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diff --git a/26838.txt b/26838.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eae87a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/26838.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21092 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1, by +George Saintsbury + +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: A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 + From the Beginning to 1800 + +Author: George Saintsbury + +Release Date: October 8, 2008 [EBook #26838] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF FRENCH NOVEL, VOL. 1 *** + + + + +Produced by Lee Dawei, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + +A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + +LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS MELBOURNE + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO +DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO + +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. LTD. +TORONTO + + + + +A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL + +(TO THE CLOSE OF THE 19TH CENTURY) + +BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY + +M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.; HON. LL.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.; +FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY; HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD; +LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF +EDINBURGH + +VOL. I + +FROM THE BEGINNING TO 1800 + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1917 + +COPYRIGHT + + + + +PREFACE + + +In beginning what, if it ever gets finished, must in all probability be +the last of some already perhaps too numerous studies of literary +history, I should like to point out that the plan of it is somewhat +different from that of most, if not all, of its predecessors. I have +usually gone on the principle (which I still think a sound one) that, in +studying the literature of a country, or in dealing with such general +characteristics of parts of literature as prosody, or such coefficients +of all literature as criticism, minorities are, sometimes at least, of +as much importance as majorities, and that to omit them altogether is to +risk, or rather to assure, an imperfect--and dangerously +imperfect--product. + +In the present instance, however, I am attempting something that I have +never, at such length, attempted before--the history of a Kind, and a +Kind which has distinguished itself, as few others have done, by +communicating to readers the _pleasure_ of literature. I might almost +say that it is the history of that pleasure, quite as much as the +history of the kind itself, that I wish to trace. In doing so it is +obviously superfluous to include inferiorities and failures, unless they +have some very special lesson or interest, or have been (as in the case +of the minorities on the bridge of the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries) for the most part, and unduly, neglected, though they are +important as experiments and links.[1] We really do want here--what the +reprehensible hedonism of Mr. Matthew Arnold, and his submission to what +some one has called "the eternal enemy, Caprice," wanted in all +cases--"only the chief and principal things." I wish to give a full +history of how what is commonly called the French Novel came into being +and kept itself in being; but I do not wish to give an exhaustive, +though I hope to give a pretty full, account of its practitioners. + +In another point, however, I have kept to my old ways, and that is the +way of beginning at the beginning. I disagree utterly with any Balbus +who would build an absolute wall between romance and novel, or a wall +hardly less absolute between verse- and prose-fiction. I think the +French have (what is not common in their language) an advantage over us +in possessing the general term _Roman_, and I have perhaps taken a +certain liberty with my own title in order to keep the noun-part of it +to a single word. I shall extend the meaning of "novel"--that of _roman_ +would need no extension--to include, not only the prose books, old and +new, which are more generally called "romance," but the verse romances +of the earlier period. + +The subject is one with which I can at least plead almost lifelong +familiarity. I became a subscriber to "Rolandi's," I think, during my +holidays as a senior schoolboy, and continued the subscriptions during +my vacations when I was at Oxford. In the very considerable leisure +which I enjoyed during the six years when I was Classical Master at +Elizabeth College, Guernsey, I read more French than any other +literature, and more novels than anything else in French. In the late +'seventies and early 'eighties, as well as more recently, I had to round +off and fill in my knowledge of the older matter, for an elaborate +account of French literature in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, for a +long series of articles on French novelists in the _Fortnightly Review_, +and for the _Primer_ and _Short History_ of the subject which I wrote +for the Clarendon Press; while from 1880 to 1894, as a _Saturday +Review_er, I received, every month, almost everything notable (and a +great deal hardly worth noting) that had appeared in France. + +Since then, the cutting off of this supply, and the extreme and constant +urgency of quite different demands on my time, have made my cultivation +of the once familiar field "_parc_ and infrequent." But I doubt whether +any really good judge would say that this was a serious drawback in +itself; and it ceases to be one, even relatively, by the restriction of +the subject to the close of the last century. It will be time to write +of the twentieth-century novel when the twentieth century itself has +gone more than a little farther. + +For the abundance of translation, in the earlier part especially, I +need, I think, make no apology. I shall hardly, by any one worth +hearing, be accused of laziness or scamping in consequence of it, for +translation is much more troublesome, and takes a great deal more time, +than comment or history. The advantage, from all other points of view, +should need no exposition: nor, I think, should that of pretty full +story-abstract now and then. + +There is one point on which, at the risk of being thought to "talk too +much of my matters," I should like to say a further word. All my books, +before the present volume, have been composed with the aid of a +library, not very large, but constantly growing, and always reinforced +with special reference to the work in hand; while I was able also, on +all necessary occasions, to visit Oxford or London (after I left the +latter as a residence), and for twenty years the numerous public or +semi-public libraries of Edinburgh were also open to me. This present +_History_ has been outlined in expectation for a very long time; and has +been actually laid down for two or three years. But I had not been able +to put much of it on paper when circumstances, while they gave me +greater, indeed almost entire, leisure for writing, obliged me to part +with my own library (save a few books with a reserve _pretium +affectionis_ on them), and, though they brought me nearer both to Oxford +and to London, made it less easy for me to visit either. The London +Library, that Providence of unbooked authors, came indeed to my aid, for +without it I should have had to leave the book alone altogether; and I +have been "munitioned" sometimes, by kindness or good luck, in other +ways. But I have had to rely much more on memory, and of course in some +cases on previous writing of my own, than ever before, though, except in +one special case,[2] there will be found, I think, not a single page of +mere "rehashing." I mention this without the slightest desire to beg +off, in one sense, from any omissions or mistakes which may be found +here, but merely to assure my readers that such mistakes and omissions +are not due to idle and careless bookmaking. That "books have fates" is +an accepted proposition. In respect to one of these--possession of +materials and authorities--mine have been exceptionally fortunate +hitherto, and if they had any merit it was no doubt largely due to this. +I have, in the present, endeavoured to make the best of what was not +quite such good fortune. And if anybody still says, "Why did you not +wait till you could supply deficiencies?" I can only reply that, after +seventy, [Greek: nyx gar erchetai] is a more insistent warrant, and +warning, than ever.[3] + + GEORGE SAINTSBURY. + + [_Edinburgh, 1914-15; Southampton, 1915-16_] + 1 ROYAL CRESCENT, BATH, _May 31, 1917_. + + + + +ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA + + +P. 3, _note_.--This note was originally left vague, because, in the +first place, to perform public and personal fantasias with one's spear +on the shield of a champion, with whom one does not intend to fight out +the quarrel, seems to me bad chivalry, and secondly, because those +readers who were likely to be interested could hardly mistake the +reference. The regretted death, a short time after the page was sent to +press, of Mr. W. J. Courthope may give occasion to an acknowledgment, +coupled with a sincere _ave atque vale_. Mr. Courthope was never an +intimate friend of mine, and our agreement was greater in political than +in literary matters: but for more than thirty years we were on the best +terms of acquaintance, and I had a thorough respect for his +accomplishments. + +P. 20, l. 5.--_Fuerres de Gadres._ I wonder how many people thought of +this when Englishmen "forayed Gaza" just before Easter, 1917? + +P. 46, mid-page.--It so happened that, some time after having passed +this sheet for press, I was re-reading Dante (as is my custom every year +or two), and came upon that other passage (in the _Paradiso_, and +therefore not known to more than a few of the thousands who know the +Francesca one) in which the poet refers to the explanation between +Lancelot and the Queen. It had escaped my memory (though I think I may +say honestly that I knew it well enough) when I passed the sheet: but it +seemed to me that perhaps some readers, who do not care much for +"parallel passages" in the pedantic sense, might, like myself, feel +pleasure in having the great things of literature, in different places, +brought together. Moreover, the _Paradiso_ allusion seems to have +puzzled or misled most of the commentators, including the late Mr. A. J. +Butler, who, by his translation and edition of the _Purgatorio_ in 1880, +was my Virgil to lead me through the _Commedia_, after I had sinfully +neglected it for exactly half a life-time. He did not know, and might +easily not have known, the Vulgate _Lancelot_: but some of those whom he +cites, and who evidently _did_ know it, do not seem to have recognised +the full significance of the passage in Dante. The text will give the +original: the _Paradiso_ (xvi. 13-15) reference tells how Beatrice +(after Cacciaguida's biographical and historical recital, and when +Dante, in a confessed outburst of family pride, addresses his ancestor +with the stately _Voi_), "smiling, appeared like her who coughed at the +first fault which is written of Guinevere." This, of course (see text +once more), is the Lady of Malahault, though Dante does not name her as +he does Prince Galahault in the other _locus_. The older commentators +(who, as has been said, _did_ know the original) do not seem to have +seen in the reference much more than that both ladies noticed, and +perhaps approved, what was happening. But I think there is more in it. +The Lady of Malahault (see note in text) had previously been aware that +Lancelot was deeply in love, though he would not tell her with whom. Her +cough therefore meant: "Ah! I have found you out." Now Beatrice, well as +she knew Dante's propensity to love, knew as well that _pride_ was even +more of a besetting weakness of his. This was quite a harmless instance +of it: but still it _was_ an instance--and the "smile" which is _not_ +recorded of the Arthurian lady meant: "Ah! I have _caught_ you out." +Even if this be excessive "reading into" the texts, the juxtaposition of +them may not be unsatisfactory to some who are not least worth +satisfying. (Since writing this, I have been reminded that Mr. Paget +Toynbee did make the "juxtaposition" in his Clarendon Press _Specimens +of Old French_ (October, 1892), printing there the "Lady of Malahault" +passage from MSS. copied by Professor Ker. But there can be no harm in +duplicating it.) + +P. 121, ll. 8-10. Perhaps instead of, or at least beside, Archdeacon +Grantly I should have mentioned a more real dignitary (as some count +reality) of the Church, Charles Kingsley. The Archdeacon and the Canon +would have fought on many ecclesiastical and some political grounds, but +they might have got on as being, in Dr. Grantly's own words at a +memorable moment "both gentlemen." At any rate, Kingsley was soaked in +Rabelais, and one of the real curiosities of literature is the way in +which the strength of _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ helped to beget the +sweetness of _The Water Babies_. + +Chap. viii. pp. 163-175.--After I had "made my" own "siege" of the +_Astree_ on the basis of notes recording a study of it at the B.M., Dr. +Hagbert Wright of the London Library was good enough to let me know that +his many years' quest of the book had been at last successful, and to +give me the first reading of it. (It was Southey's copy, with his own +unmistakable autograph and an inserted note, while it also contained a +cover of a letter addressed to him, which had evidently been used as a +book-mark.) Although not more than four months had passed since the +previous reading, I found it quite as appetising as (in the text itself) +I had expressed my conviction that it would be: and things not noticed +before cropped up most agreeably. There is no space to notice all or +many of them here. But one of the earliest, due to Hylas, cannot be +omitted, for it is the completest and most sententious vindication of +polyerotism ever phrased: "Ce n'etait pas que je n'aimasse les autres: +mais j'avais encore, outre leur place, celle-ci vide dans mon ame." And +the soul of Hylas, like Nature herself, abhorred a vacuum! (This +approximation is not intended as "new and original": but it was some +time after making it that I recovered, in _Notre Dame de Paris_, a +forgotten anticipation of it by Victor Hugo.) + +Another early point of interest was that the frontispiece portrait of +Astree (the edition, see _Bibliography_, appears to be the latest of the +original and ungarbled ones, _imprimee a Rouen, et se vend a Paris_ +(1647, 10 vols.)) is evidently a portrait, though not an identical one, +of the same face given in the Abbe Reure's engraving of Diane de +Chateaumorand herself. The nose, especially, is hardly mistakable, but +the eyes have rather less expression, and the mouth less character, +though the whole face (naturally) looks younger. + +On the other hand, the portrait here--not of Celadon, but admittedly of +Honore d'Urfe himself--is much less flattering than that in the Abbe's +book. + +Things specially noted in the second reading would (it has been said) +overflow all bounds here possible: but we may perhaps find room for +three lines from about the best of the very numerous but not very +poetical verses, at the beginning of the sixth (_i.e._ the middle of the +original _third_) volume: + + _Le prix d'Amour c'est l'Amour meme._ + Change d'humeur qui s'y plaira, + Jamais Hylas ne changera, + +the two last being the continuous refrain of a "villanelle" in which +this bad man boasts his constancy in inconstancy. + +P. 265, _note_ 1.--It ought perhaps to be mentioned that Mlle. de +Lussan's paternity is also, and somewhat more probably, attributed to +Eugene's elder brother, Thomas of Savoy, Comte de Soissons. The lady is +said to have been born in 1682, when Eugene (b. 1663) was barely +nineteen; but of course this is not decisive. His brother Thomas +_Amedee_ (b. 1656) was twenty-six at the time. The attribution above +mentioned gave no second name, and did not specify the relationship to +Eugene: so I had some difficulty in identifying the person, as there +were, in the century, three Princes Thomas of Savoy, and I had few books +of reference. But my old friend and constant helper in matters +historical, the Rev. William Hunt, D.Litt., cleared the point up for me. +Of the other two--Thomas _Francois_, who was by marriage Comte de +Soissons and was grandfather of Eugene and Thomas Amedee, died in the +same year in which Thomas Amedee was born, therefore twenty-six before +Mlle. de Lussan's birth: while the third, Thomas _Joseph_, Eugene's +cousin, was not born till 1796, fourteen years after the lady. The +matter is, of course, of no literary importance: but as I had passed the +sheet for press before noticing the diversity of statements, I thought +it better to settle it. + +P. 267. Pajon. I ought not to have forgotten to mention that he bears +the medal of Sir Walter Scott (Introduction to _The Abbot_) as "a +pleasing writer of French Fairy Tales." + +Page 453.--Choderlos de Laclos. Some surprise has been expressed by a +friend of great competence at my leaving out _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_. +I am, of course, aware that "persons of distinction" have taken an +interest in it; and I understand that, not many years ago, the +unfortunate author of the beautiful lines _To Cynara_ wasted his time +and talent on translating the thing. To make sure that my former +rejection was not unjustified, I have accordingly read it with care +since the greater part of this book was passed for press; and it shall +have a judgment here, if not in the text. I am unable to find any +redeeming point in it, except that some ingenuity is shown in bringing +about the _denouement_ by a rupture between the villain-hero and the +villainess-heroine, M. le Vicomte de Valmont and Mme. la Marquise de +Merteuil. Even this, though fairly craftsmanlike in treatment, is banal +enough in idea--that idea being merely that jealousy, in both sexes, +survives love, shame, and everything else, even community in +scoundrelism--in other words, that the green-eyed monster (like "Vernon" +and unlike "Ver") _semper viret_. But it is scarcely worth one's while +to read six hundred pages of very small print in order to learn this. Of +amusement, as apart from this very elementary instruction, I at least +can find nothing. The pair above mentioned, on whom practically hangs +the whole appeal, are merely disgusting. Their very voluptuousness is +accidental: the sum and substance, the property and business of their +lives and natures, are compact of mischief, malice, treachery, and the +desire of "getting the better of somebody." Nor has this diabolism +anything grand or impressive about it--anything that "intends greatly" +and glows, as has been said, with a black splendour, in Marlowesque or +Websterian fashion. Nor, again, is it a "Fleur du Mal" of the +Baudelairian kind, but only an ugly as well as noxious weed. It is +prosaic and suburban. There is neither tragedy nor comedy, neither +passion nor humour, nor even wit, except a little horse-play. Congreve +and Crebillon are as far off as Marlowe and Webster; in fact, the +descent from Crebillon's M. de Clerval to Laclos' M. de Valmont is +almost inexpressible. And, once more, there is nothing to console one +but the dull and obvious moral that to adopt love-making as an +"occupation" (_vide_ text, p. 367) is only too likely to result in the +[Greek: techne] becoming, in vulgar hands, very [Greek: banausos] +indeed. + +The victims and _comparses_ of the story do nothing to atone for the +principals. The lacrimose stoop-to-folly-and-wring-his-bosom Mme. de +Tourvel is merely a bore; the _ingenue_ Cecile de Volanges is, as Mme. +de Merteuil says, a _petite imbecile_ throughout, and becomes no better +than she should be with the facility of a predestined strumpet; her +lover, Valmont's rival, and Mme. de Merteuil's plaything, M. le +Chevalier Danceny, is not so very much better than _he_ should be, and +nearly as much an imbecile in the masculine way as Cecile in the +feminine; her respectable mother and Valmont's respectable aunt are not +merely as blind as owls are, but as stupid as owls are not. Finally, the +book, which in many particular points, as well as in the general +letter-scheme, follows Richardson closely (adding clumsy notes to +explain the letters, apologise for their style, etc.), exhibits most of +the faults of its original with hardly any of that original's merits. +Valmont, for instance, is that intolerable creature, a pattern Bad +Man--a Grandison-Lovelace--a prig of vice. Indeed, I cannot see how any +interest can be taken in the book, except that derived from its +background of _tacenda_; and though no one, I think, who has read the +present volume will accuse me of squeamishness, _I_ can find in it no +interest at all. The final situations referred to above, if artistically +led up to and crisply told in a story of twenty to fifty pages, might +have some; but ditchwatered out as they are, I have no use for them. The +letter-form is particularly unfortunate, because, at least as used, it +excludes the ironic presentation which permits one almost to fall in +love with Becky Sharp, and quite to enjoy _Jonathan Wild_. Of course, if +anybody says (and apologists _do_ say that Laclos was, as a man, proper +in morals and mild in manners) that to hold up the wicked to mere +detestation is a worthy work, I am not disposed to argue the point. +Only, for myself, I prefer to take moral diatribes from the clergy and +aesthetic delectation from the artist. The avenging duel between +Lovelace and Colonel Morden is finely done; that between Valmont and +Danceny is an obvious copy of it, and not finely done at all. Some, +again, of the riskiest passages in subject are made simply dull by a +Richardsonian particularity which has no seasoning either of humour or +of excitement. Now, a Richardson _de mauvais lieu_ is more than a +bore--it is a nuisance, not pure and simple, but impure and complex. + +I have in old days given to a few novels (though, of course, only when +they richly deserved it) what is called a "slating"--an +_ereintement_--as I once had the honour of translating that word in +conversation, at the request of a distinguished English novelist, for +the benefit of a distinguished French one. Perhaps an example of the +process is not utterly out of place in a _History_ of the novel itself. +But I have long given up reviewing fiction, and I do not remember any +book of which I shall have to speak as I have just spoken. So _hic +caestus_, etc.--though I am not such a coxcomb as to include _victor_ in +the quotation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] For the opposite or corresponding reasons, it has seemed unnecessary +to dwell on such persons, a hundred and more years later, as Voisenon +and La Morliere, who are merely "corrupt followers" of Crebillon _fils_; +or, between the two groups, on the numerous failures of the +quasi-historical kind which derived partly from Mlle. de Scudery and +partly from Mme. de la Fayette. + +[2] That of the minor "Sensibility" novelists in the last chapter. + +[3] I have once more to thank Professors Ker, Elton, and Gregory Smith +for their kindness in reading my proofs and making most valuable +suggestions; as well as Professor Fitzmaurice-Kelly and the Rev. William +Hunt for information on particular points. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + PAGE + +INTRODUCTORY 1 + +The early history of prose fiction--The late classical +stage--A _nexus_ of Greek and French romance?--the facts +about the matter--The power and influence of the "Saint's +Life"--The Legend of St. Eulalia--The _St. Alexis_. + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MATTERS OF FRANCE, ROME, AND BRITAIN 9 + +The _Chanson de Geste_--The proportions of history and +fiction in them--The part played by language, prosody, and +manners--Some drawbacks--But a fair balance of actual story +merit--Some instances of this--The classical borrowings: +Troy and Alexander--_Troilus_--_Alexander_--The Arthurian +Legend--Chrestien de Troyes and the theories about him--His +unquestioned work--Comparison of the _Chevalier a la +Charette_ and the prose _Lancelot_--The constitution of the +Arthuriad--Its approximation to the novel proper--Especially +in the characters and relations of Lancelot and +Guinevere--Lancelot--Guinevere--Some minor +points--Illustrative extracts translated from the "Vulgate": +the youth of Lancelot--The first meeting of Lancelot and +Guinevere--The scene of the kiss--Some further remarks on +the novel-character of the story--And the personages--Books. + + +CHAPTER III + +ROMANS D'AVENTURES 55 + +Variety of the present group--Different views held of +it--_Partenopeus of Blois_ selected for analysis and +translation. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSE FICTION 73 + +Prose novelettes of the thirteenth century: _Aucassin et +Nicolette_ not quite typical--_L'Empereur Constant_ more +so--_Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane_--_La Comtesse de +Ponthieu_--Those of the fourteenth: +_Asseneth_--_Troilus_--_Foulques Fitzwarin_--Something on +these--And on the short story generally. + + +CHAPTER V + +ALLEGORY, FABLIAU, AND PROSE STORY OF COMMON LIFE 89 + +The connection with prose fiction of allegory--And of the +_fabliaux_--The rise of the _nouvelle_ itself--_Les Cent +Nouvelles Nouvelles_--Analysis of "La Demoiselle +Cavaliere"--The interest of _namea_ personages--_Petit Jehan +de Saintre_--_Jehan de Paris._ + + +CHAPTER VI + +RABELAIS 105 + +The anonymity, or at least impersonality, of authorship up +to this point--Rabelais unquestionably the first very great +known writer--But the first great novelist?--Some objections +considered--And dismissed as affecting the general +attraction of the book--Which lies, largely if not wholly, +in its story-interest--Contrast of the _Moyen de +Parvenir_--A general theme possible--A reference, to be +taken up later, to the last Book--Running survey of the +whole--_Gargantua_--The birth and education--The war--The +Counsel to Picrochole--The peace and the Abbey of +Thelema--_Pantagruel_ I. The contrasted +youth--Panurge--Short view of the sequels in Book +II.--_Pantagruel_ II. (Book III.) The marriage of Panurge +and the consultations on it--_Pantagruel_ III. (Book IV.) +The first part of the voyage--_Pantagruel_ IV. (Book V.) The +second part of the voyage: the "Isle Sonnante"--"La +Quinte"--The conclusion and The Bottle. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SUCCESSORS OF RABELAIS AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE +"AMADIS" ROMANCES 134 + +Subsidiary importance of Brantome and other +character-mongers--The _Heptameron_--Note on +Montaigne--Character and "problems"--Parlamente on human and +divine love--Desperiers--_Contes et Joyeux Devis_--Other +tale-collections--The "provincial" character of these--The +_Amadis_ romances--Their characteristics--Extravagance in +incident, nomenclature, etc.--The "cruel" heroine--Note on +Helisenne de Crenne. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--I. 152 + +_The Pastoral and Heroic Romance, and the Fairy Story._ + +Immense importance of the seventeenth century in our +subject--The divisions of its contribution--Note on marked +influence of Greek Romance--The Pastoral in general--Its +beginnings in France--Minor romances preceding the +_Astree_--Their general character--Examples of their +style--Montreux and the _Bergeries de Juliette_--Des +Escuteaux and his _Amours Diverses_--Francois de Moliere: +_Polyxene_--Du Perier: _Arnoult et Clarimonde_--Du Croset: +_Philocalie_--Corbin: _Philocaste_--Jean de Lannoi and his +_Roman Satirique_--Beroalde de Verville outside the _Moyen +de Parvenir_--The _Astree_: its author--The book--Its +likeness to the _Arcadia_--Its philosophy and its general +temper--Its appearance and its author's other work--Its +character and appeals--Hylas and Stella and their +Convention--Narrative skill frequent--The Fountain of the +Truth of Love--Some drawbacks: awkward history--But +attractive on the whole--The general importance and +influence--The _Grand Cyrus_--Its preface to Madame de +Longueville--The "Address to the Reader"--The opening of the +"business"--The ups and downs of the general conduct of the +story--Extracts: the introduction of Cyrus to Mandane--His +soliloquy in the pavilion--The Fight of the Four +Hundred--The abstract resumed--The oracle to +Philidaspes--The advent of Araminta--Her correspondence with +Spithridates--Some interposed comments--Analysis +resumed--The statue in the gallery at Sardis--The judgment +of Cyrus in a court of love--Thomyris on the +warpath--General remarks on the book and its class--The +other Scudery romances: +_Ibrahim_--_Almahide_--_Clelie_--Perhaps the liveliest of +the set--Rough outline of it--La Calprenede: his +comparative cheerfulness--_Cleopatre_: the Cypassis and +Arminius episode--The book +generally--_Cassandre_--_Faramond_--Gomberville: _La +Caritee_--_Polexandre_--Camus: _Palombe_, etc.--Hedelin +d'Aubignac: _Macarise_--Gombauld: _Endimion_--Mme. de +Villedieu--_Le Grand Alcandre Frustre_--The collected +love-stories--Their historic liberties--_Carmente_, +etc.--Her value on the whole--The fairy tale--Its _general_ +characteristics: the happy ending--Perrault and Mme. +d'Aulnoy--Commented examples: _Gracieuse et +Percinet_--_L'Adroite Princesse_--The danger of the +"moral"--Yet often redeemed--The main _Cabinet des Fees_: +more on Mme. d'Aulnoy--Warning against disappointment--Mlle. +de la Force and others--The large proportion of Eastern +Tales--_Les Voyages de Zulma_--Fenelon--Caylus--_Prince +Courtebotte et Princesse Zibeline_--_Rosanie_--_Prince +Muguet et Princesse Zaza_--Note on _Le Diable Amoureux_. + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--II. 274 + +_From "Francion" to "La Princesse de Cleves"--Anthony Hamilton._ + +The material of the chapter--Sorel and _Francion_--The +_Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_--Scarron and the _Roman +Comique_--The opening scene of this--Furetiere and the +_Roman Bourgeois_--Nicodeme takes Javotte home from +church--Cyrano de Bergerac and his _Voyages_--Mme. de la +Fayette and _La Princesse de Cleves_--Its central +scene--Hamilton and the Nymph--The opening of _Fleur +d'Epine_--_Les Quatre Facardins_. + + +CHAPTER X + +LESAGE, MARIVAUX, PREVOST, CREBILLON 325 + +The subjects of the chapter--Lesage: his Spanish +connections--Peculiarity of his work generally--And its +variety--_Le Diable Boiteux_--Lesage and Boileau--_Gil +Blas_: its peculiar cosmopolitanism--And its adoption of the +_homme sensuel moyen_ fashion--Its inequality, in the Second +and Fourth Books especially--Lesage's quality: not requiring +many words, but indisputable--Marivaux: _Les Effets de la +Sympathie_ (?)--His work in general--_Le Paysan +Parvenu_--_Marianne_: outline of the story--Importance of +Marianne herself--Marivaux and Richardson: +"Marivaudage"--Examples: Marianne on the _physique_ and +_moral_ of Prioresses and Nuns--She returns the +gift-clothes--Prevost--His minor novels: the opinions on +them of Sainte-Beuve--And of Planche--The books themselves: +_Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_--_Cleveland_--_Le Doyen de +Killerine_--_The Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_--Its +miscellaneous curiosities--_Manon Lescaut_--Its +uniqueness--The character of its heroine--And that of the +hero--The inevitableness of both and the inestimableness of +their history--Crebillon _fils_--The case against him--For +the defendant: the veracity of his artificiality and his +consummate cleverness--The Crebillonesque atmosphere and +method--Inequality of his general work; a survey of it. + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE _PHILOSOPHE_ NOVEL 377 + +The use of the novel for "purpose"; Voltaire--General +characteristics of his tales--_Candide_--_Zadig_ and its +satellites--_Micromegas_--_L'Ingenu_--_La Princesse de +Babylone_--Some minors--Voltaire, the Kehl edition, and +Plato--An attempt at different evaluation of +himself--Rousseau: the novel character of the +_Confessions_--The ambiguous position of _Emile_--_La +Nouvelle Heloise_--Its numerous and grave faults--The minor +characters--The delinquencies of Saint-Preux--And the less +charming points of Julie; her redemption--And the better +side of the book generally--But little probability of more +good work in novel from its author--The different case of +Diderot--His gifts and the waste of them--The various +display of them--_Le Neveu de Rameau_--_Jacques le +Fataliste_--Its "Arcis-Pommeraye" episode--_La +Religieuse_--Its story--A hardly missed, if missed, +masterpiece--The successors--Marmontel--His "Telemachic" +imitations worth little--The best of his _Contes Moraux_ +worth a good deal--_Alcibiade ou le Moi_--_Soliman the +Second_--_The Four Flasks_--_Heureusement_--_Le Philosophe +Soi-disant_--A real advance in these--Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre. + + +CHAPTER XII + +"SENSIBILITY." MINOR AND LATER NOVELISTS. THE FRENCH +NOVEL, _c._ 1800 428 + +"Sensibility"--A glance at Miss Austen--The thing +essentially French--Its history--Mme. de Tencin and _Le +Comte de Comminge_--Mme. Riccoboni and _Le Marquis de +Cressy_--Her other work: _Milady Catesby_--Mme. de Beaumont: +_Lettres du Marquis de Roselle_--Mme. de Souza--Xavier de +Maistre--His illustrations of the lighter side of +Sensibility--A sign of decadence--Benjamin Constant: +_Adolphe_--Mme. de Duras's "postscript"--_Sensibilite_ and +_engouement_--Some final words on the matter--Its importance +here--Restif de la Bretonne--Pigault-Lebrun: the difference +of his positive and relative importance--His life and the +reasons for giving it--His general +characteristics--_L'Enfant du Carnaval_ and _Les Barons de +Felsheim_--_Angelique et Jeanneton_--_Mon Oncle +Thomas_--_Jerome_--The redeeming points of these--Others: +_Adelaide de Meran and Tableaux de +Societe_--_L'Officieux_--Further examples--Last words on +him--The French novel in 1800. + +CHRONOLOGICAL CONSPECTUS OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRENCH +FICTION NOTICED IN THIS VOLUME 475 + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 479 + +INDEX 483 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTORY + + +[Sidenote: The early history of prose fiction.] + +Although I have already, in two places,[4] given a somewhat precise +account of the manner in which fiction in the modern sense of the term, +and especially prose fiction, came to occupy a province in modern +literature which had been so scantily and infrequently cultivated in +ancient, it would hardly be proper to enter upon the present subject +with a mere reference to these other treatments. It is matter of +practically no controversy (or at least of none in which it is worth +while to take a part) that the history of prose fiction, before the +Christian era, is very nearly a blank, and that, in the fortunately +still fairly abundant remains of poetic fiction, "the story is the least +part" (as Dryden says in another sense), or at least the _telling_ of +the story, in our modern sense, is so. Homer (in the _Odyssey_ at any +rate), Herodotus (in what was certainly not intentional fiction at all), +and Xenophon[5] are about the only Greek writers who can tell a story, +for the magnificent narrative of Thucydides in such cases as those of +the Plague and the Syracusan cataclysm shows all the "headstrong" +_ethos_ of the author in its positive refusal to assume a "story" +character. In Latin there is nothing before Livy and Ovid;[6] of whom +the one falls into the same category with Herodotus and Xenophon, and +the other, admirable _raconteur_ as he is, thinks first of his poetry. +Scattered tales we have: "mimes" and other things there are some, and +may have been more. But on the whole the schedule is not filled: there +are no entries for the competition. + +[Sidenote: The late classical stage.] + +In later classical literature, both Greek and Latin, the state of things +alters considerably, though even then it cannot be said that fiction +proper--that is to say, either prose or verse in which the +accomplishment of the form is distinctly subordinate to the interesting +treatment of the subject--constitutes a very large department, or even +any regular department at all. If Lucius of Patrae was a real person, +and much before Lucian, he may dispute with Petronius--that +first-century Maupassant or Meredith, or both combined--the actual +foundation of the novel as we have it; but Lucian himself and Apuleius +(strangely enough handling the same subject in the two languages) give +securer and more solid starting-places. Yet nothing follows Apuleius; +though some time after Lucian the Greek romance, of which we have still +a fair number of examples (spread, however, over a still larger number +of centuries), establishes itself in a fashion. It does one thing, +indeed, which in a way refounds or even founds the whole conception--it +establishes the heroine. There are certainly feminine persons, sometimes +not disagreeable, who play conspicuous and by no means mute or +unpractical parts in both Greek and Latin versions of the Ass-Legend; +but one can hardly call them heroines. There need be no chicane about +the application of that title to Chloe or to Chariclea, to Leucippe or +to her very remarkable rival, to Anthia or to Hysmine. Without the +heroine you can hardly have romance: the novel without her (though her +individuality may be put in commission) is an absolute impossibility. + +[Sidenote: A _nexus_ of Greek and French romance? The facts about the +matter.] + +The connection between these curious performances (with the much larger +number of things like them which we know to have existed) on the one +side, and the Western mediaeval romance on the other, has been at +various times matter of considerable controversy; but it need not +trouble us much here. The Greek romance was to have very great influence +on the French novel later: on the earlier composition, generally called +by the same name as itself, it would seem[7] to have had next to none. +Until we come to _Floire et Blanchefleur_ and perhaps _Parthenopex_, +things of a comparatively late stage, obviously post-Crusade, and so +necessarily exposed to, and pretty clearly patient of, Greek-Eastern +influence, there is nothing in Old French which shows even the same +kinship to the Greek stories as the Old English _Apollonius of Tyre_, +which was probably or rather certainly in the original Greek itself. The +sources of French "romance"--I must take leave to request a "truce of +God" as to the application of that term and of "epic" for present +purposes--appear to have been two--the Saint's Life and the patriotic or +family _saga_, the latter in the first place indelibly affected by the +Mahometan incursions of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. The +story-telling instinct--kindled by, or at first devoted to, these +subjects--subsequently fastened on numerous others. In fact almost all +was fish that came to the magic net of Romance; and though two great +subjects of ours, the "Matter of Britain" (the Arthurian Legend) and the +"Matter of Rome" (classical story generally, including the Tale of +Troy), came traditionally to rank themselves with the "Matter of France" +and with the great range of hagiology which it might have been dangerous +to proclaim a fourth "matter" (even if anybody had been likely to take +the view that it was so), these classifications are, like most of their +kind, more specious than satisfactory. + +[Sidenote: The power and influence of the "Saint's Life."] + +Any person--though indeed it is to be feared that the number of such +persons is not very large--who has some knowledge of hagiology _and_ +some of literature will admit at once that the popular notion of a +Saint's Life being necessarily a dull and "goody" thing is one of the +foolishest pieces of presumptuous ignorance, and one of the most +ignorant pieces of foolish presumption. Not only have modern novelists +sometimes been better informed and better inspired--as in the case of +more than one version of the Legends of St. Mary of Egypt, of St. +Julian, of Saint Christopher, and others--but there remain scores if not +hundreds of beautiful things that have been wholly or all but wholly +neglected. It is impossible to imagine a better romance, either in verse +or in prose, than might have been made by William Morris if he had kept +his earliest loves and faiths and had taken the _variorum_ Legend of St. +Mary Magdalene, as we have it in divers forms from quite early French +and English to the fifteenth-century English Miracle Play on the +subject. That of St. Eustace ("Sir Isumbras"), though old letters and +modern art have made something of it, has also never been fully +developed in the directions which it opens up; and one could name many +others. But it has to be admitted that the French (whether, as some +would say, naturally enough or not) never gave the Saint's Life pure and +simple the development which it received in English. It started them--I +at least believe this--in the story-telling way; but cross-roads, to +them more attractive, soon presented themselves. + +[Sidenote: The Legend of St. Eulalia.] + +Still, it started them. I hope it is neither intolerably fanciful nor +the mere device of a compiler anxious to make his arrows of all wood, to +suggest that there is something noteworthy in the nature of the very +first piece of actual French which we possess. The Legend of St. Eulalia +can be tried pretty high; for we have[8] the third hymn of the +_Peristephanon_ of Prudentius to compare it with. The metre of this + + Germine nobilis Eulalia + +is not one of the best, and contrasts ill with the stately +decasyllables--perhaps the very earliest examples of that mighty metre +that we have--which the infant daughter-tongue somehow devised for +itself some centuries later. But Prudentius is almost always a poet, if +a poet of the decadence, and he had as instruments a language and a +prosody which were like a match rifle to a bow and arrows--_not_ of yew +and _not_ cloth-yard shafts--when contrasted with the dialect and +speech-craft of the unknown tenth-century Frenchman. Yet from some +points of view, and especially from ours, the Anonymus of the Dark Ages +wins. Prudentius spins out the story into two hundred and fifteen lines, +with endless rhetorical and poetical amplification. He wants to say that +Eulalia was twelve years old; but he actually informs us that + + Curriculis tribus atque novem, + Tres hyemes quater attigerat, + +and the whole history of the martyrdom is attitudinised and bedizened in +the same fashion. + +Now listen to the noble simplicity of the first French poet and +tale-teller: + + A good maiden was Eulalia: fair had she the body, but the + soul fairer. The enemies of God would fain conquer + her--would fain make her serve the fiend. She listened not + to the evil counsellors, that she should deny God, who + abideth in Heaven aloft--neither for gold, nor for silver, + nor for garments; for the royal threatenings, nor for + entreaties. Nothing could ever bend the damsel so that she + should not love the service of God. And for that reason she + was brought before Maximian, who was the King in those days + over the pagans. And he exhorted her--whereof she took no + care--that she should flee from the name of Christian. But + she assembled all her strength that she might rather sustain + the torments than lose her virginity: for which reason she + died in great honour. They cast her in the fire when it + burnt fiercely: but she had no fault in her, and so it + pained her [_or_ she burnt[9]] not. + + To this would not trust the pagan king: but with a sword he + bade them take off her head. The damsel did not gainsay this + thing: she would fain let go this worldly life if Christ + gave command. And in shape of a dove she flew to heaven. Let + us all pray that she may deign to intercede for us; that + Christ may upon us have mercy after death, and of His + clemency may allow us to come to Him. + +[Sidenote: The _St. Alexis_.] + +Of course this is story-telling in its simplest form and on its smallest +scale: but the essentials are there, and the non-essentials can be +easily supplied--as indeed they are to some extent in the _Life of St. +Leger_ and to a greater in the _Life of St. Alexis_, which almost follow +the _Sainte-Eulalie_ in the making of French literature. The _St. +Alexis_ indeed provides something like a complete scheme of romance +interest, and should be, though not translated (for it runs to between +600 and 700 lines), in some degree analysed and discussed. It had, of +course, a Latin original, and was rehandled more than once or twice. But +we have the (apparently) first French form, probably of the eleventh +century. The theme is one of the commonest and one of the least +sympathetic in hagiology. Alexis is forced by his father, a rich Roman +"count," to marry; and after (not before) the marriage, though of course +before its consummation, he deserts his wife, flies to Syria, and +becomes a beggar at Edessa. After a time, long enough to prevent +recognition, he goes back to Rome, and obtains from his own family alms +enough to live on, though these alms are dispensed to him by the +servants with every mark of contempt. At last he dies, and is recognised +forthwith as a saint. This hackneyed and somewhat repulsive _donnee_ +(there is nothing repulsive to the present writer, let it be observed, +either in Stylites or in Galahad) the French poet takes and makes a +rather surprising best of it. He is not despicable even as a poet, all +things considered; but he is something very different indeed from +despicable as a tale-teller. To begin, or, strictly speaking, to end +with (R. L. Stevenson never said a wiser thing than that the end must be +the necessary result of, and as it were foretold in, the beginning), he +has lessened if not wholly destroyed the jar of the situation by (most +unusually and considering the mad chastity-worship of the time rather +audaciously) associating the deserted wife directly with the Saint's +"gustation of God" above: + + Without doubt is St. Alexis in Heaven, + With him has he God in the company of the Angels, + _With him the maiden to whom he made himself strange,_ + _Now he has her close to him--together are their souls,_ + _I know not how to tell you how great their joy is._[10] + +But there are earlier touches of that life which makes all literature, +and tale-telling most of all. An opening on Degeneracy is scarcely one +of these, for this was, of course, a commonplace millenniums earlier, +and it had the recent belief about the approaching end of the world at +the actual A.D. 1000 to prompt it. The maiden is "bought" for Alexis +from her father or mother. Instead of the not unusual and rather +distasteful sermons on virginity which later versions have, the future +saint has at least the grace to accompany the return of the ring[11] +with only a few words of renunciation of his spouse to Christ, and of +declaration that in this world "love is imperfect, life frail, and joy +mutable." A far more vivid touch is given by the mother who, when search +for the fugitive has proved futile, ruins the nuptial chamber, destroys +its decorations, and hangs it with rags and sackcloth,[12] and who, when +the final discovery is made, reproaches the dead saint in a fashion +which is not easy to reply to: "My son, why hadst thou no pity of _us_? +Why hast thou not spoken to me _once_?" The bride has neither forgotten +nor resented: she only weeps her deserter's former beauty, and swears to +have no other spouse but God. The poem ends--or all but ends--in a +hurly-burly of popular enthusiasm, which will hardly resign its new +saint to Pope or Emperor, till at last, after the usual miracles of +healing, the body is allowed to rest, splendidly entombed, in the Church +of St. Boniface. + +Now the man who could thus, and by many other touches not mentioned, run +blood into the veins of mummies,[13] could, with larger range of subject +and wider choice of treatment, have done no small things in fiction. + +But enough talk of might-have-beens: let us come to the things that were +done. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] The article "Romance" in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th ed.; +and the volume on _The English Novel_ in Messrs. Dent's series "Channels +of English Literature," London, 1913. + +[5] Plato (or Socrates?) does it only on a small scale and partially, +though there are the makings of a great novelist in the _Dialogues_. +Apollonius Rhodius is the next verse-tale teller to Homer among the +prae-Christian Greeks. + +[6] Virgil, in the only parts of the _Aeneid_ that make a good story, is +following either Homer or Apollonius. + +[7] To me at least the seeming seems to approach demonstration; and I +can only speak as I find, with all due apologies to those who find +differently. + +[8] There is, of course, a Latin "sequence" on the Saint which is nearer +to the French poem; but that does not affect our present point. + +[9] The literal "cooked," with no burlesque intention, was used of +punitory burning quite early; but it is not certain that the transferred +sense of _cuire_, "to _pain_," is not nearly or quite as old. + +[10] Not the least interesting part of this is that it is almost +sufficient by itself to establish the connection between Saint's Life +and Romance. + +[11] By a very curious touch he gives her also "les renges de s'espide," +_i.e._ either the other ring by which the sword is attached to the +sword-belt, or the belt itself. The meaning is, of course, that with her +he renounces knighthood and all worldly rank. + +[12] She addresses the room itself, dramatically enough: "Chamber! never +more shalt thou bear ornament: never shall any joy in thee be enjoyed." + +[13] Let me repeat that I mean no despite to the "Communion of Saints" +or to their records--much the reverse. But the hand of any _purpose_, +Religious, Scientific, Political, what not, is apt to mummify story. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MATTERS OF FRANCE, ROME, AND BRITAIN + + +It has been said already that the Saint's Life, as it seems most +probable to the present writer, started the romance in France; but of +course we must allow considerable reinforcement of one kind or another +from local, traditional, and literary sources. The time-honoured +distribution, also given already, of the "matter" of this romance does +not concern us so much here as it would in a history of French +literature, but it concerns us. We shall indeed probably find that the +home-grown or home-fed _Chanson de Geste_ did least for the novel in the +wide sense--that the "Matter of Rome" chiefly gave it variety, change of +atmosphere to some extent, and an invaluable connection with older +literatures, but that the central division or "Matter of Britain," with +the immense fringes of miscellaneous _romans d'aventures_--which are +sometimes more or less directly connected with it, and are always +moulded more or less on its patterns--gave most of all. + +[Sidenote: The _Chanson de Geste_.] + +Of these, however, what has been called the family or patriotic part was +undoubtedly the earliest and for a long time the most influential. There +is, fortunately, not the least need here to fight out the old battle of +the _cantilenae_ or supposed _ballad_-originals. I see no reason to +alter the doubt with which I have always regarded their existence; but +it really does not matter, _to us_, whether they existed or not, +especially since we have not got them now. What we have got is a vast +mass of narrative poetry, which latterly took actual prose form, and +which--as early certainly as the eleventh century and perhaps +earlier--turns the French faculty for narrative (whether it was actually +or entirely fictitious narrative or not does not again matter) into +channels of a very promising kind. + +The novel-reader who has his wits and his memory about him may perhaps +say, "Promising perhaps; but paying?" The answer must be that the +promise may have taken some time to be fully liquidated, but that the +immediate or short-dated payment was great. The fault of the _Chansons +de Geste_--a fault which in some degree is to be found in French +literature as a whole, and to a greater extent in all mediaeval +literature--is that the class and the type are rather too prominent. The +central conception of Charlemagne as a generally dignified but too +frequently irascible and rather petulant monarch, surrounded by valiant +and in a way faithful but exceedingly touchy or ticklish paladins, is no +doubt true enough to the early stages of feudalism--in fact, to adapt +the tag, there is too much human nature in it for it to be false. But it +communicates a certain sameness to the chansons which stick closest to +the model. + +[Sidenote: The proportions of history and fiction in them.] + +The exact relation of the _Chansons de Geste_ to the subsequent history +of French fiction is thus an extremely important one, and one that +requires, not only a good deal of reading on which to base any opinion +that shall not be worthless, but a considerable exercise of critical +discretion in order to form that opinion competently. The present writer +can at least plead no small acquaintance with the subject, and a full if +possibly over-generous acknowledgment of his dealings with it on the +part of some French authorities, living and dead, of the highest +competence. But the attractions of the vast and strangely long ignored +body of _chanson_ literature are curiously various in kind, and they +cannot be indiscriminately drawn upon as evidence of an early mastery of +tale-telling proper on the part of the French as a nation. + +There is indeed one solid fact, the importance of which can hardly be +exaggerated in some ways, though it may be wrongly estimated in others. +Here is not merely the largest part proportionately, but a very large +bulk positively, of the very earliest part of a literature, devoted to a +kind of narrative which, though some of it may be historic originally, +is pretty certainly worked up into its concrete and extant state by +fiction. The comparison with the two literatures which on the whole bear +such comparison with French best--English and Greek--is here very +striking. People say that there "must have been" many _Beowulfs_: it can +hardly be said that we have so much as a positive assertion of the +existence of even one other, though we have allusions and glances which +have been amplified in the usual fashion. We have positive and not +reasonably doubtful assertion of the existence of a very large body of +more or less early Greek epic; but we have nothing existing except the +_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. + +[Sidenote: The part played by language, prosody, and manners.] + +On this fact, be it repeated, if we observe the canons of sound +criticism in the process, too much stress in general cannot be laid. +There must have been some more than ordinary _nisus_ towards +story-telling in a people and a language which produced, and for three +or four centuries cherished, something like a hundred legends, sometimes +of great length, on the single general[14] subject of the exploits, +sufferings, and what not of the great half-historical, half-legendary +emperor _a la barbe florie_, of his son, and of the more legendary than +historical peers, rebels, subjects, descendants, and "those about both" +generally. And though the assertion requires a little more justification +and allowance, there must have been some extraordinary gifts for more or +less fictitious composition when such a vast body of spirited +fictitious, or even half-fictitious, narrative is turned out. + +But in this justification as to the last part of the contention a good +deal of care has to be observed. It will not necessarily follow, because +the metal is attractive, that its attractiveness is always of the kind +purely belonging to fiction; and, as a matter of fact, a large part of +it is not. Much is due to the singular sonority and splendour of the +language, which is much more like Spanish than modern French, and which +only a few poets of exceptional power have been able to reproduce in +modern French itself. Much more is imparted by the equally peculiar +character of the metre--the long _tirades_ or _laisses_, assonanced or +mono-rhymed paragraphs in decasyllables or alexandrines, which, to those +who have once caught their harmony, have an indescribable and +unparalleled charm. Yet further, these attractions come from the strange +unfamiliar world of life and character described and displayed; from the +brilliant stock epithets and phrases that stud the style as if with a +stiff but glittering embroidery; and from other sources too many to +mention here. + +[Sidenote: Some drawbacks.] + +Yet one must draw attention to the fact that all the named sources of +the attraction, and may perhaps ask the reader to take it on trust that +most of the unnamed, are not essentially or exclusively attractions of +fiction--that they are attractions of poetry. And, on the other hand, +while the weaving of so vast a web of actual fiction remains "to +credit," there are not a few things to be set on the other side of the +account. The sameness of the _chanson_ story, the almost invariable +recurrence of the stock motives and frameworks--of rebellion, treason, +paynim invasion, petulance of a King's son, somewhat too "coming" +affection of a King's daughter, tyrannical and Lear-like _impotentia_ of +the King himself, etc.--may be exaggerated, but cannot be denied. In the +greatest of all by general acknowledgment, the far-famed _Roland_, the +economy of pure story interest is pushed to a point which in a less +unsophisticated age--say the twentieth instead of the twelfth or +eleventh century--might be put down to deliberate theory or crotchet. +The very incidents, stirring as they are, are put as it were in +skeleton argument or summary rather than amplified into full story-flesh +and blood; we see such heroine as there is only to see her die; even the +great moment of the horn is given as if it had been "censored" by +somebody. People, I believe, have called this brevity Homeric; but that +is not how I read Homer. + +In fact, so jealous are some of those who well and wisely love the +_chansons_, that I have known objections taken to ranking as pure +examples, despite their undoubted age and merit, such pieces as _Amis et +Amiles_ (for passion and pathos and that just averted tragedy which is +so difficult to manage, one of the finest of all) and the _Voyage a +Constantinoble_, the single early specimen of mainly or purely comic +donnee.[15] This seems to me, I confess, mere prudery or else mistaken +logic, starting from the quite unjustifiable proposition that nothing +that is not found in the _Chanson de Roland_ ought to be found in any +_chanson_. But we may admit that the "bones"--the simplest terms of the +_chanson_-formula--hardly include varied interests, though they allow +such interests to be clothed upon and added to them. + +[Sidenote: But a fair balance of actual story merit.] + +Despite this admission, however, and despite the further one that it is +to the "romances" proper--Arthurian, classical, and adventurous--rather +than to the _chansons_ that one must look for the first satisfactory +examples of such clothing and addition, it is not to be denied that the +_chansons_ themselves provide a great deal of it--whether because of +adulteration with strictly "romance" matter is a question for debate in +another place and not here. But it would be a singularly ungrateful +memory which should, in this place, leave the reader with the idea that +the _Chanson de Geste_ as such is merely monotonous and dull. The +intensity of the appeal of _Roland_ is no doubt helped by that approach +to bareness--even by a certain tautology--which has been mentioned. +_Aliscans_, which few could reject as faithless to the type, contains, +even without the family of dependent poems which cluster round it, a +vivid picture of the valiant insubordinate warrior in William of Orange, +with touches of comedy or at least horse-play. + +[Sidenote: Some instances of this.] + +The striking, and to all but unusually dull or hopelessly "modern" +imaginations as unusually beautiful, centre-point of _Amis et +Amiles_,--where one of the heroes, who has sworn a "white" perjury to +save his friend and is punished for it by the terror, "white" in the +other sense, of leprosy, is abandoned by his wife, and only healed by +the blood of the friend's children, is the crowning instance of another +set of appeals. The catholicity of a man's literary taste, and his more +special capacity of appreciating things mediaeval, may perhaps be better +estimated by his opinion of _Amis et Amiles_ than by any other +touchstone; for it has more appeals than this almost tragic one--a much +greater development of the love-motive than either _Roland_ or +_Aliscans_, and a more varied interest generally. Its continuation, +_Jourdains de Blaivies_, takes the hero abroad, as do many other +_chansons_, especially two of the most famous, _Huon de Bordeaux_ and +_Ogier de Danemarche_. These two are also good--perhaps the +best--examples of a process very much practised in the Middle Ages and +leaving its mark on future fiction--that of expansion and continuation. +In the case of Ogier, indeed, this process was carried so far that +enquiring students have been known to be sadly disappointed in the +almost total disconnection between William Morris's beautiful section of +_The Earthly Paradise_ and the original French, as edited by Barrois in +the first attempt to collect the _chansons_ seventy or eighty years ago. +The great "Orange" subcycle, of which _Aliscans_ is the most famous, +extends in many directions, but is apt in all its branches to cling more +to "war and politics." William of Orange is in this respect partly +matched by Garin of Lorraine. No _chanson_ retained its popularity, in +every sense of that word, better than the _Quatre Fils d'Aymon_--the +history of Renaut de Montauban and his brothers and cousin, the famous +enchanter-knight Maugis. As a "boy's book" there is perhaps none better, +and the present writer remembers an extensive and apparently modern +English translation which was a favourite "sixty years since." _Berte +aux grands Pies_, the earliest form of a well-known legend, has the +extrinsic charm of being mentioned by Villon; while there is no more +agreeable love-story, on a small scale and in a simple tone, than that +of Doon and Nicolette[16] in _Doon de Mayence_. And not to make a mere +catalogue which, if supported by full abstracts of all the pieces, would +be inordinately bulky and would otherwise convey little idea to readers, +it may be said that the general _chanson_ practice of grouping together +or branching out the poems (whichever metaphor be preferred) after the +fashion of a family-tree involves of itself no inconsiderable call on +the tale-telling faculties. That the writers pay little or no attention +to chronological and other possibilities is hardly much to say against +them; if this be an unforgivable sin it is not clear how either Dickens +or Thackeray is to escape damnation, with Sir Walter to greet them in +their uncomfortable sojourn. + +But it is undoubtedly true that the almost exclusive concentration of +the attention on war prevents the attainment of much detailed +novel-interest. Love affairs--some glanced at above--do indeed make, in +some of the _chansons_, a fuller appearance than the flashlight view of +lost tragedy which we have in _Roland_. But until the reflex influence +of the Arthurian romance begins to work, they are, though not always +disagreeable or ungraceful, of a very simple and primitive kind, as +indeed are the delineations of manners generally. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The classical borrowings--Troy and Alexander.] + +The "matter of Rome the Great," as the original text has it (though, in +fact, Rome proper has little to do with the most important examples of +the class), adds very importantly to the development of romance, and +through that, of novel. Its bulk is considerable, and its examples have +interest of various kinds. But for us this interest is concentrated +upon, if not exclusively confined to, the two great groups (undertaken +by, and illustrated in, the three great literary languages of the +earlier Middle Ages, and, as usual, most remarkably and originally in +French) of the Siege of Troy and the life of Alexander. It should be +almost enough to say of the former that it introduced,[17] with +practically nothing but the faintest suggestion from really classical +sources, the great romance-novel of the loves of Troilus and Cressida to +the world's literature; and of the second, that it gives us the first +instance of the infusion of Oriental mystery and marvel that we can +discern in the literature of the West. For details about the books which +contain these things, their authors and their probable sources and +development, the reader must, as in other cases, look elsewhere.