elevation of Rabelais' works, which +would make the church stare and the conventicle groan, and yet would be +truth, and nothing but the truth"? If any thing besides fondness for +paradox inspired Coleridge in saying this, it must, one would guess, +have been belief on his part in the allegorical sense hidden deep +underneath the monstrous mass of the Rabelaisian buffoonery. A more +judicial sentence is that of Hallam, the historian of the literature of +Europe: "He [Rabelais] is never serious in a single page, and seems to +have had little other aim, in his first two volumes, than to pour out +the exuberance of his animal gayety." + +The supply of animal gayety in this man was something portentous. One +cannot, however, but feel that he forces it sometimes, as sometimes did +Dickens those exhaustless animal spirits of his. A very common trick of +the Rabelaisian humor is to multiply specifications, or alternative +expressions, one after another, almost without end. From the second book +of his romance,--an afterthought, probably, of continuation to his +unexpectedly successful first book,--we take the last paragraph of the +prologue, which shows this. The veracious historian makes obtestation of +the strict truth of his narrative, and imprecates all sorts of evil upon +such as do not believe it absolutely. We cleanse our extract a little:-- + + And, therefore, to make an end of this Prologue, even as I give + myself to an hundred thousand panniers-full of fair devils, body + and soul,... in case that I lie so much as one single word in this + whole history; after the like manner, St. Anthony's fire burn you, + Mahoom's disease whirl you, the squinance with a stitch in your + side, and the wolf in your stomach truss you, the bloody flux seize + upon you, the cursed sharp inflammations of wild fire, as slender + and thin as cow's hair strengthened with quicksilver, enter into + you,... and, like those of Sodom and Gomorrha, may you fall into + sulphur, fire, and bottomless pits, in case you do not firmly + believe all that I shall relate unto you in this present Chronicle. + +So much for Rabelais's prologues. Our readers must now see something of +what, under pains and penalties denounced so dire, they are bound to +believe. We condense and defecate for this purpose the thirty-eighth +chapter of the first book, which is staggeringly entitled, "How +Gargantua did eat up Six Pilgrims in a Sallad":-- + + The story requireth that we relate that which happened unto six + pilgrims, who came from Sebastian near to Nantes; and who, for + shelter that night, being afraid of the enemy, had hid themselves + in the garden upon the chickling peas, among the cabbages and + lettuces. Gargantua, finding himself somewhat dry, asked whether + they could get any lettuce to make him a salad; and, hearing that + there were the greatest and fairest in the country,--for they were + as great as plum trees, or as walnut trees,--he would go thither + himself, and brought thence in his hand what he thought good, and + withal carried away the six pilgrims, who were in so great fear + that they did not dare to speak nor cough. Washing them, therefore, + first at the fountain, the pilgrims said one to another, softly, + "What shall we do? We are almost drowned here amongst these + lettuce: shall we speak? But, if we speak, he will kill us for + spies." And, as they were thus deliberating what to do, Gargantua + put them, with the lettuce, into a platter of the house, as large + as the huge tun of the White Friars of the Cistertian order; which + done, with oil, vinegar, and salt, he ate them up, to refresh + himself a little before supper, and had already swallowed up five + of the pilgrims, the sixth being in the platter, totally hid under + a lettuce, except his bourbon, or staff, that appeared, and nothing + else. Which Grangousier [Gargantua's father] seeing, said to + Gargantua, "I think that is the horn of a shell snail: do not eat + it."--"Why not?" said Gargantua; "they are good all this month:" + which he no sooner said, but, drawing up the staff, and therewith + taking up the pilgrim, he ate him very well, then drank a terrible + draught of excellent white wine. The pilgrims, thus devoured, made + shift to save themselves, as well as they could, by drawing their + bodies out of the reach of the grinders of his teeth, but could + not escape from thinking they had been put in the lowest dungeon of + a prison. And, when Gargantua whiffed the great draught, they + thought to have drowned in his mouth, and the flood of wine had + almost carried them away into the gulf of his stomach. + Nevertheless, skipping with their bourbons, as St. Michael's + palmers used to do, they sheltered themselves from the danger of + that inundation under the banks of his teeth. But one of them, by + chance, groping, or sounding the country with his staff, to try + whether they were in safety or no, struck hard against the cleft of + a hollow tooth, and hit the mandibulary sinew or nerve of the jaw, + which put Gargantua to very great pain, so that he began to cry for + the rage that he felt. To ease himself, therefore, of his smarting + ache, he called for his tooth-picker, and, rubbing towards a young + walnut-tree, where they lay skulking, unnestled you my gentlemen + pilgrims. For he caught one by the legs, another by the scrip, + another by the pocket, another by the scarf, another by the band of + the breeches; and the poor fellow that had hurt him with the + bourbon, him he hooked to him by [another part of his clothes].... + The pilgrims, thus dislodged, ran away. + +Rabelais closes his story with jocose irreverent application of +Scripture,--a manner of his which gives some color to the tradition of a +biblical pun made by him on his death-bed. + +The closest English analogue to Rabelais is undoubtedly Dean Swift. We +probably never should have had "Gulliver's Travels" from Swift, if we +had not first had Gargantua and Pantagruel from Rabelais. Swift, +however, differs from Rabelais as well as resembles him. Whereas +Rabelais is simply monstrous in invention, Swift in invention submits +himself loyally to law. Give Swift his world of Liliput and Brobdingnag +respectively, and all, after that, is quite natural and probable. The +reduction or the exaggeration is made upon a mathematically calculated +scale. For such verisimilitude Rabelais cares not a straw. His various +inventions are recklessly independent one of another. A characteristic +of Swift thus is scrupulous conformity to whimsical law. Rabelais is +remarkable for whimsical disregard of even his own whimseys. Voltaire +put the matter with his usual felicity,--Swift is Rabelais in his +senses. + +One of the most celebrated--justly celebrated--of Rabelais's +imaginations is that of the Abbey of Thélème [Thelema]. This constitutes +a kind of Rabelaisian Utopia. It was proper of the released monk to give +his Utopian dream the form of an abbey, but an abbey in which the +opposite should obtain of all that he had so heartily hated in his own +monastic experience. A humorously impossible place and state was the +Abbey of Thélème,--a kind of sportive Brook Farm set far away in a world +unrealized. How those Thelemites enjoyed life, to be sure! It was like +endless plum pudding--for everybody to eat, and nobody to prepare:-- + + All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but + according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of + their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labor, + sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. None + did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor + to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all + their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this + one clause to be observed,-- + + + DO WHAT THOU WILT. + + + ...By this liberty they entered into a very laudable emulation, to + do all of them what they saw did please one. If any of the gallants + or ladies should say, Let us drink, they would all drink. If any + one of them said, Let us play, they all played. If one said, Let us + go a walking into the fields, they went all.... There was neither + he nor she amongst them, but could read, write, sing, play upon + several musical instruments, speak five or six several languages, + and compose in them all very quaintly, both in verse and prose. + Never were seen so valiant knights, so noble and worthy, so + dextrous and skilful both on foot and a horseback, more brisk and + lively, more nimble and quick, or better handling all manner of + weapons than were there. Never were seen ladies so proper and + handsome, so miniard and dainty, less forward, or more ready with + their hand, and with their needle, in every honest and free action + belonging to that sex, than were there. For this reason, when the + time came, that any man of the said abbey, either at the request of + his parents, or for some other cause, had a mind to go out of it, + he carried along with him one of the ladies, namely her who had + before that accepted him as her lover, and they were married + together. + +The foregoing is one of the most purely sweet imaginative passages in +Rabelais's works. The representation, as a whole, sheathes, of course, a +keen satire on the religious houses. Real religion, Rabelais nowhere +attacks. + +The same colossal Gargantua who had that eating adventure with the six +pilgrims, is made, in Rabelais's second book, to write his youthful son +Pantagruel--also a giant, but destined to be, when mature, a model of +all princely virtues--a letter on education, in which the most pious +paternal exhortation occurs. The whole letter reads like some learned +Puritan divine's composition. Here are a few specimen sentences:-- + + Fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, + and Latin physicians, not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists; + and by frequent anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of that + other world, called the microcosm, which is man. And at some of the + hours of the day apply thy mind to the study of the Holy + Scriptures: first, in Greek, the New Testament, with the Epistles + of the Apostles; and then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In brief, + let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge.... + + ...It behoveth thee to serve, to love, to fear God, and on him to + cast all thy thoughts and all thy hope, and, by faith formed in + charity, to cleave unto him, so that thou mayst never be separated + from him by thy sins. Suspect the abuses of the world. Set not thy + heart upon vanity, for this life is transitory; but the Word of the + Lord endureth forever. + +"Friar John" is a mighty man of valor, who figures equivocally in the +story of Gargantua and Pantagruel. The Abbey of Thélème is given him in +reward of his services. Some have identified this fighting monk with +Martin Luther. The representation is, on the whole, so conducted as to +leave the reader's sympathies at least half enlisted in favor of the +fellow, rough and roistering as he is. + +Panurge is the hero of the romance of Pantagruel,--almost more than +Pantagruel himself. It would be unpardonable to dismiss Rabelais +without first making our readers know Panurge by, at least, a few traits +of his character and conduct. Panurge was a shifty but unscrupulous +adventurer, whom Pantagruel, pious prince as he was, coming upon him by +chance, took and kept under his patronage. Panurge was an arch-imp of +mischief,--mischief indulged in the form of obscene and malicious +practical jokes. Rabelais describes his accomplishments in a long strain +of discourse, from which we purge our selection to follow,--thereby +transforming Panurge into a comparatively proper and virtuous person:-- + + He had threescore and three tricks to come by it [money] at his + need, of which the most honorable and most ordinary was in manner + of thieving, secret purloining, and filching, for he was a wicked, + lewd rogue, a cozener, drinker, roysterer, rover, and a very + dissolute and debauched fellow, if there were any in Paris; + otherwise, and in all matters else, the best and most virtuous man + in the world; and he was still contriving some plot, and devising + mischief against the serjeants and the watch. + + At one time he assembled three or four especial good hacksters and + roaring boys; made them in the evening drink like Templars, + afterwards led them till they came under St. Genevieve, or about + the college of Navarre, and, at the hour that the watch was coming + up that way,--which he knew by putting his sword upon the pavement, + and his ear by it, and, when he heard his sword shake, it was an + infallible sign that the watch was near at that instant,--then he + and his companions took a tumbrel or garbage-cart, and gave it the + brangle, hurling it with all their force down the hill, and then + ran away upon the other side; for in less than two days he knew all + the streets, lanes, and turnings in Paris, as well as his _Deus + det._ + + At another time he laid, in some fair place where the said watch + was to pass, a train of gunpowder, and, at the very instant that + they went along, set fire to it, and then made himself sport to see + what good grace they had in running away, thinking that St. + Anthony's fire had caught them by the legs.... In one of his + pockets he had a great many little horns full of fleas and lice, + which he borrowed from the beggars of St. Innocent, and cast them, + with small canes or quills to write with, into the necks of the + daintiest gentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church; + for he never seated himself above in the choir, but always in the + body of the church amongst the women, both at mass, at vespers, and + at sermon. + +Coleridge, in his metaphysical way, keen at the moment on the scent of +illustrations for the philosophy of Kant, said, "Pantagruel is the +Reason; Panurge the Understanding." Rabelais himself, in the fourth book +of his romance, written in the last years of his life, defines the +spirit of the work. This fourth book, the English translator says, is +"justly thought his masterpiece." The same authority adds with +enthusiasm, "Being wrote with more spirit, salt, and flame than the +first part." Here, then, is Rabelais's own expression, sincere or +jocular, as you choose to take it, for what constitutes the essence of +his writing. We quote from the "Prologue":-- + + By the means of a little Pantagruelism (which, you know, is _a + certain jollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of fortune_), you see + me now ["at near seventy years of age," his translator says], hale + and cheery, as sound as a bell, and ready to drink, if you will. + +It is impossible to exaggerate the mad, rollicking humor, sticking at +nothing, either in thought or in expression, with which especially this +last book of Rabelais's work is written. But we have no more space for +quotation. + +Coleridge's theory of interpretation for Rabelais's writings is hinted +in his "Table Talk," as follows: "After any particularly deep thrust,... +Rabelais, as if to break the blow, and to appear unconscious of what he +has done, writes a chapter or two of pure buffoonery." + +The truth seems to us to be, that Rabelais's supreme taste, like his +supreme power, lay in the line of humorous satire. He hated monkery, and +he satirized the system as openly as he dared,--this, however, not so +much in the love of truth and freedom, as in pure fondness for +exercising his wit. That he was more than willing to make his ribald +drollery the fool's mask from behind which he might aim safely his +shafts of ridicule at what he despised and hated, is indeed probable. +But in this is supplied to him no sufficient excuse for his obscene and +blasphemous pleasantry. Nor yet are the manners of the age an excuse +sufficient. Erasmus belonged to the same age, and he disliked the monks +not less. But what a contrast, in point of decency, between Rabelais and +Erasmus! + + + + +IV. + +MONTAIGNE. + +1533-1592. + + +Montaigne is signally the author of one book. His "Essays" are the whole +of him. He wrote letters, to be sure, and he wrote journals of travel in +quest of health and pleasure. But these are chiefly void of interest. +Montaigne the Essayist alone is emphatically the Montaigne that +survives. "Montaigne the Essayist,"--that has become, as it were, a +personal name in literary history. + +The "Essays" are one hundred and seven in number, divided into three +books. They are very unequal in length; and they are on the most various +topics,--topics often the most whimsical in character. We give a few of +his titles, taking them as found in Cotton's translation:-- + + That men by various ways arrive at the same end; Whether the + governor of a place ought himself to go out to parley; Of liars; Of + quick or slow speech; A proceeding of some ambassadors; Various + events from the same counsel; Of cannibals; That we laugh and cry + from the same thing; Of smells; That the mind hinders itself; Of + thumbs; Of virtue; Of coaches; Of managing the will; Of cripples; + Of experience. + +Montaigne's titles cannot be trusted to indicate the nature of the +essays to which they belong. The author's pen will not be bound. It runs +on at its own pleasure. Things the most unexpected are incessantly +turning up in Montaigne,--things, probably, that were as unexpected to +the writer when he was writing, as they will be to the reader when he is +reading. The writing, on whatever topic, in whatever vein, always +revolves around the writer for its pivot. Montaigne, from no matter what +apparent diversion, may constantly be depended upon to bring up in due +time at himself. The tether is long and elastic, but it is tenacious, +and it is securely tied to Montaigne. This, as we shall presently let +the author himself make plain, is no accident, of which Montaigne was +unconscious. It is the express idea on which the "Essays" were written. +Montaigne, in his "Essays," is a pure and perfect egotist, naked, and +not ashamed. Egotism is Montaigne's note, his _differentia_, in the +world of literature. Other literary men have been egotists--since. But +Montaigne may be called the first, and he is the greatest. + +Montaigne was a Gascon, and Gasconisms adulterate the purity of his +French. But his style--a little archaic now, and never finished to the +nail--had virtues of its own which have exercised a wholesome influence +on classic French prose. It is simple, direct, manly, genuine. It is +fresh and racy of the writer. It is flexible to every turn, it is +sensitive to every rise or fall, of the thought. It is a steadfast +rebuke to rant and fustian. It quietly laughs to scorn the folly of that +style which writhes in an agony of expression, with neither thought nor +feeling present to be expressed. Montaigne's "Essays" have been a great +and a beneficent formative force in the development of prose style in +French. + +For substance, Montaigne is rich in practical wisdom, his own by +original reflection, or by discreet purveyal. He had read much, he had +observed much, he had experienced much. The result of all, digested in +brooding thought, he put into his "Essays." These grew as he grew. He +got himself transferred whole into them. Out of them, in turn, the world +has been busy ever since dissolving Montaigne. + +Montaigne's "Essays" are, as we have said, himself. Such is his own way +of putting the fact. To one admiring his essays to him, he frankly +replied, "You will like me, if you like my essays, for they are myself." +The originality, the creative character and force, of the "Essays," lies +in this autobiographical quality in them. Their fascination, too, +consists in the self-revelation they contain. This was, first, +self-revelation on the part of the writer; but no less it becomes, in +each case, self-revelation in the experience of the reader. For, as face +answereth to face in the glass, so doth the heart of man to man,--from +race to race, and from generation to generation. If Montaigne, in his +"Essays," held the mirror up to himself, he, in the same act, held up +the mirror to you and to me. The image that we, reading, call Montaigne, +is really ourselves. We never tire of gazing on it. We are all of us +Narcissuses. This is why Montaigne is an immortal and a universal +writer. + +Here is Montaigne's Preface to his "Essays;" "The Author to the Reader," +it is entitled:-- + + Reader, thou hast here an honest book; it doth at the outset + forewarn thee that, in contriving the same, I have proposed to + myself no other than a domestic and private end: I have had no + consideration at all either to thy service or to my glory. My + powers are not capable of any such design. I have dedicated it to + the particular commodity of my kinsfolk and friends, so that, + having lost me (which they must do shortly), they may therein + recover some traits of my conditions and humors, and by that means + preserve more whole, and more life-like, the knowledge they had of + me. Had my intention been to seek the world's favor, I should + surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties. I desire therein + to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary + manner, without study and artifice; for it is myself I paint. My + defects are therein to be read to the life, and my imperfections + and my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me. + If I had lived among those nations which (they say) yet dwell under + the sweet liberty of nature's primitive laws, I assure thee I would + most willingly have painted myself quite fully, and quite naked. + Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book. There's no reason + thou shouldst employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a + subject. Therefore, farewell. + + From Montaigne, the 12th of June, 1580. + +Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, our author, as the foregoing date will have +suggested, derived his most familiar name from the place at which he was +born and at which he lived. Readers are not to take too literally +Montaigne's notice of his dispensing with "borrowed beauties." He was, +in fact, a famous borrower. He himself warns his readers to be careful +how they criticise him; they may be flouting unawares Seneca, Plutarch, +or some other, equally redoubtable, of the reverend ancients. Montaigne +is perhaps as signal an example as any in literature, of the man of +genius exercising his prescriptive right to help himself to his own +wherever he may happen to find it. But Montaigne has in turn been freely +borrowed from. Bacon borrowed from him, Shakspeare borrowed from him, +Dryden, Pope, Hume, Burke, Byron,--these, with many more, in England; +and, in France, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Voltaire, Rousseau,--directly +or indirectly, almost every writer since his day. No modern writer, +perhaps, has gone in solution into subsequent literature more widely +than Montaigne. But no writer remains more solidly and insolubly entire. + +We go at once to chapter twenty-five of the first book of the "Essays," +entitled, in the English translation, "Of the education of children." +The translation we use henceforth throughout is the classic one of +Charles Cotton, in a text of it edited by Mr. William Carew Hazlitt. The +"preface," already given, Cotton omitted to translate. We have allowed +Mr. Hazlitt to supply the deficiency. Montaigne addresses his +educational views to a countess. Several others of his essays are +similarly inscribed to women. Mr. Emerson's excuse of Montaigne for his +coarseness,--that he wrote for a generation in which women were not +expected to be readers,--is thus seen to be curiously impertinent to the +actual case that existed. Of a far worse fault in Montaigne than his +coarseness,--we mean his outright immorality,--Mr. Emerson makes no +mention, and for it, therefore, provides no excuse. We shall ourselves, +in due time, deal more openly with our readers on this point. + +It was for a "boy of quality" that Montaigne aimed to adapt his +suggestions on the subject of education. In this happy country of ours, +all boys are boys of quality; and we shall go nowhere amiss in selecting +from the present essay:-- + + For a boy of quality, then, I say, I would also have his friends + solicitous to find him out a tutor who has rather a well-made than + a well-filled head, seeking, indeed, both the one and the other, + but rather of the two to prefer manners and judgment to mere + learning, and that this man should exercise his charge after a new + method. + + 'Tis the custom of pedagogues to be eternally thundering in their + pupil's ears, as they were pouring into a funnel, whilst the + business of the pupil is only to repeat what the others have said: + now, I would have a tutor to correct this error, and that, at the + very first, he should, according to the capacity he has to deal + with, put it to the test, permitting his pupil himself to taste + things, and of himself to discern and choose them, sometimes + opening the way to him, and sometimes leaving him to open it for + himself; that is, I would not have him alone to invent and speak, + but that he should also hear his pupil speak in turn.... Let him + make him put what he has learned into a hundred several forms, and + accommodate it to so many several subjects, to see if he yet + rightly comprehends it, and has made it his own.... 'Tis a sign of + crudity and indigestion to disgorge what we eat in the same + condition it was swallowed: the stomach has not performed its + office, unless it have altered the form and condition of what was + committed to it to concoct.... + + Let him make him examine and thoroughly sift every thing he reads, + and lodge nothing in his fancy upon simple authority and upon + trust. Aristotle's principles will then be no more principles to + him than those of Epicurus and the Stoics: let this diversity of + opinions be propounded to, and laid before, him; he will himself + choose, if he be able; if not, he will remain in doubt. + + "Che, non men che saper, dubbiar m'aggrata." DANTE, _Inferno_, xl. + 93. + + ["That doubting pleases me, not less than knowing." LONGFELLOW'S + _Translation_.] + + For, if he embrace the opinions of Xenophon and Plato, by his own + reason, they will no more be theirs, but become his own. Who + follows another, follows nothing, finds nothing, nay, is + inquisitive after nothing. "Non sumus sub rege; sibi quisque se + vindicet." ["We are under no king; let each look to + himself."--SENECA, _Ep._ 33.] Let him, at least, know that he + knows. It will be necessary that he imbibe their knowledge, not + that he be corrupted with their precepts; and no matter if he + forget where he had his learning, provided he know how to apply it + to his own use. Truth and reason are common to every one, and are + no more his who spake them first, than his who speaks them after; + 'tis no more according to Plato, than according to me, since both + he and I equally see and understand them. Bees cull their several + sweets from this flower and that blossom, here and there where they + find them; but themselves afterward make the honey, which is all + and purely their own, and no more thyme and marjoram: so the + several fragments he borrows from others he will transform and + shuffle together, to compile a work that shall be absolutely his + own; that is to say, his judgment: his instruction, labor, and + study tend to nothing else but to form that.... Conversation with + men is of very great use, and travel into foreign countries;... to + be able chiefly to give an account of the humors, manners, customs, + and laws of those nations where he has been, and that we may whet + and sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those of others.... + + In this conversing with men, I mean also, and principally, those + who live only in the records of history: he shall, by reading those + books, converse with the great and heroic souls of the best ages. + +It is difficult to find a stopping-place in discourse so wise and so +sweet. We come upon sentences like Plato for height and for beauty. An +example: "The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; +her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always +clear and serene." But the genius of Montaigne does not often soar, +though even one little flight like that shows that it has wings. +Montaigne's garnishes of quotation from foreign tongues are often a +cold-blooded device of afterthought with him. His first edition was +without them, in many places where subsequently they appear. Readers +familiar with Emerson will be reminded of him in perusing Montaigne. +Emerson himself said, "It seemed to me [in reading the "Essays" of +Montaigne] as if I had myself written the book in some former life, so +sincerely it spoke to my thoughts and experience." The rich old English +of Cotton's translation had evidently a strong influence on Emerson, to +mould his own style of expression. Emerson's trick of writing "'tis," +was apparently caught from Cotton. The following sentence, from the +present essay of Montaigne, might very well have served Mr. Emerson for +his own rule of writing: "Let it go before, or come after, a good +sentence, or a thing well said, is always in season; if it neither suit +well with what went before, nor has much coherence with what follows +after, it is good in itself." Montaigne, at any rate, wrote his "Essays" +on that easy principle. The logic of them is the logic of mere chance +association in thought. But, with Montaigne,--whatever is true of +Emerson,--the association at least is not occult; and it is such as +pleases the reader, not less than it pleased the writer. So this Gascon +gentleman of the olden time never tires us, and never loses us out of +his hand. We go with him cheerfully where he so blithely leads. + +Montaigne tells us how he was himself trained under his father. The +elder Montaigne, too, had his ideas on education,--the subject which his +son, in this essay, so instructively treats. The essayist leads up to +his autobiographical episode by an allusion to the value of the +classical languages, and to the question of method in studying them. He +says:-- + + In my infancy, and before I began to speak, he [my father] + committed me to the care of a German,... totally ignorant of our + language, but very fluent, and a great critic, in Latin. This man, + whom he had fetched out of his own country, and whom he entertained + with a very great salary, for this only end, had me continually + with him: to him there were also joined two others, of inferior + learning, to attend me, and to relieve him, who all of them spoke + to me in no other language but Latin. As to the rest of his family, + it was an inviolable rule, that neither himself nor my mother, man + nor maid, should speak any thing in my company, but such Latin + words as every one had learned only to gabble with me. It is not to + be imagined how great an advantage this proved to the whole family: + my father and my mother by this means learned Latin enough to + understand it perfectly well, and to speak it to such a degree as + was sufficient for any necessary use, as also those of the servants + did, who were most frequently with me. In short, we Latined it at + such a rate, that it overflowed to all the neighboring villages, + where there yet remain, that have established themselves by custom, + several Latin appellations of artisans and their tools. As for what + concerns myself, I was above six years of age before I understood + either French or Perigordin ["Perigordin" is Montaigne's name for + the dialect of his province, Perigord (Gascony)], any more than + Arabic; and, without art, book, grammar, or precept, whipping, or + the expense of a tear, I had, by that time, learned to speak as + pure Latin as my master himself, for I had no means of mixing it up + with any other. + +We are now to see how, helped by his wealth, the father was able to +gratify a pleasant whimsey of his own in the nurture of his boy. Highly +æsthetic was the matin _reveillé_ that broke the slumbers of this +hopeful young heir of Montaigne:-- + + Some being of opinion that it troubles and disturbs the brains of + children suddenly to wake them in the morning, and to snatch them + violently and over-hastily from sleep, wherein they are much more + profoundly involved than we, he [the father] caused me to be + wakened by the sound of some musical instrument, and was never + unprovided of a musician for that purpose.... The good man, being + extremely timorous of any way failing in a thing he had so wholly + set his heart upon, suffered himself at last to be overruled by the + common opinions:... he sent me, at six years of age, to the College + of Guienne, at that time the best and most flourishing in France. + +In short, as in the case of Mr. Tulliver, the world was "too many" for +Eyquem _père_; and, in the education of his son, the stout Gascon, +having started out well as dissenter, fell into dull conformity at last. + +We ought to give some idea of the odd instances, classic and other, with +which Montaigne plentifully bestrews his pages. He is writing of the +"Force of Imagination." He says:-- + + A woman, fancying she had swallowed a pin in a piece of bread, + cried and lamented as though she had an intolerable pain in her + throat, where she thought she felt it stick; but an ingenious + fellow that was brought to her, seeing no outward tumor nor + alteration, supposing it to be only a conceit taken at some crust + of bread that had hurt her as it went down, caused her to vomit, + and, unseen, threw a crooked pin into the basin, which the woman no + sooner saw, but, believing she had cast it up, she presently found + herself eased of her pain.... + + Such as are addicted to the pleasures of the field, have, I make + no question, heard the story of the falconer, who, having earnestly + fixed his eyes upon a kite in the air, laid a wager that he would + bring her down with the sole power of his sight, and did so, as it + was said; for _the tales I borrow, I charge upon the consciences of + those from whom I have them_. + +We italicize the last foregoing words, to make readers see that +Montaigne is not to be read for the truth of his instances. He uses what +comes to hand. He takes no trouble to verify. "The discourses are my +own," he says; but even this, as we have hinted, must not be pressed too +hard in interpretation. Whether a given reflection of Montaigne's is +strictly his own, in the sense of not having been first another's, who +gave it to him, is not to be determined except upon very wide reading, +very well remembered, in all the books that Montaigne could have got +under his eye. That was full fairly his own, he thought, which he had +made his own by intelligent appropriation. And this, perhaps, expresses +in general the sound law of property in the realm of mind. At any rate, +Montaigne will wear no yoke of fast obligation. He will write as pleases +him. Above all things else, he likes his freedom. + +Here is one of those sagacious historical scepticisms, in which +Montaigne was so fond of poising his mind between opposite views. It +occurs in his essay entitled, "Of the Uncertainty of our Judgments." + + Amongst other oversights Pompey is charged withal at the battle of + Pharsalia, he is condemned for making his army stand still to + receive the enemy's charge, "by reason that" (I shall here steal + Plutarch's own words, which are better than mine) "he by so doing + deprived himself of the violent impression the motion of running + adds to the first shock of arms, and hindered that clashing of the + combatants against one another, which is wont to give them greater + impetuosity and fury, especially when they come to rush in with + their utmost vigor, their courages increasing by the shouts and the + career; 'tis to render the soldiers' ardor, as a man may say, more + reserved and cold." This is what he says. But, if Cæsar had come by + the worse, why might it not as well have been urged by another, + that, on the contrary, the strongest and most steady posture of + fighting is that wherein a man stands planted firm, without motion; + and that they who are steady upon the march, closing up, and + reserving their force within themselves for the push of the + business, have a great advantage against those who are disordered, + and who have already spent half their breath in running on + precipitately to the charge? Besides that, an army is a body made + up of so many individual members, it is impossible for it to move + in this fury with so exact a motion as not to break the order of + battle, and that the best of them are not engaged before their + fellows can come on to help them. + +The sententiousness of Montaigne may be illustrated by transferring here +a page of brief excerpts from the "Essays," collected by Mr. Bayle St. +John in his biography of the author. This apothegmatic or proverbial +quality in Montaigne had a very important sequel of fruitful influence +on subsequent French writers, as chapters to follow in this volume will +abundantly show. In reading the sentences subjoined, you will have the +sensation of coming suddenly upon a treasure-trove of coined proverbial +wisdom:-- + + Our minds are never at home, but ever beyond home. + + I will take care, if possible, that my death shall say nothing that + my life has not said. + + Life in itself is neither good nor bad: it is the place of what is + good or bad. + + Knowledge should not be stuck on to the mind, but incorporated in + it. + + Irresolution seems to me the most common and apparent vice of our + nature. + + Age wrinkles the mind more than the face. + + Habit is a second nature. + + Hunger cures love. + + It is easier to get money than to keep it. + + Anger has often been the vehicle of courage. + + It is more difficult to command than to obey. + + A liar should have a good memory. + + Ambition is the daughter of presumption. + + To serve a prince, you must be discreet and a liar. + + We learn to live when life has passed. + + The mind is ill at ease when its companion has the colic. + + We are all richer than we think, but we are brought up to go + a-begging. + + The greatest masterpiece of man is... to be born at the right time. + +We append a saying of Montaigne's not found in Mr. St. John's +collection:-- + + There is no so good man who so squares all his thoughts and actions + to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to deserve hanging ten + times in his life. + +Montaigne was too intensely an egotist, in his character as man no less +than in his character as writer, to have many personal relations that +exhibit him in aspects engaging to our love. But one friendship of his +is memorable,--is even historic. The name of La Boëtie is forever +associated with the name of Montaigne. La Boëtie is remarkable for +being, as we suppose, absolutely the first voice raised in France +against the idea of monarchy. His little treatise "Contr' Un" +(literally, "Against One"), or "Voluntary Servitude," is by many +esteemed among the most important literary productions of modern times. +Others, again, Mr. George Saintsbury for example, consider it an +absurdly overrated book. For our own part, we are inclined to give it +conspicuous place in the history of free thought in France. La Boëtie +died young; and his "Contr' Un" was published posthumously,--first by +the Protestants, after the terrible day of St. Bartholomew. Our readers +may judge for themselves whether a pamphlet in which such passages as +the following could occur, must not have had an historic effect upon the +inflammable sentiment of the French people. We take Mr. Bayle St. +John's translation, bracketing a hint or two of correction suggested by +comparison of the original French. The treatise of La Boëtie is +sometimes now printed with Montaigne's "Essays," in French editions of +our author's works: La Boëtie says:-- + + You sow your fruits [crops] that he [the king] may ravage them; you + furnish and fill your houses that he may have something to steal; + you bring up your daughters that he may slake his luxury; you bring + up your sons that he may take them to be butchered in his wars, to + be the ministers of his avarice, the executors of his vengeance; + you disfigure your forms by labor [your own selves you inure to + toil] that he may cocker himself in delight, and wallow in nasty + and disgusting pleasure. + +Montaigne seems really to have loved this friend of his, whom he +reckoned the greatest man in France. His account of La Boëtie's death is +boldly, and not presumptuously, paralleled by Mr. St. John with the +"Phædon" of Plato. Noble writing, it certainly is, though its +stateliness is a shade too self-conscious, perhaps. + +We have thus far presented Montaigne in words of his own such as may +fairly be supposed likely to prepossess the reader in his favor. We +could multiply our extracts indefinitely in a like unexceptionable vein +of writing. But to do so, and to stop with these, would misrepresent +Montaigne. Montaigne is very far from being an innocent writer. His +moral tone generally is low, and often it is execrable. He is coarse, +but coarseness is not the worst of him. Indeed, he is cleanliness itself +compared with Rabelais. But Rabelais is morality itself compared with +Montaigne. Montaigne is corrupt and corrupting. This feature of his +writings, we are necessarily forbidden to illustrate. In an essay +written in his old age,--which we will not even name, its general tenor +is so evil,--Montaigne holds the following language:-- + + I gently turn aside, and avert my eyes from the stormy and cloudy + sky I have before me, which, thanks be to God, I regard without + fear, but not without meditation and study, and amuse myself in the + remembrance of my better years:-- + + "Animus quod perdidit, optat, Atque in præterita se totus imagine + versat." + + PETRONIUS, c. 128. + + ["The mind desires what it has lost, and in fancy flings itself + wholly into the past."] + + Let childhood look forward, and age backward: is not this the + signification of Janus' double face? Let years haul me along if + they will, but it shall be backward; as long as my eyes can discern + the pleasant season expired, I shall now and then turn them that + way; though it escape from my blood and veins, I shall not, + however, root the image of it out of my memory:-- + + "Hoc est Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui." + + MARTIAL, x. 23, 7. + + ["'Tis to live twice to be able to enjoy former life again."] + +Harmlessly, even engagingly, pensive seems the foregoing strain of +sentiment. Who could suppose it a prelude to detailed reminiscence on +the author's part of sensual pleasures--the basest--enjoyed in the past? +The venerable voluptuary keeps himself in countenance for his lascivious +vein, by writing as follows:-- + + I have enjoined myself to dare to say all that I dare to do; even + thoughts that are not to be published, displease me; the worst of + my actions and qualities do not appear to me so evil, as I find it + evil and base not to dare to own them.... + + ...I am greedy of making myself known, and I care not to how many, + provided it be truly.... Many things that I would not say to a + particular individual, I say to the people; and, as to my most + secret thoughts, send my most intimate friends to my book.... For + my part, if any one should recommend me as a good pilot, as being + very modest, or very chaste, I should owe him no thanks [because + the recommendation would be false]. + +We must leave it--as, however, Montaigne himself is far enough from +leaving it--to the imagination of readers to conjecture what "pleasures" +they are, of which this worn-out debauchee (nearing death, and thanking +God that he nears it "without fear") speaks in the following sentimental +strain:-- + + In farewells, we oftener than not heat our affections towards the + things we take leave of: I take my last leave of the pleasures of + this world; these are our last embraces. + +Mr. Emerson, in his "Representative Men," makes Montaigne stand for The +Sceptic. Sceptic Montaigne was. He questioned, he considered, he +doubted. He stood poised in equilibrium, in indifference, between +contrary opinions. He saw reasons on this side, but he saw reasons also +on that, and he did not clear his mind. "_Que sçai-je?_" was his motto +("What know I?"), a question as of hopeless ignorance,--nay, as of +ignorance also void of desire to know. His life was one long +interrogation, a balancing of opposites, to the end. + +Such, speculatively, was Montaigne. Such, too, speculatively, was +Pascal. The difference, however, was greater than the likeness, between +these two minds. Pascal, doubting, gave the world of spiritual things +the benefit of his doubt. Montaigne, on the other hand, gave the benefit +of his doubt to the world of sense. He was a sensualist, he was a +glutton, he was a lecher. He, for his portion, chose the good things of +this life. His body he used to get him pleasures of the body. In +pleasures of the body he sunk and drowned his conscience,--if he ever +had a conscience. But his intelligence survived. He became, at last,--if +he was not such from the first,--almost pure sense, without soul. + +Yet we have no doubt Montaigne was an agreeable gentleman. We think we +should have got on well with him as a neighbor of ours. He was a +tolerably decent father, provided the child were grown old enough to be +company for him. His own lawful children, while infants, had to go out +of the house for their nursing; so it not unnaturally happened that all +but one died in their infancy. Five of such is the number that you can +count in his own journalistic entries of family births and deaths. But, +speaking as "moral philosopher," in his "Essays," he says, carelessly, +that he had lost "two or three" "without repining." This, perhaps, is +affectation. But what affectation! + +Montaigne was well-to-do; and he ranked as a gentleman, if not as a +great nobleman. He lived in a castle, bequeathed to him, and by him +bequeathed,--a castle still standing, and full of personal association +with its most famous owner. He occupied a room in the tower, fitted up +as a library. Over the door of this room may still, we believe, be read +Montaigne's motto, "_Que sçai-je?_" Votaries of Montaigne perform their +pious pilgrimages to this shrine of their idolatry, year after year, +century after century. + +For, remember, it is now three centuries since Montaigne wrote. He was +before Bacon and Shakspeare. He was contemporary with Charles IX., and +with Henry of Navarre. But date has little to do with such a writer as +Montaigne. His quality is sempiternal. He overlies the ages, as the long +hulk of "The Great Eastern" overlay the waves of the sea, stretching +from summit to summit. Not that, in the form of his literary work, he +was altogether independent of time and of circumstance. Not that he was +uninfluenced by his historic place, in the essential spirit of his +work. But, more than often happens, Montaigne may fairly be judged out +of himself alone. His message he might, indeed, have delivered +differently; but it would have been substantially the same message if he +had been differently placed in the world, and in history. We need +hardly, therefore, add any thing about Montaigne's outward life. His +true life is in his book. + +Montaigne the Essayist is the consummate, the ideal, expression, +practically incapable of improvement, of the spirit and wisdom of the +world. This characterization, we think, fairly and sufficiently sums up +the good and the bad of Montaigne. We might seem to describe no very +mischievous thing. But to have the spirit and wisdom of this world +expressed, to have it expressed as in a last authoritative form, a form +to commend it, to flatter it, to justify it, to make it seem sufficient, +to erect it into a kind of gospel,--that means much. It means hardly +less than to provide the world with a new Bible,--a Bible of the world's +own, a Bible that shall approve itself as better than the Bible of the +Old and New Testaments. Montaigne's "Essays" constitute, in effect, such +a book. The man of the world may,--and, to say truth, does,--in this +volume, find all his needed texts. Here is _viaticum_--daily manna--for +him, to last the year round, and to last year after year; an +inexhaustible breviary for the church of this world! It is of the +gravest historical significance that Rabelais and Montaigne, but +especially Montaigne, should, to such an extent, for now three full +centuries, have been furnishing the daily intellectual food of +Frenchmen. + +Pascal, in an interview with M. de Saci (carefully reported by the +latter), in which the conversation was on the subject of Montaigne and +Epictetus contrasted,--these two authors Pascal acknowledged to be the +ones most constantly in his hand,--said gently of Montaigne, "Montaigne +is absolutely pernicious to those who have any inclination toward +irreligion, or toward vicious indulgences." We, for our part, are +prepared, speaking more broadly than Pascal, to say that, to a somewhat +numerous class of naturally dominant minds, Montaigne's "Essays," in +spite of all that there is good in them,--nay, greatly because of so +much good in them,--are, by their subtly insidious persuasion to evil, +upon the whole quite the most powerfully pernicious book known to us in +literature, either ancient or modern. + + + + +V. + +LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: 1613-1680 (La Bruyère: 1646 (?)-1696; Vauvenargues: +1715-1747). + + +In La Rochefoucauld we meet another eminent example of the author of one +book. "Letters," "Memoirs," and "Maxims" indeed name productions in +three kinds, productions all of them notable, and all still extant, from +La Rochefoucauld's pen. But the "Maxims" are so much more famous than +either the "Letters" or the "Memoirs," that their author may be said to +be known only by those. If it were not for the "Maxims," the "Letters" +and the "Memoirs" would probably now be forgotten. We here may dismiss +these from our minds, and concentrate our attention exclusively upon the +"Maxims." Voltaire said, "The 'Memoirs' of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld +are read, but we know his 'Maxims' by heart." + +La Rochefoucauld's "Maxims" are detached sentences of reflection and +wisdom on human character and conduct. They are about seven hundred in +number, but they are all comprised in a very small volume; for they +generally are each only two or three lines in length, and almost never +does a single maxim occupy more than the half of a moderate-sized page. +The "Maxims," detached, as we have described them, have no very marked +logical sequence in the order in which they stand. They all, however, +have a profound mutual relation. An unvarying monotone of sentiment, in +fact, runs through them. They are so many different expressions, +answering to so many different observations taken at different angles, +of one and the same persisting estimate of human nature. 'Self-love is +the mainspring and motive of every thing we do, or say, or feel, or +think:' that is the total result of the "Maxims" of La Rochefoucauld. + +The writer's qualifications for treating his theme were unsurpassed. He +had himself the right character, moral and intellectual; his scheme of +conduct in life corresponded; he wrote in the right language, French; +and he was rightly situated in time, in place, and in circumstance. He +needed but to look closely within him and without him,--which he was +gifted, with eyes to do,--and then report what he saw, in the language +to which he was born. This he did, and his "Maxims" are the fruit. His +method was largely the sceptical method of Montaigne. His result, too, +was much the same result as his master's. But the pupil surpassed the +master in the quality of his work. There is a fineness, an +exquisiteness, in the literary form of La Rochefoucauld, which Montaigne +might indeed have disdained to seek, but which he could never, even with +seeking, have attained. Each maxim of La Rochefoucauld is a "gem of +purest ray serene," wrought to the last degree of perfection in form +with infinite artistic pains. Purity, precision, clearness, density, +point, are perfectly reconciled in La Rochefoucauld's style with ease, +grace, and brilliancy of expression. The influence of such literary +finish, well bestowed on thought worthy to receive it, has been +incalculably potent in raising the standard of French production in +prose. It was Voltaire's testimony, "One of the works which has most +contributed to form the national taste, and give it a spirit of accuracy +and precision, was the little collection of 'Maxims' by François Duc de +La Rochefoucauld." + +There is a high-bred air about La Rochefoucauld the writer, which well +accords with the rank and character of the man La Rochefoucauld. He was +of one of the noblest families in France. His instincts were all +aristocratic. His manners and his morals were those of his class. Brave, +spirited, a touch of chivalry in him, honorable and amiable as the world +reckons of its own, La Rochefoucauld ran a career consistent throughout +with his own master-principle, self-love. He had a wife whose conjugal +fidelity her husband seems to have thought a sufficient supply in that +virtue for both himself and her. He behaved himself accordingly. His +illicit relations with other women were notorious. But they unhappily +did not make La Rochefoucauld in that respect at all peculiar among the +distinguished men of his time. His brilliant female friends collaborated +with him in working out his "Maxims." These were the labor of years. +They were published in successive editions, during the lifetime of the +author; and some final maxims were added from his manuscripts after his +death. + +Using, for the purpose, a very recent translation, that of A. S. Bolton +(which, in one or two places, we venture to conform more exactly to the +sense of the original), we give almost at hazard a few specimens of +these celebrated apothegms. We adopt the numbering given in the best +Paris edition of the "Maxims:"-- + + No. 11. The passions often beget their contraries. Avarice + sometimes produces prodigality, and prodigality avarice: we are + often firm from weakness, and daring from timidity. + + No. 13. Our self-love bears more impatiently the condemnation of + our tastes than of our opinions. + +How much just detraction from all mere natural human greatness is +contained in the following penetrative maxim!-- + + No. 18. Moderation is a fear of falling into the envy and contempt + which those deserve who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it + is a vain parade of the strength of our mind; and, in short, the + moderation of men in their highest elevation is a desire to appear + greater than their fortune. + +What effectively quiet satire in these few words!-- + + No. 19. We have strength enough to bear the ills of others. + +This man had seen the end of all perfection in the apparently great of +this world. He could not bear that such should flaunt a false plume +before their fellows:-- + + No. 20. The steadfastness of sages is only the art of locking up + their uneasiness in their hearts. + +Of course, had it lain in the author's chosen line to do so, he might, +with as much apparent truth, have pointed out, that to lock up +uneasiness in the heart requires steadfastness no less--nay, more--than +not to feel uneasiness. + +The inflation of "philosophy" vaunting itself is thus softly eased of +its painful distention:-- + + No. 22. Philosophy triumphs easily over troubles passed and + troubles to come, but present troubles triumph over it. + +When Jesus once rebuked the fellow-disciples of James and John for +blaming those brethren as self-seekers, he acted on the same profound +principle with that disclosed in the following maxim:-- + + No. 34. If we had no pride, we should not complain of that of + others. + +How impossible it is for that Proteus, self-love, to elude the presence +of mind, the inexorable eye, the fast hand, of this incredulous +Frenchman:-- + + No. 39. Interest [self-love] speaks all sorts of languages, and + plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness. + + No. 49. We are never so happy, or so unhappy, as we imagine. + + No. 78. The love of justice is, in most men, only the fear of + suffering injustice. + +What a subtly unsoldering distrust the following maxim introduces into +the sentiment of mutual friendship!-- + + No. 83. What men have called friendship, is only a partnership, a + mutual accommodation of interests, and an exchange of good offices: + it is, in short, only a traffic, in which self-love always proposes + to gain something. + + No. 89. Every one complains of his memory, and no one complains of + his judgment. + +How striking, from its artful suppression of strikingness, is the first +following, and what a wide, easy sweep of well-bred satire it +contains!-- + + No. 93. Old men like to give good advice, to console themselves for + being no longer able to give bad examples. + + No. 119. We are so much accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, + that, at last, we disguise ourselves to ourselves. + + No. 127. The true way to be deceived, is to think one's self + sharper than others. + +The plain-spoken proverb, "A man that is his own lawyer, has a fool for +his client," finds a more polished expression in the following:-- + + No. 132. It is easier to be wise for others, than to be so for + one's self. + +How pitilessly this inquisitor pursues his prey, "the human soul, into +all its useless hiding-places!-- + + No. 138. We would rather speak ill of ourselves, than not talk of + ourselves. + +The following maxim, longer and less felicitously phrased than is usual +with La Rochefoucauld, recalls that bitter definition of the bore,--"One +who insists on talking about himself all the time that you are wishing +to talk about yourself:"-- + + No. 139. One of the causes why we find so few people who appear + reasonable and agreeable in conversation, is, that there is + scarcely any one who does not think more of what he wishes to say, + than of replying exactly to what is said to him. The cleverest and + the most compliant think it enough to show an attentive air; while + we see in their eyes and in their mind a wandering from what is + said to them, and a hurry to return to what they wish to say, + instead of considering that it is a bad way to please or to + persuade others, to try so hard to please one's self, and that to + listen well is one of the greatest accomplishments we can have in + conversation. + +If we are indignant at the maxims following, it is probably rather +because they are partly true than, because they are wholly false:-- + + No. 144. We are not fond of praising, and, without interest, we + never praise any one. Praise is a cunning flattery, hidden and + delicate, which, in different ways, pleases him who gives and him + who receives it. The one takes it as a reward for his merit: the + other gives it to show his equity and his discernment. + + No. 146. We praise generally only to be praised. + + No. 147. Few are wise enough to prefer wholesome blame to + treacherous praise. + + No. 149. Disclaiming praise is a wish to be praised a second time. + + No. 152. If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others + could not hurt us. + + No. 184. We acknowledge our faults in order to atone, by our + sincerity, for the harm they do us in the minds of others. + + No. 199. The desire to appear able often prevents our becoming so. + + No. 201. Whoever thinks he can do without the world, deceives + himself much; but whoever thinks the world cannot do without him, + deceives himself much more. + +With the following, contrast Ruskin's noble paradox, that the soldier's +business, rightly conceived, is self-sacrifice; his ideal purpose being, +not to kill, but to be killed:-- + + No. 214. Valor, in private soldiers, is a perilous calling, which + they have taken to in order to gain their living. + +Here is, perhaps, the most current of all La Rochefoucauld's maxims:-- + + No. 218. Hypocrisy is a homage which vice renders to virtue. + +Of the foregoing maxim, it may justly be said, that its truth and point +depend upon the assumption, implicit, that there is such a thing as +virtue,--an assumption which the whole tenor of the "Maxims," in +general, contradicts. + +How incisive the following!-- + + No. 226. Too great eagerness to requite an obligation is a kind of + ingratitude. + + No. 298. The gratitude of most men is only a secret desire to + receive greater favors. + + No. 304. We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive + those whom we bore. + + No. 318. Why should we have memory enough to retain even the + smallest particulars of what has happened to us, and yet not have + enough to remember how often we have told them to the same + individual? + +The first following maxim satirizes both princes and courtiers. It might +be entitled, "How to insult a prince, and not suffer for your +temerity":-- + + No. 320. To praise princes for virtues they have not, is to insult + them with impunity. + + No. 347. We find few sensible people, except those who are of our + way of thinking. + + No. 409. We should often be ashamed of our best actions, if the + world saw the motives which cause them. + + No. 424. We boast of faults the reverse of those we have: when we + are weak, we boast of being stubborn. + +Here, at length, is a maxim that does not depress,--that animates you:-- + + No. 432. To praise noble actions heartily, is in some sort to take + part in them. + +The following is much less exhilarating:-- + + No. 454. There are few instances in which we should make a bad + bargain, by giving up the good that is said of us, on condition + that nothing bad be said. + +This, also:-- + + No. 458. Our enemies come nearer to the truth, in the opinions they + form of us, than we do ourselves. + +Here is a celebrated maxim, vainly "suppressed" by the author, after +first publication:-- + + No. 583. In the adversity of our best friends, we always find + something which does not displease us. + +Before La Rochefoucauld, Montaigne had said, "Even in the midst of +compassion, we feel within us an unaccountable bitter-sweet titillation +of ill-natured pleasure in seeing another suffer;" and Burke, after +both, wrote (in his "Sublime and Beautiful") with a heavier hand, "I am +convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in +the real misfortunes and pains of others." + +La Rochefoucauld is not fairly cynical, more than is Montaigne. But, as +a man, he wins upon you less. His maxims are like hard and sharp +crystals, precipitated from the worldly wisdom blandly solute and dilute +in Montaigne. + +The wise of this world reject the dogma of human depravity, as taught in +the Bible. They willingly accept it,--nay, accept it complacently, +hugging themselves for their own penetration,--as taught in the "Maxims" +of La Rochefoucauld. + +* * * + +Jean de La Bruyère is personally almost as little known as if he were an +ancient of the Greek or Roman world, surviving, like Juvenal, only in +his literary production. Bossuet got him employed to teach history to a +great duke, who became his patron, and settled a life-long annuity upon +him. He published his one book, the "Characters," in 1687, was made +member of the French Academy in 1693, and died in 1696. That, in short, +is La Bruyère's biography. + +His book is universally considered one of the most finished products of +the human mind. It is not a great work,--it lacks the unity and the +majesty of design necessary for that. It consists simply of detached +thoughts and observations on a variety of subjects. It shows the author +to have been a man of deep and wise reflection, but especially a +consummate master of style. The book is one to read in, rather than to +read. It is full of food to thought. The very beginning exhibits a +self-consciousness on the writer's part very different from that +spontaneous simplicity in which truly great books originate. La Bruyère +begins:-- + + Every thing has been said; and one comes too late, after more than + seven thousand years that there have been men, and men who have + thought. + +La Bruyère has something to say, and that at length unusual for him, of +pulpit eloquence. We select a few specimen sentences:-- + + Christian eloquence has become a spectacle. That gospel sadness, + which is its soul, is no longer to be observed in it; its place is + supplied by advantages of facial expression, by inflexions of the + voice, by regularity of gesticulation, by choice of words, and by + long categories. The sacred word is no longer listened to + seriously; it is a kind of amusement, one among many; it is a game + in which there is rivalry, and in which there are those who lay + wagers. + + Profane eloquence has been transferred, so to speak, from the + bar,... where it is no longer employed, to the pulpit, where it + ought not to be found. + + Matches of eloquence are made at the very foot of the altar, and in + the presence of the mysteries. He who listens sits in judgment on + him who preaches, to condemn or to applaud, and is no more + converted by the discourse which he praises than by that which he + pronounces against. The orator pleases some, displeases others, and + has an understanding with all in one thing,--that as he does not + seek to render them better, so they do not think of becoming + better. + +The almost cynical acerbity of the preceding is ostensibly relieved of +an obvious application to certain illustrious contemporary examples +among preachers by the following open allusion to Bossuet and +Bourdaloue:-- + + The Bishop of Meaux [Bossuet] and Father Bourdaloue make me think + of Demosthenes and Cicero. Both of them, masters of pulpit + eloquence, have had the fortune of great models; the one has made + bad critics, the other, bad imitators. + +Here is a happy instance of La Bruyère's successful pains in redeeming a +commonplace sentiment by means of a striking form of expression; the +writer is disapproving the use of oaths in support of one's testimony:-- + + An honest man who says, Yes, or No, deserves to be believed; his + character swears for him. + +Highly satiric in his quiet way, La Bruyère knew how to be. Witness the +following thrust at a contemporary author, not named by the satirist, +but, no doubt, recognized by the public of the time:-- + + He maintains that the ancients, however unequal and negligent they + may be, have fine traits; he points these out; and they are so fine + that they make his criticism readable. + +How painstakingly, how self-consciously, La Bruyère did his literary +work, is evidenced by the following:-- + + A good author, and one who writes with care, often has the + experience of finding that the expression which he was a long time + in search of without reaching it, and which at length he has found, + is that which was the most simple, the most natural, and that + which, as it would seem, should have presented itself at first, and + without effort. + +We feel that the quality of La Bruyère is such as to fit him for the +admiration and enjoyment of but a comparatively small class of readers. +He was somewhat over-exquisite. His art at times became +artifice--infinite labor of style to make commonplace thought seem +valuable by dint of perfect expression. We dismiss La Bruyère with a +single additional extract,--his celebrated parallel between Corneille +and Racine:-- + + Corneille subjects us to his characters and to his ideas; Racine + accommodates himself to ours. The one paints men as they ought to + be; the other paints them as they are. There is more in the former + of what one admires, and of what one ought even to imitate; there + is more in the latter of what one observes in others, or of what + one experiences in one's self. The one inspires, astonishes, + masters, instructs; the other pleases, moves, touches, penetrates. + Whatever there is most beautiful, most noble, most imperial, in the + reason is made use of by the former; by the latter, whatever is + most seductive and most delicate in passion. You find in the + former, maxims, rules, and precepts; in the latter, taste and + sentiment. You are more absorbed in the plays of Corneille; you are + more shaken and more softened in those of Racine. Corneille is more + moral; Racine, more natural. The one appears to make Sophocles his + model; the other owes more to Euripides. + +* * * + +Less than half a century after La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère had shown +the way, Vauvenargues followed in a similar style of authorship, +promising almost to rival the fame of his two predecessors. This writer, +during his brief life (he died at thirty-two), produced one not +inconsiderable literary work more integral and regular in form, +entitled, "Introduction to the Knowledge of the Human Mind"; but it is +his disconnected thoughts and observations chiefly that continue to +preserve his name. + +Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, though nobly born, was poor. +His health was frail. He did not receive a good education in his youth. +Indeed, he was still in his youth when he went to the wars. His culture +always remained narrow. He did not know Greek and Latin, when to know +Greek and Latin was, as it were, the whole of scholarship. To crown his +accidental disqualifications for literary work, he fell a victim to the +small-pox, which left him wrecked in body. This occurred almost +immediately after he abandoned a military career which had been fruitful +to him of hardship, but not of promotion. In spite of all that was thus +against him, Vauvenargues, in those years, few and evil, that were his, +thought finely and justly enough to earn for himself a lasting place in +the literary history of his nation. He was in the eighteenth century of +France, without being of it. You have to separate him in thought from +the infidels and the "philosophers" of his time. He belongs in spirit to +an earlier age. His moral and intellectual kindred was with such as +Pascal, far more than with such as Voltaire. Vauvenargues is, however, a +writer for the few, instead of for the many. His fame is high, but it is +not wide. Historically, he forms a stepping-stone of transition to a +somewhat similar nineteenth-century name, that of Joubert. A very few +sentences of his will suffice to indicate to our readers the quality of +Vauvenargues. Self-evidently, the following antithesis drawn by him +between Corneille and Racine is subtly and ingeniously thought, as well +as very happily expressed--this, whatever may be considered to be its +aptness in point of literary appreciation:-- + + Corneille's heroes often say great things without inspiring them; + Racine's inspire them without saying them. + +Here is a good saying:-- + + It is a great sign of mediocrity always to be moderate in praising. + +There is worldly wisdom also here:-- + + He who knows how to turn his prodigalities to good account, + practises a large and noble economy. + +Virgil's "They are able, because they seem to themselves to be able," is +recalled by this:-- + + The consciousness of our strength makes our strength greater. + +So much for Vauvenargues. + + + + +VI. + +LA FONTAINE. + +1621-1695. + + +La Fontaine enjoys a unique fame. He has absolutely "no fellow in the +firmament" of literature. He is the only fabulist, of any age or any +nation, that, on the score simply of his fables, is admitted to be poet +as well as fabulist. There is perhaps no other literary name whatever +among the French, by long proof more secure, than is La Fontaine's, of +universal and of immortal renown. Such a fame is, of course, not the +most resplendent in the world; but to have been the first, and to remain +thus far the only, writer of fables enjoying recognition as true +poetry,--this surely is an achievement entitling La Fontaine to +monumental mention in any sketch, however summary, of French literature. + +Jean de La Fontaine was humbly born, at Château-Thierry in Champagne. +His early education was sadly neglected. At twenty years of age he was +still phenomenally ignorant. About this time, being now better situated, +he developed a taste for the classics and for poetry. With La Fontaine +the man, it is the sadly familiar French story of debauched manners in +life and in literary production. We cannot acquit him, but we are to +condemn him only in common with the most of his age and of his nation. +As the world goes, La Fontaine was a "good fellow," never lacking +friends. These were held fast in loyalty to the poet, not so much by any +sterling worth of character felt in him, as by an exhaustless, +easy-going good-nature, that, despite his social insipidity, made La +Fontaine the most acceptable of every-day companions. It would be easy +to repeat many stories illustrative of this personal quality in La +Fontaine, while to tell a single story illustrative of any lofty trait +in his character would he perhaps impossible. Still, La Fontaine seemed +not ungrateful for the benefits he received from others; and gratitude, +no commonplace virtue, let us accordingly reckon to the credit of a man +in general so slenderly equipped with positive claims to admiring +personal regard. The mirror of _bonhomie_ (easy-hearted +good-fellowship), he always was. Indeed, that significant, almost +untranslatable, French word might have been coined to fit La Fontaine's +case. On his amiable side--a full hemisphere or more of the man--it sums +him up completely. Twenty years long, this mirror of _bonhomie_ was +domiciliated, like a pet animal, under the hospitable roof of the +celebrated Madame de la Sablière. There was truth as well as humor +implied in what she said one day: "I have sent away all my domestics; I +have kept only my dog, my cat, and La Fontaine." + +But La Fontaine had that in him which kept the friendship of serious +men. Molière, a grave, even melancholy spirit, however gay in his +comedies; Boileau and Racine, decorous both of them, at least in +manners,--constituted, together with La Fontaine, a kind of private +"Academy," existing on a diminutive scale, which was not without its +important influence on French letters. La Fontaine seems to have been a +sort of Goldsmith in this club of wits, the butt of many pleasantries +from his colleagues, called out by his habit of absent-mindedness. St. +Augustine was one night the subject of an elaborate eulogy, which La +Fontaine lost the benefit of, through a reverie of his own indulged +meantime on a quite different character. Catching, however, at the name, +La Fontaine, as he came to himself for a moment, betrayed the secret of +his absent thoughts by asking, "Do you think St. Augustine had as much +wit as Rabelais?"--"Take care, Monsieur La Fontaine: you have put one of +your stockings on wrong side out,"--he had actually done so,--was the +only answer vouchsafed to his question. The speaker in this case was a +doctor of the Sorbonne (brother to Boileau), present as guest. The story +is told of La Fontaine, that egged on to groundless jealousy of his +wife,--a wife whom he never really loved, and whom he soon would finally +abandon,--he challenged a military friend of his to combat with swords. +The friend was amazed, and, amazed, reluctantly fought with La Fontaine, +whom he easily put at his mercy. "Now, what is this for?" he demanded. +"The public says you visit my house for my wife's sake, not for mine," +said La Fontaine. "Then I never will come again." "Far from it," +responds La Fontaine, seizing his friend's hand. "I have satisfied the +public. Now you must come to my house every day, or I will fight you +again." The two went back in company, and breakfasted together in mutual +good humor. + +A trait or two more, and there will have been enough of the man La +Fontaine. It is said that when, on the death of Madame de la Sablière, +La Fontaine was homeless, he was met on the street by a friend, who +exclaimed, "I was looking for you; come to my house, and live with me!" +"I was on the way there," La Fontaine characteristically replied. At +seventy, La Fontaine went through a process of "conversion," so called, +in which he professed repentance of his sins. On the genuineness of this +inward experience of La Fontaine, it is not for a fellow-creature of +his, especially at this distance of time, to pronounce. When he died, +at seventy-three, Fénelon could say of him (in Latin), "La Fontaine is +no more! He is no more; and with him have gone the playful jokes, the +merry laugh, the artless graces, and the sweet Muses!" + +La Fontaine's earliest works were _Contes_, so styled; that is, stories, +tales, or romances. These are in character such that the subsequent +happy change in manners, if not in morals, has made them +unreadable,--for their indecency. We need concern ourselves only with +the Fables, for it is on these that La Fontaine's fame securely rests. +The basis of story in them was not generally original with La Fontaine. +He took whatever fittest came to his hand. With much modesty, he +attributed all to Æsop and Phædrus. But invention of his own is not +altogether wanting to his books of fables. Still, it is chiefly the +consummate artful artlessness of the form that constitutes the +individual merit of La Fontaine's productions. With something, too, of +the air of real poetry, he has undoubtedly invested his verse. + +We give, first, the brief fable which is said to have been the prime +favorite of the author himself. It is the fable of "The Oak and the +Reed." Of this fable, French critics have not scrupled to speak in terms +of almost the very highest praise. Chamfort says, "Let one consider, +that, within the limit of thirty lines, La Fontaine, doing nothing but +yield himself to the current of his story, has taken on every tone, +that of poetry the most graceful, that of poetry the most lofty, and one +will not hesitate to affirm, that, at the epoch at which this fable +appeared, there was nothing comparable to it in the French language." +There are, to speak precisely, thirty-two lines in the fable. In this +one case, let us try representing La Fontaine's compression by our +English form. For the rest of our specimens, we shall use Elizur +Wright's translation,--a meritorious one, still master of the field +which, near fifty years ago, it entered as pioneer. Mr. Wright here +expands La Fontaine's thirty-two verses to forty-four. The additions are +not ungraceful, but they encumber somewhat the Attic neatness and +simplicity of the original. We ought to say, that La Fontaine boldly +broke with the tradition which had been making Alexandrines--lines of +six feet--obligatory in French verse. He rhymes irregularly, at choice, +and makes his verses long or short, as pleases him. The closing verse of +the present piece is, in accordance with the intended majesty of the +representation, an Alexandrine. + + The Oak one day said to the Reed, + "Justly might you dame Nature blame: + A wren's weight would bow down your frame; + The lightest wind that chance may make + Dimple the surface of the lake + Your head bends low indeed, + The while, like Caucasus, my front + To meet the branding sun is wont, + Nay, more, to take the tempest's brunt. + + A blast you feel, I feel a breeze. + Had you been born beneath my roof, + Wide-spread, of leafage weather-proof, + Less had you known your life to tease; + I should have sheltered you from storm. + But oftenest you rear your form + On the moist limits of the realm of wind. + Nature, methinks, against you sore has sinned." + "Your pity," answers him the Heed, + "Bespeaks you kind; but spare your pain; + I more than you may winds disdain. + I bend, and break not. You, indeed, + Against their dreadful strokes till now + Have stood, nor tamed your back to bow: + But wait we for the end." + Scarce had he spoke, + When fiercely from the far horizon broke + The wildest of the children, fullest fraught + With terror, that till then the North had brought. + The tree holds good; the reed it bends. + The wind redoubled might expends, + And so well works that from his bed + Him it uproots who nigh to heaven his head + Held, and whose feet reached to the kingdom of the dead. + +In the fable of the "Rat retired from the World," La Fontaine rallies +the monks. "With French _finesse_, he hits his mark by expressly +avoiding it. "What think you I mean by my disobliging rat? A monk? No, +but a Mahometan devotee; I take it for granted that a monk is always +ready with his help to the needy!" + + The sage Levantines have a tale + About a rat that weary grew + Of all the cares which life assail, + And to a Holland cheese withdrew. + His solitude was there profound, + Extending through his world so round. + Our hermit lived on that within; + And soon his industry had been + With claws and teeth so good, + That in his novel heritage, + He had in store for wants of age, + Both house and livelihood. + What more could any rat desire? + He grew fat, fair, and round. + God's blessings thus redound + To those who in his vows retire. + One day this personage devout, + Whose kindness none might doubt, + Was asked, by certain delegates + That came from Rat United States, + For some small aid, for they + To foreign parts were on their way, + For succor in the great cat-war: + Ratopolis beleaguered sore, + Their whole republic drained and poor, + No morsel in their scrips they bore. + Slight boon they craved, of succor sure + In days at utmost three or four. + "My friends," the hermit said, + "To worldly things I'm dead. + How can a poor recluse + To such a mission be of use? + What can he do but pray + That God will aid it on its way? + And so, my friends, it is my prayer + That God will have you in his care." + His well-fed saintship said no more, + But in their faces shut the door. + What think you, reader, is the service, + For which I use this niggard rat? + To paint a monk? No, but a dervise. + A monk, I think, however fat, + Must be more bountiful than that. + +The fable entitled "Death and the Dying" is much admired for its union +of pathos with wit. "The Two Doves" is another of La Fontaine's more +tender inspirations. "The Mogul's Dream" is a somewhat ambitious flight +of the fabulist's muse. On the whole, however, the masterpiece among the +fables of La Fontaine is that of "The Animals Sick of the Plague." Such +at least is the opinion of critics in general. The idea of this fable is +not original with La Fontaine. The homilists of the middle ages used a +similar fiction to enforce on priests the duty of impartiality in +administering the sacrament, so called, of confession. We give this +famous fable as our closing specimen of La Fontaine:-- + + The sorest ill that Heaven hath + Sent oil this lower world in wrath,-- + The plague (to call it by its name), + One single day of which + Would Pluto's ferryman enrich, + Waged war on beasts, both wild and tame. + They died not all, but all were sick: + No hunting now, by force or trick, + To save what might so soon expire. + No food excited their desire: + Nor wolf nor fox now watched to slay + The innocent and tender prey. + The turtles fled, + So love and therefore joy were dead. + The lion council held, and said, + "My friends, I do believe + This awful scourge for which we grieve, + Is for our sins a punishment + Most righteously by Heaven sent. + Let us our guiltiest beast resign, + A sacrifice to wrath divine. + Perhaps this offering, truly small, + May gain the life and health of all. + By history we find it noted + That lives have been just so devoted. + Then let us all turn eyes within, + And ferret out the hidden sin. + Himself, let no one spare nor flatter, + But make clean conscience in the matter. + For me, my appetite has played the glutton + Too much and often upon mutton. + What harm had e'er my victims done? + I answer, truly, None. + Perhaps, sometimes, by hunger pressed, + I've eat the shepherd with the rest. + I yield myself if need there be; + And yet I think, in equity, + Each should confess his sins with me; + For laws of right and justice cry, + The guiltiest alone should die." + "Sire," said the fox, "your majesty + Is humbler than a king should be, + And over-squeamish in the case. + What! eating stupid sheep a crime? + No, never, sire, at any time. + + It rather was an act of grace, + A mark of honor to their race. + And as to shepherds, one may swear, + The fate your majesty describes, + Is recompense less full than fair + For such usurpers o'er our tribes." + + Thus Renard glibly spoke, + And loud applause from listeners broke. + Of neither tiger, boar, nor bear, + Did any keen inquirer dare + To ask for crimes of high degree; + The fighters, biters, scratchers, all + From every mortal sin were free; + The very dogs, both great and small, + Were saints, as far as dogs could be. + + The ass, confessing in his turn, + Thus spoke in tones of deep concern: + "I happened through a mead to pass; + The monks, its owners, were at mass: + Keen hunger, leisure, tender grass, + And, add to these the devil, too, + All tempted me the deed to do. + I browsed the bigness of my tongue: + Since truth must out, I own it wrong." + On this, a hue and cry arose, + As if the beasts were all his foes. + A wolf, haranguing lawyer-wise, + Denounced the ass for sacrifice,-- + The bald-pate, scabby, ragged lout, + By whom the plague had come, no doubt. + His fault was judged a hanging crime. + What! eat another's grass? Oh, shame! + The noose of rope, and death sublime, + For that offence were all too tame! + And soon poor Grizzle felt the same. + + Thus human courts acquit the strong, + And doom the weak, as therefore wrong. + +It is suitable to add, in conclusion, that La Fontaine is a crucial +author for disclosing the irreconcilable difference that exists, at +bottom, between the Englishman's and the Frenchman's idea of poetry. No +English-speaker, heir of Shakspeare and Milton, will ever be able to +satisfy a Frenchman with admiration such as he can conscientiously +profess for the poetry of La Fontaine. + + + + +VII. + +MOLIÈRE. + +1623-1673. + + +MOLIÈRE is confessedly the greatest writer of comedy in the world. Greek +Menander might have disputed the palm; but Menander's works have +perished, and his greatness must be guessed. Who knows but we guess him +too great? Molière's works survive, and his greatness may be measured. + +We have stinted our praise. Molière is not only; the foremost name in a +certain department of literature; he is one of the foremost names in +literature. The names are few on which critics are willing to bestow +this distinction. But critics generally agree in bestowing this +distinction on Molière. + +Molière's comedy is by no means mere farce. Farces he wrote, +undoubtedly; and some element of farce, perhaps, entered to qualify +nearly every comedy that flowed from his pen. But it is not for his +farce that Molière is rated one of the few greatest producers of +literature. Molière's comedy constitutes to Molière the patent that it +does of high degree in genius, not because it provokes laughter, but +because, amid laughter provoked, it not seldom reveals, as if with +flashes of lightning,--lightning playful, indeed, but lightning that +might have been deadly,--the "secrets of the nethermost abyss" of human +nature. Not human manners merely, those of a time, or of a race, but +human attributes, those of all times, and of all races, are the things +with which, in his higher comedies, Molière deals. Some transient whim +of fashion may in these supply to him the mould of form that he uses, +but it is human nature itself that supplies to Molière the substance of +his dramatic creations. Now and again, if you read Molière wisely and +deeply, you find your laughter at comedy fairly frozen in your throat, +by a gelid horror seizing you, to feel that these follies or these +crimes displayed belong to that human nature, one and the same +everywhere and always, of which also you yourself partake. Comedy, +Dante, too, called his poem, which included the "Inferno." And a +Dantesque quality, not of method, but of power, is to be felt in +Molière. + +This character in Molière the writer, accords with the character of the +man Molière. It might not have seemed natural to say of Molière, as was +said of Dante, "There goes the man that has been in hell." But Molière +was melancholy enough in temper and in mien to have well inspired an +exclamation such as, 'There goes the man that has seen the human heart.' + +A poet as well as a dramatist, his own fellow-countrymen, at least, feel +Molière to be. In Victor Hugo's list of the eight greatest poets of all +time, two are Hebrews (Job and Isaiah), two Greeks (Homer and Æschylus), +one is a Roman (Lucretius), one an Italian (Dante), one an Englishman +(Shakspeare),--seven. The eighth could hardly fail to be a Frenchman, +and that Frenchman is Molière. Mr. Swinburne might perhaps make the list +nine, but he would certainly include Victor Hugo himself. + +Curiously enough, Molière is not this great writer's real name. It is a +stage name. It was assumed by the bearer when he was about twenty-four +years of age, on occasion of his becoming one in a strolling band of +players,--in 1646 or thereabout. This band, originally composed of +amateurs, developed into a professional dramatic company, which passed +through various transformations, until, from being at first +grandiloquently self-styled, L'Illustre Théâtre, it was, twenty years +after, recognized by the national title of Théâtre Français. Molière's +real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin. + +Young Poquelin's bent, early encouraged by seeing plays and ballets, was +strongly toward the stage. The drama, under the quickening patronage of +Louis XIII.'s lordly minister, Cardinal Richelieu, was a great public +interest of those times in Paris. Molière's evil star, too, it was +perhaps in part that brought him back to Paris, from Orleans. He admired +a certain actress in the capital. She became the companion--probably not +innocent companion--of his wandering life as actor. A sister of this +actress--a sister young enough to be daughter, instead of +sister--Molière finally married. She led her jealous husband a wretched +conjugal life. A peculiarly dark tradition of shame, connected with +Molière's marriage, has lately been to a good degree dispelled. But it +is not possible to redeem this great man's fame to chastity and honor. +He paid heavily, in like misery of his own, for whatever pangs of +jealousy he inflicted. There was sometimes true tragedy for himself +hidden within the comedy that he acted for others. (Molière, to the very +end of his life, acted in the comedies that he wrote.) When some play of +his represented the torments of jealousy in the heart of a husband, it +was probably not so much acting, as it was real life, that the +spectators saw proceeding on the stage between Molière and his wife, +confronted with each other in performing the piece. + +Despite his faults, Molière was cast in a noble, generous mould, of +character as well as of genius. Expostulated with for persisting to +appear on the stage when his health was such that he put his life at +stake in so doing, he replied that the men and women of his company +depended for their bread on the play's going through, and appear he +would. He actually died an hour or so after playing the part of the +Imaginary Invalid in his comedy of that name. That piece was the last +work of his pen. + +Molière produced in all some thirty dramatic pieces, from among which we +select a few of the most celebrated for brief description and +illustration. + +The "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" ("Shopkeeper turned Gentleman") partakes of +the nature of the farce quite as much as it does of the comedy. But it +is farce such as only a man of genius could produce. In it Molière +ridicules the airs and affectations of a rich man vulgarly ambitious to +figure in a social rank too exalted for his birth, his breeding, or his +merit. Jourdain is the name under which Molière satirizes such a +character. We give a fragment from one of the scenes. M. Jourdain is in +process of fitting himself for that higher position in society to which +he aspires. He will equip himself with the necessary knowledge. To this +end he employs a professor of philosophy to come and give him lessons at +his house:-- + + M. JOURDAIN. I have the greatest desire in the world to be learned; + and it vexes me more than I can tell, that my father and mother + did not make me learn thoroughly all the sciences when I was young. + + PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY. This is a praiseworthy feeling. _Nam sine + doctrina vita est quasi mortis imago._ You understand this, and you + have, no doubt, a knowledge of Latin? + + M. JOUR. Yes; but act as if I had none. Explain to me the meaning + of it. + + PROF. PHIL. The meaning of it is, that, without science, life is an + image of death. + + M. JOUR. That Latin is quite right. + + PROF. PHIL. Have you any principles, any rudiments, of science? + + M. JOUR. Oh, yes! I can read and write. + + PROP. PHIL. With what would you like to begin? Shall I teach you + logic? + + M. JOUR. And what may this logic be? + + PROF. PHIL. It is that which teaches us the three operations of the + mind. + + M. JOUR. What are they--these three operations of the mind? + + PROF. PHIL. The first, the second, and the third. The first is to + conceive well by means of universals; the second, to judge well by + means of categories; and the third, to draw a conclusion aright by + means of the figures Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton, + etc. + + M. JOUR. Pooh! what repulsive words! This logic does not by any + means suit me. Teach me something more enlivening. + + PROF. PHIL. Will you learn moral philosophy? + + M. JOUR. Moral philosophy? + + PROF. PHIL. Yes. + + M. JOUR. What does it say, this moral philosophy? + + PROF. PHIL.It treats of happiness, teaches men to moderate their + passions, and-- + + M. JOUR. No, none of that. I am devilishly hot-tempered, and + morality, or no morality, I like to give full vent to my anger + whenever I have a mind to it. + + PROF. PHIL. Would you like to learn physics? + + M. JOUR. And what have physics to say for themselves? + + PROF. PHIL. Physics are that science which explains the principles + of natural things and the properties of bodies; which discourses of + the nature of the elements, of metals, minerals, stones, plants, + and animals; which teaches us the cause of all the meteors, the + rainbow, the _ignis fatuus,_ comets, lightning, thunder, + thunderbolts, rain, snow, hail, and whirlwinds. + + M. JOUR. There is too much hullaballoo in all that, too much riot + and rumpus. + + PROF. PHIL. Very good. + + M. JOUR. And now I want to intrust you with a great secret. I am in + love with a lady of quality, and I should be glad if you would help + me to write something to her in a short letter which I mean to drop + at her feet. + + PROF. PHIL. Very well. + + M. JOUR. That will be gallant, will it not? + + PROF. PHIL. Undoubtedly. Is it verse you wish to write to her? + + M. JOUR. Oh, no! not verse. + + PROF. PHIL. You only wish prose? + + M. JOUR. No. I wish for neither verse nor prose. + + PROF. PHIL. It must be one or the other. + + M. JOUR.Why? + + PROF. PHIL. Because, sir, there is nothing by which we can express + ourselves except prose or verse. + + M. JOUR. There is nothing but prose or verse? + + PROF. PHIL. No, sir. Whatever is not prose, is verse; and whatever + is not verse, is prose. + + M. JOUR.And when we speak, what is that, then? + + PROF. PHIL. Prose. + + M. JOUR. What! when I say, "Nicole, bring me my slippers, and give + me my nightcap," is that prose? + + PROF. PHIL. Yes, sir. + + M. JOUR. Upon my word, I have been speaking prose these forty years + without being aware of it; and I am under the greatest obligation + to you for informing me of it. Well, then, I wish to write to her + in a letter, "Fair Marchioness, your beautiful eyes make me die of + love;" but I would have this worded in a genteel manner, and turned + prettily. + + PROF. PHIL. Say that the fire of her eyes has reduced your heart to + ashes; that you suffer day and night for her, tortures-- + + M. JOUR. No, no, no, I don't any of that. I simply wish for what I + tell you,--"Fair Marchioness, your beautiful eyes make me die of + love." + + PROF. PHIL. Still, you might amplify the thing a little. + + M. JOUR. No, I tell you, I will have nothing but these very words + in the letter; but they must be put in a fashionable way, and + arranged as they should be. Pray show me a little, so that I may + see the different ways in which they can be put. + + PROF. PHIL. They may be put first of all, as you have said, "Fair + Marchioness, your beautiful eyes make me die of love;" or else, "Of + love die make me, fair Marchioness, your beautiful eyes;" or, "Your + beautiful eyes of love make me, fair Marchioness, die;" or, "Die of + love your beautiful eyes, fair Marchioness, make me;" or else, "Me + make your beautiful eyes die, fair Marchioness, of love." + + M. JOUR. But of all these ways, which is the best? + + PROF. PHIL. The one you said,--"Fair Marchioness, your beautiful + eyes make me die of love." + + M. JOUR. Yet I have never studied, and I did all right off at the + first shot. + +The "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" is a very amusing comedy throughout. + +From "Les Femmes Savantes" ("The Learned Women")--"The Blue-Stockings," +we might perhaps freely render the title--we present one scene to +indicate the nature of the comedy. There had grown to be a fashion in +Paris, among certain women high in social rank, of pretending to the +distinction of skill in literary criticism, and of proficiency in +science. It was the Hôtel de Rambouillet reduced to absurdity. That +fashionable affectation Molière made the subject of his comedy, "The +Learned Women." + +In the following extracts, Molière satirizes, under the name of +Trissotin, a contemporary writer, one Cotin. The poem which Trissotin +reads for the learned women to criticise and admire, is an actual +production of this gentleman. Imagine the domestic _coterie_ assembled, +and Trissotin, the poet, their guest. He is present, prepared to regale +them with what he calls his sonnet. We need to explain that the original +poem is thus inscribed: "To Mademoiselle de Longueville, now Duchess of +Namur, on her Quartan Fever." The conceit of the sonneteer is that the +fever is an enemy luxuriously lodged in the lovely person of its victim, +and there insidiously plotting against her life:-- + + TRISSOTIN. Sonnet to the Princess Urania on her Fever, Your + prudence sure is fast asleep, That thus luxuriously you keep And + lodge magnificently so Your very hardest-hearted foe. + + BÉLISE. Ah! what a pretty beginning! + + ARMANDE. What a charming turn it has! + + PHILAMINTE. He alone possesses the talent of making easy verses. + + ARM. We must yield to _prudence fast asleep_. + + BÉL. _Lodge one's very hardest-hearted foe_ is full of charms for + me. + + PHIL. I like _luxuriously_ and _magnificently_: these two adverbs + joined together sound admirably. + + BÉL. Let us hear the rest. + + TRISS. Your prudence sure is fast asleep, That thus luxuriously you + keep And lodge magnificently so Your very hardest-hearted foe. + + ARM. _Prudence fast asleep._ + + BÉL. _To lodge one's foe._ + + PHIL. _Luxuriously_ and _magnificently_. + + TRISS. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say, From out your + chamber, decked so gay, Where, ingrate vile, with murderous knife, + Bold she assails your lovely life. + + BÉL. Ah! gently. Allow me to breathe, I beseech you. + + ARM.Give us time to admire, I beg. + + PHIL. One feels, at hearing these verses, an indescribable + something which goes through one's inmost soul, and makes one feel + quite faint. + + ARM. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say, From out your chamber, + decked so gay-- + + How prettily _chamber, decked so gay_, is said here! And with what + wit the metaphor is introduced! + + PHIL. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say. + + Ah! in what an admirable taste that _whate'er men say _is! To my + mind, the passage is invaluable. + + ARM. My heart is also in love with _whate'er men say_. + + BÉL. I am of your opinion: _whate'er men say_ is a happy + expression. + + ARM. I wish I had written it. + + BÉL. It is worth a whole poem. + + PHIL. But do you, like me, thoroughly understand the wit of it? + + ARM. _and_ BÉL. Oh! Oh! + + PHIL. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say. Although another + should take the fever's part, pay no attention; laugh at the + gossips. + + Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say, + Whate'er men say, whate'er men say. + +This _whate'er men say_, says a great deal more than it seems. I do not +know if every one is like me, but I discover in it a hundred meanings. + + BÉL. It is true that it says more than its size seems to imply. + + PHIL. (_to_ TRISSOTIN). But when you wrote this charming _whate'er + men say_, did you yourself understand all its energy? Did you + realize all that it tells us? And did you then think that you were + writing something so witty? + + TRISS. Ah! ah! + + ARM. I have likewise the _ingrate_ in my head,--this ungrateful, + unjust, uncivil fever that ill-treats people who entertain her. + + PHIL. In short, both the stanzas are admirable. Let us come quickly + to the triplets, I pray. + + ARM. Ah! once more, _whate'er men say_, I beg. + + TRISS. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say,-- + + PHIL., ARM., _and_ BÉL. _Whate'er men say!_ + + TRISS. From out your chamber, decked so gay,-- + + PHIL., ARM., _and_ BÉL. _Chamber decked so gay!_ + + TRISS. Where, ingrate vile, with murderous knife,-- + + PHIL., ARM., _and_ BÉL. That _ingrate_ fever! + + TRISS. Bold she assails your lovely life. + + PHIL. _Your lovely life!