[18] It +is only our business here to say something about the general nature of +the things themselves and about the additions that they made to the +capital, and in some cases almost to the "plant," of fiction. + +[Sidenote: _Troilus._] + +That the Troilus and Cressida romance, with its large provision and its +more large suggestion of the accomplished love-story, evolved from older +tale-tellers by Boccaccio and Chaucer and Henryson and Shakespeare, is +not a pure creation of the earlier Middle Ages, few people who patiently +attend to evidence can now believe. Even in the wretched summaries of +the Tale of Troy by Dictys and Dares (which again no such person as the +one just described can put very early), the real novel-interest--even +the most slender romance-interest--is hardly present at all. Benoit de +Sainte-More in the twelfth century may not have actually invented this; +it is one of the principles of this book, as of all that its writer has +written, that the quest of the inventor of a story is itself the vainest +of inventions. But it is certain that nobody hitherto has been able to +"get behind him," and it is still more certain that he has given enough +base for the greater men who followed to build upon. If he cannot be +credited with the position of the pseudo-Callisthenes (see below) in +reference to the Alexander story, he may fairly share that of his +contemporary Geoffrey of Monmouth, if not even of Nennius, as regards +that of Arthur. The situation, or rather the group of situations, is of +the most promising and suggestive kind, negatively and positively. In +the first place the hero and heroine are persons about whom the great +old poets of the subject have said little or nothing; and what an +immense advantage this is all students of the historical novel of the +last hundred years know. In the second, the way in which they are put in +action (or ready for action) is equally satisfactory, or let us say +stimulating. In a great war a prince loves a noble lady, who by birth +and connections belongs to the enemy, and after vicissitudes, which can +be elaborated according to the taste and powers of the romancer, gains +her love. But the course of this love is interrupted by her surrender or +exchange to the enemy themselves; her beauty attracts, nay has already +attracted, the fancy of one of the enemy's leaders, and being not merely +a coquette but a light-o'-love[19] she admits his addresses. Her +punishment follows or does not follow, is accomplished during the life +of her true lover or not, according again to the taste and fancy of the +person who handles the story. But the scheme, even at its simplest, is +novel-soil: marked out, matured, manured, and ready for cultivation, and +the crops which can be grown on it depend entirely upon the skill of the +cultivator. + +For all this some would, as has been said above, see sufficient +suggestion in the Greek Romance. I have myself known the examples of +that Romance for a very long time and have always had a high opinion of +it; but except what has been already noticed--the prominence of the +heroine--I can see little or nothing that the Mediaeval romance could +possibly owe to it, and as a matter of fact hardly anything else in +common between the two. In the last, and to some extent the most +remarkable (though very far from the best if not nearly the worst), of +the Greek Romances, the _Hysminias and Hysmine_ of Eustathius, we have +indeed got to a point in advance, taking that word in a peculiar sense, +even of Troilus at its most accomplished, that is to say, the Marinism +or Marivaudage, if not even the Meredithese, of language and sentiment. +But _Hysminias and Hysmine_ is probably not older than Benoit de +Sainte-More's story, and as has just been said, Renaissance, nay +post-Renaissance, not Mediaeval in character. We must, of course, +abstain from "reading back" Chaucer or even Boccaccio into Benoit or +into his probable plagiarist Guido de Columnis; but there is nothing +uncritical or wrong in "reading forward" from these to the later +writers. The hedge-rose is there, which will develop into, and serve as +a support for, the hybrid perpetual--a term which could itself be +developed in application, after the fashion of a mediaeval _moralitas_. +And when we have actually come to Pandaro and Deiphobus, to the "verse +of society," as it may be called in a new sense, of the happier part of +Chaucer and to the intense tragedy of the later part of Henryson, then +we are in the workshop, if not in the actual show-room, of the completed +novel. It would be easy, as it was not in the case of the _chansons_, +to illustrate directly by a translation, either here from Benoit or +later from the shortened prose version of the fourteenth century, which +we also possess; but it is not perhaps necessary, and would require much +space. + +[Sidenote: _Alexander._] + +The influence of the Alexander story, though scarcely less, is of a +widely different kind. In _Troilus_, as has been said, the Middle Age is +working on scarcely more than the barest hints of antiquity, which it +amplifies and supplements out of its own head and its own heart--a head +which can dream dream-webs of subtlest texture unknown to the ancients, +and a heart which can throb and bleed in a fashion hardly shown by any +ancient except Sappho. With the Alexander group we find it much more +passively recipient, though here also exercising its talent for varying +and amplification. The controversies over the pseudo-Callisthenes, +"Julius Valerius," the _Historia de Praeliis_, etc., are once more not +for us; but results of them, which have almost or quite emerged from the +state of controversy, are. It is certain that the appearance, in the +classical languages, of the wilder legends about Alexander was as early +at least as the third century after Christ--that is to say, long before +even "Dark" let alone "Middle" Ages were thought of--and perhaps +earlier. There seems to be very little doubt that these legends were of +Egyptian or Asiatic origin, and so what we vaguely call "Oriental." They +long anticipated the importing afresh of such influences by the +Crusades, and they must, with all except Christians and Jews (that is to +say, with the majority), have actually forestalled the Oriental +influence of the Scriptures. Furthermore, when Mediaeval France began to +create a new body of European literature, the Crusades had taken place; +the appetite for things Oriental and perhaps we should say the +half-imaginative power of appreciating them, had become active; and a +considerable amount of literature in the vernacular had already been +composed. It was not wonderful, therefore, that the _trouveres_ should +fly upon this spoil. By not the least notable of the curiosities of +literature in its own class, they picked out a historical but not very +important episode--the siege of Gaza and Alexander's disgraceful cruelty +to its brave defender--and made of this a regular _Chanson de Geste_ (in +all but "Family" connection), the _Fuerres de Gadres_, a poem of several +thousand lines. But the most generally popular (though sometimes +squabbled over) parts of the story, were the supposed perversion of +Olympias, not by the God Ammon but by the magician-king Nectanabus +personating the God and becoming thereby father of the Hero; the Indian +and some other real campaigns (the actual conquest of Persia was very +slightly treated), and, far above all, the pure Oriental wonder-tales of +the descent into the sea, the march to the Fountain of Youth, and other +myths of the kind. + +Few things can be more different than the story-means used in these two +legends; yet it must be personal taste rather than strict critical +evaluation which pronounces one more important to the development of the +novel than the other. There is a little love interest in the Alexander +poems--the heroine of this part being Queen Candace--but it is slight, +episodic, and rudimentary beside the complex and all-absorbing passions +which, when genius took the matter in hand, were wrought out of the +truth of Troilus and the faithlessness of Cressid. The joys of fighting +or roaming, of adventure and quest, and above all those of marvel, are +the attractions which the Alexander legend offers, and who shall say +that they are insufficient? At any rate no one can deny that they have +been made the seasoning, if not the stuff and substance, of an enormous +slice of the romance interest, and of a very large part of that of the +novel. + +[Sidenote: The Arthurian Legend.] + +It is scarcely necessary to speak of other classical romances, and it is +of course very desirable to keep in mind that the Alexander story, in no +form in which we have it, attempts any _strictly_ novel interest; while +though that interest is rife in some forms of "Troilus," those forms are +not exactly of the period, and are in no case of the language, with +which we are dealing. It was an Italian, an Englishman, and a Scot who +each in his own speech--one in the admirable vulgar tongue, of which at +that time and as a finished thing, Italian was alone in Europe as +possessor; the others in the very best of Middle English, and, as some +think, almost the best of Middle Scots verse--displayed the full +possibilities of Benoit's story. But the third "matter," the matter of +Britain or (in words better understanded of most people) the Arthurian +Legend, after starting in Latin, was, as far as language went, for some +time almost wholly French, though it is exceedingly possible that at +least one, if not more, of its main authors was no Frenchman. And in +this "matter" the exhibition of the powers of fiction--prose as well as +verse--was carried to a point almost out of sight of that reached by the +_Chansons_, and very far ahead of any contemporary treatment even of the +Troilus story. + +[Sidenote: Chrestien de Troyes and the theories about him.] + +Before, however, dealing with this great Arthurian story as a stage in +the history of the Novel-Romance in and by itself, we must come to a +figure which, though we have very little substantial knowledge of it, +there is some reason for admitting as one of the first named and "coted" +figures in French literature, at least as regards fiction in verse. It +is well known that the action of modern criticism is in some respects +strikingly like that of the sea in one of the most famous and vivid +passages[20] of Spenser's unequalled scene-painting in words with +musical accompaniment of them. It delights in nothing so much as in +stripping one part of the shore of its belongings, and hurrying them off +to heap upon another part. Chrestien de Troyes is one of the lucky +personages who have benefited, not least and most recently, by this +fancy. It is true that the actual works attributed to him have remained +the same--his part of the shore has not been actually extended like part +of that of the Humber. But it has had new riches, honours, and +decorations heaped upon it till it has become, in the actual Spenserian +language of another but somewhat similar passage (111. iv. 20), a "rich +strond" indeed. Until a comparatively recent period, the opinion +entertained of Chrestien, by most if not all competent students of him, +was pretty uniform, and, though quite favourable, not extraordinarily +high. He was recognised as a past-master of the verse _roman +d'aventures_ in octosyllabic couplet, who probably took his +heterogeneous materials wherever he found them; "did not invent much" +(as Thackeray says of Smollett), but treated whatever he did treat in a +singularly light and pleasant manner, not indeed free from the somewhat +undistinguished fluency to which this "light and lewed" couplet, as +Chaucer calls it, is liable, and showing no strong grasp either of +character or of plot, but on the whole a very agreeable writer, and a +quite capital example of the better class of _trouvere_, far above the +_improvisatore_ on the one hand and the dull compiler on the other; but +below, if not quite so far below, the definitely poetic poet. + +To an opinion something like this the present writer, who formed it long +ago, not at second hand but from independent study of originals, and who +has kept up and extended his acquaintance with Chrestien, still adheres. + +Of late, however, as above suggested, "Chrestiens" have gone up in the +market to a surprising extent. Some twenty years ago the late M. Gaston +Paris[21] announced and, with all his distinguished ability and his +great knowledge elaborately supported, his conclusions, that the great +French prose Arthurian romances (which had hitherto been considered by +the best authorities, including his own no less admirable father, M. +Paulin Paris, slightly anterior to the poet of Troyes, and in all +probability the source of part at least of his work) were posterior and +probably derivative. Now this, of itself, would of course to some extent +put up Chrestien's value. But it, and the necessary corollaries from +it, as originality and so forth, by no means exhaust the additional +honours and achievements which have been heaped upon Chrestien by M. +Paris and by others who have followed, more or less accepted, and in +some cases bettered his ascriptions. In the first and principal place, +there has been a tendency, almost general, to dethrone Walter Map from +his old position as the real begetter of the completed Arthurian +romance, and to substitute the Troyan. Then, partly in support, but also +to some extent, I think, independently of this immense ennoblement, +discoveries have been made of gifts and graces in Chrestien himself, +which had entirely escaped the eyes of so excellent a critic, so erudite +a scholar, and so passionate a lover of Old French literature as the +elder M. Paris, and which continue to be invisible to the far inferior +gifts and knowledge, but if I may dare to say so, the equal good will +and the not inconsiderable critical experience, of the present +historian. + +Now with large parts of this matter we have, fortunately enough, nothing +to do, and the actual authorship of the great Arthurian conception, +namely, the interweaving of the Graal story on the one hand and the +loves of Lancelot and Guinevere on the other, with the Geoffrey of +Monmouth matter, concerns us hardly at all. But some have gone even +further than has been yet hinted in the exaltation of Chrestien. They +have discovered in him--"him-by-himself-him"--as the author of his +actual extant works and not as putative author of the real Arthuriad, +not merely a pattern example of the court _trouvere_--as much as this, +or nearly as much, has been admitted here--but almost the inventor of +romance and even of something very like novel, a kind of mediaeval +Scott-Bulwer-Meredith, equally great at adventure, fashion, and +character-analysis; subject only, and that not much, to the limitations +of the time. In fact, if I do not do some of these panegyrists +injustice, we ought to have a fancy bust of Chrestien, with the titles +of his works gracefully inscribed on the pedestal, as a frontispiece to +this book, if not even a full-length statue, robed like a small St. +Ursula, and like her in Memling's presentation at Bruges, sheltering in +its ample folds the child-like figures of future French novelists and +romancers, from the author of _Aucassin et Nicolette_ to M. Anatole +France. + +Again, some fifty years of more or less critical reading of novels of +all ages and more than one or two languages, combined with nearly forty +years reading of Chrestien himself and a passion for Old French, leave +the present writer quite unable to rise to this beatific vision. But let +us, before saying any more what Chrestien could or could not do, see, in +the usual cold-blooded way, what he _did_. + +[Sidenote: His unquestioned work.] + +The works attributed to this very differently, though never +unfavourably, estimated tale-teller--at least those which concern +us--are _Percevale le Gallois_, _Le Chevalier a[22] la Charette_, _Le +Chevalier au Lyon_, _Erec et Enide_, _Cliges_, and a much shorter +_Guillaume d'Angleterre_. This last has nothing to do with the Conqueror +(though the title has naturally deceived some), and is a semi-mystical +romance of the group derived from the above-mentioned legend of St. +Eustace, and represented in English by the beautiful story of _Sir +Isumbras_. It is very doubtfully Chrestien's, and in any case very +unlike his other work; but those who think him the Arthurian magician +might make something of it, as being nearer the tone of the older Graal +stories than the rest of his compositions, even _Percevale_ itself. Of +these, all, except the _Charette_, deal with what may be called outliers +of the Arthurian story. _Percevale_ is the longest, but its immense +length required, by common confession, several continuators;[23] the +others have a rather uniform allowance of some six or seven thousand +lines. _Cliges_ is one of the most "outside" of all, for the hero, +though knighted by Arthur, is the disinherited heir of Constantinople, +and the story is that of the recovery of his kingdom. _Erec_, as the +second part of the title will truly suggest, though the first may +disguise it, gives us the story of the first of Tennyson's original +_Idylls_. The _Chevalier au Lyon_ is a delightful romance of the Gawain +group, better represented by its English adaptation, _Ywain_, than any +other French example. _Percevale_ and the _Charette_ touch closest on +the central Arthurian story, and the latter has been the chief +battlefield as to Chrestien's connection therewith, some even begging +the question to the extent of adopting for it the title _Lancelot_. + +[Sidenote: Comparison of the _Chevalier a la Charette_ and the prose +_Lancelot_.] + +The subject is the episode, well known to English readers from Malory, +of the abduction of Guinevere by Meleagraunce, the son of King +Bagdemagus; of the inability of all knights but Lancelot (who has been +absent from Court in one of the lovers' quarrels) to rescue her; and of +his undertaking the task, though hampered in various ways, one of the +earliest of which compelled him to ride in a cart--a thing regarded, by +one of the odd[24] conventions of chivalry, as disgraceful to a knight. +Meleagraunce, though no coward, is treacherous and "felon," and all +sorts of mishaps befall Lancelot before he is able for the second time +to conquer his antagonist, and finally to take his over and over again +forfeited life. But long before this he has arrived at the castle where +Guinevere is imprisoned; and has been enabled to arrange a meeting with +her at night, which is accomplished by wrenching out the bars of her +window. The ill chances and _quiproquos_ which result from his having +cut his hands in the proceeding (though the actual visit is not +discovered), and the arts by which Meleagraunce ensnares the destined +avenger for a time, lengthen out the story till, by the final contest, +Meleagraunce goes to his own place and the Queen is restored to hers. + +Unfortunately the blots of constant tautology and verbiage, with not +infrequent flatness, are on all this gracious story as told by +Chrestien.[25] Among the traps and temptations which are thrown in +Lancelot's way to the Queen is one of a highly "sensational" nature. In +the night Lancelot hears a damsel, who is his hostess, though he has +refused her most thorough hospitality, shrieking for assistance; and on +coming to the spot finds her in a situation demanding instant help, +which she begs, if the irreparable is not to happen. But the poet not +only gives us a heavily figured description of the men-at-arms who bar +the way to rescue, but puts into the mouth of the intending rescuer a +speech (let us be exact) of twenty-eight lines and a quarter, during +which the just mentioned irreparable, if it had been seriously meant, +might have happened with plenty of time to spare. So, in the crowning +scene (excellently told in Malory), where the lover forces his way +through iron bars to his love, reckless of the tell-tale witness of his +bleeding hands, the circumlocutions are _plusquam_ Richardsonian--and do +not fall far short of a serious anticipation of Shakespeare's burlesque +in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. The mainly gracious description is +spoilt by terrible bathetics from time to time. Guinevere in her white +nightdress and mantle of scarlet and _camus_[26] on one side of the +bars, Lancelot outside, exchanging sweet salutes, "for much was he fain +of her and she of him," are excellent. The next couplet, or quatrain, +almost approaches the best poetry. "Of villainy or annoy make they no +parley or complaint; but draw near each other so much at least that they +hold each other hand by hand." But what follows? That they cannot come +together vexes them so immeasurably that--what? They blame the iron work +for it. This certainly shows an acute understanding[27] and a very +creditable sense of the facts of the situation on the part of both +lovers; but it might surely have been taken for granted. Also, it takes +Lancelot forty lines to convince his lady that when bars are in your way +there is nothing like pulling them out of it. So in the actual +pulling-out there is the idlest exaggeration and surplusage; the first +bar splits one of Lancelot's fingers to the sinews and cuts off the top +joint of the next. The actual embraces are prettily and gracefully told +(though again with otiose observations about silence), and the whole, +from the knight's coming to the window to his leaving it, takes 150 +lines. Now hear the prose of the so-called "Vulgate _Lancelot_." + + "And he came to the window: and the Queen, who waited for + him, slept not, but came thither. And the one threw to the + other their arms, and they felt each other as much as they + could reach. "Lady," said Lancelot, "if I could enter + yonder, would it please you?" "Enter," said she, "fair sweet + friend? How could this happen?" "Lady," said he, "if it + please you, it could happen lightly." "Certainly," said she, + "I should wish it willingly above everything." "Then, in + God's name," said he, "that shall well happen. For the iron + will never hold." "Wait, then," said she, "till I have gone + to bed." Then he drew the irons from their sockets so softly + that no noise was made and no bar broke." + +In this simple prose, sensuous and passionate for all its simplicity, is +told the rest of the story. There are eighteen lines of it altogether in +Dr. Sommer's reprint, but as these are long quarto lines, let us +multiply them by some three to get the equivalent of the "skipping +octosyllables." There will remain fifty to a hundred and fifty, with, in +the prose, some extra matter not in the verse. But the acme of the +contrast is reached in these words of the prose, which answer to some +forty lines of the poet's watering-out. "Great was the joy that they +made each other that night, for long had each suffered for the other. +And when the day came, they parted." Beat that who can! + +Many years ago, and not a few before M. Gaston Paris had published his +views, I read these two forms of the story in the valuable joint +edition, verse and prose, of M. Jonckbloet, which some ruffian (may +Heaven _not_ assoil him!) has since stolen or hidden from me. And I said +then to myself, "There is no doubt which of these is the original." +Thirty years later, with an unbroken critical experience of imaginative +work in prose and verse during the interval, I read them again in Dr. +Forster's edition of the verse and Dr. Sommer's of the prose, and said, +"There is less doubt than ever." That the prose should have been +prettified and platitudinised, decorated and diluted into the verse is a +possibility which we know to be not only possible but likely, from a +thousand more unfortunate examples. That the contrary process should +have taken place is practically unexampled and, especially at that time, +largely unthinkable. At any rate, whosoever did it had a much greater +genius than Chrestien's. + +This is no place to argue out the whole question, but a single +particular may be dealt with. The curiously silly passage about the bars +above given is a characteristic example of unlucky and superfluous +amplification of the perfectly natural question and answer of the prose, +"May I come to you?" "Yes, but how?" an example to be paralleled by +thousands of others at the time and by many more later. Taken the other +way it would be a miracle. Prose abridgers of poetry did not go to work +like that in the twelfth-thirteenth century--nor, even in the case of +Charles Lamb, have they often done so since. + +It is, however, very disagreeable to have to speak disrespectfully of a +writer so agreeable in himself and so really important in our story as +Chrestien. His own gifts and performances are, as it seems to me, clear +enough. He took from this or that source--his selection of the _Erec_ +and _Percivale_ matters, if not also that of _Yvain_, suggests others +besides the, by that time as I think, concentrated Arthurian story--and +from the Arthuriad itself the substance of the _Chevalier a la +Charette_. He varied and dressed them up with pleasant etceteras, and +in especial, sometimes, though not always, embroidered the already +introduced love-motive with courtly fantasies and with a great deal of +detail. I should not be at all disposed to object if somebody says that +he, before any one else, set the type of the regular verse _Roman +d'aventures_. It seems likely, again, from the pieces referred to above, +that he may have had originals more definitely connected with Celtic +sources, if not actually Celtic themselves, than those which have given +us the mighty architectonic of the "Vulgate" _Arthur_. In his own way +and place he is a great and an attractive figure--not least in the +history of the novel. But I can see nothing in him that makes me think +him likely, and much that makes me think him utterly unlikely, to be the +author of what I conceive to be the greatest, the most epoch-making, and +almost the originating conception of the novel-romance itself. Who it +was that did conceive this great thing I do not positively know. All +external evidence points to Walter Map; no internal evidence, that I +have seen, seems to me really to point away from him. But if any one +likes let us leave him a mere Eidolon, an earlier "Great Unknown." Our +business is, once more, with what he, whoever he was, did. + +[Sidenote: The constitution of the Arthuriad.] + +The multiplicity of things done, whether by "him" or "them," is +astonishing; and it is quite possible, indeed likely, that they were not +all done by the same person. Mediaeval continuators (as has been seen in +the case of Chrestien) worked after and into the work of each other in a +rather uncanny fashion; and the present writer frankly confesses that he +no more knows where Godfrey de Lagny took up the _Charette_, or the +various other sequelists the _Percevale_, from Chrestien than he would +have known, without confession, the books of the _Odyssey_ done by Mr. +Broome and Mr. Fenton from those done by Mr. Pope. The _grand-oeuvre_ +is the combination of Lancelot as (1) lover of the Queen; (2) descendant +of the Graalwards; (3) author, in consequence of his sin, of the +general failure of the Round Table Graal-Quest; (4) father of its one +successful but half-unearthly Seeker; (5) bringer-about (in more ways +than one[28]) of the intestine dissension which facilitates the invasion +of Mordred and the foreigners and so the Passing of Arthur, of his own +rejection by the repentant Queen, and of his death. As regards minor +details of plot and incident there have to be added the bringing in of +the pre-Round Table part of the story by Lancelot's descent from King +Ban and his connections with King Bors, both Arthur's old allies, and +both, as we may call them, "Graal-heirs"; the further connection with +the Merlin legend by Lancelot's fostering under the Lady of the +Lake;[29] the exaltation, inspiring, and, as it were, unification of +the scattered knight-adventures through Lancelot's constant presence as +partaker, rescuer, and avenger;[30] the human interest given to the +Graal-Quest (the earlier histories being strikingly lacking in this) by +his failure, and a good many more. But above all there are the general +characters of the knight and the Queen to make flesh and blood of the +whole. + +Not merely the exact author or authors, but even the exact source or +sources of this complicated, fateful, and exquisite imagination are, +once more, not known. Years ago it was laid down finally by the most +competent of possible authorities (the late Sir John Rhys) that "the +love of Lancelot and Guinevere is unknown to Welsh literature." +Originals for the "greatest knight" have been sought by guesswork, by +idle play on words and names, if not also by positive forgery, in that +Breton literature which does not exist. There do exist versions of the +story in which Lancelot plays no very prominent part, and there is even +one singular version--certainly late and probably devised by a proper +moral man afraid of scandal--which makes Lancelot outlive the Queen, +quite comfortably continuing his adventurous career (this is perhaps the +"furthest" of the Unthinkable in literature), and (not, it may be owned, +quite inconsistently) hints that the connection was merely Platonic +throughout. These things are explicable, but better negligible. For my +own part I have always thought that the loves of Tristram and Iseult +(which, as has been said, were originally un-Arthurian) suggested the +main idea to the author of it, being taken together with Guinevere's +falseness with Mordred in the old quasi-chronicle, and perhaps the story +of the abduction by Melvas (Meleagraunce), which seems to be possibly a +genuine Welsh legend. There are in the Tristram-Iseult-Mark trio quite +sufficient suggestions of Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur; while the far +higher plane on which the novice-novelist sets his lovers, and even the +very interesting subsequent exaltation of Tristram and Iseult themselves +to familiarity and to some extent equality with the other pair, has +nothing critically difficult in it. + +But this idea, great and promising as it was, required further +fertilisation, and got it from another. The Graal story is (once more, +according to authority of the greatest competence, and likely if +anything to be biassed the other way) pretty certainly not Welsh in +origin, and there is no reason to think that it originally had anything +to do with Arthur. Even after it obeyed the strange "suck" of legends +towards this centre whirlpool, or Loadstone Rock, of romance, it yielded +nothing intimately connected with the Arthurian Legend itself at first, +and such connection as succeeded seems pretty certainly[31] to be that +of which Percevale is the hero, and an outlier, not an integral part. +But either the same genius (as one would fain hope) as that which +devised the profane romance of Lancelot and Guinevere, or another, +further grafted or inarched the sacred romance of the Graal and its +Quest with the already combined love-and-chivalry story. Lancelot, the +greatest of knights, and of the true blood of the Graal-guardians, ought +to accomplish the mysteries; but he cannot through sin, and that sin is +this very love for Guinevere. The Quest, in which (despite warning and +indeed previous experience) he takes part, not merely gives occasion for +adventures, half-mystical, half-chivalrous, which far exceed in +interest the earlier ones, but directly leads to the dispersion and +weakening of the Round Table. And so the whole draws together to an end +identical in part with that of the Chronicle story, but quite infinitely +improved upon it. + +[Sidenote: Its approximation to the novel proper.] + +Now not only is there in this the creation of the novel _in posse_, of +the romance _in esse_, but it is brought about in a curiously noteworthy +fashion. A hundred years and more later the greatest known writer of the +Middle Ages, and one of the three or four greatest of the world, defined +the subjects of poetry as Love, War, and Religion, or in words which we +may not unfairly translate by these. The earlier master recognised +(practically for the first time) that the romance--that allotropic form +(as the chemists might say) of poetry--must deal with the same. Now in +these forms of the Arthurian legend, which are certainly anterior to the +latter part of the twelfth century, there is a great deal of war and a +good deal of religion, but these motives are mostly separated from each +other, the earlier forms of the Arthur story having nothing to do with +the Graal, and the earlier forms of the Graal story--so far as we can +see--nothing, or extremely little, to do with Arthur. Nor had Love, in +any proper and passionate sense of the word, anything to do with either. +Women and marriage and breaches of marriage appear indeed; but the +earlier Graal stories are dominated by the most ascetic +virginity-worship, and the earlier Arthur-stories show absolutely +nothing of the passion which is the subject of the magnificent overture +of Mr. Swinburne's _Tristram_. Even this story of Tristram himself, +afterwards fired and coloured by passion, seems at first to have shown +nothing but the mixture of animalism, cruelty, and magic which is +characteristic of the Celts.[32] Our magician of a very different +gramarye, were he Walter or Chrestien or some third--Norman, Champenois, +Breton,[33] or Englishman (Welshman or Irishman he pretty certainly was +_not_)--had therefore before him, if not exactly dry bones, yet the +half-vivified material of a chronicle of events on the one hand and a +mystical dream-sermon on the other. He, or a French or English Pallas +for him, had to "think of another thing." + +And so he called in Love to reinforce War and Religion and to do its +proper office of uniting, inspiring, and producing Humanity. He +effected, by the union of the three motives, the transformation of a +mere dull record of confused fighting into a brilliant pageant of +knightly adventure. He made the long-winded homilies and genealogies of +the earlier Graal-legend at once take colour from the amorous and +war-like adventures, raise these to a higher and more spiritual plane, +and provide the due punishment for the sins of his erring characters. +The whole story--at least all of it that he chose to touch and all that +he chose to add--became alive. The bones were clothed with flesh and +blood, the "wastable country verament" (as the dullest of the Graal +chroniclers says in a phrase that applies capitally to his own work) +blossomed with flower and fruit. Wars of Arthur with unwilling subjects +or Saxons and Romans; treachery of his wife and nephew and his own +death; miracle-history of the Holy Vessel and pedigree of its +custodians; Round Table; these and many other things had lain as mere +scraps and orts, united by no real plot, yielding no real characters, +satisfying no real interest that could not have been equally satisfied +by an actual chronicle or an actual religious-mystical discourse. And +then the whole was suddenly knit into a seamless and shimmering web of +romance, from the fancy of Uther for Igerne to the "departing of them +all" in Lyonnesse and at Amesbury and at Joyous Gard. A romance +undoubtedly, but also incidentally providing the first real novel-hero +and the first real novel-heroine in the persons of the lovers who, as in +the passage above translated, sometimes "made great joy of each other +for that they had long caused each other much sorrow," and finally +expiated in sorrow what was unlawful in their joy. + +Let us pass to these persons themselves. + +[Sidenote: Especially in the characters and relations of Lancelot and +Guinevere.] + +The first point to note about Lancelot is the singular fashion in which +he escapes one of the dangers of the hero. Aristotle had never said that +a hero must be faultless; indeed, he had definitely said exactly the +contrary, of at least the tragic hero. But one of the worst of the many +misunderstandings of his dicta brought the wrong notion about, and +Virgil--that exquisite craftsman in verse and phrase, but otherwise, +perhaps, not great poet and very dangerous pattern--had confirmed this +notion by his deplorable figurehead. It is also fair to confess that all +except morbid tastes do like to see the hero win. But if he is to be a +hero of Rymer, not merely + + Like Paris handsome[34] and like Hector brave, + +but as pious as Aeneas; "a rich fellow enough," with blood hopelessly +blue and morals spotlessly copy-bookish--in other words, a Sir Charles +Grandison--he will duly meet with the detestation and "conspuing" of the +elect. Almost the only just one of the numerous and generally silly +charges latterly brought against Tennyson's Arthurian handling is that +his conception of the blameless king does a little smack of this false +idea, does something grow to it. It is one of the chief points in which +he departed, not merely from the older stories (which he probably did +not know), but from Malory's astonishing redaction of them (which he +certainly did). + +[Sidenote: Lancelot.] + +But Lancelot escapes this worst of fates in the _Idylls_ themselves, and +much more does he escape it in the originals. In the first place, though +he invariably (or always till the Graal Quest) "wins through," he +constantly does not do so without intermediate hairbreadth escapes, and +even not a few adventures which are at first not escapes at all. And +just as his perpetual bafflement in the Quest salts and seasons his +triumphs in the saddle, so does the ruling passion of his sin save, from +anything approaching mawkishness,[35] his innumerable and yet +inoffensive virtues; his chastity, save in this instance, which chastity +itself, by a further stroke of art, is saved from _niaiserie_ by the +plotted adventures with Elaine; his courtesy, his mercifulness, his +wonderfully early notion of a gentleman (_v. inf._), his invariable +disregard of self, and yet his equally invariable naturalness. Pious +Aeneas had not the least objection to bringing about the death of Dido, +as he might have known he was doing (unless he was as great a fool as he +is a prig); and he is probably never more disgusting or Pecksniffian +than when he looks back on the flames of Dido's pyre and is really +afraid that something unpleasant must have happened, though he can't +think what the matter can be. But _he_, one feels sure, would never have +lifted up his hand against a woman, unless she had richly deserved it on +the strictest patriotic scores, as in the case of Helen, when his mamma +fortunately interfered. On the other hand, Lancelot was "of the Asra who +die when they love" and love till they die--nay, who would die if they +did not love. But it is certain (for there is a very nice miniature of +it reproduced from the MS. in M. Paulin Paris's abstract) that, for a +moment, he drew his sword on Elaine to punish the deceit which made him +unwittingly false to Guinevere. It is very shocking, no doubt, but +exceedingly natural; and of course he did not kill or even (like +Philaster) wound her, though nobody interfered to prevent him. Many of +the incidents which bring out his character are well known to moderns by +poem and picture, though others, as well worth knowing, are not. But the +human contrasts of success and failure, of merit and sin, have never, I +think, been quite brought out, and to bring them out completely here +would take too much room. We may perhaps leave this other--quite +other--"_First_ Gentleman in Europe" with the remark that Chrestien de +Troyes gives only one side of him, and therefore does not give him at +all. The Lancelot of board and bower, of travel and tournament, he does +very fairly. But of the Lancelot of the woods and the hermitage, of the +dream at the foot of the cross, of the mystic voyage and the just +failing (if failing) effort of Carbonek, he gives, because he knows, +nothing. + +[Sidenote: Guinevere.] + +Completed as he was, no matter for the moment by whom, he is thus the +first hero of romance and nearly the greatest; but his lady is worthy of +him, and she is almost more original as an individual. It is true that +she is not the first heroine, as he is, if not altogether, almost the +first hero. Helen was that, though very imperfectly revealed and +gingerly handled. Calypso (hardly Circe) _might_ have been. Medea is +perhaps nearer still, especially in Apollonius. But the Greek romancers +were the first who had really busied themselves with the heroine: they +took her up seriously and gave her a considerable position. But they did +not succeed in giving her much character. The naughty _not_-heroine of +Achilles Tatius, though she has less than none in Mr. Pope's supposed +innuendo sense, alone has an approach to some in the other. As for the +accomplished Guinevere's probable contemporary, the Ismene or Hysmine of +Eustathius Macrembolites (_v. sup._ p. 18), she is a sort of +Greek-mediaeval Henrietta Temple, with Mr. Meredith and Mr. Disraeli by +turns holding the pen, though with neither of them supplying the brains. +But Guinevere is a very different person; or rather, she _is_ a person, +and the first. To appreciate her she must be compared with herself in +earlier presentations, and then considered fully as she appears in the +Vulgate--for Malory, though he has given much, has not given the whole +of her, and Tennyson has painted only the last panel of the polyptych +wholly, and has rather over-coloured that.[36] + +In what we may call the earliest representations of her, she has hardly +any colour at all. She is a noble Roman lady, and very beautiful. For a +time she is apparently very happy with her husband, and he with her; and +if she seems to make not the slightest scruple about "taking up with" +her nephew, co-regent and fellow rebel, why, noble Roman ladies thought +nothing of divorce and not much of adultery. The only old Welsh story +(the famous Melvas one so often referred to) that we have about her in +much detail merely establishes the fact, pleasantly formulated by M. +Paulin Paris, that she was "tres sujette a etre enlevee," but in itself +(unless we admit the Peacockian triad of the "Three Fatal Slaps of the +Isle of Britain" as evidence) again says nothing about her character. +If, as seems probable if not certain, the _Launfal_ legend, with its +libel on her, is of Breton origin, it makes her an ordinary Celtic +princess, a spiritual sister of Iseult when she tried to kill Brengwain, +and a cross between Potiphar's wife and Catherine of Russia, without any +of the good nature and "gentlemanliness" of the last named. The real +Guinevere, the Guinevere of the Vulgate and partly of Malory, is freed +from the colourlessness and the discreditable end of Geoffrey's queen, +transforms the promiscuous and rather _louche_ Melvas incident into an +important episode of her epic or romantic existence, and gives the lie, +even in her least creditable or least charming moments, to the _Launfal_ +libel. As before in Lancelot's case, details of her presentation had in +some cases best be either translated in full or omitted, but I cannot +refuse myself the pleasure of attempting, with however clumsy a hand, a +portrait of our, as I believe, English Helen, who gave in French +language to French, and not only French literature, the pattern of a +heroine. + +There is not, I think, any ancient authority for the rather commonplace +suggestion, unwisely adopted by Tennyson, that Guinevere fell in love +with Lancelot when he was sent as an ambassador to fetch her; thus +merely repeating Iseult and Tristram, and anticipating Suffolk and +Margaret. In fact, according to the best evidence, Lancelot could not +have been old enough, if he was even born. On the contrary, nothing +could be better than the presentation of her introduction to Arthur and +the course of the wooing in the Vulgate--the other "blessed original." +She first sees Arthur as a foe from the walls of besieged Carmelide, and +admires his valour; she has further occasion to admire it when, as a +friend, he rescues her father, showing himself, as what he really was in +his youth, his own best knight. The pair are genuinely in love with each +other, and the betrothal and parting for fresh fight are the most +gracious passages of the _Merlin_ book, except the better version (_v. +sup._) of the love of Merlin himself and the afterwards libelled +Viviane. Anyhow, she was married because she fell in love with him, and +there is no evidence to show that she and Arthur lived otherwise than +happily together. But, if all tales were true, she had no reason to +regard him as a very faithful husband or a blameless man. She may not +have known (for nobody but Merlin apparently did know) the early and +unwitting incest of the King and his half-sister Margause; but the +extreme ease with which he adopted her own treacherous foster-sister, +the "false Guinevere," and his proceedings with the Saxon enchantress +Camilla, were very strong "sets off" to her own conduct. Also she had a +most disagreeable[37] sister-in-law in Morgane-la-Fee. These are not in +the least offered as excuses, but merely as "lights." Indeed Guinevere +never seems to have hated or disliked her husband, though he often gave +her cause; and if, until the great repentance, she thought more lightly +of "spouse-breach" than Lancelot did, that is not uncharacteristic of +women.[38] In fact, she is a very perfect (not of course in the moral +sense) gentlewoman. She is at once popular with the knights, and loses +that popularity rather by Lancelot's fault than by her own, while +Gawain, who remains faithful to her to the bitter end, or at least till +the luckless slaughter of his brethren, declares at the beginning that +she is the fairest and most gracious, and will be the wisest and best of +queens. She shows something very like humour in the famous and fateful +remark (uttered, it would seem, without the slightest ill or double +meaning at the time) as to Gawain's estimate of Lancelot.[39] She seems +to have had an agreeable petulance (notice, for instance, the rebuke of +Kay at the opening of the _Ywain_ story and elsewhere), which sometimes, +as it naturally would, rises to passionate injustice, as Lancelot +frequently discovered. She is, in fact, always passionate in one or +other sense of that great and terrible and infinite[40] word, but never +tragedy-queenish or vixenish. She falls in love with Lancelot because he +falls in love with her, and because she cannot help it. False as she is +to husband and to lover, to her court and her country,[41] it can hardly +be said that any act of hers, except the love itself and its +irresistible consequences, is faulty. She is not capricious, +extravagant, or tyrannical; in her very jealousy she is not cruel or +revengeful (the original Iseult would certainly have had Elaine poisoned +or poniarded, for which there was ample opportunity). If she torments +her lover, that is because she loves him. If she is unjust to him, that +is because she is a woman. Her last speech to Lancelot after the +catastrophe--Tennyson should have, as has been said, paraphrased this as +he paraphrased the passing of her husband, and from the same texts, and +we should then have had another of the greatest things of English +poetry--shows a noble nature with the [Greek: hamartia] present, but +repented in a strange and great mixture of classical and Christian +tragedy. There is little told in a trustworthy fashion about her +personal appearance. But if Glastonbury traditions about her bones be +true, she was certainly (again like Helen) "divinely tall." And if the +suggestions of Hawker's "Queen Gwennyvar's Round"[42] in the sea round +Tintagel be worked out a little, it will follow that her eyes were +divinely blue. + +[Sidenote: Some minor points.] + +When such very high praise is given to the position of the (further) +accomplished Arthur-story, it is of course not intended to bestow that +praise on any particular MS. or printed version that exists. It is in +the highest degree improbable that, whether the original magician was +Map, or Chrestien, or anybody else (to repeat a useful formula), we +possess an exact and exclusive copy of the form into which he himself threw +the story. Independently of the fact that no MS., verse or prose, of anything +like the complete story seems old enough, independently of the enormous and +almost innumerable separable accretions, the so-called Vulgate cycle of +"_Graal-Merlin-Arthur-Lancelot-Graal-Quest-Arthur's-Death_" has +considerable variants--the most important and remarkable of which by far +is the large alteration or sequel of the "Vulgate" _Merlin_ which Malory +preferred. In the "Vulgate" itself, too, there are things which were +certainly written either by the great contriver in nodding moods, or by +somebody else,--in fact no one can hope to understand mediaeval +literature who forgets that no mediaeval writer could ever "let a thing +alone": he simply _must_ add or shorten, paraphrase or alter. I rather +doubt whether the Great Unknown himself meant _both_ the amours of +Arthur with Camilla and the complete episode of the false Guinevere to +stand side by side. The first is (as such justifications go) a +sufficient justification of Guinevere by itself; and the conduct of +Arthur in the second is such a combination of folly, cruelty, and all +sorts of despicable behaviour that it overdoes the thing. So, too, +Lancelot's "abscondences," with or without madness, are too many and too +prolonged.[43] The long and totally uninteresting campaign against +Claudas, during the greater part of which Lancelot (who is most of all +concerned) is absent, and in which he takes no part or interest when +present, is another great blot. Some of these things, but not all, +Malory remedied by omission. + +To sum up, and even repeat a little, in speaking so highly of this +development--French beyond all doubt as a part of literature, whatever +the nationality, domicile, and temper of the person or persons who +brought it about--I do not desire more to emphasise what I believe to be +a great and not too well appreciated truth than to guard against that +exaggeration which dogs and discredits literary criticism. Of course no +single redaction of the legend in the late twelfth or earliest +thirteenth century contains the story, the whole story, and nothing but +the story as I have just outlined it. Of course the words used do not +apply fully to Malory's English redaction of three centuries later--work +of genius as this appears to me to be. Yet further, I should be fully +disposed to allow that it is only by reading the _posse_ into the +_esse_, under the guidance of later developments of the novel itself, +that the estimate which I have given can be entirely justified. But this +process seems to me to be perfectly legitimate, and to be, in fact, the +only process capable of giving us literary-historical criticism that is +worth having. The writer or writers, known or unknown, whose work we +have been discussing, have got the plot, have got the characters, have +got the narrative faculty required for a complete novel-romance. If they +do not quite know what to do with these things it is only because the +time is not yet. But how much they did, and of how much more they +foreshadowed the doing, the extracts following should show better than +any "talk about it." + + [_Lancelot, still under the tutelage of the Lady of the Lake + and ignorant of his own parentage, has met his cousins, + Lionel and Bors, and has been greatly drawn to them._] + + [Sidenote: Illustrative extracts translated from the + "Vulgate." The youth of Lancelot.] + + Now turns herself the Lady back to the Lake, and takes the + children with her. And when she had gone[44] a good way, she + called Lancelot a little way off the road and said to him + very kindly, "King's son,[45] how wast thou so bold as to + call Lionel thy cousin? for he _is_ a king's son, and of not + a little more worth and gentry than men think." "Lady," said + he, who was right ashamed, "so came the word into my mouth + by adventure that I never took any heed of it." "Now tell + me," said she, "by the faith thou owest me, which thinkest + thou to be the greater gentleman, thyself or him?" "Lady," + said he, "you have adjured me strongly, for I owe no one + such faith as I owe you, my lady and my mother: nor know I + how much of a gentleman I am by lineage. But, by the faith I + owe you, I would not myself deign to be abashed at that for + which I saw him weep.[46] And they have told me that all men + have sprung from one man and one woman: nor know I for what + reason one has more gentry than another, unless he win it by + prowess, even as lands and other honours. But know you for + very truth that if greatness of heart made a gentleman I + would think yet to be one of the greatest." "Verily, fair + son," said the Lady, "it shall appear. And I say to you that + you lose nothing of being one of the best gentlemen in the + world, if your heart fail you not." "How, Lady!" said he, + "say you this truly, _as_ my lady?" And she said, "Yes, + without fail." "Lady," said he, "blessed be you of God, that + you said it to me so soon [_or_ as soon as you have said + it]. For to that will you make me come which I never thought + to attain. Nor had I so much desire of anything as of + possessing gentry." + + [_The first meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere. The Lady of + the Lake has prevailed upon the King to dub Lancelot on St. + John's Day (Midsummer, not Christmas). His protectress + departing, he is committed to the care of Ywain, and a + conversation arises about him. The Queen asks to see him._] + + [Sidenote: The first meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere.] + + Then bid he [the King] Monseigneur[47] Ywain that he should + go and look for Lancelot. "And let him be equipped as + handsomely as you know is proper: for well know I that he + has plenty." Then the King himself told the Queen how the + Lady of the Lake had requested that he would not make + Lancelot knight save in his own arms and dress. And the + Queen marvelled much at this, and thought long till she saw + him. So Messire Ywain went to the Childe [_vallet_] and had + him clothed and equipped in the best way he could: and when + he saw that nothing could be bettered, he led him to Court + on his own horse, which was right fair. But he brought him + not quietly. For there was so much people about that the + whole street was full: and the news was spread through all + the town that the fair Childe who came yester eve should be + a knight to-morrow, and was now coming to Court in knightly + garb. Then sprang to the windows they of the town, both men + and women. And when they saw him pass they said that never + had they seen so fair a Childe-knight. So he came to the + Court and alighted from his horse: and the news of him + spread through hall and chamber; and knights and dames and + damsels hurried forth. And even the King and the Queen went + to the windows. So when the Childe had dismounted, Messire + Ywain took him by the hand, and led him by it up to the + Hall. + + The King and the Queen came to meet him: and both took him + by his two hands and went to seat themselves on a couch: + while the Childe seated himself before them on the fresh + green grass with which the Hall was spread. And the King + gazed on him right willingly: for if he had seemed fair at + his first coming, it was nothing to the beauty that he now + had. And the King thought he had mightily grown in stature + and thews.[48] So the Queen prayed that God might make him a + man of worth, "for right plenty of beauty has He given him," + and she looked at the Childe very sweetly: and so did he at + her as often as he could covertly direct his eyes towards + her. Also marvelled he much how such great beauty as he saw + appear in her could come: for neither that of his lady, the + Lady of the Lake, nor of any woman that he had ever seen, + did he prize aught as compared with hers. And no wrong had + he if he valued no other lady against the Queen: for she was + the Lady of Ladies and the Fountain of Beauty. But if he had + known the great worthiness that was in her he would have + been still more fain to gaze on her. For none, neither poor + nor rich, was her equal. + + So she asked Monseigneur Ywain what was the Childe's name, + and he answered that he knew not. "And know you," said she, + "whose son he is and of what birth?" "Lady," said he, "nay, + except I know so much as that he is of the land of Gaul. For + his speech bewrayeth him."[49] Then the Queen took him by + the hand and asked him of whom he came. And when he felt it + [the touch] he shuddered as though roused from sleep, and + thought of her so hard that he knew not what she said to + him. And she perceived that he was much abashed, and so + asked him a second time, "Tell me whence you come." So he + looked at her very sheepishly and said, with a sigh, that he + knew not. And she asked him what was his name; and he + answered that he knew not that. So now the Queen saw well + that he was abashed and _overthought_.[50] But she dared not + think that it was for her: and nevertheless she had some + suspicion of it, and so dropped the talk. But that she might + not make the disorder of his mind worse, she rose from her + seat and, in order that no one might think any evil or + perceive what she suspected, said that the Childe seemed to + her not very wise, and whether wise or not had been ill + brought up. "Lady," said Messire Ywain, "between you and me, + we know nothing about him: and perchance he is forbidden[51] + to tell his name or who he is." And she said, "It may well + be so," but she said it so low that the Childe heard her + not. + + [_Here follows (with a very little surplusage removed + perhaps) the scene which Dante has made world-famous, but + which Malory (I think for reasons) has "cut." I trust it is + neither Philistinism nor perversity which makes me think of + it a little, though only a little, less highly than some + have done. There is (and after all this makes it all the + more interesting for us historians) the least little bit of + anticipation of_ Marivaudage _about it, and less of the + adorable simplicity such as that (a little subsequent to the + last extract given) where Lancelot, having forgotten to take + leave of the Queen on going to his first adventure, and + having returned to do so, kneels to her, receives her hand + to raise him from the ground, "and much was his joy to feel + it bare in his." But the beauty of what follows is + incontestable, and that Guinevere was "exceeding wise in + love" is certain._] + + [Sidenote: The scene of the kiss.] + + "Ha!" said she then, "I know who you are--Lancelot of the + Lake is your name." And he was silent. "They know it at + court," said she, "this sometime. Messire Gawain was the + first to bring your name there...." Then she asked him why + he had allowed the worst man in the world to lead him by + the bridle. "Lady," said he, "as one who had command neither + of his heart nor of his body." "Now tell me," said she, + "were you at last year's assembly?" "Yes, Lady," said he. + "And what arms did you bear?" "Lady, they were all of + vermilion." "By my head," said she, "you say true. And why + did you do such deeds at the meeting the day before + yesterday?" Then he began to sigh very very deeply. And the + Queen cut him short as well, knowing how it was with him. + + "Tell me," she said, "plainly, how it is. I will never + betray you. But I know that you did it for some lady. Now, + tell me, by the faith you owe me, who she is." "Ah, Lady," + said he, "I see well that it behoves me to speak. Lady, it + is you." "I!" said she. "It was not for me you took the + spears that my maiden brought you. For I took care to put + myself out of the commission." "Lady," said he, "I did for + others what I ought, and for you what I could." "Tell me, + then, for whom have you done all the things that you _have_ + done?" "Lady," said he, "for you." "How," said she, "do you + love me so much?" "So much, Lady, as I love neither myself + nor any other." "And since when have you loved me thus?" + "Since the hour when I was called knight and yet was not + one."[52] "Then, by the faith you owe me, whence came this + love that you have set upon me?" Now as the Queen said these + words it happened that the Lady of the Puy of Malahault[53] + coughed on purpose, and lifted her head, which she had held + down. And he understood her now, having oft heard her + before: and looked at her and knew her, and felt in his + heart such fear and anguish that he could not answer the + Queen. Then began he to sigh right deeply, and the tears + fell from his eyes so thick, that the garment he wore was + wet to the knees. And the more he looked at the Lady of + Malahault the more ill at ease was his heart. Now the Queen + noticed this and saw that he looked sadly towards the place + where her ladies were, and she reasoned with him. "Tell me," + she said, "whence comes this love that I am asking you + about?" and he tried as hard as he could to speak, and said, + "Lady, from the time I have said." "How?" "Lady, you did it, + when you made me your friend, if your mouth lied not." "My + friend?" she said; "and how?" "I came before you when I had + taken leave of my Lord the King all armed except my head and + my hands. And then I commended you to God, and said that, + wherever I was, I was your knight: and you said that you + would have me to be your knight and your friend. And then I + said, 'Adieu, Lady,' and you said, 'Adieu, fair sweet + friend.' And never has that word left my heart, and it is + that word that has made me a good knight and valiant--if I + be so: nor ever have I been so ill-bested as not to remember + that word. That word comforts me in all my annoys. That word + has kept me from all harm, and freed me from all peril, and + fills me whenever I hunger. Never have I been so poor but + that word has made me rich." "By my faith," said the Queen, + "that word was spoken in a good hour, and God be praised + when He made me speak it. Still, I did not set it as high as + you did: and to many a knight have I said it, when I gave no + more thought to the saying. But _your_ thought was no base + one, but gentle and debonair; wherefore joy has come to you + of it, and it has made you a good knight. Yet, nevertheless, + this way is not that of knights who make great matter to + many a lady of many a thing which they have little at heart. + And your seeming shows me that you love one or other of + these ladies better than you love me. For you wept for fear + and dared not look straight at them: so that I well see that + your thought is not so much of me as you pretend. So, by the + faith you owe the thing you love best in the world, tell me + which one of the three you love so much?" "Ah! Lady," said + he, "for the mercy of God, as God shall keep me, never had + one of them my heart in her keeping." "This will not do," + said the Queen, "you cannot dissemble. For many another such + thing have I seen, and I know that your heart is there as + surely as your body is here." And this she said that she + might well see how she might put him ill at ease. For she + thought surely enough that he meant no love save to her, or + ill would it have gone on the day of the Black Arms.[54] And + she took a keen delight in seeing and considering his + discomfort. But he was in such anguish that he wanted little + of swooning, save that fear of the ladies before him kept + him back. And the Queen herself perceived it at the sight of + his changes of colour, and caught him by the shoulder that + he might not fall, and called to Galahault. Then the prince + sprang forward and ran to his friend, and saw that he was + disturbed thus, and had great pain in his own heart for it, + and said, "Ah, Lady! tell me, for God's sake, what has + happened." And the Queen told him the conversation. "Ah, + Lady!" said Galahault, "mercy, for God's sake, or you may + lose me him by such wrath, and it would be too great pity." + "Certes," said she, "that is true. But know you why he has + done such feats of arms?" "Nay, surely, Lady," said he. + "Sir," said she, "if what he tells me is true, it was for + me." "Lady," said he, "as God shall keep me, I can believe + it. For just as he is more valiant than other men, so is + his heart truer than all theirs." "Verily," said she, "you + would say well that he is valiant if you knew what deeds he + has done since he was made knight," and then she told him + all the chivalry of Lancelot ... and how he had done it all + for a single word of hers [_Galahault tells her more, and + begs mercy for L._]. "He could ask me nothing," sighed she, + "that I could fairly refuse him, but he will ask me nothing + at all."