_ + + ARM. _and_ BÉL. Ah! + + TRISS. What! reckless of your ladyhood, Still fiercely seeks to + shed your blood,-- + + PHIL., ARM., _and_ BÉL. Ah! + + TRISS. And day and night to work you harm. When to the baths + sometime you've brought her, No more ado, with your own arm Whelm + her and drown her in the water. + + PHIL. Ah! It is quite overpowering. + + BÉL. I faint. + + ARM. I die from pleasure. + + PHIL. A thousand sweet thrills seize one. + + ARM. _When to the baths sometime you've brought her,_ + + BÉL. _No more ado, with your own arm_ + + PHIL. _Whelm her and drown her in the water._ With your own arm, + drown her there in the baths. + + ARM. In your verses we meet at each step with charming beauty. + + BÉL. One promenades through them with rapture. + + PHIL. One treads on fine things only. + + ARM. They are little lanes all strewn with roses. + + TRISS. Then, the sonnet seems to you-- + + PHIL. Admirable, new; and never did any one make any thing more + beautiful. + + BÉL. (_to_ HENRIETTE). What! my niece, you listen to what has been + read without emotion! You play there but a sorry part! + + HEN. We each of us play the best part we can, my aunt; and to be a + wit does not depend on our will. + + TRISS. My verses, perhaps, are tedious to you. + + HEN. No. I do not listen. + + PHIL. Ah! Let us hear the epigram. + +But our readers, we think, will consent to spare the epigram. They will +relish, however, a fragment taken from a subsequent part of the same +protracted scene. The conversation has made the transition from literary +criticism to philosophy, in Molière's time a fashionable study rendered +such by the contemporary genius and fame of Descartes. Armande resents +the limitations imposed upon her sex:-- + + ARM. It is insulting our sex too grossly to limit our intelligence + to the power of judging of a skirt, of the make of a garment, of + the beauties of lace, or of a new brocade. + + BÉL. We must rise above this shameful condition, and bravely + proclaim our emancipation. + + TRISS. Every one knows my respect for the fairer sex, and that, if + I render homage to the brightness of their eyes, I also honor the + splendor of their intellect. + + PHIL. And our sex does you justice in this respect: but we will + show to certain minds who treat us with proud contempt, that women + also have knowledge; that, like men, they can hold learned + meetings--regulated, too, by better rules; that they wish to unite + what elsewhere is kept apart, join noble language to deep learning, + reveal nature's laws by a thousand experiments; and, on all + questions proposed, admit every party, and ally themselves to none. + + TRISS. For order, I prefer peripateticism. + + PHIL. For abstractions, I love platonism. + + ARM. Epicurus pleases me, for his tenets are solid. + + BÉL. I agree with the doctrine of atoms; but I find it difficult to + understand a vacuum, and I much prefer subtile matter. + + TRISS. I quite agree with Descartes about magnetism. + + ARM. I like his vortices. + + PHIL. And I, his falling worlds. + + ARM. I long to see our assembly opened, and to distinguish + ourselves by some great discovery. + + TRISS. Much is expected from your enlightened knowledge, for nature + has hidden few things from you. + + PHIL. For my part, I have, without boasting, already made one + discovery; I have plainly seen men in the moon. + + BÉL. I have not, I believe, as yet quite distinguished men, but I + have seen steeples as plainly as I see you. + + ARM. In addition to natural philosophy, we will dive into grammar, + history, verse, ethics, and politics. + + PHIL. I find in ethics charms which delight my heart; it was + formerly the admiration of great geniuses: but I give the + preference to the Stoics, and I think nothing so grand as their + founder. + +"Les Précieuses Ridicules" is an earlier and lighter treatment of the +same theme. The object of ridicule in both these pieces was a lapsed and +degenerate form of what originally was a thing worthy of respect, and +even of praise. At the Hôtel de Rambouillet, conversation was cultivated +as a fine art. There was, no doubt, something overstrained in the +standards which the ladies of that circle enforced. Their mutual +communication was all conducted in a peculiar style of language, the +natural deterioration of which was into a kind of euphuism, such as +English readers will remember to have seen exemplified in Walter Scott's +Sir Piercie Shafton. These ladies called each other, with demonstrative +fondness, "Ma précieuse." Hence at last the term _précieuse_ as a +designation of ridicule. Madame de Sévigné was a _précieuse_. But she, +with many of her peers, was too rich in sarcastic common sense to be a +_précieuse ridicule_. Molière himself, thrifty master of policy that he +was, took pains to explain that he did not satirize the real thing, but +only the affectation. + +"Tartuffe, or the Impostor," is perhaps the most celebrated of all +Molière's plays. Scarcely comedy, scarcely tragedy, it partakes of both +characters. Like tragedy, serious in purpose, it has a happy ending +like comedy. Pity and terror are absent; or, if not quite absent, these +sentiments are present raised only to a pitch distinctly below the +tragic. Indignation is the chief passion excited, or detestation, +perhaps, rather than indignation. This feeling is provided at last with +its full satisfaction in the condign punishment visited on the impostor. + +The original "Tartuffe," like the most of Molière's comedies, is written +in rhymed verse. We could not, with any effort, make the English-reading +student of Molière sufficiently feel how much is lost when the form is +lost which the creations of this great genius took, in their native +French, under his own master hand. A satisfactory metrical rendering is +out of the question. The sense, at least, if not the incommunicable +spirit, of the original is very well given in Mr. C. H. Wall's version, +which we use. + +The story of "Tartuffe" is briefly this: Tartuffe, the hero, is a pure +villain. He mixes no adulteration of good in his composition. He is +hypocrisy itself, the strictly genuine article. Tartuffe has completely +imposed upon one Orgon, a man of wealth and standing. Orgon, with his +wife, and with his mother, in fact, believes in him absolutely. These +people have received the canting rascal into their house, and are about +to bestow upon him their daughter in marriage. The following scene from +act first shows the skill with which Molière could exhibit, in a few +strokes of bold exaggeration, the infatuation of Orgon's regard for +Tartuffe. Orgon has been absent from home. He returns, and meets +Cléante, his brother, whom, in his eagerness, he begs to excuse his not +answering a question just addressed to him:-- + + ORGON (_to_ CLÉANTE). Brother, pray excuse me: you will kindly + allow me to allay my anxiety by asking news of the family. (_To_ + DORINE, _a maid-servant_.) Has every thing gone on well these last + two days? What has happened? How is everybody? + + DOR. The day before yesterday our mistress was very feverish from + morning to night, and suffered from a most extraordinary headache. + + ORG. And Tartuffe? + + DOR. Tartuffe! He is wonderfully well, stout and fat, with blooming + cheeks and ruddy lips. + + ORG. Poor man! + + DOR. In the evening she felt very faint, and the pain in her head + was so great that she could not touch any thing at supper. + + ORG. And Tartuffe? + + DOR. He ate his supper by himself before her, and very devoutly + devoured a brace of partridges, and half a leg of mutton hashed. + + ORG. Poor man! + + DOR. She spent the whole of the night without getting one wink of + sleep: she was very feverish, and we had to sit up with her until + the morning. + + ORG. And Tartuffe? + + DOR. Overcome by a pleasant sleepiness, he passed from the table to + his room, and got at once into his warmed bed, where he slept + comfortably till the next morning. + + ORG. Poor man! + + DOR. At last yielding to our persuasions, she consented to be bled, + and immediately felt relieved. + + ORG. And Tartuffe? + + DOR. He took heart right valiantly, and fortifying his soul against + all evils, to make up for the blood which our lady had lost, drank + at breakfast four large bumpers of wine. + + ORG. Poor man! + + DOR. Now, at last, they are both well; and I will go and tell our + lady how glad you are to hear of her recovery. + +Tartuffe repays the trust and love of his benefactor by making improper +advances to that benefactor's wife. Orgon's son, who does not share his +father's confidence in Tartuffe, happens to be an unseen witness of the +man's infamous conduct. He exposes the hypocrite to Orgon, with the +result of being himself expelled from the house for his pains; while +Tartuffe, in recompense for the injury done to his feelings, is +presented with a gift-deed of Orgon's estate. But now Orgon's wife +contrives to let her husband see and hear for himself the vileness of +Tartuffe. This done, Orgon confronts the villain, and, with just +indignation, orders him out of his house. Tartuffe reminds Orgon that +the shoe is on the other foot; that he is himself now owner there, and +that it is Orgon, instead of Tartuffe, who must go. Orgon has an +interview with his mother, who is exasperatingly sure still that +Tartuffe is a maligned good man:-- + + MADAME PERNELLE. I can never believe, my son, that he would commit + so base an action. + + ORG. What? + + PER. Good people are always subject to envy. + + ORG. What do you mean, mother? + + PER. That you live after a strange sort here, and that I am but too + well aware of the ill will they all bear him. + + ORG. What has this ill will to do with what I have just told you? + + PER. I have told it you a hundred times when you were young, that + in this world virtue is ever liable to persecution, and that, + although the envious die, envy never dies. + + ORG. But what has this to do with what has happened to-day? + + PER. They have concocted a hundred foolish stories against him. + + ORG. I have already told you that I saw it all myself. + + PER. The malice of evil-disposed persons is very great. + + ORG. You would make me swear, mother! I tell you that I saw his + audacious attempt with my own eyes. + + PER. Evil tongues have always some venom to pour forth; and here + below, there is nothing proof against them. + + ORG. You are maintaining a very senseless argument. I saw it, I + tell you,--saw it with my own eyes! what you can call s-a-w, saw! + Must I din it over and over into your ears, and shout as loud as + half a dozen people? + + PER. Gracious goodness! appearances often deceive us! We must not + always judge by what we see. + + ORG. I shall go mad! + + PER. We are by nature prone to judge wrongly, and good is often + mistaken for evil. + + ORG. I ought to look upon his desire of seducing my wife as + charitable? + + PER. You ought to have good reasons before you accuse another, and + you should have waited till you were quite sure of the fact. + + ORG. Heaven save the mark! how could I be more sure? I suppose, + mother, I ought to have waited till--you will make me say something + foolish. + + PER. In short, his soul is possessed with too pure a zeal; and I + cannot possibly conceive that he would think of attempting what you + accuse him of. + + ORG. If you were not my mother, I really don't know what I might + now say to you, you make me so savage. + +The short remainder of the scene has for its important idea, the +suggestion that under the existing circumstances some sort of peace +ought to be patched up between Orgon and Tartuffe. Meantime one LOYAL is +observed coming, whereupon the fourth scene of act fifth opens:-- + + LOY. (to DORINE _at the farther part of the stage_). Good-day, my + dear sister; pray let me speak to your master. + + DOR. He is with friends, and I do not think he can see any one just + now. + + LOY. I would not be intrusive. I feel sure that he will find + nothing unpleasant in my visit: in fact, I come for something which + will be very gratifying to him. + + DOR. What is your name? + + LOY. Only tell him that I come from Mr. Tartuffe, for his benefit. + + DOR. (to ORGON). It is a man who comes in a civil way from Mr. + Tartuffe, on some business which will make you glad, he says. + + CLÉ. (to ORGON). You must see who it is, and what the man wants. + + ORG. (to CLÉANTE). He is coming, perhaps, to settle matters between + us in a friendly way. How, in this case, ought I to behave to him? + + CLÉ. Don't show any resentment, and, if he speaks of an agreement, + listen to him. + + LOY. (to ORGON). Your servant, sir! May heaven punish whoever + wrongs you! and may it be as favorable to you, sir, as I wish! + + ORG. (_aside to_ CLÉANTE). This pleasant beginning agrees with my + conjectures, and argues some sort of reconciliation. + + LOY. All your family was always dear to me, and I served your + father. + + ORG. Sir, I am sorry and ashamed to say that I do not know who you + are, neither do I remember your name. + + LOY. My name is Loyal; I was born in Normandy, and am a royal + bailiff in spite of envy. For the last forty years I have had the + good fortune to fill the office, thanks to Heaven, with great + credit; and I come, sir, with your leave, to serve you the writ of + a certain order. + + ORG. What! you are here-- + + LOY. Gently, sir, I beg. It is merely a summons,--a notice for you + to leave this place, you and yours; to take away all your goods and + chattels, and make room for others, without delay or adjournment, + as hereby decreed. + + ORG. I! leave this place? + + LOY. Yes, sir; if you please. The house incontestably belongs, as + you are well aware, to the good Mr. Tartuffe. He is now lord and + master of your estates, according to a deed I have in my keeping. + It is in due form, and cannot be challenged. + + DAMIS (_to_ MR. LOYAL). This great impudence is, indeed, worthy of + all admiration. + + LOY. (_to_ DAMIS). Sir, I have nothing at all to do with you. + (_Pointing to_ ORGON.) My business is with this gentleman. He is + tractable and gentle, and knows too well the duty of a gentleman to + try to oppose authority. + + ORG. But-- + + LOY. Yes, sir: I know that you would not, for any thing, show + contumacy; and that you will allow me, like a reasonable man, to + execute the orders I have received.... + +The scene gives in conclusion some spirited by-play of asides and +interruptions from indignant members of the family. Then follows scene +fifth, one exchange of conversation from which will sufficiently +indicate the progress of the plot:-- + + ORG. Well, mother, you see whether I am right; and you can judge of + the rest by the writ. Do you at last acknowledge his rascality? + + PER. I am thunderstruck, and can scarcely believe my eyes and ears. + +The next scene introduces Valère, the noble lover of that daughter whom +the infatuated father was bent on sacrificing to Tartuffe. Valère comes +to announce that Tartuffe, the villain, has accused Orgon to the king. +Orgon must fly. Valère offers him his own carriage and money,--will, in +fact, himself keep him company till he reaches a place of safety. As +Orgon, taking hasty leave of his family, turns to go, he is encountered +by--the following scene will show whom:-- + + TAR. (_stopping_ ORGON). Gently, sir, gently; not so fast, I beg. + You have not far to go to find a lodging, and you are a prisoner in + the king's name. + + ORG. Wretch! you had reserved this shaft for the last; by it you + finish me, and crown all your perfidies. + + TAR. Your abuse has no power to disturb me, and I know how to + suffer every thing for the sake of Heaven. + + CLÉ. Your moderation is really great, we must acknowledge. + + DA. How impudently the infamous wretch sports with Heaven! + + TAR. Your anger cannot move me. I have no other wish but to fulfil + my duty. + + MARIANNE. You may claim great glory from the performance of this + duty: it is a very honorable employment for you. + + TAR. The employment cannot be otherwise than glorious, when it + comes from the power that sends me here. + + ORG. But do you remember that my charitable hand, ungrateful + scoundrel, raised you from a state of misery? + + TAR. Yes, I know what help I have received from you; but the + interest of my king is my first duty. The just obligation of this + sacred duty stifles in my heart all other claims; and I would + sacrifice to it friend, wife, relations, and myself with them. + + ELMIRE. The impostor! + + DOR. With what treacherous cunning he makes a cloak of all that men + revere!... + + TAR. (_to the_ OFFICER). I beg of you, sir, to deliver me from all + this noise, and to act according to the orders you have received. + + OFFICER. I have certainly put off too long the discharge of my + duty, and you very rightly remind me of it. To execute my order, + follow me immediately to the prison in which a place is assigned to + you. + + TAR. Who? I, sir? + + OFFICER. Yes, you. + + TAR. Why to prison? + + OFFICER. To you I have no account to render. (_To_ ORGON.) Pray, + sir, recover from your great alarm. We live under a king [Louis + XIV.] who is an enemy to fraud,--a king who can read the heart, and + whom all the arts of impostors cannot deceive. His great mind, + endowed with delicate discernment, at all times sees things in + their true, light.... He annuls, by his sovereign will, the terms + of the contract by which you gave him [Tartuffe] your property. He + moreover forgives you this secret offence in which you were + involved by the flight of your friend. This to reward the zeal + which you once showed for him in maintaining his rights, and to + prove that his heart, when it is least expected, knows how to + recompense a good action. Merit with him is never lost, and he + remembers good better than evil. + + DOR. Heaven be thanked! + + PER. Ah! I breathe again. + + EL. What a favorable end to our troubles! + + MAR. Who would have foretold it? + + ORG. (to TARTUFFE, _as the_ OFFICER _leads him off_). Ah, wretch! + now you are-- + +Tartuffe thus disposed of, the play promptly ends, with a vanishing +glimpse afforded us of a happy marriage in prospect for Valère with the +daughter. + +Molière is said to have had a personal aim in drawing the character of +Tartuffe. This, at least, was like Dante. There is not much sweet +laughter in such a comedy. But there is a power that is dreadful. + +Each succeeding generation of Frenchmen supplies its bright and +ingenious wits who produce comedy. But as there is no second Shakspeare, +so there is but one Molière. + + + + +VIII. + +PASCAL. + +1623-1662. + + +Pascal's fame is distinctly the fame of a man of genius. He achieved +notable things. But it is what he might have done, still more than what +he did, that fixes his estimation in the world of mind. Blaise Pascal is +one of the chief intellectual glories of France. + +Pascal, the boy, had a strong natural bent toward mathematics. The story +is that his father, in order to turn his son's whole force on the study +of languages, put out of the lad's reach all books treating his favorite +subject. Thus shut up to his own resources, the masterful little fellow, +about his eighth year, drawing charcoal diagrams on the floor, made +perceptible progress in working out geometry for himself. At sixteen he +produced a treatise on conic sections that excited the wonder and +incredulity of Descartes. Later, he experimented in barometry, and +pursued investigations in mechanics. Later still, he made what seemed to +be approaches toward Newton's binomial theorem. + +Vivid religious convictions meantime deeply affected Pascal's mind. His +health, never robust, began to give way. His physicians prescribed +mental diversion, and forced him into society. That medicine, taken at +first with reluctance, proved dangerously delightful to Pascal's +vivacious and susceptible spirit. His pious sister Jacqueline warned her +brother that he was going too far. But he was still more effectively +warned by an accident, in which he almost miraculously escaped from +death. Withdrawing from the world, he adopted a course of ascetic +practices, in which he continued till he died--in his thirty-ninth year. +He wore about his waist an iron girdle armed with sharp points; and this +he would press smartly with his elbow when he detected himself at fault +in his spirit. + +Notwithstanding what Pascal did or attempted, worthy of fame, in +science, it was his fortune to become chiefly renowned by literary +achievement. His, in fact, would now be a half-forgotten name if he had +not written the "Provincial Letters" and the "Thoughts." + +The "Provincial Letters" is an abbreviated title. The title in full +originally was, "Letters written by Louis de Montalte to a Provincial, +one of his friends, and to the Reverend Fathers, the Jesuits, on the +subject of the morality and the policy of those Fathers." + +Of the "Provincial Letters," several English translations have been +made. No one of these that we have been able to find, seems entirely +satisfactory. There is an elusive quality to Pascal's style, and in +losing this you seem to lose something of Pascal's thought. For with +Pascal the thought and the style penetrate each other inextricably and +almost indistinguishably. You cannot print a smile, an inflection of the +voice, a glance of the eye, a French shrug of the shoulders. And such +modulations of the thought seem everywhere to lurk in the turns and +phrases of Pascal's inimitable French. To translate them is impossible. + +Pascal is beyond question the greatest modern master of that +indescribably delicate art in expression, which, from its illustrious +ancient exemplar, has received the name of the Socratic irony. With this +fine weapon, in great part, it was, wielded like a magician's invisible +wand, that Pascal did his memorable execution on the Jesuitical system +of morals and casuistry, in the "Provincial Letters." In great part, we +say; for the flaming moral earnestness of the man could not abide only +to play with his adversaries, to the end of the famous dispute. His +lighter cimeter blade he flung aside before he had done, and, toward the +last, brandished a sword that had weight as well as edge and temper. The +skill that could halve a feather in the air with the sword of Saladin +was proved to be also strength that could cleave a suit of mail with the +brand of Richard the Lion-hearted. + +It is universally acknowledged, that the French language has never in +any hands been a more obedient instrument of intellectual power than it +was in the hands of Pascal. He is rated the earliest writer to produce +what may be called the final French prose. "The creator of French +style," Villemain boldly calls him. Pascal's style remains to this day +almost perfectly free from adhesions of archaism in diction and in +construction. Pascal showed, as it were at once, what the French +language was capable of doing in response to the demands of a master. It +was the joint achievement of genius, of taste, and of skill, working +together in an exquisite balance and harmony. + +But let us be entirely frank. The "Provincial Letters" of Pascal are +now, to the general reader, not so interesting as from their fame one +would seem entitled to expect. You cannot read them intelligently +without considerable previous study. You need to have learned, +imperfectly, with labor, a thousand things that every contemporary +reader of Pascal perfectly knew, as if by simply breathing,--the +necessary knowledge being then, so to speak, abroad in the air. Even +thus, you cannot possibly derive that vivid delight from perusing in +bulk the "Provincial Letters" now, which the successive numbers of the +series, appearing at brief irregular intervals, communicated to the +eagerly expecting French public, at a time when the topics discussed +were topics of a present and pressing practical interest. Still, with +whatever disadvantage unavoidably attending, we must give our readers a +taste of the quality of Pascal's "Provincial Letters." + +We select a passage at the commencement of the Seventh Letter. We use +the translation of Mr. Thomas M'Crie. This succeeds very well in +conveying the sense, though it necessarily fails to convey either the +vivacity or the eloquence, of the incomparable original. The first +occasion of the "Provincial Letters" was a championship proposed to +Pascal to be taken up by him on behalf of his beleaguered and endangered +friend Arnauld, the Port-Royalist. (Port Royal was a Roman-Catholic +abbey, situated some eight miles to the south-west of Versailles, and +therefore not very remote from Paris.) Arnauld was "for substance of +doctrine" really a Calvinist, though he quite sincerely disclaimed being +such; and it was for his defence of Calvinism (under its ancient form of +Augustinianism) that he was threatened, through Jesuit enmity, with +condemnation for heretical opinion. The problem was to enlist the +sentiment of general society in his favor. The friends in council at +Port Royal said to Pascal, "You must do this." Pascal said, "I will +try." In a few days, the first letter of a series destined to such fame, +was submitted for judgment to Port Royal and approved. It was +printed--anonymously. The success was instantaneous and brilliant. A +second letter followed, and a third. Soon, from strict personal defence +of Arnauld, the writer went on to take up a line of offence and +aggression. He carried the war into Africa. He attacked the Jesuits as +teachers of immoral doctrine. + +The plan of these later letters was, to have a Paris gentleman write to +a friend of his in the country (the "provincial"), detailing interviews +held by him with a Jesuit priest of the city. The supposed Parisian +gentleman, in his interviews with the supposed Jesuit father, affects +the air of a very simple-hearted seeker after truth. He represents +himself as, by his innocent-seeming docility, leading his Jesuit teacher +on to make the most astonishingly frank exposures of the secrets of the +casuistical system held and taught by his order. + +The Seventh Letter tells the story of how Jesuit confessors were +instructed to manage their penitents in a matter made immortally famous +by the wit and genius of Pascal, the matter of "directing the +intention." There is nothing in the "Provincial Letters" better suited +than this at the same time to interest the general reader, and to +display the quality of these renowned productions. (We do not scruple to +change our chosen translation a little, at points where it seems to us +susceptible of some easy improvement.) Remember it is an imaginary +Parisian gentleman who now writes to a friend of his in the country:-- + + "You know," he said, "that the ruling passion of persons in that + rank of life [the rank of gentleman] is 'the point of honor,' which + is perpetually driving them into acts of violence apparently quite + at variance with Christian piety; so that, in fact, they would be + almost all of them excluded from our confessionals, had not our + fathers relaxed a little from the strictness of religion, to + accommodate themselves to the weakness of humanity. Anxious to keep + on good terms, both with the gospel, by doing their duty to God, + and with the men of the world, by showing charity to their + neighbor, they needed all the wisdom they possessed to devise + expedients for so nicely adjusting matters as to permit these + gentlemen to adopt the methods usually resorted to for vindicating + their honor without wounding their consciences, and thus reconcile + things apparently so opposite to each other as piety and the point + of honor."... + + "I should certainly [so replies M. Montalte, with the most + exquisite irony couched under a cover of admiring simplicity],--I + should certainly have considered the thing perfectly impracticable, + if I had not known, from what I have seen of your fathers, that + they are capable of doing with ease what is impossible to other + men. This led me to anticipate that they must have discovered some + method for meeting the difficulty,--a method which I admire, even + before knowing it, and which I pray you to explain to me." + + "Since that is your view of the matter," replied the monk, "I + cannot refuse you. Know, then, that this marvellous principle is + our grand method of _directing the intention_--the importance of + which, in our moral system, is such, that I might almost venture to + compare it with the doctrine of probability. You have had some + glimpses of it in passing, from certain maxims which I mentioned to + you. For example, when I was showing you how servants might execute + certain troublesome jobs with a safe conscience, did you not remark + that it was simply by diverting their intention from the evil to + which they were accessory, to the profit which they might reap from + the transaction? Now, that is what we call _directing the + intention_. You saw, too, that, were it not for a similar + divergence of _the mind_, those who give money for benefices might + be downright simoniacs. But I will now show you this grand method + in all its glory, as it applies to the subject of homicide,--a + crime which it justifies in a thousand instances,--in order that, + from this startling result, you may form an idea of all that it is + calculated to effect." + + "I foresee already," said I, "that, according to this mode, every + thing will be permitted: it will stick at nothing." + + "You always fly from the one extreme to the other," replied the + monk; "prithee avoid that habit. For just to show you that we are + far from permitting every thing, let me tell you that we never + suffer such a thing as a formal intention to sin, with the sole + design of sinning; and, if any person whatever should persist in + having no other end but evil in the evil that he does, we break + with him at once; such conduct is diabolical. This holds true, + without exception of age, sex, or rank. But when the person is not + of such a wretched disposition as this, we try to put in practice + our method of _directing the intention_, which consists in his + proposing to himself, as the end of his actions, some allowable + object. Not that we do not endeavor, as far as we can, to dissuade + men from doing things forbidden; but, when we cannot prevent the + action, we at least purify the motive, and thus correct the + viciousness of the mean by the goodness of the end. Such is the way + in which our fathers have contrived to permit those acts of + violence to which men usually resort in vindication of their honor. + They have no more to do than to turn off their intention from the + desire of vengeance, which is criminal, and direct it to a desire + to defend their honor, which, according to us, is quite + warrantable. And in this way our doctors discharge all their duty + towards God and towards man. By permitting the action, they gratify + the world; and by purifying the intention, they give satisfaction + to the gospel. This is a secret, sir, which was entirely unknown to + the ancients; the world is indebted for the discovery entirely to + our doctors. You understand it now, I hope?" + + "Perfectly," was my reply. "To men you grant the outward material + effect of the action, and to God you give the inward and spiritual + movement of the intention; and, by this equitable partition, you + form an alliance between the laws of God and the laws of men. But, + my dear sir, to be frank with you, I can hardly trust your + premises, and I suspect that your authors will tell another tale." + + "You do me injustice," rejoined the monk; "I advance nothing but + what I am ready to prove, and that by such a rich array of + passages, that altogether their number, their authority, and their + reasonings, will fill you with admiration. To show you, for + example, the alliance which our fathers have formed between the + maxims of the gospel and those of the world, by thus regulating the + intention, let me refer you to Reginald. (_In praxi._, liv. xxi., + num. 62, p. 260.) [These, and all that follow, are verifiable + citations from real and undisputed Jesuit authorities, not to this + day repudiated by that order.] 'Private persons are forbidden to + avenge themselves; for St. Paul says to the Romans (ch. 12th), + "Recompense to no man evil for evil;" and Ecclesiasticus says (ch. + 28th), "He that taketh vengeance shall draw on himself the + vengeance of God, and his sins will not be forgotten." Besides all + that is said in the gospel about forgiving offences, as in the 6th + and 18th chapters of St. Matthew.'" + + "Well, father, if after that, he [Reginald] says any thing contrary + to the Scripture, it will, at least, not be from lack of scriptural + knowledge. Pray, how does he conclude?" + + "You shall hear," he said. "From all this it appears that a + military man may demand satisfaction on the spot from the person + who has injured him--not, indeed, with the intention of rendering + evil for evil, but with that of preserving his honor--_non ut malum + pro malo reddat, sed ut conservat honorem_. See you how carefully, + because the Scripture condemns it, they guard against the intention + of rendering evil for evil? This is what they will tolerate on no + account. Thus Lessius observes (De Just., liv. ii., c. 9, d. 12, n. + 79), that, 'If a man has received a blow on the face, he must on no + account have an intention to avenge himself; but he may lawfully + have an intention to avert infamy, and may, with that view, repel + the insult immediately, even at the point of the sword--_etiam cum + gladio_.' So far are we from permitting any one to cherish the + design of taking vengeance on his enemies, that our fathers will + not allow any even to _wish their death_--by a movement of hatred. + 'If your enemy is disposed to injure you,' says Escobar, 'you have + no right to wish his death, by a movement of hatred; though you + may, with a view to save yourself from harm.' So legitimate, + indeed, is this wish, with such an intention, that our great + Hurtado de Mendoza says that 'we may _pray God_ to visit with + speedy death those who are bent on persecuting us, if there is no + other way of escaping from it.'" (In his book, De Spe, vol. ii., d. + 15, sec. 4, 48.) + + "May it please your reverence," said I, "the Church has forgotten + to insert a petition to that effect among her prayers." + + "They have not put every thing into the prayers that one may + lawfully ask of God," answered the monk. "Besides, in the present + case, the thing was impossible, for this same opinion is of more + recent standing than the Breviary. You are not a good chronologist, + friend. But, not to wander from the point, let me request your + attention to the following passage, cited by Diana from Gaspar + Hurtado (De Sub. Pecc., diff. 9; Diana, p. 5; tr. 14, r. 99), one + of Escobar's four-and-twenty fathers: 'An incumbent may, without + any mortal sin, desire the decease of a life-renter on his + benefice, and a son that of his father, and rejoice when it + happens; provided always it is for the sake of the profit that is + to accrue from the event, and not from personal aversion.'" + + "Good," cried I. "That is certainly a very happy hit, and I can + easily see that the doctrine admits of a wide application. But yet + there are certain cases, the solution of which, though of great + importance for gentlemen, might present still greater + difficulties." + + "Propose such, if you please, that we may see," said the monk. + + "Show me, with all your directing of the intention," returned I, + "that it is allowable to fight a duel." + + "Our great Hurtado de Mendoza," said the father, "will satisfy you + on that point in a twinkling. 'If a gentleman,' says he, in a + passage cited by Diana, 'who is challenged to fight a duel, is well + known to have no religion, and if the vices to which he is openly + and unscrupulously addicted, are such as would lead people to + conclude, in the event of his refusing to fight, that he is + actuated, not by the fear of God, but by cowardice, and induce them + to say of him that he was a _hen_, and not a man--_gallina, et non + vir_; in that case he may, to save his honor, appear at the + appointed spot--not, indeed, with the express intention of fighting + a duel, but merely with that of defending himself, should the + person who challenged him come there unjustly to attack him. His + action in this case, viewed by itself, will be perfectly + indifferent; for what moral evil is there in one's stepping into a + field, taking a stroll in expectation of meeting a person, and + defending one's self in the event of being attacked? And thus the + gentleman is guilty of no sin whatever; for in fact, it cannot be + called accepting a challenge at all, his intention being directed + to other circumstances, and the acceptance of a challenge + consisting in an express intention to fight, which we are supposing + the gentleman never had.'" + +The humorous irony of Pascal, in the "Provincial Letters," plays like +the diffusive sheen of an aurora borealis over the whole surface of the +composition. It does not often deliver itself startlingly in sudden +discharges as of lightning. You need to school your sense somewhat, not +to miss a fine effect now and then. Consider the broadness and +coarseness in pleasantry, that, before Pascal, had been common, almost +universal, in controversy, and you will better understand what a +creative touch it was of genius, of feeling, and of taste, that brought +into literature the far more than Attic, the ineffable Christian, +purity of that wit and humor in the "Provincial Letters" which will make +these writings live as long as men anywhere continue to read the +productions of past ages. Erasmus, perhaps, came the nearest of all +modern predecessors to anticipating the purified pleasantry of Pascal. + +It will be interesting and instructive to see Pascal's own statement of +his reasons for adopting the bantering style which he did in the +"Provincial Letters," as well as of the sense of responsibility to be +faithful and fair, under which he wrote. Pascal says:-- + + I have been asked why I employed a pleasant, jocose, and diverting + style. I reply... I thought it a duty to write so as to be + comprehended by women and men of the world, that they might know + the danger of their maxims and propositions which were then + universally propagated.... I have been asked, lastly, if I myself + read all the books which I quoted. I answer, No. If I had done so, + I must have passed a great part of my life in reading very bad + books; but I read Escobar twice through, and I employed some of my + friends in reading the others. But I did not make use of a single + passage without having myself read it in the book from which it is + cited, without having examined the subject of which it treats, and + without having read what went before and followed, so that I might + run no risk of quoting an objection as an answer, which would have + been blameworthy and unfair. + +Of the wit of the "Provincial Letters," their wit and their +controversial effectiveness, the specimens given will have afforded +readers some approximate idea. We must deny ourselves the gratification +of presenting a brief passage, which we had selected and translated for +the purpose, to exemplify from the same source Pascal's serious +eloquence. It was Voltaire who said of these productions: "Molière's +best comedies do not excel them in wit, nor the compositions of Bossuet +in sublimity." Something of Bossuet's sublimity, or of a sublimity +perhaps finer than Bossuet's, our readers will discover in citations to +follow from the "Thoughts." + +Pascal's "Thoughts," the printed book, has a remarkable history. It was +a posthumous publication. The author died, leaving behind him a +considerable number of detached fragments of composition, first jottings +of thought on a subject that had long occupied his mind. These precious +manuscripts were almost undecipherable. The writer had used for his +purpose any chance scrap of paper,--old wrapping, for example, or margin +of letter,--that, at the critical moment of happy conception, was +nearest his hand. Sentences, words even, were often left unfinished. +There was no coherence, no sequence, no arrangement. It was, however, +among his friends perfectly well understood that Pascal for years had +meditated a work on religion designed to demonstrate the truth of +Christianity. For this he had been thinking arduously. Fortunately he +had even, in a memorable conversation, sketched his project at some +length to his Port Royal friends. With so much, scarcely more, in the +way of clew, to guide their editorial work, these friends prepared and +issued a volume of Pascal's "Thoughts." With the most loyal intentions, +the Port-Royalists unwisely edited too much. They pieced out +incompletenesses, they provided clauses or sentences of connection, they +toned down expressions deemed too bold, they improved Pascal's style! +After having suffered such things from his friends, the posthumous +Pascal, later, fell into the hands of an enemy. The infidel Condorcet +published an edition of the "Thoughts." Whereas the Port-Royalists had +suppressed to placate the Jesuits, Condorcet suppressed to please the +"philosophers." Between those on the one side, and these on the other, +Pascal's "Thoughts" had experienced what might well have killed any +production of the human mind that could die. It was not till near the +middle of the present century that Cousin called the attention of the +world to the fact that we had not yet, but that we still might have, a +true edition of Pascal's "Thoughts." M. Faugère took the hint, and +consulting the original manuscripts, preserved in the national library +at Paris, produced, with infinite editorial labor, almost two hundred +years after the thinker's death, the first satisfactory edition of +Pascal's "Thoughts." Since Faugère, M. Havet has also published an +edition of Pascal's works entire, by him now first adequately annotated +and explained. The arrangement of the "Thoughts" varies in order, +according to the varying judgment of editors. + +We use, for our extracts, a current translation, which we modify at our +discretion, by comparison of the original text as given in M. Havet's +elaborate work. + +Our first extract is a passage in which the writer supposes a sceptic of +the more shallow, trifling sort, to speak. This sceptic represents his +own state of mind in the following strain as of soliloquy:-- + + 'I do not know who put me into the world, nor what the world is, + nor what I am myself. I am in a frightful ignorance of all things. + I do not know what my body is, what my senses are, what my soul is, + and that very part of me which thinks what I am saying, which + reflects upon every thing and upon itself, and is no better + acquainted with itself than with any thing else. I see these + appalling spaces of the universe which enclose me, and I find + myself tethered in one corner of this immense expansion without + knowing why I am stationed in this place rather than in another, or + why this moment of time which is given me to live is assigned me at + this point rather than at another of the whole eternity that has + preceded me, and of that which is to follow me. + + 'I see nothing but infinities on every side, which enclose me like + an atom, and like a shadow which endures but for an instant, and + returns no more. + + 'All that I know, is that I am soon to die; but what I am most + ignorant of, is that very death which I am unable to avoid. + + 'As I know not whence I came, so I know not whither I go; and I + know only, that in leaving this world I fall forever either into + nothingness or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing + which of these two conditions is to be eternally my lot. Such is my + state,--full of misery, of weakness, and of uncertainty. + + 'And from all this I conclude, that I ought to pass all the days + of my life without a thought of trying to learn what is to befall + me hereafter. Perhaps in my doubts I might find some enlightenment; + but I am unwilling to take the trouble, or go a single step in + search of it; and, treating with contempt those who perplex + themselves with such solicitude, my purpose is to go forward + without forethought and without fear to try the great event, and + passively to approach death in uncertainty of the eternity of my + future condition.' + + Who would desire to have for a friend a man who discourses in this + manner? Who would select such a one for the confidant of his + affairs? Who would have recourse to such a one in his afflictions? + And, in fine, for what use of life could such a man be destined? + +The central thought on which the projected apologetic of Pascal was to +revolve as on a pivot, is the contrasted greatness and wretchedness of +man,--with Divine Revelation, in its doctrine of a fall on man's part +from original nobleness, supplying the needed link, and the only link +conceivable, of explanation, to unite the one with the other, the human +greatness with the human wretchedness. This contrast of dignity and +disgrace should constantly be in the mind of the reader of the +"Thoughts" of Pascal. It will often be found to throw a very necessary +light upon the meaning of the separate fragments that make up the +series. + +We now present a brief fragment asserting, with vivid metaphor, at the +same time the fragility of man's frame and the majesty of man's nature. +This is a very famous Thought:-- + + Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking + reed. It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to + crush him. An exhalation, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. + But were the universe to crush him, man would still be more noble + than that which kills him, because he knows that he is dying, and + knows the advantage that the universe has over him. The universe + knows nothing of it. + + Our whole dignity consists, then, in thought. + +One is reminded of the memorable saying of a celebrated philosopher: "In +the universe there is nothing great but man; in man there is nothing +great but mind." + +What a sudden, almost ludicrous, reduction in scale, the greatness of +Cæsar, as conqueror, is made to suffer when looked at in the way in +which Pascal asks you to look at it in the following Thought! (Remember +that Cæsar, when he began fighting for universal empire, was fifty-one +years of age:)-- + + Cæsar was too old, it seems to me, to amuse himself with conquering + the world. This amusement was well enough for Augustus or + Alexander; they were young people, whom it is difficult to stop; + but Cæsar ought to have been more mature. + +That is as if you should reverse the tube of your telescope, with the +result of seeing the object observed made smaller instead of larger. + +The following sentence might be a Maxim of La Rochefoucauld. Pascal was, +no doubt, a debtor to him as well as to Montaigne:-- + + I lay it down as a fact, that, if all men knew what others say of + them, there would not be four friends in the world. + +Here is one of the most current of Pascal's sayings:-- + + Rivers are highways that move on and bear us whither we wish to go. + +The following "Thought" condenses the substance of the book proposed, +into three short sentences:-- + + The knowledge of God without that of our misery produces pride. The + knowledge of our misery without that of God gives despair. The + knowledge of Jesus Christ is intermediate, because therein we find + God and our misery. + +The prevalent seeming severity and intellectual coldness of Pascal's +"Thoughts" yield to a touch from the heart, and become pathetic, in such +utterances as the following, supposed to be addressed by the Saviour to +the penitent seeking to be saved:-- + + Console thyself; thou wouldst not seek me if thou hadst not found + me. + + I thought on thee in my agony; such drops of blood I shed for thee. + +It is austerity again, but not unjust austerity, that speaks as +follows:-- + + Religion is a thing so great that those who would not take the + pains to seek it if it is obscure, should be deprived of it. What + do they complain of, then, if it is such that they could find it by + seeking it? + +But we must take our leave of Pascal. His was a suffering as well as an +aspiring spirit. He suffered because he aspired. But, at least, he did +not suffer long. He aspired himself quickly away. Toward the last he +wrought at a problem in his first favorite study, that of mathematics, +and left behind him, as a memorial of his later life, a remarkable +result of investigation on the curve called the cycloid. During his +final illness he pierced himself through with many sorrows,--unnecessary +sorrows, sorrows, too, that bore a double edge, hurting not only him, +but also his kindred,--in practising, from mistaken religious motives, a +hard repression upon his natural instinct to love, and to welcome love. +He thought that God should be all, the creature nothing. The thought was +half true, but it was half false. God should, indeed, be all. But, in +God, the creature also should be something. + +In French history,--we may say, in the history of the world,--if there +are few brighter, there also are few purer, fames than the fame of +Pascal. + + + + +IX. + +MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ. + +1626-1696. + + +Of Madame de Sévigné, if it were permitted here to make a pun and a +paradox, one might justly and descriptively say that she was not a woman +of letters, but only a woman of--letters. For Madame de Sévigné's +addiction to literature was not at all that of an author by profession. +She simply wrote admirable private letters, in great profusion, and +became famous thereby. + +Madame de Sévigné's fame is partly her merit, but it is also partly her +good fortune. She was rightly placed to be what she was. This will +appear from a sketch of her life, and still more from specimens to be +exhibited of her own epistolary writing. + +Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was her maiden name. She was born a baroness. +She was married, young, a marchioness. First early left an orphan, she +was afterward early left a widow,--not too early, however, to have +become the mother of two children, a son and a daughter. The daughter +grew to be the life-long idol of the widowed mother's heart. The letters +she wrote to this daughter, married, and living remote from her, compose +the greater part of that voluminous epistolary production by which +Madame de Sévigné became, without her ever aiming at such a result, or +probably ever thinking of it, one of the classics of the French +language. + +Madame de Sévigné was wealthy as orphan heiress, and she should have +been wealthy as widow. But her husband was profligate, and he wasted her +substance. She turned out to be a thoroughly capable woman of affairs +who managed her property well. During her long and stainless +widowhood--her husband fell in a shameful duel when she was but +twenty-five years old, and she lived to be seventy--she divided her time +between her estate, The Rocks, in Brittany, and her residence in Paris. +This period was all embraced within the protracted reign of Louis XIV., +perhaps, upon the whole, the most memorable age in the history of +France. + +Beautiful, and, if not brilliantly beautiful, at least brilliantly +witty, Madame de Sévigné was virtuous--in that chief sense of feminine +virtue--amid an almost universal empire of profligacy around her. Her +social advantages were unsurpassed, and her social success was equal to +her advantages. She had the woman courtier's supreme triumph in being +once led out to dance by the king--her own junior by a dozen years--no +vulgar king, remember, but the "great" Louis XIV. Her cynical cousin, +himself a writer of power, who had been repulsed in dishonorable +proffers of love by the young marchioness during the lifetime of her +husband,--we mean Count Bussy,--says, in a scurrilous work of his, that +Madame de Sévigné remarked, on returning to her seat after her +dancing-bout with the king, that Louis possessed great qualities, and +would certainly obscure the lustre of all his predecessors. "I could not +help laughing in her face," the ungallant cousin declared, "seeing what +had produced this panegyric." Probably, indeed, the young woman was +pleased. But, whatever may have been her faults or her follies, nothing +can rob Madame de Sévigné of the glory that is hers, in having been +strong enough in womanly and motherly honor to preserve, against many +dazzling temptations, amid general bad example, and even under malignant +aspersions, a chaste and spotless name. When it is added, that, besides +access to the royal court itself, this gifted woman enjoyed the familiar +acquaintance of La Rochefoucauld and other high-bred wits, less famous, +not a few, enough will have been said to show that her position was such +as to give her talent its best possible chance. The French history of +the times of Louis XIV. is hinted in glimpses the most vivid and the +most suggestive, throughout the whole series of the letters. + +We owe it to our readers (and to Madame de Sévigné no less) first of all +to let them see a specimen of the affectionate adulation that this +French woman of rank and of fashion, literally in almost every letter of +hers, effuses on her daughter,--a daughter who, by the way, seems very +languidly to have responded to such demonstrations:-- + +THE ROCKS, Sunday, June 28, 1671. + + You have amply made up to me my late losses; I have received two + letters from you which have filled me with transports of joy. The + pleasure I take in reading them is beyond all imagination. If I + have in any way contributed to the improvement of your style I did + it in the thought that I was laboring for the pleasure of others, + not for my own. But Providence, who has seen fit to separate us so + often, and to place us at such immense distances from each other, + has repaid me a little for the privation in the charms of your + correspondence, and still more in the satisfaction you express in + your situation, and the beauty of your castle; you represent it to + me with an air of grandeur and magnificence that enchants me. I + once saw a similar account of it by the first Madame de Grignan; + but I little thought at that time, that all these beauties were one + day to be at your command. I am very much obliged to you for having + given me so particular an account of it. If I could be tired in + reading your letters, it would not only betray a very bad taste in + me, but would likewise show that I could have very little love or + friendship for you. Divest yourself of the dislike you have taken + to circumstantial details. I have often told you, and you ought + yourself to feel the truth of this remark, that they are as dear to + us from those we love, as they are tedious and disagreeable from + others. If they are displeasing to us, it is only from the + indifference we feel for those who write them. Admitting this + observation to be true, I leave you to judge what pleasure yours + afford me. It is a fine thing, truly, to play the great lady, as + you do at present. + +Conceive the foregoing multiplied by the whole number of the separate +letters composing the correspondence, and you will have no exaggerated +idea of the display that Madame de Sévigné makes of her regard for her +daughter. This regard was a passion, morbid, no doubt, by excess, and, +even at that, extravagantly demonstrated; but it was fundamentally +sincere. Madame de Sévigné idealized her absent daughter, and literally +"loved but only her." We need not wholly admire such maternal affection. +But we should not criticise it too severely. + +We choose next a marvellously vivid "instantaneous view," in words, of a +court afternoon and evening at Versailles. This letter, too, is +addressed to the daughter--Madame de Grignan, by her married name. It +bears date, "Paris, Wednesday, 29th July." The year is 1676, and the +writer is just fifty:-- + + I was at Versailles last Saturday with the Villarses.... At three + the king, the queen, Monsieur [eldest brother to the king], Madame + [that brother's wife], Mademoiselle [that brother's eldest + unmarried daughter], and every thing else which is royal, together + with Madame de Montespan [the celebrated mistress of the king] and + train, and all the courtiers, and all the ladies,--all, in short, + which constitutes the court of France, is assembled in the + beautiful apartment of the king's, which you remember. All is + furnished divinely, all is magnificent. Such a thing as heat is + unknown; you pass from one place to another without the slightest + pressure. A game at _reversis_ [the description is of a gambling + scene, in which Dangeau figures as a cool and skilful gamester] + gives the company a form and a settlement. The king and Madame de + Montespan keep a bank together; different tables are occupied by + Monsieur, the queen, and Madame de Soubise, Dangeau and party, + Langlée and party. Everywhere you see heaps of louis d'ors; they + have no other counters. I saw Dangeau play, and thought what fools + we all were beside him. He dreams of nothing but what concerns the + game; he wins where others lose; he neglects nothing, profits by + every thing, never has his attention diverted; in short, his + science bids defiance to chance. Two hundred thousand francs in ten + days, a hundred thousand crowns in a month, these are the pretty + memorandums he puts down in his pocket-book. He was kind enough to + say that I was partners with him, so that I got an excellent seat. + I made my obeisance to the king, as you told me; and he returned it + as if I had been young and handsome.... The duke said a thousand + kind things without minding a word he uttered. Marshal de Lorges + attacked me in the name of the Chevalier de Grignan; in short, + _tutti quanti_ [the whole company]. You know what it is to get a + word from everybody you meet. Madame de Montespan talked to me of + Bourbon, and asked me how I liked Vichi, and whether the place did + me good. She said that Bourbon, instead of curing a pain in one of + her knees, injured both.... Her size is reduced by a good half, and + yet her complexion, her eyes, and her lips, are as fine as ever. + She was dressed all in French point, her hair in a thousand + ringlets, the two side ones hanging low on her cheeks, black + ribbons on her head, pearls (the same that belonged to Madame de + l'Hôpital), the loveliest diamond earrings, three or four + bodkins--nothing else on the head; in short, a triumphant beauty, + worthy the admiration of all the foreign ambassadors. She was + accused of preventing the whole French nation from seeing the king; + she has restored him, you see, to their eyes; and you cannot + conceive the joy it has given all the world, and the splendor it + has thrown upon the court. This charming confusion, without + confusion, of all which is the most select, continues from three + till six. If couriers arrive, the king retires a moment to read the + despatches, and returns. There is always some music going on, to + which he listens, and which has an excellent effect. He talks with + such of the ladies as are accustomed to enjoy that honor.... At + six the carriages are at the door. The king is in one of them with + Madame de Montespan, Monsieur and Madame de Thianges, and honest + d'Heudicourt in a fool's paradise on the stool. You know how these + open carriages are made; they do not sit face to face, but all + looking the same way. The queen occupies another with the princess; + and the rest come flocking after, as it may happen. There are then + gondolas on the canal, and music; and at ten they come back, and + then there is a play; and twelve strikes, and they go to supper; + and thus rolls round the Saturday. If I were to tell you how often + you were asked after, how many questions were put to me without + waiting for answers, how often I neglected to answer, how little + they cared, and how much less I did, you would see the _iniqua + corte_ [wicked court] before you in all its perfection. However, it + never was so pleasant before, and everybody wishes it may last. + +There is your picture. Picture, pure and simple, it is--comment none, +least of all, moralizing comment. The wish is sighed by "everybody," +that such pleasant things may "last." Well, they did last the writer's +time. But meanwhile the French revolution was a-preparing. A hundred +years later it will come, with its terrible reprisals. + +We have gone away from the usual translations to find the foregoing +extract in an article published forty years ago and more, in the +"Edinburgh Review." Again we draw from the same source--this time, the +description of a visit paid by a company of grand folks, of whom the +writer of the letter was one, to an iron-foundery:-- + + FRIDAY, 1st Oct. (1677). + + Yesterday evening at Cone, we descended into a veritable hell, the + true forges of Vulcan. Eight or ten Cyclops were at work, forging, + not arms for Æneas, but anchors for ships. You never saw strokes + redoubled so justly, nor with so admirable a cadence. We stood in + the middle of four furnaces; and the demons came passing about us, + all melting in sweat, with pale faces, wild-staring eyes, savage + mustaches, and hair long and black,--a sight enough to frighten + less well-bred folks than ourselves. As for me, I could not + comprehend the possibility of refusing any thing which these + gentlemen, in their hell, might have chosen to exact. We got out at + last, by the help of a shower of silver, with which we took care to + refresh their souls, and facilitate our exit. + +Once more:-- + + PARIS, 29th November (1679). + + I have been to the wedding of Madame de Louvois. How shall I + describe it? Magnificence, illuminations, all France, dresses all + gold and brocade, jewels, braziers full of fire, and stands full of + flowers, confusions of carriages, cries out of doors, lighted + torches, pushings back, people run over; in short, a whirlwind, a + distraction; questions without answers, compliments without knowing + what is said, civilities without knowing who is spoken to, feet + entangled in trains. From the midst of all this, issue inquiries + after your health, which not being answered as quick as lightning, + the inquirers pass on, contented to remain in the state of + ignorance and indifference in which they [the inquiries] were made. + O vanity of vanities! Pretty little De Mouchy has had the + small-pox. O vanity, et cætera! + +Yet again. The gay writer has been sobered, perhaps hurt, by a friend's +frankly writing to her, "You are old." To her daughter:-- + + So you were struck with the expression of Madame de la Fayette, + blended with so much friendship. 'Twas a truth, I own, which I + ought to have borne in mind; and yet I must confess it astonished + me, for I do not yet perceive in myself any such decay. + Nevertheless, I cannot help making many reflections and + calculations, and I find the conditions of life hard enough. It + seems to me that I have been dragged, against my will, to the fatal + period when old age must be endured; I see it; I have come to it; + and I would fain, if I could help it, not go any farther; not + advance a step more in the road of infirmities, of pains, of losses + of memory, of _disfigurements_ ready to do me outrage; and I hear a + voice which says, "You must go on in spite of yourself; or, if you + will not go on, you must die;" and this is another extremity from + which nature revolts. Such is the lot, however, of all who advance + beyond middle life. What is their resource? To think of the will of + God and of universal law, and so restore reason to its place, and + be patient. Be you, then, patient accordingly, my dear child, and + let not your affection soften into such tears as reason must + condemn. + +She dates a letter, and recalls that the day was the anniversary of an +event in her life:-- + + PARIS, Friday, Feb. 5, 1672. + + This day thousand years I was married. + +Here is a passage with power in it. The great war minister of Louis has +died. Madame de Sévigné was now sixty-five years old. The letter is to +her cousin Coulanges:-- + + I am so astonished at the news of the sudden death of M. de + Louvois, that I am at a loss how to speak of it. Dead, however, he + is, this great minister, this potent being, who occupied so great + a place; whose me (_le moi_), as M. Nicole says, had so wide a + dominion; who was the centre of so many orbs. What affairs had he + not to manage! what designs, what projects, what secrets! what + interests to unravel, what wars to undertake, what intrigues, what + noble games at chess to play and to direct! Ah! my God, grant me a + little time; I want to give check to the Duke of Savoy--checkmate + to the Prince of Orange. No, no, you shall not have a moment, not a + single moment. Are events like these to be talked of? Not they. We + must reflect upon them in our closets. + +A glimpse of Bourdaloue:-- + + Ah, that Bourdaloue! his sermon on the Passion was, they say, the + most perfect thing of the kind that can be imagined; it was the + same he preached last year, but revised and altered with the + assistance of some of his friends, that it might be wholly + inimitable. How can one love God, if one never hears him properly + spoken of? You must really possess a greater portion of grace than + others. + +A distinguished caterer or steward, a gentleman described as possessing +talent enough to have governed a province, commits suicide on a +professional point of honor:-- + + PARIS, Sunday, April 26, 1671. + + I have just learned from Moreuil, of what passed at Chantilly with + regard to poor Vatel. I wrote to you last Friday that he had + stabbed himself--these are the particulars of the affair: The king + arrived there on Thursday night; the walk, and the collation, which + was served in a place set apart for the purpose, and strewed with + jonquils, were just as they should be. Supper was served; but there + was no roast meat at one or two of the tables, on account of + Vatel's having been obliged to provide several dinners more than + were expected. This affected his spirits; and he was heard to say + several times, "I have lost my honor! I cannot bear this disgrace!" + "My head is quite bewildered," said he to Gourville. "I have not + had a wink of sleep these twelve nights; I wish you would assist me + in giving orders." Gourville did all he could to comfort and assist + him, but the failure of the roast meat (which, however, did not + happen at the king's table, but at some of the other twenty-five) + was always uppermost with him. Gourville mentioned it to the prince + [Condé, the great Condé, the king's host], who went directly to + Vatel's apartment, and said to him, "Every thing is extremely well + conducted, Vatel; nothing could be more admirable than his + Majesty's supper." "Your highness's goodness," replied he, + "overwhelms me; I am sensible that there was a deficiency of roast + meat at two tables." "Not at all," said the prince; "do not perplex + yourself, and all will go well." Midnight came; the fireworks did + not succeed; they were covered with a thick cloud; they cost + sixteen thousand francs. At four o'clock in the morning Vatel went + round and found everybody asleep; he met one of the + under-purveyors, who was just come in with only two loads of fish. + "What!" said he, "is this all?" "Yes, sir," said the man, not + knowing that Vatel had despatched other people to all the seaports + around. Vatel waited for some time; the other purveyors did not + arrive; his head grew distracted; he thought there was no more fish + to be had. He flew to Gourville: "Sir," said he, "I cannot outlive + this disgrace." Gourville laughed at him. Vatel, however, went to + his apartment, and setting the hilt of his sword against the door, + after two ineffectual attempts, succeeded, in the third, in forcing + his sword through his heart. At that instant the couriers arrived + with the fish; Vatel was inquired after to distribute it. They ran + to his apartment, knocked at the door, but received no answer; upon + which they broke it open, and found him weltering in his blood. A + messenger was immediately despatched to acquaint the prince with + what had happened, who was like a man in despair. The Duke wept, + _for his Burgundy journey depended upon Vatel_. + +The italics here are our own. We felt that we must use them. + +Is it not all pathetic? But how exquisitely characteristic of the nation +and of the times! "Poor Vatel," is the extent to which Madame de Sévigné +allows herself to go in sympathy. Her heart never bleeds very +freely--for anybody except her daughter. Madame de Sévigné's heart, +indeed, we grieve to fear, was somewhat hard. + +In another letter, after a long strain as worldly as any one could wish +to see, this lively woman thus touches, with a sincerity as +unquestionable as the levity is, on the point of personal religion:-- + + But, my dear child, the greatest inclination I have at present is + to be a little religious. I plague La Mousse about it every day. I + belong neither to God nor to the devil. I am quite weary of such a + situation; though, between you and me, I look upon it as the most + natural one in the world. I am not the devil's, because I fear God, + and have at the bottom a principle of religion; then, on the other + hand, I am not properly God's, because his law appears hard and + irksome to me, and I cannot bring myself to acts of self-denial; so + that altogether I am one of those called lukewarm Christians, the + great number of which does not in the least surprise me, for I + perfectly understand their sentiments, and the reasons that + influence them. However, we are told that this is a state highly + displeasing to God; if so, we must get out of it. Alas! this is the + difficulty. Was ever any thing so mad as I am, to be thus eternally + pestering you with my rhapsodies? + +Madame de Sévigné involuntarily becomes a maxim-maker:-- + + The other day I made a maxim off-hand, without once thinking of it; + and I liked it so well that I fancied I had taken it out of M. de + la Rochefoucauld's. Pray tell me whether it is so or not, for in + that case my memory is more to be praised than my judgment. I said, + with all the ease in the world, that "ingratitude begets reproach, + as acknowledgment begets new favors." Pray, where did this come + from? Have I read it? Did I dream it? Is it my own idea? Nothing + can be truer than the thing itself, nor than that I am totally + ignorant how I came by it. I found it properly arranged in my + brain, and at the end of my tongue. + +The partial mother lets her daughter know whom the maxim was meant for. +She says, "It is intended for your brother." This young fellow had, we +suspect, been first earning his mother's "reproaches" for spendthrift +habits, and then getting more money from her by "acknowledgment." + +She hears that son of hers read "some chapters out of Rabelais," "which +were enough," she declares, "to make us die with laughing." "I cannot +affect," she says, "a prudery which is not natural to me." No, indeed, a +prude this woman was not. She had the strong æsthetic stomach of her +time. It is queer to have Rabelais rubbing cheek and jowl with Nicole +("We are going to begin a moral treatise of Nicole's"), a severe +Port-Royalist, in one and the same letter. But this is French; above +all, it is Madame de Sévigné. By the way, she and her friends, first and +last, "die" a thousand jolly deaths "with laughing." + +A contemporary allusion to "Tartuffe," with more French manners +implied:-- + + The other day La Biglesse played Tartuffe to the life. Being at + table, she happened to tell a fib about some trifle or other, which + I noticed, and told her of it; she cast her eyes to the ground, and + with a very demure air, "Yes, indeed, madam," said she, "I am the + greatest liar in the world; I am very much obliged to you for + telling me of it. "We all burst out a-laughing, for it was exactly + the tone of Tartuffe,--"Yes, brother, I am a wretch, a vessel of + iniquity." + +M. de La Rochefoucauld appears often by name in the letters. Here he +appears anonymously by his effect:-- + + "Warm affections are never tranquil"; a _maxim_. + +Not a very sapid bit of gnomic wisdom, certainly. We must immediately +make up to our readers, on Madame de Sévigné's behalf, for the +insipidity of the foregoing "maxim" of hers, by giving here two or three +far more sententious excerpts from the letters, excerpts collected by +another:-- + + There may be so great a weight of obligation that there is no way + of being delivered from it but by ingratitude. + + Long sicknesses wear out grief, and long hopes wear out joy. + + Shadow is never long taken for substance; you must be, if you would + appear to be. The world is not unjust long. + +Madame de Sévigné makes a confession, which will comfort readers who may +have experienced the same difficulty as that of which she speaks:-- + + I send you M. de Rochefoucauld's "Maxims," revised and corrected, + with additions; it is a present to you from himself. Some of them I + can make shift to guess the meaning of; but there are others that, + to my shame be it spoken, I cannot understand at all. God knows how + it will be with you. + +What was it changed this woman's mood to serious? She could not have +been hearing Massillon's celebrated sermon on the "fewness of the +elect," for Massillon was yet only a boy of nine years; she may have +been reading Pascal's "Thoughts,"--Pascal had been dead ten years, and +the "Thoughts" had been published; or she may have been listening to one +of those sifting, heart-searching discourses of Bourdaloue,--the date of +her letter is March 16, 1672, and during the Lent of that year +Bourdaloue preached at Versailles,--when she wrote sombrely as +follows:-- + + You ask me if I am as fond of life as ever. I must own to you that + I experience mortifications, and severe ones too; but I am still + unhappy at the thoughts of death; I consider it so great a + misfortune to see the termination of all my pursuits, that I should + desire nothing better, if it were practicable, than to begin life + again. I find myself engaged in a scene of confusion and trouble; I + was embarked in life without my own consent, and know I must leave + it again; this distracts me, for how shall I leave it? In what + manner? By what door? At what time? In what disposition? Am I to + suffer a thousand pains and torments that will make me die in a + state of despair? Shall I lose my senses? Am I to die by some + sudden accident? How shall I stand with God? What shall I have to + offer to him? Will fear and necessity make my peace with him? Shall + I have no other sentiment but that of fear? What have I to hope? Am + I worthy of heaven? Or have I deserved the torments of hell? + Dreadful alternative! Alarming uncertainty! Can there be greater + madness than to place our eternal salvation in uncertainty? Yet + what is more natural, or can be more easily accounted for, than the + foolish manner in which I have spent my life? I am frequently + buried in thoughts of this nature, and then death appears so + dreadful to me that I hate life more for leading me to it, than I + do for all the thorns that are strewed in its way. You will ask me, + then, if I would wish to live forever? Far from it; but, if I had + been consulted, I would very gladly have died in my nurse's arms; + it would have spared me many vexations, and would have insured + heaven to me at a very easy rate; but let us talk of something + else. + +A memorable sarcasm saved for us by Madame de Sévigné, at the very close +of one of her letters:-- + + Guillenagues said yesterday that Pelisson abused the privilege men + have of being ugly. + +Readers familiar with Dickens's "Tale of Two Cities," will recognize in +the following narrative a state of society not unlike that described by +the novelist as immediately preceding the French Revolution:-- + + The Archbishop of Rheims, as he returned yesterday from St. + Germain, met with a curious adventure. He drove at his usual rate, + like a whirlwind. If he thinks himself a great man, his servants + think him still greater. They passed through Nanterre, when they + met a man on horseback, and in an insolent tone bid him clear the + way. The poor man used his utmost endeavors to avoid the danger + that threatened him, but his horse proved unmanageable. To make + short of it, the coach-and-six turned them both topsy-turvy; but at + the same time the coach, too, was completely overturned. In an + instant the horse and the man, instead of amusing themselves with + having their limbs broken, rose almost miraculously; the man + remounted, and galloped away, and is galloping still, for aught I + know; while the servants, the archbishop's coachman, and the + archbishop himself at the head of them, cried out, "Stop that + villain, stop him! thrash him soundly!" The rage of the archbishop + was so great, that afterward, in relating the adventure, he said, + if he could have caught the rascal, he would have broke all his + bones, and cut off both his ears. + +If such things were done by the aristocracy--and the spiritual +aristocracy at that!--in the green tree, what might not be expected in +the dry? The writer makes no comment--draws no moral. "Adieu, my dear, +delightful child. I cannot express my eagerness to see you," are her +next words. She rattles along, three short sentences more, and finishes +her letter. + +We should still not have done with these letters, were we to go on a +hundred pages, or two hundred, farther. Readers have already seen truly +what Madame de Sévigné is. They have only not seen fully all that she +is. And that they would not see short of reading her letters entire. +Horace Walpole aspired to do in English for his own time something like +what Madame de Sévigné had done in French for hers. In a measure he +succeeded. The difference is, that he was imitative and affected, where +she was original and genuine. + +Lady Mary Wortley Montagu must, of course, also be named, as, by her +sex, her social position, her talent, and the devotion of her talent, an +English analogue to Madame de Sévigné. But these comparisons, and all +comparison, leave the French woman without a true parallel, alone in her +rank, the most famous letter-writer in the world. + + + + +X. + +CORNEILLE. + +1606-1684. + + +The two great names in French tragedy are Corneille and Racine. French +tragedy is a very different affair from either modern tragedy in English +or ancient tragedy in Greek. It comes nearer being Roman epic, such as +Lucan wrote Roman epic, dramatized. + +Drama is everywhere and always, and this from the nature of things, a +highly conventional literary form. But the convention under which +French tragedy should be judged differs, on the one hand, from that +which existed for Greek tragedy, and, on the other hand, from that +existing for the English. The atmosphere of real life present in English +tragedy is absent in French. The quasi-supernatural religious awe that +reigned over Greek tragedy, French tragedy does not affect. You miss +also in French tragedy the severe simplicity, the self-restraint, the +statuesque repose, belonging to the Greek model. Loftiness, grandeur, a +loftiness somewhat strained, a grandeur tending to be tumid, an heroic +tone sustained at sacrifice of ease and nature--such is the element in +which French tragedy lives and flourishes. You must grant your French +tragedists this their conventional privilege, or you will not enjoy +them. You must grant them this, or you cannot understand them. Resolve +that you will like grandiloquence, requiring only that the +grandiloquence be good, and on this condition we can promise that you +will be pleased with Corneille and Racine. In fact, our readers, we are +sure, will find the grandiloquence of these two tragedy-writers so very +good that a little will suffice them. + +Voltaire in his time impressed himself strongly enough on his countrymen +to get accepted by his own generation as an equal third in tragedy with +Corneille and Racine. There was then a French triumvirate of tragedists +to be paralleled with the triumvirate of the Greeks. Corneille was +Æschylus; Racine was Sophocles; and, of course, Euripides had his +counterpart in Voltaire. Voltaire has since descended from the tragic +throne, and that neat symmetry of trine comparison is spoiled. There is, +however, some trace of justice in making Corneille as related to Racine +resemble Æschylus as related to Sophocles. Corneille was first, more +rugged, loftier; Racine was second, more polished, more severe in taste. +Racine had, too, in contrast with Corneille, more of the Euripidean +sweetness. In fact, La Bruyère's celebrated comparison of the two +Frenchmen--made, of course, before Voltaire--yoked them, Corneille with +Sophocles, Racine with Euripides. + +It was perhaps not without its influence on the style of Corneille, that +a youthful labor of his in authorship was to translate, wholly or +partially, the "Pharsalia" of Lucan. Corneille always retained his +fondness for Lucan. This taste on his part, and the rhymed Alexandrines +in which he wrote tragedy, may together help account for the +hyper-heroic style which is Corneille's great fault. A lady criticised +his tragedy, "The Death of Pompey," by saying: "Very fine, but too many +heroes in it." Corneille's tragedies generally have, if not too many +heroes, at least too much hero, in them. Concerning the historian +Gibbon's habitual pomp of expression, it was once wittily said that +nobody could possibly tell the truth in such a style as that. It would +be equally near the mark if we should say of Corneille's chosen mould +of verse, that nobody could possibly be simple and natural in that. +Molière's comedy, however, would almost confute us. + +Pierre Corneille was born in Rouen. He studied law, and he was admitted +to practice as an advocate, like Molière; but, like Molière, he heard +and he heeded an inward voice summoning him away from the bar to the +stage. Corneille did not, however, like Molière, tread the boards as an +actor. He had a lively sense of personal dignity. He was eminently the +"lofty, grave tragedian," in his own esteem. "But I am Pierre Corneille +notwithstanding," he self-respectingly said once, when friends were +regretting to him some deficiency of grace in his personal carriage. One +can imagine him taking off his hat to himself with unaffected deference. + +But this serious genius began dramatic composition with writing comedy. +He made several experiments in this kind with no commanding success; but +at thirty he wrote the tragedy of "The Cid," and instantly became +famous. His subsequent plays were chiefly on classical subjects. The +subject of "The Cid" was drawn from Spanish literature. This was +emphatically what has been called an "epoch-making" production. +Richelieu's "Academy," at the instigation, indeed almost under the +dictation, of Richelieu, who was jealous of Corneille, tried to write it +down. They succeeded about as Balaam succeeded in prophesying against +Israel. "The Cid" triumphed over them, and over the great minister. It +established not only Corneille's fame, but his authority. The man of +genius taken alone, proved stronger than the men of taste taken +together. + +For all this, however, our readers would hardly relish "The Cid." Let us +go at once to that tragedy of Corneille's which, by the general consent +of French critics, is the best work of its author, the "Polyeuctes." The +following is the rhetorical climax of praise in which Gaillard, one of +the most enlightened of Corneille's eulogists, arranges the different +masterpieces of his author: "'The Cid' raised Corneille above his +rivals; the 'Horace' and the 'Cinna' above his models; the 'Polyeuctes' +above himself." This tragedy will, we doubt not, prove to our readers +the most interesting of all the tragedies of Corneille. + +"The great Corneille"--to apply the traditionary designation which, +besides attributing to our tragedian his conceded general eminence in +character and genius, serves also to distinguish him by merit from his +younger brother, who wrote very good tragedy--was an illustrious figure +at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, that focus of the best literary criticism +in France. Corneille reading a play of his to the _coterie_ of wits +assembled there under the presidency of ladies whose eyes, as in a kind +of tournament of letters, rained influence on authors, and judged the +prize of genius, is the subject of a striking picture by a French +painter. Corneille read "Polyeuctes" at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and +that awful court decided against the play. Corneille, like Michel +Angelo, had to a good degree the courage of his own productions; but, in +the face of adverse decision so august on his work, he needed +encouragement, which happily he did not fail to receive, before he would +allow his "Polyeuctes" to be represented. The theatre crowned it with +the laurels of victory. It thus fell to Corneille to triumph +successively, single-handed, over two great adversary courts of critical +appreciation,--the Academy of Richelieu and the not less formidable +Hôtel de Rambouillet. + +The objection raised by the Hôtel de Rambouillet against the +"Polyeuctes" was that it made the stage encroach on the prerogative of +the pulpit, and preach instead of simply amusing. And, indeed, never, +perhaps, since the Greek tragedy, was the theatre made so much to serve +the solemn purposes of religion. (We except the miracle and passion +plays and the mysteries of the middle ages, as not belonging within the +just bounds of a comparison like that now made.) Corneille's final +influence was to elevate and purify the French theatre. In his early +works, however, he made surprising concessions to the lewd taste in the +drama that he found prevailing when he began to write. With whatever +amount of genuine religious scruple affecting his conscience,--on that +point we need not judge the poet,--Corneille used, before putting them +on the stage, to take his plays to the "Church,"--that is, to the +priestly hierarchy who constituted the "Church,"--that they might be +authoritatively judged as to their possible influence on the cause of +Christian truth. + +In the "Polyeuctes," the motive is religion. Polyeuctes is an historic +or traditional saint of the Roman-Catholic church. His conversion from +paganism is the theme of the play. Polyeuctes has a friend Nearchus who +is already a Christian convert, and who labors earnestly to make +Polyeuctes a proselyte to the faith. Polyeuctes has previously married a +noble Roman lady, daughter of Felix, governor of Armenia, in which +province the action of the story occurs. (The persecuting Emperor Decius +is on the throne of the Roman world.) Paulina is the daughter's name. +Paulina married Polyeuctes against her own choice, for she loved Roman +Severus better. Her father had put his will upon her, and Paulina had +filially obeyed in marrying Polyeuctes. Such are the relations of the +different persons of the drama. It will be seen that there is ample room +for the play of elevated and tragic passions. Paulina, in fact, is the +lofty, the impossible, ideal of wifely and daughterly truth and +devotion. Pagan though she is, she is pathetically constant, both to the +husband that was forced upon her, and to the father that did the +forcing; while still she loves, and cannot but love, the man whom, in +spite of her love for him, she, with an act like prolonged suicide, +stoically separates from her torn and bleeding heart. + +But Severus on his part emulates the nobleness of the woman whom he +vainly loves. Learning the true state of the case, he rises to the +height of his opportunity for magnanimous behavior, and bids the married +pair be happy in a long life together. + +A change in the situation occurs, a change due to the changed mood of +the father, Felix. Felix learns that Severus is high in imperial favor, +and he wishes now that Severus, instead of Polyeuctes, were his +son-in-law. A decree of the emperor makes it possible that this +preferable alternative may yet be realized. For the emperor has decreed +that Christians must be persecuted to the death, and Polyeuctes has been +baptized a Christian--though of this Felix will not hear till later. + +A solemn sacrifice to the gods is to be celebrated in honor of imperial +victories lately won. Felix sends to summon Polyeuctes, his son-in-law. +To Felix's horror, Polyeuctes, with his friend Nearchus, coming to the +temple, proceeds in a frenzy of enthusiasm to break and dishonor the +images of the gods, proclaiming himself a Christian. In obedience to the +imperial decree, Nearchus is hurried to execution, in the sight of his +friend, while Polyeuctes is thrown into prison to repent and recant. + +'Now is my chance,' muses Felix. 'I dare not disobey the emperor, to +spare Polyeuctes. Besides, with Polyeuctes once out of the way, Severus +and Paulina may be husband and wife.' + +Polyeuctes in prison hears that his Paulina is coming to see him. With +a kind of altruistic nobleness which seems contagious in this play, +Polyeuctes resolves that Severus shall come too, and he will resign his +wife, soon to be a widow, to the care of his own rival, her Roman lover. +First, Polyeuctes and Paulina are alone together--Polyeuctes having, +before she arrived, fortified his soul for the conflict with her tears, +by singing in his solitude a song of high resolve and of anticipative +triumph over his temptation. + +The scene between Paulina, exerting all her power to detach Polyeuctes +from what she believes to be his folly, and Polyeuctes, on the other +hand, rapt to the pitch of martyrdom, exerting all his power to resist +his wife, and even to convert her--this scene, we say, is full of noble +height and pathos, as pathos and height were possible in the verse which +Corneille had to write. Neither struggler in this tragic strife moves +the other. Paulina is withdrawing when Severus enters. She addresses her +lover severely, but Polyeuctes intervenes to defend him. In a short +scene, Polyeuctes, by a sort of last will and testament, bequeaths his +wife to his rival, and retires with his guard. Now, Severus and Paulina +are alone together. If there was a trace of the false heroic in +Polyeuctes's resignation of his wife to Severus, the effect of that is +finely counteracted by the scene which immediately follows between +Paulina and Severus. Severus begins doubtfully, staggering, as it were, +to firm posture, while he speaks to Paulina. He expresses amazement at +the conduct of Polyeuctes. Christians certainly deport themselves +strangely, he says. He at length finds himself using the following +lover-like language:-- + + As for me, had my destiny become a little earlier propitious and + honored my devotion by marriage with you, I should have adored only + the splendor of your eyes; of them I should have made my kings; of + them I should have made my gods; sooner would I have been reduced + to dust, sooner would I have been reduced to ashes, than-- + +But here Paulina interrupts, and Severus is not permitted to finish his +protestation. Her reply is esteemed, and justly esteemed, one of the +noblest things in French tragedy--a French critic would be likely to +say, the very noblest in tragedy. She says:-- + + Let us break off there; I fear listening too long; I fear lest this + warmth, which feels your first fires, force on some sequel unworthy + of us both. [Voltaire, who edited Corneille with a feeling of + freedom toward a national idol comparable to the sturdy + independence that animated Johnson in annotating Shakspeare, says + of "This warmth which feels your first fires and which forces on a + sequel": "That is badly written, agreed; but the sentiment gets the + better of the expression, and what follows is of a beauty of which + there had been no example. The Greeks were frigid declaimers in + comparison with this passage of Corneille."] Severus, learn to know + Paulina all in all. + + My Polyeuctes touches on his last hour; he has but a moment to + live; you are the cause of this, though innocently so. I know not + if your heart, yielding to your desires, may have dared build any + hope on his destruction; but know that there is no death so cruel + that to it with firm brow I would not bend my steps, that there are + in hell no horrors that I would not endure, rather than soil a + glory so pure, rather than espouse, after his sad fate, a man that + was in any wise the cause of his death; and if you suppose me of a + heart so little sound, the love which I had for you would all turn + to hate. You are generous; be so even to the end. My father is in a + state to yield every thing to you; he fears you; and I further + hazard this saying, that, if he destroys my husband, it is to you + that he sacrifices him. Save this unhappy man, use your influence + in his favor, exert yourself to become his support. I know that + this is much that I ask; but the greater the effort, the greater + the glory from it. To preserve a rival of whom you are jealous, + that is a trait of virtue which appertains only to you. And if your + renown is not motive sufficient, it is much that a woman once so + well beloved, and the love of whom perhaps is still capable of + touching you, will owe to your great heart the dearest possession + that she owns; remember, in short, that you are Severus. Adieu. + Decide with yourself alone what you ought to do; if you are not + such as I dare hope that you are, then, in order that I may + continue to esteem you, I wish not to know it. + +Voltaire, as editor and commentator of Corneille, is freezingly cold. It +is difficult not to feel that at heart he was unfriendly to the great +tragedist's fame. His notes often are remorselessly grammatical. "This +is not French;" "This is not the right word;" "According to the +construction, this should mean so and so--according to the sense, it +must mean so and so;" "This is hardly intelligible;" "It is a pity that +such or such a fault should mar these fine verses;" "An expression for +comedy rather than tragedy,"--are the kind of remarks with which +Voltaire chills the enthusiasm of the reader. It is useless, however, to +deny that the criticisms thus made are many of them just. Corneille does +not belong to the class of the "faultily faultless" writers. + +Severus proves equal to Paulina's noble hopes of him. With a great +effort of self-sacrifice, he resolves to intercede for Polyeuctes. This +is shown in an interview between Severus and his faithful attendant +Fabian. Fabian warns him that he appeals for Polyeuctes at his own +peril. Severus loftily replies (and here follows one of the most lauded +passages in the play):-- + + That advice might be good for some common soul. Though he [the + Emperor Decius] holds in his hands my life and my fortune, I am yet + Severus; and all that mighty power is powerless over my glory, and + powerless over my duty. Here honor compels me, and I will satisfy + it; whether fate afterward show itself propitious or adverse, + perishing glorious I shall perish content. + + I will tell thee further, but under confidence, the sect of + Christians is not what it is thought to be. They are hated, why I + know not; and I see Decius unjust only in this regard. From + curiosity I have sought to become acquainted with them. They are + regarded as sorcerers taught from hell; and, in this supposition, + the punishment of death is visited on secret mysteries which we do + not understand. But Eleusinian Ceres and the Good Goddess have + their secrets, like those at Rome and in Greece; still we freely + tolerate everywhere, their god alone excepted, every kind of god; + all the monsters of Egypt have their temples in Rome; our fathers, + at their will, made a god of a man; and, their blood in our veins + preserving their errors, we fill heaven with all our emperors; but, + to speak without disguise of deifications so numerous, the effect + is very doubtful of such metamorphoses. + + Christians have but one God, absolute master of all, whose mere + will does whatever he resolves; but, if I may venture to say what + seems to me true, our gods very often agree ill together; and, + though their wrath crush me before your eyes, we have a good many + of them for them to be true gods. Finally, among the Christians, + morals are pure, vices are hated, virtues flourish; they offer + prayers on behalf of us who persecute them; and, during all the + time since we have tormented them, have they ever been seen + mutinous? Have they ever been seen rebellious? Have our princes + ever had more faithful soldiers? Fierce in war, they submit + themselves to our executioners; and, lions in combat, they die like + lambs. I pity them too much not to defend them. Come, let us find + Felix; let us commune with his son-in-law; and let us thus, with + one single action, gratify at once Paulina, and my glory, and my + compassion. + +Such is the high heroic style in which pagan Severus resolves and +speaks. And thus the fourth act ends. + +Felix makes a sad contrast with the high-heartedness which the other +characters, most of them, display. He is base enough to suspect that +Severus is base enough to be false and treacherous in his act of +intercession for Polyeuctes. He imagines he detects a plot against +himself to undermine him with the emperor. Voltaire criticises Corneille +for giving this sordid character to Felix. He thinks the tragedist +might better have let Felix be actuated by zeal for the pagan gods. The +mean selfishness that animates the governor, Voltaire regards as below +the right tragic pitch. It is the poet himself, no doubt, with that high +Roman fashion of his, who, unconsciously to the critic, taught him to +make the criticism. + +Felix summons Polyeuctes to an interview, and adjures him to be a +prudent man. Felix at length says, "Adore the gods, or die." "I am a +Christian," simply replies the martyr. "Impious! Adore them, I bid you, +or renounce life." (Here again Voltaire offers one of his refrigerant +criticisms: "_Renounce life_ does not advance upon the meaning of _die_; +when one repeats the thought, the expression should be strengthened.") +Paulina meantime has entered to expostulate with Polyeuctes and with her +father. Polyeuctes bids her, 'Live with Severus.' He says he has +revolved the subject, and he is convinced that another love is the sole +remedy for her woe. He proceeds in the calmest manner to point out the +advantages of the course recommended. Voltaire remarks,--justly, we are +bound to say,--that these maxims are here somewhat revolting; the martyr +should have had other things to say. On Felix's final word, "Soldiers, +execute the order that I have given," Paulina exclaims, "Whither are you +taking him?" "To death," says Felix. "To glory," says Polyeuctes. +"Admirable dialogue, and always applauded," is Voltaire's note on this. + +The tragedy does not end with the martyrdom of Polyeuctes. Paulina +becomes a Christian, but remains pagan enough to call her father +"barbarous" in acrimoniously bidding him finish his work by putting his +daughter also to death. Severus reproaches Felix for his cruelty, and +threatens him with his own enmity. Felix undergoes instantaneous +conversion,--a miracle of grace which, under the circumstances provided +by Corneille, we may excuse Voltaire for laughing at. Paulina is +delighted; and Severus asks, "Who would not be touched by a spectacle so +tender?" + +The tragedy thus comes near ending happily enough to be called a comedy. + +Such as the foregoing exhibits him, is Corneille, the father of French +tragedy, where at his best; where at his worst, he is something so +different that you would hardly admit him to be the same man. For never +was genius more unequal in different manifestations of itself, than +Corneille in his different works. Molière is reported to have said that +Corneille had a familiar, or a fairy, that came to him at times, and +enabled him to write sublimely; but that, when the poet was left to +himself, he could write as poorly as another man. + +Corneille produced some thirty-three dramatic pieces in all, but of +these not more than six or seven retain their place on the French stage. + +Besides his plays, there is a translation in verse by him of the +"Imitation of Christ;" there are metrical versions of a considerable +number of the Psalms; there are odes, madrigals, sonnets, stanzas, +addresses to the king. Then there are discourses in prose on dramatic +poetry, on tragedy, and on the three unities. Add to these, elaborate +appreciations by himself of a considerable number of his own plays, +prefaces, epistles, arguments to his pieces, and you have, what with the +notes, the introductions, the eulogies, and other such things that the +faithful French editor knows so well how to accumulate, matter enough of +Corneille to swell out eleven, or, in one edition,--that issued under +Napoleon as First Consul,--even twelve, handsome volumes of his works. + +Corneille and Bossuet together constitute a kind of rank by themselves +among the _Dii Majores_ of the French literary Olympus. + + + + +XI. + +RACINE. + +1639-1699. + + +Jean Racine was Pierre Corneille reduced to rule. The younger was to the +elder somewhat as Sophocles or Euripides was to Æschylus, as Virgil was +to Lucretius, as Pope was to Dryden. Nature was more in Corneille, art +was more in Racine. Corneille was a pathfinder in literature. He led the +way, even for Molière, still more for Racine. But Racine was as much +before Corneille in perfection of art, as Corneille was before Racine in +audacity of genius. Racine, accordingly, is much more even and uniform +than Corneille. Smoothness, polish, ease, grace, sweetness,--these, and +monotony in these, are the mark of Racine. But if there is, in the +latter poet, less to admire, there is also less to forgive. His taste +and his judgment were surer than the taste and the judgment of +Corneille. He enjoyed, moreover, an inestimable advantage in the +life-long friendship of the great critic of his time, Boileau. Boileau +was a literary conscience to Racine. He kept Racine constantly spurred +to his best endeavors in art. Racine was congratulating himself to his +friend on the ease with which he produced his verse. "Let me teach you +to produce easy verse with difficulty," was the critic's admirable +reply. Racine was a docile pupil. He became as painstaking an artist in +verse as Boileau would have him. + +It will always be a matter of individual taste, and of changing fashion +in criticism, to decide which of the two is, on the whole, to be +preferred to the other. Racine eclipsed Corneille in vogue during the +lifetime of the latter. Corneille's old age was, perhaps, seriously +saddened by the consciousness, which he could not but have, of being +retired from the place of ascendency once accorded to him over all. His +case repeated the fortune of Æschylus in relation to Sophocles. The +eighteenth century, taught by Voltaire, established the precedence of +Racine. But the nineteenth century has restored the crown to the brow of +Corneille. To such mutations is subject the fame of an author. + +Jean Racine was early left an orphan. His grandparents put him, after +preparatory training at another establishment, to school at Port Royal, +where during three years he had the best opportunities of education that +the kingdom afforded. His friends wanted to make a clergyman of him; but +the preferences of the boy prevailed, and he addicted himself to +literature. The Greek tragedists became familiar to him in his youth, +and their example in literary art exercised a sovereign influence over +Racine's development as author. It pained the good Port-Royalists to see +their late gifted pupil, now out of their hands, inclined to write +plays. Nicole printed a remonstrance against the theatre, in which +Racine discovered something that he took to slant anonymously at +himself. He wrote a spirited reply, of which no notice was taken by the +Port-Royalists. Somebody, however, on their behalf, rejoined to Racine, +whereupon the young author wrote a second letter to the Port-Royalists, +which he showed to his friend Boileau. "This may do credit to your head, +but it will do none to your heart," was that faithful mentor's comment, +in returning the document. Racine suppressed his second letter, and did +his best to recall the first. But he went on in his course of writing +for the stage. + +The "Thebaïd" was Racine's first tragedy,--at least his first that +attained to the honor of being represented. Molière