... "Lady," said Galahault, "certainly he has no + power to do so. For one loves nothing that one does not + fear." [_And then comes the immortal kiss, asked by the + Prince, delayed a moment by the Queen's demur as to time and + place, brought on by the "Galeotto"-speech._ "Let us three + corner close together as if we were talking secrets," + _vouchsafed by Guinevere in the words_, "Why should I make + me longer prayer for what I wish more than you or he?" + _Lancelot still hangs back, but the Queen_ "takes him by the + chin and kisses him before Galahault with a kiss long + enough" so that the Lady of Malahault knows it.] And then + said the Queen, who was a right wise and gracious lady, + "Fair sweet friend, so much have you done that I am yours, + and right great joy have I thereof. Now see to it that the + thing be kept secret, as it should be. For I am one of the + ladies of the world who have the fairest fame, and if my + praise grew worse through you, then it would be a foul and + shameful thing." + +[Sidenote: Some further remarks on the novel character of the story.] + +A little more comment on this cento, and especially on the central +passage of it, can hardly be, and ought certainly not to be, avoided in +such a work as this, even if, like most summaries, it be something of a +repetition. It must surely be obvious to any careful reader that here is +something much more than--unless his reading has been as wide elsewhere +as it is careful here--he expected from Romance in the commoner and +half-contemptuous acceptation of that word. Lancelot he may, though he +should not, still class as a mere _amoureux transi_--a nobler and +pluckier Silvius in an earlier _As Yon Like It_, and with a greater than +Phoebe for idol. Malory ought to be enough to set him right there: he +need even not go much beyond Tennyson, who has comprehended Lancelot +pretty correctly, if not indeed pretty adequately. But Malory has left +out a great deal of the information which would have enabled his +readers to comprehend Guinevere; and Tennyson, only presenting her in +parts, has allowed those parts, especially the final and only full +presentation, great as it is, to be too much influenced by his certainly +unfortunate other presentation of Arthur as a blameless king. + +I do not say that the actual creator of the Vulgate Guinevere, whoever +he was, has wrought her into a novel-character of the first class. It +would have been not merely a miracle (for miracles often happen), but +something more, if he had. If you could take Beatrix Esmond at a better +time, Argemone Lavington raised to a higher power, and the spirit of all +that is best and strongest and least purely paradoxical in Meredith's +heroines, and work these three graces into one woman, adding the passion +of Tennyson's own Fatima and the queenliness of Helen herself, it might +be something like the achieved Guinevere who is still left to the +reader's imagination to achieve. But the Unknown has given the hints of +all this; and curiously enough it is only of _English_ novel-heroines +that I can think in comparison and continuation of her. This book, if it +is ever finished, will show, I hope, some knowledge of French ones: I +can remember none possessing any touch of Guineveresque quality. Dante, +if his poetic nature had taken a different bent, and Shakespeare, if he +had only chosen, could have been her portrayers singly; no others that I +can think of, and certainly no Frenchman. + +[Sidenote: And the personages.] + +But here Guinevere's creator or expounder has done more for her than +merely indicate her charm. Her "fear for name and fame" is not exactly +"crescent"--it is there from the first, and seems to have nothing either +cowardly or merely selfish in it, but only that really "last infirmity +of noble minds," the shame of shame even in doing things shameful or +shameless. I have seldom seen justice done to her magnificent +fearlessness in all her dangers. Her graciousness as a Queen has been +more generally admitted, but, once again, the composition and complexity +of her fits of jealousy have never, I think, been fully rationalised. +Here, once more, we must take into account that difference of age which +is so important. _He_ thinks nothing of it; _she_ never forgets it. And +in almost all the circumstances where this rankling kindles into +wrath--whether with no cause at all, as in most cases, or with cause +more apparent than real, as in the Elaine business--study of particulars +will show how easily they might be wrought out into the great character +scenes of which they already contain the suggestion. _This_ Guinevere +would never have "taken up" (to use purposely a vulgar phrase for what +would have been a vulgar thing) with Mordred,[55] either for himself or +for the kingdom that he was trying to steal. And I am bound to say again +that much as I have read of purely French romance--that is to say, +French not merely in language but in certain origin--I know nothing and +nobody like her in it. + +That Guinevere, like Charlotte, was "a married lady," that, unlike +Charlotte, she forgot the fact, and that Lancelot, though somewhat +Wertheresque in some of his features, was not quite so "moral" as that +very dull young man, are facts which I wish neither to suppress nor to +dwell upon. We may cry "Agreed" here to the indictment, and all its +consequences. They are not the question. + +The question is the suggesting of novel-romance elements which forms the +aesthetic solace of this ethical sin. It should be seen at once that the +Guinevere of the Vulgate, and her fault or fate, provide a character and +career of no small complexity. It has been already said that to +represent her as after a fashion intercepted by love for Lancelot on her +way to Arthur, like Iseult of Ireland or Margaret of Anjou, is, so to +speak, as unhistorical as it is insufficiently artistic. We cannot, +indeed, borrow Diderot's speech to Rousseau and say, "C'est le pont aux +anes," but it certainly would not have been the way of the Walter whom I +favour, though I think it might have been the way of the Chrestien that +I know. Guinevere, when she meets her lover, rescuer, and doomsman, is +no longer a girl, and Lancelot is almost a boy. It is not, in the common +and cheap misuse of the term, the most "romantic" arrangement, but some +not imperfect in love-lore have held that a woman's love is never so +strong as when she is past girlhood and well approaching age, and that +man's is never stronger than when he is just not a boy. Lancelot himself +has loved no woman (except his quasi-mother, the Lady of the Lake), and +will love none after he has fulfilled the Dead Shepherd's "saw of +might." She _has_ loved; dispute this and you not only cancel gracious +scenes of the text, but spoil the story; but she has, though probably +she does not yet know it, ceased to love,[56] and not without some +reason. To say no more about Arthur's technical "blamelessness," he has, +by the coming of Lancelot, ceased to be altogether heroic. Though never +a mere petulant and ferocious dotard as the _Chansons_ too often +represent Charlemagne, he is very far from being a wise ruler or even +baron. He makes rash promises and vows, accepts charges on very slight +evidence, and seems to have his knights by no means "in hand." So, too, +though never a coward or weakling, he seems pretty nearly to have lost +the pluck and prowess which had won Guinevere's love under the walls of +Carmelide, and of which the last display is in the great fight with his +sister's lover, Sir Accolon. All this may not excuse Guinevere's conduct +to the moralist; it certainly makes that conduct artistically probable +and legitimate to the critic, as a foundation for novel-character. + +Her lover may look less promising, at least at the moment of +presentation; and indeed it is true that while "la donna e _im_mobile," +in essentials and possibilities alike, forms of man, though never losing +reality and possibility, pass at times out of possible or at least easy +recognition. Anybody who sees in the Lancelot of the foregoing scene +only a hobbledehoy and milksop who happens to have a big chest, strong +arms, and plenty of mere fighting spirit, will never grasp him. Hardly +better off will be he who takes him--as the story _does_ give some +handles for taking him--to be merely one of the too common examples of +humanity who sin and repent, repent and sin, with a sort of +Americanesque notion of spending dollars in this world and laying them +up in another. Malory has on the whole done more justice to the +possibilities of the Vulgate Lancelot than he has to Guinevere, and +Tennyson has here improved on Malory. He has, indeed, very nearly "got" +Lancelot, but not quite. To get him wholly would have required Tennyson +for form and Browning for analysis of character; while even this +_mistura mirabilis_ would have been improved for the purpose by touches +not merely of Morris and Swinburne, but of lesser men like Kingsley and +even George Macdonald. To understand Lancelot you must previously +understand, or by some kind of intuition divine, the mystical element +which his descent from the Graal-Wardens confers; the essential or +quintessential chivalric quality which his successive creators agreed in +imparting to him; the all-conquering gift so strangely tempered by an +entire freedom from the boasting and the rudeness of the _chanson_ hero; +the actual checks and disasters which his cross stars bring on him; his +utter loyalty in all things save one to the king; and last and mightiest +of all, his unquenchable and unchangeable passion for the Queen. + +Hence what they said to him in one of his early adventures, with no +great ill following, "Fair Knight, thou art unhappy," was always true in +a higher sense. He may have been Lord of Joyous Gard, in title and fact; +but his own heart was always a Garde Douloureuse--a _cor +luctificabile_--pillowed on idle triumphs and fearful hopes and +poisoned satisfactions, and bafflements where he would most fain have +succeeded. He has almost had to have the first kiss forced on him; he is +refused the last on grounds of which he himself cannot deny the +validity. Guinevere is a tragic figure in the truest and deepest sense +of the term, and, as we have tried to show, she is amply complex in +character and temperament. But it is questionable whether Lancelot is +not more tragic and more complex still. + +[Sidenote: Books.] + +It may perhaps without impropriety be repeated that these are not mere +fancies of the writer, but things reasonably suggested by and solidly +based upon "the French books," when these later are collated and, so to +speak, "checked" by Malory and the romances of adventure branching off +from them. But Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot by no means exhaust the +material for advanced and complicated novel-work--in character as well +as incident--provided by the older forms of the Legend. There is Gawain, +who has to be put together from the sort of first draft of Lancelot +which he shows in the earlier versions, and the light-o'-love opposite +which he becomes in the later, a contrast continued in the Amadis and +Galaor figures of the Spanish romances and their descendants. There is +the already glanced at group of Arthur's sisters or half-sisters, left +mere sketches and hints, but most interesting. Not to be tedious, we +need not dwell on Palomides, a very promising Lancelot unloved; on +Lamoracke, left provokingly obscure, but shadowing a most important +possibility in the unwritten romance of one of those very sisters; Bors, +of whom Tennyson has made something, but not enough, in the later +_Idylls_; and others. But it is probably unnecessary to carry the +discussion of this matter further. It has been discussed and illustrated +at some length, because it shows how early the elements, not merely of +romance but of the novel in the fullest sense, existed in French +literature. + + [_Here follows the noble passage above referred to between + Lancelot and King Bagdemagus after the death of + Meleagraunce, whose cousin Lancelot has just slain in + single combat for charging him with treason. He has kept his + helm on, but doffs it at the King's request._] + +And when the King saw him he ran to kiss him, and began to make such joy +of him as none could overgo. But Lancelot said, "Ah, Sir! for God's +sake, make no joy or feast for me. Certainly you should make none, for +if you knew the evil I have done you, you would hate me above all men in +the world." "Oh! Lancelot," said he, "tell it me not, for I +understand[57] too well what you would say; but I will know[57] nothing +of it, because it might be such a thing" as would part them for ever. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] The subdivision of the _gestes_ does not matter: they were all +connected closely or loosely--except the Crusading section, and even +that falls under the Christian _v._ Saracen grouping if not under the +Carlovingian. The real "outside" members are few, late, and in almost +every case unimportant. + +[15] There are comic _episodes_ elsewhere; but almost the whole of this +poem turns on the _gabz_ or burlesque boasts of the paladins.--It may be +wise here to anticipate an objection which may be taken to these remarks +on the _chansons_. I have been asked whether I know M. Bedier's handling +of them; and, by an odd coincidence, within a few hours of the question +I saw an American statement that this excellent scholar's researches +"have revised our conceptions" of the matter. No one can exceed me in +respect for perhaps the foremost of recent scholars in Old French. But +my "conception" of the _chansons_ was formed long before he wrote, not +from that of any of his predecessors, but from the _chansons_ +themselves. It is therefore not subject to "revisal" except from my own +re-reading, and such re-reading has only confirmed it. + +[16] It is not of course intended to be preferred to the far more widely +known tale in which the heroine bears the same name, and which will be +mentioned below. But if it is less beautiful such beauty as it has is +free from the slightest _morbidezza_. + +[17] And to this introduction our dealings with it here may be confined. +The accounts of the siege itself are of much less interest, especially +in connection with our special subject. + +[18] A sort of companion handbook to the first part of this volume will +be found in the present writer's sketch of twelfth and thirteenth +century European literature, under the title of _The Flourishing of +Romance and the Rise of Allegory_, in Messrs. Blackwood's _Periods of +European Literature_ (Edinburgh and London, 1897), and another in his +_Short History of French Literature_ (Oxford, 7th ed. at press). + +[19] It is scarcely rash to say that Cressid is the first representative +of this dread and delightful entity, and the ancestress of all its +embodiments since in fiction, as Cleopatra seems to have been in +history. No doubt "it" was of the beginning, but it lacked its _vates_. +Helen was different. + +[20] _Faerie Queene_, v. iv. 1-20. + +[21] I hope I may be allowed to emphasise the disclaimer, which I have +already made more than once elsewhere, of the very slightest disrespect +to this admirable scholar. The presumption and folly of such disrespect +would be only inferior to its ingratitude, for the indulgence with which +M. Paris consistently treated my own somewhat rash adventures in Old +French was extraordinary. But as one's word is one's word so one's +opinion is one's opinion. + +[22] Sometimes _de_, but _a_ seems more analogical. + +[23] Chrestien was rather like Chaucer in being apt not to finish. Even +the _Charette_ owes its completion (in an extent not exactly +determinable) to a certain Godfrey de Lagny (Laigny, etc.). + +[24] Of course it is easy enough to assign explanations of it, from the +vehicle of criminals to the scaffold downwards; but it remains a +convention--very much of the same kind as that which ordains (or used to +ordain) that a gentleman may not carry a parcel done up in newspaper, +though no other form of wrapping really stains his honour. + +[25] Neither he nor Malory gives one of the most gracious parts of +it--the interview between Lancelot and King Bagdemagus, _v. inf._ p. 54. + +[26] Material (chamois skin)? or garment? Not common in O.F., I think, +for _camisia_; but Spenser (_Faerie Queene_, II. iii. xxvi.) has (as +Prof. Gregory Smith reminds me) "a silken _camus_ lilly whight." + +[27] As does Pyramus's--or Bottom's--objection to the wall. + +[28] This part of the matter has received too little attention in modern +studies of the subject: partly because it was clumsily handled by some +of the probably innumerable and certainly undiscoverable meddlers with +the Vulgate. The unpopularity of Lancelot and his kin is not due merely +to his invincibility and their not always discreet partisanship. The +older "Queen's knights" must have naturally felt her devotion to him; +his "undependableness"--in consequence not merely of his fits of madness +but of his chivalrously permissible but very inconvenient habit of +disguising himself and taking the other side--must have annoyed the +whole Table. Yet these very things, properly managed, help to create and +complicate the "novel" character. For one of the most commonly and not +the least justly charged faults of the average romance is its deficiency +in combined plot and character-interest--the presence in it, at most, of +a not too well-jointed series of episodes, possibly leading to a death +or a marriage, but of little more than chronicle type. This fault has +been exaggerated, but it exists. Now it will be one main purpose of the +pages which follow to show that there is, in the completed Arthuriad, +something quite different from and far beyond this--something perhaps +imperfectly realised by any one writer, and overlaid and disarranged by +the interpolations or misinterpretations of others, but still a "mind" +at work that keeps the "mass" alive, and may, or rather surely will, +quicken it yet further and into higher forms hereafter. (Those who know +will not, I hope, be insulted if I mention for the benefit of those who +do not, that the term "Vulgate" is applied to those forms of the parts +of the story which, with slighter or more important variations, are +common to many MSS. The term itself is most specially applied to the +_Lancelot_ which, in consequence of this popularity throughout the later +Middle Ages, actually got itself printed early in the French +Renaissance. The whole has been (or is being) at last most fortunately +reprinted by Dr. Sommer. See Bibliography.) + +[29] This is another point which, not, I suppose, having been clearly +and completely evolved by the first handler, got messed and muddled by +successive copyists and continuators. In what seems to be the oldest, +and is certainly the most consistent and satisfactory, story there is +practically nothing evil about Viviane--Nimiane--Nimue, who is also +indisputably identical with the foster-mother of Lancelot, the +occasional Egeria (always for good) of Arthur himself, and the +benefactress (this is probably a later addition though in the right key) +of Sir Pelleas. For anybody who possesses the Power of the Sieve she +remains as Milton saw her, and not as Tennyson mis-saw part of her. The +bewitching of Merlin (who, let it be remembered, was an ambiguous person +in several ways, and whose magic, if never exactly black, was sometimes +a rather greyish or magpied white) was not an unmixed loss to the world; +she seems to have really loved him, and to have faithfully kept her word +by being with him often. He "could not get out" certainly, but are there +many more desirable things in the outside world than lying with your +head in the lap of the Lady of the Lake while she caresses and talks to +you? "J'en connais des plus malheureux" as the French poet observed of +some one in less delectable case. The author of the _Suite de Merlin_ +seems to have been her first maligner. Tennyson, seduced by contrast, +followed and exaggerated the worst view. But I am not sure that the most +"irreligious" thing (as Coleridge would have said) was not the +transformation of her into a mere married lady (with a chateau in +Brittany, and an ordinary knight for her husband) which astounds us in +one of the dullest parts of the Vulgate about Lancelot--the wars with +Claudas. + +[30] I have always thought that Spenser (whose dealings with Arthuriana +are very curious, and have never, I think, been fully studied) took this +function of Lancelot to suggest the presentation of his Arthur. But +Lancelot has no--at least no continuous--fairy aid; he is not invariably +victorious, and he is thoroughly human. Spenser's Prince began the +"blamelessness" which grew more trying still in Tennyson's King. (In the +few remarks of this kind made here I am not, I need hardly say, "going +back upon" my lifelong estimate of Tennyson as an almost impeccable +poet. But an impeccable poet is not necessarily an impeccable plot- and +character-monger either in tale-telling or in drama.) + +[31] Of this we have unusually strong evidence in the shape of MS. +interlineations, where the name "Percevale" is actually struck out and +that of "Gala[h]ad" substituted above it. + +[32] I do not say that this is their _only_ character. + +[33] Brittany had much earlier and much more tradition of chivalry than +Wales. + +[34] The only fault alleged against Lancelot's person by carpers was +that he was something "pigeon"--or "guardsman"--chested. But Guinevere +showed her love and her wit, and her "valiancy" (for so at least on this +occasion we may translate _vaillant_) by retorting that such a chest was +only big enough--and hardly big enough--for such a heart. + +[35] Some of the later "redactors" of the Vulgate may perhaps have +unduly multiplied his madnesses, and have exaggerated his early shyness +a little. But I am not sure of the latter point. It is not only "beasts" +that, as in the great Theocritean place, "go timidly because they fear +Cythera"; and a love charged with such dread consequences was not to be +lightly embarked upon. + +[36] The early _Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere_, though only external, +is perfect. Many touches in the _Idylls_ other than the title-one are +suitable and even subtle; but the convertite in that one is (as they say +now) "unconvincing." The simpler attitude of the rejection of Lancelot +in the verse _Morte_ and in Malory is infinitely better. As for Morris's +two pieces, they could hardly be better in themselves as poems--but they +are scarcely great on the novel side. + +[37] Disagreeable, that is to say, as a sister and sister-in-law. There +must have been something attractive about her in other relations. + +[38] Compare one of the not so very many real examples of Ibsen's +vaunted psychology, the placid indifference to her own past of Gina in +the _Wild Duck_. + +[39] He had said that if he were a woman he would give Lancelot anything +he asked; and the Queen, following, observes that Gawain had left +nothing for a woman to say. + +[40] _Nos passions ont quelque chose d'infini_, says Bossuet. + +[41] [Greek: helandros, heleptolis]. She had no opportunity of being +[Greek: helenaus]. + +[42] Hawker's security as to Cornish men and things is, I admit, a +little Bardolphian. But did he not write about the Quest? (This sort of +argument simply swarms in Arthurian controversy; so I may surely use it +once.) Besides there is no doubt about the blueness of the sea in +question; though Anthony Trollope, in _Malachi's Cove_, has most falsely +and incomprehensibly denied it. + +[43] That this is a real sign of decadence and unoriginality, the +further exaggeration of it in the case of the knights of the _Amadis_ +cycle proves almost to demonstration. + +[44] After the opening sentence I have dropped the historic present, +which, for a continuance, is very irritating in English. + +[45] Lancelot himself has told us earlier (_op. cit._ i. 38) that, +though he neither knew nor thought himself to be a king's son, he was +commonly addressed as such. + +[46] Lionel (very young at the time) had wept because some one mentioned +the loss of his inheritance, and Lancelot (young as he too was) had +bidden him not cry for fear of landlessness. "There would be plenty for +him, if he had heart to gain it." + +[47] This technical title is usually if not invariably given to Ywain +and Gawain as eldest sons of recognised kings. "Prince" is not used in +this sense by the older Romancers, but only for distinguished knights +like Galahault, who is really a king. + +[48] There is one admirable word here, _enbarnis_, which has so long +been lost to French that it is not even in Littre. But Dryden's +"_burnish_ into man" probably preserves it in English; for this is +certainly not the other "burnish" from _brunir_. + +[49] "Car moult en parole diroit la parole." + +[50] Puzzled by the number of new thoughts and emotions. + +[51] Ywain suggests one of the commonest things in Romance. + +[52] Arthur had, by a set of chances, not actually girded on Lancelot's +sword. + +[53] Whose prisoner Lancelot had been, who had been ready to fall in +love with him, and to whom he had expressly refused to tell his own +love. Hence his confusion. + +[54] The day when Lancelot, at her request, had turned against the side +of his friend Galahault and brought victory to Arthur's. + +[55] By the way, the Vulgate Mordred is a more subtle conception than +the early stories gave, or than Malory transfers. He is no mere traitor +or felon knight, much less a coward, from the first; but at that first +shows a mixture of good and bad qualities in which the "dram of eale" +does its usual office. Here once more is a subject made to the hand of a +novelist of the first class. + +[56] Some poet or pundit, whether of East or West, or of what place, +from Santiago to Samarcand, I know not, has laid it down, that men can +love many, but without ceasing to love any; that women love only one at +once, but can (to borrow, at fifty years' memory, a phrase of George +Lawrence's in _Sans Merci_) "drop their lovers down _oubliettes_" with +comparative ease. + +[57] It is excusable to use two words for the single verb _savoir_ to +bring out the meaning. King Bagdemagus does not "know" as a fact that +Lancelot has slain his son, though he fears it and feels almost sure of +it. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ROMANS D'AVENTURES + + +[Sidenote: Variety of the present groups.] + +On the whole, however, the most important influence in the development +of the novel originally--that of the _nouvelle_ or _novella_ in French, +and Italian taking the second place in order of time--must be assigned +to the very numerous and very delightful body of compositions (not very +long as a rule,[58] but also never exactly short) to which the name +_Romans d'aventures_ has been given with a limited connotation. They +exist in all languages; our own English Romances, though sometimes +derived from the _chansons_ and the Arthurian Legend, are practically +all of this class, and in every case but one it is true that they have +actual French originals. These _Romans d'aventures_ have a habit, not +universal but prevailing, of "keying themselves on" to the Arthurian +story itself; but they rarely, if ever, have much to do with the +principal parts of it. It is as if their public wanted the connection as +a sort of guarantee; but a considerable proportion keep independence. +They are so numerous, so various, and with rare exceptions so +interesting, that it is difficult to know which to select for elaborate +analysis and translated selection; but almost the entire _corpus_ gives +us the important fact of the increased _freedom_ of fiction. Even the +connection with the Arthurian matter is, as has been said, generally of +the loosest kind; that with the Charlemagne cycle hardly exists. The +Graal (or things connected with its legends) may appear: Gawain is a +frequent hero; other, as one might call them, sociable features as +regards the older stories present themselves. But as a rule the man has +got his own story which he wants to tell; his own special hero and +heroine whom he wants to present. Furthermore, the old community of +handling, which is so noticeable in the _chansons_ more particularly, +disappears almost entirely. Nothing has yet been discovered in French, +though it may be any day, to serve as the origin of our _Gawain and the +Green Knight_, and some special features of this are almost certainly +the work of an Englishman. Our English _Ywain and Gawain_ is, as has +been said, rather better than Chrestien's original. But, as a rule, the +form, which is French form in language (by no means always certainly or +probably French in nationality of author), is not only the original, but +better; and besides, it is with it that we are busied here, though in +not a few cases English readers can obtain an idea, fairly sufficient, +of these originals from the English versions. As these, however, with +the exception of one or two remarkable individuals or even groups, were +seldom written by men of genius, it is best to go to the sources to see +the power and the variety of fictitious handling which have been +mentioned. + +[Sidenote: Different views held of it.] + +The richness, indeed, of these _Romans d'aventures_ is surprising, and +they very seldom display the flatness and triviality which mar by no +means all but too many of their English imitations. Some of the faults +which are part cause of these others they indeed have--the apparently +irrational catalogues of birds and beasts, stuffs and vegetables; the +long moralisings; the religious passages sometimes (as it may seem to +mere moderns) interposed in very odd contexts; the endless descriptions +of battles and single combats; the absence of striking characterisation +and varied incident. Their interest is a peculiar interest, yet one can +hardly call the taste for it "an acquired taste," because the very +large majority of healthy and intelligent children delight in these +stories under whatever form they are presented to them, and at least a +considerable number of grown-up persons never lose the enjoyment. The +disapproval which rested on "romances of chivalry" for a long time was +admittedly ignorant and absurd; and the reasons why this disapproval, at +least in its somewhat milder form of neglect, has never been wholly +removed, are not very difficult to discover. It is to be feared that +_Don Quixote_, great as it is, has done not a little mischief, and by +virtue of its greatness is likely to do not a little more, though the +_Amadis_ group, which it specially satirises, has faults not found in +the older tales. The texts, though in most cases easily enough +accessible now, are not what may be called obviously and yet +unobtrusively so. They are to a very large extent issued by learned +societies: and the public, not too unreasonably, is rather suspicious, +and not at all avid, of the products of learned societies. They are +accompanied by introductions and notes and glossaries--things the +public (again not wholly to be blamed) regards without cordiality. +Latterly they have been used for educational purposes, and anything +used for educational purposes acquires an evil--or at least an +unappetising--reputation. In some cases they have been messed and +meddled in _usum vulgi_. But their worst enemy recently has been, it may +be feared, the irreconcilable opposition of their spirit to what is +called the modern spirit--though this latter sometimes takes them up and +plays with them in a fashion of maudlin mysticism. + +[Sidenote: _Partenopeus of Blois_ selected for analysis and +translation.] + +To treat them at large here as Ellis treated some of the English +imitations would be impossible in point of scale and dangerous as a +competition; for Ellis, though a little too prone to Voltairianise or at +least Hamiltonise things sometimes too good for that kind of treatment, +was a very clever man indeed. For somewhat full abstract and translation +we may take one of the most famous, but perhaps not one of the most +generally and thoroughly known, _Partenopeus_ (or -_pex_[59]) _of +Blois_, which, though it exists in English, and though the French was +very probably written by an Englishman, is not now one of the most +widely read and is in parts very charming. That it is one of the +romances on which, from the fact of the resemblance of its central +incident to the story of Cupid and Psyche, the good defenders of the bad +theory of the classical origin of romance generally have based one of +their few plausible arguments, need not occupy us. For the question is +not whether Denis Pyramus or any one else (modernity would not be +modernity if his claims were not challenged) told it, but _how_ he told +it. Still less need we treat the other question before indicated. Here +is one of the central stories of the world--one of those which Eve told +to her children in virtue of the knowledge communicated by the apple, +one with which the sons of God courted the daughters of men, or, at +latest, one of those which were yarned in the Ark. It is the story of +the unwise lover--in this case the man, not as in Psyche's the +woman--who will not be content to enjoy an unseen, but by every other +sense enjoyable and adorable love, even though (in this case) the single +deprivation is expressly to be terminated. We have it, of course, in all +sorts of forms, languages, and differing conditions. But we are only +concerned with it here as with a gracious example of that kind of +romance which, though not exactly a "fairy tale" in the Western sense, +is pretty obviously influenced by the Eastern fairy tale itself, and +still more obviously influences the modern kind in which "the +supernatural" is definitely prominent. + +It was perhaps excusable in the good M. Robert, who wrote the +Introduction to Crapelet's edition of this poem eighty years ago, to +"protest too much" in favour of the author whom he was now presenting +practically for the first time--to a changed audience; but it was +unnecessary and a little unfortunate. Except in one point or group of +points, it is vain to try to put _Partenopeus_ above _Cupid and +Psyche_: but it can perfectly well stand by itself in its own place, and +that no low one. Except in _Floire et Blanchefleur_ and of course in +_Aucassin et Nicolette_, the peculiar grace and delicacy of romance are +nowhere so well shown; and _Partenopeus_, besides the advantage of +length, has that of personages interesting, besides the absolute hero +and heroine. The Count of Blois himself is, no doubt, despite his +beauty, and his bravery, and his good nature, rather of a feeble folk. +Psyche has the excuse of her sex, besides the evil counsel of her +sisters, for her curiosity. But Partenopeus has not the former; nor has +he even that weaker but still not quite invalid one which lost Agib, the +son of Cassib, his many-Houried Paradise on Earth. He is supposed to be +a Frenchman--the somewhat excessive fashion in which Frenchmen make +obedience to the second clause[60] of the Fifth Commandment atone for +some neglect of other parts of the decalogue is well known, or at least +traditionally believed. But most certainly a man is not justified in +obeying his mother to the extent of disobeying--and that in the +shabbiest of ways--his lady and mistress, who is, in fact, according to +mediaeval ideas, virtually, if not virtuously, his wife. But Melior +herself, the heroine, is an absolutely delightful person from her first +appearance (or rather _non_-appearance) as a sweet dream come true, to +her last in the more orthodox and public spousals. The grace of her +Dian-like surrender of herself to her love; the constancy with which she +holds to the betrothal theory of the time; the unselfishness with which +she not only permits but actually advises the lover, whom she would so +fain, but cannot yet, make her acknowledged husband, to leave her; her +frank forgiveness of his only-just-in-time repented and prevented, but +intended, infidelity; her sorrow at and after the separation enforced by +his breach of pact; her interviews with her sister, naturally chequered +by conflicting feelings of love and pride and the rest--are all +charming. But she is not the only charming figure. + +The "second heroine," a sister or cousin who plays a sort of superior +confidante's part, is by no means uncommon in Romance. Alexandrine, for +instance, who plays this in _William of Palerne_, is a very nice girl. +But Urraque or Urraca,[61] the sister of Melior--whether full and +legitimate, or "half" illegitimate, versions differ--is much more +elaborately dealt with, and is, in fact, the chief _character_ of the +piece, and a character rather unusually strong for Romance. She plays +the part of reconciler after Partenopeus' fatal folly has estranged him +from her sister, and plays it at great length, but with much less tedium +than might be expected. But the author is an "incurable feminist," as +some one else was once described with a mixture of pity and admiration: +and he is not contented with two heroines. There is a third, Persewis, +maid of honour to Urraque, and also a fervent admirer of the +incomparable Partenopeus, on whose actual beauty great stress is +laid, and who in romance, other than his own, is quoted as a modern +paragon thereof, worthy to rank with ancient patterns, sacred and +profane. Persewis, however, is very young--a "flapper" or a +"[bread-and-]buttercup," as successive generations have irreverently +called the immature but agreeable creature. The poet lays much emphasis +on this youth. She did not "kiss and embrace," he says, just because she +was too young, and not because of any foolish prudery or propriety, +things which he does not hesitate to pronounce appropriate only to ugly +girls. His own attitude to "the fair" is unflinchingly put in one of the +most notable and best known passages of the poem (l. 7095 _sq._): + + When God made all creation, and devised their forms for his + creatures, He distributed beauties and good qualities to + each in proportion as He loved it. He loved ladies above all + things, and therefore made for them the best qualities and + beauties. Of mere earth made He everything [else] under + Heaven: but the hearts of ladies He made of honey, and gave + to them more courtesy than to any other living creature. And + as God loves them, therefore I love them: hunger and thirst + are nothing to me as regards them: and I cry "Quits" to Him + for His Paradise if the bright faces of ladies enter not + therein. + +It will be observed, of course, how like this is to the most famous +passage of _Aucassin et Nicolette_. It is less dreamily beautiful, but +there is a certain spirit and downrightness about it which is agreeable; +nor do I know anywhere a more forcible statement of the doctrine, often +held by no bad people, that beauty is a personal testimonial of the +Divinity--a scarcely parabolic command to love and admire its +possessors.[62] + +If, however, our poet has something of that Romantic morality to which +Ascham--in a conjoined fit[63] of pedantry, prudery, and +Protestantism--gave such an ugly name, he may excuse it to less +strait-laced judges by other traits. Even the "retainer" of an editor +ought not to have induced M. Robert to say that Melior's original +surrender was "against her will," though she certainly did make a +protest of a kind.[64] But the enchanted and enchanting Empress's +constancy is inviolable. Even after she has been obliged to banish her +foolish lover, or rather after he has banished himself, she avows +herself his only. She will die, she says, before she takes another lord; +and for this reason objects for some time to the proposed tourney for +her hand, in which the already proven invincibility of the Count of +Blois makes him almost a certain victor, because it involves a +conditional consent to admit another mate. To her scrupulousness, a kind +of blunt common-sense, tempering the amiability of Urraca, is a pleasant +set-off, and the freshness of Persewis completes the effect. + +Moreover, there are little bits of almost Chaucerian vividness and +terseness here and there, contrasting oddly with the _chevilles_--the +stock phrases and epithets--elsewhere. When the tourney actually comes +off and Partenopeus is supposed to be prisoner of a felon knight afar +off, the two sisters and Persewis take their places at the entrance of +the tower crossing the bridge at Melior's capital, "Chef d'Oire."[65] +Melior is labelled only "whom all the world loves and prizes," but +Urraca and her damsel "have their faces pale and discoloured--for they +have lost much of their beauty--so sorely have they wept Partenopeus." +On the contrary, when, at the close of the first day's tourney, the +usual "unknown knights" (in this case the Count of Blois himself and his +friend Gaudins) ride off triumphant, they "go joyfully to their hostel +with lifted lances, helmets on head, hauberks on back, and shields held +proudly as if to begin jousting." + + Bel i vinrent et bel s'en vont, + +says King Corsols, one of the judges of the tourney, but not in the +least aware of their identity. This may occur elsewhere, but it is by no +means one of the commonplaces of Romance, and a well hit-off picture is +motived by a sharply cut phrase.[66] + +It is this sudden enlivening of the commonplaces of Romance with vivid +picture and phrase which puts _Partenopeus_ high among its fellows. The +story is very simple, and the variation and multiplication of episodic +adventure unusually scanty; while the too common genealogical preface is +rather exceptionally superfluous. That the Count of Blois is the nephew +of Clovis can interest--outside of a peculiar class of antiquarian +commentator--no mortal; and the identification of "Chef-d'Oire," +Melior's enchanted capital, with Constantinople, though likely enough, +is not much more important. Clovis and Byzantium (of which the +enchantress is Empress) were well-known names and suited the _abonne_ of +those times. The actual "argument" is of the slightest. One of Spenser's +curious doggerel common measures--say: + + A fairy queen grants bliss and troth + On terms, unto the knight: + His mother makes him break his oath, + Her sister puts it right-- + +would almost do; the following prose abstract is practically exhaustive. + +Partenopeus, Count of Blois, nephew of King Clovis of France, and +descendant of famous heroes of antiquity, including Hector, the most +beautiful and one of the most valiant of men, after displaying his +prowess in a war with the Saracen Sornagur, loses his way while hunting +in the Ardennes. He at last comes to the seashore, and finds a ship +which in fifteen days takes him to a strange country, where all is +beautiful but entirely solitary. He finds a magnificent palace, where he +is splendidly guested by unseen hands, and at last conducted to a +gorgeous bedchamber. In the dark he, not unnaturally, lies awake +speculating on the marvel; and after a time light footsteps approach the +bed, and a form, invisible but tangible, lies down beside him. He +touches it, and finds it warm and soft and smooth, and though it +protests a little, the natural consequences follow. Then the lady +confesses that she had heard of him, had (incognita) seen him at the +Court of France, and had, being a white witch as well as an Empress, +brought him to "Chef d'Oire," her capital, though she denies having +intentionally or knowingly arranged the shepherd's hour itself.[67] She +is, however, as frank as Juliet and Miranda combined. She will be his +wife (she makes a most interesting and accurate profession of Christian +orthodoxy) if he will marry her; but it is impossible for the remainder +of a period of which two and a half years have still to run, and at the +end of which, and not till then, she has promised her vassals to choose +a husband. Meanwhile, Partenopeus must submit to an ordeal not quite so +painful as hot ploughshares. He must never see her or attempt to see +her, and he must not, during his stay at Chef d'Oire, see or speak to +any other human being. At the same time, hunting, exploring the palace +and the city and the country, and all other pastimes independent of +visible human companionship, are freely at his disposal by day. + + Et moi aures cascune nuit + +says Melior, with the exquisite simplicity which is the charm of the +whole piece. + +One must be very inquisitive, exceedingly virtuous (the mediaeval value +of consummated betrothal being reckoned), superfluously fond of the +company of one's miscellaneous fellow-creatures, and a person of very +bad taste[68] to boot, in order to decline the bargain. Partenopeus does +not dream of doing so, and for a whole year thinks of nothing but his +fairy love and her bounties to him. Then he remembers his uncle-king and +his country, and asks leave to visit them, but not with the faintest +intention of running away. Melior gives it with the same frankness and +kindness with which she has given herself--informing him, in fact, that +he _ought_ to go, for his uncle is dead and his country in danger. Only, +she reminds him of his pledges, and warns him of the misfortunes which +await his breach of them. He is then magically wafted back on ship-board +as he came. + +He has, once more, no intention of playing the truant or traitor, and +does his duty bravely and successfully. But the new King has a niece and +the Count himself has a mother, who, motherlike, is convinced that her +son's mysterious love is a very bad person, if not an actual _maufes_ or +devil, and is very anxious that he shall marry the niece. She has +clerical and chemical resources to help her, and Partenopeus has +actually consented, in a fit of aberration, when, with one of the odd +Wemmick-like flashes of reflection,[69] not uncommon with knights, he +remembers Melior, and unceremoniously makes off to her. He confesses +(for he is a good creature though foolish) and is forgiven, Melior +being, though not in the least insipid or of a put-up-with-anything +disposition, full of "loving _mercy_" in every sense. But the situation +is bound to recur, and now, though the time of probation (probation very +much tempered!) is nearly over, the mother wins her way. Partenopeus is +deluded into accepting an enchanted lantern, which he tries on his +unsuspecting mistress at the first possible moment. What he sees, of +course, is only a very lovely woman--a woman in the condition best +fitted to show her loveliness--whom he has offended irreparably, and +lost. + +Melior is no scold, but she is also no milksop. She will have nothing +more to do with him, for he has shamed her with her people (who now +appear), broken her magic power, and, above all, been false to her wish +and his word. The entreaties of her sister Urraca (whose gracious figure +is now elaborately introduced) are for the time useless, and Partenopeus +is only saved from the vengeance of the courtiers and the household by +Urraca's protection.[70] + +To halt for a moment, the scene of the treason and discovery is another +of those singular vividnesses which distinguish this poem and story. The +long darkness suddenly flashing into light, and the startled Melior's +beauty framed in the splendour of the couch and the bedchamber--the +offender at once realising his folly and his crime, and dashing the +instrument of his treachery (useless, for all is daylight now, the charm +being counter-charmed) against the wall--the half-frightened, +half-curious Court ladies and Court servants thronging in--the +apparition of Urraca,--all this gives a picture of extraordinarily +dramatic power. It reminds one a little of Spenser's famous portrayal of +Britomart disturbed at night, and the comparison of the two brings out +all sorts of "excellent differences." + +But to return to the story itself. Although the invariable +cut-and-driedness of romance incidents has been grossly exaggerated, +there is one situation which is almost always treated in the same way. +The knight who has, with or without his own fault, incurred the +displeasure of his mistress, "doth [_always_] to the green wood go," and +there, whether in complete sanity or not, lives for a time a half or +wholly savage life, discarding knightly and sometimes any other dress, +eating very little, and in considerable danger of being eaten himself. +Everybody, from Lancelot to Amadis, does it; and Partenopeus does it +too, but in his own way. Reaching Blois and utterly rejecting his +mother's attempts to excuse herself and console him, he drags out a +miserable time in continual penance and self-neglect, till at last, +availing himself of (and rather shabbily if piously tricking) a Saracen +page,[71] he succeeds in getting off incognito to the vague "Ardennes," +where his sadly ended adventure had begun. These particular Ardennes +appear to be reachable by sea (on which they have a coast), and to +contain not only ordinary beasts of chase, not only wolves and bears, +but lions, tigers, wyverns, dragons, etc. A single unarmed man has +practically no chance there, and the Count determines to condemn himself +to the fate of the Roman arena. As a preliminary, he dismounts and turns +loose his horse, who is presently attacked by a lion and wounded, but +luckily gets a fair blow with his hoof between his enemy's eyes, and +kills him. Then comes another of the flashes (and something more) of the +piece. Stung by the pain of his wound and dripping with blood, the +animal dashes at full speed, and whinnying at the top of his powers, to +the seashore and along it. The passage is worth translating: + + He [_the horse after he has killed the lion_] lifts his + tail, and takes to flight down a valley towards nightfall. + Much he looks about him and much he whinnies. By night-time + he has got out of the wood and has fled to the sea: but he + will not stop there. He makes the pebbles fly as he gallops + and never stops whinnying. Now the moon has mounted high in + the heavens, all clear and bright and shining: there is not + a dark cloud in all the sky, nor any movement on the sea: + sweet and serene is the weather, and fair and clear and + lightened up. And the palfrey whinnies so loudly that he can + be heard far off at sea. + +He _is_ heard at sea, for a ship is waiting there in the calm, and on +board that ship is Urraca, with a wise captain named Maruc and a stout +crew. The singularity of the event induces them to land (Maruc knows the +dangers of the region, but Urraca has no fears; the captain also knows +how to enchant the beasts), and the horse's bloodmarks guide them up the +valley. At last they come upon a miserable creature, in rags, +dishevelled, half-starved, and altogether unrecognisable. After a little +time, however, Urraca does recognise him, and, despite his forlorn and +repulsive condition, takes him in her arms. + + Si le descouvre un poi le vis. + +Yet another of the uncommon "flashlight" sketches, where in two short +lines one sees the damsel as she has been described not so long before, +"tall and graceful, her fair hair (which, untressed, reached her feet +[now, no doubt, more suitably arranged]), with forehead broad and high, +and smooth; grey eyes, large and _seignorous_" (an admirable word for +eyes), "all her face one kiss"; one sees her with one arm round the +tottering wretch, and with the "long fingers" of her other white hand +clearing the matted hair from his visage till she can recognise him. + +They take him on board, of course, though to induce him to go this +delightful creature has to give an account of her sister's feelings +(which, to put it mildly, anticipates the truth very considerably), and +also to cry over him a little.[72] She takes him to Saleuces,[73] an +island principality of her own, and there she and her maid-of-honour, +Persewis (see above), proceed to cocker and cosset him up exactly as one +imagines two such girls would do to "a dear, silly, nice, handsome +thing," as a favourite modern actress used to bring down the house by +saying, with a sort of shake, half of tears and half of laughter, in her +voice. Indeed the phrase fits Partenopeus precisely. We are told that +Urraca would have been formally in love with him if it had not been +unsportsgirl-like towards her sister; and as for Persewis, there is once +more a windfall in the description of the "butter-cup's" delight when +Urraca, going to see Melior, has to leave her alone with the Count. The +Princess is of course very sorry to go. "But Persewis would not have +minded if she had stayed forty days, or till August," and she "glories +greatly" when her rival departs. No mischief, however, comes of it; for +the child is "too young," as we are earnestly assured, and Partenopeus, +to do him justice, is both too much of a gentleman, and too dolefully in +earnest about recovering Melior, to dream of any. + +Meanwhile, Urraca is most unselfishly doing her very best to reconcile +the lovers, not neglecting the employment of white fibs as before, and +occasionally indulging, not merely in satiric observation on poor +Melior's irresolution and conflict of feeling, but in decidedly sisterly +plainness of speech, reminding the Empress that after all she had +entrapped Partenopeus into loving her, and that he had, for two whole +years, devoted himself entirely to her love and its conditions. At last +a rather complicated and not always quite consistently told provisional +settlement is arrived at, carrying out, in a manner, the undertakings +referred to by Melior in her first interview with her lover. An immense +tourney for the hand of Melior is to be held, with a jury of kings to +judge it: and everybody, Christian or pagan, from emperor to vavasour is +invited to compete. But in case of no single victor, a kind of +"election" by what may be called the States of Byzantium--kings, dukes, +counts, and simple fief-holders--is to decide, and it seems sometimes +as if Melior retained something of a personal veto at last. Of the +incidents and episodes before this actually comes off, the most +noteworthy are a curious instance of the punctilio of chivalry (the +Count having once promised Melior that no one but herself shall gird on +his sword, makes a difficulty when Urraca and Persewis arm him), and a +misfortune by which he, rowing carelessly by himself, falls into the +power of a felon knight, Armans of Thenodon. This last incident, +however, though it alarms his two benefactresses, is not really unlucky. +For, in the first place, Armans is not at home, and his wife, falling a +victim, like every woman, to Partenopeus' extraordinary beauty, allows +him his parole; while the accident enables him to appear at the +tournament incognito--a practice always affected, if possible, by the +knights of romance, and in this case possessing some obvious and special +advantages. + +On his way he meets another knight, Gaudin le Blond, with whom he gladly +strikes up brotherhood-in-arms. The three days of the mellay are not +_very_ different from the innumerable similar scenes elsewhere, nor can +the author be said to be specially happy at this kind of business. But +any possible tedium is fairly relieved by the shrewd and sometimes +jovial remarks made by one of the judging kings, the before-quoted +Corsols--met by grumbles from another, Clarin, and by the fears and +interest of the three ladies, of whom the ever-faithful and shrewd +Urraca is the first to discover Partenopeus. He and Gaudin perform the +usual exploits and suffer the usual inconveniences, but at the end it is +still undecided whether the Count of Blois or the Soldan of Persia--a +good knight, though a pagan, and something of a braggart--deserves the +priceless prize of Melior's hand with the empire of Byzantium to boot. +The "election" follows, and after some doubt goes right, while Melior +now offers no objection. But the Soldan, in his _outrecuidance_, demands +single combat. He has, of course, no right to do this, and the Council +and the Empress object strongly. But Partenopeus will have no stain on +his honour; consents to the fight; deliberately refuses to take +advantage of the Soldan when he is unhorsed and pinned down by the +animal; assists him to get free; and only after an outrageous menace +from the Persian justifies his own claim to belong to the class of +champions + + Who _always_ cleave their foe + To the waist + +--indeed excels them, by entirely bisecting the Soldan. + +An episodic restoration of parole to the widow of Armans (who has +actually taken part in the tourney and been killed) should be noticed, +and the piece ends, or rather comes close to an end, with the marriages +which appropriately follow these well-deserved murders. Marriages--not a +marriage only--for King "Lohier" of France most sensibly insists on +espousing the delightful Urraca: and Persewis is consoled for the loss +of Partenopeus by the suit--refused at first and then granted, with the +obviously intense enjoyment of both processes likely in a novice--of his +brother-in-arms, to whom the "Emperor of Byzantium" abandons his own two +counties in France, adding a third in his new empire, and winning by +this generosity almost more popularity than by his prowess. + +But, as was hinted, the story does not actually end. There is a great +deal about the festivities, and though the author says encouragingly +that he "will not devise much of breeches," he _does_--and of many other +garments. Indeed the last of his liveliest patches is a mischievous +picture of the Court ladies at their toilette: "Let me see that mirror; +make my head-dress higher; let me show my mouth more; drop the pleat +over the eyes;[74] alter my eyebrows," etc. etc. But beyond the washing +of hands before the feast, this French book that Crapelet printed +fourscore years ago goeth not. Perhaps it was a mere accident; perhaps +the writer had a shrewd notion that whatever he wrote would seem but +stale in its reminder of the night when Partenopeus lay awake, and +seemingly alone, in the enchanted palace--now merely an ordinary place +of splendour and festivity--and when something came to the bed, "step by +step, little by little," and laid itself beside him. + +Such are the contents and such some of the special traits and features +of one of the most famous of those romances of chivalry, the reading of +which with anything like the same interest as that taken in Homer, +seemed to the Reverend Professor Hugh Blair to be the most suitable +instance he could hit upon of a total lack of taste. This is a point, of +course, on which each age, and each reader in each age, must judge for +itself and himself. I think the author of the _Odyssey_ (the _Iliad_ +comes rather in competition with the chansons than with these romances) +was a better poet than the author of _Partenopeus_, and I also think +that he was a better story-teller; but I do not think that the latter +was a bad story-teller; and I can read him with plenty of interest. So I +can most of his fellows, no one of whom, I think, ever quite approaches +the insipidity of their worst English imitators. The knights do not +weary me with their exploits, and I confess that I am hyperbolical +enough to like reading and thinking as well as talking of the ladies +very much. They are of various sorts; but they are generally lovable. +There is no better for affection and faithfulness and pluck than the +Josiane of _Bevis_, whose husband and her at one time faithful guardian, +but at another would-be ravisher, Ascapart, guard a certain gate not +more than a furlong or two from where I am writing. It is good to think +of the (to some extent justified) indignation of l'Orgueilleuse d'Amours +when Sir Blancandin rides up and audaciously kisses her in the midst of +her train; and the companion picture of the tomb where Idoine apparently +sleeps in death (while her true knight Amadas fights with a ghostly foe +above) makes a fitting pendant. If her near namesake with an L prefixed, +the Lidoine of _Meraugis de Portlesguez_, interests me less, it is +because its author, Raoul de Houdenc, was one of the first to mix love +and moral allegory--a "wanity" which is not my favourite "wanity." To +the Alexandrine of _Guillaume de Palerne_ reference has already been +made. Blanchefleur--known all over Europe with her lover Floire (Floris, +etc.)--the Saracen slave who charms a Christian prince, and is rescued +by him from the Emir of Babylon, to whom she has been sold in hopes of +weaning Floris from his attachment, more than deserved her vogue. But, +as in the case of the _chansons_, mere cataloguing would be dull and +unprofitable, and analysis on the scale accorded to _Partenopeus_ +impossible. One must only take up once more the note of this whole early +part of our history, and impress again on the reader the evident +_desire_ for the accomplished novel which these numerous romances show; +the inevitable _practice_, in tale-telling of a kind, which the +production of them might have given; and, above all, the openings, +germs, suggestions of new devices in fiction which are observable in +them, and which remained for others to develop if the first finders left +them unimproved. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[58] That is, of nothing like the length of the latest forms of the +_Chansons de Geste_ or the Arthurian Romances proper. Some of the late +fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Adventure stories, before they dropped +into prose, are indeed long enough, and a great deal too long; but they +show degeneracy. + +[59] The _h_ (Part_h_-) does occur in both forms, and there are other +variation, as "Part_o_nopeus," etc. But these are trifles. + +[60] Taking honour to the mother as separate from that to the father. + +[61] The Spanish-English form is perhaps the prettier. I am sorry to say +that the poet, to get a rhyme, sometimes spells it "Urra_cle_," which is +_not_ pretty. Southey's "Queen _O_rraca" seems to me to have changed her +vowel to disadvantage. + +[62] The original author of the _Court of Love_, whether Chaucer or +another, pretty certainly knew it; and Spenser spiritualised the +doctrine itself in the _Four Hymns_. + +[63] I think the medical people (borrowing, as Science so often does, +the language which she would fain banish from human knowledge) call this +sort of thing _a syndrome_. + +[64] See below on Urraca's plain speaking. + +[65] Not too commentatorially identified with Constantinople. + +[66] It may be worth noting that in this context appears the original +form of an English word quite common recently, but almost unknown a very +short time ago--"grouse" in the sense of "complain," "grumble": "Ce dist +Corsols et nul n'en _grouce_." + +[67] No one will be rude enough to disbelieve her, and, as will be seen, +her supernatural powers had limits; but it was odd, though fortunate, +that they should have broken down exactly at this important juncture. +Who made those rebellious candles take him to that chamber and couch, +unknown to her? + +[68] For Melior, though of invisible beauty, is represented as +delightful in every other way, as wise and witty and gracious in speech +as becomes a white witch. And when her lover on one occasion thanks her +for her _sermon_, there is no satire; he only means _sermo_. + +[69] Like Guy of Warwick; still more like Mr. Jaggers's clerk, though +the circumstances are reversed. _He_ almost says in so many words, +"Hullo! here's an engagement ring on my finger. We _can't_ have a +marriage." + +[70] The author, _more suo_, intimates that the Court _ladies_ by no +means shared these hostile feelings, and would have willingly been in +Melior's place. + +[71] He induces him to turn Christian on the supposition of being his +companion; and then gives him the slip. The neophyte's expressions on +the occasion are not wholly edifying. + +[72] The good palfrey is found and in a state to carry his master, who +is quite unable to walk. One hopes they did not leave the beast to the +lions, tigers, wyverns, etc., for he could hardly hope for such a +literal "stroke of luck" again. + +[73] The name will suggest, to those who have some wine-lore, no less a +vintage than Chateau Yquem. Nothing could be better for a person in the +Count's condition as a restorative. + +[74] These two directions obviously refer to the common mediaeval +"wimple" arrangement. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSE FICTION + + +[Sidenote: Prose novelettes of the thirteenth century. _Aucassin et +Nicolette_ not quite typical.] + +The title of this chapter may seem an oversight or an impertinence, +considering that large parts of an earlier one have been occupied with +discussions and translations of the prose Arthurian Romances. It was, +however, expressly pointed out that the priority of these is a matter of +opinion, not of judgment; and it may be here quite frankly admitted that +one of the most serious arguments against that priority is the extreme +lateness of Old French Prose in any finished literary form. The excuse, +however, if excuse be needed, does not turn on any such hinge as this. +It was desired to treat, in the last two chapters, romance matter proper +of the larger kind, whether that matter took the form of prose or of +verse. Here, on the other hand, the object is to deal with the smaller +but more miscellaneous body of fictitious matter (part, no doubt, of a +larger) which presents it tolerably early, and in character foretells +the immense development of the kind which French was to see later.