brought it out in +his theatre, the Palais Royal. His second tragedy, the "Alexander the +Great," was also put into the hands of Molière. + +This latter play the author took to Corneille to get his judgment on it. +Corneille was thirty-three years the senior of Racine, and he was at +this time the undisputed master of French tragedy. "You have undoubted +talent for poetry--for tragedy, not; try your hand in some other +poetical line," was Corneille's sentence on the unrecognized young +rival, who was so soon to supplant him in popular favor. + +The "Andromache" followed the "Alexander," and then Racine did try his +hand in another poetical line; for he wrote a comedy, his only one, "The +Suitors," as is loosely translated "Les Plaideurs," a title which has a +legal, and not an amorous, meaning. This play, after it had at first +failed, Louis XIV. laughed into court favor. It became thenceforward a +great success. It still keeps its place on the stage. It is, however, a +farce, rather than a comedy. + +We pass over now one or two of the subsequent productions of Racine, to +mention next a play of his which had a singular history. It was a fancy +of the brilliant Princess Henriette (that same daughter of English +Charles I., Bossuet's funeral oration on whom, presently to be spoken +of, is so celebrated) to engage the two great tragedists, Corneille and +Racine, both at once, in labor, without their mutual knowledge, upon the +same subject,--a subject which she herself, drawing it from the history +of Tacitus, conceived to be eminently fit for tragical treatment. +Corneille produced his "Berenice," and Racine his "Titus and Berenice." +The princess died before the two plays which she had inspired were +produced; but, when they were produced, Racine's work won the palm. The +rivalry created a bitterness between the two authors, of which, +naturally, the defeated one tasted the more deeply. An ill-considered +pleasantry, too, of Racine's, in making, out of one of Corneille's +tragic lines in his "Cid," a comic line in "The Suitors," hurt the old +man's pride. That pride suffered a worse hurt still. The chief Parisian +theatre, completely occupied with the works of his victorious rival, +rejected tragedies offered by Corneille. + +Still, Racine did not have things all his own way. Some good critics +considered the rage for this younger dramatist a mere passing whim of +fashion. These--Madame de Sévigné was of them--stood by their "old +admiration," and were true to Corneille. + +A memorable mortification and chagrin for our poet was now prepared by +his enemies--he seems never to have lacked enemies--with lavish and +elaborate malice. Racine had produced a play from Euripides, the +"Phædra," on which he had unstintingly bestowed his best genius and his +best art. It was contrived that another poet, one Pradon, should, at the +self-same moment, have a play represented on the self-same subject. At a +cost of many thousands of dollars, the best seats at Racine's theatre +were all bought by his enemies, and left solidly vacant. The best seats +at Pradon's theatre were all bought by the same interested parties, and +duly occupied with industrious and zealous applauders. This occurred at +six successive representations. The result was the immediate apparent +triumph of Pradon over the humiliated Racine. Boileau in vain bade his +friend be of good cheer, and await the assured reversal of the verdict. +Racine was deeply wounded. + +This discomposing experience of the poet's, joined with conscientious +misgivings on his part as to the propriety of his course in writing for +the stage, led him now, at the early age of thirty-eight, to renounce +tragedy altogether. His son Louis, from whose life of Racine we have +chiefly drawn our material for the present sketch, conceives this change +in his father as a profound and genuine religious conversion. Writers +whose spirit inclines them not to relish a condemnation such as seems +thus to be reflected on the theatre, take a less charitable view of the +change. They account for it as a reaction of mortified pride. Some of +them go so far as groundlessly to impute sheer hypocrisy to Racine. + +A long interval of silence, on Racine's part, had elapsed, when Madame +de Maintenon, the wife of Louis XIV., asked the unemployed poet to +prepare a sacred play for the use of the high-born girls educated under +her care at St. Cyr. Racine consented, and produced his "Esther." This +achieved a prodigious success; for the court took it up, and an exercise +written for a girls' school became the admiration of a kingdom. A second +similar play followed, the "Athaliah,"--the last, and, by general +agreement, the most perfect, work of its author. We thus reach that +tragedy of Racine's which both its fame and its character dictate to us +as the one by eminence to be used here in exhibition of the quality of +this Virgil among tragedists. + +Our readers may, if they please, refresh their recollection of the +history on which the drama is founded by perusing Second Kings, chapter +eleven, and Second Chronicles, chapters twenty-two and twenty-three. +Athaliah, whose name gives its title to the tragedy, was daughter to the +wicked king, Ahab. She reigns as queen at Jerusalem over the kingdom of +Judah. To secure her usurped position, she had sought to kill all the +descendants of King David, even her own grandchildren. She had +succeeded,--but not quite. Young Joash escaped, to be secretly reared +in the temple by the high priest. The final disclosure of this hidden +prince, and his coronation as king in place of usurping Athaliah, +destined to be fearfully overthrown, and put to death in his name, +afford the action of the play. Action, however, there is almost none in +classic French tragedy. The tragic drama is, with the French, as it was +with the Greeks, after whom it was framed, merely a succession of scenes +in which speeches are made by the actors. Lofty declamation is always +the character of the play. In the "Athaliah," as in the "Esther," Racine +introduced the feature of the chorus, a restoration which had all the +effect of an innovation. The chorus in "Athaliah" consisted of Hebrew +virgins, who, at intervals marking the transitions between the acts, +chanted the spirit of the piece in its successive stages of progress +toward the final catastrophe. The "Athaliah" is almost proof against +technical criticism. It is acknowledged to be, after its kind, a nearly +ideal product of art. + +There is a curious story about the fortune of this piece with the +public, that will interest our readers. The first success of "Athaliah" +was not great. In fact, it was almost a flat failure. But a company of +wits, playing at forfeits somewhere in the country, severely sentenced +one of their number to go by himself, and read the first act of +"Athaliah." The victim went, and did not return. Sought at length, he +was found just commencing a second perusal of the play entire. He +reported of it so enthusiastically, that he was asked to read it before +the company, which he did, to their delight. This started a reaction in +favor of the condemned play, which soon came to be counted the +masterpiece of its author. + +First, in specimen of the choral feature of the drama, we content +ourselves with giving a single chorus from the "Athaliah." This we turn +into rhyme, clinging pretty closely all the way to the form of the +original. Attentive readers may, in one place of our rendering, observe +an instance of identical rhyme. This, in a piece of verse originally +written in English, would, of course, be a fault. In a translation from +French, it may pass for a merit; since, to judge from the practice of +the national poets, the French ear seems to be even better pleased with +such strict identities of sound, at the close of corresponding lines, +than it is with those definite mere resemblances to which, in English +versification, rhymes are rigidly limited. Suspense between hope and +dread, dread preponderating, is the state of feeling represented in the +present chorus. Salomith is the leading singer:-- + + SALOMITH. + + The Lord hath deigned to speak, + But what he to his prophet now hath shown-- + Who unto us will make it clearly known? + Arms he himself to save us, poor and weak? + Arms he himself to have us overthrown? + + THE WHOLE CHORUS. + + O promises! O threats! O mystery profound! + What woe, what weal, are each in turn foretold? + How can so much of wrath be found + So much of love to enfold? + + A VOICE. + + Zion shall be no more; a cruel flame + Will all her ornaments devour. + + A SECOND VOICE. + + God shelters Zion; she has shield and tower + In His eternal name. + + FIRST VOICE. + + I see her splendor all from vision disappear. + + SECOND VOICE. + + I see on every side her glory shine more clear. + + FIRST VOICE. + + Into a deep abyss is Zion sunk from sight. + + SECOND VOICE. + + Zion lifts up her brow amid celestial light. + + FIRST VOICE. + + What dire despair! + + SECOND VOICE. + + What praise from every tongue! + + FIRST VOICE. + + What cries of grief! + + SECOND VOICE. + + What songs of triumph sung! + + A THIRD VOICE. + + Cease we to vex ourselves; our God, one day, + Will this great mystery make clear. + + ALL THREE VOICES. + + Let us his wrath revere, + While on his love, no less, our hopes we stay. + +The catastrophe is reached in the coronation of little Joash as king, +and in the destruction of usurping and wicked Athaliah. Little Joash, by +the way, with his rather precocious wisdom of reply, derived to himself, +for the moment, a certain factitious interest, from the resemblance, +meant by the poet to be divined by spectators, between him and the +little Duke of Burgundy, Louis XIV.'s grandson, then of about the same +age with the Hebrew boy, and of high reputation for mental vivacity. + +The scene in which the high priest, Jehoiada, for the first time +discloses to his foster-son, Joash, the latter's royal descent from +David, and his true heirship to the throne of Judah, will serve +sufficiently to exhibit what maturity of modest and pious wisdom the +dramatist attributes to this Hebrew boy of nine or ten years. Nine or +ten years of age Racine makes Joash, instead of seven, as Scripture, +interpreted without violence, would make him. The lad has had his sage +curiosity excited by seeing preparations in progress for some important +ceremonial. That ceremonial is his own coronation, but he does not guess +the secret. Nay, he has just touchingly asked his foster-mother, +observed by him to be in tears:-- + + What pity touches you? Is it that in a holocaust to be this day + offered, I, like Jephtha's daughter in other times, must pacify by + my death the anger of the Lord? Alas, a son has nothing that does + not belong to his father! + +The discreet foster-mother refers the lad to her husband, Jehoiada, now +approaching. Joash rushes into the arms of the high priest, exclaiming, +"My father!" "Well, my son?" the high-priest replies. "What +preparations, then, are these?" asks Joash. The high priest bids him +prepare himself to listen and learn, the time being now come for him to +pay his debt to God:-- + + JOASH. I feel myself ready, if he wishes it, to give to him my + life. + + JEHOIADA. You have often heard read the history of our kings. Do + you remember, my son, what strict laws a king worthy of the crown + ought to impose upon himself? + + JOASH. A wise and good king, so hath God himself declared, puts not + his reliance upon riches and gold; he fears the Lord his God, has + ever before him his precepts, his laws, his judgments severe, and + does not with unjust burdens overwhelm his brethren. + +Fénelon had already been two years preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy +when this tragedy was written. It is impossible not to feel that Racine +must have had that prince in mind when he put into the mouth of young +Joash sentiments so likely to have been instilled into the heart of his +royal pupil, the great king's grandson, by such a preceptor as Fénelon. +How could the selfish old monarch of France contrive to avoid +recognizing his own portrait, suggested by contrast in that description +of the good king from the lips of little Joash? Racine was here treading +on treacherous ground. He will presently find his footing quite give way +under him, to let him down into the "horrible pit" of disgrace with his +king. This not, however, in the present play. + +The tragedist has generously bestowed upon wicked Queen Athaliah a +certain loftiness of spirit which, in its display in the final +catastrophe, almost redeems her to admiration, if not to sympathy. There +is nothing in the play more nearly sublime in declamation than the final +speech in which Athaliah greets her own doom, and blasphemously +forecasts, for young King Joash, a future of apostasy from God. With +this admirable piece of rhetoric, resembling a burst of blasphemy from +Satan in "Paradise Lost," so far as French poetry may be allowed to +resemble English, we conclude our representation of Racine. Athaliah has +now just heard the announcement of things that assure her of the +overthrow of her usurpation. She expresses herself in a speech, the +first words of which were, no doubt, designed by the poet to recall the +celebrated traditional exclamation of Julian the Apostate, uttered at a +moment of irretrievable disaster to his impious hopes,--"O Galilean, +thou hast conquered!" as follows:-- + + God of the Jews, 'tis thou that dost prevail! + Ay, it is Joash; all without avail + Seek I to cheat myself with other thought: + I know the wound my weapon on him wrought; + I see his father Ahaziah's face; + Naught but brings back to me that hated race. + David doth triumph, Ahab only fall,-- + Unpitying God, thou only hast done all! + 'Tis thou that flattering me to hope in vain + For easy vengeance, o'er and o'er again + Hast with myself myself embroiled anew, + Now pangs of conscience rousing, not a few, + Now dazzling me with thy rich treasures rare, + Which I to burn or pillage did not dare. + Let him, then, reign, this son, thy care, thy toil, + And, so to signalize his new-got spoil, + Let him into my bosom plunge the knife, + And take with filial hand his mother's life. + Hearken what wish for him she dying breathes-- + Wish? nay, what hope, assured hope, bequeaths,-- + That, disobedient, proud, rebellious, he, + Faithful to Ahab's blood received from me, + To his grandfather, to his father, like, + Abhorrent heir of David, down may strike + Thy worship and thy fane, avenger fell + Of Athaliah, Ahab, Jezebel! + +With words thus rendered into such English verse as we could command for +the purpose, Athaliah disappears from the stage. Her execution follows +immediately. This is not exhibited, but is announced with brief, solemn +comment from Jehoiada. And so the tragedy ends. + +The interest of the piece, to the modern reader, is by no means equal to +its fame. One reproaches one's self, but one yawns in conscientiously +perusing it. Still, one feels the work of the author to be +irreproachably, nay, consummately, good. But fashions in taste change; +and we cannot hold ourselves responsible for admiring, or, at any rate, +for enjoying, according to the judgment of other races and of former +generations. It is--so, with grave concurrence, we say--It is a great +classic, worthy of the praise that it receives. We are glad that we have +read it; and, let us be candid, equally glad that we have not to read it +again. + +As has already been intimated, Racine, after "Athaliah," wrote tragedy +no more. He ceased to interest himself in the fortune of his plays. His +son Louis, in his Life of his father, testifies that he never heard his +father speak in the family of the dramas that he had written. His +theatrical triumphs seemed to afford him no pleasure. He repented of +them rather than gloried in them. + +While one need not doubt that this regret of Racine's for the devotion +of his powers to the production of tragedy, was a sincere regret of his +conscience, one may properly wish that the regret had been more heroic. +The fact is, Racine was somewhat feminine in character as well as in +genius. He could not beat up with stout heart undismayed against an +adverse wind. And the wind blew adverse at length to Racine, from the +principal quarter, the court of Versailles. From being a chief favorite +with his sovereign, Racine fell into the position of an exile from the +royal presence. The immediate occasion was one honorable rather than +otherwise to the poet. + +In conversation with Madame de Maintenon, Racine had expressed views on +the state of France and on the duties of a king to his subjects, which +so impressed her mind that she desired him to reduce his observations to +writing, and confide them to her, she promising to keep them profoundly +secret from Louis. But Louis surprised her with the manuscript in her +hand. Taking it from her, he read in it, and demanded to know the +author. Madame de Maintenon could not finally refuse to tell. "Does M. +Racine, because he is a great poet, think that he knows every thing?" +the despot angrily asked. Louis never spoke to Racine again. The +distressed and infatuated poet still made some paltry request of the +king, to experience the humiliation that he invoked. His request was not +granted. Racine wilted, like a tender plant, under the sultry frown of +his monarch. He could not rally. He soon after died, literally killed by +the mere displeasure of one man. Such was the measureless power wielded +by Louis XIV.; such was the want of virile stuff in Racine. A spirit +partly kindred to the tragedist, Archbishop Fénelon, will presently be +shown to have had at about the same time a partly similar experience. + + + + +XII. + +BOSSUET: 1627-1704; BOURDALOUE: 1632-1704; MASSILLON: 1663-1742. + + +We group three names in one title, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Massillon, to +represent the pulpit orators of France. There are other great names,--as +Fléchier, with Claude and Saurin, the last two, Protestants both,--but +the names we choose are the greatest. + +Bossuet's individual distinction is, that he was a great man as well as +a great orator; Bourdaloue's, that he was priest-and-preacher simply; +Massillon's, that his sermons, regarded quite independently of their +subject, their matter, their occasion, regarded merely as masterpieces +of pure and classic style, became at once, and permanently became, a +part of French literature. + +The greatness of Bossuet is an article in the French national creed. No +Frenchman disputes it; no Frenchman, indeed, but proclaims it. +Protestant agrees with Catholic, infidel with Christian, at least in +this. Bossuet, twinned here with Corneille, is to the Frenchman, as +Milton is to the Englishman, his synonym for sublimity. Eloquence, +somehow, seems a thing too near the common human level to answer fully +the need that Frenchmen feel in speaking of Bossuet. Bossuet is not +eloquent, he is sublime. That in French it is in equal part oratory, +while in English it is poetry almost alone, that supplies in literature +its satisfaction to the sentiment of the sublime, very well represents +the difference in genius between the two races. The French idea of +poetry is eloquence; and it is eloquence carried to its height, whether +in verse or in prose, that constitutes for the Frenchman sublimity. The +difference is a difference of blood. English blood is Teutonic in base, +and the imagination of the Teuton is poetic. French blood, in base, is +Celtic; and the imagination of the Celt is oratoric. + +Jacques Bénigne Bossuet was of good _bourgeois_, or middle-class, stock. +He passed a well-ordered and virtuous youth, as if in prophetic +consistency with what was to be his subsequent career. He was brought +forward while a young man in the Hôtel de Rambouillet, where, on a +certain occasion, he preached a kind of show sermon, under the auspices +of his admiring patron. In due time he attracted wide public attention, +not merely as an eloquent orator, but as a profound student and as a +powerful controversialist. His character and influence became in their +maturity such, that La Bruyère aptly called him a "Father of the +Church." "The Corneille of the pulpit," was Henri Martin's +characterization and praise. A third phrase, "the eagle of Meaux," has +passed into almost an alternative name for Bossuet. He soared like an +eagle in his eloquence, and he was bishop of Meaux. + +Bossuet and Louis XIV. were exactly suited to each other, in the mutual +relation of subject and sovereign. Bossuet preached sincerely--as +everybody knows Louis sincerely practised--the doctrine of the divine +right of kings to rule absolutely. But the proud prelate compromised +neither his own dignity nor the dignity of the Church in the presence of +the absolute monarch. + +Bossuet threw himself with great zeal, and to prodigious effect, into +the controversy against Protestantism. His "History of the Variations of +the Protestant Churches," in two good volumes, was one of the mightiest +pamphlets ever written. As tutor to the Dauphin (the king's eldest son), +he produced, with other works, his celebrated "Discourse on Universal +History." + +In proceeding now to give, from the three great preachers named in our +title, a few specimen passages of the most famous pulpit oratory in the +world, we need to prepare our readers against a natural disappointment. +That which they are about to see has nothing in it of what will at first +strike them as brilliant. The pulpit eloquence of the Augustan age of +France was distinctly "classic," and not at all "romantic," in style. +Its character is not ornate, but severe. There is little rhetorical +figure in it, little of that "illustration" which our own different +national taste is accustomed to demand from the pulpit. There is plenty +of white light, "dry light" and white, for the reason; but there is +almost no bright color for the fancy, and, it must be added, not a +great deal of melting warmth for the heart. + +The funeral orations of Bossuet are generally esteemed the masterpieces +of this orator's eloquence. He had great occasions, and he was great to +match them. Still, readers might easily be disappointed in perusing a +funeral oration of Bossuet's. The discourse will generally be found to +deal in commonplaces of description, of reflection, and of sentiment. +Those commonplaces, however, are often made very impressive by the +lofty, the magisterial, the imperial, manner of the preacher in treating +them. We exhibit a specimen, a single specimen only, and a brief one, in +the majestic exordium to the funeral oration on the Princess Henrietta +of England. + +This princess was the last one left of the children of King Charles I. +of England. Her mother's death--her mother was of the French house of +Bourbon--had occurred but a short time before, and Bossuet had on that +occasion pronounced the eulogy. The daughter, scarcely returned to +France from a secret mission of state to England, the success of which +made her an object of distinguished regard at Versailles, suddenly fell +ill and died. Bossuet was summoned to preach at her funeral. (We have +not been able to find an English translation of Bossuet, and we +accordingly make the present transfer from French ourselves. We do the +same, for the same reason, in the case of Massillon. In the case of +Bourdaloue, we succeeded in obtaining a printed translation which we +could modify to suit our purpose.) Bossuet:-- + + It was then reserved for my lot to pay this funereal tribute to the + high and potent princess, Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans. + She whom I had seen so attentive while I was discharging a like + office for the queen her mother, was so soon after to be the + subject of a similar discourse, and my sad voice was predestined to + this melancholy service. O vanity! O nothingness! O mortals! + ignorant of their destiny! Ten months ago, would she have believed + it? And you, my hearers, would you have thought, while she was + shedding so many tears in this place, that she was so soon to + assemble you here to deplore her own loss? O princess! the worthy + object of the admiration of two great kingdoms, was it not enough + that England should deplore your absence, without being yet further + compelled to deplore your death? France, who with so much joy + beheld you again, surrounded with a new brilliancy, had she not in + reserve other pomps and other triumphs for you, returned from that + famous voyage whence you had brought hither so much glory, and + hopes so fair? "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." Nothing is left + for me to say but that; that is the only sentiment which, in + presence of so strange a casualty, grief so well-grounded and so + poignant, permits me to indulge. Nor have I explored the Holy + Scriptures in order to find therein some text which I might apply + to this princess; I have taken, without premeditation and without + choice, the first expression presented to me by the Preacher, with + whom vanity, although it has been so often named, is yet, to my + mind, not named often enough to suit the purpose that I have in + view. I wish, in a single misfortune, to lament all the calamities + of the human race, and in a single death to exhibit the death and + the nothingness of all human greatness. This text, which suits all + the circumstances and all the occurrences of our life, becomes, by + a special adaptedness, appropriate to my mournful theme; since + never were the vanities of the earth either so clearly disclosed or + so openly confounded. No, after what we have just seen, health is + but a name, life is but a dream, glory is but a shadow, charms and + pleasures are but a dangerous diversion. Every thing is vain within + us, except the sincere acknowledgment made before God of our + vanity, and the fixed judgment of the mind, leading us to despise + all that we are. + + But did I speak the truth? Man, whom God made in his own image, is + he but a shadow? That which Jesus Christ came from heaven to earth + to seek, that which he deemed that he could, without degrading + himself, ransom with his own blood, is that a mere nothing? Let us + acknowledge our mistake; surely this sad spectacle of the vanity of + things human was leading us astray, and public hope, baffled + suddenly by the death of this princess, was urging us too far. It + must not be permitted to man to despise himself entirely, lest he, + supposing, in common with the wicked, that our life is but a game + in which chance reigns, take his way without rule and without + self-control, at the pleasure of his own blind wishes. It is for + this reason that the Preacher, after having commenced his inspired + production by the expressions which I have cited, after having + filled all its pages with contempt for things human, is pleased at + last to show man something more substantial, by saying to him, + "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of + man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every + secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Thus + every thing is vain in man, if we regard what he gives to the + world; but, on the contrary, every thing is important, if we + consider what he owes to God. Once again, every thing is vain in + man, if we regard the course of his mortal life; but every thing is + of value, every thing is important, if we contemplate the goal + where it ends, and the account of it which he must render. Let us, + therefore, meditate to-day, in presence of this altar and of this + tomb, the first and the last utterance of the Preacher; of which + the one shows the nothingness of man, the other establishes his + greatness. Let this tomb convince us of our nothingness, provided + that this altar, where is daily offered for us a Victim of price so + great, teach us at the same time our dignity. The princess whom we + weep shall be a faithful witness, both of the one and of the other. + Let us survey that which a sudden death has taken away from her; + let us survey that which a holy death has bestowed upon her. Thus + shall we learn to despise that which she quitted without regret, in + order to attach all our regard to that which she embraced with so + much ardor,--when her soul, purified from all earthly sentiments, + full of the heaven on whose border she touched, saw the light + completely revealed. Such are the truths which I have to treat, and + which I have deemed worthy to be proposed to so great a prince, and + to the most illustrious assembly in the world. + +It will be felt how removed is the foregoing from any thing like an +effort, on the preacher's part, to startle his audience with the +far-fetched and unexpected. It must, however, be admitted that Bossuet +was not always--as, of our Webster, it has well been said that he always +was--superior to the temptation to exaggerate an occasion by pomps of +rhetoric. Bossuet was a great man, but he was not quite great enough to +be wholly free from pride of self-consciousness in matching himself as +orator against "the most illustrious assembly in the world." + +The ordinary sermons of Bossuet are less read, and they less deserve +perhaps to be read, than those of Bourdaloue and Massillon. + +* * * + +BOURDALOUE was a voice. He was the voice of one crying, not in the +wilderness, but amid the homes and haunts of men, and, by eminence, in +the court of the most powerful and most splendid of earthly monarchs. He +was a Jesuit, one of the most devoted and most accomplished of an order +filled with devoted and accomplished men. It belonged to his Jesuit +character and Jesuit training, that Bourdaloue should hold the place +that he did as ever-successful courtier at Versailles, all the while +that, as preacher, he was using the "holy freedom of the pulpit" to +launch those blank fulminations of his at sin in high places, at sin +even in the highest, and all the briefer while that, as confessor to +Madame de Maintenon, he was influencing the policy of Louis XIV. + +No scandal of any sort attaches to the reputation of Louis Bourdaloue. +He was a man of spotless fame,--unless it be a spot on his fame that he +could please the most selfish of sinful monarchs well enough to be that +monarch's chosen preacher during a longer time than any other pulpit +orator whatever was tolerated at Versailles. He is described by all who +knew him as a man of gracious spirit. If he did not reprobate and +denounce the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, that was rather of the +age than of Bourdaloue. + +Sainte-Beuve, in a remarkably sympathetic appreciation of +Bourdaloue,--free, contrary to the critic's wont, from hostile +insinuation even,--regards it as part of the merit of this preacher that +there is, and that there can be, no biography of him. His public life +is summed up in simply saying that he was a preacher. During thirty-four +laborious and fruitful years he preached the doctrines of the Church; +and this is the sole account to be given of him, except, indeed, that in +the confessional he was, all that time, learning those secrets of the +human heart which he used to such effect in composing his sermons. He +had very suave and winning ways as confessor, though he enjoined great +strictness as preacher. This led a witty woman of his time to say of +him: "Father Bourdaloue charges high in the pulpit, but he sells cheap +in the confessional." How much laxity he allowed as confessor, it is, of +course, impossible to say. But his sermons remain to show that, though +indeed he was severe and high in requirement as preacher, he did not +fail to soften asperity by insisting on the goodness, while he insisted +on the awfulness, of God. Still, it cannot be denied, that somehow the +elaborate compliments which, as an established convention of his pulpit, +he not infrequently delivered to Louis XIV., tended powerfully to make +it appear that his stern denunciation of sin, which at first blush might +seem directly levelled at the king, had in reality no application at +all, or but the very gentlest application, to the particular case of his +Most Christian Majesty. + +We begin our citations from Bourdaloue with an extract from a sermon of +his on "A Perverted Conscience." The whole discourse is one well worth +the study of any reader. It is a piece of searching psychological +analysis, and pungent application to conscience. Bourdaloue, in his +sermons, has always the air of a man seriously intent on producing +practical results. There are no false motions. Every swaying of the +preacher's weapon is a blow, and every blow is a hit. There is hardly +another example in homiletic literature of such compactness, such +solidity, such logical consecutiveness, such cogency, such freedom from +surplusage. Tare and tret are excluded. Every thing counts. You meet +with two or three adjectives, and you at first naturally assume, that, +after the usual manner of homilists, Bourdaloue has thrown these in +without rigorously definite purpose, simply to heighten a general +effect. Not at all. There follows a development of the preacher's +thought, constituting virtually a distinct justification of each +adjective employed. You soon learn that there is no random, no waste, in +this man's words. But here is the promised extract from the sermon on "A +Perverted Conscience." In it Bourdaloue depresses his gun, and +discharges it point-blank at the audience before him. You can almost +imagine you see the ranks of "the great" laid low. Alas! one fears that, +instead of biting the dust, those courtiers, with the king in the midst +of them to set the example, only cried bravo in their hearts at the +skill of the gunner:-- + + I have said more particularly that in the world in which you + live,--I mean the court,--the disease of a perverted conscience is + far more common, and far more difficult to be avoided; and I am + sure that in this you will agree with me. For it is at the court + that the passions bear sway, that desires are more ardent, that + self-interest is keener, and that, by infallible consequence, + self-blinding is more easy, and consciences, even the most + enlightened and the most upright, become gradually perverted. It is + at the court that the goddess of the world, I mean fortune, + exercises over the minds of men, and in consequence over their + consciences, a more absolute dominion. It is at the court that the + aim to maintain one's self, the impatience to raise one's self, the + frenzy to push one's self, the fear of displeasing, the desire of + making one's self agreeable, produce consciences, which anywhere + else would pass for monstrous, but which, finding themselves there + authorized by custom, seem to have acquired a right of possession + and of prescription. People, from living at court, and from no + other cause than having lived there, are filled with these errors. + Whatever uprightness of conscience they may have brought thither, + by breathing its air and by hearing its language, they are + habituated to iniquity, they come to have less horror of vice, and, + after having long blamed it, a thousand times condemned it, they at + last behold it with a more favorable eye, tolerate it, excuse it; + that is to say, without observing what is happening, they make over + their consciences, and, by insensible steps, from Christian, which + they were, by little and little become quite worldly, and not far + from pagan. + +What could surpass the adaptedness of such preaching as that to the need +of the moment for which it was prepared? And how did the libertine +French monarch contrive to escape the force of truth like the following, +with which the preacher immediately proceeds?-- + + You would say, and it really seems, that for the court, there are + other principles of religion than for the rest of the world, and + that the courtier has a right to make for himself a conscience + different in kind and in quality from that of other men; for such + is the prevailing idea of the matter,--an idea well sustained, or + rather unfortunately justified, by experience.... Nevertheless, my + dear hearers, St. Paul assures us, that there is but one God and + one faith; and woe to the man who dividing Him, this one God, shall + represent Him as at court less an enemy to human transgressions + than He is outside of the court; or, severing this one faith, shall + suppose it in the case of one class more indulgent than in the case + of another. + +Bourdaloue, as Jesuit, could not but feel the power of Pascal in his +"Provincial Letters," constantly undermining the authority of his order. +His preaching, as Sainte-Beuve well says, may be considered to have +been, in the preacher's intention, one prolonged confutation of Pascal's +immortal indictment. We borrow of Sainte-Beuve a short extract from +Bourdaloue's sermon on slander, which may serve as an instance to show +with what adroitness the Jesuit retorted anonymously upon the +Jansenist:-- + + Behold one of the abuses of our time. Means have been found to + consecrate slander, to change it into a virtue, and even into one + of the holiest virtues--that means is, zeal for the glory of + God.... We must humble those people, is the cry; and it is for the + good of the Church to tarnish their reputation and to diminish + their credit. That idea becomes, as it were, a principle; the + conscience is fashioned accordingly, and there is nothing that is + not permissible to a motive so noble. You fabricate, you + exaggerate, you give things a poisonous taint, you tell but half + the truth; you make your prejudices stand for indisputable facts; + you spread abroad a hundred falsehoods; you confound what is + individual with what is general; what one man has said that is bad, + you pretend that all have said; and what many have said that is + good, you pretend that nobody has said; and all that, once again, + for the glory of God. For such direction of the intention justifies + all that. Such direction of the intention will not suffice to + justify a prevarication, but it is more than sufficient to justify + calumny, provided only you are convinced that you are serving God + thereby. + +In conclusion, we give a passage or two of Bourdaloue's sermon on "An +Eternity of Woe." Stanch orthodoxy the reader will find here. President +Edwards's discourse, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," is not more +unflinching. But what a relief of contrasted sweetness does Bourdaloue +interpose in the first part of the ensuing extract, to set off the grim +and grisly horror of that which is to follow! We draw, for this case, +from a translation, issued in Dublin under Roman-Catholic auspices, of +select sermons by Bourdaloue. The translator, throughout his volume, has +been highly loyal in spirit toward the great French preacher; but this +has not prevented much enfeebling by him of the style of his original:-- + + There are some just, fervent, perfect souls, who, like children in + the house of the Heavenly Father, strive to please and possess him, + in order only to possess and to love him; and who, incessantly + animated by this unselfish motive, inviolably adhere to his divine + precepts, and lay it down as a rigorous and unalterable rule, to + obey the least intimation of his will. They serve him with an + affection entirely filial. But there are also dastards, worldlings, + sinners, terrestrial and sensual men, who are scarcely susceptible + of any other impressions than those of the judgments and vengeance + of God. Talk to them of his greatness, of his perfections, of his + benefits, or even of his rewards, and they will hardly listen to + you; and, if they are prevailed upon to pay some attention and + respect to your words, they will sound in their ears, but not reach + their hearts.... Therefore, to move them, to stir them up, to + awaken them from the lethargic sleep with which they are + overwhelmed, the thunder of divine wrath and the decree that + condemns them to eternal flames must be dinned into their ears: + "Depart from me, ye accursed, into everlasting fire" (Matt. XXV.). + Make them consider attentively, and represent to them with all the + force of grace, the consequences and horror of this word + "eternal."... + +It is not imagination, it is pure reason and intelligence, that now in +Bourdaloue goes about the business of impressing the thought of the +dreadfulness of an eternity of woe. The effect produced is not that of +the lightning-flash suddenly revealing the jaws agape of an unfathomable +abyss directly before you. It is rather that of steady, intolerable +pressure gradually applied to crush, to annihilate, the soul:-- + + ...Struck with horror at so doleful a destiny, I apply to this + eternity all the powers of my mind; I examine and scrutinize it in + all its parts; and I survey, as it were, its whole dimensions. + Moreover, to express it in more lively colors, and to represent it + in my mind more conformably to the senses and the human + understanding, I borrow comparisons from the Fathers of the Church, + and I make, if I may so speak, the same computations. I figure to + myself all the stars of the firmament; to this innumerable + multitude I add all the drops of water in the bosom of the ocean; + and if this be not enough, I reckon, or at least endeavor to + reckon, all the grains of sand on its shore. Then I interrogate + myself, I reason with myself, and I put to myself the question--If + I had for as many ages, and a thousand times as many, undergone + torments in that glowing fire which is kindled by the breath of the + Lord in his anger to take eternal vengeance, would eternity be at + an end? No; and why? Because it is eternity, and eternity is + endless. To number up the stars that shine in the heavens, to count + the drops of water that compose the sea, to tell the grains of sand + that lie upon the shore, is not absolutely impossible; but to + measure in eternity the number of days, of years, of ages, is what + cannot be compassed, because the days, the years, and the ages are + without number; or, to speak more properly, because in eternity + there are neither days, nor years, nor ages, but a single, endless, + infinite duration. + + To this thought I devote my mind. I imagine I see and rove through + this same eternity, and discover no end, but find it to be always a + boundless tract. I imagine the wide prospect lies open on all + sides, and encompasseth me around; that if I rise up, or if I sink + down, or what way soever I turn my eyes, this eternity meets them; + and that after a thousand efforts to get forward, I have made no + progress, but find it still eternity. I imagine that after long + revolutions of time, I behold in the midst of this eternity a + damned soul, in the same state, in the same affliction, in the same + misery still; and putting myself mentally in the place of this + soul, I imagine that in this eternal punishment I feel myself + continually devoured by that fire which nothing extinguishes; that + I continually shed those floods of tears which nothing can dry up; + that I am continually gnawed by the worm of conscience, which + never dies; that I continually express my despair and anguish by + that gnashing of teeth, and those lamentable cries, which never can + move the compassion of God. This idea of myself, this + representation, amazes and terrifies me. My whole body shudders, I + tremble with fear, I am filled with horror, I have the same + feelings as the royal prophet, when he cried, "Pierce thou my flesh + with thy fear, for I am afraid of thy judgments." + +That was a touching tribute from the elder to the younger--tribute +touching, whether wrung, perforce, from a proudly humble, or freely +offered by a simply magnanimous, heart--when, like John the Baptist +speaking of Jesus, Bourdaloue, growing old, said of Massillon, enjoying +his swiftly crescent renown: "He must increase, and I must decrease." It +was a true presentiment of the comparative fortune of fame that impended +for these two men. It was not, however, in the same path, but in a +different, that Massillon outran Bourdaloue. In his own sphere, that of +unimpassioned appeal to reason and to conscience, Bourdaloue is still +without a rival. No one else, certainly, ever earned, so well as he, the +double title which his epigrammatic countrymen were once fond of +bestowing upon him,--"The king of preachers, and the preacher of kings." + +* * * + +JEAN BAPTISTE MASSILLON became priest by his own internal sense of +vocation to the office, against the preference of his family that he +should become, like his father, a notary. He seems to have been by +nature sincerely modest in spirit. He had to be forced into the +publicity of a preaching career at Paris. His ecclesiastical superior +peremptorily required at his hands the sacrifice of his wish to be +obscure. He at once filled Paris with his fame. The inevitable +consequence followed. He was summoned to preach before the king at +Versailles. Here he received, as probably he deserved, that celebrated +compliment in epigram, from Louis XIV.: "In hearing some preachers, I +feel pleased with them; in hearing you, I feel displeased with myself." + +It must not, however, be supposed that Massillon preached like a prophet +Nathan saying to King David, "Thou art the man;" or like a John the +Baptist saying to King Herod, "It is not lawful for _thee_ to have +_her_;" or like a John Knox denouncing Queen Mary. Massillon, if he was +stern, was suavely stern. He complimented the king. The sword with which +he wounded was wreathed deep with flowers. It is difficult not to feel +that some unspoken understanding subsisted between the preacher and the +king, which permitted the king to separate the preacher from the man +when Massillon used that great plainness of speech to his sovereign. The +king did not, however, often invite this master of eloquence to make the +royal conscience displacent with itself. Bourdaloue was ostensibly as +outspoken as Massillon; but somehow that Jesuit preacher contented the +king to be his hearer during as many as ten annual seasons, against the +one or two only that Massillon preached at court before Louis. + +The work of Massillon generally judged, though according to Sainte-Beuve +not wisely judged, to be his choicest, is contained in that volume of +his which goes by the name of "Le Petit Carême,"--literally, "The Little +Lent,"--a collection of sermons preached during a Lent before the king's +great-grandson and successor, youthful Louis XV. These sermons +especially have given to their author a fame that is his by a title +perhaps absolutely unique in literature. We know no other instance of a +writer, limited in his production strictly to sermons, who holds his +place in the first rank of authorship simply by virtue of supreme +mastership in literary style. + +Still, from the text of his printed discourses,--admirable, exquisite, +ideal compositions in point of form as these are,--it will be found +impossible to conceive adequately the living eloquence of Massillon. +There are interesting traditions of the effects produced by particular +passages of particular sermons of his. When Louis XIV. died, Massillon +preached his funeral sermon. He began with that celebrated single +sentence of exordium which, it is said, brought his whole audience, by +instantaneous, simultaneous impulse, in a body to their feet. The modern +reader will experience some difficulty in comprehending at once why that +perfectly commonplace-seeming expression of the preacher should have +produced an effect so powerful. The element of the opportune, the +apposite, the fit, is always great part of the secret of eloquence. +Nothing more absolutely appropriate can be conceived than was the +sentiment, the exclamation, with which Massillon opened that funeral +sermon. The image and symbol of earthly greatness, in the person of +Louis XIV., had been shattered under the touch of iconoclast death. "God +only is great!" said the preacher; and all was said. Those four short +words had uttered completely, and with a simplicity incapable of being +surpassed, the thought that usurped every breast. It is not the surprise +of some striking new thought that is the most eloquent thing. The most +eloquent thing is the surprise of that one word, suddenly spoken, which +completely expresses some thought, present already and uppermost, but +silent till now, awaiting expression, in a multitude of minds. This most +eloquent thing it was which, from Massillon's lips that day, moved his +susceptible audience to rise, like one man, and bow in mute act of +submission to the truth of his words. The inventive and curious reader +may exercise his ingenuity at leisure. He will strive in vain to +conceive any other exordium than Massillon's that would have matched the +occasion presented. + +There is an admirable anecdote of the pulpit, which--though since often +otherwise applied--had, perhaps, its first application to Massillon. +Some one congratulating the orator, as he came down from his pulpit, on +the eloquence of the sermon just preached, that wise self-knower fenced +by replying, "Ah, the devil has already apprised me of that!" The +recluse celibate preacher was one day asked whence he derived that +marvellous knowledge which he displayed of the passions, the weaknesses, +the follies, the sins, of human nature. "From my own heart," was his +reply. Source sufficient, perhaps; but from the confessional, too, one +may confidently add. + +There is probably no better brief, quotable passage to represent +Massillon at his imaginative highest in eloquence, than that most +celebrated one of all, occurring toward the close of his memorable +sermon on the "Fewness of the Elect." The effect attending the delivery +of this passage, on both of the two recorded occasions on which the +sermon was preached, is reported to have been remarkable. The manner of +the orator--downcast, as with the inward oppression of the same +solemnity that he, in speaking, cast like a spell on the +audience--indefinitely heightened the magical power of the awful +conception excited. Not Bourdaloue himself, with that preternatural +skill of his to probe the conscience of man to its innermost secret, +could have exceeded the heart-searching rigor with which, in the earlier +part of the discourse, Massillon had put to the rack the quivering +consciences of his hearers. The terrors of the Lord, the shadows of the +world to come, were thus already on all hearts. So much as this. +Bourdaloue, too, with his incomparable dialectic, could have +accomplished. But there immediately follows a culmination in power, such +as was distinctly beyond the height of Bourdaloue. Genius must be +superadded to talent if you would have the supreme, either in poetry or +in eloquence. There was an extreme point in Massillon's discourse at +which mere reason, having done, and done terribly, its utmost, was fain +to confess that it could not go a single step farther. At that extreme +point, suddenly, inexhaustible imagination took up the part of exhausted +reason. Reason had made men afraid; imagination now appalled them. +Massillon said:-- + + I confine myself to you, my brethren, who are gathered here. I + speak no longer of the rest of mankind. I look at you as if you + were the only ones on the earth; and here is the thought that + seizes me, and that terrifies me. I make the supposition that this + is your last hour, and the end of the world; that the heavens are + about to open above your heads, that Jesus Christ is to appear in + his glory in the midst of this sanctuary, and that you are gathered + here only to wait for him, and as trembling criminals on whom is to + be pronounced either a sentence of grace