[75] A +portion of this body, sufficient for us, is contained in two little +volumes of the _Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_, published rather less than +sixty years ago (1856 and 1858) by MM. L. Moland and Ch. d'Hericault, +the first devoted to thirteenth-, the second to fourteenth-century work. +One of these, the now world-famous _Aucassin et Nicolette_, has been so +much written about and so often translated already that it cannot be +necessary to say a great deal about it here. It is, moreover, of a mixed +kind, a _cante-fable_ or blend of prose and verse, with a considerable +touch of the dramatic in it. Its extraordinary charm is a thing long ago +settled; but it is, on the whole, more of a dramatic and lyrical +romance--to recouple or releash kinds which Mr. Browning had perhaps +best never have put asunder--than of a pure prose tale. + +[Sidenote: _L'Empereur Constant_ more so.] + +Its companions in the thirteenth-century volume are four in number, and +if none of them has the peculiar charm, so none has the technical +disqualification (if that be not too strong a word) of _Aucassin et +Nicolette_. The first, shortest, and, save for one or two points, least +remarkable, _L'Empereur Constant_, is a very much abbreviated and in +more than one sense prosaic version of the story out of which Mr. +William Morris made his delightful _The Man Born to be King_. Probably +of Greek or Greek-Eastern origin, it begins with an astrological passage +in which the Emperor, childless except for a girl, becomes informed of +the imminent birth of a man-child, who shall marry his daughter and +succeed him. He discovers the, as it seems, luckless baby; has it +brought to him, and with his own hand attempts to disembowel it, but +allows himself, most improbably,[76] to be dissuaded from finishing the +operation. The benevolent knight who has prevented the completion of the +crime takes the infant to a monastery, where (after a quaint scene of +haggling about fees with the surgeon) the victim is patched up, grows to +be a fine youth, and comes across the Emperor, to whom the abbot +guilelessly, but in this case naturally enough,[77] betrays the secret. +The Emperor's murderous thoughts as naturally revive, and the +frustration of them by means of the Princess's falling in love with the +youth, the changing of "the letters of Bellerophon," and the Emperor's +resignation to the inevitable, follow the same course as in the English +poem. The latter part is better than the earlier; and the writer is +evidently (as how should he not be?) a novice; but his work is the kind +of experiment from which better things will come. + +[Sidenote: _Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane._] + +These marks of the novice are even more noticeable in a much longer +story, _Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane_, which is found not only in the +same printed volume, but in the same original MS. The fault of this is +curious, and--if not to a mere reader for pastime, to a student of +fiction--extremely interesting. It is one not at all unknown at the +present day, and capable of being used as an argument in favour of the +doctrine of the Unities: that is to say, the mixture, by arbitrary and +violent process, of two stories which have nothing whatever to do with +each other, except that they are, wilfully and with no reason, buckled +together at the end. The first, thin and uninteresting enough, is of a +certain King Florus, who has a wife, dearly beloved, but barren. After +some years and some very unmanly shilly-shallyings, he puts her away, +and marries another, with whom (one is feebly glad to find) he is no +more lucky, but who has herself the luck to die after some years. +Meanwhile, King Florus being left "in a cool barge for future use," the +second item, a really interesting story, is, with some intervals, +carried on. A Count of high rank and great possessions has an only +daughter, whom, after experience of the valour and general worthiness of +one of his vassals of no great "having," he bestows on this knight, +Robert, the pair being really in love with each other. But another +vassal knight of greater wealth, Raoul, plots with one of the wicked old +women who abound in these stories, and engages Robert in a rash wager of +all his possessions, that during one of those pilgrimages to "St. +James," which come in so handy, and are generally so unreasonable, he +will dishonour the lady. He fails, but, in a manner not distantly +related to the Imogen-Iachimo scene, acquires what seems to be damning +acquaintance with the young Countess's person-marks. Robert and Jehane +are actually married; but the felon knight immediately afterwards brings +his charge, and Robert pays his debt, and flies, a ruined man, from, as +he thinks, his faithless wife, though he takes no vengeance on her. +Jehane disguises herself as a man, joins him on his journey, supports +him with her own means for a time, and enters into partnership with him +in merchandise at Marseilles, he remaining ignorant of her sex and +relation to him. At last things come right: the felon knight is forced +in single combat (a long and good one) to acknowledge his lie and give +up his plunder, and the excellent but somewhat obtuse Robert recovers +his wife as well. A good end if ever there was one, and not a badly told +tale in parts. But, from some utterly mistaken idea of craftsmanship, +the teller must needs kill Robert for no earthly reason, except in order +that Jehane may become the third wife of Florus and bear him children. A +more disastrous "sixth act" has seldom been imagined; for most readers +will have forgotten all about Florus, who has had neither art nor part +in the main story; few can care whether the King has children or not; +and still fewer can be other than disgusted at the notion of Jehane, +brave, loving, and clever, being, as a widow, made a mere child-bearing +machine to an oldish and rather contemptible second husband. But, once +more, the mistake is interesting, and is probably the first example of +that fatal error of not knowing when to leave off, which is even worse +than the commoner one (to be found in some great artists) of "huddling +up the story." The only thing to be said in excuse is that you could cut +his majesty Florus out of the title and tale at once without even the +slightest difficulty, and with no need to mend or meddle in any other +way. + +The remaining stories of the thirteenth-century volume are curiously +contrasted. One is a short prose version of that exquisite _chanson de +geste_, _Amis et Amiles_, of which it has been said above that any one +who cannot "taste" it need never hope to understand mediaeval +literature. The full beauty of the verse story does not appear in the +prose; but some does. + +[Sidenote: _Le Comtesse de Ponthieu._] + +Of the other, the so-called "Comtesse de Ponthieu" (though she is not +really this, being only the Count's daughter and the wife of a vassal), +I thought rather badly when I first read it thirty or forty years ago, +and till the present occasion I have never read it since. Now I think +better of it, especially as a story suggestive in story-telling art. The +original stumbling-block, which I still see, though I can get over or +round it better now, was, I think, the character of the heroine, who +inherits not merely the tendency to play fast and loose with successive +husbands, which is observable in both _chanson_ and _roman_ heroines, +but something of the very unlovely savagery which is also sometimes +characteristic of them; while the hero also is put in "unpleasant" +circumstances. He is a gentleman and a good knight, and though only a +vassal of the Count of Ponthieu, he, as has been said, marries the +Count's daughter, entirely to her and her father's satisfaction. But +they are childless, and the inevitable "monseigneur Saint _Jakeme_" (St. +James of Compostella) suggests himself for pilgrimage. Thiebault, the +knight, obtains leave from his lady to go, and she, by a device not +unprettily told, gets from him leave to go too. Unfortunately and +unwisely they send their suite on one morning, and ride alone through a +forest, where they are set upon by eight banditti. Thiebault fights +these odds without flinching, and actually kills three, but is +overpowered by sheer numbers. They do not kill him, but bind and toss +him into a thicket, after which they take vengeance of outrage on the +lady and depart, fearing the return of the meyney. Thiebault feels that +his unhappy wife is guiltless, but unluckily does not assure her of +this, merely asking her to deliver him. So she, seeing a sword of one +of the slain robbers, picks it up, and, "full of great ire and evil +will," cries, "I will deliver you, sir," and, instead of cutting his +bonds, tries to run him through. But she only grazes him, and actually +cuts the thongs, so that he shakes himself free, starts up, and wrests +the sword from her with the simple words, "Lady, it is not to-day that +you will kill me." To which she replies, "And right sorry I am +therefor."[78] Their followers come up; the pair are clothed and set out +again on their journey. But Thiebault, though treating his wife with the +greatest attention, leaves her at a monastery, accomplishes his +pilgrimage alone, and on his return escorts her to Ponthieu as if +nothing had happened. Still--though no one knows this or indeed anything +about her actual misfortune and intended crime--he does not live with +her as his wife. After a time the Count, who is, as another story has +it, a "_h_arbitrary" Count, insists that Thiebault shall tell him some +incident of his voyage, and the husband (here is the weak point of the +whole) recounts the actual adventure, though not as of himself and his +lady. The Count will not stand ambiguity, and at last extorts the truth, +which the lady confirms, repeating her sorrow that she had _not_ slain +her husband. Now the Count is, as has been said, an arbitrary Count, and +one day, his county having, as our Harold knew to his cost, a sea-coast +to it, somewhat less disputable than those of Bohemia and the Ardennes, +embarks, with only his daughter, son-in-law, son, and a few retainers, +taking with him a nice new cask. Into this, despite the prayers of her +husband and brother, he puts the lady, and flings it overboard. She is +picked up half-suffocated by mariners, who carry her to "Aymarie" and +sell her to the Sultan. She is very beautiful, and the Sultan promptly +proposes conversion and marriage. She makes no difficulty, bears him two +children, and is apparently quite happy. But meanwhile the Count of +Ponthieu begins--his son and son-in-law have never ceased--to feel that +he has exercised the paternal rights rather harshly; the Archbishop of +Rheims very properly confirms his ideas on this point, and all three go +_outremer_ on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They are captured by the +Saracens of Aymarie, imprisoned, starved, and finally in immediate +danger of being shot to death as an amusement for the Sultan's +bodyguard. But the Sultaness has found out who they are, visits them in +prison, and "reconciliations and forgivenesses of injuries" follow. + +After this, things go in an easily guessable manner. The +Countess-Sultana beguiles her easy-going lord into granting her the +lives of the prisoners one after another, for which she rewards him by +carrying them off, with her son by the second marriage, to Italy, where +the boy is baptized. "The Apostle" (as the Pope is usually called in +Romance), by a rather extensive exercise of his Apostleship, gives +everybody absolution, confirms the original marriage of Thiebault and +the lady who had been so obstinately sorry that she had not killed him, +and who had suffered the paynim spousals so easily; and all goes +merrily. There is a postscript which tells how the daughter of the +Sultan and the Countess, who is termed _La Bele Caitive_, captivates and +marries a Turk of great rank, and becomes the mother of no less a person +than the great Saladin himself--a consummation no doubt very +satisfactory to the Miss Martha Buskbodies of the mediaeval world. + +Now this story might seem to one who read it hastily, carelessly, or as +"not in the vein," to be partly extravagant, partly disagreeable, and, +despite its generous allowance of incident, rather dull, especially if +contrasted with its next neighbour in the printed volume, _Aucassin et +Nicolette_ itself. I am afraid there may have been some of these +uncritical conditions about my own first reading. But a little study +shows some remarkable points in it, though the original writer has not +known how to manage them. The central and most startling one--the +attempt of the Countess to murder her husband--is, when you think of it, +not at all unnatural. The lady is half mad with her shame; the witness, +victim, and, as she thinks, probable avenger of that shame is helpless +before her, and in his first words at any rate seems to think merely of +himself and not of her. Whether this violent outburst of feeling was not +likely to result in as violent a revulsion of tenderness is rather a +psychological probability than artistically certain. And Thiebault, +though an excellent fellow, is a clumsy one. His actual behaviour is +somewhat of that "killing-with-kindness" order which exasperates when it +does not itself kill or actually reconcile; and, whether out of delicacy +or not, he does not give his wife the only proof that he acknowledges +the involuntariness of her actual misfortune, and forgives the +voluntariness of her intended crime. His telling the story is +inexcusable: and neither his preference of his allegiance as a vassal to +his duty as knight, lover, and husband in the case of the Count's +cruelty, nor his final acceptance of so many and such peculiar bygones +can be called very pretty. But there are possibilities in the story, if +they are not exactly made into good gifts. + +[Sidenote: Those of the fourteenth. _Asseneth._] + +The contents of the fourteenth-century volume are, with one exception, +much less interesting in themselves; but from the point of view of the +present enquiry they hardly yield to their predecessors. They are three +in number: _Asseneth_, _Foulques Fitzwarin_, and _Troilus_. The first, +which is very short, is an account of Joseph's courtship of his future +wife, in which entirely guiltless proceeding he behaves at first very +much as if the daughter of Potipherah were fruit as much forbidden as +the wife of Potiphar. For on her being proposed to him (he has come to +her father, splendidly dressed and brilliantly handsome, on a mission +from Pharaoh) he at first replies that he will love her as his sister. +This, considering the Jewish habit of exchanging the names, might not be +ominous. But when the damsel, at her father's bidding, offers to kiss +him, Joseph puts his hand on her chest and pushes her back, accompanying +the action with words (even more insulting in detail than in substance) +to the effect that it is not for God-fearing man to kiss an idolatress. +(At this point one would rather like to kick Joseph.) However, when, +naturally enough, she cries with vexation, the irreproachable but most +unlikable patriarch condescends to pat her on the head and bless her. +This she takes humbly and thankfully; deplores his absence, for he is +compelled to return to his master; renounces her gods; is consoled by an +angel, who feeds her with a miraculous honeycomb possessing a sort of +sacramental force, and announces her marriage to Joseph, which takes +place almost immediately. + +It will be at once seen, by those who know something of the matter, that +this is entirely in the style of large portions of the Graal romances; +and so it gives us a fresh and interesting division of the new short +prose tale, allying itself to some extent with the allegory which was to +be so fruitful both in verse and in prose. It is not particularly +attractive in substance; but is not badly told, and would have made +(what it was very likely used as) a good sermon-story. + +[Sidenote: _Troilus._] + +As _Asseneth_, the first of the three, is by far the shortest, so +_Troilus_, the last, is by far the longest. It is, in fact, nearly +twenty times the length of the history of Joseph's pious impoliteness, +and makes up something like two-thirds of the whole collection. But, +except as a variant of one of the famous stories of the world (_v. sup._ +Chap. IV.), it has little interest, and is not even directly taken from +Benoit de Sainte-Maure, but from Guido delle Colonne and Boccaccio, of +whose _Filostrato_ it is, in fact, a mere translation, made apparently +by a known person of high station, Pierre de Beauvau, one of the chief +nobles of Anjou, at the close of the fourteenth and the beginning of the +fifteenth century. It thus brings itself into direct connection with +Chaucer's poem, and has some small importance for literary history +generally. But it has not much for us. It was not Boccaccio's verse but +his prose that was really to influence the French Novel. + +[Sidenote: _Foulques Fitzwarin._] + +With the middle piece of the volume, _Foulques Fitzwarin_, it is very +different. It is true that the present writer was once "smitten +friendly" by a disciple of the modern severe historical school, who +declared that the adventures of Fitzwarin, though of course adulterated, +were an important historical document, and nothing so frivolous as a +novel. One has, however, a reed-like faculty of getting up again from +such smitings: and for my part I do not hesitate once more to call +_Foulques Fitzwarin_ the first historical prose novel in modern +literature. French in language, as we have it, it is thoroughly English +in subject, and, beyond all doubt, in the original place of composition, +while there is no reason to doubt the assertion that there were older +verse-renderings of the story both in English and French. In fact, they +may turn up yet. But the thing as it stands is a very desirable and even +delectable thing, and well deserved its actual publication, not merely +in the French collection, of which we are speaking, but in the papers of +the too short-lived English Warton Club. + +For it is not only our first historical novel, but also the first, as +far as England is concerned, of those outlaw stories which have always +delighted worthy English youth from _Robin Hood_ to _The Black Arrow_. +The Fitzwarins, as concerns their personalities and genealogies, may be +surrendered without a pang to the historian, though he shall not have +the marrow of the story. They never seem to have been quite happy except +when they were in a state of "utlagation," and it was not only John +against whom they rebelled, for one of them died on the Barons' side at +Lewes. + +The compiler, whoever he was--it has been said already and cannot be +said too often, that every recompiler in the Middle Ages felt it (like +the man in that "foolish" writer, as some call him, Plato) a sacred duty +to add something to the common stock,--was not exactly a master of his +craft, but certainly showed admirable zeal. There never was a more +curious _macedoine_ than this story. Part of it is, beyond all doubt, +traditional history, with place-names all right, though distorted by +that curious inability to transpronounce or trans-spell which made the +French of the thirteenth century call Lincoln "Nicole," and their +descendants of the seventeenth call Kensington "Stintinton." Part is +mere stock or common-form Romance, as when Foulques goes to sea and has +adventures with the usual dragons and their usual captive princesses. +Part, though not quite dependent on the general stock, is indebted to +that of a particular kind, as in the repeated catching of the King by +the outlaws. But it is all more or less good reading; and there are two +episodes in the earlier part which (one of them especially) merit more +detailed account. + +The first still has something of a general character about it. It is the +story of a certain Payn Peveril (for we meet many familiar names), who +seems to have been a real person though wrongly dated here, and has one +of those nocturnal combats with demon knights, the best known examples +of which are those recounted in _Marmion_ and its notes. Peveril's +antagonist, however--or rather the mask which the antagonist +takes,--connects with the oldest legendary history of the island, for he +reanimates the body of Gogmagog, the famous Cornish giant, whom Corineus +slew. The diabolic Gogmagog, however, seems neither to have stayed in +Cornwall nor gone to Cambridgeshire, though (oddly enough the French +editors do not seem to have noticed this) Payn Peveril actually held +fiefs in the neighbourhood of those exalted mountains called now by the +name of his foe. He had a hard fight; but luckily his arms were _or_ +with a cross _edentee azure_, and this cross constantly turned the +giant-devil's mace-strokes, while it also weakened him, and he had +besides to bear the strokes of Peveril's sword. So he gave in, remarking +with as much truth as King Padella in similar circumstances, that it was +no good fighting under these conditions. Then he tells a story of some +length about the original Gogmagog and his treasure. The secret of this +he will not reveal, but tells Peveril that he will be lord of +Blanche-lande in Shropshire, and vanishes with the usual unpleasant +accompaniment--_tiel pueur dont Payn quida devier_. He left his mace, +which the knight kept as a testimony to anybody who did not believe the +story. + +This is not bad; but the other, which is either true or extraordinarily +well invented, is far finer, and, with some omissions, must be analysed +and partly translated. Those who know the singular beauty of Ludlow Town +and Castle will be able to "stage" it to advantage, but this is not +absolutely necessary to its appreciation as a story. + +The Peverils have died out by this time, and the honour and lands have +gone by marriage to Guarin of Metz, whose son, Foulques Fitzguarin or +Warin, starts the subjects of the general story. When the first Foulkes +is eighteen, there is war between Sir Joce of Dinan (the name then given +to Ludlow) and the Lacies. In one of their skirmishes Sir Walter de Lacy +is wounded and captured, with a young knight of his party, Sir Ernault +de Lyls. They have courteous treatment in Ludlow Castle, and Ernault +makes love to Marion de la Briere, a most gentle damsel, who is the +chief maid of the lady of the castle, and as such, of course, herself a +lady. He promises her marriage, and she provides him and his chief with +means of escape. Whether Lisle (as his name probably was) had at this +time any treacherous intentions is not said or hinted. But Lacy, +naturally enough, resents his defeat, and watches for an opportunity of +_revanche_; while Sir Joce[lyn], on the other hand, takes his prisoners' +escape philosophically, and does not seem to make any enquiry into its +cause. At first Lacy thinks of bringing over his Irish vassals to aid +him; but his English neighbours not unnaturally regard this step with +dislike, and a sort of peace is made between the enemies. A match is +arranged between Sir Joce's daughter Hawyse and Foulques Fitzwarin. Joce +then quits Ludlow for a time, leaving, however, a strong garrison there. +Marion, who feigns illness, is also left. And now begins the tragic and +striking part of the story. + + The next day after Joce had gone, Marion sent a message to + Sir Ernault de Lyls, begging him, for the great love that + there was between them, not to forget the pledges they had + exchanged, but to come quickly to speak with her at the + castle of Dinan, because the lord and the lady and the bulk + of the servants had gone to Hertilande--also to come to the + same place by which he had left the castle. [_He replies + asking her to send him the exact height of the wall (which + she unsuspiciously does by the usual means of a silk thread) + and also the number of the household left. Then he seeks his + chief, and tells him, with a mixture of some truth, that the + object of the Hertilande journey is to gather strength + against Lacy, capture his castle of Ewyas, and kill + himself--intelligence which he falsely attributes to Marion. + He has, of course, little difficulty in persuading Lacy to + take the initiative. Sir Ernault is entrusted with a + considerable mixed force, and comes by night to the + castle._] The night was very dark, so that no sentinel saw + them. Sir Ernault took a squire to carry the ladder of hide, + and they went to the window where Marion was waiting for + them. And when she saw them, never was any so joyful: so she + dropped a cord right down and drew up the hide ladder and + fastened it to a battlement. Then Ernault lightly scaled the + tower, and took his love in his arms and kissed her: and + they made great joy of each other and went into another room + and supped, and then went to their couch, and left the + ladder hanging. + + But the squire who had carried it went to the forces hidden + in the garden and elsewhere, and took them to the ladder. + And one hundred men, well armed, mounted by it and descended + by the Pendover tower and went by the wall behind the + chapel, and found the sentinel too heavy with sleep to + defend himself: and the knights and the sergeants were cut + to pieces crying for mercy in their beds. But Sir Ernault's + companions were pitiless, and many a white sheet was dyed + red with blood. And at last they tossed the watchman into + the deep fosse and broke his neck. + + Now Marion de la Briere lay by her lover Sir Ernault and + knew nothing of the treason he had done. But she heard a + great noise in the castle and rose from her bed, and looked + out and heard more clearly the cry of the massacred, and saw + knights in white armour. Wherefore she understood that Sir + Ernault had deceived and betrayed her, and began to weep + bitterly and said, "Ah! that I was ever of mother born: for + that by my crime I have lost my lord Sir Joce, who bred me + so gently, his castle, and his good folk. Had I not been, + nothing had been lost. Alas! that I ever believed this + knight! for by his lies he has ruined me, and what is worse, + my lord too." Then, all weeping, she drew Sir Ernault's + sword and said, "Sir knight! awake, for you have brought + strange company into my lord's castle without his leave. I + brought in only you and your squire. And since you have + deceived me you cannot rightly blame me if I give you your + deserts--at least you shall never boast to any other + mistress that by deceiving me you conquered the castle and + the land of Dinan!" The knight started up, but Marion, with + the sword she held drawn, ran him straight through the body, + and he died at once. She herself, knowing that if she were + taken, ill were the death she should die, and knowing not + what to do, let herself fall from a window and broke her + neck. + +Now this, I venture to think, is not an ordinary story. Tales of +treachery, onslaught, massacre, are not rare in the Middle Ages, nor +need we go as far as the Middle Ages for them. But the almost heroic +insouciance with which the traitor knight forgets everything except his +immediate enjoyment, and, provided he has his mistress at his will, +concerns himself not in the slightest degree as to what becomes of his +companions, is not an every-day touch. Nor is the strong contrast of the +chambers of feast and dalliance--undisturbed, voluptuous, +terrestrial-paradisaic--with "the horror and the hell" in the courts +below. Nor, last of all, the picture of the more than half innocent +Marion, night-garbed or ungarbed, but with sword drawn, first hanging +over her slumbering betrayer, then dealing the stroke of vengeance, and +then falling--white against the dark towers and the darker ravines at +their base--to her self-doomed judgment. + +[Sidenote: Something on these,] + +Even more, however, than in individual points of interest or excitement, +the general survey of these two volumes gives matter for thought on our +subject. Here are some half-dozen stories or a little more. It is not +much, some one may say, for the produce of two hundred years. But what +it lacks in volume (and that will be soon made up in French, while it is +to be remembered that we have practically nothing to match it in +English) it makes up in variety. The peculiarity, some would say the +defect, of mediaeval literature--its sheep-like tendency to go in +flocks--is quite absent. Not more than two of the eight, _Le Roi Flore_ +and _La Comtesse de Ponthieu_, can be said to be of the same class, +even giving the word class a fairly elastic sense. They are short prose +_Romans d'aventures_. But _Asseneth_ is a mystical allegory; _Aucassin +et Nicolette_ is a sort of idyll, almost a lyric, in which the adventure +is entirely subordinated to the emotional and poetical interest; +_L'Empereur Constant_, though with something of the _Roman d'aventures_ +in it, has a tendency towards a _moralitas_ ("there is no armour against +fate") which never appears in the pure adventurous kind; _Troilus_ is an +abridgment of a classical romance; and _Foulques Fitzwarin_ is, as has +been said, an embryonic historical novel. Most, if not all, moreover, +give openings for, and one or two even proceed into, character- and even +"problem"-writing of the most advanced novel kind. In one or two also, +no doubt, that aggression and encroachment of allegory (which is one of +the chief notes of these two centuries) makes itself felt, though not to +the extent which we shall notice in the next chapter. But almost +everywhere a strong _nisus_ towards actual tale-telling and the rapid +acquisition of proper "plant" for such telling, become evident. In +particular, conversation--a thing difficult to bring anyhow into +verse-narrative, and impossible there to keep up satisfactorily in +various moods--begins to find its way. We may turn, in the next chapter, +to matter mostly or wholly in verse forms. But prose fiction is started +all the same. + +[Sidenote: And on the short story generally.] + +Before we do so, however, it may not be improper to point out that the +short story undoubtedly holds--of itself--a peculiar and almost +prerogative place in the history and morphology or the novel. After a +long and rather unintelligible unpopularity in English--it never +suffered in this way in French--it has been, according to the way of the +world, a little over-exalted of late perhaps. It is undoubtedly a very +difficult thing to do well, and it would be absurd to pretend that any +of the foregoing examples is done thoroughly well. The Italian _novella_ +had to come and show the way.[79] But the short story, even of the +rudimentary sort which we have been considering, cannot help being a +powerful schoolmaster to bring folk to good practice in the larger kind. +The faults and the merits of that kind, as such, appear in it after a +fashion which can hardly fail to be instructive and suggestive. The +faults so frequently charged against that "dear defunct" in our own +tongue, the three-volume novel--the faults of long-windedness, of otiose +padding, of unnecessary episodes, etc., are almost mechanically or +mathematically impossible in the _nouvelle_. The long book provides +pastime in its literal sense, and if it is not obvious in the other the +accustomed reader, unless outraged by some extraordinary dulness or +silences, goes on, partly like the Pickwickian horse because he can't +well help it, and partly because he hopes that something _may_ turn up. +In the case of the short he sees almost at once whether it is going to +have any interest, and if there is none such apparent he throws it +aside. + +Moreover, as in almost every other case, the shortness is appropriate to +_exercise_; while the prose form does not encourage those terrible +_chevilles_--repetitions of stock adjective and substantive and verb and +phrase generally--which are so common in verse, and especially in +octosyllabic verse. It is therefore in many ways healthy, and the space +allotted to these early examples of it will not, it is hoped, seem to +any impartial reader excessive. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[75] The position of "origin" assigned already to the sacred matter of +the Saint's Life may perhaps be continued here as regards the Sermon. It +was, as ought to be pretty generally known, the not ungenial habit of +the mediaeval preacher to tell stories freely. We have them in AElfric's +and other English homilies long before there was any regular French +prose; and we have, later, large and numerous collections of +them--compiled more or less expressly for the use of the clergy--in +Latin, English, and French. The Latin story is, in fact, very +wide-ranging and sometimes quite of the novel (at least _nouvelle_) +kind, as any one may see in Wright's _Latin Stories_, Percy Society, +1842. + +[76] This is one, and one of the most glaring, of the _betises_ which at +some times have been urged against Romance at large. They are not, as a +matter of fact, very frequent; but their occurrence certainly does show +the essentially uncritical character of the time. + +[77] For of course the knight did not tell the _whole_ story. + +[78] _I.e._ not sorry for having tried to kill him, but sorry that she +had not done so. + +[79] In _prose_. For the very important part played by the home verse +_fabliaux_ see next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ALLEGORY, FABLIAU, AND PROSE STORY OF COMMON LIFE + + +[Sidenote: The connection with prose fiction of allegory.] + +It was shown in the last chapter that fiction, and even prose fiction, +of very varied character began to develop itself in French during the +thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By the fifteenth the development +was very much greater, and the "disrhyming" of romances, the beginnings +of which were very early, came to be a regular, not an occasional, +process; while, by its latter part, verse had become not the usual, but +the exceptional vehicle of romance, and prose romances of enormous +length were popular. But earlier there had still been some obstacles in +the way of the prose novel proper. It was the period of the rise and +reign of Allegory, and France, preceptress of almost all Europe in most +literary kinds, proved herself such in this with the unparalleled +example of the _Roman de la Rose_. But the _Roman de la Rose_ was itself +in verse--the earlier part of it at least in real poetry--and most of +its innumerable imitations were in verse likewise. Moreover, though +France again had been the first to receive and to turn to use the riches +of Eastern apologue, the most famous example of which is _The Seven Wise +Masters_, these rather serious matters do not seem to have especially +commended themselves to the French people. The place of composition of +the most famous of all, the _Gesta Romanorum_, has been fairly settled +to be England, though the original language of composition is not likely +to have been other than Latin. At any rate, the style of serious +allegory, in prose which should also be literature, never really caught +hold of the French taste. + +Comic tale-telling, on the other hand, was germane to the very soul of +the race, and had shown itself in _chanson_ and _roman_ episodes at a +very early date. But it had been so abundantly, and in so popular a +manner, associated with verse as a vehicle in those pieces, in the great +beast-epic of _Renart_, and above all in the _fabliaux_ and in the +earliest farces, that the connection was hard to separate. None of the +stories discussed in the last chapter has, it may be noticed, the least +comic touch or turn. + +[Sidenote: And of the _fabliaux_.] + +As we go on we must disengage ourselves more and more (though with +occasional returns to it) from attention to verse; and the two great +compositions in that form, the _Romance of the Rose_ and the _Story of +the Fox_, especially the former, hardly require much writing about to +any educated person. They are indeed most strongly contrasted examples +of two modes of tale-telling, both in a manner allegoric, but in other +respects utterly different. The mere story of the _Rose_, apart from the +dreamy or satiric digressions and developments of its two parts and the +elaborate descriptions of the first, can be told in a page or two. An +abstract of the various _Renart_ books, to give any idea of their real +character, would, on the other hand, have to be nearly as long as the +less spun-out versions themselves. But the verse _fabliaux_ can hardly +be passed over so lightly. Many of them formed the actual bases of the +prose _nouvelles_ that succeeded them; not a few have found repeated +presentation in literature; and, above all, they deserve the immense +praise of having deliberately introduced ordinary life, and not +conventionalised manners, into literary treatment. We have taken some +pains to point out touches of that life which are observable in Saint's +Life and Romance, in _chanson_ and early prose tale. But here the case +is altered. Almost everything is real; a good deal is what is called, in +one of the senses of a rather misused word, downright "realism." + +Few people who have ever heard of the _fabliaux_ can need to be told +that this realism in their case implies extreme freedom of treatment, +extending very commonly to the undoubtedly coarse and not seldom to the +merely dirty. There are some--most of them well known by modern +imitations such as Leigh Hunt's "Palfrey"--which are quite guiltless in +this respect; but the great majority deal with the usual comic farrago +of satire on women, husbands, monks, and other stock subjects of +raillery, all of which at the time invited "sculduddery." To translate +some of the more amusing, one would require not merely Chaucerian +licence of treatment but Chaucerian peculiarities of dialect in order to +avoid mere vulgarity. Even Prior, who is our only modern English +_fabliau_-writer of real literary merit--the work of people like Hanbury +Williams and Hall Stevenson being mostly mere pornography--could hardly +have managed such a piece as "Le Sot Chevalier"--a riotously "improper" +but excessively funny example--without running the risk of losing that +recommendation of being "a lady's book" with which Johnson rather +capriciously tempered his more general undervaluation. Sometimes, on the +other hand, the joke is trivial enough, as in the English-French +word-play of _anel_ for _agnel_ (or _-neau_), which substitutes "donkey" +for "lamb"; or, in the other, on the comparison of a proper name, +"Estula," with its component syllables "es tu la?" But the important +point on the whole is that, proper or improper, romantic or trivial, +they all exhibit a constant improvement in the mere art of telling; in +discarding of the stock phrases, the long-winded speeches, and the +general _paraphernalia_ of verse; in sticking and leading up smartly to +the point; in coining sharp, lively phrase; in the co-ordination of +incident and the excision of superfluities. Often they passed without +difficulty into direct dramatic presentation in short farces. But on the +whole their obvious destiny was to be "unrhymed" and to make their +appearance in the famous form of the _nouvelle_ or _novella_, in regard +to which it is hard to say whether Italy was most indebted to France +for substance, or France to Italy for form. + +[Sidenote: The rise of the _nouvelle_ itself.] + +It was not, however, merely the intense conservatism of the Middle Ages +as to literary form which kept back the prose _nouvelle_ to such an +extent that, as we have seen, only a few examples survive from the two +whole centuries between 1200 and 1400, while not one of these is of the +kind most characteristic ever since, or at least until quite recent +days, of French tale-telling. The French octosyllabic couplet, in which +the _fabliaux_ were without exception or with hardly an exception +composed, can, in a long story, become very tiresome because of its want +of weight and grasp, and the temptations it offers to a weak rhymester +to stuff it with endless tags. But for a short tale in deft hands it can +apply its lightness in the best fashion, and put its points with no lack +of sting. The _fabliau_-writer or reciter was not required--one imagines +that he would have found scant audiences if he had tried it--to spin a +long yarn; he had got to come to his jokes and his business pretty +rapidly; and, as La Fontaine has shown to thousands who have never +known--perhaps have never heard of--his early masters, he had an +instrument which would answer to his desires perfectly if only he knew +how to finger it. + +At the same time, both the lover of poetry and the lover of tale must +acknowledge that, though alliance between them is not in the least an +unholy one, and has produced great and charming children, the best of +the poetry is always a sort of extra bonus or solace to the tale, and +the tale not unfrequently seems as if it could get on better without the +poetry. The one can only aspire somewhat irrelevantly; the other can +never attain quite its full development. So it was no ill day when the +prose _nouvelle_ came to its own in France. + +[Sidenote: _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles._] + +The first remarkable collection was the famous _Cent Nouvelles +Nouvelles_, traditionally attributed to Louis XI. when Dauphin and an +exile in Brabant, with the assistance of friends and courtiers, but +more recently selected by critics that way minded as part of the baggage +they have "commandeered" for Antoine de la Salle. The question of +authorship is of scarcely the slightest importance to us; though the +point last mentioned is worth mentioning, because we shall have to +notice the favoured candidate in this history again. There are certainly +some of the hundred that he might have written. + +In the careless way in which literary history used to be dealt with, the +_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ were held to be mere imitation of the +_Decameron_ and other Italian things. It is, of course, much more than +probable that the Italian _novella_ had not a little to do with the +precipitation of the French _nouvelle_ from its state of solution in the +_fabliau_. But the person or persons who, in imitating the _Decameron_, +produced the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ had a great deal more to do--and +did a great deal less--than this mere imitation of their original. As +for a group of included tales, the already-mentioned _Seven Wise +Masters_[80] was known in France much before Boccaccio's time. The title +was indeed admittedly Italian, but such an obvious one as to require no +positive borrowing, and there is in the French book no story-framework +like that of the plague and the country-house visit; no cheerful +personalities like Fiammetta or Dioneo make not merely the intervals but +the stories themselves alive with a special interest. Above all, there +is nothing like the extraordinary mixture of unity and variety--a pure +gift of genius--which succeeds in making the _Decameron_ a real book as +well as a bundle of narratives. Nor is there anything like the literary +brilliancy of the actual style and handling. + +Nevertheless, _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ is a book of great interest +and value, despite serious defects due to its time generally and to its +place in the history of fiction in particular. Its obscenity, on which +even Sir Walter Scott, the least censorious or prudish-prurient of men, +and with Southey, the great witness against false squeamishness, has +been severe,[81] is unfortunately undeniable. But it is to be doubted +whether Sir Walter knew much of the _fabliaux_; if he had he would have +seen first, that this sort of thing had become an almost indispensable +fashion in the short story, and secondly, that there is here +considerable improvement on the _fabliaux_ themselves, there being much +less mere schoolboy crudity of dirty detail and phrase, though the +situations may remain the same. It suffers occasionally from the heavy +and rhetorical style which beset all European literature (except +Italian, which itself did not wholly escape) in the fifteenth century. +But still one can see in it that improvement of narrative method and +diction which has been referred to: and occasionally, amid the crowd of +tricky wives, tricked husbands, too obliging and too hardly treated +chambermaids, ribald priests and monks, and the like, one comes across +quite different things and persons, which are, as the phrase goes, +almost startlingly modern, with a mixture of the _un_modern heightening +the appeal. One of the most striking of these--not very likely to be +detected or suspected by a careless reader under its sub-title of "La +Demoiselle Cavaliere," and by no means fully summarised in the quaint +short argument which is in all cases subjoined--may be briefly analysed. + +[Sidenote: Analysis of "La Demoiselle Cavaliere".] + +In one of the great baronial households of Brabant there lived, after +the usual condition of gentle servitude, a youth named Gerard, who fell +in love, after quite honourable and seemly fashion, with Katherine, the +daughter of the house--a fact which, naturally, they thought known only +to themselves, when, as naturally, everybody in the Court had become +aware of it. "For the better prevention of scandal," an immediate +marriage being apparently out of the question because of Gerard's +inferiority in rank to his mistress, it is decided by the intervention +of friends that Gerard shall take his leave of the Brabantine "family." +There is a parting of the most laudable kind, in which Katherine +bestows on her lover a ring, and a pledge that she will never marry any +one else, and he responds suitably. Then he sets out, and on arriving at +Bar has no difficulty in establishing himself in another great +household. Katherine meanwhile is beset with suitors of the best rank +and fortune; but will have nothing to say to any of them, till one day +comes the formidable moment when a mediaeval father determines that his +daughter shall marry a certain person, will she nill she. But if +mediaeval fatherhood was arbitrary, mediaeval religion was supreme, and +a demand to go on pilgrimage before an important change of life could +hardly be refused. In fact, the parents, taking the proposal as a mere +preliminary of obedience, consent joyfully, and offer a splendid suite +of knights and damsels, "Nous lui baillerons ung tel gentilhomme et une +telle demoiselle, Ysabeau et Marguerite et Jehanneton." But "no," says +Mistress Katherine sagely. The road to St. Nicolas of Warengeville is +not too safe for people travelling with a costly outfit and a train of +women. Let her, dressed as a man, and a bastard uncle of hers (who is +evidently the "Will Wimble" of the house) go quietly on little horses, +and it will save time, trouble, money, and danger. This the innocent +parents consider to show "great sense and good will," and the pair start +in German dress--Katherine as master, the uncle as man,--comfortably, +too, as one may imagine (for uncles and nieces generally get on well +together, and the bend sinister need do no harm). They accomplish their +pilgrimage (a touch worth noticing in Katherine's character), and then +only does she reveal her plan to her companion. She tells him, not +without a little bribery, that she wants to go and see Gerard _en +Barrois_, and to stay there for a short time; but he is to have no doubt +of her keeping her honour safe. He consents, partly with an eye to the +future main chance (for she is her father's sole heir), and partly +because _elle est si bonne qu'il n'y fault guere guet sur elle_. +Katherine, taking the name of Conrad, finds the place, presents herself +to the _maitre_ _d'ostel_, an ancient squire, as desirous of +entertainment or _re_tainment, and is very handsomely received. After +dinner and due service done to the master, the old squire having heard +that Katherine--Conrad--is of Brabant, naturally introduces her +countryman Gerard to her. He does not in the least recognise her, and +what strikes her as stranger, neither during their own dinner nor after +says a word about Brabant itself. Conrad is regularly admitted to +Monseigneur's service, and, as a countryman, is to share Gerard's room. +They are perfectly good friends, go to see their horses together, etc., +but still the formerly passionate lover says not a word of Brabant or +his Brabanconian love, and poor Katherine concludes that she has been +"put with forgotten sins"--not a bad phrase, though it might be +misconstrued. Being, however, as has been already seen, both a plucky +girl and a clever one, she determines to carry her part through. At +last, when they go to their respective couches in the same chamber, she +herself faces the subject, and asks him if he knows any persons in +Brabant. "Oh yes." "Does he know" her own father, his former master? +"Yes." "They say," said she, "that there are pretty girls there: did you +not know any?" "Precious few," quoth he, "and I cared nothing about +them. Do let me go to sleep! I am dead tired." "What!" said she, "can +you sleep when there is talk of pretty girls? _You_ are not much of a +lover." But he slept "like a pig." + +Nevertheless, Katherine does not give up hope, though the next day +things are much the same, Gerard talking of nothing but hounds and +hawks, Conrad of pretty girls. At last the visitor declares that he +[she] does not care for the Barrois, and will go back to Brabant. "Why?" +says Gerard, "what better hunting, etc., can you get there than here?" +"It has nothing," says Conrad, "like the women of Brabant," adding, in +reply to a jest of his, an ambiguous declaration that she is actually in +love. "Then why did you leave her?" says Gerard--about the first +sensible word he has uttered. She makes a fiery answer as to Love +sometimes banishing from his servants all sense and reason. But for the +time the subject again drops. It is, however, reopened at night, and +some small pity comes on one for the recreant Gerard, inasmuch as she +keeps him awake by wailing about her love. At last she "draws" the +sluggard to some extent. "Has not _he_ been in love, and does not he +know all about it? But he was never such a fool as Conrad, and he is +sure that Conrad's lady is not such either." Another try, and she gets +the acknowledgment of treason out of him. He tells her (what she knows +too well) how he loved a noble damsel in Brabant and had to leave her, +and it really annoyed him for a few days (it is good to imagine +Katherine's face, even in the dark, at this), though of course he never +lost his appetite or committed any folly of that sort. But he knew his +Ovid (he tells her), and as soon as he came to Bar he made love to a +pretty girl there who was quite amiable to him, and now he never thinks +of the other. There is more talk, and Katherine insists that he shall +introduce her to his new lady, that she may try this remedy of +counter-love. He consents with perfect nonchalance, and is at last +allowed to go to sleep. No details are given of the conversation with +the rival,[82] except the bitterness of Katherine's heart at the fact, +and at seeing the ring she had given to Gerard on his hand. This she +actually has the pluck to play with, and, securing it, to slip on her +own. But the man being obviously past praying or caring for, she +arranges with her uncle to depart early in the morning, writes a letter +telling Gerard of the whole thing and renouncing him, passes the night +silently, leaves the letter, rises quietly and early, and departs, yet +"weeping tenderly," not for the man, but for her own lost love. The pair +reach home safely, and says the tale-teller, with an agreeable dryness +often found here,[83] "There were some who asked them the adventures of +their journey, but whatever they answered they did not boast of the +chief one." The conclusion is so spirited and at the very end so scenic +and even modern (or, much better, universal), that it must be given in +direct translation, with a few _chevilles_ (or pieces of padding) left +out. + + As for Gerard, when he woke and found his companion gone, he + thought it must be late, jumped up in haste, and seized his + jerkin: but, as he thrust his hand in one of the sleeves, + there dropped out a letter which surprised him, for he + certainly did not remember having put any there. He picked + it up and saw it subscribed "To the disloyal Gerard." If he + was startled before he was more so now: but he opened it at + last, and saw the signature "Katherine, surnamed Conrad." + Even yet he knew not what to think of it: but as he read the + blood rose to his face and his heart fluttered, and his + whole manner was changed. Still, he read it through, and + learnt how his disloyalty had come to the knowledge of her + who had wished him so well; and that not at second hand, but + from himself to herself; what trouble she had taken to find + him; and how (which stung him most) he had slept three + nights in her company after all. [_After thinking some time + he decides to follow her, and arrives in Brabant on the very + day of her marriage: for she has, in the circumstances, kept + her word to her parents._] Then he tried to go up to her and + salute her, and make some wretched excuse for his fault. But + he was not allowed, for she turned her shoulder on him, and + he could never manage to speak to her all through the day. + He even stepped forward once to lead her out to dance, but + she refused him flatly before all the company, many of whom + heard her. And immediately afterwards another gentleman + came, who bade the minstrels strike up, and she stepped down + from her dais in full view of Gerard and went to dance with + him. And so did the disloyal lover lose his lady. + +Now whether this, as the book asserts and as is not at all improbable, +is a true story or not, cannot matter to any sensible person one +farthing. What does matter is that it is a by no means badly told story, +that it resorts to no illegitimate sources or seasonings of interest, +and that it offers opportunities for amplification and "diversity of +administration" to almost any extent. One can fancy it told, at much +greater length and with more or less adjustment to different times, by +great novelists of the most widely varying classes--by Scott and by +Dumas, by Charles Reade and by George Meredith, to mention no living +writer, as might easily be done. Both hero and heroine have more +character between them than you could extract out of fifty of the usual +_nouvelles_, and each lends him or herself to endless further +development. Not a few of the separate scenes--the good parents fussing +over their daughter's intended cavalcade and her thrifty and ingenious +objections; the journey of the uncle and niece (any of the first three +of the great novelists mentioned above would have made chapters of +this); the dramatic and risky passages at the castle _en Barrois_; the +contrast of Katherine's passion and Gerard's sluggishness; and the +fashion in which this latter at once brings on the lout's defeat and +saves the lady from danger at his hands--all this is novel-matter of +almost the first class as regards incident, with no lack of +character-openings to boot. Nor could anybody want a better "curtain" +than the falling back of the scorned and baffled false lover, the +concert of the minstrels, and Katherine's stately stepping down the dais +to complete the insult by dancing with another. + +[Sidenote: The interest of _named_ personages.] + +One more general point may be noticed in connection with the superiority +of this story, and that is the accession of interest, at first sight +trivial but really important, which comes from the _naming_ of the +personages. Both in the earlier _fabliaux_ and in these _Nouvelles_ +themselves, by far the larger number of the actors are simply called by +class-names--a "knight," a "damsel," a "merchant and his wife," a +"priest," a "varlet." It may seem childish to allow the mere addition of +a couple of names like Gerard and Katherine to make this difference of +interest, but the fact is that there is a good deal of childishness in +human nature, and especially in the enjoyment of story.[84] Only by +very slow degrees were writers of fiction to learn the great difference +that small matters of this kind make, and how the mere "anecdote," the +dry argument or abstract of incident, can be amplified, varied, +transformed from a remainder biscuit to an abundant and almost +inexhaustible feast, by touches of individual character, setting of +interiors, details of conversation, description, nomenclature, and what +not. Quite early, as we saw in the case of the _St. Alexis_, persons of +narrative gift stumbled upon things of the kind; but it was only after +long delays, and hints of many half-conscious kinds, that they became +part of recognised craft. Even with such a master of that craft as +Boccaccio before them, not all the Italian novelists could catch the +pattern; and the French, perhaps naturally enough, were slower still. + +It must be remembered, in judging the fifteenth-century French tale, +that just as it was to some extent hampered by the long continuing +popularity of the verse _fabliau_ on the one hand, so it was, as we may +say, "bled" on the other by the growing popularity of the farce, which +consists of exactly the same material as the _fabliaux_ and the +_nouvelles_ themselves, with the additional liveliness of voice and +action. These later additions imposed not the smallest restraint on the +license which had characterised and was to characterise the plain verse +and prose forms,[85] and no doubt the result was all the more welcome to +the taste of the time. But for that very reason the appetites and +tastes, which could glut themselves with the full dramatic +representation, might care less for the mere narrative, on the famous +principle of _segnius irritant_. Nor was the political state of France +during the time very favourable to letters. There are, however, two +separate fifteenth-century stories which deserve notice. One of them is +the rather famous, though probably not widely read, _Petit Jehan de +Saintre_ of the already mentioned Antoine de la Salle, a certain work +of his this time. The other is the pleasant, though to Englishmen +intentionally uncomplimentary, _Jehan de Paris_ of an unknown writer. La +Salle's book must belong to the later middle of the century, though, if +he died in or about 1461, not to a very late middle. _Jehan de Paris_ +has been put by M. de Montaiglon nearer the close. + +[Sidenote: _Petit Jehan de Saintre._] + +The history of "little John of Saintre and the Lady of the Beautiful +Cousins"[86] has not struck all judges, even all English judges,[87] in +the same way. Some have thought it mawkish, rhetorical, clumsily +imitative of the manners of dead chivalry, and the like. Others, +admitting it to be a late and "literary" presentation of the stately +society it describes, rank it much higher as such. Its author was a +bitter enough satirist if he wrote, as he most probably did, the famous +_Quinze Joyes de Mariage_, one of the most unmitigated pieces of +unsweetened irony--next to _A Tale of a Tub_ and _Jonathan Wild_--to be +found in literature; but not couched in narrative form. The same quality +appears of course in the still more famous farce of _Pathelin_, which +few good judges deny very stoutly to him, though there is little +positive evidence. In the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ again, as has been +said, he certainly had a hand, and possibly a great hand, as well as +perhaps elsewhere. The satiric touch appears even in _Petit Jehan_ +itself; for, after all the gracious courtship of the earlier part, the +_dame des belles Cousines_, during an absence of her lover on service, +falls a by no means, as it would seem, very reluctant victim to the +vulgar viciousness of a rich churchman, just like the innominatas of the +_nouvelles_ themselves. But the earlier part _is_ gracious--a word +specifically and intensively applicable to it. It may be a little +unreal; does not the secondary form and sense which has been fastened +upon reality--"realism"--show that, in the opinion of many people at +least, reality is _not_ gracious? The Foozles of this world who "despise +all your kickshaws," the Dry-as-dusts who point out--not in the least +seeing the real drift of their argument--that the fifteenth century was, +in the greater part of Europe if not the whole, at a new point of morals +and manners, may urge these things. But the best part of _Petit Jehan_ +remains a gracious sort of dream for gracious dreamers--a picture of a +kind of Utopia of Feminism, when Feminism did not mean votes or anything +foolish, but only adoration of the adorable. + +[Sidenote: _Jehan de Paris._] + +It would be impossible to find or even to imagine anything more +different than the not much later _Jehan de Paris_, an evident +folk-tale[88] of uncertain origin, which very quickly became a popular +chapbook and lasted long in that condition. Although we Englishmen +provide the fun, he is certainly no Englishman who resents the fact or +fails to enjoy the result, not to mention that we "could tell them tales +with other endings." It is, for instance, not quite historically +demonstrable that in crossing a river many English horsemen would be +likely to be drowned, while all the French cavaliers got safe through; +nor that, in scouring a country, the Frenchmen would score all the game +and all the best beasts and poultry, while the English bag would consist +of starvelings and offal. But no matter for that. The actual tale tells +(with the agreeable introductory "How," which has not yet lost its zest +for the right palates in chapter-headings) the story of a King and Queen +of Spain who have, in recompense for help given them against turbulent +barons, contracted their daughter to the King of France for his son; how +they forgot this later, and betrothed her to the King of England, and +how that King set out with his train, through France itself, to fetch +his bride. As soon as the Dauphin (now king, for his father is dead) +hears of their coming, he disguises himself under the name of John of +Paris, with a splendid train of followers, much more gorgeous than the +English (the "foggy islander" of course cannot make this out), and sets +of _quiproquos_ follow, in each of which the Englishman is outdone and +baffled generally, till at last "John of Paris" enters Burgos in state, +reveals himself, and carries off the Englishman's bride, with the +natural effect of making him _bien marry et courrouce_, though no fight +comes off. + +The tale is smartly and succinctly told (there are not many more than a +hundred of the small-sized and large-printed pages of the _Collection +Jannet-Picard_), and there is a zest and _verve_ about it which ought to +please any mood that is for the time in harmony with the much talked of +Comic Spirit. But it certainly does not lose attraction, and it as +certainly does not fail to lend some, when it is considered side by side +with the other "John," especially if both are again compared with the +certainly not earlier and probably later "Prose Romances" in English, to +which that rather ambitious title was given by Mr. Thoms. There is +nothing in these in the very remotest degree resembling _Jehan de +Saintre_: you must get on to the _Arcadia_ or at least to _Euphues_ +before you come anywhere near that. There is, on the other hand, in our +stuff, a sort of distant community of spirit with _Jehan de Paris_; but +it works in an altogether lower and less imaginative sphere and fashion; +no sense of art being present, and very little of craft. It is +astonishing that a language which had had, if only in verse, such an +unsurpassable tale-teller as Chaucer, should have been so backward. But +then the whole conditions of the fifteenth century, especially in +England, become only the more puzzling the longer one studies them. Even +in France, it will be observed, the output of Tale is by no means +large.[89] Nor shall we find it very greatly increased even in the next +age, though there is one masterpiece in quantity as well as quality. +But, for our purpose, the _Cent Nouvelles_ and the two separate pieces +just discussed continue, and in more and more striking manner, to show +the vast possibilities when the way shall have been clearly found and +the feet of the wayfarers firmly set in it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[80] Prose as well as verse. + +[81] In the very delightful imaginative introduction to _Quentin +Durward_. + +[82] This is one of the points which a modern novelist would certainly +have seized; but whether to advantage or not is another question. + +[83] And of course recognised by the "Antonians" as peculiar to La +Salle. + +[84] Only contrast "_Tom, Tom_, the piper's son," with "_There was once_ +a piper's son," or think how comparatively uninteresting the enormities +of another hero or not-hero would have been if he had been anonymous +instead of being called "Georgy-Porgy Pudding-and-Pie!" ["Puddenum" is, +or used to be, the preferred if corrupt nursery form.] In more elaborate +and adorned narrative the influence, not merely of the name but of the +beautiful name, comes in, and that of the name itself remains. In that +tragic story of Ludlow Castle which was given above (Chap. iv. pp. +84-6), something, for the present writer at least, would have been lost +if the traitor had been merely "a knight" instead of Sir Ernault Lisle +and the victim merely "a damsel" instead of Marion de la Briere. And +would the _bocca bacciata_ of Alaciel itself be as gracious if it was +merely anybody's? + +[85] The amazing farce-insets of Lyndsay's _Satire of the Three Estates_ +could be paralleled, and were no doubt suggested, by French farces of +older date. + +[86] Nobody seems to be entirely certain what this odd title means: +though there have been some obvious and some far-fetched guesses. But it +has, like other _rhetoriqueur_ names of 1450-1550, such as "Traverser of +Perilous Ways" and the like, a kind of fantastic attraction for some +people. + +[87] If I remember rightly, my friend the late R. L. Stevenson was wont +to abuse it. + +[88] As such, the substance is found in other languages. But the French +itself has been traced by some to an earlier _roman d'aventure_, _Blonde +d'Oxford_, in which an English heiress is carried off by a French +squire. + +[89] Perhaps one should guard against a possible repetition of a not +uncommon critical mistake--that of inferring ignorance from absence of +mention. I am quite aware that no exhaustive catalogue of known French +stories in prose has been given; and the failure to supplement a former +glance at the late prose versions of romance is intentional. They have +nothing new in romance-, still less in novel-_character_ for us. The +_Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_ volumes have been dwelt upon, not as a +_corpus_, but because they appear to represent, without any unfair +manipulation or "window-dressing," the kind at the time with a +remarkable combination of interest both individual and contrasted. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RABELAIS + + +[Sidenote: The anonymity, or at least impersonality, of authorship up to +this point.] + +Although--as it is hoped the foregoing chapters may have shown--the +amount of energy and of talent, thrown into the department of French +fiction, had from almost the earliest times been remarkably great; +although French, if not France, had been the mother of almost all +literatures in things fictitious, it can hardly be said that any writer +of undeniable genius, entitling him to the first class in the Art of +Letters, had shown himself therein. A hundred _chansons de geste_ and as +many romances _d'aventures_ had displayed dispersed talent of a very +high kind, and in the best of them, as the present writer has tried to +point out, a very "extensive assortment" of the various attractions of +the novel had from time to time made its appearance. But this again had +been done "dispersedly," as the Shakespearean stage-direction has it. +The story is sometimes well told, but the telling is constantly +interrupted; the great art of novel-conversation is, as yet, almost +unborn; the descriptions, though sometimes very striking, as in the case +of those given from _Partenopeus_--the fatal revelation of Melior's +charms and the galloping of the maddened palfrey along the seashore, +with the dark monster-haunted wood behind and the bright moonlit sea and +galley in front--are more often stock and lifeless; while, above all, +the characters are rarely more than sketched, if even that. The one +exception--the great Arthurian history, as liberated from its +Graal-legend swaddling clothes, and its kite-and-crow battles with +Saxons and rival knights, but retaining the mystical motive of the +Graal-search itself and the adventures of Lancelot and other knights; +combining all this into a single story, and storing it with incident for +a time, and bringing it to a full and final tragic close by the loves of +Lancelot himself and Guinevere--this great achievement, it has been +frankly confessed, is so much muddled and distracted with episode which +becomes positive digression, that some have even dismissed its +pretensions to be a whole. Even those who reject this dismissal are not +at one as to any single author of the conception, still less of the +execution. The present writer has stated his humble, but ever more and +more firm conviction that Chrestien did not do it and could not have +done it; others of more note, perhaps of closer acquaintance with MS. +sources, but also perhaps not uniting knowledge of the subject with more +experience in general literary criticism and in special study of the +Novel, will not allow Mapes to have done it. + +The _Roman de la Rose_, beautiful as is its earlier part and ingenious +as is (sometimes) its later, is, as a _story_, of the thinnest kind. The +_Roman de Renart_ is a vast collection of small stories of a special +class, and the _Fabliaux_ are almost a vaster collection (if you do not +exclude the "waterings out" of _Renart_) of kinds more general. There is +abundance of amusement and some charm; but nowhere are we much beyond +very simple forms of fiction itself. None of the writers of _nouvelles_, +except Antoine de la Salle, can be said to be a known personality. + +[Sidenote: Rabelais unquestionably the first very great known writer.] + +There has always been a good deal of controversy about Rabelais, not all +of which perhaps can we escape, though it certainly will not be invited, +and we have no very extensive knowledge of his life. But we have some: +and that, as a man of genius, he is superior to any single person named +and known in earlier French literature, can hardly be contested by any +one who is neither a silly paradoxer nor a mere dullard, nor affected by +some extra-literary prejudice--religious, moral, or whatever it may be. +But perhaps not every one who would admit the greatness of Master +Francis as a man of letters, his possession not merely of consummate +wit, but of that precious thing, so much rarer in French, actual humour; +his wonderful influence on the future word-book and phrase-book of his +own language, nay, not every one who would go almost the whole length of +the most uncompromising Pantagruelist, and would allow him profound +wisdom, high aspirations for humanity, something of a complete +world-philosophy--would at once admit him as a very great novelist. For +my own part I have no hesitation in doing so, and to make the admission +good must be the object of this chapter. + +[Sidenote: But the first great novelist?] + +It may almost be said that his very excellence in this way has "stood in +its own light." The readableness of Rabelais is extraordinary. The +present writer, after for years making of him almost an Addison +according to Johnson's prescription, fell, by mere accident and +occupation with other matters, into a way of _not_ reading him, except +for purposes of mere literary reference, during a long time. On three +different occasions more recently, one ten or a dozen years ago, one six +or seven, and the third for the purposes of this very book, he put +himself again under the Master, and read him right through. It is +difficult to imagine a severer test, and I am bound to confess (though I +am not bound to specify) that in some, though not many, instances I have +found famous and once favourite classics fail to stand it. Not so Master +Francis. I do not think that I ever read him with greater interest than +at this last time. Indeed I doubt whether I have ever felt the +_catholicon_--the pervading virtue of his book--quite so strongly as I +have in the days preceding that on which I write these words. + +[Sidenote: Some objections considered.] + +Of course Momus may find handles--he generally can. "You are suffering +from morbid senile relapse into puerile enjoyment of indecency," he or +Mrs. Momus (whom later ages have called Grundy) may be kind enough to +say. "You were a member of the Rabelais Club of pleasant memory, and +think it necessary to live up to your earlier profession." "You have +said this in print before [I have not exactly done so] and are bound to +stick to it," etc. etc. etc., down to that final, "You are a bad critic, +and it doesn't matter what you say," which certainly, in a sense, does +leave nothing to be replied. But whether this is because the accused is +guilty, or because the Court does not call upon him, is a question which +one may leave to others. + +Laying it down, then, as a point of fact that Rabelais _has_ this +curious "holding" quality, whence does he get it? As everybody ought to +know, many good people, admitting the fact, have, as he would himself +have said, gone about with lanterns to seek for out-of-the-way reasons +and qualities; while some people, not so good, but also accepting the +fact in a way, have grasped at the above-mentioned indecency itself for +an explanation. This trick requires little effort to kick it into its +native gutter. The greater proportion of the "_Indexable_" part of +Rabelais is mere nastiness, which is only attractive to a very small +minority of persons at any age, while to expert readers it is but a +time-deodorised dunghill by the roadside, not beautiful, but negligible. +Of the other part of this kind--the "naughty" part which is not nasty +and may be somewhat nice--there is, when you come to consider it +dispassionately, not really so very much, and it is seldom used in a +seductive fashion. It may tickle, but it does not excite; may create +laughter, but never passion or even desire. Therefore it cannot be this +which "holds" any reader but a mere novice or a glutton for garbage. + +Less easily dismissible, but, it will seem, not less inadequate is the +alleged "key"-interest of the book. Of course there are some people, and +more than a person who wishes to think nobly of humanity might desire to +find, who seem never to be tired of identifying Grandgousier, Gargantua, +and Pantagruel himself with French kings to whom they bear not the +slightest resemblance; of obliging us English by supposing us to be the +Macreons (who seem to have been very respectable people, but who inhabit +an island singularly unlike England in or anywhere near the time of +Rabelais), and so on. But to a much larger number of persons--and one +dares say to all true Pantagruelists--these interpretations are either +things that the Master himself would have delighted to satirise, and +would have satirised unsurpassably, or, at best, mere superfluities and +supererogations. At any rate there is no possibility of finding in them +the magic spell--the "Fastrada's ring," which binds youth and age alike +to the unique "Alcofribas Nasier." + +One must, it is supposed, increase the dose of respect (though +some people, in some cases, find it hard) when considering a further +quality or property--the Riddle-attraction of Rabelais. This +riddle-attraction--or attractions, for it might be better spoken of in a +very large plural--is of course quite undeniable in itself. There are as +many second intentions in the ordinary sense, apparently obvious in +_Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_, as there can have been in the scholastic +among the dietary of La Quinte, or of any possible Chimaera buzzing at +greatest intensity in the extremest vacuum. On the other hand, some of +us are haunted by the consideration, "Was there ever any human being +more likely than Francois Rabelais to echo (with the slightest change) +the words ascribed to Divinity in that famous piece which is taken, on +good external and ultra-internal evidence, to be Swift's? + + _I_ to such block-heads set my wit! + _I_ [_pose_] such fools! Go, go--you're bit." + +And there is not wanting, amongst us sceptics, a further section who are +quite certain that a not inconsiderable proportion of the book is not +allegory at all, but sheer "bamming," while others again would transfer +the hackneyed death-bed saying from author to book, and say that the +whole Chronicle is "a great perhaps." + +[Sidenote: And dismissed as affecting the general attraction of the +book.] + +These things--or at least elaborate discussions of them--lie somewhat, +though not so far as may at first seem, outside our proper business. It +must, however, once more be evident, from the facts and very nature of +the case, that the puzzles, the riddles, the allegories cannot +constitute the main and, so to speak, "universal" part of the attraction +of the book. They may be a seasoning to some, a solid cut-and-come-again +to others, but certainly not to the majority. Even in _Gulliver_--the +Great Book's almost, perhaps quite, as great descendant--these +attractions, though more universal in appeal and less evasively +presented, certainly do not hold any such position. The fact is that +both Rabelais and Swift were consummate tellers of a story, and +(especially if you take the _Polite Conversation_ into Swift's claim) +consummate originators of the Novel or larger story, with more than +"incidental" attraction itself. But we are not now busied with Swift. + +[Sidenote: Which lies, largely if not wholly, in its story-interest.] + +Not much serious objection will probably be taken to the place allotted +to Master Francis as a tale-teller pure and simple, although it cannot +be said that all his innumerable critics and commentators have laid +sufficient stress on this. From the uncomfortable birth of Gargantua to +the triumphant recessional scene from the Oracle of the Bottle, proofs +are to be found in every book, every chapter almost, and indeed almost +every page; and a little more detail may be given on this head later. +But the presentation of Rabelais as a novelist-before-novels may cause +more demur, and even suggest the presence of the now hopelessly +discredited thing--paradox itself. Of course, if anybody requires +regular plot as a necessary constituent, only paradox could contend for +that. It _has_ been contended--and rightly enough--that in the general +scheme and the two (or if you take in Grandgousier, three) generations +of histories of the good giants, Rabelais is doing nothing more than +parody--is, indeed, doing little more than simply follow the traditions +of Romance--Amiles and Jourdains, Guy and Rembrun, and many others. But +some of us regard plot as at best a full-dress garment, at the absence +of which the good-natured God or Muse of fiction is quite willing to +wink. Character, if seldom elaborately presented, except in the case of +Panurge, is showered, in scraps and sketches, all over the book, and +description and dialogue abound. + +[Sidenote: Contrast of the _Moyen de Parvenir_.] + +But it is not on such beggarly special pleading as this that the claim +shall be founded. It must rest on the unceasing, or practically +unceasing, impetus of story-interest which carries the reader through. A +remarkably useful contrast-parallel in this respect, may be found in +that strange book, the _Moyen de Parvenir_. I am of those who think that +it had something to do with Rabelais, that there is some of his stuff in +it, even that he may have actually planned something like it. But the +"make-up" is not more inferior in merit to that of _Gargantua_ and +_Pantagruel_ than it is different in kind. The _Moyen de Parvenir_ is +full of separate stories of the _fabliau_ kind, often amusing and well +told, though exceedingly gross as a rule. These stories are "set" in a +framework of promiscuous conversation, in which a large number of great +real persons, ancient and modern, and a smaller one of invented +characters, or rather names, take part. Most of this, though not quite +all, is mere _fatrasie_, if not even mere jargon: and though there are +glimmerings of something more than sense, they are, with evident +deliberation, enveloped in clouds of nonsense. The thing is not a whole +at all, and the stories have as little to do with each other or with any +general drift as if they were professedly--what they are practically--a +bundle of _fabliaux_ or _nouvelles_. As always happens in such +cases--and as the author, whether he was Beroalde or another, whether or +not he worked on a canvas greater than he could fill, or tried to patch +together things too good for him, no doubt intended--attempts have been +made to interpret the puzzle here also; but they are quite obviously +vain. + +[Sidenote: A general theme possible.] + +[Sidenote: A reference--to be taken up later--to the last Book.] + +Such a sentence, however, cannot be pronounced in any such degree or +measure on the similar attempts in the case of _Gargantua_ and +_Pantagruel_; for a reason which some readers may find unexpected. The +unbroken vigour--unbroken even by the obstacles which it throws in its +own way, like the Catalogue of the Library of Saint-Victor and the +burlesque lists of adjectives, etc., which fill up whole chapters--with +which the story or string of stories is carried on, may naturally +suggest that there _is_ a story or at least a theme. It is a sort of +quaint alteration or catachresis of _Possunt quia posse videntur_. There +must be a general theme, because the writer is so obviously able to +handle any theme he chooses. It may be wiser--it certainly seems so to +the present writer--to disbelieve in anything but occasional +sallies--episodes, as it were, or even digressions--of political, +religious, moral, social and other satire. It is, on the other hand, a +most important thing to admit the undoubted presence--now and then, and +not unfrequently--of a deliberate dropping of the satiric and burlesque +mask. This supplies the presentation of the serious, kindly, and human +personality of the three princes (Grandgousier, Gargantua, and +Pantagruel); this the schemes of education (giving so large a proportion +of the small bulk of _not_-nonsense written on that matter). Above all, +this permits, to one taste at least, the exquisite last Book, +presentation of La Quinte and the fresh roses in her hand, the +originality of which, not only in the whole book in one sense, but in +the particular Book in the other, is, to that taste, and such +argumentative powers as accompany it, an almost absolute proof of that +Book's genuineness. For if it had been by another who, _un_like +Rabelais, had a special tendency towards such graceful imagination, he +could hardly have refrained from showing this elsewhere in this long +book.[90] + +[Sidenote: Running survey of the whole.] + +But however this may be, it is certain that a critical reader, +especially when he has reason to be startled by the external, if not +actually extrinsic, oddities of and excesses of the book, will be +justified in allowing--it may almost be said that he is likely to +allow--the extraordinary volume of concatenated fictitious interest in +the whole book or books. The usual and obvious "catenations" are indeed +almost ostentatiously wanting. The absence of any real plot has been +sufficiently commented on, with the temptations conferred by it to +substitute a fancied unity of purpose. The birth, and what we may call +the two educations, of Gargantua; the repetition, with sufficient +differences, of the same plan in the opening of _Pantagruel_; the +appearance of Panurge and the campaign against the Dipsodes; the great +marriage debate; and the voyage to the Oracle of the Bottle, are +connected merely in "chronicle" fashion. The character-links are hardly +stronger, for though Friar John does play a more or less important part +from almost the beginning to quite the end, Panurge, the most important +and remarkable single figure, does not appear for a considerable time, +and the rest are shadows. The scene is only in one or two chapters +nominally placed in Nowhere; but as a whole it is Nowhere Else, or +rather a bewildering mixture of topical assignments in a very small part +of France, and allegorical or fantastic descriptions of a multitude of +Utopias. And yet, once more, it _is_ a whole story. As you read it you +almost forget what lies behind, you quite forget the breaches of +continuity, and press on to what is before, almost as eagerly, if not +quite in the same fashion, as if the incidents and the figures were not +less exciting than those of _Vingt Ans Apres_. Let us hope it may not be +excessive to expend a few pages on a sketch of this strange story that +is no story, with, it may be, some fragments of translation or +paraphrase (for, as even his greatest translator, Urquhart, found, a +certain amount of his own _Fay ce que voudras_ is necessary with +Rabelais) here and there. + +[Sidenote: _Gargantua._] + +Master Francis does not exactly plunge into the middle of things; but he +spends comparatively little time on the preliminaries of the ironical +Prologue to the "very illustrious drinkers," on the traditionally +necessary but equally ironical genealogy of the hero, on the elaborate +verse _amphigouri_ of the _Fanfreluches Antidotees_, and on the mock +scientific discussion of extraordinarily prolonged periods of pregnancy. +Without these, however, he will not come to the stupendous banquet of +tripe (properly washed down, and followed by pleasant revel on the +"echoing green") which determined the advent of Gargantua into the +world, which enabled Grandgousier, more fortunate than his son on a +future occasion, to display his amiability as a husband and a father +unchecked by any great sorrow, and which was, as it were, crowned and +sealed by that son's first utterance--no miserable and ordinary infant's +wail, but the stentorian barytone "_A boire!_" which rings through the +book till it passes in the sharper, but not less delectable treble of +"_Trinq!_" And then comes a brief piece, not narrative, but as +characteristic perhaps of what we may call the ironical _moral_ of the +narrative as any--a grave remonstrance with those who will not believe +in _ceste estrange nativite_. + +[Sidenote: The birth and education.] + + I doubt me ye believe not this strange birth assuredly. If + ye disbelieve, I care not; but a respectable man--a man of + good sense--_always_ believes what people tell him and what + he finds written. Does not Solomon say (Prov. xiv.), "The + innocent [simple] believeth every word" etc.? And St. Paul + (1 Cor. xiii.), "Charity believeth all things"? Why should + you _not_ believe it? "Because," says you, "there is no + probability[91] in it." I tell you that for this very and + only reason you ought to believe with a perfect faith. For + the Sorbonists say that faith is the evidence of things of + no probability.[92] Is it against our law or our faith? + against reason? against the Sacred Scriptures?[93] For my + part I can find nothing written in the Holy Bible which is + contrary thereto. But if the Will of God had been so, would + you say that He could not have done it? Oh for grace' sake + do not make a mess of your wits in such vain thoughts. For I + tell you that nothing is impossible with God. + +And Divinity being done with, the Classics and pure fantasy are drawn +upon; the incredulous being finally knocked down by a citation from +Pliny, and a polite request not to bother any more. + +This is, of course, the kind of passage which has been brought against +Rabelais, as similar ones have been brought against Swift, to justify +charges of impiety. But, again, it is not necessary to bother +(_tabuster_) about that. Any one who cannot see that it is the foolish +use of reverend things and not the things themselves that the satire +hits, is hardly worth argument. But there is no doubt that this sort of +mortar, framework, menstruum, canvas, or whatever way it may be best +metaphored, helps the apparent continuity of the work marvellously, +leaving, as it were, no rough edges or ill-mended joints. It is, to use +an admirable phrase of Mr. Balfour's about a greater matter, "the +logical glue which holds together and makes intelligible the +multiplicity" of the narrative units, or perhaps instead of +"intelligible" one should here say "appreciable." + +Sometimes the "glue" of ironic comment rather saturates these units of +narrative than surrounds or interjoins them, and this is the case with +what follows. The infantine peculiarities of Gargantua; his dress and +the mystery of its blue and white colours (the blue of heaven and the +white of the joy of earth); how his governesses and he played together; +what smart answers he made; how he became early both a poet and an +experimental philosopher--all this is recounted with a marvellous +mixture of wisdom and burlesque, though sometimes, no doubt, with rather +too much of _haut gout_ seasoning. Then comes the, in Renaissance books, +inevitable "Education" section, and it has been already noted briefly +how different this is from most of its group (the corresponding part of +_Euphues_ may be suggested for comparison). Even Rabelais does not +escape the main danger--he neglects a little to listen to the wisest +voice, "Can't you let him alone?" But the contrasts in the case of +Gargantua, the general tenor (that good prince profiting by his own +experience for his son's benefit) in that of Pantagruel, are not too +"improving," and are made by their historian's "own sauce" exceedingly +piquant. Much as has been written on the subject, it is not easy to be +quite certain how far the "Old" Learning was fairly treated by the +"New." Rabelais and Erasmus and the authors of the _Epistolae Obscurorum +Virorum_ are such a tremendous overmatch for any one on the other side, +that the most judicial as well as judicious of critics must be rather +puzzled as to the real merits of the case. But luckily there is no need +to decide. Enjoyment, not decision, is the point, and there is no +difficulty in _that_. How Gargantua was transferred from the learned but +somewhat, as the vulgar would say, "stick-in-the-mud" tutorship of +Master Thubal Holofernes, who spent eighteen years in reading _De Modis +Significandi_ with his pupil, and Master Jobelin Bride, who has "become +a name"--not exactly of honour; how he was transferred to the less +antiquated guidance of Ponocrates, and set out for Paris on the famous +dappled mare, whose exploits in field and town were so alarming, and +who had the bells of Notre Dame hung round her neck, till they were +replaced rather after than because of the remonstrance of Master Janotus +de Bragmardo; how for a time, and under Sorbonic direction, he wasted +that time in short and useless study, with long intervals of +card-playing, sleeping, etc. etc., and of course a great deal of eating +and drinking, "not as he ought and as he ought not"--all this leads up +to the moment when the sage Ponocrates takes him again in hand, and +institutes a strenuous drill in manners, studies, manly exercises, and +the like, ending with one of those extraordinary flashes of perfect +style and noble meaning which it pleases Rabelais to emit from what some +call his "dunghill" and others his "marine-store." + + Also they prayed to God the Creator, adoring Him, and + solemnly repledging to Him their faith, and glorifying Him + for His boundless goodness; while, giving Him thanks for all + time past, they commended themselves to His divine mercy for + all the future. This done, they turned to their rest. + +[Sidenote: The war.] + +It is only after this serious training that the first important division +of what may be called the action begins--the "War of the Cakes," in +which certain outrageous bakers, subjects of King Picrochole of Lerne, +first refuse the custom of the good Grandgousier's shepherds, and then +violently assault them, the incident being turned by the choleric +monarch into a _casus belli_ against the peaceful one. Invasion, the +early triumph of the aggressor, the triumphant appearance of the +invincible Friar John, and the complete turning of the tables by the +advent of Gargantua and his terrible mare, follow each other in rapid +and brilliant telling, and perhaps no parts of the book are better +known. The extraordinary felicity with which Rabelaisian irony--here +kept in quieter but intenser activity than almost anywhere else--seizes +and renders the common causes, excuses, manners, etc., of war can never +have escaped competent readers; but it must have struck more persons of +late than perhaps at any former time. It would be impertinent to +particularise largely; but if the famous adaptation and amplification of +the old Pyrrhus story in the counsel of Spadassin and Merdaille to +Picrochole were printed in small type as the centre of a fathom-square +sheet, the whole margin could be more than filled with extracts, from +German books and newspapers, of advice to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Nor is +there anything, in literature touching history, where irony has bitten +more deeply and lastingly into Life and Time than the brief record of +Picrochole's latter days after his downfall. + + He was informed by an old hag that his kingdom would be + restored to him at the coming of the Cocqsigrues: since then + it is not certainly known what has become of him. However, I + have been told that he now works for his poor living at + Lyons, and is as choleric as ever. And always he bemoans + himself to strangers about the Cocqsigrues--yet with a + certain hope, according to the old woman's prophecy, that at + their coming he will be reinstated in his kingdom. + +Edward FitzGerald would have called this "terrible"; and perhaps it is. + +But there is much more humour than terror in the rest, and sometimes +there are qualities different from either. The rescue of the sacred +precincts of the Abbey of Seuille from the invaders by that glorious +monk (a personage at no great remove from our own Friar Tuck, to the +later portraits of whom he has lent some of his own traits) pleases the +soul well, as do the feats of Gymnast against Tripet, and the fate of +the unlucky Touquedillon, and the escalade of La Roche Clermande, and (a +little less perhaps) the pure burlesque of the eating of the pilgrims, +and the combing out of the cannon balls, and the contrasted sweet +reasonableness of the amiable though not at all cowardly Grandgousier. +But the advice of the Evil Counsellors to Picrochole is still perhaps +the pearl: + +[Sidenote: The Counsel to Picrochole.] + + Then there appeared before Picrochole the Duke of Mennail, + Count Spadassin, and Captain Merdaille, and said to him, + "Sire, this day we make you the most happy and chivalrous + prince that ever has been since the death of Alexander of + Macedon." "Be covered, be covered," said Picrochole. + "Gramercy, sire", said they, "but we know our duty. The + means are as follows. You will leave here in garrison some + captain with a small band of men to hold the place, which + seems to us pretty strong, both by nature and by the + fortifications you have contrived. You will, as you know + well, divide your army in half. One half will fall upon this + fellow Grandgousier and his people, and easily discomfit him + at the first assault. There we shall gain money in heaps, + for the rascal has plenty. (Rascal we call him, because a + really noble prince never has a penny. To hoard is the mark + of a rascal.) + + "The other part will meanwhile draw towards Aunis, + Saintonge, Angoumois, and Gascony, as well as Perigord, + Medoc, and Elanes. Without any resistance they will take + towns, castles, and fortresses. At Bayonne, at St. Jean de + Luz, and at Fontarabia you will seize all the ships, and + coasting towards Galicia and Portugal, will plunder all the + seaside places as far as Lisbon, where you will be + reinforced with all the supplies necessary to a conqueror: + _Corbleu!_ Spain will surrender, for they are all poltroons. + You will pass the Straits of Seville,[94] and will there + erect two columns more magnificent than those of Hercules + for the perpetual memory of your name. And that Strait shall + thenceforward be named the Sea of Picrochole. + + "When that sea has been passed, lo! comes Barbarossa[95] to + surrender as your slave." "I," said Picrochole, "will extend + mercy to him." "Very well," said they, "on condition that he + is baptized. And then you will assault the kingdoms of + Tunis, of Hippo,[96] of Argier, of Bona, of Corona--to cut + it short, all Barbary. Going further,[97] you will keep in + your hands Majorca, Minorca, Sardinia, Corsica, and the + other islands of the Ligurian and Balearic sea. Coasting to + the left[98] you will dominate all Narbonese Gaul, Provence, + the Allobroges, Genoa, Florence, Lucca, and, begad! Rome. + Poor master Pope is already dying for fear of you." "I will + never kiss his slipper," said Picrochole. + + + + + + + "Italy being taken, behold Naples, Calabria, Apulia, and + Sicily all at your mercy, and Malta into the bargain. I + should like to see those funny knights, formerly of Rhodes, + resist you! if it were only to examine their water." "I + should like," said Picrochole, "to go to Loretto." "No, no," + said they, "that will be on the way back. Thence we shall + take Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades, and make a + set at Morea. We shall get it at once. By St. Treignan, God + keep Jerusalem! for the soldan is nothing in power to you." + "Shall I," said he, "then rebuild the Temple of Solomon?" + "Not yet," said they, "wait a little. Be not so hasty in + your enterprises." + +And so with the most meticulous exactness (Rabelais' geography is +irreproachable, and he carefully avoids the cheap expedient of making +Spadassin and Merdaille blunder) and the sagest citations of _Festina +lente_, they take him through Asia Minor to the Euphrates and Arabia, +while the other army (that which has annihilated Grandgousier) comes +round by the northern route, sweeping all Europe from Brittany and the +British Isles to Constantinople, where the great rendezvous is made and +the universal empire established, Picrochole graciously giving his +advisers Syria and Palestine as their fiefs. + +"Pretty much like our own days," said Mr. Rigmarole. Have we not heard +something very like this lately, as "Berlin to Baghdad," if not "Calais +to Calcutta"? And even if we had not, would not the sense and the satire +of it be delectable? A great deal has been left out: the chapter is, for +Rabelais, rather a long one. The momentary doubt of the usually +undoubting Picrochole as to what they shall drink in the desert, allayed +at once by a beautiful scheme of commissariat camels and elephants,[99] +which would have done credit to the most modern A.S.C., is very capital. +There is, indeed, an unpleasant Echephron[100] who points the old moral +of Cineas to Pyrrhus himself. But Picrochole rebuffs him with the +invaluable _Passons oultre_, and closes the discussion by anticipating +Henri Quatre (who, no doubt, learnt the phrase from him), crying, "_Qui +m'aime, si me suive!_" and ordering all haste in the war. + +It is possible that, here or earlier, the +not-quite-so-gentle-as-he-is-traditionally-called reader may ejaculate, +"This is all true enough; but it is all very well known, and does not +need recapitulation." Is this quite so certain? No doubt at one time +Englishmen did know their Rabelais well. Southey did, for instance, and +so, according to the historian of Barsetshire, did, in the next +generation, Archdeacon Grantly. More recently my late friend Sir Walter +Besant spent a great deal of pains on Master Francis, and mainly owing +to his efforts there existed for some years a Rabelais Club (already +referred to), which left some pleasant memories. But _is_ it quite so +certain that the average educated Englishman can at once distinguish +Eudemon from Epistemon, give a correct list of the various answers to +Panurge's enquiries as to the probable results of his marriage, relate +what happened when (as glanced at above and returned to later) _nous +passasmes oultre_, and say what the adorable Quintessence admitted to +her dainty lips besides second intentions? I doubt it very much. Even +special students of the Great Book, as in other cases, have too often +allowed themselves to be distracted from the pure enjoyment of it by +idle questions of the kinds above mentioned and others--questions of +dates and names and places, of origins and borrowings and +imitations--questions the sole justification of which, from the genuine +Pantagruelian point of view, is that their utter dryness inevitably +suggests the cries--the Morning Hymn and the Evening Voluntary of the +book itself--_A boire!_ and _Trinq_. + +But, even were this not so, a person who has undertaken, wisely or +unwisely, to write the history of the French Novel is surely entitled to +lay some stress on what seems to him the importance of this its first +eminent example. At any rate he proposes _not_ to _passer oultre_, but +to stick to the line struck out, and exhibit, in reasonable detail, the +varieties of novel-matter and manner contained in the book. + +[Sidenote: The peace and the Abbey of Thelema.] + +The conclusion of _Gargantua_--after the victor has addressed a _concio_ +to the vanquished, has mildly punished the originators of the trouble or +those he could catch (Spadassin and Merdaille having run away "six hours +before the battle") by setting them to work at his newly established +printing-press, and has distributed gifts and estates to his +followers--may be one of the best known parts of the whole book, but is +not of the most strictly novel character, though it has suggested at +least one whole novel and parts or passages of others. The "Abbey of +Thelema"--the home of the order of _Fay ce que vouldras_--is, if not a +devout, a grandiose imagination, and it gives occasion for some +admirable writing. But it is one of the purest exercises of "purpose," +and one of the least furnished with incident or character, to be found +in Rabelais. In order to introduce it, he may even be thought guilty of +what is extremely rare with him, a fault of "keeping." He avoids this +fault surprisingly in the contrasted burlesque and serious chronicles of +Grandgousier and Gargantua himself, as well as in the expanded contrast +of Pantagruel and Panurge. Yet the heartiest admirer of "Friar John of +the Funnels" (or "Collops," for there is a schism on this point) may +fail to see in him a suitable or even a possible Head for an assemblage +of gallant gentlemen and stately ladies (both groups being also +accomplished scholars) like the Thelemites. But Rabelais, like +Shakespeare, had small care for small objections. He wanted to sketch a +Paradise of Anti-Monkery, and for this he wanted an Anti-Abbot. Friar +John was the handiest person, and he took him. But it is worth noting +that the Abbot of Thelema never afterwards appears as such, or in the +slightest relation to this miniature but most curious and interesting +example of the Renaissance fancy for imaginary countries, cities, +institutions, with its splendours of architecture and decoration, its +luxurious but not loose living, its gallantry and its learning, its +gorgeous dress, its polished manners (the Abbot must have had some +trouble to learn them), and its "inscriptions and enigmas" in verse +which is not quite so happy as the prose. One would not cut it out of +the book for anything, and parallels to it (not merely of the kind above +referred to) have found and may find place in other books of fiction. +But it is only a sort of chantry, in the Court of the Gentiles too, of +the mighty Temple of the Novel. + +[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ I. The contrasted youth.] + +What it was exactly that made Rabelais "double," as it were, on +_Gargantua_ in the early books of _Pantagruel_[101] it would probably be +idle to enquire. His deliberate mention in the Prologue of some of the +most famous romances (with certain others vainly to be sought now or at +any time) might of course most easily be a mere red herring. It may be, +that as _Gargantua_ was not entirely of his own creation, he determined +to "begin at the beginning" in his original composition. But it matters +little or nothing. We have, once more, a burlesque genealogy with known +persons--Nimrod, Goliath, Polyphemus, etc. etc.--entangled in a chain of +imaginaries, one of the latter, Hurtaly, forming the subject of a solemn +discussion of the question why he is not received among the crew of the +Ark. The unfortunate concomitants of the birth of Pantagruel--which is +fatal to his mother Badebec--contrast with the less chequered history of +Gargantua and Gargamelle, while the mixed sorrow and joy of Gargantua at +his wife's death and his son's birth completes this contrast. +Pantagruel, though quite as amiable as his father, if not more so, has +in infancy the natural awkwardnesses of a giant, and a hairy giant +too--devouring cows whole instead of merely milking them, and tearing to +pieces an unfortunate bear who only licked his infant chops. As was said +above, he has no wild-oats period of education like his father's, but +his company is less carefully chosen than that of Gargantua in the days +of his reformation, and gives his biographer opportunities for his +sharpest satire. + +First we have (taken, as everybody is supposed now to know, from +Geoffrey Tory, but improved) the episode of the Limousin scholar with +his "pedantesque"[102] deformation of French and Latin at once, till the +giant takes him by the throat and he cries for mercy in the strongest +meridional brogue.[103] Then comes the famous catalogue of the Library +of Saint Victor, a fresh attack on scholastic and monastic degeneracy, +and a kind of joining hands (Ortuinus figures) with the German guerrilla +against the _Obscuri_, and then a long and admirable letter from +Gargantua, whence we learn that Grandgousier is dead, and that his son +is now the sagest of monarchs, who has taken to read Greek, and shows no +memory of his governesses or his earlier student days. And then again +comes Panurge. + +[Sidenote: Panurge.] + +Many doubtful things have been said about this most remarkable +personage. He has been fathered upon the Cingar of Folengo, which is too +much of a compliment to that creation of the great Macaronic, and +Falstaff has been fathered upon him, which is distinctly unfair to +Falstaff. Sir John has absolutely nothing of the ill-nature which +characterises both Cingar and Panurge; and Panurge is an actual and +contemptible coward, while many good wits have doubted whether Falstaff +is, in the true sense, a coward at all. But Panurge is certainly one +thing--the first distinct and striking _character_ in prose fiction. +Morally, of course, there is little to be said for him, except that, +when he has no temptations to the contrary, he is a "good fellow" +enough. As a human example of _mimesis_ in the true Greek sense, not of +"imitation" but of "fictitious creation," he is, once more, the first +real character in prose fiction--the ancestor, in the literary sense, of +the mighty company in which he has been followed by the similar +creations of the masters from Cervantes to Thackeray. The fantastic +colouring, and more than colouring, of the whole book affects him, of +course, more than superficially. One could probably give some not quite +absurd guesses why Rabelais shaped him as he did--presented him as a +very naughty but intensely clever child, with the monkey element in +humanity thrown into utmost prominence. But it is better not to do so. +Panurge has some Yahooish characteristics, but he is not a Yahoo--in +fact, there is no misanthropy in Rabelais.[104] He is not merely impish +(as in his vengeance on the lady of Paris), but something worse than +impish (as in that on Dindenault); and yet one cannot call him diabolic, +because he is so intensely human. It is customary, and fairly correct, +to describe his ethos as that of understanding and wit wholly divorced +from morality, chivalry, or religion; yet he is never Mephistophelian. +If one of the hundred touches which make him a masterpiece is to be +singled out, it might perhaps be the series of rapturous invitations to +his wedding which he gives to his advisers while he thinks their advice +favourable, and the limitations of enforced politeness which he appends +when the unpleasant side of their opinions turns up. And it may perhaps +be added that one of the chief reasons for believing heartily in the +last Book is the delectable and unimprovable contrast which La Quinte +and her court of intellectual fantastry present to this picture of +intellectual materialism. + +[Sidenote: Short view of the sequels in Book II.] + +It was impossible that such a figure should not to a certain extent +dwarf others; but Rabelais, unlike some modern character-mongers, never +lets his psychology interfere with his story. After a few episodes, the +chief of which is the great sign-duel of Thaumast and Panurge himself, +the campaign against the Dipsodes at once enables Pantagruel to display +himself as a war-like hero of romance, permits him fantastic exploits +parallel to his father's, and, by installing Panurge in a lordship of +the conquered country and determining him, after "eating his corn in +the blade," to "marry and settle," introduces the larger and most +original part of the whole work--the debates and counsellings on the +marriage in the Third Book, and, after the failure of this, the voyage +to settle the matter at the Oracle of the Bottle in the Fourth and +Fifth. This "plot," if it may be called so, is fairly central and +continuous throughout, but it gives occasion for the most surprising +"alarums and excursions," variations and divagations, of the author's +inexhaustible humour, learning, inventive fertility, and never-failing +faculty of telling a tale. If the book does sometimes in a fashion "hop +forty paces in the public street," and at others gambade in a less +decorous fashion even than hopping, it is also Cleopatresque in its +absolute freedom from staleness and from tedium. + +[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ II. (Book III.) + +The marriage of Panurge and the consultations on it.] + +The Third Book has less of apparent variety in it, and less of what +might be called striking incident, than any of the others, being all but +wholly occupied by the enquiries respecting the marriage of Panurge. But +this gives it a "unity" which is of itself attractive to some tastes, +while the delightful sonnet to the spirit Of Marguerite, + + Esprit abstraict, ravy et ecstatique, + +(perhaps the best example of _rhetoriqueur_ poetry), at the beginning, +and the last sight (except in letters) of Gargantua at the end, with the +curious _coda_ on the "herb Pantagruelion" (the ancestor of Joseph de +Maistre's famous eulogy of the Executioner), give, as it were, handle +and top to it in unique fashion. But the body of it is the thing. The +preliminary outrunning of the constable--had there been constables in +Salmigondin, but they probably knew the story of the Seigneur of Basche +too well--and the remarkable difference between the feudatory and his +superior on the subject of debt, serve but as a whet to the project of +matrimony which the debtor conceives. Of course, Panurge is the very +last man whom a superficial observer of humanity--the very first whom a +somewhat profounder student thereof--would take as a marrying one. He is +"a little failed"; he thinks to rest himself while not foregoing his +former delights, and he shuts eyes and ears to the proverb, as old as +Greek in words and as old as the world in fact, that "the doer shall +suffer." That he should consult Pantagruel is in the circumstances +almost a necessity, and Pantagruel's conduct is exactly what one would +expect from that good-natured, learned, admirable, but rather enigmatic +personage. Merely "aleatory" decision--by actual use of dice--he rejects +as illicit, though towards the close of the book one of its most +delectable episodes ends in his excusing Mr. Justice Bridoye for +settling law cases in that way. But he recommends the _sortes +Virgilianae_, and he, others, and Panurge himself add the experiment of +dreams, and the successive consultation of the Sibyl of Panzoust, the +dumb Nazdecabre, the poet Raminagrobis, Epistemon, "Her Trippa," Friar +John himself, the theologian Hippothadee, the doctor Rondibilis, the +philosopher Trouillogan, and the professional fool Triboulet. No reader +of the most moderate intelligence can need to be told that the +counsellors opine all in the same sense (unfavourable), though with more +or less ambiguity, and that Panurge, with equal obstinacy and ingenuity, +invariably twists the oracles according to his own wishes. But what no +reader, who came fresh to Rabelais and fasting from criticism on him, +could anticipate, is the astonishing spontaneity of the various dealings +with the same problem, the zest and vividness of the whole thing, and +the unceasing shower of satire on everything human--general, +professional, and individual--which is kept up throughout. There is less +pure extravagance, less mere farce, and (despite the subject) even less +"sculduddery" than in any other Book; but also in no other does Rabelais +"keep up with humanity" (somewhat, indeed, in the fashion in which a +carter keeps up with his animal, running and lashing at the same time) +so triumphantly. + +In no book, moreover, are the curious intervals--or, as it were, prose +choric odes--of interruption more remarkable. Pantagruel's own serious +wisdom supplies not a few of them, and the long and very characteristic +episode of Judge Bridoye and his decision by throw of dice is very +loosely connected with the main subject. But the most noteworthy of +these excursions comes, as has been said, at the end--the last personal +appearance of the good Gargantua, and the famous discourse, several +chapters long, on the Herb Pantagruelion, otherwise Hemp. + +[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ III. (IV.) The first part of the voyage.] + +The Fourth Book (Third of _Pantagruel_) starts the voyage, and begins to +lead the commentator who insists on fixing and interpreting the +innumerable real or apparent double, treble, and almost centuple +meanings, into a series of dances almost illimitable. As has been +suggested more than once, the most reasonable way is probably to regard +the whole as an intentional mixture of covert satire, pure fooling, not +a little deliberate leading astray, and (serving as vehicle and +impelling force at once) the irresistible narrative impulse animating +the writer and carrying the reader on to the end--any end, if it be only +the Other End of Nowhere. The "curios," living and other, of Medamothi +(Nowhere to begin with!), and the mysterious appearance of a shipful of +travellers coming back from the Land of Lanterns, whither the +Pantagruelian party is itself bound; the rather too severely punished +ill-manners of the sheep-dealer Dindenault; the strange isles of various +nature--such, especially, as the abode of the bailiffs and +process-servers, which gives occasion to the admirably told story of +Francois Villon and the Seigneur of Basche; the great storm--another of +the most famous passages of the book--with the cowardice of Panurge and +the safe landing in the curious country of the Macreons (long-livers); +the evil island where reigns Quaresmeprenant, and the elaborate analysis +of that personage by the learned Xenomanes; the alarming Physeter +(blowing whale) and his defeat by Pantagruel; the land of the +Chitterlings, the battle with them, and the interview and peace-making +with their Queen Niphleseth (a passage at which the sculduddery-hunters +have worked their hardest), and then the islands of the Papefigues and +the Papimanes, where Rabelais begins his most obvious and boldest +meddling with the great ecclesiastical-political questions of the +day--all these things and others flit past the reader as if in an actual +voyage. Even here, however, he rather skirts than actually invades the +most dangerous ground. It is the Decretals, not the doctrines, that are +satirised, and Homenas, bishop of Papimania, despite his adoration of +these forgeries, and the slightly suspicious number and prettiness of +the damsels who wait upon him, is a very good fellow and an excellent +host. There is something very soothing in his metaphorical way of +demanding wine from his Hebes, "_Clerice_, esclaire icy," the necessary +illumination being provided by a charming girl with a hanap of +"extravagant" wine. These agreeable if satiric experiences--for the +Decretals do no harm beyond exciting the bile of Master Epistemon (who, +it is to be feared, was a little of a pedant)--are followed by the once +more almost universally known passage of the "Frozen Words" and the +visit to "Messer Gaster, the world's first Master of Arts"; by the +islands (once more mysterious) of Chaneph (hypocrisy) and Ganabin +(thieves); the book concluding abruptly with an ultra-farcical +_cochonnerie_ of the lower kind, relieved partially by a libellous but +impossible story about our Edward the _Fifth_ and the poet Villon again, +as well as by the appearance of an interesting but not previously +mentioned member of the crew of the _Thalamege_ (Pantagruel's flagship), +the great cat Rodilardus. + +[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ IV. (Book V.) The second part of the voyage. The +"Isle Sonnante."] + +[Sidenote: The "Chats Fourres."] + +One of the peculiarities of the Fifth Book, and perhaps one of those +which have aroused that suspicion about it which, after what has been +said above, it is not necessary further to discuss, is that it is more +"in blocks" than the others.[105] The eight chapters of the _Isle +Sonnante_ take up the satire of the Fourth Book on Papimania and on the +"Papegaut," who is here introduced in a much fiercer tone--a tone which, +if one cared for hypothetical criticism, might be attributed with about +equal probability to a genuine deepening of hostile feeling, to absence +of revision, and to possible sophistication by some one into whose hands +it fell between the author's death and its publication. But a perfectly +impartial critic, who, on the one hand, does not, in Carlyle's admirable +phrase, "regard the Universe as a hunting-field from which it were good +and pleasant to drive the Pope," and, on the other, is content to regard +the extremer Protestants as singularly unpleasant persons without +pronouncing Ernulphus-curses on them, may perhaps fail to find in it +either the cleverest or the most amusing part of the voyage. The episode +of the next Isle--that _des Ferrements_--is obscure, whether it is or is +not (as the commentators were sure to suggest) something else beginning +with "obsc-," and the succeeding one, with its rocks fashioned like +gigantic dice, is not very amusing. But the terrible country of the +_Chats Fourres_ and their chief Grippeminaud--an attack on the Law as +unsparing as, and much more vivid than that on the Church in the +overture--may rank with the best things in Rabelais. The tyrant's +ferocious and double-meaning catchword of _Or ca!_ and the power at his +back, which even Pantagruel thinks it better rather to run away from +than to fight openly, which Panurge frankly bribes, and over which even +the reckless and invincible Friar John obtains not much triumph, except +that of cutting up, after buying it, an old woman's bed--these and the +rest have a grim humour not quite like anything else. + +[Sidenote: "La Quinte."] + +The next section--that of the Apedeftes or Uneducated Ones[106]--has +been a special object of suspicion; it is certainly a little difficult, +and perhaps a little dull. One is not sorry when the explorers, in the +ambiguous way already noted, "_passent_ _Oultre_," and, after +difficulties with the wind, come to "the kingdom of Quintessence, named +Entelechy." Something has been said more than once of this already, and +it is perhaps unnecessary to say more, or indeed anything, except to +those who themselves "hold of La Quinte," and who for that very reason +require no talking about her. "We" (if one may enrol oneself in their +company) would almost rather give up Rabelais altogether than sacrifice +this delightful episode, and abandon the idea of having the ladies of +the Queen for our partners in Emmelie, and Calabrisme, and the thousand +other dances, of watching the wonderful cures by music, and the +interesting process of throwing, not the house out of the window, but +the window out of the house, and the miraculous and satisfactory +transformation of old ladies into young girls, with very slight +alteration of their former youthful selves, and all the charming +topsyturvifications of Entelechy. Not to mention the gracious if +slightly unintelligible speeches of the exquisite princess, when clear +Hesperus shone once more, and her supper of pure nectar and ambrosia +(not grudging more solid viands to her visitors), and the great +after-supper chess-tournament with living pieces, and the "invisible +disparition" of the lady, and the departure of the fortunate visitors +themselves, duly inscribed and registered as Abstractors of +Quintessence. The whole is like a good dream, and is told so as almost +to be one. + +Between this and the final goal of the Country of Lanterns the interest +falls a little. The island of "Odes" (not "poems" but "ways"), where the +"walks walk" (_les chemins cheminent_); that of "Esclots" ("clogs"), +where dwell the Freres Fredonnants, and where the attack on monkery is +renewed in a rather unsavoury and rather puerile fashion; and that of +Satin, which is a sort of Medamothi rehandled, are not first-rate--they +would have been done better, or cut out, had the book ever been issued +by Master Francis. But the arrival at and the sojourn in Lanternia +itself recovers the full powers of Rabelais at his best, though one may +once more think that some of the treatment might have been altered in +the case just mentioned. + +[Sidenote: The conclusion and The Bottle.] + +Apart from the usual mixture of serious and purely jocular satire, of +learning and licence, of jargonic catalogues, of local references to +Western France and the general topography of Utopia, this conclusion +consists of two main parts--first, a most elaborate description of the +Temple, containing underground the Oracle of the Bottle, to which the +pilgrims are conducted by a select "Lantern," and of its priestess +Bacbuc, its _adytum_ with a fountain, and, in the depth and centre of +all, the sacred Bottle itself; and secondly, the ceremonies of the +delivery of the Oracle; the divine utterance, _Trinq!_ its +interpretation by Bacbuc; the very much _ad libitum_ reinterpretations +of the interpretation by Panurge and Friar John, and the dismissal of +the pilgrims by the priestess, _Or allez de par Dieu, qui vous +conduise!_[107] + + * * * * * + +What, it may be asked, is the object of this cumbrous analysis of +certainly one of the most famous and (as it at least should be) one of +the best known books of the world? That object has been partly indicated +already; but it may be permissible to set it forth more particularly +before ending this chapter. Of the importance, on the one hand, of the +acquisition by the novel of the greatest known and individual writer of +French up to his date, and of the enormous popularity of this example of +it, enough may have been said. But the abstract has been given, and the +further comment is now added, with the purpose of showing, in a little +detail, how immensely the resources and inspirations of future +practitioners were enriched and strengthened, varied and multiplied, by +_Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_. The book as a whole is to be classed, no +doubt, as "Eccentric" fiction. But if you compare with Rabelais that one +of his followers[108] who possessed most genius and who worked at his +following with most deliberation, you will find an immense falling off +in richness and variety as well as in strength. The inferiority of +Sterne to Master Francis in his serious pieces, whether he is whimpering +over dead donkeys and dying lieutenants, or simulating honest +indignation against critics, is too obvious to need insistence. Nor can +one imagine any one--unless, like Mackenzie and other misguided +contemporaries or juniors, he himself wanted to whimper, or unless he +also aimed at the _fatrasie_--going to Sterne for pattern or +inspiration. Now Rabelais is a perpetual fount of inspiration, an +inexhaustible magazine of patterns to the most "serious" novelist whose +seriousness is not of the kind designated by that term in dissenting +slang. That abounding narrative faculty which has been so much dwelt on +touches so many subjects, and manages to carry along with it so many +moods, thoughts, and even feelings, that it could not but suggest to any +subsequent writer who had in him the germ of the novelist's art, how to +develop and work out such schemes as might occur to him. While, for his +own countrymen at least, the vast improvement which he made in French +prose, and which, with the accomplishment of his younger contemporaries +Amyot and Montaigne, established the greatness of that prose itself, was +a gain, the extent of which cannot be exaggerated. Therefore it has +seemed not improper to give him a chapter to himself, and to treat his +book with a minuteness not often to be paralleled in this +_History_.[109] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[90] A complete argument on this much vexed subject can hardly be wished +for here: but it may be permitted to say that nearly fifty years' +consideration of the matter has left less and less doubt in my mind as +to the genuineness of the "_Quart_" or "_Quint_" _Livre_ as it is +variously called--according as _Gargantua_ is numbered separately or +not. One of the apparently strongest arguments against its +genuineness--the constant presence of "_Je_" in the narrative--really +falls, with the others--the fiercer and more outspoken character of the +satire, the somewhat lessened prominence of Pantagruel, etc. +etc.--before one simple consideration. We know from the dates of +publication of the other books that Rabelais was by no means a rapid +writer, or at any rate that, if he wrote rapidly, he "held up" what he +did write long, and pretty certainly rewrote a good deal. Now the +previous Book had appeared only a short time before what must have been +the date of his death; and this could not, according to analogy and +precedent, have been ready, or anything like ready, when he died. On the +other hand, time enough passed between his death and the publication +(even of the _Ile Sonnante_ fragment) for the MS. to have passed through +other hands and to have been adulterated, even if it was not, when the +Master's hands left it, in various, as well as not finally finished +form. I can see nothing in it really inconsistent with the earlier +Books; nothing unworthy of them (especially if on the one hand possible +meddling, and on the other imperfect revision be allowed for); and much, +especially the _Chats Fourres_, the Quintessence part, and the +Conclusion, without which the whole book would be not only incomplete +but terribly impoverished. I may add that, having a tolerably full +knowledge of sixteenth-century French literature, and a great admiration +of it, I know no single other writer or group of other writers who +could, in my critical judgment, by any reasonable possibility have +written this Book. Francois Rabelais could have done it, and I have no +doubt that he did it; though whether we have it as he left it no man can +say. + +[91] It is perhaps hardly necessary, but may not be quite idle, to +observe that our Abstractor of Quintessence takes good care not to quote +the other half of the parallelism, "but the prudent looketh well to his +going." + +[92] It is possible, but not certain, that he is playing on the two +senses of the word _apparence_, the ambiguity of which is not so great +in English. The A. V., "evidence of things _not seen_," would not have +suited his turn. + +[93] In which, it will be remembered, the "liquor called punch," which +one notes with sorrow that Rabelais knew not, but which he certainly +would have approved, is also "nowhere spoken against." + +[94] Original "Sibyle." I owe to Prof. Ker an important reminder (which +I ought not to have needed) of Dante's "Sibilia" in the famous "Ulysses" +passage, _Inf._ xxvi. 110. + +[95] The Turkish corsair, not the German Emperor. + +[96] Probably erected into a kingdom in honour of St. Augustine. + +[97] _Passant oultre_--one of Rabelais' favourite and most _polymorphic_ +expressions. It has nearly always an ironical touch in it; and it enjoys +a chapter all to itself in that mood--V. xvii. + +[98] Perhaps this _a gauche_ might make as good a short test as any of a +reader's sense of humour. But here also a possible Dantean reminiscence +(not suggested to me this time) comes in; for in the lines already +quoted "dalla man _destra_" occurs. + +[99] The King is, however, more difficult to satisfy on this point than +on others; and objects with a delightful _preterite_, "Yes: but we _did +not get_ our wine fresh and cool"; whereat they rebuke him with a +respectful reminder that great conquerors cannot be always entirely +comfortable. + +[100] "Suspender of judgment." + +[101] Of course the first book of the son _preceded_ the reconstructed +history of the father; but this is immaterial. + +[102] The correct opposition of this term (Latin or Greek words +vernacularised) to "Macaronic" (vernacular words turned into Latin or +Greek form) is not always observed. + +[103] It is very seldom, after his infantine and innocent excesses, that +Pantagruel behaves thus. He is for the most part a quiet and somewhat +reserved prince, very generous, very wise, very devout, and, though +tolerating the eccentricities of Panurge and Friar John, never taking +part in them. + +[104] If Swift had drunk more wine and had not put water in what he did +drink, possibly this quality might have been lessened in _him_. + +[105] The first of these, the _Isle Sonnante_, as is well enough known +to all students, appeared separately and before the rest. + +[106] A sort of dependency or province of the _Chats Fourres_. + +[107] A MS. "addition" unknown to the old printed forms, appears in some +modern ones. It is a mere disfigurement: and is hardly likely even to +have been a rejected draft. + +[108] Not Swift here, but Sterne. There is far higher genius in +_Gulliver_ than in _Shandy_; but the former is not _fatrasie_, the +latter is. + +[109] That the not quite unknown device of setting up a man of straw in +order to knock him down has not been followed in this chapter, a single +piece of evidence out of many may be cited. H. Koerting in his justly +well reputed _Geschichte des Franz. Romans im XVII. Jahrh._ (Oppeln u. +Leipzig, 1891, i. 133 _note_) would rule Rabelais out of the history of +the novel altogether. This book, which will be quoted again with +gratitude later, displays a painstaking erudition not necessitating any +make-weight of sympathy for its author's early death after great +suffering. It is extremely useful; but it does not escape, in this and +other places, the censure which, ten years before the war of 1914, the +present writer felt it his duty to express on modern German critics and +literary historians generally (_History of Criticism_, London, 1904, +vol. iii. Bks. viii. and ix.), that on points of literary appreciation, +as distinguished from mere philology, "enumeration," bibliographical +research, and the like, they are "sadly to seek." It may not be +impertinent to add that Herr Koerting's history happened never to have +been read by me till after the above chapter of the present book was +written. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SUCCESSORS OF RABELAIS AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE "AMADIS" ROMANCES + + +In the present chapter we shall endeavour to treat two divisions of +actual novel- or at least fiction-writing--strikingly opposed to each +other in character; and a third subject, to include which in the title +would have made that title too long, and which is not strictly a branch +of novel-_writing_, but which had perhaps as important an influence on +the progress of the novel itself as anything mentioned or to be +mentioned in all this _History_. The first division is composed of the +followers--sometimes in the full, always in the chronological sense--of +Rabelais, a not very strong folk as a rule, but including one brilliant +example of co-operative work, and two interesting, if in some degree +problematical, persons. The second, strikingly contrasting with the +general if not the universal tendency of the first, is the great +translated group of _Amadis_ romances, which at once revived romance of +the older kind itself, and exercised a most powerful, if not an actually +generative, influence on newer forms which were themselves to pass into +the novel proper. The third is the increasing body of memoir- and +anecdote-writers who, with Brantome at their head, make actual +personages and actual events the subjects of a kind of story-telling, +not perhaps invariably of unexceptionable historic accuracy, but +furnishing remarkable situations of plot and suggestions of character, +together with abundant new examples of the "telling" faculty itself. + +[Sidenote: Subsidiary importance of Brantome and other +character-mongers.] + +The last point, as an apparent digression but really a most important +contribution to the History, may perhaps be discussed and dismissed +first. All persons who have even a slight knowledge of French literature +must be aware how early and how remarkable are its possessions in what +is vaguely called the "Memoir" department. There is nothing at the time, +in any modern literature known to the present writer, similar to +Villehardouin, or a little later to Joinville,--one might almost say +that there is nothing in any literature at any time superior, if there +be anything equal, in its kind to Froissart. In the first two cases +there is pure personal experience; in the third there is, of course, a +certain amount of precedent writing on the subject for guidance, and a +large gathering of information by word of mouth. But in all these, and +to a less extent in others up to the close of the fifteenth century, +there is the indefinable gift of treatment--of "telling a story." In +Villehardouin this gift may be almost wholly, and in principle very +mainly, limited to the two great subjects which made the mediaeval end +as far as profane matters were concerned--fighting and counselling; but +this is by no means the case in Froissart, whom one is sometimes tempted +to regard as a Sir Walter Scott thrown away upon base reality. + +With the sixteenth century this gift once more burgeoned and spread +itself out--dealing, indeed, very mainly with the somewhat ungrateful +subject of the religious disputes and wars, but flowering or fruiting +into the unsurpassable gossip--though gossip is too undignified a +word--of Pierre de Bourdeilles, Abbe de Brantome, that Froissart and +Pepys in one, with the noble delight in noble things of the first, +inextricably united to the almost innocent shamelessness of the second, +and a narrative gift equal to that of either in idiosyncrasy, and +ranging beyond the subjects of both. Himself a soldier and a courtier +(his abbacy, like many others, was purely titular and profitable--not +professional in the least), his favourite subjects in literature, and +obviously his idols in life, were great soldiers and fair ladies, +"Bayard and the two Marguerites," as some one has put it. And his vivid +irregular fashion of writing adapts itself with equal ease to a gallant +feat of arms and a ferocious, half-cut-throat duel, to an exquisite +piece of sentimental passion like that which tells us the story how the +elder Queen of Navarre rebuked the lover carelessly stepping over the +grave of his dead mistress, and to an unquotable anecdote to parallel +the details of which, in literature of high rank, one must go to +Rabelais himself, to Martial, or to Aristophanes. But, whatever the +subject, the faculty of lively communication remains unaltered, and the +suggestion of its transference from fact (possibly a little coloured) to +pure fiction becomes more and more possible and powerful.[110] + +[Sidenote: The _Heptameron_.] + +No book has been more subject to the "insupportable advances" of the +"key"-monger than the _Heptameron_, and the rage for identifying has +gone so far that the pretty old name of "Emarsuite" for one of the +characters has been discarded for an alleged and much uglier +"Ennasuite," which is indeed said to have MS. authority, but which is +avowedly preferred because it can be twisted into "_Anne_ a Suite" +("Anne in Waiting"), and so can be fastened to an actual Maid of Honour +of Marguerite's. It is only fair, however, to admit that something of +the kind is at least suggested by the book itself. Even by those who do +not trouble themselves in the least about the personages who may or may +not have been disguised under the names of Nomerfide (the Neifile of +this group) and Longarine, Saffredent and Dagoucin and Gebron (Geb_u_ron +they call him now), admit the extreme probability of the Queen having +invited identification of herself with Parlamente, the younger matron of +the party, and of Hircan her husband with the King of Navarre.[111] But +some (among whom is the present writer) think that this delightful and +not too well-fated type of Renaissance amorousness, letteredness, and +piety combined made a sort of dichotomy of herself here, and intended +the personage of Oisille, the elder duenna (though by no means a very +stern one) of the party, to stand for her as well as Parlamente--to whom +one really must give the Italian pronunciation to get her out of the +abominable suggestion of our "talking-machine." + +[Sidenote: Character and "problems."] + +A much more genuinely literary question has been raised and discussed as +to the exact authorship of the book. That it is entirely Marguerite's, +not the most jealous admirers of the Queen need for a moment contend. +She is known to have had a sort of literary court from Marot and +Rabelais downwards, some of the members of which were actually resident +with her, and not a few of whom--such as Boaistuau and Le Macon, the +translators of Bandello and Boccaccio, and Bonaventure Desperiers (_v. +inf._)--were positive experts in the short story. Moreover, the custom +of distributing these collections among different speakers positively +invited collaboration in writing. The present critic and his friend, Mr. +Arthur Tilley of King's College, Cambridge, who has long been our chief +specialist in the literature of the French Renaissance, are in an +amicable difference as to the part which Desperiers in particular may +have played in the _Heptameron_; but this is of no great importance +here, and though Marguerite's other literary work is distinctly inferior +in style, it is not impossible that the peculiar tone of the best parts +of it, especially as regards the religious-amorous flavour, was infused +by her or under her direct influence. The enthusiasm of Rabelais and +Marot; the striking anecdote already mentioned which Brantome, whose +mother had been one of Marguerite's maids of honour, tells us, and one +or two other things, suggest this; for Desperiers was more of a satirist +than of an amorist, and though the charges of atheism brought against +him are (_v. inf._ again) scarcely supported by his work, he was +certainly no pietist. I should imagine that he revised a good deal and +sometimes imparted his nervous and manly, but, in his own _Contes_, +sometimes too much summarised style. But some striking phrases, such as +"_l'impossibilite_ de nostre chair,"[112] may be hers, and the following +remarkable speech of Parlamente probably expresses her own sentiments +pretty exactly. It is very noteworthy that Hircan, who is generally +represented as "taking up" his wife's utterances with a certain sarcasm, +is quite silent here. + + [Sidenote: Parlamente on human and divine love.] + + "Also," said Parlamente, "I have an opinion that never will + a man love God perfectly if he has not perfectly loved some + of God's creatures in this world." "But what do you call + 'perfect loving'?" said Saffredent. "Do you reckon as + perfect lovers those who are _transis_,[113] and who adore + ladies at a distance, without daring to make their wishes + known?" "I call perfect lovers," answered Parlamente, "those + who seek in what they love some perfection--be it beauty, + kindness, or good grace,--always striving towards virtue; + and such as have so high and honourable a heart, that they + would not, were they to die for it, take for their object + the base things which honour and conscience disapprove: for + the soul, which is only created that it may return to its + Sovereign Good, does naught while it is in the body but long + for the attainment of this. But because the senses by which + alone it can acquire information are darkened and made + carnal by the sin of our first father, they can only show + her the visible things which approach closest to + perfection--and after these the soul runs, thinking to find + in outward beauty, in visible grace, and in moral virtue, + grace, beauty, and virtue in sovereign degree. But when she + has sought them and tried them, and finds not in them Him + whom she loves, she leaves them alone,[114] just as a child, + according to his age, likes dolls and other trivialities, + the prettiest he sees, and thinks a collection of pebbles + actual riches, but as he grows up prefers his dolls alive, + and gets together the goods necessary for human life. Yet + when he knows, by still wider experience, that in earthly + things there is neither perfection nor felicity, he desires + to seek the Creator and the Source of these. Nevertheless, + if God open not the eye of faith in him he would be in + danger of becoming, instead of a merely ignorant man, an + infidel philosopher.[115] For Faith alone can demonstrate + and make receivable the good that the carnal and animal man + cannot understand." + +This gives the better Renaissance temper perhaps as well as anything to +be found, and may, or should in fairness, be set against the worser tone +of mere libertinage in which some even of the ladies indulge here, and +still more against that savagery which has been noticed above. This +undoubtedly was in Milton's mind when he talked of "Lust hard by Hate," +and it makes Hircan coolly observe, after a story has been told in which +an old woman successfully interferes to save a girl's chastity, that in +the place of the hero he should certainly have killed the hag and +enjoyed the girl. This is obviously said in no bravado, and not in the +least humorously: and the spirit of it is exemplified in divers not in +the least incredible anecdotes of Brantome's in the generation +immediately following, and of Tallemant des Reaux in the next. The +religiosity displayed is of a high temper of Christian Platonism, and we +cannot, as we can elsewhere, say what the song says of something else, +that "it certainly looks very queer." The knights and ladies do go to +mass and vespers; but to say that they go punctually would be altogether +erroneous, for Hircan makes wicked jokes on his and Parlamente's being +late for the morning office, and, on one occasion at least, they keep +the unhappy monks of the convent where they are staying (who do not seem +to dare to begin vespers without them) waiting a whole hour while they +are finishing not particularly edifying stories. The less complaisant +casuists, even of the Roman Church, would certainly look askance at the +piety of the distinguished person (said by tradition to have been King +Francis himself) who always paid his respects to Our Lady on his way to +illegitimate assignations, and found himself the better therefor on one +occasion of danger. But the tone of our extract is invariably that of +Oisille and Parlamente. The purer love part of the matter is a little, +as the French themselves say, "alembicated." But still the whole is +graceful and fascinating, except for a few pieces of mere passionless +coarseness, which Oisille generally reproves. And it is scarcely +necessary to say what large opportunities these tones and colours of +fashion and "quality," of passion and manners, give to the future +novelist, whose treatment shall stand to them very much as they stand to +the shorter and sometimes almost shorthand written tales of Desperiers +himself. + +[Sidenote: Desperiers.] + +With the _Cymbalum Mundi_ of this rather mysterious person we need have +little to do. It is, down to the dialogue-form, an obvious imitation of +Lucian--a story about the ancient divinities (especially Mercury) and a +certain "Book of Destiny" and talking animals, and a good deal of often +rather too transparent allegory. It has had, both in its own day and +since, a very bad reputation as being atheistical or at least +anti-Christian, and seems really to have had something to do with the +author's death, by suicide or otherwise. There need, however, be very +little harm in it; and there is not very much good as a story, nor, +therefore, much for us. It does not carry the art of its particular kind +of fiction any further than Lucian himself, who is, being much more of a +genius, on the whole a much better model, even taking him at that rather +inferior rate. The _Contes et Joyeux Devis_, on the other hand, though +the extreme brevity of some has perhaps sometimes prejudiced readers +against them, have always seemed to the present writer to form the most +remarkable book, as literature, of all the department at the time except +_Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ and the _Heptameron_, and to supply a +strong presumption that their author had more than a minor hand in the +_Heptameron_ itself. It must, of course, be admitted that the fashion in +which they are delivered may not only offend in one direction, but may +possibly mislead in another. One may read too much into the brevity, and +so fall into the error of that other Englishman who was beguiled by the +mysterious signs of Desperiers' greatest contemporary's most original +creation. But a very large and long experience of literary weighing and +measuring ought to be some safeguard against the mistake of Thaumast. + +[Sidenote: _Contes et Joyeux Devis._] + +One remarkable difference which may seem, at first sight, to be against +the theory of Desperiers having had a large share in the _Heptameron_ is +the contrasted and, as it may seem again at first sight, antagonistic +tone of the two. There are purely comic and even farcical passages in +Marguerite's book, but the general colour, as has been said, is +religious-sentimental or courtly-amatory, with by no means infrequent +excursions into the purely tragical. The _Contes et Joyeux Devis_, on +the other hand, in the main continue the wholly jocular tone of the old +_fabliaux_. But Desperiers must have been, not only _not_ the great man +of letters which the somewhat exaggerated zeal of his editor, M. Louis +Lacour, ranked him as being, but a very weak and feeble writer, if he +could not in this way write comedy in one book and tragedy in another. +In fact Rabelais gives us (as the greatest writers so often do) what is +in more senses than one a master-key to the contrast. Desperiers has in +the _Contes_ constant ironic qualifications and asides which may even +have been directly imitated from his elder and greater contemporary; +Marguerite has others which pair off in the same way with the most +serious Rabelaisian "intervals," to which attention has been drawn in +the last chapter. One point, however, does seem, at least to me, to +emerge from the critical consideration of these two books with the other +works of the Queen on the one hand and the other works of +Desperiers[116] on the other. It is that the latter had a much crisper +and stronger style than Marguerite's own, and that he had a faculty of +grave ironic satire, going deeper and ranging wider than her +"sensibility" would allow. There is one on the fatal and irremediable +effects of disappointing ladies in their expectations, wherein there is +something more than the mere _grivoiserie_, which in other hands it +might easily have remained. The very curious Novel XIII.--on King +Solomon and the philosopher's stone and the reason of the failure of +alchemy--is of quite a different type from most things in these +story-collections, and makes one regret that there is not more of it, +and others of the same kind. For sheer amusement, which need not be +shocking to any but the straitest-laced of persons, the story (XXXIV.) +of a curate completely "scoring off" his bishop (who did not observe the +caution given by Ophelia to Laertes) has not many superiors in its +particular kind. + +[Sidenote: Other tale-collections.] + +The fancy for these collections of tales spread widely in the sixteenth +century, and a respectable number of them have found a home in histories +of literature. Sometimes they present themselves honestly as what they +are, and sometimes under a variety of disguises, the most extravagant of +which is the title of the rather famous work of Henri Estienne, +_Apologie pour Herodote_. Others, more or less fantastic, are the +_Propos Rustiques_ and _Baliverneries_ of Noel Du Fail, a Breton squire +(as we should say), and his later _Contes d'Eutrapel_; the _Escraignes +Dijonnaises_ and other books of Tabourot des Accords; the _Matinees_ and +_Apres Dinees_ of Cholieres, and, the largest collection of all, the +_Serees_ [Soirees] of the Angevin Guillaume Bouchet,[117] while after +the close of the actual century, but probably representing earlier work, +appeared the above-mentioned _Moyen de Parvenir_, by turns attributed +and denied to Beroalde de Verville. In all these, without exception, the +imitation of Rabelais, in different but unmistakable ways, is to be +found; and in not a few, that of the _Heptameron_ and of Desperiers; +while not unfrequently the same tales are found in more than one +collection. The _fatrasie_ character--that is to say, the stuffing +together of all sorts of incongruous matter in more or less burlesque +style--is common to all of them; the licence of subject and language to +most; and there are hardly any, except a few mere modernisings of old +_fabliaux_, in which you will not find the famous farrago of the +Renaissance--learning, religious partisanship, war, law, love, almost +everything. All the writers are far below their great master,[118] and +none of them has the appeal of the _Heptameron_. But the spirit of +tale-telling pervades the whole shelf-ful, and there is one more special +point of importance "for us." + +[Sidenote: The "provincial" character of these.] + +It will be observed that some of them actually display in their titles +(such as that of Tabouret's book as quoted) the fact that they have a +definite provinciality in no bad sense: while Bouchet is as clearly +Angevin and Du Fail as distinctly Breton as Des Accords is Burgundian +and as the greatest of all had been Tourangeau. It can scarcely be +necessary to point out at great length what a reinforcement of vigour +and variety must have been brought by this plantation in the different +soils of those provinces which have counted for so much--and nearly +always for so much good[119]--in French literature and French things +generally. The great danger and defect of mediaeval writing had been its +tendency to fall into schools and ruts, and the "printed book" +(especially such a printed book as Rabelais) was, at least in one way, +by no means unlikely to exercise this bad influence afresh. To this the +provincial differences opposed a salutary variety of manners, speech, +local colour, almost everything. Moreover, manners themselves +generally--one of the fairest and most fertile fields of the +novel-kingdom--became thus more fully and freely the object and subject +of the tale-teller. Character, in the best and most extensive and +intensive sense of the word, still lagged behind; and as the drama +necessarily took that up, it was for more reasons than one encouraged, +as we may say, in its lagging. But meanwhile Amyot and Calvin[120] and +Montaigne were getting the language more fully ready for the +prose-writer's use, and the constant "sophistication" of literature with +religion, politics, knowledge of the physical world in all ways, +commerce, familiarity with foreign nations--everything almost that +touched on life--helped to bring on the slow but inevitable appearance +of the novel itself. But it had more influences to assimilate and more +steps to go through before it could take full form. + +[Sidenote: The _Amadis_ romances.] + +No more curious contrast (except, perhaps, the not very dissimilar one +which will meet us in the next chapter) is to be found in the present +_History_, or perhaps in any other, than that of the matter just +discussed with the great body of _Amadis_ romance which, at this same +time, was introduced into French literature by the translation or +adaptation of Nicolas Herberay des Essarts and his continuators. That +Herberay[121] deserves, according to the best and most catholic students +of French, a place with the just-mentioned writers among the formers or +reformers of the French tongue, is a point of some importance, but, for +us, minor. Of the controversial part of the _Amadis_ subject it must, as +in other cases, be once more unnecessary for us to say much. It may be +laid down as certain, on every principle of critical logic and research, +that the old idea of the Peninsular cycle being borrowed direct from any +French original is hopelessly absurd. There is, notoriously, no external +evidence of any such original ever having existed, and there is an +immense improbability against any such original ever having existed. +Further, the internal characteristics of the Spanish romances, though, +undoubtedly, they might never have come into existence at all but for +the French, and though there is a very slight "catch-on" of _Amadis_ +itself to the universally popular Arthurian legend, are not in the least +like those of French or English. How the actual texts came into that +existence; whether, as used to be thought at first, after some expert +criticism was turned on them, the actual original was Portuguese, and +the refashioned and prolific form Spanish, is again a question utterly +beyond bounds for us. The quality of the romances themselves--their huge +vogue being a matter of fact--and the influence which they exercised on +the future development of the novel,--these are the things that concern +us, and they are quite interesting and important enough to deserve a +little attention. + +[Sidenote: Their characteristics.] + +What is certain is that these Spanish romances themselves--which, as +some readers at any rate may be presumed to know, branch out into +endless genealogies in the _Amadis_ and _Palmerin_ lines, besides the +more or less outside developments which fared so hardly with the censors +of Don Quixote's library--as well as the later French examples of a not +dissimilar type, the capital instance of which, for literature, is Lord +Berners's translation of _Arthur of Little Britain_--do show the most +striking differences, not merely from the original twelfth- and +thirteenth-century Charlemagne and Arthur productions, but also from +intermediate variants and expansions of these. The most obvious of these +discrepancies is the singular amplification of the supernatural +elements. Of course these were not absent in the older romance +literature, especially in the Arthurian cycle. But there they had +certain characteristics which might almost deserve the adjective +"critical"--little criticism proper as there was in the Middle Ages. +They were very generally religious, and they almost always had what may +be called a poetic restraint about them. The whole Graal-story is +deliberately modelled on Scriptural suggestions; the miracle of +reconciliation and restoration which concludes _Amis and Amiles_ is the +work of a duly commissioned angel. There are giants, but they are +introduced moderately and equipped in consonance. The Saint's Life, +which, as it has been contended, exercised so large an influence on the +earlier romance, carried the nature, the poetry, the charm of its +supernatural elements into the romance itself. + +[Sidenote: Extravagance in incident, nomenclature, etc.] + +In the _Amadis_ cycle and in romances like _Arthur of Little Britain_ +all this undergoes a change--not by any means for the better. What has +been unkindly, but not perhaps unjustly, called the "conjuror's +supernatural" takes the place of the poet's variety. One of the +personages of the _Knight of the Sun_ is a "Bedevilled Faun," and it is +really too much not to say that most of such personages are bedevilled. +In _Arthur of_ (so much the Lesser) _Britain_ there is, if I remember +rightly, a giant whose formidability partly consists in his spinning +round on a sort of bedevilled music-stool: and his class can seldom be +met with without three or seven heads, a similarly large number of legs +and hands, and the like. This sort of thing has been put down, not +without probability, to the Oriental suggestion which would come so +readily into Spain. It may be so or it may not. But it certainly imports +an element of puerility into romance, which is regrettable, and it +diminishes the dignity and the poetry of the things rather lamentably. +Whether it diminishes, and still more whether it originally diminished +the _readability_ of these same things, is quite another question. + +Closely connected with it is the fancy for barbaric names of great +length and formidable sound, such as Famongomadan, Pintiquinestra, and +the like--a trait which, if anybody pleases, may be put down to the +distorted echo of more musical[122] appellations in Arabic and other +Eastern tongues, or to a certain childishness, for there is no doubt +that the youthful mind delights, and always has delighted, in such +things. The immense length of these romances even in themselves, and +still more with continuations from father to son and grandson, and +trains of descendants sometimes alternately named, can be less charged +as an innovation, though there is no doubt that it established a rule +which had only been an exception before. But, as will have been seen +earlier, the continuation of romance genealogically had been not +uncommon, and there had been a constant tendency to lengthen from the +positively terse _Roland_ to the prolix fifteenth-century forms. In fact +this went on till the extravagant length of the Scudery group made +itself impossible, and even afterwards, as all readers of Richardson +know, there was reluctance to shorten. + +[Sidenote: The "cruel" heroine.] + +We have, however, still to notice another peculiarity, and the most +important by far as concerns the history of the novel: this is the +ever-increasing tendency to exaggerate the "cruelty" of the heroine and +the sufferings of the lovers. This peculiarity is not specially +noticeable in the earliest and best of the group itself. Amadis suffers +plentifully; yet Oriana can hardly be called "cruel." But of the two +heroines of _Palmerin_, Polisarda does play the part to some extent, and +Miraguarda (whose name it is not perhaps fantastic to interpret as +"Admire her but beware of her") is positively ill-natured. Of course the +thing was no more a novelty in literature than it was in life. The +lines-- + + And cruel in the New + As in the Old one, + +may certainly be transferred from the geographical world to the +historical. But in classical literature "cruelty" is attributed rather +indiscriminately to both sexes. The cliff of Leucas knew no distinction +of sex, and Sappho can be set against Anaxarete. Indeed, it was safer +for men to be cruel than for women, inasmuch as Aphrodite, among her +innumerable good qualities, was very severe upon unkind girls, while one +regrets to have to admit that no particular male deity was regularly +"affected" to the business of punishing light o' love men, though +Eros-Cupid may sometimes have done so. The Eastern mistress, for obvious +reasons, had not much chance of playing the Miraguarda part as a rule, +though there seems to me more chance of the convention coming from Arab +and Hebrew poetry than from any other source. But in the _Arabian +Nights_ at least, though there are lustful murderesses--eastern +Margarets of Burgundy, like Queen Labe of the Magicians,--there is +seldom any "cruelty," or even any tantalising, on the part of the +heroines. + +A hasty rememberer of the sufferings of Lancelot and one or two other +heroes of the early and genuine romance might say, "Why go further than +this?" But on a little examination the cases will be found very +different. Neither Iseult nor Guinevere is cruel to her lover; +Orgueilleuse has a fair excuse in difference of rank and slight +acquaintance; persons like Tennyson's Ettarre, still more his Vivien, +are "sophisticated"--as we have pointed out already. Besides, Vivien and +Ettarre are frankly bad women, which is by no means the case with the +Polisardas and Miraguardas. They, if they did not introduce the +thing--which is, after all, as the old waterman in _Jacob Faithful_ +says, "Human natur',"--established and conventionalised the Silvius and +Phoebe relation of lover and mistress. If Lancelot is banished more than +once or twice, it is because of Guinevere's real though unfounded +jealousy, not of any coquettish "cruelty" on her part; if Partenopeus +nearly perishes in his one similar banishment, it is because of his own +fault--his fault great and inexcusable. But the Amadisian heroes, as a +rule--unless they belong to the light o' love Galaor type, which would +not mind cruelty if it were exercised, but would simply laugh and ride +away--are almost painfully faithful and deserving; and their sojourns in +Tenebrous Isles, their encounters with Bedevilled Fauns, and the like, +are either pure misfortunes or the deliberate results of capricious +tyranny on the part of their mistresses. + +Now of course this is the sort of thing which may be (and as a matter of +fact it no doubt was) tediously abused; but it is equally evident that +in the hands of a novelist of genius, or even of fair talent and +craftsmanship, it gives opportunity for extensive and ingenious +character-drawing, and for not a little "polite conversation." If _la +donna e mobile_ generally, she has very special opportunities of +exhibiting her mobility in the exercise of her caprice: and if it is the +business of the lover (as it is of minorities, according to a Right +Honourable politician) to suffer, the _amoureux transi_ who has some +wits and some power of expression can suffer to the genteelest of tunes +with the most ingenious fugues and variations. A great deal of the +actual charm of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poetry in all +languages comes from the rendering in verse of this very relation of +woman and man. We owe to the "dear Lady Disdain" idea not merely +Beatrice, but Beatrix long after her, and many another good thing both +in verse and in prose between Shakespeare and Thackeray. + +In the _Amadis_ group (as in its slightly modernised successor, that of +the _Grand Cyrus_), the handling is so preposterously long and the +reliefs of dialogue and other things frequently managed with so little +skill, that, except for sheer passing of time, the books have been found +difficult to read. The present writer's knowledge of Spanish is too +sketchy to enable him to read them in the original with full comfort. +_Amadis_ and _Palmerin_ are legible enough in Southey's translations, +made, as one would expect from him, with all due effort to preserve the +language of the old English versions where possible. But Herberay's +sixteenth-century French is a very attractive and perfectly easy +language, thoroughly well suited to the matter. And if anything that has +been said is read as despite to these romances, the reading is wrong. +They have grave faults, but also real delights, and they have no small +"place i' the story."[123] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[110] + +[Sidenote: Note on Montaigne.] + +This suggestive influence may be found almost as strongly, though shown +with less literary craftsmanship, in Brantome's successor and to some +extent overlapper, Tallemant des Reaux. And it is almost needless to say +that in both _subjects_ for novel treatment "foison," as both French and +English would have said in their time. Nor may it be improper to add +that Montaigne himself, though more indirectly, assisted in speeding the +novel. The actual telling of a story is indeed not his strongest point: +the dulness of the _Travels_, if they were really his (on which point +the present writer cannot help entertaining a possibly unorthodox +doubt), would sufficiently show this. But the great effect which he +produced on French prose could not, as in the somewhat similar case of +Dryden in English a century later, but prove of immense aid to the +novelist. Except in the deliberately eccentric style, as in Rabelais' +own case, or in periods such as the Elizabethan and our own, where there +is a coterie ready to admire jargon, you cannot write novels, to +interest and satisfy readers, without a style, or a group of styles, +providing easy and clear narrative media. We shall see how, in the next +century, writers in forms apparently still more alien from the novel +helped it in the same way. + +[111] The character of this Bourbon prince seems to have been very +faithfully though not maliciously drawn by Margaret (for the name, +_Gallice pulchrum_, is _Anglice pulchrius_, and our form may be +permitted in a note) as not ungenial, not exactly ungentlemanly, and by +no means hating his wife or being at all unkind to her, but constantly +"hard" on her in speech, openly regarding infidelity to her as a matter +of course, and not a little tinged by the savagery which (one is afraid) +the English wars had helped to introduce among the French nobility; +which the religious wars were deepening, and which, in the times of the +Fronde, came almost to its very worst, and, though somewhat tamed later, +lasted, and was no mean cause, if not so great a one as some think, of +the French Revolution. Margaret's love for her brother was ill rewarded +in many ways--among others by brutal scandal--and her later days were +embittered by failure to protect the new learning and the new faith she +had patronised earlier. But one never forgets Rabelais' address to her, +or the different but still delightful piece in which Marot is supposed +to have commemorated her Platonic graciousness; while her portrait, +though drawn in the hard, dry manner of the time, and with the tendency +of that time to "make a girl's nose a proboscis," is by no means +unsuggestive of actual physical charm. + +[112] This phrase, though Biblical, of course, in spirit, is not, so far +as I remember, anywhere found textually in Holy Writ. It may be +patristic; in which case I shall be glad of learned information. It +sounds rather like St. Augustine. But I do not think it occurs earlier +in French, and the word _impossibilite_ is not banal in the connection. + +[113] The famous phrase "amoureux _transi_" is simply untranslatable by +any single word in English for the adjective, or rather participle. Its +unmetaphorical use is, of course, commonest in the combination _transi +de froid_, "frozen," and so suggests in the other a lover shivering +actually under his mistress's shut window, or, metaphorically, under her +disdain. + +[114] The expression (_passe oultre_) commented on in speaking of +Rabelais, and again one which has no English equivalent. + +[115] A very early example of the special sense given to this word in +French increasingly during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth +centuries, of "freethinker" deepening to "atheist." Johnson's friend, it +will be remembered, regarded Philosophy as something to which the +irruption of Cheerfulness was fatal; Butler, as something acquirable by +reading Alexander Ross; a famous ancient saying, as the remembrancer of +death; and a modern usage, as something which has brass and glass +"instruments." But it was Hegel, was it not? or Carlyle? who summarised +the French view and its time of prevalence in the phrase, "When every +one was a philosopher who did not believe in the Devil." + +[116] His translations of the _Andria_ and of Plato's _Lysis_; and his +verses, the chief charm of which is to be found in his adoption of the +"cut and broken" stanzas which the French Renaissance loved. + +[117] Not to be confused with _Jehan_ Bouchet the poet, a much older +man, indeed some twenty years older than Rabelais, and as dull as +Raminagrobis Cretin himself, but the inventor or discoverer of that +agreeable _agnomen_ "Traverseur des Voies Perilleuses" which has been +noted above. + +[118] Cholieres, I think, deserves the prize for sinking lowest. + +[119] From all the endless welter of abuse of God's great gift of speech +[and writing] about the French Revolution, perhaps nothing has emerged +more clearly than that its evils were mainly due to the sterilisation of +the regular Provincial assemblies under the later monarchy. + +[120] A person not bad of blood will always be glad to mention one of +the few good sides of a generally detestable character; and a person of +humour must always chuckle at some of the ways in which Calvin's +services to French prose were utilised. + +[121] He did not confine his good offices to romances of _caballeria_. +In 1539 he turned into French the _Arnalte and Lucenda_ of Diego de San +Pedro (author of the more widely known _Carcel de Amor_), a very curious +if also rather tedious-brief love-story which had great influence in +France (see Reynier, _op. cit. inf._ pp. 66-73). This (though M. Reynier +did not know it) was afterwards versified in English by one of our minor +Carolines, and will appear in the third volume of the collected edition +of them now in course of publication by the Clarendon Press. + +[122] Not always. Nouzhatoul-aouadat is certainly not as musical as +Pintiquinestra, though Nouronnihar as certainly is. + +[123] + +[Sidenote: Note on Helisenne de Crenne.] + +There should be added here a very curious, and now, if not in its own +time, very rare book, my first knowledge of which I owed to a work +already mentioned, M. Gustave Reynier's _Le Roman Sentimental avant +l'Astree_ (Paris, 1908), though I was able, after this chapter was +composed, to find and read the original in the British Museum. It was +first printed in 1538, and bears, like other books of its time, a +disproportionately long title, which may, however, be easily shortened, +"_Les Angoisses douloureuses qui procedent d'Amour_ ... composees par +dame Helisenne de Crenne." This Helisenne or Helisaine seems to have +been a real person: and not the least of the remarkable group of women +authors who illustrate her time in France, though M. Reynier himself +admits that "it is difficult to know exactly _who_ she was." She appears +to have been of Picardy, and other extant and non-extant works are +attributed to her. Like almost everybody of her time she wrote in the +extreme _rhetoriqueur_ style--so much so indeed as to lead even Pasquier +into the blunder of supposing that Rabelais hit at her in the dialect of +the "Limousin scholar." The _Angoisses_, which M. Reynier's acute +examination shows to have been written by some one who must have known +Boccaccio's _Fiammetta_ (more than once Frenched about this time), is, +or gives itself out to be, the autobiography of a girl of noble birth +who, married at eleven years old and at first very fond of her husband, +becomes at thirteen the object of much courtship from many gallants. Of +these she selects, entirely on the love-at-first-sight principle, a very +handsome young man who passes in the street. She is well read and tries +to keep herself in order by stock examples, classical and romantic, of +ill-placed and ill-fated affection. Her husband (who seems to have been +a very good fellow for his time) gives her unconsciously what should +have been the best help of all, by praising her self-selected lover's +good looks and laughing at the young man's habit of staring at her. But +she has already spoken frankly of her own _appetit sensuel_, and she +proceeds to show this in the fashion which makes the fifteenth century +and the early sixteenth a sort of trough of animalism between the +altitudes of Mediaeval and Renaissance passion. Her lover turns out to +be an utter cad, boastful, blabbing, and almost cowardly (he tells her +in the usual stolen church interview, _Je crains merveilleusement +monsieur votre mari_). But it makes not the slightest difference; nor +does the at last awakened wrath of an at last not merely threatened but +wideawake husband. Apparently she never has the chance of being actually +guilty, for her husband finally, and very properly, shuts her up in a +country house under strong duennaship. This finishes the first part, but +there are two more, which return to more ancient ways. The lover +Guenelic goes off to seek adventures, which he himself recounts, and +acquires considerable improvement in them. He comes back, endeavours to +free his mistress from her captivity, and does actually fly with her; +but they are pursued; and though the lover and a friend of his with the +rather Amadisian name of "Quezinstra" do their best, the heroine dies of +weariness and shock, to be followed by her lover. + +This latter part is comparatively commonplace. M. Reynier thinks very +highly of the first. It is possible to go with him a certain part of the +way, but not, I think, the whole, except from a purely "naturalist" and +not at all "sentimental" point of view. Some bold bad men have, of +course, maintained that when the other sex is possessed by an _appetit +sensuel_ this overcomes everything else, and seems, if not actually to +exclude, at any rate by no means always or often to excite, that +accompanying transcendentalism which is not uncommon with men, and +which, comprised with the appetite, makes the love of the great lovers, +whether they are represented by Dante or by Donne, by Shakespeare or by +Shelley. Whether this be truth or libel _non nostrum est_. But it is +certain that Helisenne, as she represents herself, does not make the +smallest attempt to spiritualise (even in the lowest sense) or inspirit +the animality of her affection. She wants her lover as she might want a +pork chop instead of a mutton one; and if she is sometimes satisfied +with seeing him, it is as if she were looking at that pork chop through +a restaurateur's window and finding it better than not seeing it at all +and contenting herself with the mutton. Still this result is probably +the result at least as much of want of art as of original _mis_feeling; +and the book certainly does deserve notice here. + +The original _Oeuvres_ of Helisenne form a rather appetising little +volume, fat, and close and small printed, as indeed is the case with +most, but not quite all, of the books now under notice. The +complementary pieces are mainly moralities, as indeed are, in intention, +the _Angoisses_ themselves. These latter seem to me better worth +reprinting than most other things as yet not reprinted, from the +_Heptameron_ (Helisenne, be it remembered, preceded Marguerite) for +nearly a hundred years. The later parts, though (or perhaps even +because) they contrast curiously with the first, are by no means +destitute of interest; and M. Reynier, I think, is a little hard on them +if he has perhaps been a little kind to their predecessor. The lingo is +indeed almost always stupendous and occasionally terrible. The printer +aids sometimes; for it was not at once that I could emend the +description of the B. V. M. as "Mere et Fille de _l'aliltonat_ [ant] +plasmateur" into "_altitonant_" ("loud-thundering"), while _plasmateur_ +itself, though perfectly intelligible and legitimate, a favourite with +the _rhetoriqueurs_, and borrowed from them even in Middle Scots, is not +exactly everybody's word. But from her very exordium she may be fairly +judged. "Au temps que la Deesse Cibele despouilla son glacial et gelide +habit, et vestit sa verdoyante robe, tapissee de diverses couleurs, je +fus procree, de noblesse." And, after all, there _is_ a certain nobility +in this fashion of speech and of literary presentation. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--I + +_The Pastoral and Heroic Romance, and the Fairy Story_ + + +[Sidenote: Immense importance of the seventeenth century in our +subject.] + +The seventeenth century, almost if not quite from its beginning, ranks +in French literature as the eighteenth does with us, that is to say, as +the time of origin of novels or romances which can be called, in any +sense, modern. In its first decade appeared the epoch-making +pastoral-heroic _Astree_ of Honore d'Urfe;[124] its middle period, from +1620 to 1670, was the principal birth-time of the famous "Heroic" +variety, pure and simple; while, from that division into the last third, +the curiously contrasted kind of the fairy tale came to add its quota of +influence. At various periods, too, individuals of more or less note +(and sometimes of much more than almost any of the "school-writers" just +mentioned) helped mightily in strengthening and diversifying the +subjects and manners of tales. To this period also belongs the +continuance and prominence of that element of actual "lived" anecdote +and personal history which has been mentioned more than once before. The +_Historiettes_ of Tallemant contain short suggestions for a hundred +novels and romances; the memoirs, genuine or forged, of public and +private persons have not seldom, in more modern times, formed the actual +basis of some of the greatest fiction. Everybody ought long to have +known Thackeray's perhaps rather whimsical declaration that he +positively preferred the forged D'Artagnan memoirs of Courtils de +Sandras (as far at least as the Gascon himself was concerned) to the +work of that Alexander, the truly Great, of which he was nevertheless +such a generous admirer: and recently mere English readers have had the +opportunity of seeing whether they agree with him. In fact, as the +century went on, almost all kinds of literature began to be more or less +pervaded with the novel appeal and quality. + +[Sidenote: The divisions of its contribution.] + +The letters of "Notre Dame des Rochers" constantly read like parts or +scenes of a novel, and so do various compositions of her ill-conditioned +but not unintelligent cousin Bussy-Rabutin. Camus de Pontcarre in the +earlier and Fenelon in the later century determined that the Devil +should not have this good prose to himself, and our own Anthony Hamilton +showed the way to Voltaire in a kind, of which, though the Devil had +nothing immediately to do with it, he might perhaps make use later. In +fact, the whole century teems with the spirit of tale-telling, _plus_ +character-analysis; and in the eighteenth itself, with a few notable +exceptions, there was rather a falling-off from, than a further advance +towards, the full blossoming of the aloe in the nineteenth. + +It will probably, therefore, not be excessive to give two chapters (and +two not short ones) to this period. In the first of them we may take the +two apparently opposite, but by no means irreconcilable schools of +Pastoral and Heroic Romance[125] and of Fairy Tale, including perhaps +only four persons, if so many, of first-rate literary rank--Urfe,[126] +Madeleine de Scudery, Madame d'Aulnoy, and Perrault; in the second, the +more isolated but in some cases not unimportant names and works of +Sorel, Scarron, Furetiere, and the capital ones of Madame de la Fayette +and Hamilton. According to the plan previously pursued, less attempt +will be made to give exhaustive or even full lists of practitioners than +to illustrate their practice thoroughly by example, translated or +abstracted, and by criticism; and it is necessary that this latter +course should be used without mercy to readers or to the historian +himself in this first chapter. For there is hardly any department of +literature which has been more left to the rather treacherous care of +traditional and second- or seventh-hand judgment than the Heroic +romance.[127] + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The Pastoral in general.] + +The Pastoral, as being of the most ancient and in a literary sense of +the highest formal rank, may occupy us first, but by no means longest. A +great deal of attention (perhaps a great deal more than was at all +necessary) has been paid to the pastoral element in various kinds of +literature. The thing is certainly curious, and inevitably invited +comment; but unfortunately it has peculiar temptations to a kind of +comment which, though very fashionable for some time past, is rarely +profitable. Pastorals of the most interesting kind actually exist in +literature: "pastoralism" in the abstract, unless treated in the pure +historical manner, is apt, like all similar criticism and discussion of +"kinds" in general, to tend to [Greek: phlyaria].[128] For a history in +a nutshell there is perhaps room even here, because the relations of the +thing to fiction cannot be well understood without it. That the +association of shepherds,[129] with songs, and with the telling of +"tales" in both senses, is immensely old, is a fact which the Hebrew +Scriptures establish, and almost the earliest Greek mythology and poetry +confirm; but the wiser mind, here as elsewhere, will probably be content +with the fact, and not enquire too busybodily into the reason. The +connection between Sicily--apparently a land of actual pastoral +life--and Alexandria--the home of the first professional man-of-letters +school, as it may be called--perhaps supplies something more; the actual +beauty of the Sicilian-Alexandrian poems, more still; the adoption of +the form by Virgil, who was revered at Rome, renowned somewhat +heterodoxically in the Middle Ages, and simply adored by the +Renaissance, most of all. So, in English, Spenser and Milton, in French, +Marot and others niched it solidly in the nation's poetry; and the +certainly charming _Daphnis and Chloe_, when vernacularised, transferred +its influence from verse to prose in almost all the countries of Europe. + +To what may be called "common-sense" criticism, there is, of course, no +form of literature, in either prose or verse, which is more utterly +abhorrent and more helplessly exposed. Unsympathetic, and in some points +unfair and even unintelligent, as Johnson's criticism of _Lycidas_ may +seem, to the censure of its actual "pastorality" there is no answer, +except that "these things are an allegory" as well as a convention. To +go further out of mere common-sense objections, and yet stick to the +Devil's-Advocate line, there is no form which lends itself to--which, +indeed, insists upon--conventions of the most glaring unreality more +than the pastoral, and none in which the decorations, unless managed +with extraordinary genius, have such a tendency to be tawdry at best, +draggled and withered at worst. Nevertheless, the fact remains that at +almost all times, both in ancient literature and since the revival of +letters, as well as in some probably more spontaneous forms during the +Middle Ages themselves,[130] pastorals have been popular with the +vulgar, and practised by the elect; while within the very last hundred +years such a towering genius as Shelley's, and such a manifold and +effectual talent as Mr. Arnold's, have selected it for some of their +very best work. + +Such adoption, moreover, had, for the writer of prose fiction, some +peculiar and pretty obvious inducements. It has been noticed by all +careful students of fiction that one of the initial difficulties in its +way, and one of those which do not seem to get out of that way very +quickly, is diffidence on the writer's part "how to begin." It may be +said that this is not peculiar to fiction; but extends from the poet who +never can get beyond the first lines of his epic to the journalist who +sits for an hour gazing at the blank paper for his article, and returns +home at midnight, if not like Miss Bolo "in a flood of tears and a sedan +chair," at any rate in a tornado of swearing at himself and (while there +were such things) a hansom cab. Pastoral gives both easy beginning and +supporting framework. + +[Sidenote: Its beginnings in France.] + +[Sidenote: Minor romances preceding the _Astree_.] + +The transformation of the older pastoral form into the newer began, +doubtless, with the rendering into French of _Daphnis and Chloe_,[131] +which appeared in the same year with the complete _Heptameron_ (1559). +Twelve years later, in 1571, Belleforest's _La Pyrenee et Pastorale +Amoureuse_ rather took the title than exemplified the kind; but in 1578 +the translation of Montemayor's _Diana_ definitely turned the current +into the new-old channel. It was not, however, till seven years later +still that "_Les Bergeries de Juliette_, de l'invention d'Ollenix du +Mont Sacre" (a rather exceptionally foolish anagram of Nicolas de +Montreux) essayed something original in the style. Montreux issued his +work, of which more presently, again and again in five instalments, the +last of which appeared thirteen years later than the first. And it has +been proved with immense bibliographical labour by M. Reynier,[132] that +though the last decade of the sixteenth century in France was almost as +fertile in short love-romances[133] as ours was in sonnet-cycles, the +pastoral form was, whether deliberately or not, for the most part +eschewed, though there were one or two exceptions of little if any +consequence. It is indeed noteworthy that (only four years before the +first part of the _Astree_) a second translation or the _Diana_ came +out. But it was not till 1607 that this first part actually appeared, +and in the opinion of its own time generally, and our own time for the +most part, though not in that of the interval, made a new epoch in the +history of French fiction. + +[Sidenote: Their general character.] + +The general characteristics of this curious and numerous, but almost +forgotten, body of work--which must, be it remembered, have exercised +influence, more or less, on the progress of the novel by the ways of +supply, demand, and reaction alike--have been carefully analysed by M. +Reynier, with whom, in regard to one or two points of opinion, one may +differ, but whose statements of fact are certainly trustworthy. Short as +they usually are, and small as is the literary power displayed in most +of them, it is clear that they, long before Rambouillet and the +_precieuses_, indicate a distinct reaction against merely brutal and +ferocious manners, with a standard of "courtiership" in both senses. Our +dear Reine Margot herself in one case prescribes, what one hopes she +found not merely in La Mole, but in others of those transitorily happy +ones whose desiccated hearts did or did not distend the pockets of her +farthingale as live Persian kittens do those of their merchants. To be a +lover you must have "a stocking void of holes, a ruff, a sword, a plume, +_and a knowledge how to talk_." This last point is illustrated in these +miniature romances after a fashion on which one of the differences of +opinion above hinted at may arise. It is not, as in the later "Heroics," +shown merely in lengthy harangues, but in short and almost dramatised +dialogue. No doubt this is often clumsy, but it may seem to have been +not a whole mistake in itself--only an abortive attempt at something +which, much later again, had to come before real novel-writing could be +achieved, and which the harangues of the Scudery type could never have +provided. There is a little actual history in them--not the +key-cryptograms of the "Heroics" or their adoption of ancient and +distant historic frames. In a very large proportion, forced marriages, +proposed and escaped from, supply the plot; in not a few, forced +"vocations" to the conventual life. Elopements are as common as +abductions in the next stage, and are generally conducted with as much +propriety. Courtships of married women, and lapses by them, are very +rare. + +[Sidenote: Examples of their style.] + +No one will be surprised to hear that the "Phebus" or systematised +conceit, for which the period is famous, and which the beloved +Marguerite herself did not a little favour, is abundant in them. From a +large selection of M. Reynier's, I cull, as perhaps the most delightful +of all these, if not also of all known to me in any language, the +following: + + During this task, Love, who had ambushed himself, plunged + his wings in the tears of the lover, and dried them in the + burning breast of the maiden. + +"A squadron of sighs" is unambitious, but neat, terse, and very tempting +to the imagination. More complicated is a lady "floating on the sea of +the persecution of her Prince, who would fain give her up to the +shipwreck of his own concupiscence." + +And I like this: + + The grafts of our desires being inarched long since in the + tree of our loves, the branches thereof bore the lovely + bouquets of our hopes. + +And this is fine: + + Paper! that the rest of your white surface may not blush at + my shame, suffer me to blacken it with my sorrow! + +It has always been a sad mystery to me why rude and dull intelligences +should sneer at, or denounce, these delightful fantastries, the very +stuff of which dreams and love and poetry--the three best things of +life--are made.[134] + +[Sidenote: Montreux and the _Bergeries de Juliette_.] + +The British Museum possesses not very many of the, I believe, numerous +works of Nicolas de Montreux, _alias_, as has been said, Ollenix du Mont +Sacre, a "gentleman of Maine," as he scrupulously designates himself. +But it does possess two parts (the first two) of the _Bergeries de +Juliette_, and I am not in the least surprised that no reader of them +should have worried any librarian into completing the set. Each of these +parts is a stout volume of some five hundred pages,[135] not very small, +of close small print, filled with stuff of the most deadly dulness. For +instance, Ollenix is desirous to illustrate the magnificence and the +danger of those professional persons of the other sex at Venice who have +filled no small place in literature from Coryat to Rousseau. So he tells +us, without a gleam or suspicion of humour, that one customer was so +astonied at the decorations of the bedroom, the bed, etc., that he +remained for two whole hours considering them, and forgetting to pay any +attention to the lady. It is satisfactory to know that she revenged +herself by raising the fee to an inordinate amount, and insisting on her +absurd client's lackey being sent to fetch it before the actual +conference took place. But the silliness of the story itself is a fair +sample of Montreux' wits, and these wits manage to make anything they +deal with duller by their way of telling it. + +[Sidenote: Des Escuteaux and his _Amours Diverses_.] + +It is still more unfortunate that our national collection has none of +the numerous fictions[136] of A(ntoine?) de Nerveze. His _Amours +Diverses_ (1606), in which he collected no less than seven love-stories, +published separately earlier, would be useful. But it luckily does +provide the similarly titled book of Des Escuteaux, who is perhaps the +most representative and prolific writer, next to Montreux and Nerveze, +of the whole, and who seems to me, from what I have read of the first +and what others say of the second, to be their superior. The collections +consist of (_Amours de_ in every case) _Filiris et Isolia_, dedicated to +Isabel (not "-bel_le_") de Rochechouart; _Clarimond et Antoinette_ (to +Lucresse [_sic_] de Bouille); _Clidamant et Marilinde_ (to _Jane_ de la +Brunetiere), and _Ipsilis et Alixee_ (to Renee de Cosse, Amirale de +France!).[137] + +Some readers may be a little "put off" by a habit which Des Escuteaux +has, especially in the first story of the volume, of prefixing, as in +drama, the names of the speakers--_Le Prince_, _La Princesse_, etc.--to +the first paragraphs of the harangues and _histoires_ of which these +books so largely consist.[138] But it is not universal. The most +interesting of the four is, I think, _Clidamant et Marilinde_, for it +introduces the religious wars, a sojourn of the lovers on a desert +island, which M. Reynier[139] not unjustly calls Crusoe-like, and other +"varieties." + +[Sidenote: Francois de Moliere--_Polyxene._] + +I have not seen the other--quite other, and Francois--Moliere's _Semaine +Amoureuse_, which belongs to this class, though later than most; but his +still later _Polyxene_, a sort of half-way house between these shorter +novels and the ever-enlarged "Heroics," is a very fat duodecimo of 1100 +pages. The heroine has two lovers--one with the singular name of +Cloryman,--but love does not run smooth with either, and she ends by +taking the (pagan) veil. The bathos of the thought and style may be +judged from the heroine's affecting mention of an entertainment as "the +last _ballet_ my unhappy father ever saw." + +[Sidenote: Du Perier--_Arnoult et Clarimonde._] + +Not one of the worst of these four or five score minors, though scarcely +in itself a positively good thing, is the Sieur du Perier's _La Haine et +l'Amour d'Arnoult et de Clarimonde_. It begins with a singularly banal +exordium, gravely announcing that Hate and Love _are_ among the most +important passions, with other statements of a similar kind couched in +commonplace language. But it does something to bring the novel from an +uninteresting cloudland to earth by dealing with the recent and still +vividly felt League wars: and there is some ingenuity shown in plotting +the conversion of the pair from more than "a little aversion" at the +beginning to nuptial union--_not_ at the end. For it is one of the +points about the book which are not commonplace, though it may be a +survival or atavism from mediaeval practice--that the latter part of it +is occupied mainly, not with Arnoult and Clarimonde, but with the loves, +fortunes, and misfortunes of their daughter Claride. + +[Sidenote: Du Croset--_Philocalie._ Corbin--_Philocaste._] + +The _Philocalie_ of Du Croset (1593) derives its principal interest from +its being not merely a _Bergerie_ before the _Astree_, but, like it, the +work of a Forezian gentleman who proudly asserts his territoriality, and +dedicates his book to the "Chevalier D'Urfe." And its part name-fellow, +the _Philocaste_ of Jean Corbin--a very tiny book, the heroine of which +is (one would hardly have thought it from her name) a Princess of +England--is almost entirely composed of letters, discourse on them, and +a few interspersed verses. It belongs to the division of +backward-looking novels, semi-chivalrous in type, and its hero is as +often called "The Black Knight" as by his name. + +[Sidenote: Jean de Lannoi and his _Roman Satirique_.] + +The _Roman Satirique_ (1624) of Jean de Lannoi is another example of the +curious inability to "hit it off" which has been mentioned so often as +characterising the period. Its 1100 pages are far too many, though it is +fair to say that the print is exceptionally large and loose. Much of it +is not in any sense "satiric," and it seems to have derived what +popularity it had almost wholly from the "key" interest. + +[Sidenote: Beroalde de Verville outside the _Moyen de Parvenir_.] + +The minor works--if the term may be used when the attribution of the +major is by no means certain--of Beroalde de Verville have, as is usual, +been used both ways as arguments for and against his authorship of the +_Moyen de Parvenir_. _Les Aventures de Floride_ is simply an attempt, +and a big one in size, to _amadigauliser_, as the literary slang of the +time went. The _Histoire Veritable_, owing nothing but its title and +part of its idea to Lucian, and sub-titled _Les Princes Fortunes_, is +less conventional. It has a large fancy map for a frontispiece; there +are fairies in it, and a sort of _pot-pourri_ of queernesses which might +not impossibly have come from the author or editor of the _Moyen_ in his +less inconveniently ultra-Pantagruelist moments. _Le Cabinet de Minerve_ +is actually a glorification of "honest" love. In fact, Beroalde is one +of the oddest of "polygraphers," and there is nobody quite like him in +English, though some of his fellows may be matched, after a fashion, +with our Elizabethan pamphleteers. I have long wished to read the whole +of him, but I suppose I never shall. + +And it is time to leave these very minor stars and come to the full and +gracious moon of the _Astree_ itself. + +[Sidenote: The _Astree_--its author.] + +Honore D'Urfe, who was three years younger than Shakespeare, and died in +the year in which Charles I. came to the throne, was a cadet of a very +ancient family in the district or minor province of Forez, where his own +famous Lignon runs into the Loire. He was a pupil of the Jesuits and +early _fort en theme_, was a strenuous _ligueur_, and, though (or +perhaps also because) he was very good friends with Henri's estranged +wife, Margot, for some time decidedly suspect to Henri IV. For this +reason, and others of property, etc., he became almost a naturalised +Savoyard, but died in the service of his own country at the beginning of +Richelieu's Valtelline war. The most noteworthy thing in his rather +eventful life was, however, his marriage. This also has a direct +literary interest, at least in tradition, which will have his wife, +Diane de Chateaumorand, to be Astree herself, and so the heroine of "the +first [great] sentimental romance." The circumstances of the union, +however, were scarcely sentimental, much less romantic. They were even, +as people used to say yesterday, "not quite nice," and the Abbe Reure, a +devotee of both parties to it, admits that they "_heurte[nt] violemment +nos idees_." In fact Diane was not only eight years older than Honore +and thirty-eight years of age, but she had been for a quarter of a +century the wife of his elder brother, Anne, while he himself was a +knight of Malta, and vowed to celibacy. Of course (as the Canon points +out with irrefragably literal accuracy in logic and law) the marriage +being declared null _ab initio_ (for the cause most likely to suggest +itself, though alleged after extraordinary delay), Diane and Honore were +not sister- and brother-in-law at all, and no "divorce" or even +"dispensation" was needed. In the same way, Honore, having been +introduced into the Order of St. John irregularly in various ways, never +was a knight of it at all, and could not be bound by its rules. Q.E.D. +Wicked people, of course, on the other hand, said that it was a device +to retain Diane's great wealth (for Honore was quite poor in comparison) +in the family; sentimental ones that it was a fortunate and blameless +crowning of a long and pure attachment. As a matter of fact, no +"permanent children" (to adopt an excellent phrase of the late Mr. +Traill's) resulted; Diane outlived her husband, though but for a short +time, and left all her property to her relations of the Levis family. +The pair are also said not to have been the most united of couples. In +connection with the _Astree_ their portraits are interesting. Honore +d'Urfe, though he had the benefit of Van Dyck's marvellous art of +cavalier creation, must have been a very handsome man. Diane's portrait, +by a much harder and dryer hand, purports to have been taken at the age +of sixty-four. At first sight there is no beauty in it; but on +reinspection one admits possibilities--a high forehead, rather +"enigmatic" eyes, not at all "extinguished," a nose prominent and rather +large, but straight and with well, but not too much, developed "wings," +and, above all, a full and rather voluptuous mouth. Such may have been +the first identified novel-heroine. It is a popular error to think that +sixty-four and beauty are incompatibles, but one certainly would have +liked to see her at sixteen, or better still and perhaps best of all, at +six and twenty. + +[Sidenote: The book.] + +The _Astree_ itself is not the easiest of subjects to deal with. It is +indeed not so huge as the _Grand Cyrus_, but it is much more difficult +to get at--a very rare flower except in the "grey old gardens" of +secular libraries. It and its author have indeed for a few years past +had the benefit (as a result partly of another doubtful thing, an +_x_-centenary) of one[140] of the rather-to-seek good specimens among +the endless number of modern literary monographs. But it has never been +reprinted--even extracts of it, with the exception of a few stock +passages, are not common or extensive; and though a not small library +has been written about it in successive waves of eulogy, reaction, +mostly ignorant contempt, rehabilitation, and mere bookmaking; though +there have been (as noted) recent anniversaries and celebrations, and so +forth; though it is one of the not numerous books which have given a +name-type--Celadon,--and a place--"les bords du Lignon,"--to their own, +if not to universal literature, it seems to be "as a book" very little +known. The faithful monographer above cited admits merit in Dunlop; but +Dunlop does not say very much about it. Herr Koerting (_v. sup._) +analyses it. Possibly there may be, also in German, a comparison, +tempting to those who like such things, between it and its twenty years' +predecessor, Sidney's _Arcadia_, the first French translation of which, +in 1625, just after Urfe's death, was actually dedicated to his widow. +But I suspect that few English writers about Sidney have known much of +the _Astree_, and I feel sure that still fewer French writers[141] on +this have known anything of Sidney save perhaps his name. Of course the +indebtedness of both books to Montemayor's _Diana_ is a commonplace. + +[Sidenote: Its likeness to the _Arcadia_.] + +[Sidenote: Its philosophy and its general temper.] + +One of the numerous resemblances between the two, and one which, +considering their respective positions in the history of the French and +English novel, is most interesting, is the strong philosophical and +specially Platonic influence which the Renaissance exercised on +both.