or a decree of eternal + death. For, vainly do you flatter yourselves; you will die such in + character as you are to-day. All those impulses toward change with + which you amuse yourselves, you will amuse yourselves with them + down to the bed of death. Such is the experience of all + generations. The only thing new you will then find in yourselves + will be, perhaps, a reckoning a trifle larger than that which you + would to-day have to render; and according to what you would be if + you were this moment to be judged, you may almost determine what + will befall you at the termination of your life. + + Now I ask you, and I ask it smitten with terror, not separating in + this matter my lot from yours, and putting myself into the same + frame of mind into which I desire you to come,--I ask you, then, If + Jesus Christ were to appear in this sanctuary, in the midst of this + assembly, the most illustrious in the world, to pass judgment on + us, to draw the dread line of distinction between the goats and the + sheep, do you believe that the majority of all of us who are here + would be set on his right hand? Do you believe that things would + even be equal? Nay, do you believe there would be found so many as + the ten righteous men whom anciently the Lord could not find in + five whole cities? I put the question to you, but you know not; I + know not myself. Thou only, O my God, knowest those that belong to + thee! But if we know not those who belong to him, at least we know + that sinners do not belong to him. Now, of what classes of persons + do the professing Christians in this assembly consist? Titles and + dignities must be counted for naught; of these you shall be + stripped before Jesus Christ. Who make up this assembly? Sinners, + in great number, who do not wish to be converted; in still greater + number, sinners who would like it, but who put off their + conversion; many others who would be converted, only to relapse + into sin; finally, a multitude who think they have no need of + conversion. You have thus made up the company of the reprobate. Cut + off these four classes of sinners from this sacred assembly, for + they will be cut off from it at the great day! Stand forth now, ye + righteous! where are you? Remnant of Israel, pass to the right + hand! True wheat of Jesus Christ, disengage yourselves from this + chaff, doomed to the fire! O God! where are thine elect? and what + remains there for thy portion? + + Brethren, our perdition is well-nigh assured, and we do not give it + a thought. Even if in that dread separation which one day shall be + made, there were to be but a single sinner out of this assembly + found on the side of the reprobate, and if a voice from heaven + should come to give us assurance of the fact in this sanctuary, + without pointing out the person intended, who among us would not + fear that he might himself be the wretch? Who among us would not at + once recoil upon his conscience, to inquire whether his sins had + not deserved that penalty? Who among us would not, seized with + dismay, ask of Jesus Christ, as did once the apostles, "Lord, is it + I?" + +What is there wanting in such eloquence as the foregoing? Wherein lies +its deficiency of power to penetrate and subdue? Voltaire avowed that he +found the sermons of Massillon to be among "the most agreeable books we +have in our language. I love," he went on, "to have them read to me at +table." There are things in Massillon that Voltaire should not have +delighted to read, or to hear read,--things that should have made him +wince and revolt, if they did not make him yield and be converted. Was +there fault in the preacher? Did he preach with professional, rather +than with personal, zeal? Did his hearers feel themselves secretly +acquitted by the man, at the self-same moment at which they were openly +condemned by the preacher? It is impossible to say. But Massillon's +virtue was not lofty and regal; however it may have been free from just +reproach. He was somewhat too capable of compliance. He was made bishop +of Clermont, and his promotion cost him the anguish of having to help +consecrate a scandalously unfit candidate as archbishop of Cambray. +Massillon's, however, is a fair, if not an absolutely spotless, fame. +Hierarch as he was, and orthodox Catholic, this most elegant of +eloquent orators had a liberal strain in his blood which allied him +politically with the "philosophers" of the time succeeding. He, with +Fénelon, and perhaps with Racine, makes seem less abrupt the transition +in France from the age of absolutism to the age of revolt and final +revolution. There is distinct advance in Massillon, and advance more +than is accounted for by his somewhat later time, toward the easier +modern spirit in church and in state, from the high, unbending austerity +of that antique pontiff and minister, Bossuet. + + + + +XIII. + +FÉNELON. + +1651-1715. + + +If Bossuet is to Frenchmen a synonym for sublimity, no less to them is +Fénelon a synonym for saintliness. From the French point of view, one +might say, "the sublime Bossuet," "the saintly Fénelon," somewhat as one +says, "the learned Selden," "the judicious Hooker." It is as much a +French delight to idealize Fénelon an archangel Raphael, affable and +mild, as it is to glorify Bossuet a Michael in majesty and power. + +But saintliness of character was in Fénelon commended to the world by +equal charm of person and of genius. The words of Milton describing Eve +might be applied, with no change but that of gender, to Fénelon, both +the exterior and the interior man:-- + + Grace was in all his steps, heaven in his eye, + In every gesture dignity and love. + +The consent is general among those who saw Fénelon, and have left behind +them their testimony, that alike in person, in character, and in genius, +he was such as we thus describe him. + +Twice, in his youth, he was smitten to the heart with a feeling of +vocation to be a missionary. Both times he was thwarted by the +intervention of friends. The second time, he wrote disclosing his +half-romantic aspiration in a glowing letter of confidence and +friendship to Bossuet, his senior by many years, but not yet become +famous. Young Fénelon's friend Bossuet was destined later to prove a +bitter antagonist, almost a personal foe. + +Until he was forty-two years old, François Fénelon lived in comparative +retirement, nourishing his genius with study, with contemplation, with +choice society. He experimented in writing verse. Not succeeding to his +mind, he turned to prose composition, and leading the way, in a new +species of literature, for Rousseau, for Chateaubriand, for Lamartine, +and for many others, to follow, went on writing what, in ceasing to be +verse, did not cease to be poetry. + +The great world will presently involve Fénelon in the currents of +history. Louis XIV., grown old, and become as selfishly greedy now of +personal salvation as all his life he has been selfishly greedy of +personal glory, seeks that object of his soul by serving the church in +the wholesale conversion of Protestants. He revokes the Edict of Nantes, +which had secured religious toleration for the realm, and proceeds to +dragoon the Huguenots into conformity with the Roman-Catholic church. +The reaction in public sentiment against such rigors grew a cry that had +to be silenced. Fénelon was selected to visit the heretic provinces, and +win them to willing submission. He stipulated that every form of +coercion should cease, and went to conquer all with love. His success +was remarkable. But not even Fénelon quite escaped the infection of +violent zeal for the Church. It seems not to be given to any man to rise +wholly superior to the spirit of the world in which he lives. + +The lustre of Fénelon's name, luminous from the triumphs of his mission +among the Protestants, was sufficient to justify the choice of this man, +a man both by nature and by culture so ideally formed for the office as +was he, to be tutor to the heir prospective of the French monarchy. The +Duke of Burgundy, grandson to Louis XIV., was accordingly put under the +charge of Fénelon to be trained for future kingship. Never, probably, +in the history of mankind, has there occurred a case in which the +victory of a teacher could be more illustrious than actually was the +victory of Fénelon as teacher to this scion of the house of Bourbon. We +shall be giving our readers a relishable taste of St. Simon, the +celebrated memoir-writer of the age of Louis XIV., if out of the +portrait in words, drawn by him from the life, of Fénelon's princely +pupil, we transfer here a few strong lines to our pages. St. Simon +says:-- + + In the first place, it must be said that Monseigneur the Duke of + Burgundy had by nature a most formidable disposition. He was + passionate to the extent of wishing to dash to pieces his clocks + when they struck the hour which called him to what he did not like, + and of flying into the utmost rage against the rain if it + interfered with what he wanted to do. Resistance threw him into + paroxysms of fury. I speak of what I have often witnessed in his + early youth. Moreover, an ungovernable impulse drove him into + whatever indulgence, bodily or mental, was forbidden him. His + sarcasm was so much the more cruel as it was witty and piquant, and + as it seized with precision upon every point open to ridicule. All + this was sharpened by a vivacity of body and of mind that proceeded + to the degree of impetuosity, and that during his early days never + permitted him to learn any thing except by doing two things at + once. Every form of pleasure he loved with a violent avidity, and + all this with a pride and a haughtiness impossible to describe; + dangerously wise, moreover, to judge of men and things, and to + detect the weak point in a train of reasoning, and to reason + himself more cogently and more profoundly than his teachers. But at + the same time, as soon as his passion was spent, reason resumed + her sway; he felt his faults, he acknowledged them, and sometimes + with such chagrin that his rage was rekindled. A mind lively, + alert, penetrating, stiffening itself against obstacles, excelling + literally in every thing. The prodigy is, that in a very short time + piety and grace made of him a different being, and transformed + faults so numerous and so formidable into virtues exactly opposite. + +St. Simon attributes to Fénelon "every virtue under heaven;" but his way +was to give to God rather than to man the praise of the remarkable +change which, during Fénelon's charge of the Duke of Burgundy, came over +the character of the prince. + +The grandfather survived the grandson; and it was never put to the stern +proof of historical experiment, whether Fénelon had indeed turned out +one Bourbon entirely different from all the other members, earlier or +later, of that royal line. + +Before, however, the Duke of Burgundy was thus snatched away from the +perilous prospect of a throne, his beloved teacher was parted from him, +not indeed by death, but by what, to the archbishop's susceptible and +suffering spirit, was worse than death,--by "disgrace." The disgrace was +such as has ever since engaged for its subject the interest, the +sympathy, and the admiration, of mankind. Fénelon lost the royal favor. +That was all,--for the present,--but that was much. He was banished from +court, and he ceased to be preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy. The king, +in signal severity, used his own hand to strike Fénelon's name from the +list of the household of his grandson and heir. The archbishop--for +Fénelon had previously been made archbishop of Cambray--returned into +his diocese as into an exile. But his cup of humiliation was by no means +full. Bossuet will stain his own glory by following his exiled former +pupil and friend, with hostile pontifical rage, to crush him in his +retreat. + +The occasion was a woman, a woman with the charm of genius and of +exalted character, a Christian, a saint, but a mystic--it was Madame +Guyon. Madame Guyon taught that it was possible to love God for himself +alone, purely and disinterestedly. Fénelon received the doctrine, and +Madame Guyon was patronized by Madame de Maintenon. Bossuet scented +heresy. He was too much a "natural man" to understand Madame Guyon. The +king was like the prelate, his minister, in spirit, and in consequent +incapacity. It was resolved that Fénelon must condemn Madame Guyon. But +Fénelon would not. He was very gentle, very conciliatory, but in fine he +would not. Controversy ensued, haughty, magisterial, domineering, on the +part of Bossuet; on the part of Fénelon, meek, docile, suasive. The +world wondered, and watched the duel. Fénelon finally did what king +James's translators misleadingly make Job wish that his adversary had +done,--he wrote a book, "The Maxims of the Saints." In this book, he +sought to show that the accepted, and even canonized, teachers of the +Church had taught the doctrine for which, in his own case and in the +case of Madame Guyon, condemnation was now invoked. Bossuet was pope at +Paris; and he, in full presence, denounced to the monarch the heresy of +Fénelon. At this moment of crisis for Fénelon, it happened that news was +brought him of the burning of his mansion at Cambray with all his books +and manuscripts. It will always be remembered that Fénelon only said: +"It is better so than if it had been the cottage of a poor +laboring-man." + +Madame de Maintenon, till now his friend, with perfectly frigid facility +separated herself from the side of the accused. The controversy was +carried to Rome, where at length Fénelon's book was +condemned,--condemned mildly, but condemned. The pope is said to have +made the remark that Fénelon erred by loving God too much, and Fénelon's +antagonists by loving their fellow-man too little. Fénelon bowed to the +authority of the Church, and meekly in his own cathedral confessed his +error. It was a logical thing for him, as loyal Catholic, to do; and he +did it with a beautiful grace of humility. The Protestant spirit, +however, rebels on his behalf, and finds it difficult even to admire the +manner in which was done by him a thing that seems so unfit to have been +done by him at all. Bossuet did not long survive his inglorious triumph +over so much sanctity of personal character, over so much difficult and +beautiful height of doctrinal and practical instruction to virtue. +Fénelon seems to have been reported as preaching a funeral sermon on +the dead prelate. "I have wept and prayed," he wrote to a friend, "for +this old instructor of my youth; but it is not true that I celebrated +his obsequies in my cathedral, and preached his funeral sermon. Such +affectation, you know, is foreign to my nature." The iron must have gone +deep, to wring from that gentle bosom even so much cry as this of +wounded feeling. + +It is hard to tell what might now have befallen Fénelon, in the way of +good fortune,--he might even have been recalled to court, and +re-installed in his office of tutor to the prince,--had not a sinister +incident, not to have been looked for, at an inopportune moment +occurred. The "Telemachus" appeared in print, and kindled a sudden flame +of popular feeling which instantly spread in universal conflagration +over the face of Europe. This composition of Fénelon's the author had +written to convey, under a form of quasi-poetical fiction, lessons of +wisdom in government to the mind of his royal pupil. The existence of +the manuscript book would seem to have been intended to be a secret from +the king,--indeed, from almost every one, except the pupil himself for +whose use it was made. But a copyist proved false to his trust, and +furnished a copy of "Telemachus" to a printer in Holland, who lost no +time in publishing a book so likely to sell. But the sale of the book +surpassed all expectation. Holland not only, but Belgium, Germany, +France, and England multiplied copies, as fast as they could; still, +Europe could not get copies as fast as it wanted them. + +The secret of such popularity did not lie simply in the literary merits +of "Telemachus." It lay more in a certain interpretation that the book +was supposed to bear. "Telemachus" was understood to be a covert +criticism of Louis XIV., and of the principle of absolute monarchy +embodied in him. This imputed intention of the book could not fail to +become known at Versailles. The result, of course, was fatal, and +finally fatal, to the prospects, whatever these may have been, of +Fénelon's restoration to favor at court. The archbishop thenceforward +was left to do in comparative obscurity the duties of his episcopal +office in his diocese of Cambray. He devoted himself, with exemplary and +touching fidelity, to the interests of his flock, loving them and loved +by them, till he died. It was an entirely worthy and adequate employment +of his powers. The only abatement needful from the praise to be bestowed +upon his behavior in this pastoral relation is, that he suffered himself +sometimes to think of his position as one of "disgrace." His reputation +meantime for holy character and conduct was European. His palace at +Cambray, hospitably open ever to the resort of suffering need, indeed +almost his whole diocese, lying on the frontier of France, was, by +mutual consent of contending armies, treated in war as a kind of mutual +inviolable ground, invested with privilege of sanctuary. It was an +instructive example of the serene and beautiful ascendency sometimes +divinely accorded to illustrious personal goodness. + +There had been a moment, even subsequently to the affair of the +"Telemachus" publication, when it looked as if, after long delay, a +complete worldly triumph for Fénelon was assured, and was near. The +father of the Duke of Burgundy died, and nothing then seemed to stand +between Fénelon's late pupil and the throne,--nothing but the precarious +life of an aged monarch, visibly approaching the end. The Duke of +Burgundy, through all changes, had remained unchangingly fast in his +affectionate loyalty to Fénelon. Sternly forbidden, by the jealous and +watchful king, his grandfather, to communicate with his old teacher, he +yet had found means to send to Fénelon, from time to time, reassuring +signals of his trust and his love. Fénelon was now, in all eyes, the +predestined prime minister of a new reign about to commence. Through +devoted friends of his own, near to the person of the prince at court, +Fénelon sent minutes of advice to his pupil, which outlined a whole +beneficent policy of liberal monarchical rule. A new day seemed dawning +for France. The horrible reaction of the Regency and of Louis XV. might, +perhaps, have been averted, and, with that spared to France, the +Revolution itself might have been accomplished without the Revolution. +But it was not to be. The Duke of Burgundy first buried his wife, and +then, within a few days, followed her himself to the grave. He died +sincerely rejoicing that God had taken him away from the dread +responsibility of reigning. + +"All my ties are broken," mourned Fénelon; "there is no longer any thing +to bind me to the earth." In truth, the teacher survived his pupil but +two or three years. When he died, his sovereign, gloomy with +well-grounded apprehension for the future of his realm, said, with tardy +revival of recognition for the virtue that had perished in Fénelon: +"Here was a man who could have served us well under the disasters by +which my kingdom is about to be assailed!" + +Fénelon's literary productions are various; but they all have the common +character of being works written for the sake of life, rather than for +the sake of literature. They were inspired each by a practical purpose, +and adapted each to a particular occasion. His treatise on the +"Education of Girls" was written for the use of a mother who desired +instruction on the topic from Fénelon. His argument on the "Being of a +God" was prepared as a duty of his preceptorship to the prince. But the +one book of Fénelon which was an historical event when it appeared, and +which stands an indestructible classic in literature, is the +"Telemachus." It remains for us briefly to give some idea of this book. + +The first thing to be said is, that those are mistaken who suppose +themselves to have obtained a true idea of "Telemachus" from having +partly read it at school, as an exercise in French. The essence of the +work lies beyond those few opening pages to which the exploration of +school-boys and school-girls is generally limited. This masterpiece of +Fénelon is much more than a charming piece of romantic and sentimental +poetry in prose. It is a kind of epic, indeed, like the "Odyssey," only +written in rhythmical prose instead of rhythmical verse; but, unlike the +"Odyssey," it is an idyllic epic written with an ulterior purpose of +moral and political didactics. It was designed as a manual of +instruction,--instruction made delightful to a prince,--to inculcate the +duties incumbent on a sovereign. + +Telemachus, our readers will remember, was the son of Ulysses. Fénelon's +story relates the adventures encountered by Telemachus, in search for +his father, so long delayed on his return from Troy to Ithaca. +Telemachus is imagined by Fénelon to be attended by Minerva, the goddess +of wisdom, masked from his recognition, as well as from the recognition +of others, under the form of an old man. Minerva, of course, constantly +imparts the wisest counsel to young Telemachus, who has his weaknesses, +as had the young Duke of Burgundy, but who is essentially well-disposed, +as Fénelon hoped his royal pupil would finally turn out to be. Nothing +can exceed the urbanity and grace with which the delicate business is +conducted by Fénelon, of teaching a bad prince, with a very bad example +set him by his grandfather, to be a good king. The style in which the +story is told, and in which the advice is insinuated, is exquisite, is +beyond praise. The "soft delicious" stream of sound runs on, as from a +fountain, and like "linked sweetness long drawn out." Never had prose a +flow of melody more luscious. It is perpetual ravishment to the ear. The +invention, too, of incident is fruitful, while the landscape and +coloring are magical for beauty. We give a few extracts, to be read with +that application to Louis XIV., and the state of France, in mind, which, +when the book was first printed, gave it such an exciting interest in +the eyes of Europe. Telemachus, after the manner of Æneas to Queen Dido, +is relating to the goddess Calypso, into whose island he has come, the +adventures that have previously befallen him. He says that he, with +Mentor (Minerva in disguise), found himself in Crete. Mentor had been +there before, and was ready to tell Telemachus all about the country. +Telemachus was naturally interested to learn respecting the Cretan +monarchy. Mentor, he says, informed him as follows:-- + + The king's authority over the subject is absolute, but the + authority of the law is absolute over him. His power to do good is + unlimited, but he is restrained from doing evil. The laws have put + the people into his hands, as the most valuable deposit, upon + condition that he shall treat them as his children. It is the + intent of the law that the wisdom and equity of one man shall be + the happiness of many, and not that the wretchedness and slavery of + many should gratify the pride and luxury of one. The king ought to + possess nothing more than the subject, except what is necessary to + alleviate the fatigue of his station, and impress upon the minds of + the people a reverence of that authority by which the laws are + executed. Moreover, the king should indulge himself less, as well + in ease as in pleasure, and should be less disposed to the pomp and + the pride of life than any other man. He ought not to be + distinguished from the rest of mankind by the greatness of his + wealth, or the vanity of his enjoyments, but by superior wisdom, + more heroic virtue, and more splendid glory. Abroad he ought to be + the defender of his country, by commanding her armies; and at home + the judge of his people, distributing justice among them, improving + their morals, and increasing their felicity. It is not for himself + that the gods have intrusted him with royalty. He is exalted above + individuals, only that he may be the servant of the people. To the + public he owes all his time, all his attention, and all his love; + he deserves dignity only in proportion as he gives up private + enjoyments for the public good. + +Pretty sound doctrine, the foregoing, on the subject of the duties +devolving on a king. The "paternal" idea, to be sure, of government is +in it; but there is the idea, too, of limited or constitutional +monarchy. The spirit of just and liberal political thought had, it +seems, not been wholly extinguished, even at the court, by that +oppression of mind--an oppression seldom, if ever, in human history +exceeded--which was enforced under the unmitigated absolutism of Louis +XIV. The literature that, with Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, the +Encyclopædists, prepared the Revolution, had already begun virtually to +be written when Fénelon wrote his "Telemachus." It is easy to see why +the fame of Fénelon should by exception have been dear even to the +hottest infidel haters of that ecclesiastical hierarchy to which the +archbishop of Cambray himself belonged. This lover of liberty, this +gentle rebuker of kings, was of the free-thinkers, at least in the +sympathy of political thought. Nay, the Revolution itself is foreshown +in a remarkable glimpse of conjectural prophecy which occurs in the +"Telemachus." Idomeneus is a headstrong king, whom Mentor is made by the +author to reprove and instruct, for the Duke of Burgundy's benefit. To +Idomeneus--a character taken, and not unplausibly taken, to have been +suggested to Fénelon by the example of Louis XIV.--to this imaginary +counterpart of the reigning monarch of France, Mentor holds the +following language. How could the sequel of Bourbon despotism in +France--a sequel suspended now for a time, but two or three generations +later to be dreadfully visited on the heirs of Louis XIV.--have been +more truly foreshadowed? The "Telemachus:"-- + + Remember, that the sovereign who is most absolute is always least + powerful; he seizes upon all, and his grasp is ruin. He is, indeed, + the sole proprietor of whatever his state contains; but, for that + reason, his state contains nothing of value: the fields are + uncultivated, and almost a desert; the towns lose some of their few + inhabitants every day; and trade every day declines. The king, who + must cease to be a king when he ceases to have subjects, and who is + great only in virtue of his people, is himself insensibly losing + his character and his power, as the number of his people, from + whom alone both are derived, insensibly diminishes. His dominions + are at length exhausted of money and of men: the loss of men is the + greatest and the most irreparable he can sustain. Absolute power + degrades every subject to a slave. The tyrant is flattered, even to + an appearance of adoration, and every one trembles at the glance of + his eye; but, at the least revolt, this enormous power perishes by + its own excess. It derived no strength from the love of the people; + it wearied and provoked all that it could reach, and rendered every + individual of the state impatient of its continuance. At the first + stroke of opposition, the idol is overturned, broken to pieces, and + trodden under foot. Contempt, hatred, fear, resentment, distrust, + and every other passion of the soul, unite against so hateful a + despotism. The king who, in his vain prosperity, found no man bold + enough to tell him the truth, in his adversity finds no man kind + enough to excuse his faults, or to defend him against his enemies. + +So much is perhaps enough to indicate the political drift of the +"Telemachus." That drift is, indeed, observable everywhere throughout +the book. + +We conclude our exhibition of this fine classic, by letting Fénelon +appear more purely now in his character as dreamer and poet. Young +Prince Telemachus has, Ulysses-like, and Æneas-like, his descent into +Hades. This incident affords Fénelon opportunity to exercise his best +powers of awful and of lovely imagining and describing. Christian ideas +are, in this episode of the "Telemachus," superinduced upon pagan, after +a manner hard, perhaps, to reconcile with the verisimilitude required by +art, but at least productive of very noble and very beautiful results. +First, one glimpse of Tartarus as conceived by Fénelon. It is the +spectacle of kings who on earth abused their power, that Telemachus is +beholding:-- + + Telemachus observed the countenance of these criminals to be pale + and ghastly, strongly expressive of the torment they suffered at + the heart. They looked inward with a self-abhorrence, now + inseparable from their existence. Their crimes themselves had + become their punishment, and it was not necessary that greater + should be inflicted. They haunted them like hideous spectres, and + continually started up before them in all their enormity. They + wished for a second death, that might separate them from these + ministers of vengeance, as the first had separated their spirits + from the body,--a death that might at once extinguish all + consciousness and sensibility. They called upon the depths of hell + to hide them from the persecuting beams of truth, in impenetrable + darkness; but they are reserved for the cup of vengeance, which, + though they drink of it forever, shall be ever full. The truth, + from which they fled, has overtaken them, an invincible and + unrelenting enemy. The ray which once might have illuminated them, + like the mild radiance of the day, now pierces them like + lightning,--a fierce and fatal fire, that, without injury to the + external parts, infixes a burning torment at the heart. By truth, + now an avenging flame, the very soul is melted like metal in a + furnace; it dissolves all, but destroys nothing; it disunites the + first elements of life, yet the sufferer can never die. He is, as + it were, divided against himself, without rest and without comfort; + animated by no vital principle, but the rage that kindles at his + own misconduct, and the dreadful madness that results from despair. + +If the "perpetual feast of nectared sweets" that the "Telemachus" +affords, is felt at times to be almost cloying, it is not, as our +readers have now seen, for want of occasional contrasts of a bitterness +sufficiently mordant and drastic. But the didactic purpose is never lost +sight of by the author. Here is an aspect of the Elysium found by +Telemachus. How could any thing be more delectably conceived and +described? The translator, Dr. Hawkesworth, is animated to an English +style that befits the sweetness of his original. The "Telemachus:"-- + + In this place resided all the good kings who had wisely governed + mankind from the beginning of time. They were separated from the + rest of the just; for, as wicked princes suffer more dreadful + punishment than other offenders in Tartarus, so good kings enjoy + infinitely greater felicity than other lovers of virtue, in the + fields of Elysium. + + Telemachus advanced towards these kings, whom he found in groves of + delightful fragrance, reclining upon the downy turf, where the + flowers and herbage were perpetually renewed. A thousand rills + wandered through these scenes of delight, and refreshed the soil + with a gentle and unpolluted wave; the song of innumerable birds + echoed in the groves. Spring strewed the ground with her flowers, + while at the same time autumn loaded the trees with her fruit. In + this place the burning heat of the dog-star was never felt, and the + stormy north was forbidden to scatter over it the frosts of winter. + Neither War that thirsts for blood, nor Envy that bites with an + envenomed tooth, like the vipers that are wreathed around her arms, + and fostered in her bosom, nor Jealousy, nor Distrust, nor Fears, + nor vain Desires, invade these sacred domains of peace. The day is + here without end, and the shades of night are unknown. Here the + bodies of the blessed are clothed with a pure and lambent light, + as with a garment. This light does not resemble that vouchsafed to + mortals upon earth, which is rather darkness visible; it is rather + a celestial glory than a light--an emanation that penetrates the + grossest body with more subtilety than the rays of the sun + penetrate the purest crystal, which rather strengthens than dazzles + the sight, and diffuses through the soul a serenity which no + language can express. By this ethereal essence the blessed are + sustained in everlasting life; it pervades them; it is incorporated + with them, as food with the mortal body; they see it, they feel it, + they breathe it, and it produces in them an inexhaustible source of + serenity and joy. It is a fountain of delight, in which they are + absorbed as fishes are absorbed in the sea; they wish for nothing, + and, having nothing, they possess all things. This celestial light + satiates the hunger of the soul; every desire is precluded; and + they have a fulness of joy which sets them above all that mortals + seek with such restless ardor, to fill the vacuity that aches + forever in their breast. All the delightful objects that surround + them are disregarded; for their felicity springs up within, and, + being perfect, can derive nothing from without. So the gods, + satiated with nectar and ambrosia, disdain, as gross and impure, + all the dainties of the most luxurious table upon earth. From these + seats of tranquillity all evils fly far away; death, disease, + poverty, pain, regret, remorse, fear, even hope,--which is + sometimes not less painful than fear itself,--animosity, disgust, + and resentment can never enter there. + +The leaden good sense of Louis XIV. pronounced Fénelon the "most +chimerical" man in France. The Founder of the kingdom of heaven would +have been a dreamer, to this most worldly-minded of "Most Christian" +monarchs. Bossuet, who, about to die, read something of Fénelon's +"Telemachus," said it was a book hardly serious enough for a clergyman +to write. A more serious book, whether its purpose be regarded, or its +undoubted actual influence in moulding the character of a prospective +ruler of France, was not written by any clergyman of Fénelon's or +Bossuet's time. + +Fénelon was an eloquent preacher as well as an elegant writer. His +influence exerted in both the two functions, that of the writer and that +of the preacher, was powerfully felt in favor of the freedom of nature +in style as against the conventionality of culture and art. He +insensibly helped on that reform from a too rigid classicism which in +our day we have seen pushed to its extreme in the exaggerations of +romanticism. Few wiser words have ever been spoken on the subject of +oratory, than are to be found in his "Dialogues on Eloquence." + +French literature, unfortunately, is on the whole such in character as +to need all that it can show, to be cast into the scale of moral +elevation and purity. Fénelon alone is, in quantity as in quality, +enough, not indeed to overcome, but to go far toward overcoming, the +perverse inclination of the balance. + + + + +XIV. + +MONTESQUIEU. + +1689-1755. + + +To Montesquieu belongs the glory of being the founder, or inventor, of +the philosophy of history. Bossuet might dispute this palm with him; but +Bossuet, in his "Discourse on Universal History," only exemplified the +principle which it was left to Montesquieu afterward more consciously to +develop. + +Three books, still living, are associated with the name of +Montesquieu,--"The Persian Letters," "The Greatness and the Decline of +the Romans," and "The Spirit of Laws." "The Persian Letters" are a +series of epistles purporting to be written by a Persian sojourning in +Paris and observing the manners and morals of the people around him. The +idea is ingenious; though the ingenuity, we suppose, was not original +with Montesquieu. Such letters afford the writer of them an admirable +advantage for telling satire on contemporary follies. This production of +Montesquieu became the suggestive example to Goldsmith for his "Citizen +of the World; or, Letters of a Chinese Philosopher." We shall have here +no room for illustrative citations from Montesquieu's "Persian +Letters." + +The second work, that on the "Greatness and the Decline of the Romans," +is less a history than a series of essays on the history of Rome. It is +brilliant, striking, suggestive. It aims to be philosophical rather than +historical. It deals in bold generalizations. The spirit of it is, +perhaps, too constantly and too profoundly hostile to the Romans. +Something of the ancient Gallic enmity--as if a derivation from that +last and noblest of the Gauls, Vercingetorix--seems to animate the +Frenchman in discussing the character and the career of the great +conquering nation of antiquity. The critical element is the element +chiefly wanting to make Montesquieu's work equal to the demands of +modern historical scholarship. Montesquieu was, however, a full worthy +forerunner of the philosophical historians of to-day. We give a single +extract in illustration,--an extract condensed from the chapter in which +the author analyzes and expounds the foreign policy of the Romans. The +generalizations are bold and brilliant,--too bold, probably, for strict +critical truth. (We use, for our extract, the recent translation by Mr. +Jehu Baker, who enriches his volume with original notes of no little +interest and value.) Montesquieu:-- + + This body [the Roman Senate] erected itself into a tribunal for the + judgment of all peoples, and at the end of every war it decided + upon the punishments and the recompenses which it conceived each to + be entitled to. It took away parts of the lands of the conquered + states, in order to bestow them upon the allies of Rome, thus + accomplishing two objects at once,--attaching to Rome those kings + of whom she had little to fear and much to hope, and weakening + those of whom she had little to hope and all to fear. + + Allies were employed to make war upon an enemy, but the destroyers + were at once destroyed in their turn. Philip was beaten with the + half of the Ætolians, who were immediately afterwards annihilated + for having joined themselves to Antiochus. Antiochus was beaten + with the help of the Rhodians, who, after having received signal + rewards, were humiliated forever, under the pretext that they had + requested that peace might be made with Perseus. + + When they had many enemies on hand at the same time, they accorded + a truce to the weakest, which considered itself happy in obtaining + such a respite, counting it for much to be able to secure a + postponement of its ruin. + + When they were engaged in a great war, the senate affected to + ignore all sorts of injuries, and silently awaited the arrival of + the proper time for punishment; when, if it saw that only some + individuals were culpable, it refused to punish them, choosing + rather to hold the entire nation as criminal, and thus reserve to + itself a useful vengeance. + + As they inflicted inconceivable evils upon their enemies, there + were not many leagues formed against them; for those who were most + distant from danger were not willing to draw nearer to it. The + consequence of this was, that they were rarely attacked; whilst, on + the other hand, they constantly made war at such time, in such + manner, and against such peoples, as suited their convenience; and, + among the many nations which they assailed, there were very few + that would not have submitted to every species of injury at their + hands if they had been willing to leave them in peace. + + It being their custom to speak always as masters, the ambassadors + whom they sent to nations which had not yet felt their power were + certain to be insulted; and this was an infallible pretext for a + new war. + + As they never made peace in good faith, and as, with the design of + universal conquest, their treaties were, properly speaking, only + suspensions of war, they always put conditions in them which began + the ruin of the states which accepted them. They either provided + that the garrisons of strong places should be withdrawn, or that + the number of troops should be limited, or that the horses or the + elephants of the vanquished party should be delivered over to + themselves; and if the defeated people was powerful on sea, they + compelled it to burn its vessels, and sometimes to remove, and + occupy a place of habitation farther inland. + + After having destroyed the armies of a prince, they ruined his + finances by excessive taxes, or by the imposition of a tribute + under pretext of requiring him to pay the expenses of the war,--a + new species of tyranny, which forced the vanquished sovereign to + oppress his own subjects, and thus to alienate their affection. + + When they granted peace to a king, they took some of his brothers + or children as hostages. This gave them the means of troubling his + kingdom at their pleasure. If they held the nearest heir, they + intimidated the possessor; if only a prince of a remote degree, + they used him to stir up revolts against the legitimate ruler. + + Whenever any people or prince withdrew their obedience from their + sovereign, they immediately accorded to them the title of allies of + the Roman people, and thus rendered them sacred and inviolable; so + that there was no king, however great he might be, who could for a + moment be sure of his subjects, or even of his family. + + Although the title of Roman ally was a species of servitude, it + was, nevertheless, very much sought after; for the possession of + this title made it certain that the recipients of it would receive + injuries from the Romans only, and there was ground for the hope + that this class of injuries would be rendered less grievous than + they would otherwise be. + + Thus, there was no service which nations and kings were not ready + to perform, nor any humiliation which they did not submit to, in + order to obtain this distinction.... + + These customs were not merely some particular facts which happened + at hazard. They were permanently established principles, as may be + readily seen; for the maxims which the Romans acted upon against + the greatest powers were precisely those which they had employed in + the beginning of their career against the small cities which + surrounded them.... + + But nothing served Rome more effectually than the respect which she + inspired among all nations. She immediately reduced kings to + silence, and rendered them as dumb. With the latter, it was not a + mere question of the degree of their power: their very persons were + attacked. To risk a war with Rome was to expose themselves to + captivity, to death, and to the infamy of a triumph. Thus it was + that kings, who lived in pomp and luxury, did not dare to look with + steady eyes upon the Roman people, and, losing courage, they hoped, + by their patience and their obsequiousness, to obtain some + postponement of the calamities with which they were menaced. + +The "Spirit of Laws" is probably to be considered the masterpiece of +Montesquieu. It is our duty, however, to say, that this work is quite +differently estimated by different authorities. By some, it is praised +in terms of the highest admiration, as a great achievement in wide and +wise political or juridical philosophy. By others, it is dismissed very +lightly, as the ambitious, or, rather, pretentious, effort of a +superficial man, a showy mere sciolist. It acquired great contemporary +fame, both at home and abroad. It was promptly translated into English, +the translator earning the merited compliment of the author's own +hearty approval of his work. Horace Walpole, who was something of a +Gallomaniac, makes repeated allusion to Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws," +in letters of his written at about the time of the appearance of the +book. But Walpole's admiring allusions themselves contain evidence that +admiration equal to his own of the work that he praised, was by no means +universal in England. + +The general aspect of the book is that of a composition meant to be +luminously analyzed and arranged. Divisions and titles abound. There are +thirty-one "books"; and each book contains, on the average, perhaps +about the same number of chapters. The library edition, in English, +consists of two volumes, comprising together some eight hundred open +pages, in good-sized type. The books and chapters are therefore not +formidably long. The look of the work is as if it were readable; and its +character, on the whole, corresponds. It would hardly be French, if such +were not the case. Except that Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws" is, as we +have indicated, a highly organized, even an over-organized, book, which, +by emphasis, Montaigne's "Essays" is not, these two works may be said, +in their contents, somewhat to resemble each other. Montesquieu is +nearly as discursive as Montaigne. He wishes to be philosophical, but he +is not above supplying his reader with interesting historical instances. + +We shall not do better, in giving our readers a comprehensive idea of +Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws," than to begin by showing them the titles +of a number of the books:-- + + Book I. Of Laws in General. Book II. Of Laws Directly Derived from + the Nature of Government. Book III. Of the Principles of the Three + Kinds of Government. Book IV. That the Laws of Education ought to + be Relative to the Principles of Government. Book V. That the Laws + given by the Legislator ought to be Relative to the Principle of + Government. Book VI. Consequences of the Principles of Different + Governments with Respect to the Simplicity of Civil and Criminal + Laws, the Form of Judgments, and the Inflicting of Punishments. + Book VII. Consequences of the Different Principles of the Three + Governments with Respect to Sumptuary Laws, Luxury, and the + Condition of Women. Book VIII. Of the Corruption of the Principles + of the Three Governments. Book XIV. Of Laws as Relative to the + Nature of the Climate. + +The philosophical aim and ambition of the author at once appear in the +inquiry which he institutes for the three several animating _principles_ +of the three several forms of government respectively distinguished by +him; namely, democracy (or republicanism), monarchy, and despotism. What +these three principles are, will be seen from the following statement: +"As _virtue_ is necessary in a republic, and in monarchy, _honor_, so +_fear_ is necessary in a despotic government." The meaning is, that in +republics, virtue possessed by the citizens is the spring of national +prosperity; that under a monarchy, the desire of preferment at the hands +of the sovereign is what quickens men to perform services to the state; +that despotism thrives by fear inspired in the breasts of those subject +to its sway. + +To illustrate the freely discursive character of the work, we give the +whole of chapter sixteen--there are chapters still shorter--in Book +VII.:-- + + AN EXCELLENT CUSTOM OF THE SAMNITES. + + The Samnites had a custom which in so small a republic, and + especially in their situation, must have been productive of + admirable effects. The young people were all convened in one place, + and their conduct was examined. He that was declared the best of + the whole assembly, had leave given him to take which girl he + pleased for his wife; the second best chose after him, and so on. + Admirable institution! The only recommendation that young men could + have on this occasion, was their virtue, and the service done their + country. He who had the greatest share of these endowments, chose + which girl he liked out of the whole nation. Love, beauty, + chastity, virtue, birth, and even wealth itself, were all, in some + measure, the dowry of virtue. A nobler and grander recompense, less + chargeable to a petty state, and more capable of influencing both + sexes, could scarce be imagined. + + The Samnites were descended from the Lacedæmonians; and Plato, + whose institutes are only an improvement of those of Lycurgus, + enacted nearly the same law. + +The relation of the foregoing chapter to the subject indicated in the +title of the book, is sufficiently obscure and remote, for a work like +this purporting to be philosophical. What relation exists, seems to be +found in the fact that the Samnite custom described tends to produce +that popular virtue by which republics flourish. But the information, at +all events, is curious and interesting. + +The following paragraphs, taken from the second chapter of Book XIV., +contain in germ nearly the whole of the philosophy underlying M. Taine's +essays on the history of literature:-- + + OF THE DIFFERENCE OF MEN IN DIFFERENT CLIMATES. + + A cold air constringes the extremities of the external fibres of + the body; this increases their elasticity, and favors the return of + the blood from the extreme parts to the heart. It contracts those + very fibres; consequently it increases also their force. On the + contrary, a warm air relaxes and lengthens the extremes of the + fibres; of course it diminishes their force and elasticity. + + People are therefore more vigorous in cold climates. Here the + action of the heart and the reaction of the extremities of the + fibres are better performed, the temperature of the humors is + greater, the blood moves freer towards the heart, and reciprocally + the heart has more power. This superiority of strength must produce + various effects; for instance, a greater boldness,--that is, more + courage; a greater sense of superiority,--that is, less desire of + revenge; a greater opinion of security,--that is, more frankness, + less suspicion, policy and cunning. In short, this must be + productive of very different tempers. Put a man into a close, warm + place, and, for the reasons above given, he will feel a great + faintness. If under this circumstance you propose a bold enterprise + to him, I believe you will find him very little disposed towards + it; his present weakness will throw him into a despondency; he will + be afraid of every thing, being in a state of total incapacity. The + inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous; the + people in cold countries are, like young men, brave. + +In the following extract, from chapter five, Book XXIV., the climatic +theory is again applied, this time to the matter of religion, in a style +that makes one think of Buckle's "History of Civilization:"-- + + When the Christian religion, two centuries ago, became unhappily + divided into Catholic and Protestant, the people of the north + embraced the Protestant, and those south adhered still to the + Catholic. + + The reason is plain: the people of the north have, and will forever + have, a spirit of liberty and independence, which the people of the + south have not; and therefore, a religion which has no visible + head, is more agreeable to the independency of the climate, than + that which has one. + +Climate is a "great matter" with Montesquieu. In treating of the subject +of a state changing its religion, he says:-- + + The ancient religion is connected with the constitution of the + kingdom, and the new one is not; the former _agrees with the + climate_, and very often the new one is opposite to it. + +For the Christian religion, Montesquieu professes profound +respect,--rather as a pagan political philosopher might do, than as one +intimately acquainted with it by a personal experience of his own. His +spirit, however, is humane and liberal. It is the spirit of Montaigne, +it is the spirit of Voltaire, speaking in the idiom of this different +man, and of this different man as influenced by his different +circumstances. Montesquieu had had practical proof of the importance to +himself of not offending the dominant hierarchy. + +The latter part of "The Spirit of Laws" contains discussions exhibiting +no little research on the part of the author. There is, for one example, +a discussion of the course of commerce in different ages of the world, +and of the influences that have wrought from time to time to bring about +the changes occurring. For another example, there is a discussion of the +feudal system. + +Montesquieu was an admirer of the English constitution. His work, +perhaps, contains no extended chapters more likely to instruct the +general reader and to furnish a good idea of the writer's genius and +method, than the two chapters--chapter six, Book XI., and chapter +twenty-seven, Book XIX.