[142] Sidney, however full of it elsewhere, put less of it in his +actual novel; while, on the other hand, nothing did so much to create +and spread the rather rococo notion of pseudo-platonic love in France, +and from France throughout Europe, as the _Astree_ itself. The further +union of the philosophic mind with an eminently cavalier +temperament--the united _ethos_ of scholar, soldier, lover, and +courtier--fills out the comparison: and dwarfs such merely mechanical +things as the mixed use of prose and verse (which both may have taken, +nay pretty certainly did take, from Montemayor) and the pastoralities, +for which they in the same way owed royalty to the Spaniard, to Tasso, +to Sannazar, and to the Greek romances, let alone Theocritus and Virgil. +And, to confine ourselves henceforward to our own special subject, it is +this double infusion of idealism--of spiritual and intellectual +enthusiasm on the one hand and practical fire of life and act on the +other--which makes the great difference, not merely between the _Astree_ +and its predecessors of the _Amadis_ class, but between it and its +successors the strictly "Heroic" romances, though these owe it so much. +The first--except in some points of passion--hardly touch reality at +all; the last are perpetually endeavouring to simulate and insinuate a +sort of reality under cover of adventures and conventions which, though +fictitious, are hardly at all fantastic. But the _Astree_ might almost +be called a French prose _Faerie Queene_, allowing for the difference of +the two nations, languages, vehicles, and _milieux_ generally, in its +representation of the above-mentioned cavalier-philosophic _ethos_--a +thing never so well realised in France as in England or in Spain, but of +which Honore d'Urfe, from many traits in life and book, seems to have +been a real example, and which certainly vindicates its place in history +and literature. + +[Sidenote: Its appearance and its author's other work.] + +The _Astree_ appeared in five instalments, 1607-10-12-19 and +posthumously, the several parts being frequently printed: and it is said +to be almost impossible to find a copy, all the parts of which are of +the first issue in each case. The two later parts probably, the last +certainly, were collaborated in, if not wholly written by, the author's +secretary Baro. But it was by no means Honore's only work; indeed the +Urfes up to his time were an unusually literary family; and, while his +grandfather Claude collected a remarkable library (whence, at its +dispersion in the evil days of the house[143] during the eighteenth +century, came some of not the least precious possessions of French +public and private collections), his unfortunate brother Anne was a +poet. Honore himself, besides school exercises, wrote _Epistres Morales_ +which were rather popular, and display qualities useful in appreciating +the novel itself; a poem in octosyllables, usually and perhaps naturally +called "_La_ Sireine," but really entitled in the masculine, and having +nothing to do with a mermaid; a curious thing, semi-dramatic in form and +in irregular blank verse, entitled _Silvanire ou La Morte Vive_, which +was rehandled soon after his death by Corneille's most dangerous rival +Mairet; and an epic called _La Savoisiade_, which seems to have no +merit, and all but a very small portion of which is still unprinted. + +[Sidenote: Its character and appeals.] + +He remains, therefore, the author of the _Astree_, and, taking things on +the whole (a mighty whole, beyond contest, as far as bulk goes), there +are not so many authors of the second rank (for one of the first he can +hardly be called) who would lose very much by an exchange with him. +One's estimates of the book are apt to vary in different places, even +as, though not in the same degree as, the estimates of others have +varied at different times; but I myself have found that the more I read +of it the more I liked and esteemed it; and I believe that, if I had a +copy of my own and could turn it over in the proper diurnal and +nocturnal fashion, not as duty- but as pleasure-reading, I should like +it better still. Certain points that have appealed to me have been +noticed already--its combination of sensuous and ideal passion is +perhaps the most important of them; but there are not a few others, +themselves by no means void of importance. One is the union, not common +in French books between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century, of +sentiment and seriousness with something very like humour. Hylas, the +not exactly "comic man," but light-o'-love and inconstant shepherd, was +rather a bone of contention among critics of the book's own century. But +he certainly seasons it well; and there is one almost Shakespearean +scene in which he is concerned--a scene which Benedick and Beatrice, who +may have read it not so very many years after their own marriage, must +have enjoyed considerably. Hylas and the shepherdess Stella (who is +something of a girl-counterpart of his, as in the case just cited) draw +up a convention of love[144] between them. The tables, though they are +not actually numbered in the original, are twelve, and, shortened a +little, run as follows: + +[Sidenote: Hylas and Stella and their Convention.] + + 1. Neither is to be sovereign over the other. + + 2. Both are to be at once Lover and Beloved. [They knew + something about the matter, these two, for all their + jesting.] + + 3. There is to be no constraint of any kind. + + 4. They are to love for as long or as short a time as they + please. + + 5. No charge of infidelity is ever to be brought on either + side. + + 6. It is quite permitted to either or both to love somebody + else, and yet to continue loving each other. + + 7. There is to be no jealousy, no complaints, no sulks. + + 8. They are to do and say exactly what they please. + + 9. Words like "faithfulness," etc., are taboo. + + 10. They may leave off playing whenever they like. + + 11. And begin again ditto. + + 12. They are to forget both the favours they receive from + each other and the offences they may commit against each + other. + +Now, of course, any one may say of the Land where such a code might be +realised, in the very words of one of the most charming of songs, set to +one of the happiest of tunes: + + Cette rive, ma chere, + On ne la connait guere + Au pays des amours! + +But that is not the question, and if it _were_ possible it undoubtedly +would be a very agreeable Utopia, combining the transcendental charms of +the country of Quintessence with the material ones of the Pays de +Cocagne. From its own point of view there seems to be no fault to find +with it, except, perhaps, with the first part of the Twelfth +Commandment; for the remembrance of former favours heightens the +enjoyment of later ones, and the danger of _nessun maggior dolore_ is +excluded by the hypothesis of indifference after breach. But a sort of +umpire, or at any rate thirdsman, the shepherd Silvandre,[145] when +asked his opinion, makes an ingenious objection. To carry out Article +Three, he says, there ought to be a Thirteenth: + + 13. That they may break any of these rules just as they + please. + +For what comes of this further the reader may go to the book, but enough +of it should have been given to show that there is no want of salt, +though there is no (or very little) _gros sel_[146] in the _Astree_. + +[Sidenote: Narrative skill frequent.] + +Yet again there is very considerable narrative power. Abstracts may be +found, not merely in older books mentioned or to be mentioned, but in +the recent publications of Koerting and the Abbe Reure, and there is +neither room nor need for a fresh one here. As some one (or more than +one) has said, the book is really a sort of half-allegorical tableau of +honourable Love worked out in a crowd of couples (some I believe, have +counted as many as sixty), from Celadon and Astree themselves downwards. +The course of these loves is necessarily "accidented," and the accidents +are well enough managed from the first, and naturally enough best known, +where Celadon flings himself into the river and is rescued, insensible +but alive, by nymphs, who all admire him very much, though none of them +can affect his passion for Astree. But one cares--at least I have found +myself caring--less for the story than for the way in which it is +told--a state of things exactly contrary, as will be seen, to that +produced with or in me by the _Grand Cyrus_. There we have a really +well, if too intricately, engineered plot, in the telling of which it is +difficult to take much interest. Here it is just the reverse. And one of +the consequences is that you can dip in the _Astree_ much more +refreshingly than in its famous follower, where, if you do so, you +constantly "don't know where you are." + +[Sidenote: The Fountain of the Truth of Love.] + +One of the most famous things in the book, and one of the most important +to its conduct, is the "Fountain of the Truth of Love," a few words on +which will illustrate the general handling very fairly. This Fountain +(presided over by a Druid, a very important personage otherwise, who is +a sort of high priest thereof) has nothing in common with the more usual +waters which are philtres or anti-philtres, etc. Its function is to be +gazed in rather than to be drunk, and if you look into it, loving +somebody, you see your mistress. If she loves you, you see yourself as +well, beside her, and (which is not so nice) if she loves some one else +you see _him_; while if she is fancy-free you see her only. Clidaman, +one of the numerous lovers above mentioned, tries the water; and his +love, Silvie, presents herself again and again as he looks, "almost +setting on fire with her lovely eyes the wave which seemed to laugh +around her." But she is quite alone. + +The presiding Druid interprets, not merely in the sense already given, +but with one of the philosophic commentaries, which, as has been said, +are distinctive of the book. The nature of the fountain is to reflect +not body but spirit. Spirit includes Will, Memory, and Judgment, and +when a man loves, his spirit transforms itself through all these ways +into the thing loved. Therefore when he looks into the fountain he sees +Her. In the same way She is changed into Him or some one else whom she +loves, and He sees that image also; but if she loves no one He sees her +image alone. + +"This is very satisfactory" (as Lady Kew would say) to the inquiring +mind, but not so much so to the lover. He wants to have the fountain +shut up, I suppose (for my notes and memory do not cover this point +exactly), that no rival may have the chance denied to himself. He would +even destroy it, but that--the Druid tells and shows him--is quite +impossible. What can be done shall be. And here comes in another of the +agreeable things (to me) in the book--its curious fairy-tale character, +which is shown by numerous supernaturalities, much more _humanised_ than +those of the _Amadis_ group, and probably by no means without effect on +the fairy-tale proper which was to follow. Clidaman himself happens, in +the most natural way in the world, to "keep"--as an ordinary man keeps +cats and dogs--a couple of extraordinary big and savage lions and +another couple of unicorns to fight, not with each other, but with +miscellaneous animals. The lions and the unicorns are forthwith +extra-enchanted, so as to guard the fountain--an excellent arrangement, +but subject to some awkwardnesses in the sequel. For the lions take +turns to seek their meat in the ordinary way, and though they can hurt +nobody who does not meddle with the fountain, and have no wish to be +man-eaters, complications naturally supervene. And sometimes, besides +fighting,[147] and love-making, and love casuistry, and fairy-tales, and +oracles, and the finer comedy above mentioned, "Messire d'Urfe" (for he +did not live too late to have that most gracious of all designations of +a gentleman used in regard to him) did not disdain, and could not ill +manage, sheer farce. The scene with Cryseide and Arimant and Clorine and +the nurse and the ointment in Part III. Book VII., though it contains +little or nothing to _effaroucher la pudeur_, is like one of the broader +but not broadest tales of the Fabliaux and their descendants. + +[Sidenote: Some drawbacks--awkward history.] + +The book, therefore, has not merely a variety, but a certain liveliness, +neither of which is commonplace; but it would of course be uncritical to +suppress its drawbacks. It is far too long: and while bowing to those to +the manner born who say that Baro carried out his master's plan well in +point of style, and acknowledging that I have paid less attention to +Parts IV. and V. than to the others, it seems to me that we could spare +a good deal of them. One error, common to almost the whole century in +fiction, is sometimes flagrant. Nobody except a pedant need object to +the establishment, in the time of the early fifth century and the place +of Gaul, of a non-historical kinglet- or queenletdom of Forez or +"Seguse" under Amasis (here a feminine name[148]), etc.; nor, though (as +may perhaps be remarked again later) things Merovingian bring little +luck in literature, need we absolutely bar Chilperics and Alarics, or a +reference to "all the beauties of Neustria." But why, in the midst of +the generally gracious _macedoine_ of serious and comic loves, and +jokes, and adventures, should we have thrust in the entirely +unnecessary, however historical, crime whereby Valentinian the Third +lost his worthless life and his decaying Empire? It has, however, been +remarked, perhaps often enough, by those who have busied themselves with +the history of the novel, how curious it is that the historical variety, +though it never succeeded in being born for two thousand years after +the _Cyropaedia_ and more, constantly strove to be so. At no time were +the throes more frequent than during the seventeenth century in France; +at no time, there or anywhere else, were they more abortive.[149] + +[Sidenote: But attractive on the whole.] + +But it remains on the whole an attractive book, and the secret of at +least part of this attractiveness is no doubt to be found stated in a +sentence of Madame de Sevigne's, which has startled some people, that +"everything in it is natural and true." To the startled persons this may +seem either a deliberate paradox, or a mere extravagance of affection, +or even downright bad taste and folly. But the Lady of all Beautiful +Letter-writers was almost of the family of Neverout in literary +criticism. If she had been a professional critic (which is perhaps +impossible), she might have safeguarded her dictum by the addition, +"according to its own scheme and division." It is the neglect of this +implication which has caused the demurs. "'Natural!'" and "'true!'" they +say, "why, the Pastoral is the most frankly and in fact outrageously +unnatural and false of all literary kinds. Does not Urfe himself warn us +that we are not to expect ordinary shepherds and shepherdesses at all?" +Or perhaps they go more to detail. "The whole book is unabashedly +occupied with love-making; and love is not the whole, it is even a very +small part, of life, that is to say, of truth and nature." Or, to come +still closer to particulars, "Where, for instance, did Celadon, who is +represented as having been reduced to utter destitution when, _more +heroum_, he started a quasi-hermit life in the wood, get the +decorations, etc., of the Temple he erected to Love and Astree?" One +almost blushes at having to explain, in a popular style, the +mistakenness, to use the mildest word, of these objections. The present +writer, in a book less ambitious than the present on the sister subject +of the English novel, once ventured to point out that if you ask "where +Sir Guyon got that particularly convenient padlock with which he +fastened Occasion's tongue, and still more the hundred iron chains with +which he bound Furor?" that is to say, if you ask such a question +seriously, you have no business to read romance at all. As to the Love +matter, of that it is still less use to talk. There are some who would +go so far as to deny the major; even short of that hardiness it may be +safely urged that in poetry and romance Love _is_ the chief and +principal thing, and that the poet and the romancer are only acting up +to their commission in representing it as such. But the source of all +these errors is best reached, and if it may be, stopped, by dealing with +the first article of the indictment in the same way. What if Pastoral +_is_ artificial? That may be an argument against the kind as a whole, +but it cannot lie against a particular example of it, because that +example is bound to act up to its kind's law. And I think it not +extravagant to contend that the _Astree_ acts up to its law in the most +inoffensive fashion possible--in such a fashion, in fact, as is hardly +ever elsewhere found in the larger specimens, and by no means very often +in the smaller. Hardly even in _As You Like It_, certainly not in the +_Arcadia_, do the crook and the pipe get less in the way than they do +here. A minor cavil has been urged--that the "shepherds" and the +"knights," the "shepherdesses" and the "nymphs" are very little +distinguishable from each other; but why should they be? Urfe had +sufficient art to throw over all these things an air of glamour which, +to those who can themselves take the benefit of the spell, banishes all +inconsistencies, all improbabilities, all specks and knots and the like. +It has been said that the _Astree_ has in it something of the genuine +fairy-tale element. And the objections taken to it are really not much +more reasonable than would be the poser whether even the cleverest of +wolves, with or without a whole human grandmother inside it, would find +it easy to wrap itself up in bedclothes, or whether, seeing that even +walnut shells subject cats to such extreme discomfort, top-boots would +not be even more intolerable to the most faithful of feline retainers. + +[Sidenote: The general importance and influence.] + +The literary influence and importance of the book have never been denied +by any competent criticism which had taken the trouble to inform itself +of the facts. It can be pointed out that while the "Heroics," great as +was their popularity for a time, did not keep it very long, and lost it +by sharp and long continued--indeed never reversed--reaction, the +influence of the _Astree_ on this later school itself was great, was not +effaced by that of its pupils, and worked in directions different, as +well as conjoint. It begat or helped to beget the _Precieuses_; it did a +great deal, if not exactly to set, to continue that historical character +which, though we have not been able to speak very favourably of its +immediate exercise, was at last to be so important. Above all, it +reformed and reinforced the "sentimental" novel, as it is called. We +have tried to show that there was much more of this in the mediaeval +romance proper than it has been the fashion in recent times to allow. +There was a great deal in the _Amadis_ class, but extravaganzaed out of +reason as well as out of rhyme. To us, or some of us, the _Astree_ type +may still seem extravagant, but in comparison it brings things back to +that truth and nature which were granted it by Madame de Sevigne. Its +charms actually soothed the savage breast of Boileau, and it is not +surprising that La Fontaine loved it. Few things of the kind are more +creditable to the better side of Jean Jacques a full century later, than +that he was not indifferent to its beauty; and there were few greater +omissions on the part of _mil-huit-cent-trente_ (which, however, had so +much to do!) than its comparative neglect to stray on to the gracious +banks of the Lignon. All honour to Saint-Marc Girardin (not exactly the +man from whom one would have expected it) for having been, as it seems, +though in a kind of _palinodic_ fashion, the first to render serious +attention, and to do fair justice, to this vast and curious wilderness +of delights.[150] + +[Sidenote: The _Grand Cyrus_.] + +[Sidenote: Its preface to Madame de Longueville.] + +To turn from the Pastoral to the Heroic, the actual readers, English or +other, of _Artamene ou le Grand Cyrus_[151] in late years, have probably +been reckonable rather as single spies (a phrase in this connection of +some rather special appropriateness) than in battalions. And it is to be +feared that many or most, if not nearly all of them, have opened it with +little expectation of pleasure. The traditional estimates are dead +against it as a rule; it has constantly served as an example--produced +by wiseacres for wiseacres--of the _un_wisdom of our ancestors; and, +generous as were Sir Walter's estimates of all literature, and +especially of his fellow-craftsmen's and craftswomen's work, the lively +passage in _Old Mortality_ where Edith Bellenden's reference to the book +excites the (in the circumstances justifiable) wrath of the +Major--perhaps the only _locus_ of ordinary reading that touches +_Artamene_ with anything but vagueness--is not entirely calculated to +make readers read eagerly. But on turning honestly to the book itself, +it is possible that considerable relief and even a little astonishment +may result. Whether this satisfaction will arise at the very dedication +by that vainglorious and yet redoubtable cavalier, Georges de Scudery, +in which he characteristically takes to himself the credit due mainly, +if not wholly, to his plain little sister Madeleine, will depend upon +taste. It is addressed to Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, Duchess of +Longueville, sister of Conde, and adored mistress of many noteworthy +persons--the most noteworthy perhaps being the Prince de Marcillac, +better known, as from his later title, as Duc de la Rochefoucauld, and +a certain Aramis--not so good a man as three friends of his, but a very +accomplished, valiant, and ingenious gentleman. The blue eyes of Madame +de Longueville (M. de Scudery takes the liberty to mention specially +their charm, if not their colour) were among the most victorious in that +time of the "raining" and reigning influence of such things: and somehow +one succumbs a little even now to her as the Queen of that bevy of fair, +frail, and occasionally rather ferocious ladies of the Fronde feminine. +(The femininity was perhaps most evident in Madame de Chevreuse, and the +ferocity in Madame de Montbazon.) Did not Madame de Longueville--did not +they all--figuratively speaking, draw that great philosopher Victor +Cousin[152] up in a basket two centuries after her death, even as had +been done, literally if mythically, to that greater philosopher, +Aristotle, ages before? But the governor of Our Lady of the Guard[153] +says to her many of these things which that very Aramis delighted to +hear (though not perhaps from the lips of rivals) and described, +rebuking the callousness of Porthos to them, as fine and worthy of being +said by gentlemen. The Great Cyrus himself "comes to lay at her +Highness's feet his palms and his trophies." His historian, achieving at +once advertisement and epigram, is sure that as she listened kindly to +the _Death of Caesar_ (his own play), she will do the same to the Life +of Cyrus. Anne Genevieve herself will become the example of all +Princesses (the Reverend Abraham Adams might have groaned a little +here), just as Cyrus was the pattern of all Princes. She is not the +moon, but the sun[154] of the Court. The mingled blood of Bourbon and +Montmorency gives her such an _eclat_ that it is almost unapproachable. +He then digresses a little to glorify her brother, her husband, and +Chapelain, the famous author of _La Pucelle_, who had the good fortune +to be a friend of the Scuderys, as well as, like them, a strong "Heroic" +theorist. After which he comes to that personal inventory which has been +referred to, decides that her beauty is of a celestial splendour, and, +in fact, a ray of Divinity itself; goes into raptures, not merely over +her eyes, but over her hair (which simply effaces sunbeams); the +brightness and whiteness of her complexion; the just proportion of her +features; and, above all, her singularly blended air of modesty and +gallantry; her intellectual and spiritual match; her bodily graces; and +he is finally sure that though somebody's misplaced acuteness may +discover faults which nobody else will perceive (Georges would like to +see them, no doubt), her extreme kindness will pardon them. A +commonplace example of flattery this? Well, perhaps not. One somehow +sees, across the rhetoric, the blue eyes of Anne Genevieve and the +bristling mustachios and "swashing outside" and mighty rapier of +Georges; and the thing becomes alive with the life of a not ungracious +past, the ills of which were, after all, more or less common to all +times, and its charms (like the charms of all things and persons +charming) its own. + +[Sidenote: The "Address to the Reader."] + +But the Address to the Reader, though it discards those "temptations of +young ladies" (Madame de Longueville can never have been old) which Dr. +Johnson recognised, and also the companion attractions of Cape and +Sword, is of perhaps directly greater importance for our special and +legitimate purpose. Here the brother and sister (probably the sister +chiefly) develop some of the principles of their bold adventure, and +they are of no small interest. It is allowed that the varying accounts +of Cyrus (in which, as almost every one with the slightest tincture of +education[155] must be aware, doctors differ remarkably), at least those +of Herodotus and Xenophon (they do not, or she does not, seem to have +known Ctesias), are confounded, and selected _ad libitum_ and _secundum +artem_ only. Further "lights" are given by the selection of the +"Immortal Heliodorus" and "the great Urfe" as patterns and patrons of +the work. In fact, to any expert in the reading and criticism of novels +it is clear that a great principle has been--imperfectly but +somehow--laid hold of. + +[Sidenote: The opening of the "business."] + +Perhaps, however, "laid hold of" is too strong; we should do better by +borrowing from Dante and saying that the author or authors have +"glimpsed the Panther,"--have seen that a novel ought not to be a mere +chronicle, unselected and miscellaneous, but a work which, whether it +has actual unity of plot or not, has unity of interest, and will deal +with its facts so as to secure that interest. At first, indeed, they +plunge us into the middle of matters quite excitingly, though perhaps +not without more definite suggestion, both to them and to us, of the +"immortal" Heliodorus. The hero, who still bears his false name of +Artamene,[156] appears at the head of a small army, the troops of +Cyaxares of Media; and, at the mouth of a twisting valley, suddenly sees +before him the town of Sinope in flames, the shipping in the harbour +blazing likewise, all but one bark, which seems to be flying from more +than the conflagration. A fine comic-opera situation follows; for while +Artamene is trying to subdue the fire he is attacked by the traitor +Aribee, general under the King of Assyria, who is himself shut up in a +tower and seems to be hopelessly cut off from rescue by the fire. The +invincible hero, however, subdues at once the rebel and the destroying +element; captures the Assyrian, who is not only his enemy and that of +his master Cyaxares, but his Rival (the word has immense importance in +these romances, and is always honoured with a capital there), and learns +that the escaping galley carried with it his beloved Mandane, daughter +of Cyaxares, of whom he is in quest, and who has been abducted from her +abductor and lover by another, Prince Mazare of Sacia. + +[Sidenote: The ups and downs of the general conduct of the story.] + +All this is lively and business-like enough, and one feels rather a +brute in making the observation (necessary, however) that Artamene talks +too much and not in the right way. When things in general are "on the +edge of a razor" and one is a tried and skilful soldier, one does not, +except on the stage, pause to address the unjust Gods, and inquire +whether they have consented to the destruction of the most beautiful +princess in the world; discuss with one's friends the reduction into +cinders[157] of the adorable Mandane, and further enquire, without the +slightest chance of answer, "Alas! unjust Rival! hast thou not thought +rather of thine own preservation than of hers?" However, for a time, the +incidents do carry off the verbiage, and for nearly a hundred small +pages there is no great cause for complaint. It is the style of the +book; and if you do not like it you must "seek another inn." But what +succeeds, for the major part of the first of the twenty volumes,[158] is +open to severer criticisms. We fall into interminable discussions, +_recits_, and the like, on the subject of the identity of Artamene and +Cyrus, and we see at once the imperfect fashion in which the nature of +the novel is conceived. That elaborate explanation--necessary in +history, philosophy, and other "serious" works--cannot be cut down too +much in fiction, is one truth that has not been learnt.[159] That the +stuffing of the story with large patches of solid history or +pseudo-history is wrong and disenchanting has not been learnt either; +and this is the less surprising and the more pardonable in that very +few, if indeed any, of the masters and mistresses of the novel, later +and greater than Georges and Madeleine de Scudery, have not refused to +learn it or have not carelessly forgotten the learning. Even Scott +committed the fault sometimes, though never in his very best work. +Dumas--when he went out and left the "young men" to fill in, and stayed +too long, and made them fill in too much--did it constantly. Yet again, +that mixture of excess and defect in talking, which has been noted +already, becomes more and more trying in connection with the previously +mentioned faults and others. Of _mere_ talk there is enough and +immensely to spare; but it is practically never real dialogue, still +less real conversation. It is harangue, narrative, soliloquy, what you +will, in the less lively theatrical forms of speech watered out in +prose, with "passing of compliments" in the most gentlefolkly manner, +and a spice of "Phebus" or Euphuism now and then. But it is never real +personal talk,[160] while as for conveying the action _by_ the talk as +the two great masters above mentioned and nearly all others of their +kind do, there is no vestige of even an attempt at the feat, or a +glimpse of its desirableness. + +Again, one sees before long that of one priceless quality--a sense of +humour--we shall find, though there is a little mild wit, especially in +the words of the ladies named in the note, no trace in the book, but a +"terrible _minus_ quantity." I do not know that the late Sir William +Gilbert was a great student of literature--of classical literature, to +judge from the nomenclature of _Pygmalion and Galatea_ mentioned above, +he certainly was not. But his eyes would surely have glistened at the +unconscious and serious anticipation of his own methods at their most +Gilbertian, had he ever read pp. 308 _sqq._ of this first volume. Here +not only do Cyrus and a famous pirate, by boarding with irresistible +valour on each side, "exchange ships," and so find themselves at once to +have gained the enemy's and lost their own, but this remarkable +manoeuvre is repeated more than twenty times without advantage on +either side--or without apparently any sensible losses on either side. +From which it would appear that both contented themselves with displays +of agility in climbing from vessel to vessel, and did nothing so +impolite as to use their "javelins, arrows, and cutlasses" (of which, +nevertheless, we hear) against the persons of their competitors in such +agility on the other side. It did come to an end somehow after some +time; but one is quite certain that if Mr. Crummles had had the means of +presenting such an admirable spectacle on any boards, he never would +have contented himself without several encores of the whole twenty +operations. + +An experienced reader, therefore, will not need to spend many hours +before he appreciates pretty thoroughly what he has to expect--of good, +of bad, and of indifferent--from this famous book. It is, though in a +different sense from Montaigne's, a _livre de bonne foi_. And we must +remember that the readers whom it directly addressed expected from books +of this kind "pastime" in the most literal and generous, if also +humdrum, sense of the word; noble sentiments, perhaps a little learning, +possibly a few hidden glances at great people not of antiquity only. All +these they got here, most faithfully supplied according to their demand. + +[Sidenote: Extracts--the introduction of Cyrus to Mandane.] + +Probably nothing will give the reader, who does not thus read for +himself, a better idea of the book than some extract translations, +beginning with Artamene's first interview with Mandane,[161] going on to +his reflections thereon, and adding a perhaps slightly shortened version +of the great fight recounted later, in which again some evidence of the +damaging absence of humour, and some suggestions as to the originals of +divers well-known parodies, will be found. (It must be remembered that +these are all parts of an enormous _recit_ by Chrisante, one of +Artamene's confidants and captains, to the King of Hircania, a monarch +doubtless inured to hardships in the chase of his native tigers, or +requiring some sedative as a change from it.) + + No sooner had the Princess seen my Master than she rose, and + prepared to receive him with much kindness and much joy, + having already heard, by Arbaces, the service he had done to + the King, her father. Artamene then made her two deep bows, + and coming closer to her, but with all the respect due to a + person of her condition, he kissed [_no doubt the hem of_] + her robe, and presented to her the King's letter, which she + read that very instant. When she had done, he was going to + begin the conversation with a compliment, after telling her + what had brought him; but the Princess anticipated him in + the most obliging manner. "What Divinity, generous + stranger," said she, "has brought you among us to save all + Cappadocia by saving its King? and to render him a service + which the whole of his servants could not have rendered?" + "Madam," answered Artamene, "you are right in thinking that + some Divinity has led me hither; and it must have been some + one of those beneficent Divinities who do only good to men, + since it has procured me the honour of being known to you, + and the happiness of being chosen by Fortune to render to + the King a slight service, which might, no doubt, have been + better done him by any other man." "Modesty," said the + Princess (smiling and turning towards the ladies who were + nearest her), "is a virtue which belongs so essentially to + our own sex, that I do not know whether I ought to allow + this generous stranger so unjustly to rob us of it, or--not + content with possessing eminently that valour to which we + must make no pretension--to try to be as modest when he is + spoken to of the fineness of his actions as reasonable women + ought to be when they are praised for their beauty. For my + part," she added, looking at Artamene, "I confess I find + your proceeding a little unfair. And I do not think that I + ought to allow it, or to deprive myself of the power of + praising you infinitely, although you cannot endure it." + "Persons like you," retorted Artamene, but with profound + respect, "ought to receive praise from all the earth, and + not to give it lightly. 'Tis a thing, Madam, of which it is + not pleasant to have to repeat; for which reason I beg you + not to expose yourself to such a danger. Wait, Madam, till I + have the honour of being a little better known to you." + +There are several pages more of this _carte_ and _tierce_ of compliment; +but perhaps a degenerate and impatient age may desire that we should +pass to the next subject. Whether it is right or not in so desiring may +perhaps be discussed when the three samples have been given. + +Artamene has been dismissed with every mark of favour, and lodged in a +pavilion overlooking the garden. When he is alone-- + + [Sidenote: His soliloquy in the pavilion.] + + After having passed and re-passed all these things over + again in his imagination, "Ye gods!" said he, "if, when she + is so lovable, it should chance that I cannot make her love + me, what would become of the wretched Artamene? But," and he + caught himself up suddenly, "since she seems capable of + appreciating glory and services, let us continue to act as + we have begun! and let us do such great deeds that, even if + her inclination resisted, esteem may introduce us, against + her will, into her heart! For, after all, whatever men may + say, and whatever I may myself have said, one may give a + little esteem to what one will never in the least love; but + I do not think one can give much esteem to what will never + earn a little love. Let us hope, then; let us hope! let us + make ourselves worthy to be pitied if we are not worthy to + be loved." + +After which somewhat philosophical meditation it is not surprising that +he should be informed by one of his aides-de-camp that the Princess was +in the garden. For what were Princesses made? and for what gardens? + +The third is a longer passage, but it shall be subjected to that kind of +_cento_ing which has been found convenient earlier in this volume. + + [Sidenote: The Fight of the Four Hundred.] + + [_The dispute between the kings of Cappadocia on the one + hand and of Pontus on the other has been referred to a + select combat of two hundred men a side. Artamene, of + course, obtains the command of the Cappadocians, to the + despair of his explosive but not ungenerous rival, "Philip + Dastus." After a very beautiful interview with Mandane + (where, once more, the most elegant compliments pass between + these gentlefolkliest of all heroes and heroines) and divers + preliminaries, the fight comes off._][162] They began to + advance with heads lowered, without cries or noise of any + kind, but in a silence which struck terror. As soon as they + were near enough to use their javelins, they launched them + with such violence that [_a slight bathos_] these flying + weapons had a pretty great effect on both sides, but much + greater on that of the Cappadocians than on the other. Then, + sword in hand and covered by their shields, they came to + blows, and Artamene, as we were informed, immolated the + first victim [_but how about the javelin "effect"?_] in this + bloody sacrifice. For, having got in front of all his + companions by some paces, he killed, with a mighty + sword-stroke, the first who offered resistance. [_Despite + this, the general struggle continues to go against the + Cappadocians, though Artamene's exploits alarm one of the + enemy, named Artane, so much that he skulks away to a + neighbouring knoll. At last_] things came to such a point + that Artamene found himself with fourteen others against + forty; so I leave you to judge, Sir [_Chrisante parle + toujours_], whether the party of the King of Pontus did not + believe they had conquered, and whether the Cappadocians had + not reason to think themselves beaten. But as, in this + fight, it was not allowed either to ask or to give quarter, + and was necessary either to win or to die, the most + despairing became the most valiant. [_The next stage is, + that in consequence of enormous efforts on his part, the + hero finds himself and his party ten to ten, which + "equality" naturally cheers them up. But the wounds of the + Cappadocians are the severer; the ten on their side become + seven, with no further loss to the enemy, and at last + Artamene finds himself, after three hours' fighting, alone + against three, though only slightly wounded. He wisely uses + his great agility in retiring and dodging; separates one + enemy from the other two, and kills him; attacks the two + survivors, and, one luckily stumbling over a buckler, kills + a second, so that at last the combat is single. During this + time the coward Artane abstains from intervening, all the + more because the one surviving champion of Pontus is a + personal rival of his, and because, by a very ingenious + piece of casuistry, he persuades himself that the two + combatants are sure to kill each other, and he, Artane, + surviving, will obtain the victory for self and country!_] + +He is nearly right; but not quite. For after Artamene has wounded the +Pontic Pharnaces in six places, and Pharnaces Artamene in four (for we +wound "by the card" here), the hero runs Pharnaces through the heart, +receiving only a thigh-wound in return. He flourishes both swords, cries +"I have conquered!" and falls in a faint from loss of blood. Artane +thinks him dead, and without caring to come close and "mak sicker," goes +off to claim the victory. But Artamene revives, finds himself alone, +and, with what strength he has left, piles the arms of the dead +together, writes with his own blood on a silver shield-- + + TO + JUPITER + GUARDIAN OF TROPHIES, + +and lies beside it as well as he can. The false news deceives for a +short time, but when the stipulated advance to the field takes place on +both sides, the discovery of the surviving victor introduces a new +complication, from which we may for the moment abstain. + +The singlestick rattle of compliment in the interview first given, and +the rather obvious and superfluous meditations of the second, may seem, +if not exactly disgusting, tedious and jejune. But the "Fight of the +Four Hundred" is not frigid; and it is only fair to say that, after the +rather absurd passage of _chasse croise_ on ship-board quoted or at +least summarised earlier, the capture of Artamene by numbers and his +surrender to the generous corsair Thrasybulus are not ill told, while +there are several other good fights before you come to the end of this +very first volume. There is, moreover, an elaborate portrait of the +Princess, evidently intended to "pick up" that vaguer one of Madame de +Longueville in the Preface, but with the blue of the eyes here +fearlessly specified. Here also does the celebrated Philidaspes (most +improperly, if it had not been for the justification to be given later, +transmogrified in the above-mentioned passage by Major Bellenden into +"Philip Dastus? Philip Devil") make his appearance. The worst of it is +that most, if not the whole, is done by the _recit_ delivered, as noted +above, by Chrisante, one of those representatives of the no less +faithful than strong Gyas and Cloanthus, whom imitation of the ancients +has imposed on Scudery and his sister, and inflicted on their readers. + +[Sidenote: The abstract resumed.] + +The story of the Cappadocian-Pontic fight[163] is continued in the +second volume of the First Part by the expected delivery of harangues +from the two claimants, and the obligatory, but to Artane very +unwelcome, single combat. He is, of course, vanquished and pardoned by +his foe,[164] making, if not full, sufficient confession; and it is not +surprising to hear that the King of Pontus requests to see no more of +him. The rest--for it must never be forgotten that all this is "throwing +back"--then turns to the rivalry of Artamene and Philidaspes for the +love of Mandane, while she (again, of course) has not the faintest idea +that either is in love with her. Philidaspes, who (still, of course) is +not Philidaspes at all, is a rough customer--(in fact the Major hardly +did him injustice in calling him "Philip Devil"--betraying also perhaps +some knowledge of the text), and it comes to a tussle. This rather +resembles what the contemptuous French early Romantics called _une +boxade_ than a formal duel, and Artamene stuns his man with a blow of +the flat. Cyaxares[165] is very angry, and imprisons them both, not yet +realising their actual fault. It does not matter much to Artamene, who +in prison can think, aloud and in the most beautiful "Phebus," of +Mandane. It matters perhaps a little more to the reader; for a courteous +jailer, Aglatidas, takes the occasion to relate his own woes in a +"History of Aglatidas and Amestris," which completes the second volume +of the First Part in three hundred and fifty mortal pages to itself. + +The first volume of the Second Part returns to the main story, or rather +the main series of _recits_; for, Chrisante being not unnaturally +exhausted after talking for a thousand pages or so, Feraulas, another of +Artamene's men, takes up the running. The prisoners are let out, and +Mandane reconciles them, after which--as another but later contemporary +remarks (again of other things, but probably with some reminiscence of +this)--they become much more mortal enemies than before. The +reflections and soliloquies of Artamene recur; but a not unimportant, +although subordinate, new character appears--not as the first example, +but as the foremost representative, in the novel, of the great figure of +the "confidante"--in Martesie, Mandane's chief maid of honour. Nobody, +it is to be hoped, wants an elaborate account of the part she plays, but +it should be said that she plays it with much more spirit and +individuality than her mistress is allowed to show. Then, according to +the general plan of all these books, in which fierce wars and faithful +loves alternate, there is more fighting, and though Artamene is +victorious (as how should he not be, save now and then to prevent +monotony?) he disappears and is thought dead. Of course Mandane cries, +and confesses to the confidante, being entirely "finished" by a very +exquisite letter which Artamene has written before going into the +doubtful battle. However, he is (yet once more, of course) not dead at +all. What (as that most sagacious of men, the elder Mr. Weller, would +have said)'d have become of the other seventeen volumes if he had been? +There is one of the _quiproquos_ or misunderstandings which are as +necessary to this kind of novel as the flirtations and the fisticuffs, +brought about by the persistence of an enemy princess in taking Artamene +for her son Spithridates;[166] but all comes right for the time, and the +hero returns to his friends. The plot, however, thickens. An accident +informs Artamene that Philidaspes is really Prince of Assyria, sure to +become King when his mother, Nitocris, dies or abdicates, and that, +being as he is, and as Artamene knows already, desperately in love with +Mandane, he has formed a plot for carrying her off. The difficulties in +the way of preventing this are great, because, though the hero is +already aware that he is Cyrus, it is for many reasons undesirable to +inform Cyaxares of the fact; and at last Philidaspes, helped by the +traitor Aribee (_v. sup._), succeeds in the abduction, after an +interlude in which a fresh Rival, with a still larger R, the King of +Pontus himself, turns up; and an immense episode, in which Thomyris, +Queen of Scythia, appears, not yet in her more or less historical part +of victress of Cyrus. She is here only a young sovereign, widowed in her +earliest youth, extremely beautiful (see a portrait of her _inf._), who +has never yet loved, but who falls instantly in love with Cyrus himself +(when he is sent to her court), and is rather a formidable person to +deal with, inasmuch as, besides having great wealth and power, she has +established a diplomatic system of intrigue in other countries, which +the newest German or other empire might envy. By the end of this volume, +however, the Artamene-Cyrus confusion is partly cleared up (though +Cyaxares is not yet made aware of the facts), and the hero is sent after +Mandane, to be disappointed at Sinope, in the fashion recounted some +thousand or two pages before. + +[Sidenote: The oracle to Philidaspes.] + +With the beginning of vol. iv. (that is to say, part ii. vol. ii.) we +return, though still in retrospect, to the direct fate of Mandane. +Nitocris is dead, Philidaspes has succeeded to the crown of Assyria, and +has carried Mandane off to his own dominions. The situation with so +robustious a person as this prince may seem awkward, and indeed, as is +observed in a later part of the book, the heroine's repeated sojourns +(there are three if not four of them in all[167]) in the complete power +of one of the Rivals, with a large R, are very trying to Cyrus. However, +such a shocking thing as violence is hardly hinted at, and the Princess +always succeeds, as the Creole lady in _Newton Forster_ said she did +with the pirates, in "temporising," while her abductors confine +themselves for the most part to the finest "Phebus." Even the fiery +Philidaspes, though he breaks out sometimes, conveys his wish that +Mandane should accompany him to Babylon by pointing out that "the +Euphrates is jealous of the Tigris for having first had the honour of +her presence," and that "the First City of the World ought clearly to +possess the most illustrious princess of the Earth." Of course, if there +is any base person who cannot derive an Aramisian satisfaction (_v. +sup._) from such things as this, he had better abstain from the _Cyrus_. +But happier souls they please--not exquisitely, perhaps, or +tumultuously, but still well--with a mild tickle which is not +unvoluptuous. One is even a very little sorry for Philip Dastus when he +begs his cruel idol to write to him the single word ESPEREZ, and +meanwhile kindly puts it in capitals and a line to itself. Almost +immediately afterwards an oracle juggles with him in fashion delightful +to himself, and puzzling to everybody except the intelligent reader, +who, it is hoped, will see the double meaning at once. + + Il t'est permis d'esperer + De la faire soupirer, + Malgre sa haine: + Car un jour entre ses bras, + Tu rencontreras + La fin de ta peine. + +Alas! without going further (upon honour and according to fact), one +sees the _other_ explanation--that Mandane will have to perform the +uncomfortable duty--often assigned to heroines--of having Philidaspes +die in her lap. + +For the present, however, only discomfiture, not death, awaits him. The +Medes blockade Babylon to recover their princess; it suffers from +hunger, and Philidaspes, with Mandane and the chivalrous Sacian Prince +Mazare, whom we have heard of before, escapes to Sinope. Then the events +recorded in the very beginning happen, and Mandane, after escaping the +flames of Sinope through Mazare's abduction of her by sea, and suffering +shipwreck, falls into the power of the King of Pontus. This calls a halt +in the main story; and, as before, a "Troisieme Livre" consists of +another huge inset--the hugest yet--of seven hundred pages this time, +describing an unusually, if not entirely, independent subject--the +loves and fates of a certain Philosipe and a certain Polisante. This +volume contains a rather forcible boating-scene, which supplies the +theme for the old frontispiece. + +Refreshed as usual by this excursion,[168] the author returns (in vol. +v., bk. i., chap. iii.) to Cyrus, who is once more in peril, and in a +worse one than ever. Cyaxares, arriving at Sinope, does not find his +daughter, but does discover that Artamene, whom he does not yet know to +be Cyrus and heir to Persia, is in love with her. Owing chiefly to the +wiles of a villain, Metrobate, he arrests the Prince, and is on the +point of having him executed, despite the protests of the allied kings. +But the whole army, with the Persian contingent at its head, assaults +the castle, and rescues Cyrus, after the traitor Metrobate has tried to +double his treachery and get Cyaxares assassinated. Nobody who remembers +the _Letter of Advice_ already quoted will doubt what the conduct of +Cyrus is. He only accepts the rescue in order that he may post himself +at the castle gate, and threaten to kill anybody who attacks Cyaxares. + +After this burst, which is really exciting in a way, we must expect +something more soporific. Martesie takes the place of her absent +mistress to some extent, and a good deal of what might be mistaken for +"Passerelle"[169] flirtation takes place, or would do so, if it were not +that Cyrus would, of course, die rather than pay attention to anybody +but Mandane herself, and that Feraulas, already mentioned as one of the +Faithful Companions, is detailed as Martesie's lover. She is, however, +installed as a sort of Vice-Queen of a wordy tourney between four +unhappy lovers, who fill up the rest of the volume with their stories of +"Amants _In_fortunes" (cf. the original title of the _Heptameron_), +dealing respectively with and told by-- + +(1) A lover who is loved, but separated from his mistress. + +(2) One who is unloved. + +(3) A jealous one. + +(4) One whose love is dead.[170] + +They do it moderately, in rather less than five hundred pages, and +Martesie sums up in a manner worthy of any Mistress of the Rolls, +contrasting their fates, and deciding very cleverly against the jealous +man. + +The first twenty pages or so of the sixth volume (nominally iii. 2) +afford a good example of the fashion in which, as may be observed more +fully below, even an analysis of the _Grand Cyrus_, though a great +advance on mere general description of it, must be still (unless it be +itself intolerably voluminous) insufficient. Not very much actually +"happens"; but if you simply skip, you miss a fresh illustration of +magnanimity not only in Cyrus, but in a formerly mentioned character, +Aglatidas, with reference to the heroine Amestris earlier inset in the +tale (_v. sup._). And this is an example of the new and sometimes very +ingenious fashion in which these apparent excursions are turned into +something like real episodes, or at any rate supply connecting threads +of the whole, in a manner not entirely unlike that which some critics +have so hastily and unjustly overlooked in Spenser. Then we have an +imbroglio about forged letters, and a clearing-up of a former charge +against the hero, and (still within the twenty pages) a very curious +scene--the last for the time--of that flirtation-without-flirtation +between Cyrus and Martesie. She wants to have back a picture of Mandane, +which she has lent him to worship; and he replies, looking at her +"attentively" (one wonders whether Mandane, if present, would have been +entirely satisfied with his "attention"), addresses her as "Cruel +Person," and asks her (he is just setting out for the Armenian war) how +she thinks he can conquer when she takes away what should make him +invincible. To which replies Miss Martesie, "You have gained so many +victories [_ahem!_] without this help, that it would seem you have no +need of it." This is very nice, and Martesie, who is herself, as +previously observed, quite nice throughout, lets him have the picture +after all. But Cyrus, for once rather ungraciously, will not allow her +lover, and his henchman, Feraulas to escort her home; first, because he +wants Feraulas's services himself, and secondly, because it is unjust +that Feraulas should be happy with Martesie when Cyrus is miserable +without Mandane--an argument which, whether slightly selfish or not, is +at any rate in complete keeping with the whole atmosphere of the book. + +[Sidenote: The advent of Araminta.] + +Now, as this is by no means a very exceptional, certainly not a unique, +score of pages, and as it has taken almost a whole one of ours to give a +rather imperfect notion of its contents, it follows that it would take +about six hundred, if not more, to do justice to the ten or twelve +thousand of the original. Which (in one of the most immortal of +formulas) "is impossible." We must fall back, therefore, on the system +already pursued for the rest of this volume, and perhaps even contract +its application in some cases. A rash promise of the now entirely, if +not also rather insanely,[171] generous Prince not to marry Mandane +without fighting Philidaspes, or rather the King of Assyria, beforehand, +is important; and an at last minute description of Cyrus's person and +equipment as he sets out (on one of the proudest and finest horses that +ever was, with a war-dress the superbest that can be imagined, and with +Mandane's magnificent scarf put on for the first time) is not quite +omissible. But then things become intricate. Our old friend Spithridates +comes back, and has first love affairs and afterwards an enormous +_recit_-episode with a certain Princess of Pontus, whom Cyrus, +reminding one slightly of Bentley on Mr. Pope's _Homer_ and Tommy Merton +on Cider, pronounces to be _belle, blonde, blanche et bien faite_, but +not Mandane; and who has the further charm of possessing, for the first +time in literature if one mistakes not, the renowned name of Araminta. A +pair of letters between these two will be useful as specimens, and to +some, it may be hoped, agreeable in themselves. + + SPITHRIDATES TO THE PRINCESS ARAMINTA + + [Sidenote: Her correspondence with Spithridates.] + + I depart, Madam, because you wish it: but, in departing, I + am the most unhappy of all men. I know not whither I go; nor + when I shall return; nor even if you wish that I _should_ + return; and yet they tell me I must live and hope. But I + should not know how to do either the one or the other, + unless you order me to do both by two lines in your own + hand. Therefore I beg them of you, divine Princess--in the + name of an illustrious person, now no more, [_her brother + Sinnesis, who had been a great friend of his_], but who will + live for ever in the memory of + + SPITHRIDATES. + + [_He can hardly have hoped for anything better than the + following answer, which is much more "downright Dunstable" + than is usual here._] + + + ARAMINTA TO SPITHRIDATES + + Live as long as it shall please the Gods to allow you. Hope + as long as Araminta lives--she begs you: and even if you + yourself wish to live, she orders you to do so. + + [_In other words he says, "My own Araminta, say 'Yes'!" and + she does. This attitude necessarily involves the despair of + a Rival, who writes thus:_] + + + PHARNACES TO THE PRINCESS ARAMINTA + + If Fortune seconds my designs, I go to a place where I shall + conquer _and_ die--where I shall make known, by my generous + despair, that if I could not deserve your affection by my + services, I shall have at least not made myself unworthy of + your compassion by my death. + + [_And, to do him justice, he "goes and does it."_] + +This episode, however, did not induce Mademoiselle Madeleine to break +her queer custom of having something of the same kind in the Third Book +of every Part. For though there is some "business," it slips into +another regular "History," this time of Prince Thrasybulus, a naval +hero, of whom we have often heard, and his Alcionide, not a bad name for +a sailor's mistress.[172] Finally, we come back to more events of a +rather troublesome kind: for the _ci-devant_ Philidaspes most +inconveniently insists in taking part in the rescuing expedition, +which--saving scandal of great ones--is very much as if Mr. William +Sikes should insist in helping to extract booty from Mr. Tobias Crackit. +And we finally leave Cyrus in a decidedly awkward situation morally, and +the middle of a dark wood physically. + +[Sidenote: Some interposed comments.] + +Here, according to that paulo-post-future precedent which she did so +much to create, the authoress was quite justified in leaving him at the +end of a volume; and perhaps the present historian is, to compare small +things with great, equally justified in heaving-to (to borrow from Mr. +Kipling) and addressing a small critical sermon to such crew as he may +have attracted. We have surveyed not quite a third of the book; but this +ought in any case--_teste_ the loved and lost "three-decker" which the +allusion just made concerns--to give us a notion of the author's quality +and of his or her _faire_. It should not be very difficult for anybody, +unless the foregoing analysis has been very clumsily done, to discern +considerable method in Madeleine's mild madness, and, what is more, not +a little originality. The method has, no doubt, as it was certain to +have in the circumstances, a regular irregularity, which is, or would be +in anybody but a novice, a little clumsy: and the originality may want +some precedent study to discover it. But both are there. The skeleton of +this vast work may perhaps be fairly constructed from what has already +been dissected of the body; and the method of clothing the skeleton +reveals itself without much difficulty. You have the central idea in the +loves of Cyrus and Mandane, which are to be made as true as possible, +but also running as roughly as may be. Moreover, whether they run rough +or smooth, you are to keep them in suspense as long as you possibly can. +The means of doing this are laboriously varied and multiplied. The +clumsiest of them--the perpetual intercalation or interpolation of +"side-shows" in the way of _Histoires_--annoys modern readers +particularly, and has, as a rule, since been itself beautifully and +beneficently lessened, in some cases altogether discarded, or +changed--in emancipation from the influence of the "Unities"--to the +form of second plots, not ostentatiously severed from the main one. But, +as has been pointed out, a great deal of trouble is at any rate taken to +knit them to the main plot itself, if not actually and invariably to +incorporate them therewith; and the means of this are again not +altogether uncraftsmanlike. Sometimes, as in the case of Spithridates, +the person, or one of the persons, is introduced first in the main +history; his own particular concerns are dealt with later, and, for good +or for evil, he returns to the central scheme. Sometimes, as in that of +Amestris, you have the _Histoire_ before the personage enters the main +story. Then there is the other device of varying direct narrative, as to +this main story itself, with _Recit_; and always you have a careful +peppering in of new characters, by _histoire_, by _recit_, or by the +main story, to create fresh interests. Again, there is the contrast of +"business," as we have called it--fighting and politics--with +love-making and miscellaneous fine talk. And, lastly, there are--what, +if they were not whelmed in such an ocean of other things, would attract +more notice--the not unfrequent individual phrases and situations which +have interest in themselves. It must surely be obvious that in these +things are great possibilities for future use, even if the actual +inventor has not made the most of them. + +Their originality may perhaps deserve a little more comment.