--in which the English nation and the English +form of government are sympathetically described. We simply indicate, +for we have no room to exhibit, these chapters. Voltaire, too, expressed +Montesquieu's admiration of English liberty and English law. + +On the whole, concerning Montesquieu it may justly be said, that of all +political philosophers, he, if not the profoundest, is at least one of +the most interesting; if not the most accurate and critical, at least +one of the most brilliant and suggestive. + +As to Montesquieu the man, it is perhaps sufficient to say that he seems +to have been a very good type of the French gentleman of quality. An +interesting story told by Sainte-Beuve reveals, if true, a side at once +attractive and repellent of his personal character. Montesquieu at +Marseilles employed a young boatman, whose manner and speech indicated +more cultivation than was to have been looked for in one plying his +vocation. The philosopher learned his history. The youth's father was at +the time a captive in one of the Barbary States, and this son of his was +now working to earn money for his ransom. The stranger listened +apparently unmoved, and went his way. Some months later, home came the +father, released he knew not how, to his surprised and overjoyed family. +The son guessed the secret, and, meeting Montesquieu a year or so after +in Marseilles, threw himself in grateful tears at his feet, begged the +generous benefactor to reveal his name and to come and see the family he +had blessed. Montesquieu, calmly expressing himself ignorant of the +whole business, actually shook the young fellow off, and turned away +without betraying the least emotion. It was not till after the +cold-blooded philanthropist's death that the fact came out. + +A tranquil, happy temperament was Montesquieu's. He would seem to have +come as near as any one ever did to being the natural master of his part +in life. But the world was too much for him, as it is for all--at last. +Witness the contrast of these two different sets of expressions from his +pen. In earlier manhood he says:-- + + Study has been for me the sovereign remedy for all the + dissatisfactions of life, having never had a sense of chagrin that + an hour's reading would not dissipate. I wake in the morning with a + secret joy to behold the light. I behold the light with a kind of + ravishment, and all the rest of the day I am happy. + +Within a few years of his death, the brave, cheerful tone had declined +to this:-- + + I am broken down with fatigue; I must repose for the rest of my + life. + +Then further to this:-- + + I have expected to kill myself for the last three months, finishing + an addition to my work on the origin and changes of the French + civil law. It will take only three hours to read it; but, I assure + you, it has been such a labor to me, that my hair has turned white + under it all. + +Finally it touches nadir:-- + + It [his work] has almost cost me my life; I must rest; I can work + no more. + + My candles are all burned out; I have set off all my cartridges. + +When Montesquieu died, only Diderot, among Parisian men of letters, +followed him to his tomb. + + + + +XV. + +VOLTAIRE. + +1694-1778. + + +By the volume and the variety, joined to the unfailing brilliancy, of +his production; by his prodigious effectiveness; and by his universal +fame,--Voltaire is undoubtedly entitled to rank first, with no fellow, +among the eighteenth-century literary men, not merely of France, but of +the world. He was not a great man,--he produced no single great +work,--but he must nevertheless be pronounced a great writer. There is +hardly any species of composition to which, in the long course of his +activity, he did not turn his talent. It cannot be said that he +succeeded splendidly in all; but in some he succeeded splendidly, and he +failed abjectly in none. There is not a great thought, and there is not +a flat expression, in the whole bulk of his multitudinous and +multifarious works. Read him wherever you will, in the ninety-seven +volumes (equivalent, probably, in the aggregate, to three hundred +volumes like the present) which, in one leading edition, collect his +productions,--you may often find him superficial, you may often find him +untrustworthy, you will certainly often find him flippant, but not less +certainly you will never find him obscure, and you will never find him +dull. The clearness, the vivacity, of this man's mind were something +almost preternatural. So, too, were his readiness, his versatility, his +audacity. He had no distrust of himself, no awe of his fellow-men, no +reverence for God, to deter him from any attempt with his pen, however +presuming. If a state ode were required, it should be ready to order at +twelve to-morrow; if an epic poem--to be classed with the "Iliad" and +the "Æneid"--the "Henriade" was promptly forthcoming, to answer the +demand. He did not shrink from flouting a national idol, by freely +finding fault with Corneille; and he lightly undertook to extinguish a +venerable form of Christianity, simply with pricks, innumerably +repeated, of his tormenting pen. + +A very large part of the volume of Voltaire's production consists of +letters, written by him to correspondents perhaps more numerous, and +more various in rank, from kings on the throne down to scribblers in the +garret, than ever, in any other case, exchanged such communications with +a literary man. Another considerable proportion of his work in +literature took the form of pamphlets, either anonymously or +pseudonymously published, in which this master-spirit of intellectual +disturbance and ferment found it convenient, or advantageous, or safe, +to promulge and propagate his ideas. A shower of such publications was +incessantly escaping from Voltaire's pen. More formal and regular, more +confessedly ambitious, literary essays of his, were poems in every +kind,--heroic, mock-heroic, lyric, elegiac, comic, tragic, +satiric,--historical and biographical monographs, and tales or novels of +a peculiar class. + +Voltaire's poetry does not count for very much now. Still, its first +success was so great that it will always remain an important topic in +literary history. Besides this, it really is, in some of its kinds, +remarkable work. Voltaire's epic verse is almost an exception, needful +to be made, from our assertion that this author is nowhere dull. "The +Henriade" comes dangerously near that mark. It is a tasteless +reproduction of Lucan's faults, with little reproduction of Lucan's +virtues. Voltaire's comedies are bright and witty, but they are not +laughter-provoking; and they do not possess the elemental and creative +character of Shakspeare's or Molière's work. His tragedies are better; +but they do not avoid that cast of mechanical which seems necessarily to +belong to poetry produced by talent, however consummate, unaccompanied +with genius. Voltaire's histories are luminous and readable narratives, +but they cannot claim either the merit of critical accuracy or of +philosophic breadth and insight. His letters would have to be read in +considerable volume in order to furnish a full satisfactory idea of the +author. His tales, finally, afford the most available, and, on the +whole, likewise, the best, means of coming shortly and easily at a +knowledge of Voltaire. + +Among Voltaire's tales, doubtless the one most eligible for use, to +serve our present purpose, is his "Candide." This is a nondescript piece +of fiction, the design of which is, by means of a narrative of travel +and adventure, constructed without much regard to the probability of +particular incidents, to set forth, in the characteristic mocking vein +of Voltaire, the vanity and misery of mankind. The author's invention is +often whimsical enough; but it is constantly so ready, so reckless, and +so abundant, that the reader never tires, as he is hurried ceaselessly +forward from change to change of scene and circumstance. The play of wit +is incessant. The style is limpidity itself. Your sympathies are never +painfully engaged, even in recitals of experience that ought to be the +most heart-rending. There is never a touch of noble moral sentiment, to +relieve the monotony of mockery that lightly laughs at you, and +tantalizes you, page after page, from the beginning to the end of the +book. The banter is not good-natured; though, on the other hand, it +cannot justly be pronounced ill-natured; and it is, in final effect upon +the reader's mind, bewildering and depressing in the extreme. Vanity of +vanities, all is vanity,--such is the comfortless doctrine of the book. +The apples are the apples of Sodom, everywhere in the world. There is no +virtue anywhere, no good, no happiness. Life is a cheat, the love of +life is a cruelty, and beyond life there is nothing. At least, there is +no glimpse given of any compensating future reserved for men, a future +to redress the balance of good and ill experienced here and now. Faith +and hope, those two eyes of the soul, are smilingly quenched in their +sockets; and you are left blind, in a whirling world of darkness, with a +whirling world of darkness before you. + +Such is "Candide." We select a single passage for specimen. The passage +we select is more nearly free than almost any other passage as long, in +this extraordinary romance, would probably be found, from impure +implications. It is, besides, more nearly serious in apparent motive, +than is the general tenor of the production. Here, however, as +elsewhere, the writer keeps carefully down his mocking-mask. At least, +you are left tantalizingly uncertain all the time how much the grin you +face is the grin of the man, and how much the grin of a visor that he +wears. + +Candide, the hero, is a young fellow of ingenuous character, brought +successively under the lead of several different persons wise in the +ways of the world, who act toward him, each in his turn, the part of +"guide, philosopher, and friend." Candide, with such a mentor bearing +the name Martin, has now arrived at Venice. Candide speaks:-- + + "I have heard great talk of the Senator Pococuranté, who lives in + that fine house at the Brenta, where they say he entertains + foreigners in the most polite manner. They pretend this man is a + perfect stranger to uneasiness."--"I should be glad to see so + extraordinary a being," said Martin. Candide thereupon sent a + messenger to Signor Pococuranté, desiring permission to wait on him + the next day. + + Candide and his friend Martin went into a gondola on the Brenta, + and arrived at the palace of the noble Pococuranté: the gardens + were laid out in elegant taste, and adorned with fine marble + statues; his palace was built after the most approved rules of + architecture. The master of the house, who was a man of sixty, and + very rich, received our two travellers with great politeness, but + without much ceremony, which somewhat disconcerted Candide, but was + not at all displeasing to Martin. + + As soon as they were seated, two very pretty girls, neatly dressed, + brought in chocolate, which was extremely well frothed. Candide + could not help making encomiums upon their beauty and graceful + carriage. "The creatures are well enough," said the senator. "I + make them my companions, for I am heartily tired of the ladies of + the town, their coquetry, their jealousy, their quarrels, their + humors, their meannesses, their pride, and their folly. I am weary + of making sonnets, or of paying for sonnets to be made, on them; + but, after all, these two girls begin to grow very indifferent to + me." + + After having refreshed himself, Candide walked into a large + gallery, where he was struck with the sight of a fine collection of + paintings. "Pray," said Candide, "by what master are the two first + of these?"--"They are Raphael's," answered the senator. "I gave a + great deal of money for them seven years ago, purely out of + curiosity, as they were said to be the finest pieces in Italy: but + I cannot say they please me; the coloring is dark and heavy; the + figures do not swell nor come out enough; and the drapery is very + bad. In short, notwithstanding the encomiums lavished upon them, + they are not, in my opinion, a true representation of nature. I + approve of no paintings but where I think I behold Nature herself; + and there are very few, if any, of that kind to be met with. I have + what is called a fine collection, but I take no manner of delight + in them." + + While dinner was getting ready, Pococuranté ordered a concert. + Candide praised the music to the skies. "This noise," said the + noble Venetian, "may amuse one for a little time; but if it was to + last above half an hour, it would grow tiresome to everybody, + though perhaps no one would care to own it. Music is become the art + of executing what is difficult; now, whatever is difficult cannot + be long pleasing. + + "I believe I might take more pleasure in an opera, if they had not + made such a monster of that species of dramatic entertainment as + perfectly shocks me; and I am amazed how people can bear to see + wretched tragedies set to music, where the scenes are contrived for + no other purpose than to lug in, as it were by the ears, three or + four ridiculous songs, to give a favorite actress an opportunity of + exhibiting her pipe. Let who will or can die away in raptures at + the trills of a eunuch quavering the majestic part of Cæsar or + Cato, and strutting in a foolish manner upon the stage. For my + part, I have long ago renounced these paltry entertainments, which + constitute the glory of modern Italy, and are so dearly purchased + by crowned heads." Candide opposed these sentiments, but he did it + in a discreet manner. As for Martin, he was entirely of the old + senator's opinion. + + Dinner being served up, they sat down to table, and after a very + hearty repast, returned to the library. Candide, observing Homer + richly bound, commended the noble Venetian's taste. "This," said + he, "is a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the + best philosopher in Germany."--"Homer is no favorite of mine," + answered Pococuranté very coolly. "I was made to believe once that + I took a pleasure in reading him; but his continual repetitions of + battles must have all such a resemblance with each other; his gods + that are forever in a hurry and bustle, without ever doing any + thing; his Helen, that is the cause of the war, and yet hardly acts + in the whole performance; his Troy, that holds out so long without + being taken; in short, all these things together make the poem very + insipid to me. I have asked some learned men whether they are not + in reality as much tired as myself with reading this poet. Those + who spoke ingenuously assured me that he had made them fall asleep, + and yet that they could not well avoid giving him a place in their + libraries; but that it was merely as they would do an antique, or + those rusty medals which are kept only for curiosity, and are of no + manner of use in commerce." + + "But your excellency does not surely form the same opinion of + Virgil?" said Candide. "Why, I grant," replied Pococuranté, "that + the second, third, fourth, and sixth books of his 'Æneid' are + excellent; but as for his pious Æneas, his strong Cloanthus, his + friendly Achates, his boy Ascanius, his silly King Latinus, his + ill-bred Amata, his insipid Lavinia, and some other characters much + in the same strain, I think there cannot in nature be any thing + more flat and disagreeable. I must confess I prefer Tasso far + beyond him; nay, even that sleepy tale-teller Ariosto." + + "May I take the liberty to ask if you do not receive great pleasure + from reading Horace?" said Candide. "There are maxims in this + writer," replied Pococuranté, "from whence a man of the world may + reap some benefit; and the short measure of the verse makes them + more easily to be retained in the memory. But I see nothing + extraordinary in his journey to Brundusium, and his account of his + bad dinner; nor in his dirty, low quarrel between one Rupilius, + whose words, as he expresses it, were full of poisonous filth; and + another, whose language was dipped in vinegar. His indelicate + verses against old women and witches have frequently given me great + offence; nor can I discover the great merit of his telling his + friend Mæcenas, that, if he will but rank him in the class of lyric + poets, his lofty head shall touch the stars. Ignorant readers are + apt to advance every thing by the lump in a writer of reputation. + For my part, I read only to please myself. I like nothing but what + makes for my purpose." Candide, who had been brought up with a + notion of never making use of his own judgment, was astonished at + what he heard; but Martin found there was a good deal of reason in + the senator's remarks. + + "Oh, here is a Tully!" said Candide; "this great man, I fancy, you + are never tired of reading."--"Indeed, I never read him at all," + replied Pococuranté. "What a deuce is it to me whether he pleads + for Rabirius or Cluentius? I try causes enough myself. I had once + some liking to his philosophical works; but when I found he doubted + of every thing, I thought I knew as much as himself, and had no + need of a guide to learn ignorance." + + "Ha!" cried Martin, "here are fourscore volumes of the 'Memoirs of + the Academy of Sciences;' perhaps there may be something curious + and valuable in this collection."--"Yes," answered Pococuranté; "so + there might, if any one of these compilers of this rubbish had only + invented the art of pin-making. But all these volumes are filled + with mere chimerical systems, without one single article conducive + to real utility." + + "I see a prodigious number of plays," said Candide, "in Italian, + Spanish, and French."--"Yes," replied the Venetian; "there are, I + think, three thousand, and not three dozen of them good for any + thing. As to those huge volumes of divinity, and those enormous + collections of sermons, they are not all together worth one single + page of Seneca; and I fancy you will readily believe that neither + myself nor any one else ever looks into them." + + Martin, perceiving some shelves filled with English books, said to + the senator, "I fancy that a republican must be highly delighted + with those books, which are most of them written with a noble + spirit of freedom."--"It is noble to write as we think," said + Pococuranté; "it is the privilege of humanity. Throughout Italy we + write only what we do not think; and the present inhabitants of the + country of the Cæsars and Antoninuses dare not acquire a single + idea without the permission of a father Dominican. I should be + enamoured of the spirit of the English nation did it not utterly + frustrate the good effects it would produce by passion and the + spirit of party." + + Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did not think + that author a great man. "Who!" said Pococuranté sharply. "That + barbarian, who writes a tedious commentary, in ten books of + rambling verse, on the first chapter of Genesis! That slovenly + imitator of the Greeks, who disfigures the creation by making the + Messiah take a pair of compasses from heaven's armory to plan the + world; whereas Moses represented the Deity as producing the whole + universe by his fiat! Can I think you have any esteem for a writer + who has spoiled Tasso's hell and the devil; who transforms Lucifer, + sometimes into a toad, and at others into a pygmy; who makes him + say the same thing over again a hundred times; who metamorphoses + him into a school-divine; and who, by an absurdly serious imitation + of Ariosto's comic invention of fire-arms, represents the devils + and angels cannonading each other in heaven! Neither I, nor any + other Italian, can possibly take pleasure in such melancholy + reveries. But the marriage of Sin and Death, and snakes issuing + from the womb of the former, are enough to make any person sick + that is not lost to all sense of delicacy. This obscene, whimsical, + and disagreeable poem met with the neglect that it deserved at its + first publication; and I only treat the author now as he was + treated in his own country by his contemporaries." + + Candide was sensibly grieved at this speech, as he had a great + respect for Homer, and was very fond of Milton. "Alas!" said he + softly to Martin, "I am afraid this man holds our German poets in + great contempt."--"There would be no such great harm in that," said + Martin.--"Oh, what a surprising man!" said Candide to himself. + "What a prodigious genius is this Pococuranté! Nothing can please + him." + + After finishing their survey of the library they went down into the + garden, when Candide commended the several beauties that offered + themselves to his view. "I know nothing upon earth laid out in such + bad taste," said Pococuranté; "every thing about it is childish and + trifling; but I shall have another laid out to-morrow upon a nobler + plan." + + As soon as our two travellers had taken leave of his excellency, + "Well," said Candide to Martin, "I hope you will own that this man + is the happiest of all mortals, for he is above every thing he + possesses."--"But do you not see," answered Martin, "that he + likewise dislikes every thing he possesses? It was an observation + of Plato long since, that those are not the best stomachs that + reject, without distinction, all sorts of aliments."--"True," said + Candide; "but still, there must certainly be a pleasure in + criticising every thing, and in perceiving faults where others + think they see beauties."--"That is," replied Martin, "there is a + pleasure in having no pleasure."--"Well, well," said Candide, "I + find that I shall be the only happy man at last, when I am blessed + with the sight of my dear Cunegund."--"It is good to hope," said + Martin. + +The single citation preceding sufficiently exemplifies, at their best, +though at their worst, not, the style and the spirit of Voltaire's +"Candide;" as his "Candide" sufficiently exemplifies the style and the +spirit of the most characteristic of Voltaire's writings in general. +"Pococurantism" is a word, now not uncommon in English, contributed by +Voltaire to the vocabulary of literature. To readers of the foregoing +extract, the sense of the term will not need to be explained. We +respectfully suggest to our dictionary-makers, that the fact stated of +its origin in the "Candide" of Voltaire would be interesting and +instructive to many. Voltaire coined the name, to suit the character of +his Venetian gentleman, from two Italian words which mean together +"little-caring." Signor Pococuranté is the immortal type of men that +have worn out their capacity of fresh sensation and enjoyment. + +It was a happy editorial thought of Mr. Henry Morley, in his cheap +library, now issuing, of standard books for the people, to bind up +Johnson's "Rasselas" in one volume with Voltaire's "Candide." The two +stories, nearly contemporaneous in their production, offer a stimulating +contrast in treatment, at the hands of two sharply contrasted writers, +of much the same subject,--the unsatisfactoriness of the world. + +Mr. John Morley, a very different writer and a very different man from +his namesake just mentioned, has an elaborate monograph on Voltaire in a +volume perhaps twice as large as the present. This work claims the +attention of all students desirous of exhaustive acquaintance with its +subject. Mr. John Morley writes in sympathy with Voltaire, so far as +Voltaire was an enemy of the Christian religion; but in antipathy to +him, so far as Voltaire fell short of being an atheist. A similar +sympathy, limited by a similar antipathy, is observable in the same +author's still more extended monograph on Rousseau. It is only in his +two volumes on "Diderot and the Encyclopædists," that Mr. Morley finds +himself able to write without reserve in full moral accord with the men +whom he describes. Of course, in all these books the biographer and +critic feels, as Englishman, obliged to concede much to his English +audience, in the way of condemning impurities in his authors. The +concession thus made is made with great adroitness of manner, the +writer's aim evidently being to imply that his infidels and atheists, if +they are somewhat vicious in taste, had the countenance of good +Christian example or parallel for all the lapses they show. Mr. Morley +wishes to be fair, but his atheist zeal overcomes him. This is +especially evident in his work on "Diderot and the Encyclopædists," +where his propagandist desire to clear the character of his hero bribes +him once and again to unconscious false dealing. In his "Voltaire," and +in his "Rousseau," Mr. Morley is so lofty in tone, expressing himself +against the moral obliquities of the men with whom he is dealing, that +often you feel the ethic atmosphere of the books to be pure and bracing, +almost beyond the standard of biblical and Christian. But in his +"Diderot and the Encyclopædists," such fine severity is conspicuously +absent. Mr. Morley is so deeply convinced that atheism is what we all +most need just now, that when he has--not halting mere infidels, like +Voltaire and Rousseau--but good thorough-going atheists, like Diderot +and his fellows, to exhibit, he can hardly bring himself to injure their +exemplary influence with his readers, by allowing to exist any damaging +flaws in their character. + +Even in Voltaire and Rousseau, but particularly in Voltaire, Mr. Morley, +though his sympathy with these writers is, as we have said, not +complete, finds far more to praise than to blame. To this eager apostle +of atheism, Voltaire was at least on the right road, although he did, +unfortunately, stop short of the goal. His influence was potent against +Christianity, and potent it certainly was not against atheism. Voltaire +might freely be lauded as on the whole a mighty and a beneficent +liberalizer of thought. + +And we, we who are neither atheists nor deists--let us not deny to +Voltaire his just meed of praise. There were streaks of gold in the base +alloy of that character of his. He burned with magnanimous heat against +the hideous doctrine and practice of ecclesiastical persecution. Carlyle +says of Voltaire, that he "spent his best efforts, and as many still +think, successfully, in assaulting the Christian religion." This, true +though it be, is liable to be falsely understood. It was not against the +Christian religion, as the Christian religion really is, but rather +against the Christian religion as the Roman hierarchy misrepresented it, +that Voltaire ostensibly directed his efforts. "You are right," wrote he +to his henchman D'Alembert, in 1762, "in assuming that I speak of +superstition only; for as to the Christian religion, I respect it and +love it, as you do." This distinction of Voltaire's, with whatever +degree of simple sincerity on his part made, ought to be remembered in +his favor, when his memorable motto, "_Écrasez l'Infâme_," is +interpreted and applied. He did not mean Jesus Christ by _l'Infâme_; he +did not mean the Christian religion by it; he did not even mean the +Christian Church by it; he meant the oppressive despotism and the crass +obscurantism of the Roman-Catholic hierarchy. At least, this is what he +would have said that he meant, what in fact he substantially did say +that he meant, when incessantly reiterating, in its various forms, his +watchword, "_Écrasez l'Infâme_," "_Écrasons l'Infâme_,"--"Crush the +wretch!" "Let us crush the wretch!" His blows were aimed, perhaps, at +"superstition;" but they really fell, in the full half of their effect, +on Christianity itself. Whether Voltaire regretted this, whether he +would in his heart have had it otherwise, may well, in spite of any +protestation from him of love for Christianity, be doubted. Still, it is +never, in judgment of Voltaire, to be forgotten that the organized +Christianity which he confronted, was in large part a system justly +hateful to the true and wise lover whether of God or of man. That system +he did well in fighting. Carnal indeed were the weapons with which he +fought it; and his victory over it was a carnal victory, bringing, on +the whole, but slender net advantage, if any such advantage at all, to +the cause of final truth and light. The French Revolution, with its +excesses and its horrors, was perhaps the proper, the legitimate, the +necessary, fruit of resistance such as was Voltaire's, in fundamental +spirit, to the evils in church and in state against which he conducted +so gallantly his life-long campaign. + +But though we thus bring in doubt the work of Voltaire, both as to the +purity of its motive, and as to the value of its fruit, we should wrong +our sense of justice to ourselves if we permitted our readers to suppose +us blind to the generous things that this arch-infidel did on behalf of +the suffering and the oppressed. Voltaire more than once wielded that +pen of his, the most dreaded weapon in Europe, like a knight sworn to +take on himself the championship of the forlornest of causes. There is +the historic case of Jean Calas at Toulouse, Protestant, an old man of +near seventy, broken on the wheel, as suspected, without evidence, and +against accumulated impossibilities, of murdering his own son, a young +man of about thirty, by hanging him. Voltaire took up the case, and +pleaded it to the common sense, and to the human feeling, of France, +with immense effectiveness. It is, in truth, Voltaire's advocacy of +righteousness, in this instance of incredible wrong, that has made the +instance itself immortal. His part in the case of Calas, though the most +signal, is not the only, example of Voltaire's literary knighthood. He +hated oppression, and he loved liberty, for himself and for all men, +with a passion as deep and as constant as any passion of which nature +had made Voltaire capable. If the liberty that he loved was +fundamentally liberty as against God no less than as against men, and +if the oppression that he hated was fundamentally the oppression of +being put under obligation to obey Christ as lord of life and of +thought, this was something of which, probably, Voltaire never had a +clear consciousness. + +We have now indicated what was most admirable in Voltaire's personal +character. On the whole, he was far from being an admirable man. He was +vain, he was shallow, he was frivolous, he was deceitful, he was +voluptuous, he fawned on the great, he abased himself before them, he +licked the dust on which they stood. "_Trajan, est-il content?_" ("Is +Trajan satisfied?")--this, asked, in nauseous adulation, and nauseous +self-abasement, by Voltaire of Louis XV., so little like Trajan in +character--is monumental. The occasion was the production of a piece of +Voltaire's written at the instance of Louis XV.'s mistress, the infamous +Madame de Pompadour. The king, for answer, simply gorgonized the poet +with a stony Bourbon stare. + +But, taken altogether, Voltaire's life was a great success. He got on in +the world, was rich, was fortunate, was famous, was gay, if he was not +happy. He had his friendship with the great Frederick of Prussia, who +filled for his false French flatterer a return cup of sweetness, +cunningly mixed with exceeding bitterness. His death was an appropriate +_coup de théâtre_, a felicity of finish to such a life, quite beyond the +reach of art. He came back to Paris, whence he had been an exile, +welcomed with a triumph transcending the triumph of a conqueror. They +made a great feast for him, a feast of flattery, in the theatre. The old +man was drunk with delight. The delight was too much for him. It +literally killed him. It was as if a favorite actress should be quite +smothered to death on the stage, under flowers thrown in excessive +profusion at her feet. + +Let Carlyle's sentence be our epigraph on Voltaire:-- + + "No great Man.... Found always at the top, less by power in + swimming than by lightness in floating." + + + + +XVI. + +ROUSSEAU. + +1712-1778. + + +There are two Rousseaus in French literature. At least, there was a +first, until the second effaced him, and became the only. + +We speak, of course, in comparison, and hyperbolically. J. B. Rousseau +is still named as a lyric poet of the time of Louis XIV. But when +Rousseau, without initials, is spoken of, it is always Jean Jacques +Rousseau that is meant. + +Jean Jacques Rousseau is perhaps the most squalid, as it certainly is +one of the most splendid, among French literary names. The squalor +belongs chiefly to the man, but the splendor is wholly the writer's. +There is hardly another example in the world's literature of a union so +striking of these opposites. + +Rousseau's life he has himself told, in the best, the worst, and the +most imperishable, of his books, the "Confessions." This book is one to +which the adjective charming attaches, in a peculiarly literal sense of +the word. The spell, however, is repellent as well as attractive. But +the attraction of the style asserts and pronounces itself only the more, +in triumph over the much there is in the matter to disgust and revolt. +It is quite the most offensive, and it is well-nigh the most +fascinating, book that we know. + +The "Confessions" begin as follows:-- + + I purpose an undertaking that never had an example, and whose + execution never will have an imitator. I would exhibit to my + fellows a man in all the truth of nature, and that man--myself. + + Myself alone. I know my own heart, and I am acquainted with men. I + am made unlike any one I have ever seen,--I dare believe unlike any + living being. If no better than, I am at least different from, + others. Whether nature did well or ill in breaking the mould + wherein I was cast, can be determined only after having read me. + + Let the last trumpet sound when it will, I will come, with this + book in my hand, and present myself before the Sovereign Judge. I + will boldly proclaim: Thus have I acted, thus have I thought, such + was I. With equal frankness have I disclosed the good and the evil. + I have omitted nothing bad, added nothing good; and if I have + happened to make use of some unimportant ornament, it has, in every + case, been simply for the purpose of filling up a void occasioned + by my lack of memory. I may have taken for granted as true what I + knew to be possible, never what I knew to be false. Such as I was, + I have exhibited myself,--despicable and vile, when so; virtuous, + generous, sublime, when so. I have unveiled my interior being, such + as Thou, Eternal Existence, hast beheld it. Assemble around me the + numberless throng of my fellow-mortals; let them listen to my + confessions, let them blush at my depravities, let them shrink + appalled at my miseries. Let each of them, in his turn, with equal + sincerity, lay bare his heart at the foot of thy throne, and then + let a single one tell thee, if he dare, _I was better than that + man_. + +Notwithstanding our autobiographer's disavowal of debt to example for +the idea of his "Confessions," it seems clear that Montaigne here was at +least inspiration, if not pattern, to Rousseau. But Rousseau resolved to +do what Montaigne had done, more ingenuously and more courageously than +Montaigne had done it. This writer will make himself his subject, and +then treat his subject with greater frankness than any man before him +ever used about himself, or than any man after him would ever use. He +undoubtedly succeeded in his attempt. His frankness, in fact, is so +forward and eager, that it is probably even inventive of things +disgraceful to himself. Montaigne makes great pretence of telling his +own faults, but you observe that he generally chooses rather amiable +faults of his own to tell. Rousseau's morbid vulgarity leads him to +disclose traits in himself, of character or of behavior, that, despite +whatever contrary wishes on your part, compel your contempt of the man. +And it is for the man who confesses, almost more than for the man who is +guilty, that you feel the contempt. + +The "Confessions" proceed:-- + + I was born at Geneva, in 1712, of Isaac Rousseau and Susannah + Bernard, citizens.... I came into the world weak and sickly. I cost + my mother her life, and my birth was the first of my misfortunes. + + I never learned how my father supported his loss, but I know that + he remained ever after inconsolable.... When he used to say to me, + "Jean Jacques, let us speak of your mother," my usual reply was, + "Well, father, we'll cry, then," a reply which would instantly + bring the tears to his eyes. "Ah!" he would exclaim with agitation, + "give me her back, console me for her loss, fill up the void she + has left in my soul. Could I love thee thus wert thou but _my_ + son?" Forty years after having lost her he expired in the arms of a + second wife, but with the name of the first on his lips, and her + image engraven on his heart. + + Such were the authors of my being. Of all the gifts Heaven had + allotted them, a feeling heart was the only one I had inherited. + While, however, this had been the source of their happiness, it + became the spring of all my misfortunes. + +"A feeling heart!" That expression tells the literary secret of +Rousseau. It is hardly too much to say that Rousseau was the first +French writer to write with his heart; but heart's blood was the ink in +which almost every word of Rousseau's was written. This was the spring +of his marvellous power. Rousseau:-- + + My mother had left a number of romances. These father and I betook + us to reading during the evenings. At first the sole object was, by + means of entertaining books, to improve me in reading; but, ere + long, the charm became so potent, that we read turn about without + intermission, and passed whole nights in this employment. Never + could we break up till the end of the volume. At times my father, + hearing the swallows of a morning, would exclaim, quite ashamed of + himself, "Come, let's to bed; I'm more of a child than you are!" + +The elder Rousseau was right respecting himself. And such a father would +almost necessarily have such a child. Jean Jacques Rousseau is to be +judged tenderly for his faults. What birth and what breeding were his! +The "Confessions" go on:-- + + I soon acquired, by this dangerous course, not only an extreme + facility in reading and understanding, but, for my age, a quite + unprecedented acquaintance with the passions. I had not the + slightest conception of things themselves, at a time when the whole + round of sentiments was already perfectly familiar to me. I had + apprehended nothing--I had felt all. + +Some hint now of other books read by the boy:-- + + With the summer of 1719 the romance-reading terminated.... "The + History of the Church and Empire" by Lesueur, Bossuet's + "Dissertation on Universal History," Plutarch's "Lives," Nani's + "History of Venice," Ovid's "Metamorphoses," "La Bruyère," + Fontenelle's "Worlds," his "Dialogues of the Dead," and a few + volumes of Molière, were transported into my father's shop; and I + read them to him every day during his work. For this employment I + acquired a rare, and, for my age, perhaps unprecedented, taste. + Plutarch especially became my favorite reading. The pleasure which + I found in incessantly reperusing him, cured me in some measure of + the romance madness; and I soon came to prefer Agesilaus, Brutus, + and Aristides, to Orondates, Artemenes, and Juba. From these + interesting studies, joined to the conversations to which they gave + rise with my father, resulted that free, republican spirit, that + haughty and untamable character, fretful of restraint or + subjection, which has tormented me my life long, and that in + situations the least suitable for giving it play. Incessantly + occupied with Rome and Athens, living, so to speak, with their + great men, born myself the citizen of a republic [Geneva], the son + of a father with whom patriotism was the ruling passion, I caught + the flame from him--I imagined myself a Greek or a Roman, and + became the personage whose life I was reading. + +On such food of reading and of reverie, young Rousseau's imagination and +sentiment battened, while his reason and his practical sense starved and +died within him. Unconsciously thus in part was formed the dreamer of +the "Émile" and of "The Social Contract." Another glimpse of the +home-life--if home-life such experience can be called--of this +half-orphan, homeless Genevan boy:-- + + I had a brother, my elder by seven years.... He fell into the ways + of debauchery, even before he was old enough to be really a + libertine.... I remember once when my father was chastising him + severely and in anger, that I impetuously threw myself between + them, clasping him tightly. I thus covered him with my body, + receiving the blows that were aimed at him; and I held out so + persistently in this position, that whether softened by my cries + and tears, or fearing that I should get the worst of it, my father + was forced to forgive him. In the end my brother turned out so bad + that he ran away and disappeared altogether. + +It is pathetic--Rousseau's attempted contrast following, between the +paternal neglect of his older brother and the paternal indulgence of +himself:-- + + If this poor lad was carelessly brought up, it was quite otherwise + with his brother.... My desires were so little excited, and so + little crossed, that it never came into my head to have any. I can + solemnly aver, that, till the time when I was bound to a master, I + never knew what it was to have a whim. + +Poor lad! "Never knew what it was to have a whim!" It well might be, +however--his boy's life all one whim uncrossed, unchecked; no contrast +of saving restraint, to make him know that he was living by whim alone! +The "Confessions" truly say:-- + + Thus commenced the formation or the manifestation in me of that + heart at once so haughty and so tender, of that effeminate and yet + unconquerable character which, ever vacillating between courage and + weakness, between virtue and yielding to temptation, has all along + set me in contradiction to myself, and has resulted in my failing + both of abstinence and enjoyment, both of prudence and pleasure. + +The half-orphan becomes orphan entire, not by the death, but by the +withdrawing, of the father. That father, having been accused of a +misdemeanor, "preferred," Rousseau somewhat vaguely says, "to quit +Geneva for the remainder of his life, rather than give up a point +wherein honor and liberty appeared to him compromised." Jean Jacques was +sent to board with a parson, who taught him Latin, and, along with +Latin, supplied, Rousseau scornfully says, "all the accompanying mass of +paltry rubbish styled education." He adds:-- + + The country was so entirely new to me, that I could never grow + weary in my enjoyment of it; and I acquired so strong a liking for + it, that it has never become extinguished. + +Young Jean Jacques was at length apprenticed to an engraver. He +describes the contrast of his new situation and the effect of the +contrast upon his own character and career:-- + + I learned to covet in silence, to dissemble, to dissimulate, to + lie, and at last to steal,--a propensity for which I had never + hitherto had the slightest inclination, and of which I have never + since been able quite to cure myself.... + + My first theft was the result of complaisance, but it opened the + door to others which had not so laudable a motive. + + My master had a journeyman named M. Verrat.... [He] took it into + his head to rob his mother of some of her early asparagus and sell + it, converting the proceeds into some extra good breakfasts. As he + did not wish to expose himself, and not being very nimble, he + selected me for this expedition.... Long did I stickle, but he + persisted. I never could resist kindness, so I consented. I went + every morning to the garden, gathered the best of the asparagus, + and took it to "the Molard," where some good creature, perceiving + that I had just been stealing it, would insinuate that little fact, + so as to get it the cheaper. In my terror I took whatever she chose + to give me, and carried it to M. Verrat. + + This little domestic arrangement continued for several days before + it came into my head to rob the robber, and tithe M. Verrat for the + proceeds of the asparagus.... I thus learned that to steal was, + after all, not so very terrible a thing as I had conceived; and ere + long I turned this discovery to so good an account, that nothing I + had an inclination for could safely be left within my reach.... + + And now, before giving myself over to the fatality of my destiny, + let me, for a moment, contemplate what would naturally have been my + lot had I fallen into the hands of a better master. Nothing was + more agreeable to my tastes, nor better calculated to render me + happy, than the calm and obscure condition of a good artisan, more + especially in certain lines, such as that of an engraver at + Geneva.... In my native country, in the bosom of my religion, of my + family, and my friends, I should have led a life gentle and + uncheckered as became my character, in the uniformity of a pleasing + occupation and among connections dear to my heart. I should have + been a good Christian, a good citizen, a good father, a good + friend, a good artisan, and a good man in every respect. I should + have loved my station; it may be I should have been an honor to it: + and after having passed an obscure and simple, though even and + happy, life, I should peacefully have departed in the bosom of my + kindred. Soon, it may be, forgotten, I should at least have been + regretted as long as the remembrance of me survived. + + Instead of this... what a picture am I about to draw! + +Thus ends the first book of the "Confessions." + +The picture Rousseau is "about to draw" has in it a certain Madame de +Warens for a principal figure. (Apprentice Jean Jacques has left his +master, and entered on a vagabond life.) This lady is a character very +difficult for us Protestant Americans in our contrasted society to +conceive as real or as possible. She kept a house of, what shall we call +it? detention, for souls doubtfully in the way of being reclaimed from +Protestant error into the bosom of the Roman-Catholic Church. She was +herself a Roman-Catholic convert from Protestantism. She had forsaken a +husband, not loved, and was living on a bounty from King Victor Amadeus +of Sardinia. For Annecy, the home of Madame de Warens, our young Jean +Jacques, sent thither by a Roman-Catholic curate, sets out on foot. The +distance was but one day's walk; which one day's walk, however, the +humor of the wanderer stretched into a saunter of three days. The man of +fifty-four, become the biographer of his own youth, finds no loathness +of self-respect to prevent his detailing the absurd adventures with +which he diverted himself on the way. For example:-- + + Not a country-seat could I see, either to the right or left, + without going after the adventure which I was certain awaited me. + I could not muster courage to enter the mansion, nor even to knock, + for I was excessively timid; but I sang beneath the most inviting + window, very much astonished to find, after wasting my breath, that + neither lady nor miss made her appearance, attracted by the beauty + of my voice, or the spice of my songs,--seeing that I knew some + capital ones that my comrades had taught me, and which I sang in + the most admirable manner. + +Rousseau describes the emotions he experienced in his first meeting with +Madame de Warens:-- + + I had pictured to myself a grim old devotee--M. de Pontverre's + "worthy lady" could, in my opinion, be none other. But lo, a + countenance beaming with charms, beautiful, mild blue eyes, a + complexion of dazzling fairness, the outline of an enchanting neck! + Nothing escaped the rapid glance of the young proselyte; for that + instant I was hers, sure that a religion preached by such + missionaries could not fail to lead to paradise! + +This abnormally susceptible youth had remarkable experiences, all within +his own soul, during his sojourn, of a few days only, on the present +occasion, under Madame de Warens's hospitable roof. These experiences, +the autobiographer, old enough to call himself "old dotard," has, +nevertheless, not grown wise enough to be ashamed to be very detailed +and psychological in recounting. It was a case of precocious love at +first sight. One could afford to laugh at it as ridiculous, but that it +had a sequel full of sin and of sorrow. Jean Jacques was now forwarded +to Turin, to become inmate of a sort of charity school for the +instruction of catechumens. The very day after he started on foot, his +father, with a friend of his, reached Annecy on horseback, in pursuit +of the truant boy. They might easily have overtaken him, but they let +him go his way. Rousseau explains the case on behalf of his father as +follows:-- + + My father was not only an honorable man, but a person of the most + reliable probity, and endowed with one of those powerful minds that + perform deeds of loftiest heroism. I may add, he was a good father, + especially to me. Tenderly did he love me, but he loved his + pleasures also; and, since our living apart, other ties had, in a + measure, weakened his paternal affection. He had married again, at + Nyon; and though his wife was no longer of an age to present me + with brothers, yet she had connections; another family-circle was + thus formed, other objects engrossed his attention, and the new + domestic relations no longer so frequently brought back the + remembrance of me. My father was growing old, and had nothing on + which to rely for the support of his declining years. My brother + and I had something coming to us from my mother's fortune; the + interest of this my father was to receive during our absence. This + consideration did not present itself to him directly, nor did it + stand in the way of his doing his duty; it had, however, a silent, + and to himself imperceptible, influence, and at times slackened his + zeal, which, unacted upon by this, would have been carried much + farther. This, I think, was the reason, that, having traced me as + far as Annecy, he did not follow me to Chamberi, where he was + morally certain of overtaking me. This will also explain why, in + visiting him many times after my flight, I received from him on + every occasion a father's kindness, though unaccompanied by any + very pressing efforts to retain me. + +Rousseau's filial regard for his father was peculiar. It did not lead +him to hide, it only led him to account for, his father's sordidness. +The son generalized and inferred a moral maxim for the conduct of life +from this behavior of the father's,--a maxim, which, as he thought, had +done him great good. He says:-- + + This conduct on the part of a father of whose affection and virtue + I have had so many proofs, has given rise within me to reflections + on my own character which have not a little contributed to maintain + my heart uncorrupted. I have derived therefrom this great maxim of + morality, perhaps the only one of any use in practice; namely, to + avoid such situations as put our duty in antagonism with our + interest, or disclose our own advantage in the misfortunes of + another, certain that in such circumstances, however sincere the + love of virtue we bring with us, it will sooner or later, and + whether we perceive it or not, become weakened, and we shall come + to be unjust and culpable in our acts without having ceased to be + upright and blameless in our intentions. + +The fruitful maxim thus deduced by Rousseau, he thinks he tried +faithfully to put in practice. With apparent perfect assurance +concerning himself, he says:-- + + I have sincerely desired to do what was right. I have, with all the + energy of my character, shunned situations which set my interest in + opposition to the interest of another, thus inspiring me with a + secret though involuntary desire prejudicial to that man. + +Jean Jacques at Turin made speed to convert himself, by the abjurations +required, into a pretty good Catholic. He was hereon free to seek his +fortune in the Sardinian capital. This he did by getting successively +various situations in service. In one of these he stole, so he tells us, +a piece of ribbon, which was soon found in his possession. He said a +maid-servant, naming her, gave it to him. The two were confronted with +each other. In spite of the poor girl's solemn appeal, Jean Jacques +persisted in his lie against her. Both servants were discharged. The +autobiographer protests that he has suffered much remorse for this lie +of his to the harm of the innocent maid. He expresses confident hope +that his suffering sorrow, already experienced on this behalf, will +stand him in stead of punishment that might be his due in a future +state. Remorse is a note in Rousseau that distinguishes him from +Montaigne. Montaigne reviews his own life to live over his sins, not to +repent of them. + +The end of several vicissitudes is, that young Rousseau gets back to +Madame de Warens. She welcomes him kindly. He says:-- + + From the first day, the most affectionate familiarity sprang up + between us, and that to the same degree in which it continued + during all the rest of her life. _Petit_--Child--was my name, + _Maman_--Mamma--hers; and _Petit_ and _Maman_ we remained, even + when the course of time had all but effaced the difference of our + ages. These two names seem to me marvellously well to express our + tone towards each other, the simplicity of our manners, and, more + than all, the relation of our hearts. She was to me the tenderest + of mothers, never seeking her own pleasure, but ever my welfare; + and if the senses had any thing to do with my attachment for her, + it was not to change its nature, but only to render it more + exquisite, and intoxicate me with the charm of having a young and + pretty mamma whom it was delightful for me to caress. I say quite + literally, to caress; for it never entered into her head to deny me + the tenderest maternal kisses and endearments, nor into my heart to + abuse them. Some may say that, in the end, quite other relations + subsisted between us. I grant it; but have patience,--I cannot tell + every thing at once. + +With Madame de Warens, Rousseau's relations, as is intimated above, +became licentious. This continued until, after an interval of years +(nine years, with breaks), in a fit of jealousy he forsook her. +Rousseau's whole life was a series of self-indulgences, grovelling, +sometimes, beyond what is conceivable to any one not learning of it all +in detail from the man's own pen. The reader is fain at last to seek the +only relief possible from the sickening story, by flying to the +conclusion that Jean Jacques Rousseau, with all his genius, was wanting +in that mental sanity which is a condition of complete moral +responsibility. + +We shall, of course, not follow the "Confessions" through their +disgusting recitals of sin and shame. We should do wrong, however, to +the literary, and even to the moral, character of the work, were we not +to point out that there are frequent oases of sweetness and beauty set +in the wastes of incredible foulness which overspread so widely the +pages of Rousseau's "Confessions." Here, for example, is an idyll of +vagabondage that might almost make one willing to play tramp one's +self, if one by so doing might have such an experience:-- + + I remember, particularly, having passed a delicious night without + the city on a road that skirted the Rhone or the Saône, for I + cannot remember which. On the other side were terraced gardens. It + had been a very warm day; the evening was charming; the dew + moistened the faded grass; a calm night, without a breeze; the air + was cool without being cold; the sun in setting had left crimson + vapors in the sky, which tinged the water with its roseate hue, + while the trees along the terrace were filled with nightingales + gushing out melodious answers to each other's song. I walked along + in a species of ecstasy, giving up heart and senses to the + enjoyment of the scene, only slightly sighing with regret at + enjoying it alone. Absorbed in my sweet reverie, I prolonged my + walk far into the night, without perceiving that I was wearied out. + At length I discovered it. I lay voluptuously down on the tablet of + a sort of niche or false door sunk in the terrace wall. The canopy + of my couch was formed by the over-arching boughs of the trees; a + nightingale sat exactly above me; its song lulled me to sleep; my + slumber was sweet, and my awaking still more so. It was broad day; + my eyes, on opening, fell on the water, the verdure, and the + admirable landscape spread out before me. I arose and shook off + dull sleep; and, growing hungry, I gayly directed my steps towards + the city, bent on transforming two _pièces de six blancs_ that I + had left, into a good breakfast. I was so cheerful that I went + singing along the whole way. + +This happy-go-lucky, vagabond, grown-up child, this sentimentalist of +genius, had now and then different experiences,--experiences to which +the reflection of the man grown old attributes important influence on +the formation of his most controlling beliefs:-- + + One day, among others, having purposely turned aside to get a + closer view of a spot that appeared worthy of all admiration, I + grew so delighted with it, and wandered round it so often, that I + at length lost myself completely. After several hours of useless + walking, weary and faint with hunger and thirst, I entered a + peasant's hut which did not present a very promising appearance, + but it was the only one I saw around. I conceived it to be here as + at Geneva and throughout Switzerland, where all the inhabitants in + easy circumstances are in the situation to exercise hospitality. I + entreated the man to get me some dinner, offering to pay for it. He + presented me with some skimmed milk and coarse barley bread, + observing that that was all he had. I drank the milk with delight, + and ate the bread, chaff and all; but this was not very restorative + to a man exhausted with fatigue. The peasant, who was watching me + narrowly, judged of the truth of my story by the sincerity of my + appetite. All of a sudden, after having said that he saw perfectly + well that I was a good and true young fellow that did not come to + betray him, he opened a little trap-door by the side of his + kitchen, went down and returned a moment afterwards with a good + brown loaf of pure wheat, the remains of a toothsome ham, and a + bottle of wine, the sight of which rejoiced my heart more than all + the rest. To these he added a good thick omelette, and I made such + a dinner as none but a walker ever enjoyed. When it came to pay, + lo! his disquietude and fears again seized him; he would none of my + money, and rejected it with extraordinary manifestations of + disquiet. The funniest part of the matter was, that I could not + conceive what he was afraid of. At length, with fear and trembling, + he pronounced those terrible words, _Commissioners_ and + _Cellar-rats_. He gave me to understand that he concealed his wine + because of the excise, and his bread on account of the tax, and + that he was a lost man if they got the slightest inkling that he + was not dying of hunger. Every thing he said to me touching this + matter, whereof, indeed, I had not the slightest idea, produced an + impression on me that can never be effaced. It became the germ of + that inextinguishable hatred that afterwards sprang up in my heart + against the vexations to which these poor people are subject, and + against their oppressors. This man, though in easy circumstances, + dared not eat the bread he had gained by the sweat of his brow, and + could escape ruin only by presenting the appearance of the same + misery that reigned around him. + +A hideously false world, that world of French society was, in Rousseau's +time. The falseness was full ripe to be laid bare by some one; and +Rousseau's experience of life, as well as his temperament and his +genius, fitted him to do the work of exposure that he did. What we +emphatically call character was sadly wanting in Rousseau--how sadly, +witness such an acted piece of mad folly as the following:-- + + I, without knowing aught of the matter,... gave myself out for a + [musical] composer. Nor was this all: having been presented to M. + de Freytorens, law-professor, who loved music, and gave concerts at + his house, nothing would do but I must give him a sample of my + talent; so I set about composing a piece for his concert quite as + boldly as though I had really been an adept in the science. I had + the constancy to work for fifteen days on this fine affair, to copy + it fair, write out the different parts, and distribute them with as + much assurance as though it had been a masterpiece of harmony. + Then, what will scarcely be believed, but which yet is gospel + truth, worthily to crown this sublime production, I tacked to the + end thereof a pretty minuet which was then having a run on the + streets.... I gave it as my own just as resolutely as though I had + been speaking to inhabitants of the moon. + + They assembled to perform my piece. I explain to each the nature of + the movement, the style of execution, and the relations of the + parts--I was very full of business. For five or six minutes they + were tuning; to me each minute seemed an age. At length, all being + ready, I rap with a handsome paper _bâton_ on the leader's desk the + five or six beats of the "_Make ready_." Silence is made--I gravely + set to beating time--they commence! No, never since French operas + began, was there such a _charivari_ heard. Whatever they might have + thought of my pretended talent, the effect was worse than they + could possibly have imagined. The musicians choked with laughter; + the auditors opened their eyes, and would fain have closed their + ears. But that was an impossibility. My tormenting set of + symphonists, who seemed rather to enjoy the fun, scraped away with + a din sufficient to crack the tympanum of one born deaf. I had the + firmness to go right ahead, however, sweating, it is true, at every + pore, but held back by shame; not daring to retreat, and glued to + the spot. For my consolation I heard the company whispering to each + other, quite loud enough for it to reach my ear: "It is not + bearable!" said one. "What music gone mad!" cried another. "What a + devilish din!" added a third. Poor Jean Jacques, little dreamed + you, in that cruel moment, that one day before the King of France + and all the court, thy sounds would excite murmurs of surprise and + applause, and that in all the boxes around thee the loveliest + ladies would burst forth with, "What charming sounds! what + enchanting music! every strain reaches the heart!" + + But what restored every one to good humor was the minuet. Scarcely + had they played a few measures than I heard bursts of laughter + break out on all hands. Every one congratulated me on my fine + musical taste; they assured me that this minuet would make me + spoken about, and that I merited the loudest praises. I need not + attempt depicting my agony, nor own that I well deserved it. + +Readers have now had an opportunity to judge for themselves, by +specimen, of the style, both of the writer and of the man Jean Jacques +Rousseau. The writer's style they must have felt, even through the +medium of imperfect anonymous translation, to be a charming one. If they +have felt the style of the man to be contrasted, as squalor is +contrasted with splendor, that they must not suppose to be a contrast of +which Jean Jacques himself, the confessor, was in the least displacently +conscious. Far from it. In a later part of his "Confessions," a part +that deals with the author as one already now acknowledged a power in +the world of letters, though with all his chief works still to write, +Rousseau speaks thus of himself (he was considering at the time the ways +and means available to him of obtaining a livelihood):-- + + I felt that writing for bread would soon have extinguished my + genius, and destroyed my talents, which were less in my pen than in + my heart, and solely proceeded from an elevated and noble manner of + thinking.... It is too difficult to think nobly when we think for a + livelihood. + +Is not that finely said? And one need not doubt that it was said with +perfect sincerity. For our own part, paradoxical though it be to declare +it, we are wholly willing to insist that Rousseau did think on a lofty +plane. The trouble with him was, not that he thus thought with his +heart, rather than with his head,--which, however, he did,--but that he +thought with his heart alone, and not at all with his conscience and his +will. In a word, his thought was sentiment rather than thought. He was a +sentimentalist instead of a thinker. One illustration of the divorce +that he decreed for himself, or rather--for we have used too positive a +form of expression--that he allowed to subsist, between sentiment and +conduct, will suffice. It was presently to be his fortune, as author of +a tract on education (the "Émile"), to change the habit of a nation in +the matter of nurture for babes. French mothers of the higher social +class in Rousseau's time almost universally gave up their infants to be +nursed at alien bosoms. Rousseau so eloquently denounced the +unnaturalness of this, that from his time it became the fashion for +French mothers to suckle their children themselves. Meantime, the +preacher himself of this beautiful humanity, living in unwedded union +with a woman (not Madame de Warens, but a woman of the laboring class, +found after Madame de Warens was abandoned), sent his illegitimate +children, against the mother's remonstrance, one after another, to the +number of five, to be brought up unknown at the hospital for foundlings! +He tells the story himself in his "Confessions." This course on his own +part he subsequently laments with many tears and many self-upbraidings. +But these, alas, he intermingles with self-justifications, nearly as +many,--so that at last it is hard to say whether the balance of his +judgment inclines for or against himself in the matter. A paradox of +inconsistencies and self-contradictions, this man,--a problem in human +character, of which the supposition of partial insanity in him, long +working subtly in the blood, seems the only solution. The occupation +finally adopted by Rousseau for obtaining subsistence, was the copying +of music. It extorts from one a measure of involuntary respect for +Rousseau, to see patiently toiling at this slavish work, to earn its +owner bread, the same pen that had lately set all Europe in ferment with +the "Émile" and "The Social Contract." + +From Rousseau's "Confessions," we have not room to purvey further. It is +a melancholy book,--written under monomaniac suspicion on the part of +the author that he was the object of a wide-spread conspiracy against +his reputation, his peace of mind, and even his life. The poor, +shattered, self-consumed sensualist and sentimentalist paid dear in the +agonies of his closing years for the indulgences of an unregulated life. +The tender-hearted, really affectionate and loyal, friend came at length +to live in a world of his own imagination, full of treachery to himself. +David Hume, the Scotchman, tried to befriend him; but the monomaniac was +incapable of being befriended. Nothing could be more pitiful than were +the decline and the extinction that occurred of so much brilliant +genius, and so much lovable character. It is even doubtful whether +Rousseau did not at last take his own life. The voice of accusation is +silenced, in the presence of an earthly retribution so dreadful. One may +not indeed approve, but one may at least be free to pity, more than he +blames, in judging Rousseau. + +Accompanying, and in some sort complementing, the "Confessions," are +often published several detached pieces called "Reveries," or "Walks." +These are very peculiar compositions, and very characteristic of the +author. They are dreamy meditations or reveries, sad, even sombre, in +spirit, but "beautiful exceedingly," in form of expression. Such works +as the "Réné" of Chateaubriand, works but too abundant since in French +literature, must all trace their pedigree to Rousseau's "Walks." We +introduce two specimen extracts. The shadow of Rousseau's monomania will +be felt thick upon them:-- + + It is now fifteen years since I have been in this strange + situation, which yet appears to me like a dream; ever imagining + that, disturbed by indigestion, I sleep uneasily, but shall soon + awake, freed from my troubles, but surrounded by my friends.... + + How could I possibly foresee the destiny that awaited me?... Could + I, if in my right senses, suppose that one day, the man I was, and + yet remain, should be taken, without any kind of doubt, for a + monster, a poisoner, an assassin, the horror of the human race, the + sport of the rabble, my only salutation to be spit upon, and that a + whole generation would unanimously amuse themselves in burying me + alive? When this strange revolution first happened, taken by + unawares, I was overwhelmed with astonishment; my agitation, my + indignation, plunged me into a delirium, which ten years have + scarcely been able to calm: during this interval, falling from + error to error, from fault to fault, and folly to folly, I have, by + my imprudence, furnished the contrivers of my fate with + instruments, which they have artfully employed to fix it without + resource.... + + * * * + + Every future occurrence will be immaterial to me; I have in the + world neither relative, friend, nor brother; I am on the earth as + if I had fallen into some unknown planet; if I contemplate any + thing around me, it is only distressing, heart-rending objects; + every thing I cast my eyes on conveys some new subject either of + indignation or affliction; I will endeavor henceforward to banish + from my mind all painful ideas which unavailingly distress me. + Alone for the rest of my life, I must only look for consolation, + hope, or peace in my own breast; and neither ought nor will, + henceforward, think of any thing but myself. It is in this state + that I return to the continuation of that severe and just + examination which formerly I called my Confessions; I consecrate my + latter days to the study of myself, and to the preparation of that + account which I must shortly render up of my actions. I resign my + thoughts entirely to the pleasure of conversing with my own soul; + that being the only consolation that man cannot deprive me of. If + by dint of reflection on my internal propensities, I can attain to + putting them in better order, and correcting the evil that remains + in me, these meditations will not be utterly useless; and though I + am accounted worthless on earth, shall not cast away my latter + days. The leisure of my daily walks has frequently been filled with + charming contemplations, which I regret having forgot; but I will + write down those that occur in future; then, every time I read them + over, I shall forget my misfortunes, disgraces, and persecutors, + in recollecting and contemplating the integrity of my own heart. + +Rousseau's books in general are now little read. They worked their work, +and ceased. But there are in some of them passages that continue to +live. Of these, perhaps quite the most famous is the "Savoyard Curate's +Confession of Faith," a document of some length, incorporated into the +"Émile." This, taken as a whole, is the most seductively eloquent +argument against Christianity that perhaps ever was written. It +contains, however, concessions to the sublime elevation of Scripture and +to the unique virtue and majesty of Jesus, which are often quoted, and +which will bear quoting here. The Savoyard Curate is represented +speaking to a young friend as follows:-- + + I will confess to you further, that the majesty of the Scriptures + strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its + influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with + all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible, are they, + compared with the Scripture! Is it possible that a book at once so + simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? Is it possible + that the Sacred Personage, whose history it contains, should be + himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an + enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity, in + his manners! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What + sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! + What presence of mind, what subtilety, what truth, in his replies! + How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where + the philosopher, who could so live and die, without weakness and + without ostentation? When Plato described his imaginary good man + loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest reward + of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the + resemblance was so striking that all the Fathers perceived it. + + What prepossession, what blindness, must it be to compare the son + of Sophroniscus to the Son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion + there is between them! Socrates, dying without pain or ignominy, + easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, + however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted + whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a + vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. + Others, however, had before put them in practice; he had only to + say what they had done, and reduce their examples to precepts. + Aristides had been _just_ before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas + gave up his life for his country before Socrates declared + patriotism to be a duty; the Spartans were a sober people before + Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue, + Greece abounded in virtuous men. But where could Jesus learn, among + his compatriots, that pure and sublime morality of which he only + has given us both precept and example? The greatest wisdom was made + known amidst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the + most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on the earth. + The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, + appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, + expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, cursed + by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. + Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed indeed the + weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of + excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if + the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and + death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic + history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks + of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody + presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. + Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without + removing it; it is more inconceivable that a number of persons + should agree to write such a history, than that one only should + furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the + diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel, the + marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable that the + inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero. + +So far in eloquent ascription of incomparable excellence to the Bible +and to the Founder of Christianity. But then immediately Rousseau's +Curate proceeds:-- + + And yet, with all this, the same gospel abounds with incredible + relations, with circumstances repugnant to reason, and which it is + impossible for a man of sense either to conceive or admit. + +The compliment to Christianity almost convinces you,--until suddenly you +are apprised that the author of the compliment was not convinced +himself! + +Jean Jacques Rousseau, in the preface to his "Confessions," appealed +from the judgment of men to the judgment of God. This judgment it was +his habit, to the end of his days, thanks to the effect of his early +Genevan education, always to think of as certainly impending. Let us +adjourn our final sentence upon him, until we hear that Omniscient +award. + + + + +XVII. + +THE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS. + + +A cenotaph is a monument erected to the memory of one dead, but not +marking the spot in which his remains rest. The present chapter is a +cenotaph to the French Encyclopædists. It is in the nature of a memorial +of their literary work, but it will be found to contain no specimen +extracts from their writings. + +Everybody has heard of the Encyclopædists of France. Who are they? They +are a group of men who, during the eighteenth century, associated +themselves together for the production of a great work to be the +repository of all human knowledge,--in one word, of an encyclopædia. The +project was a laudable one; and the motive to it was laudable--in part. +For there was mixture of motive in the case. In part, the motive was +simple desire to advance the cause of human enlightenment; in part, +however, the motive was desire to undermine Christianity. This latter +end the encyclopædist collaborators may have thought to be an +indispensable means subsidiary to the former end. They probably did +think so--with such imperfect sincerity as is possible to those who set +themselves, consciously or unconsciously, against God. The fact is, +that the Encyclopædists came at length to be nearly as much occupied in +extinguishing Christianity, as in promoting public enlightenment. They +went about this their task of destroying, in a way as effective as has +ever been devised for accomplishing a similar work. They gave a vicious +turn of insinuation against Christianity to as many articles as +possible. In the most unexpected places, throughout the entire work, +pitfalls were laid of anti-Christian implication, awaiting the unwary +feet of the reader. You were nowhere sure of your ground. The world has +never before seen, it has never seen since, an example of propagandism +altogether so adroit and so alert. It is not too much to say further, +that history can supply few instances of propagandism so successful. The +Encyclopædists might almost be said to have given the human mind a fresh +start and a new orbit. The fresh start is, perhaps, spent; the new orbit +has at length, to a great extent, returned upon the old; but it holds +true, nevertheless, that the Encyclopædists of France were for a time, +and that not a short time, a prodigious force of impulsion and direction +to the Occidental mind. It ought to be added that the aim of the +Encyclopædists was political also, not less than religious. In truth, +religion and politics, Church and State, in their day, and in France, +were much the same thing. The "Encyclopædia" was as revolutionary in +politics as it was atheistic in religion. + +The leader in this movement of insurrectionary thought was Denis +Diderot. Diderot (1713-1784) was born to be an encyclopædist, and a +captain of encyclopædists. Force inexhaustible, and inexhaustible +willingness to give out force; unappeasable curiosity to know; +irresistible impulse to impart knowledge; versatile capacity to do every +thing, carried to the verge, if not carried beyond the verge, of +incapacity to do any thing thoroughly well; quenchless zeal and +quenchless hope; levity enough of temper to keep its subject free from +those depressions of spirit and those cares of conscience which weigh +and wear on the over-earnest man; abundant physical health,--gifts such +as these made up the manifold equipment of Diderot for rowing and +steering the gigantic enterprise of the "Encyclopædia" triumphantly to +the port of final completion, through many and many a zone of stormy +adverse wind and sea, traversed on the way. Diderot produced no signal +independent and original work of his own; probably he could not have +produced such a work. On the other hand, it is simply just to say that +hardly anybody but Diderot could have achieved the "Encyclopædia." That, +indeed, may be considered an achievement not more to the glory, than to +the shame, of its author; but whatever its true moral character, in +whatever proportion shameful or glorious, it is inalienably and +peculiarly Diderot's achievement; at least in this sense, that without +Diderot the "Encyclopædia" would never have been achieved. + +We have already, in discussing Voltaire, adverted sufficiently to Mr. +John Morley's volumes in honor of Diderot and his compeers. Diderot is +therein ably presented in the best possible light to the reader; and we +are bound to say, that, despite Mr. Morley's friendly endeavors, Diderot +therein appears very ill. He married a young woman, whose simple and +touching self-sacrifice on her husband's behalf, he presently requited +by giving himself away, body and soul, to a rival. In his writings, he +is so easily insincere, that not unfrequently it is a problem, even for +his biographer, to decide when he is expressing his sentiments truly and +when not; insomuch that, once and again, Mr. Morley himself is obliged +to say, "This is probably hypocritical on Diderot's part," or something +to that effect. As for filthy communication out of his mouth and from +his pen,--not, of course, habitual, but occasional,--the subject will +not bear more than this mention. These be thy gods, O Atheism! one, in +reading Mr. Morley on Diderot, is tempted again and again to exclaim. To +offset such lowness of character in the man, it must in justice be added +that Diderot was, notwithstanding, of a generous, uncalculating turn of +mind, not grudging, especially in intellectual relations, to give of his +best to others, expecting nothing again. Diderot, too, as well as +Voltaire, had his royal or imperial friends, in the notorious Empress +Catherine of Russia, and in King Stanislaus of Poland. He visited +Catherine once in her capital, and was there munificently entertained +by her. She was regally pleased to humor this gentleman of France, +permitting him to bring down his fist in gesture violently on the +redoubtable royal knee, according to a pleasant way Diderot had of +emphasizing a point in familiar conversation. His truest claim to praise +for intellectual superiority is, perhaps, that he was a prolific +begetter of wit in other men. + +D'Alembert (Jean le Rond, 1717-1783) was an eminent mathematician. He +wrote especially, though not at first exclusively, on mathematical +subjects, for the "Encyclopædia." He was, indeed, at the outset, +published as mathematical editor of the work. His European reputation in +science made his name a tower of strength to the "Encyclopædia,"--even +after he ceased to be an editorial coadjutor in the enterprise. For +there came a time when D'Alembert abdicated responsibility as editor, +and left the undertaking to fall heavily on the single shoulder, +Atlantean shoulder it proved to be, of Diderot. The celebrated +"Preliminary Discourse," prefixed to the "Encyclopædia," proceeded from +the hand of D'Alembert. This has always been esteemed a masterpiece of +comprehensive grasp and lucid exposition. A less creditable contribution +of D'Alembert's to the "Encyclopædia" was his article on "Geneva," in +the course of which, at the instance of Voltaire, who wanted a chance to +have his plays represented in that city, he went out of his way to +recommend to the Genevans that they establish for themselves a theatre. +This brought out Rousseau in an eloquent harangue against the theatre as +exerting influence to debauch public morals. D'Alembert, in the contest, +did not carry off the honors of the day. D'Alembert's "Éloges," so +called, a series of characterizations and appreciations written by the +author in his old age, of members of the French Academy, enjoy deserved +reputation for sagacious intellectual estimate, and for clear, though +not supremely elegant, style of composition. + +Diderot and D'Alembert are the only men whose names appear on the +title-page of the "Encyclopædia;" but Voltaire, Rousseau, Turgot, +Helvétius, Duclos, Condillac, Buffon, Grimm, D'Holbach, with many others +whom we must not stay even to mention, contributed to the work. + +The influence of the "Encyclopædia," great during its day, is by no +means yet exhausted. But it is an influence indirectly exerted, for the +"Encyclopædia" itself has long been an obsolete work. + +There is a legal maxim that the laws are silent, when a state of war +exists. Certainly, amid the madness of a Revolution such as, during the +closing years of the eighteenth century, the influence of Voltaire, +Rousseau, and the Encyclopædists, with Beaumarchais, reacting against +the accumulated political and ecclesiastical oppressions of ages, +precipitated upon France, it might safely be assumed that letters would +be silent. But the nation meantime was portentously preparing material +for a literature which many wondering centuries to follow would occupy +themselves with writing. + + + + +XVIII. + +EPILOGUE. + + +In looking backward over the preceding pages, we think of many things +which we should like still to say. Of these many things, we limit +ourselves to saying here, as briefly as we can, some four or five only. + +To begin with, in nearly every successive case, we have found ourselves +lamenting afresh that, from the authors to be represented, the +representative extracts must needs be so few and so short. We have, +therefore, sincerely begrudged to ourselves every line of room that we +felt obliged to occupy with matter, preparatory, explanatory, or +critical, of our own. Whatever success we may have achieved in +fulfilling our purpose, our purpose has been to say ourselves barely so +much as was indispensable in order finally to convey, upon the whole, to +our readers, within the allotted space, the justest and the fullest +impression of the selected authors, through the medium of their own +quoted words. + +In the second place, it was with great regret that we yielded to the +necessity of omitting entirely, or dismissing with scant mention, such +literary names, for example, as Boileau, of the age of Louis Quatorze, +and, a little later than he, Fontenelle, spanning with his century of +years the space from 1657 to 1757,--these, and, belonging to the period +that ushered in the Revolution, Bernardin St. Pierre, the teller of the +tale of "Paul and Virginia," with also that hero of a hundred romantic +adventures, Beaumarchais, half Themistocles, half Alcibiades, the author +of "The Barber of Seville." The line had to be drawn somewhere; and, +whether wisely or not, at least thoughtfully, we drew it to run as it +does. + +A third, and a yet graver, occasion of regret was that we must stop +short on the threshold, without crossing it, of the nineteenth-century +literature of France. With so many shining names seen just ahead of us, +beacon-like, to invite our advance, we felt it as a real self-denial to +stay our steps at that point. We hope still to deal with Chateaubriand, +Madame de Staël, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, Sainte-Beuve, Victor Hugo, +and perhaps others, in a future volume. + +Our eye is caught with the antithetical terms, "classicism" and +"romanticism," occurring here and there; and the observation is forced +upon us, that these terms, in their mutual relation, are nowhere by us +defined. The truth is, they scarcely, as thus used, admit of hard and +fast definition. It is in a somewhat loose conventional sense of each +term, that, in late literary language, they are set off, one over +against the other. They name two different, but by no means necessarily +antagonistic, forces or tendencies in literature. Classicism stands for +what you might call the established order, against which romanticism is +a revolt. Paradoxical though it be to say so, both the established +order, and the revolt against it, are good things. The established +order, which was never really any thing more or less than the dominance +in literature of rules and standards derived through criticism from the +acknowledged best models, especially the ancient, tended at last to +cramp and stifle the life which it should, of course, only serve to +shape and conform. The mould, always too narrow perhaps, but at any rate +grown too rigid, needed itself to be fashioned anew. Fresh life, a full +measure, would do this. Such is the true mission of romanticism,--not to +break the mould that classicism sought to impose on literary production, +but to expand that mould, make it more pliant, more free. A mould, for +things living and growing, should be plastic in the passive, as well as +in the active, sense of that word,--should accept form, as well as give +form. Romanticism will accordingly have won its legitimate victory, not +when it shall have destroyed classicism and replaced it, but when it +shall have made classicism over, after the law of a larger life. To risk +a concrete illustration--among our American poets, Bryant, in the +perfectly self-consistent unity of his whole intellectual development, +may be said to represent classicism; while in Lowell, as Lowell appears +in the later, more protracted, phase of his genius, romanticism is +represented. The "Thanatopsis" of Bryant and the "Cathedral" of Lowell +may stand for individual examples respectively of the classic and the +romantic styles in poetry. Compare these two productions, and in the +difference between the chaste, well-pruned severity of the one, and the +indulged, perhaps stimulated, luxuriance of the other, you will feel the +difference between classicism and romanticism. But Victor Hugo is the +great recent romanticist; and when, hereafter, we come to speak somewhat +at large of him, it will be seasonable to enter more fully into the +question of these two tendencies in literature. + +We cannot consent to have said here our very last word, without +emphasizing once again our sense of the really extraordinary +pervasiveness in French literature of that element in it which one does +not like to name, even to condemn it,--we mean its impurity. The +influence of French literary models, very strong among us just now, must +not be permitted insensibly to pervert our own cleaner and sweeter +national habit and taste in this matter. But we, all of us together, +need to be both vigilant and firm; for the beginnings of corruption here +are very insidious. Let us never grow ashamed of our saving Saxon +shamefacedness. They may nickname it prudery, if they will; but let us, +American and English, for our part, always take pride in such prudery. + + + + +INDEX. + +[The merest approximation only can be attempted, in hinting here the +pronunciation of French names. In general, the French distribute the +accent pretty evenly among all the syllables of their words. We mark an +accent on the final syllable, chiefly in order to correct a natural +English tendency to slight that syllable in pronunciation. In a few +cases, we let a well-established English pronunciation stand. N notes a +peculiar nasal sound, ü, a peculiar vowel sound, having no equivalent +in English.] + + +Ab'é-lard (1079-1142), 6. + +Academy, French, 10, 12, 75, 156, 287. + +Æs'chy-lus, 94, 152, 166, 168. + +Æ'sop, 85. + +Al-ci-bi'a-des, 289. + +Alembert. _See_ D'Alembert. + +Al-ex-an'der (the Great), 5, 131. + +Al-ex-an'drine, 5, 86, 153. + +Am-y-ot' (ä-me-o´), Jacques (1513-1593), 8. + +An'ge-lo, Michel, 156. + +Ariosto, 245, 247. + +Ar'is-tot-le, 50. + +Ar-nauld' (ar-nō´), Antoine (1612-1694), 119. + +Ar'thur (King), 5. + +Au'gus-tīne, St., Latin Christian Father, 83. + +Au'gus'tus (the Emperor), 131. + + +Ba'con, Francis, 48, 63. + +Ba'ker, Jehu, 226. + +Bā´laam, 154. + +Băl´zac, Jean Louis Guez de (1594-1654), 10, 11. + +Beau-mar-chais´, de (bō-mar-shā´), Pierre Augustin Caron +(1732-1799), 287, 289. + +Benedictines, 29. + +Boi-leau´-Des-pré-aux´ (bwä-lō´-dā-prā-o´), Nicolas +(1636-1711), 9, 12, 14, 83, 84, 167, 168, 171, 289. + +Bolton, A. S., 69. + +=BOS-SU-ET=´(bo-sü-ā´), Jacques Bénigne (1627-1704), 11, 12, 77, 127, +166, 170, 182-188, 205, 206, 224, 225. + +=BOUR-DA-LOUE=´, Louis (1632-1704), 3, 12, 77, 143, 148, 182, 185, 188, +189-197, 198, 201, 202. + +Brook Farm, 38. + +Bry´ant, William Cullen, 290, 291. + +Buckle, Henry Thomas, 234. + +Buffon (büf-foN´), Georges Louis Leclerc de (1707-1788), 287. + +Bur´gun-dy, Duke of (1682-1712), 177, 207, 208, 209, 214, 216. + +Burke, Edmund, 48, 75. + +Bussy (büs-se´), Count, 135. + +By´ron, Lord, 48. + + +Cæsar, Julius, 56, 131. + +Calas (cä-lä´), Jean, 253. + +Calvin, John (1509-1564), 7. + +Carlyle, Thomas, 251, 255. + +Catherine (Empress of Russia), 285. + +Cham-fort´ (shäN-for´), Sébastien Roch Nicolas (1741-1794), 85. + +_Chanson _(shäN-soN´), 5. + +Char-le-magne´ (shar-le-mān´), 5. + +Charles I. (of England), 170, 185. + +Charles IX. (of France), 63. + +Cha-teau-bri-and´ (shä-tō-bre-äN´), François Auguste de (1768-1848), +3, 13, 14, 206, 277, 289. + +Chaucer, Geoffrey, 5, 20. + +"Classicism," 10, 14, 224, 289, 290. + +Claude, Jean (1619-1687), 182. + +Coleridge, S. T., 7, 34, 43. + +Comines (kō-meen´), Philippe de (1445-1509), 7, 25, 28. + +Condé (koN-dā´), Prince of, "The Great Condé" (1621-1686), 144. + +Condillac (koNde-yäk´), Étienne Bonnot de (1715-1780), 287. + +Condorcet (koN-dor-sā´), Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat de +(1743-1794), 128. + +=CORNEILLE= (kor-nāl´), Pierre (1606-1684), 2, 11, 12, 16, 78, 79, 80, +151-166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 182, 183, 239. + +Cotin (ko-tăN´), Abbé, 100. + +Cotton, Charles (1630-1687), 44, 48. + +Cousin (koo-zăN´), Victor (1792-1867), 128. + + +D'Alembert (dä-läN-bêr´), Jean le Rond (1717-1783), 13, 251, 286, 287. + +Dante, 50, 93, 94, 114. + +David (King), 198. + +Descartes (dā-kärt´), René (1596-1650), 11, 12, 104, 115. + +D'Holbach (dōl-bäk´), Paul Henri Thyry (1723-1789), 287. + +Dickens, Charles, 35, 149. + +Diderot (de-drō´), Denis (1713-1784), 13, 237, 250, 284, 285, 286, +287. + +Dryden, John, 48, 166. + +Duclos (dü-klō´), Charles Pineau (1704-1772), 287. + + +"_Écrasez l'Infâme_," 252. + +Edinburgh Review, 140. + +Edward (the Black Prince), 21-25. + +Edwards, President, 194. + +Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 49, 51, 52, 61. + +Encyclopædia Britannica, 18. + +=ENCYCLOPÆDISTS=, 13, 218, 249, 250, 282-288. + +Epictetus, 65. + +Epicurus, 50. + +Erasmus, 43, 126. + +Euripides, 153, 166, 171. + + +_Fabliaux_ (fab´le-ō´), 6. + +Faugère (fō-zhêr´), Arnaud Prosper (1810- ), 128. + +=FÉNELON= (fān-loN´), François de Salignac de la Mothe (1651-1715), 12, +85, 177, 178, 181, 205-224. + +Fléchier (flā-she-ā´), Esprit (1632-1710), 182. + +Foix (fwä), Count de, 26, 27. + +Fontenelle (foNt-nĕl´), Bernard le Bovier (1657-1757), 289. + +Franciscans, 29. + +Frederick (the Great), 254. + +Friar John, 40. + +=FROISSART= (frwä-sar´), Jean (1337-1410?), 7, 18-28. + + +Gaillard (gă-yar´), Gabriel Henri (1726-1806), 155. + +Gar-gant´ua, 29, 36, 37, 39. + +Gibbon, Edward, 153. + +Goldsmith, Oliver, 83, 225. + +Grignan (green-yäN´), Madame de, 138. + +Grimm, Friedrich Melchior (1723-1807), 287. + +Gulliver's Travels, 37. + +Guyon (ğe-yoN´), Madame (1648-1717), 210. + + +Hallam, Henry, 18, 34. + +Havet (ä-va´) (editor of Pascal's works), 128, 129. + +Hawkesworth, Dr., 222. + +Hazlitt, W. Carew, 48. + +Helvétius (ēl-vā-se-üss´), Claude Adrien (1715-1771), 287. + +Henriette, Princess, 170. + +Henry of Navarre, 63. + +Herod (King), 198. + +Herodotus, 7, 18. + +Holbach. _See_ D'Holbach. + +Homer, 244. + +Hooker ("The judicious"), 205. + +Horace, 245. + +Hugo (ü-go´), Victor. _See_ Victor Hugo. + +Hume, David, 48, 276. + + +Isaiah (the prophet), 94. + +Israel, 154. + + +James (King), 210. + +Job, 94, 210. + +John (the Baptist), 198. + +John (King), 21, 22. + +Johnes, Thomas, 19. + +Johnson, Samuel, 160, 249. + +Joinville (zhwăN-vel´), Jean de (1224?-1319?), 7. + +Julian (the Apostate), 178. + + +Kant, Emmanuel, 42. + +Knox, John, 198. + + +La Boëtie (lä bō-ă-tē´), Étienne (1530-1563), 58, 59. + +=LA BRUYÈRE= (lä brü-e-y êr´), Jean (1646?-1696), 12, 75-81, 153. + +=LA FONTAINE= (lä foN-tān´), Jean de (1621-1695), 12, 81-92. + +Lamartine (lä-mar-tēn´), Alphonse Marie Louis de (1780-1869), 14, 206, 289. + +_Langue d'oc_, 4. + +_Langue d'oïl_, 4. + +Lanier, Sidney (1842-1881), 25. + +=LA ROCHEFOUCAULD= (lä rōsh-foo-kō´), François, Duc de (1613-1680), +12, 48, 66-75, 131, 147, 148. + +Longfellow, Henry W., 50. + +Louis IX. (1215-1270) (St. Louis), 6, 7. + +Louis XI. (1423-1483), 7. + +Louis XIII. (1601-1643), 10, 95. + +Louis XIV. (1638-1715) (Quatorze), 10, 12, 113, 135, 136, 169, 172, 176, +181, 184, 189, 190, 198, 199, 200, 207, 208, 213, 217-219, 223, 255. + +Louis XV. (1710-1774), 199, 214, 254. + +Louvois (loo-vwä´), Marquis de, 142. + +Lowell, James Russell, 291. + +Lucan, 151, 153, 240. + +Lucretius, 94, 166. + +Luther, Martin, 7, 40. + + +Maintenon (măN-teh-noN´), Madame de (1635-1719), 172, 181, 210, 211. + +Malherbe (mäl-êrb´), François (1555-1628), 9, 10, 14. + +Martin (mar-tăN´), Henri (1810- ), 183. + +Mary, Queen of Scots, 8, 198. + +=MASSILLON= (mäs-se-yoN´), Jean Baptiste (1663-1742), 3, 12, 148, 182, +185, 188, 197-205. + +M'Crie, Thomas, 119. + +Michael (the Archangel), 205. + +Milton, John, 92, 182, 206, 247. + +=MOLIÈRE= (mo-le-êr´) (real name, Jean Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-1673), 12, +16, 83, 92-114, 127, 154, 165, 167, 169, 240. + +Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 151. + +=MONTAIGNE= (mon-tān´), Michel Eyquem de (1533-1592), 2, 7, 8, 44-65, +67, 75, 131, 230, 234, 257, 268. + +Montespan (moN-tĕss-päN´), Madame de (1641-1707), 138, 139, 140. + +=MONTESQUIEU=, de (moN-tĕs-kê-uh´), Charles de Secondat (1689-1755), +13, 218, 225-237. + +Morley, Henry, 249. + +Morley, John, 249, 251, 285. + +Motteux, Peter Anthony (1660-1718), 30. + +Musset (mü-sā´) (1810-1857), Alfred de, 289. + + +Napoleon Bonaparte, 13, 166. + +Nathan (the prophet), 198. + +Newton, Sir Isaac, 115. + +Nicole (ne-kŏl´), Pierre (1625-1695), 3, 143, 147, 168. + + +"Obscurantism" (disposition, in the sphere of the intellect, to love +darkness rather than light), 252. + + +Pan-tag´-ru-el, 29, 40, 41, 42. + +Panurge (pä-nürzh´), 40, 41, 42. + +=PASCAL=, Blaise (1623-1662), 3, 12, 48, 62, 65, 80, 115-133, 193. + +Pascal, Jacqueline, 116. + +Pelisson (pĕl-ē-soN´), 149. + +Petrarch, Francesco, 20. + +Phædrus, 85. + +Plato, 50, 51, 59. + +Pleiades (plē´ya-dēz), 8, 10, 13. + +Plutarch, 8, 48, 56. + +Po-co-cu´rant-ism, 248. + +Pompadour, Madame de, 254. + +Pompey, 56. + +Pope, Alexander, 48, 166. + +Poquelin (po-ke-lăN´). _See_ Molière, 94, 95. + +Port Royal, 119, 127, 128, 147, 168. + +Pradon (prä-doN´), 171. + +_Provençal_ (pro-väN-sal), 4. + +Ptolemy Philadelphus, 8. + + +Quentin Durward, 7. + + +=RABELAIS= (ră-blā´), François (1495?-1553?), 3, 7, 28-43, 60, 65, +83, 146. + +=RACINE= (rä-seen´), Jean (1639-1699), 12, 78, 79, 80, 83, 151, 152, 153, +166-181, 205. + +Rambouillet (räN-boo-yā´), Hôtel de, 10, 11, 12, 100, 105, 155, 156, +183. + +Raphael (archangel), 205. + +Récamier (rā-kä-me-ā´), Madame (1777-1849), 11. + +Richard, the Lion-hearted, 117. + +Richelieu (rēsh-le-uh´), Cardinal, 10, 12, 95, 154, 156. + +_Roman_ (ro-mäN´), 5. + +"Romanticism," 224, 289, 290. + +"Romanticists," 14. + +Ronsard (roN-sar´), Pierre de (1524-1585), 8, 9. + +Ronsardism, 14. + +Rousseau (roo-sō´), Jean Baptiste (1670-1741), 255. + +=ROUSSEAU=, Jean Jacques (1712-1778), 3, 13, 14, 48, 206, 218, 249, 250, +251, 255-281, 287. + +Ruskin, John, 73. + +Rutebeuf (rü-te-buf´) (_b._ 1230), _trouvère,_ 6. + + +Sablíère (sä-blï-êr´), Madame de la, 83, 84. + +Saci (sä-se´), M. de, 65. + +Saintsbury, George, 17, 58. + +Sainte-Beuve (săNt-buv´), Charles Augustin (1804-1869), 9, 14, 189, +193, 199, 235, 289. + +Sal´a-din (Saracen antagonist of Richard the Lion-hearted), 117. + +_Salon_ (sä-loN´), 11. + +Sand (säNd), George (Madame Dudevant, 1804-1876), 3, 14. + +Saurin (sō-răN´), Jacques (1677-1730), 182. + +"Savoyard Curate's Confession," 279. + +Scott, Sir Walter, 7, 19, 25, 105. + +Selden, John ("The learned"), 205. + +Seneca, 48, 50. + +SÉVIGNÉ (sā-vēn-yā´), Madame de, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal +(1626-1696), 11, 105, 134-151, 170. + +Shakspeare, 16, 48, 63, 92, 94, 114, 160, 240. + +Socrates (contrasted by Rousseau with Jesus), 280, 281. + +Sophocles, 153, 166, 168. + +Staël-Holstein (stä-ĕl´ ol-stăN´), Anne Louise Grermanie de +(1766-1817), 13, 289. + +Stanislaus (King of Poland), 285. + +St. John, Bayle, 56, 58, 59. + +St. Pierre, Jacques Henri Bernardin de (1737-1814), 289. + +St. Simon (sē-moN´), Louis de Rouvroi, Duc de (1675-1755), 208, 209. + +Swift, Dean, 37. + +Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 94. + + +Tacitus, 7. + +Taine, H. (1828-), 233. + +Tartuffe (tar-tüf´), 106-114, 147. + +Tasso, 245, 247. + +Thélème (tā-lĕm´), 38, 40. + +Themistocles, 289. + +Thibaud (tē-bō´), _troubadour_ (1201-1253), 6. + +Trajan, 254. + +_Troubadour_, 4. + +_Trouvère_ (troo-vêr´), 5, 6. + +Tully (Cicero), 246. + +Turgot (tür-gō´), Anne RobertJacques (1727-1781), 287. + + +Urquhart, Sir Thomas, 30. + + +Van Laun, H., 17. + +Vatel, 143, 144, 145. + +Vauvenargues (vō-ve-narg´), Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de (1715-1747), +79, 80, 81. + +Vercingetorix, 226. + +Victor Hugo (1802-1885), 14, 16, 94, 289, 291. + +Villehardouin (vēl-ar-doo-ăN´), Geoffrey (1165?-1213?), 7. + +Villemain (vēl-măN´), Abel François (1790-1870), 118. + +Virgil, 5, 9, 81, 166, 172, 245. + +Voiture (vwä-tür´), Vincent (1598-1648), 11. + +=VOLTAIRE= (vol-têr´), François Marie Arouet de (1694-1778), 2, 13, 38, +48, 68, 80, 127, 152, 153, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 204, 218, 234, +235, 238-255, 285, 286, 287. + + +Wall, C. H., 106. + +Walpole, Horace, 151, 230. + +Warens (vä-räN´), Madame de, 264, 265, 268, 269, 275. + +Webster, Daniel, 188. + +Wright, Elizur, 86. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Classic French Course in English, by +William Cleaver Wilkinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLASSIC FRENCH COURSE IN ENGLISH *** + +***** This file should be named 23033-0.txt or 23033-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/0/3/23033/ + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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