[173] The +mixture of secondary plots might, by a person more given to theorise +than the present historian--who pays his readers the compliment of +supposing that that excessively easy and therefore somewhat negligible +business can be done by themselves if they wish--be traced to an +accidental feature of the later mediaeval romances. In these the +congeries of earlier texts, which the compiler had not the wits, or at +least the desire, to systematise, provided something like it; but +required the genius of a Spenser, or the considerable craft of a +Scudery, to throw it into shape and add the connecting links. Many of +the other things are to be found in the Scudery romance practically for +the first time. And the suffusion of the whole with a new tone and +colour of at least courtly manners is something more to be counted, as +well as the constant exclusion of the clumsy "conjuror's supernatural" +of the _Amadis_ group. That the fairy story sprung up, to supply the +always graceful supernatural element in a better form, is a matter which +will be dealt with later in this chapter. The oracles, etc., of the +_Cyrus_ belong, of course, to the historical, not the imaginative side +of the presentation; but may be partly due to the _Astree_, the +influence of which was, we saw, admitted. + +[Sidenote: Analysis resumed.] + +It may seem unjust that the more this complication of interests +increases, the less complete should be the survey of them; and yet a +moment's thought will show that this is almost a necessity. Moreover, +the methods do not vary much; it is only that they are applied to a +larger and larger mass of accumulating material. The first volume of the +Fourth Part, the seventh of the twenty, follows--though with that +absence of slavish repetition which has been allowed as one of the +graces of the book--the general scheme. Cyrus gets out of the wood +literally, but not figuratively; for when he and the King of Assyria +have joined forces, to pursue that rather paradoxical alliance which is +to run in couple with rivalry for love and to end in a personal combat, +they see on the other side of a river a chariot, in which Mandane +probably or certainly is. But the river is unbridged and unfordable, and +no boats can be had; so that, after trying to swim it and nearly getting +drowned, they have to relinquish the game that had been actually in +sight. Next, two things happen. First, Martesie appears (as usually to +our satisfaction), and in consequence of a series of accidents, shares +and solaces Mandane's captivity. Then, on the other side, Panthea, Queen +of Susiana, and wife of one of the enemy princes, falls into Cyrus's +hands, and with Araminta (who is, it should have, if it has not been, +said earlier, sister of the King of Pontus) furnishes valuable hostage +for good treatment of Mandane and other Medo-Persian-Phrygian-Hircanian +prisoners. + +Things having thus been fairly bustled up for a time, a _Histoire_ is, +of course, imminent, and we have it, of about usual length, concerning +the Lydian Princess Palmis and a certain Cleandre; while, even when this +is done, we fall back, not on the main story, but once more on that of +Aglatidas and Amestris, which is in a sad plight, for Amestris (who has +been married against her will and is _maumariee_ too) thinks she is a +widow, and finds she is not. + +It has just been mentioned that Palmis is a Lydian Princess; and before +the end of this Part Croesus comes personally into the story, being the +head of a formidable combination to supplant the King of Pontus, detain +Mandane, and, if possible (as the well-known oracle, in the usual +ambiguity (_v. inf._), encourages him to hope), conquer the Medo-Persian +empire and make it his own. But the _Histoire_ mania--now further +excited by consistence in working the personages so obtained in +generally--is in great evidence, and "Lygdamis and Cleonice" supply a +large proportion of the early and all the middle of the eighth volume, +the second of the Fourth Part. There is, however, much more business +than usual at the end to make up for any slackness at the beginning. In +a side-action with the Lydians both Cyrus and the King of Assyria are +captured by force of numbers, though the former is at once released by +the Princess Palmis, as well as Artames, son of Cyrus's Phrygian ally, +whom Croesus chooses to consider as a rebel, and intends to put to +death. Here, however, the captive Queen and Princess, Panthea and +Araminta, come into good play, and exercise strong and successful +influence through the husband of the one and the brother of the other. +But at the end of book, volume, and part we leave Cyrus once more in the +dismals. For though he has actually seen Mandane he cannot get at her, +and he has heard three apparently most unfavourable oracles; the +Babylonian one, which was quoted above, and which he, like everybody +else, takes as a promise of success to Philidaspes; the ambiguous +Delphic forecast of "the fall of _an_ Empire" to Croesus; and that of +his own death at the hands of a hostile queen, the only one which, +historically, was to be fulfilled in its apparent sense, while the +others were not. He cares, indeed, not much about the two last, but +infinitely about the first. + +At the opening of the Fifth Part (ninth volume) there is a short but +curious "Address to the Reader," announcing the fulfilment of the first +half of the promised production, and bidding him not be downhearted, for +the first of the second half (the Sixth Part or eleventh volume of the +whole) is actually at Press. It may be noticed that there is a swagger +about these _avis_ and such like things, which probably _is_ +attributable to Georges, and not to Madeleine.[174] + +The inevitable _Histoire_ comes earlier than usual in this division, and +is of unusual importance; for it deals with two persons of great +distinction, and already introduced in the story, Queen Panthea and her +husband Abradates. It is also one of the longer batch, running to some +four hundred pages; and a notable part in it and in the future main +story is played by one Doralise--a pretty name, which Dryden, making it +prettier still by substituting a _c_ for the _s_, borrowed for his most +original and (with that earlier Florimel of _The Maiden Queen_, who is +said to have been studied directly off Nell Gwyn) perhaps his most +attractive heroine, the Doralice of _Marriage a la Mode_. Another +important character, the villain of the sub-plot, is one Mexaris.[175] +At the end of the first instalment we leave Cyrus preparing elaborate +machines of war to crush the Lydians. + +Early in Book II. we hear of a mysterious warrior on the enemy side whom +nobody knows, who calls himself Telephanes, and whom Cyrus is very +anxious to meet in battle, but for the time cannot. He is also +frustrated in his challenge of the King of Pontus to fight for +Mandane--a challenge of which Croesus will not hear. At last Telephanes +turns out to be no less a person than Mazare, Prince of Sacia, whom we +know already as one of the ever-multiplying lovers and abductors of the +heroine; while, after a good deal of confused fighting, another inset +_Histoire_ of him closes the tenth volume (V. ii.). It is, however, only +two hundred pages long--a mere parenthesis compared to others, and it +leads up to his giving Cyrus a letter from Mandane--an act of generosity +which Philidaspes, otherwise King of Assyria, frankly confesses that he, +as another Rival, could never have done. After yet another _Histoire_ +(now a "four-some") of Belesis, Hermogenes, Cleodare, and Leonice, +Abradates changes sides, carrying us on to an "intricate impeach" of +old and new characters, especially Araminta and Spithridates, and to the +death in battle of the generous King of Susiana himself, and the grief +of Panthea. There is, at the close of this volume, a rather interesting +_Privilege du Roi_, signed by Conrart ("_le silencieux Conrart_"), +sealed with "the great seal of yellow wax in a simple tail" (one ribbon +or piece of ferret only?), and bestowing its rights "nonobstant Clameur +de Haro, Charte Normande, et autres lettres contraires." + +The first volume of the Sixth Part (the eleventh of the whole and the +first of what, as so many words of the kind are required, we may call +the Second Division) has plenty of business--showing that the author or +her adviser was also a business-like person--to commence the new +venture. Cyrus, after being victorious in the field and just about to +besiege Sardis in form, receives a "bolt from the blue" in the shape of +a letter "From the unhappy Mandane to the faithless"--himself! She has +learnt, she tells him, that his feelings towards her are changed, +requests that she may no longer serve as a pretext for his ambition, +and--rather straining the prerogatives assumed even by her nearest +ancestresses in literature, the Polisardas and Miraguardas of the +_Amadis_ group, but scarcely dreamt of by the heroines of ancient Greek +Romance--desires that he will send back to her father Cyaxares all the +troops that he is, as she implies, commanding on false pretences. + +Now one half expects that Cyrus, in a transport of +Amadisian-Euphuist-heroism, will comply with this very modest request. +In fact it is open to any one to contend that, according to the +strictest rules of the game, he ought to have done so and gone mad, or +at least marooned himself in some desert island, in consequence. The +sophistication, however, of the stage appears here. After a very natural +sort of "Well, I never!" translated into proper heroic language, he sets +to work to identify the person whom Mandane suspects to be her +rival--for she has carefully abstained from naming anybody. And he +asks--with an ingenious touch of self-confession which does the author +great credit, if it was consciously laid on--whether it can be Panthea +or Araminta, with both of whom he has, in fact, been, if not exactly +flirting, carrying on (as the time itself would have said) a "commerce +of respectful and obliging admiration." He has a long talk with his +confidant Feraulas (whose beloved and really lovable Martesie is, +unluckily, not at hand to illuminate the mystery), and then he writes as +"The Unfortunate Cyrus to the Unjust Mandane," tells her pretty roundly, +though, of course, still respectfully, that if she knew how things +really were "she would think herself the cruellest and most unjust +person in the world." [I should have added, "just as she is, in fact, +the most beautiful."] She is, he says, his first and last passion, and +he has never been more than polite to any one else. But she will kindly +excuse his not complying with her request to send back his army until he +has vanquished all his Rivals--where, no doubt, in the original, the +capital was bigger and more menacing than ever, and was written with an +appropriate gnashing of teeth. + +The traditional balance of luck and love, however, holds; and the armies +of Croesus and the King of Pontus begin to melt away; so that, after a +short but curious pastoral episode, they have to shut themselves up in +the capital. The dead body of Abradates is now found, and his widow +Panthea stabs herself upon it. This removes one of Mandane's possible +causes of jealousy, but Araminta remains; and, as a matter of fact, it +_is_ this Princess on whom her suspicion has been cast, arising partly, +though helped by makebates, from the often utilised personal resemblance +between her actual lover, Prince Spithridates, and Cyrus. The +treacherous King of Pontus has, in fact, shown her a letter from +Araminta (his sister, be it remembered) which seems to encourage the +idea. + +All this, however, and more fills but a hundred pages or so, and then we +are as usual whelmed in a _Histoire de Timarete et de Parthenie_, which +takes up four times the space, and finishes the First Book. The Second +opens smartly enough with the actual siege of Sardis; but we cannot get +rid of Araminta (it is sad to have to wish that she was not "our own +Araminta" quite so often) and Spithridates. Conversations between the +still prejudiced Mandane and the Lydian Princess Palmis--a sensible and +agreeable girl--are better; but from them we are hurled into a _Histoire +de Sesostre_ (the Egyptian prince, son of Amasis, who is now an ally of +Cyrus) _et de Timarete_, which not only fills the whole of the rest of +the volume, but swells over into the next, being much occupied with the +villainies of a certain Heracleon, who is at the time a wounded prisoner +in Cyrus's Camp. The siege is kept up briskly, but Cyrus's courteous +release of certain captives adds fuel to Mandane's wrath as having been +procured by Araminta. He will do anything for Araminta! The releases +themselves give rise to fresh "alarums and excursions," among which we +again meet a pretty name (Candiope), borrowed by Dryden. Doralise is +also much to the fore; and we have a regular _Histoire_, though a +shorter one than usual, of _Arpalice and Thrasimede_, which will, as +some say, "bulk largely" later. The length of this part is, indeed, +enormous, the double volume running to over fourteen hundred pages, +instead of the usual ten or twelve. But its close is spirited and +sufficiently interim-catastrophic. Cyrus discovers in the _enceinte_ of +Sardis the usual weak point--an apparently impregnable scarped rock, +which has been weakly fortified and garrisoned--takes it by escalade in +person with his best paladins, and after it the city. + +But of course he cannot expect to have it all his own way when not quite +twelve-twentieths of the book are gone, and he finds that Mandane is +gone likewise; the King of Pontus, who has practically usurped the +authority of Croesus, having once more carried her off--perhaps not so +entirely unwilling as before. Cyrus pursues, and while he is absent the +King of Assyria (Philidaspes) shows himself even more of a "Philip +Devil" than usual by putting the captive Lydian prince on a pyre, +threatening to burn him if he will not reveal the place of the +Princess's flight, and actually having the torch applied. Of course +Cyrus turns up at the nick of time, has the fire put out, rates the King +of Assyria soundly for his violence, and apologises handsomely to +Croesus. The notion of an apology for nearly roasting a man may appear +to have its ludicrous side, but the way in which the historic pyre and +the mention of Solon are brought in without discrediting the hero is +certainly ingenious. The Mandane-hunt is renewed, but fruitlessly. + +At the beginning of Part VII. there are--according to the habit noticed, +and in rather extra measure as regards "us" if not "them"--some +interesting things. The first is an example--perhaps the best in the +book--of the elaborate description (called in Greek rhetorical technique +_ecphrasis_) which is so common in the Greek Romances. The subject is an +extraordinarily beautiful statue of a woman which Cyrus sees in +Croesus's gallery, and which will have sequels later. It, or part of it, +may be given: + + [Sidenote: The statue in the gallery at Sardis.] + + But, among all these figures of gold, there was to be seen + one of marble, so wonderful, that it obliged Cyrus to stay + longer in admiring it than in contemplating any of the + others, though it was not of such precious material. It is + true that it was executed with such art, and represented + such a beautiful person, as to prevent any strangeness in + its charming a Prince whose eyes were so delicate and so + capable of judging all beautiful objects. This statue was of + life-size, placed upon a pedestal of gold, on the four sides + of which were bas-reliefs of an admirable beauty. On each + were seen captives, chained in all sorts of fashions, but + chained only by little Loves, unsurpassably executed. As for + the figure itself, it represented a girl about eighteen + years old, but one of surprising and perfect beauty. Every + feature of the face was marvellously fine;[176] her figure + was at once so noble and so graceful that nothing more + elegant[177] could be seen; and her dress was at once so + handsome and so unusual, that it had something of each of + the usual garbs of Tyrian ladies, of nymphs, and of + goddesses; but more particularly that of the Wingless + Victory, as represented by the Athenians, with a simple + laurel crown on her head. This statue was so well set on its + base, and had such lively action, that it seemed actually + animated; the face, the throat, the arms, and the hands were + of white marble, as were the legs and feet, which were + partly visible between the laces of the buskins she wore, + and which were to be seen because, with her left hand, she + lifted her gown a little, as if to walk more easily. With + her right she held back a veil, fastened behind her head + under the crown of laurel, as though to prevent its being + carried away by the breeze, which seemed to agitate it. The + whole of the drapery of the figure was made of + divers-coloured marbles and jaspers; and, in particular, the + gown of this fair Phoenician, falling in a thousand graceful + folds, which still did not hide the exact proportion of her + body, was of jasper, of a colour so deep that it almost + rivalled Tyrian purple itself. A scarf, which passed + negligently round her neck, and was fastened on the + shoulder, was of a kind of marble, streaked with blue and + white, which was very agreeable to the eye. The veil was of + the same substance; but sculptured so artfully that it + seemed as soft as mere gauze. The laurel crown was of green + jasper, and the buskins, as well as the sash she wore, were, + again of different hues. This sash brought together all the + folds of the gown over the hips; below, they fell again more + carelessly, and still showed the beauty of her figure. But + what was most worthy of admiration in the whole piece was + the spirit which animated it, and almost persuaded the + spectators that she was just about to walk and talk. There + was even a touch of art in her face, and a certain + haughtiness in her attitude which made her seem to scorn the + captives chained beneath her feet: while the sculptor had so + perfectly realised the indefinable freshness, tenderness, + and _embonpoint_ of beautiful girls, that one almost knew + her age. + +Then come two more startling events. A wicked Prince Phraortes bolts +with the unwilling Araminta, and the King of Assyria (_alias_ +Philidaspes) slips away in search of Mandane on his own account--two +things inconvenient to Cyrus in some ways, but balancing themselves in +others. For if it is unpleasant to have a very violent and rather +unscrupulous Rival hunting the beloved on the one hand, that beloved's +jealousy, if not cured, is at least not likely to be increased by the +disappearance of its object. This last, however, hits Spithridates, who +is, as it has been and will be seen, the _souffre-douleur_ of the book, +much harder. And the double situation illustrates once more the +extraordinary care taken in systematising--and as one might almost say +_syllabising_--the book. It is almost impossible that there should not +somewhere exist an actual syllabus of the whole, though, my habit being +rather to read books themselves than books about them, I am not aware of +one as a fact.[178] + +Another characteristic is also well illustrated in this context, and a +further translated extract will show the curious, if not very recondite, +love-casuistry which plays so large a part. But these French writers of +the seventeenth century[179] did not know one-tenth of the matter that +was known by their or others' mediaeval ancestors, by their English and +perhaps Spanish contemporaries, or by writers in the nineteenth century. +They were not "perfect in love-lore"; their _Liber Amoris_ was, after +all, little more than a fashion-book in divers senses of "fashion." But +let them speak for themselves: + + [Sidenote: The judgment of Cyrus in a court of love.] + + [_Menecrate and Thrasimede are going to fight, and have, + according to the unqualified legal theory[180] and very + occasional actual practice of seventeenth-century France, if + not of the Medes and Persians, been arrested, though in + honourable fashion. The "dependence" is a certain Arpalice, + who loves Thrasimede and is loved by him. But she is ordered + by her father's will to marry Menecrate, who is now quite + willing to marry her, though she hates him, and though he + has previously been in love with Androclee, to whom he has + promised that he will not marry the other. A sort of + informal_ Cour d'Amour _is held on the subject, the + President being Cyrus himself, and the judges Princesses + Timarete and Palmis, Princes Sesostris and Myrsilus, with + "Toute la compagnie" as assessors and assessoresses. After + much discussion, it is decided to disregard the dead + father's injunction and the living inconstant's wishes, and + to unite Thrasimede and Arpalice. But the chief points of + interest lie in the following remarks:_] + + "As it seems to me," said Cyrus, "what we ought most to + consider in this matter is the endeavour to make the fewest + possible persons unhappy, and to prevent a combat between + two gentlemen of such gallantry, that to whichever side + victory inclines, we should have cause to regret the + vanquished. For although Menecrate is inconstant and a + little capricious, he has, for all that, both wits and a + heart. We must, then, if you please," added he, turning to + the two princesses, "consider that if Arpalice were forced + to carry out her father's testament and marry Menecrate, + everybody would be unhappy, and he would have to fight two + duels,[181] one against Thrasimede and one against + Philistion (_Androclee's brother_), the one fighting for his + mistress, the other for his sister." "No doubt," said + Lycaste, "several people will be unhappy, but, methinks, not + all; for at any rate Menecrate will possess _his_ mistress." + "'Tis true," said Cyrus, "that he will possess Arpalice's + beauty; but I am sure that as he would not possess her + heart, he could not call himself satisfied; and his greatest + happiness in this situation would be having prevented the + happiness of his Rival. As for the rest of it, after the + first days of his marriage, he would be in despair at having + wedded a person who hated him, and whom he, perhaps, would + have ceased to love; for, considering Menecrate's humour, I + am the most deceived of all men if the possession of what he + loves is not the very thing to kill all love in his heart. + As for Arpalice, it is easy to see that, marrying Menecrate, + whom she hates, and _not_ marrying Thrasimede, whom she + loves, she would be very unhappy indeed; nor could + Androclee, on her side, be particularly satisfied to see a + man like Menecrate, whom she loves passionately, the husband + of another. Philistion could hardly be any more pleased to + see Menecrate, after promising to marry his sister, actually + marrying another. As for Thrasimede, it is again easy to + perceive that, being as much in love with Arpalice as he is, + and knowing that she loves him, he would have good reason + for thinking himself one of the unhappiest lovers in the + world if his Rival possessed his mistress. Therefore, from + what I have said, you will see that by giving Arpalice to + Menecrate, everybody concerned is made miserable; for even + Parmenides [_not the philosopher, but a friend of Menecrate, + whose sister, however, has rejected him_], though he may + make a show of being still attached to the interests of + Menecrate, will be, unless I mistake, well enough pleased + that his sister should not marry the brother of a person + whom he never wishes to see again, and by whom he has been + ill-treated. Then, if we look at the matter from the other + side and propose to give Arpalice to Thrasimede, it remains + an unalterable fact that these two people will be happy; + that Philistion will be satisfied; that justice will be done + to Androclee; that nothing disobliging will be done to + Parmenides, and that Menecrate will be made by force more + happy than he wishes to be; for we shall give him a wife by + whom he is loved, and take from him one by whom he is hated. + Moreover, things being so, even if he refuses to subject his + whim to his reason, he can wish to come to blows with + Thrasimede alone, and would have nothing to ask of + Philistion; besides which, his sentiments will change as + soon as Thrasimede is Arpalice's husband. One often fights + with a Rival, thinking to profit by his defeat, when he has + not married the beloved object; but one does not so readily + fight the husband of one's mistress, as being her + lover.[182]" + +Much about the "Good Rival" (as we may call him) Mazare follows, and +there is an illuminative sentence about our favourite Doralise's _humeur +enjouee et critique_, which, as the rest of her part does, gives us a +"light" as to the origin of those sadly vulgarised lively heroines of +Richardson's whom Lady Mary very justly wanted to "slipper." Doralise +and Martesie are ladies, which the others, unfortunately, are not. And +then we pay for our _ecphrasis_ by an immense _Histoire_ of the Tyrian +Elise, its original. + +At the beginning of VII. ii. Cyrus is in the doldrums. Many of his +heroes have got their heroines--the personages of bygone +_histoires_--and are honeymooning and (to borrow again from Mr. Kipling) +"dancing on the deck." He is not. Moreover, the army, like all +seventeenth-century armies after victory and in comfortable quarters, is +getting rather out of hand; and he learns that the King of Pontus has +carried Mandane off to Cumae--not the famous Italian Cumae, home of the +Sibyl whom Sir Edward Burne-Jones has fixed for us, and of many +classical memories, but a place somewhere near Miletus, defended by +unpleasant marshes on land, and open to the sea itself, the element on +which Cyrus is weakest, and by which the endlessly carried off Mandane +may readily be carried off again. He sends about for help to Phoenicia +and elsewhere; but when, after a smart action by land against the town, +a squadron does appear off the port, he is for a time quite uncertain +whether it is friend or foe. Fortunately Cleobuline, Queen of Corinth, a +young widow of surpassing beauty and the noblest sentiments, who has +sworn never to marry again, has conceived a Platonic-romantic admiration +for him, and has sent her fleet to his aid. She deserves, of course, and +still more of course has, a _Histoire de Cleobuline_. Also the +inestimable Martesie writes to say that Mandane has been dispossessed of +her suspicions, and that the King of Pontus is, in the race for her +favour, nowhere. The city falls, and the lovers meet. But if anybody +thinks for a moment that they are to be happy ever afterwards, +Arithmetic, Logic, and Literary History will combine to prove to him +that he is very much mistaken. In order to make these two lovers happy +at all, not only time and space, but six extremely solid volumes would +have to be annihilated. + +The close of VII. ii. and the whole of VIII. i. are occupied with +imbroglios of the most characteristic kind. There is a certain Anaxaris, +who has been instrumental in preventing Mandane from being, according to +her almost invariable custom, carried off from Cumae also. To whom, +though he is one of the numerous "unknowns" of the book, Cyrus rashly +confides not only the captainship of the Princess's guards, but various +and too many other things, especially when "Philip Devil" turns up once +more, and, seeing the lovers in apparent harmony, claims the fulfilment +of Cyrus's rash promise to fight him before marrying. This gets wind in +a way, and watch is kept on Cyrus by his friends; but he, thinking of +the parlous state of his mistress if both her principal lovers were +killed--for Prince Mazare is, so to speak, out of the running, while the +King of Pontus is still lying _perdu_ somewhere--entrusts the secret to +Anaxaris, and begs him to take care of her. Now Anaxaris--as is so +usual--is not Anaxaris at all, but Aryante, Prince of the Massagetae and +actually brother of the redoubtable Queen Thomyris; and he also has +fallen a victim to Mandane's fascinations, which appear to be +irresistible, though they are, mercifully perhaps, rather taken for +granted than made evident to the reader. One would certainly rather have +one Doralise or Martesie than twenty Mandanes. However, again in the now +expected manner, the fight does not immediately come off. For "Philip +Devil," in his usual headlong violence, has provoked another duel with +the Assyrian Prince Intaphernes,[183] and has been badly worsted and +wounded by his foe, who is unhurt. This puts everything off, and for a +long time the main story drops again (except as far as the struggles of +Anaxaris between honour and love are depicted), first to a great deal of +miscellaneous talk about the quarrel of King and Prince, and then to a +regular _Histoire_ of the King, Intaphernes, Atergatis, Princess +Istrine, and the Princess of Bithynia, Spithridates's sister and +daughter of a very robustious and rather usurping King Arsamones, who is +a deadly enemy of Cyrus. The dead Queen Nitocris, and the passion for +her of a certain Gadates, Intaphernes's father, and also sometimes, if +not always, called a "Prince," come in here. The story again introduces +the luckless Spithridates himself, who is first, owing to his likeness +to Cyrus, persecuted by Thomyris, and then imprisoned by his father +Arsamones because he will not give up Araminta and marry Istrine, whom +Nitocris had wanted to marry her own son Philidaspes--a good instance of +the extraordinary complications and contrarieties in which the book +indulges, and of which, if Dickens had been a more "literary" person, he +might have thought when he made the unfortunate Augustus Moddle observe +that "everybody appears to be somebody else's." Finally, the volume ends +with an account of the leisurely progress of Mandane and Cyrus to +Ecbatana and Cyaxares, while the King of Assyria recovers as best he +can. But at certain "tombs" on the route evidence is found that the King +of Pontus has been recently in the land of the living, and is by no +means disposed to give up Mandane. + +The second volume of this part is one of the most eventless of all, and +is mainly occupied by a huge _Histoire_ of Puranius, Prince of Phocaea, +his love Cleonisbe, and others, oddly topped by a passage of the main +story, describing Cyrus's emancipation of the captive Jews. He is for a +time separated from the Princess. + +The first pages of IX. i. are lively, though they are partly a _recit_. +Prince Intaphernes tells Cyrus all about Anaxaris (Aryante), and how by +representing Cyrus as dead and the King of Assyria in full pursuit of +her, he has succeeded in carrying off Mandane; how also he has had the +cunning, by availing himself of the passion of another high officer, +Andramite, for Doralise, to induce him to join, in order that the maid +of honour may accompany her mistress. Accordingly Cyrus, the King of +Assyria himself, and others start off in fresh pursuit; but the King has +at first the apparent luck. He overtakes the fugitives, and a sharp +fight follows. But the guards whom Cyrus has placed over the Princess, +and who, in the belief of his death, have followed the ravishers, are +too much for Philidaspes, and he is fatally wounded; fulfilling the +oracle, as we anticipated long ago, by dying in Mandane's arms, and +honoured with a sigh from her as for her intended rescuer. + +She herself, therefore, is in no better plight, for Aryante and +Andramite continue the flight, with her and her ladies, to a port on the +Euxine, destroying, that they may not be followed, all the shipping save +one craft they select, and making for the northern shore. Here after a +time Aryante surrenders Mandane to his sister Thomyris, as he cannot +well help doing, though he knows her violent temper and her tigress-like +passion for Cyrus, and though, also, he is on rather less than brotherly +terms with her, and has a party among the Massagetae who would gladly +see him king. Meanwhile the King of Pontus and Phraortes, Araminta's +carrier-off, fight and kill each other, and Araminta is given up--a loss +for Mandane, for they have been companions in quasi-captivity, and there +is no longer any subject of jealousy between them. + +Having thus created a sort of "deadlock" situation such as she loves, +and in the interval, while Cyrus is gathering forces to attack Thomyris, +the author, as is her fashion likewise, surrenders herself to the joys +of digression. We have a great deal of retrospective history of Aryante, +and at last the famous Scythian philosopher, Anacharsis, is introduced, +bringing with him the rest of the Seven Ancient Sages--with whom we +could dispense, but are not allowed to do so. There is a Banquet of them +all at the end of the first volume of the Part; and they overflow into +the second, telling stories about Pisistratus and others, and discussing +"love in the _aib_-stract," as frigidly as might be expected, on such +points as, "Can you love the same person _twice_?"[184] But the last +half of this IX. ii. is fortunately business again. There is much hard +fighting with Thomyris, who on one occasion wishes to come to actual +sword-play with Cyrus, and of whom we have the liveliest _ecphrasis_, or +set description, in the whole romance. + + [Sidenote: Thomyris on the warpath.] + + As for Thomyris, she was so beautiful that day that there + was no one in the world save Mandane, who could have + disputed a heart with her[185] without the risk of losing. + This Princess was mounted on a fine black horse, trapped + with gold; her dress was of cloth of gold, with green panels + shot with a little carnation, and was of the shape of that + of Pallas when she is represented as armed. The skirt was + caught up on the hip with diamond clasps, and showed buskins + of lions' muzzles made to correspond with the rest. Her + head-dress was adorned with jewels, and a great number of + feathers--carnation, white and green--hung over her + beautiful fair tresses, while these, fluttering at the + wind's will, mixed themselves with the plumes as she turned + her head, and with their careless curls gave a marvellous + lustre to her beauty. Besides, as her sleeves were turned + up, and caught on the shoulder, while she held the bridle of + her horse with one hand and her sword with the other, she + showed the loveliest arms in the world. Anger had flushed + her complexion, so that she was more beautiful than usual; + and the joy of once more seeing Cyrus, and seeing him also + in an action respectful towards her,[186] effaced the marks + of her immediately preceding fury so completely that he + could see nothing but what was amiable and charming. + +Thomyris, however, is as treacherous and cruel as she is beautiful; and +part of her reason for seeming milder is that more of her troops may +turn up and seize him. + +On another occasion, owing to false generalship and disorderly advance +on the part of the King of Hyrcania, Cyrus is in no small danger, but he +"makes good," though at a disastrous expense, and with still greater +dangers to meet. Thomyris's youthful son (for young and beautiful widow +as she is, she has been an early married wife and a mother), +Spargapises, just of military age, is captured in battle, suffers from +his captors' ignorance what has been called "the indelible insult of +bonds," and though almost instantly released as soon as he is known, +stabs himself as disgraced. His body is sent to his mother with all +sorts of honours, apologies, and regrets, but she, partly out of natural +feeling, partly from her excited state, and partly because her mind is +poisoned by false insinuations, sends, after transports of maternal and +other rage, a message to Cyrus to the effect that if he does not put +himself unreservedly in her hands, she will send him back Mandane dead, +in the coffin of Spargapises. And so the last double-volume but one ends +with a suitable "fourth act" curtain, as we may perhaps call it. + +The last of all, X. i. and ii., exhibits, in a remarkable degree, the +general defects and the particular merits and promise of this curious +and (it cannot be too often repeated) epoch-making book. In the latter +respect more especially it shows the "laborious orient ivory sphere in +sphere" fashion in which the endless and, it may sometimes seem, aimless +episodes, and digressions, and insets are worked into the general theme. +The defects will hardly startle, though they may still annoy, any one +who has worked through the whole. But if another wickedly contented +himself with a sketch of the story up to this point, and thought to make +up by reading this Part of two volumes carefully, he would probably feel +these defects very strongly indeed. We--we corrupt moderns--do expect a +quickening up for the run-in. The usual beginning may seem to the +non-experts to promise this, or at least to give hopes of it; for though +there is a vast deal of talking--with Anacharsis as a go-between and +Gelonide (a good confidante), endeavouring to soften Thomyris, one can +but expect it--the situation itself is at once difficult and exciting. +The position of Aryante in particular is really novel-dramatic. As he is +in love with Mandane, he of course does not want his sister to murder +her. But inasmuch as he fears Cyrus's rivalry, he does not want him to +be near Mandane for two obvious reasons: first, the actual proximity, +and, secondly, the danger of Thomyris's temper getting the better (or +worse) of her when both the lovers are in her power. So he sends private +messengers to the Persian Prince, begging him _not_ to surrender. Cyrus, +however, still thinks of exchanging himself for Mandane. At this point +the neophyte's rage may be excited by being asked to plunge into the +regular four-hundred page _Histoire_ of a certain Arpasie, who has two +lovers--a Persian nobleman Hidaspe, and a supposed Assyrian champion +Meliante, who has come with reinforcements for Thomyris. And no doubt +the proportion _is_ outrageous. But "wait and see," a phrase, it may be +observed, which was not, as some seem to think, invented by Mr. Asquith. + +At last the business does begin again, and a tremendous battle takes +place for the possession of certain forests which lie between the two +armies, and are at first held by the Scythians. Cyrus, however, avails +himself of the services of an engineer who has a secret of combustibles, +sets the forests ablaze, and forces his way through one or two open +defiles, with little loss to himself and very heavy loss to the enemy, +whose main body, however, is still unbroken. This affords a fine subject +for one of the curious frontispieces known to all readers of seventeenth +century books. A further wait for reinforcements takes place, and the +author basely avails herself of it for a no doubt to herself very +congenial (they actually called her in "precious" circles by the name of +the great poetess) and enormous _Histoire_ of no less a person than +Sappho, which fills the last 250 pages of the first (nineteenth) volume +and about as much of the second (twentieth) or last. It has very little +connection with the text, save that Sappho and Phaon (for the +self-precipitation at Leucas is treated as a fable) retire to the +country of the Sauromatae, to live there a happy, united, but unwed and +purely Platonic (in the silly sense) existence. The foolish side of the +_precieuse_ system comes out here, and the treatment confirms one's +suspicion that the author's classical knowledge was not very deep. + +It does come to an end at last, however, and at last also we do get our +"run-in," such as it is. The chief excuse for its existence is that it +brings in a certain Mereonte, who, like his quasi-assonant Meliante, is +to be useful later, and that the tame conclusion is excused by a Sapphic +theory--certainly not to be found in her too fragmentary works--that +"possession ruins love," a doctrine remembered and better put by Dryden +in a speech of that very agreeable Doralice, whose name, though not +originally connected with this part of it, he also, as has been noted, +borrowed from the _Grand Cyrus_. + +The actual finale begins (so to speak) antithetically with the last +misfortune of the unlucky Spithridates. His ill-starred likeness to +Cyrus, assisted by a suit of armour which Cyrus has given to him, make +the enemy certain that he is Cyrus himself, and he is furiously +assaulted in an off-action, surrounded, and killed. His head is taken +to Thomyris, who, herself deceived, executes upon it the famous +"blood-bath" of history or legend.[187] Unfortunately it is not only in +the Scythian army that the error spreads. Cyrus's troops are terrified +and give way, so that he is overpowered by numbers and captured. +Fortunately he falls into the hands, not of Thomyris's own people or of +her savage allies, the Geloni (it is a Gelonian captain who has acted as +executioner in Spithridates's case), but of the supposed Assyrian leader +Meliante, who is an independent person, admires Cyrus, and, further +persuaded by his friend Mereonte (_v. sup._), resolves to let him +escape. The difficulties, however, are great, and the really safest, +though apparently the most dangerous way, seems to lie through the +"Royal Tents" (the nomad capital of Thomyris) themselves. Meanwhile, +Aryante is making interest against his sister; some of Cyrus's special +friends, disguised as Massagetae, are trying to discover and rescue him, +and the Sauromatae are ready to desert the Scythian Queen. One of her +transports of rage brings on the catastrophe. She orders the Gelonian +bravo to poniard Mandane, and he actually stabs by mistake her +maid-of-honour Hesionide--the least interesting one, luckily. Cyrus +himself, after escaping notice for a time, is identified, attacked, and +nearly slain, when the whole finishes in a general chaos of rebellion, +arrival of friends, flight of Thomyris, and a hairbreadth escape of +Cyrus himself, which unluckily partakes more of the possible-improbable +than of the impossible-probable. The murders being done, the marriages +would appear to have nothing to delay them; but an evil habit, the +origin of which is hard to trace, and which is not quite extinct, still +puts them off. Meliante has got to be rewarded with the hand of Arpasie, +which is accomplished after he has been discovered, in a manner not +entirely romantic, to be the son of the King of Hyrcania, and both his +marriage and that of Cyrus are interfered with by a supposed Law of the +Medes and of certain minor Asiatic peoples, that a Prince or Princess +may not marry a foreigner. Fresh discoveries get rid of this in +Meliante's case, while in that of Cyrus a convenient Oracle declares +that he who has conquered every kingdom in Asia cannot be considered a +foreigner in any. So at last the long chart is finished, Doralise +retaining her character as lightener of this rather solid entertainment +by declaring that she cannot say she loves her suitor, Prince Myrsilus, +because every phrase that occurs to her is either too strong or too +weak. So we bless her, and stop the water channels--or, as the Limousin +student might have more excellently said, "claud the rives." + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: General remarks on the book and its class.] + +If the reader, having tolerated this long analysis (it is perhaps most +probable that he will _not_ have done so), asks what game one pretends +to have shown for so much expenditure or candle, it is, no doubt, not +easy to answer him without a fresh, though a lesser, trial of his +patience. You cannot "ticket" the _Grand Cyrus_, or any of its fellows, +or the whole class, with any complimentary short description, such as a +certain school of ancient criticism loved, and corresponding to our +modern advertisement labels--"grateful and comforting," "necessary in +every travelling bag," and the like. They are, indeed, as I have +endeavoured to indicate indirectly as well as directly, by no means so +destitute of interest of the ordinary kind as it has generally been the +fashion to think them. From the charge of inordinate length it is, of +course, impossible to clear the whole class, and _Artamene_ more +particularly.[188] Length "no more than reason" is in some judgments a +positive advantage in a novel; but this _is_ more than reason. I believe +(the _moi_, I trust, is not utterly _haissable_ when it is necessary) +that I myself am a rather unusually rapid, without being a careless or +unfaithful, reader; and that I have by nature a very little of that +faculty with which some much greater persons have been credited, of +being able to see at a glance whether anything on a page needs more +than that glance or not, a faculty not likely to have been rendered +abortive (though also not, I hope, rendered morbid) by infinite practice +in reviewing. I do not say that, even now, I have read every word of +this _Artamene_ as I should read every word of a sonnet of Shakespeare +or a lyric of Shelley, even as I should read every word of a page of +Thackeray. I have even skimmed many pages. But I have never found, even +in a time of "retired leisure," that I could get through more than +three, or at the very utmost four, of the twenty volumes or half-volumes +without a day or two of rest or other work between. On the other hand, +the book is not significantly piquant in detail to enable me to read +attentively fifty or a hundred pages and then lay it down.[189] You do, +in a lazy sort of way, want to know what happened--a tribute, no doubt, +to Mlle. Madeleine--and so you have to go on ploughing the furrow. But +several weeks' collar-work[190] is a great deal to spend on a single +book of what is supposed to be pastime; and the pastime becomes +occasionally one of doubtful pleasure now and then. In fact, it is, as +has been said, best to read in shifts. Secondly, there may, no doubt, be +charged a certain unreality about the whole: and a good many other +criticisms may be, as some indeed have been already, made without +injustice. + +The fact is that not only was the time not yet, but something which was +very specially of the time stood in the way of the other thing coming, +despite the strong _nisus_ in its favour excited by various influences +spoken of at the beginning of this chapter. This was the +devotion--French at almost all times, and specially French at this--to +the type. There are some "desperate willins" (as Sam Weller called the +greengrocer at the swarry) who fail to see much more than types in +Racine, though there is something more in Corneille, and a very great +deal more in Moliere. In the romances which charmed at home the +audiences and spectators of these three great men's work abroad, there +is nothing, or next to nothing, else at all. The spirit of the _Epistle +to the Pisos_, which acted on the Tragedians in verse, which acted on +Boileau in criticism and poetry, was heavier on the novelist than on any +of them. Take sufficient generosity, magnanimity, adoration, bravery, +courtesy, and so forth, associate the mixture with handsome flesh and +royal blood, clothe the body thus formed with brilliant scarfs and +shining armour, put it on the best horse that was ever foaled, or kneel +it at the feet of the most beautiful princess that ever existed, and you +have Cyrus. For the princess herself take beauty, dignity, modesty, +graciousness, etc., _quant. suff._, clothe _them_ in garments again +magnificent, and submit the total to extreme inconveniences, some +dangers, and an immense amount of involuntary travelling, but nothing +"irreparable," and you have Mandane. For the rest, with the rare and +slight exceptions mentioned, they flit like shadows ticketed with more +or less beautiful names. Even Philidaspes, the most prominent male +character after the hero by far, is, whether he be "in cog" as that +personage or "out of cog" as Prince and King of Assyria, merely a +petulant hero--a sort of cheap Achilles, with no idiosyncrasy at all. It +is the fault, and in a way the very great fault, of all the kind: and +there is nothing more to do with it but to admit it and look for +something to set against it. + +How great a thing the inception (to use a favourite word of the present +day, though it be no favourite of the writer's) of the "psychological" +treatment of Love[191] was may, of course, be variously estimated. The +good conceit of itself in which that day so innocently and amusingly +indulges will have it, indeed, that the twentieth century has invented +this among other varieties of the great and venerable art of extracting +nourishment from eggs. "We have," somebody wrote not long ago--the exact +words may not be given, but the sense is guaranteed--"perceived that +Love is not merely a sentiment, an appetite, or a passion, but a great +means of intellectual development." Of course Solomon did not know this, +nor Sappho, nor Catullus, nor the fashioners of those "sentiments" of +the Middle Ages which brought about the half-fabulous Courts of Love +itself, nor Chaucer, nor Spenser, nor Shakespeare, nor Donne. It was +reserved for--but one never names contemporaries except _honoris causa_. + +It is--an "of course" of another kind--undeniable that the fashion of +love-philosophy which supplies so large a part of the "yarn" of +Madeleine de Scudery's endless rope or web is not _our_ fashion. But it +is, in a way, a new variety of yarn as compared with anything used +before in prose, even in the Greek romances[192] and the _Amadis_ group +(nay, even in the _Astree_ itself). Among other things, it connects +itself more with the actual society, manners, fashions of its day than +had ever been the case before, and this is the only interesting side of +the "key" part of it. This was the way that they did to some extent talk +and act then, though, to be sure, they also talked and acted very +differently. It is all very well to say that the Hotel de Rambouillet is +a sort of literary-historical fiction, and the _Precieuses Ridicules_ a +delightful farce. The fiction was not wholly a fiction, and the farce +was very much more than a farce--would have been, indeed, not a farce at +all if it had not satirised a fact. + +It is, however, in relation to the general history and development of +the novel, and therefore in equally important relation to the present +_History_, that the importance of the _Grand Cyrus_, or rather of the +class of which it was by far the most popular and noteworthy member, is +most remarkable. Indeed this importance can hardly be exaggerated, and +is much more likely to be--indeed has nearly always been--undervalued. +Even the jejune and partial analysis which has been given must have +shown how many of the elements of the modern novel are here--sometimes, +as it were, "in solution," sometimes actually crystallised. For any one +who demands plot there is one--of such gigantic dimensions, indeed, that +it is not easy to grasp it, but seen to be singularly well articulated +and put together when it is once grasped. Huge as it is, it is not in +the least formless, and, as has been several times pointed out, hardly +the most (as it may at first appear) wanton and unpardonable episode, +digression, or inset lacks its due connection with and "orientation" +towards the end. The contrast of this with the more or less formless +chronicle-fashion, the "overthwart and endlong" conduct, of almost all +the romances from the Carlovingian and Arthurian[193] to the _Amadis_ +type, is of the most unmistakable kind. + +Again, though character, as has been admitted, in any real live sense, +is terribly wanting still; though description is a little general and +wants more "streaks in the tulip"; and though conversation is formal and +stilted, there is evident, perhaps even in the first, certainly in the +second and third cases, an effort to treat them at any rate +systematically, in accordance with some principles of art, and perhaps +even not without some eye to the actual habits, manners, demands of the +time--things which again were quite new in prose fiction, and, in fact, +could hardly be said to be anywhere present in literature outside of +drama. + +To set against these not so very small merits in the present, and very +considerable seeds of promise for the future, there are, of course, +serious faults or defects--defaults which need, however, less +insistence, because they are much more generally known, much more +obvious, and have been already admitted. The charge of excessive length +need hardly be dealt with at all. It has already been said that the most +interesting point about it is the opportunity of discovering how it was, +in part, a regular, and, in fact, almost the furthest possible, +development of a characteristic which had been more or less observable +throughout the progress of romance. But it may be added that the law of +supply and demand helped; for people evidently were not in the least +bored by bulk, and that the fancy for having a book "on hand" has only +lately, if it has actually, died out.[194] Now such a "book on hand" as +the _Grand Cyrus_ exists, as far as my knowledge goes, in no Western +literature, unless you count collections of letters, which is not fair, +or such memoirs as Saint-Simon's, which do not appeal to quite the same +class of readers. + +A far more serious default or defect--not exactly blameworthy, _because_ +the time was not yet, but certainly to be taken account of--is the +almost utter want of character just referred to. From Cyrus and Mandane +downwards the people have qualities; but qualities, though they are +necessary to character, do not constitute it. Very faint approaches may +be discerned, by very benevolent criticism, in such a personage as +Martesie with her shrewdness, her maid-of-honour familiarity with the +ways and manners of courtly human beings, and that very pardonable, +indeed agreeable, tendency, which has been noticed or imagined, to flirt +in respectful fashion with Cyrus, while carrying on more regular +business with Feraulas. But it is little more than a suggestion, and it +has been frankly admitted that it is perhaps not even that, but an +imagination merely. And the same observation may apply to her "second +string," Doralise. No others of the women have any character at all, and +we have already spoken of the men. + +Now these things, in a book very widely read and immensely admired, +could not, and did not, fail to have their effect. Nobody--we shall see +this more in detail in the next chapter--can fail to perceive that the +_Princesse de Cleves_ itself is, from one point of view, only a +_histoire_ of the _Grand Cyrus_, taken out of its preposterous _matrix_ +of other matter, polished, charged with a great addition of internal +fire of character and passion, and left to take its chance alone and +unencumbered. Nobody, on the other hand, who knows Richardson and +Mademoiselle de Scudery can doubt the influence of the French book--a +century old as it was--on the "father of the English novel." Now any +influence exerted on these two was, beyond controversy, an influence +exerted on the whole future course of the kind, and it is as exercising +such an influence that we have given to the _Great Cyrus_ so great a +space. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The other Scudery romances--_Ibrahim_.] + +After the exhaustive account given of _Artamene_, it is probably not +necessary to apologise for dealing with the rest of Mlle. de Scudery's +novel work, and with that of her comrades in the Heroic romance, at no +very great length. _Ibrahim ou L'Illustre Bassa_ has sometimes been +complimented as showing more endeavour, if not exactly at "local +colour," at technical accuracy, than the rest. It is true that the +French were, at this time, rather amusingly proud of being the only +Western nation treated on something like equal terms by the Sublime +Porte, and that the Scuderys (possibly Georges, whose work the +Dedication to Mlle. de Rohan, daughter of the famous soldier, pretty +certainly is) may have taken some pains to acquire knowledge. "Sandjak" +(or "Sanjiac"), not for a district but for its governor, is a little +unlucky perhaps; but "Aderbion" is much nearer "Azerbaijan" than one +generally expects in such cases from French writers of the seventeenth +or even of other centuries. The Oriental character of the story, +however, is but partial. The Illustrious Pasha himself, though First +Vizir and "victorious" general of Soliman the Second, is not a Turk at +all, but a "Justinian" or Giustiniani of Genoa, whose beloved Isabelle +is a Princess of Monaco, and who at the end, after necessary +dangers,[195] retires with her to that Principality, with a punctilious +explanation from the author about the Grimaldis. The scene is partly +there and at Genoa--the best Genoese families, including the Dorias, +appearing--partly at Constantinople: and the business at the latter +place is largely concerned with the intrigues, jealousies, and cruelties +of Roxelane, who is drawn much more (one regrets to say) as history +paints her than as the agreeable creature of Marmontel's subsequent +fancy. The book is a mere cockboat beside the mighty argosy of the +_Cyrus_, running only to four volumes and some two thousand pages. But +though smaller, it is much "stodgier." The _Histoires_ break out at once +with the story of a certain Alibech--much more proper for the young +person than that connected with the same name by Boccaccio,--and those +who have acquired some knowledge of Mlle. Madeleine's ways will know +what it means when, adopting the improper but defensible practice of +"looking at the end," they find that not merely "Justinian" and +Isabelle, but a Horace and a Hypolite, a Doria and a Sophronie, an +Alphonse and a Leonide are all married on the same day, while a "French +Marquis" and an Emilie vow inviolable but celibate constancy to each +other; they will know, that is to say, that in the course of the book +all these will have been duly "historiated." To encourage them, a single +hint that Leonide sometimes plays a little of the parts of Martesie and +Doralise in the _Cyrus_ may be thrown in. + +There is, however, one sentence in the second volume of _Ibrahim_ which +is worth quotation and brief comment, because it is a text for the whole +management and system of these novels, and accounts for much in their +successors almost to the present day. Emilie is telling the _Histoire_ +of Isabelle, and excuses herself for not beginning at the beginning: +"Puisque je sais que vous n'ignorez pas l'amour du Prince de Masseran, +les violences et les artifices de Julie, la trahison de Feliciane, le +genereux ressentiment de Doria [this is another Doria], la mort de cet +amant infortune, et ensuite celle de Julie." In other words, all these +things have been the subject of previous histories or of the main text. +And so it is always. Diderot admired, or at least excused, that +procedure of Richardson's which involved the telling of the conversation +of an average dinner-party in something like a small volume. But the +"Heroic" method would have made it necessary to tell the previous +experiences of the lady you took down to dinner, and the man that you +talked to afterwards, while, if extended from aristocratic to democratic +ideas, it would have justified a few remarks on the cabmen who brought +both, and the butcher and fishmonger who supplied the feast. The +inconvenience of this earlier practice made itself felt, and by degrees +it dropped off; but it was succeeded by a somewhat similar habit of +giving the subsequent history of personages introduced--a thing which, +though Scott satirised it in Mrs. Martha Buskbody's insistence on +information about the later history of Guse Gibbie,[196] by no means +ceased with his time. Both were, in fact, part of the general refusal to +accept the conditions of ordinary life. If "tout _passe_" is an +exaggeration, it is an exaggeration of the truth: and in fiction, as in +fact, the minor shapes must dissolve as well as arise without too much +fuss being made about them.[197] + +[Sidenote: _Almahide._] + +_Almahide_ is, I think, more readable than _Ibrahim_; but the _English_ +reader must disabuse himself of the idea (if he entertains it) that he +will find much of the original of _The Conquest of Granada_. The book +does, indeed, open like the play, with the faction-fights of +Abencerrages and Zegrys, and it ends with Boabdelin's jealousy of his +wife Almahide, while a few of the other names in both are identical. But +_Almahide_ contains nothing, or hardly anything, of the character of +Almanzor, and Dryden has not attempted to touch a hundredth part of the +copious matter of the French novel, the early history of Almahide, the +usual immense digressions and side-_histoires_, the descriptions (which, +as in _Ibrahim_, play, I think, a larger relative part than in the +_Cyrus_), and what not. + +[Sidenote: _Clelie._] + +[Sidenote: Perhaps the liveliest of the set.] + +Copious as these are, however, in both books, they do not fill them out +to anything like the length of the _Cyrus_ itself, or of its rival in +size, and perhaps superior in attraction, the _Clelie_. I do not plead +guilty to inconsistency or change of opinion in this "perhaps" when it +is compared with the very much larger space given to the earlier novel. +_Le Grand Cyrus_ has been estated too firmly, as the type and +representative of the whole class, to be dislodged, and there is, as we +shall see presently, a good deal of repetition from it in _Clelie_ +itself. But this latter is the more amusing book of the two; it is, +though equally or nearly as big, less labyrinthine; there is somewhat +livelier movement in it, and at the same time this is contrasted with a +set or series of interludes of love-casuistry, which are better, I +think, than anything of the kind in the _Cyrus_.[198] The most famous +feature of these is, of course, the well-known but constantly misnamed +"Carte de Tendre" ("Map of the Country of Tenderness"--not of +"Tenderness in the _aib_stract," as _du_ Tendre would be). The +discussion of what constitutes Tenderness comes quite early; there is +later a notable discourse on the respective attractions of Love and of +Glory or Ambition; a sort of Code and Anti-code of lovers[199] occurs as +"The Love-Morality of Tiramus," with a set of (not always) contrary +criticism thereof; and a debate of an almost mediaeval kind as to the +respective merits of merry and melancholy mistresses. Moreover, there is +a rather remarkable "Vision of Poets"--past, present, and to come--which +should be taken in connection with the appearance, as an actual +personage, of Anacreon. All this, taken in conjunction with the +"business" of the story, helps to give it the superior liveliness with +which it has, rightly or wrongly, been credited here. + +[Sidenote: Rough outline of it.] + +Of that business itself a complete account cannot, for reasons given +more than once, be attempted; though anybody who wants such a thing, +without going to the book itself, may find it in the places also above +mentioned. There is no such trick played upon the educated but not +wideawake person as (_v. inf._) in La Calprenede's chief books. Clelie +is the real Clelia, if the modern historical student will pass "real" +without sniffing, or even if he will not. Her lover, "Aronce," although +he probably may be a little disguised from the English reader by his +spelling, is so palpably the again real "Aruns," son of Porsena, that +one rather wonders how his identity can have been so long concealed in +French (where the pronunciations would be practically the same) from the +readers of the story. The book begins with a proceeding not quite so +like that of the _Cyrus_ as some to be mentioned later, but still pretty +close to the elder overture. "The illustrious Aronce and the adorable +Clelia" are actually going to be married, when there is a fearful storm, +an earthquake, and a disappearance of the heroine. She has, of course, +been carried off; one might say, without flippancy, of any heroine of +Madeleine de Scudery's not only that she was, as in a famous and already +quoted saying, "very liable to be carried off," but that it was not in +nature that she should not be carried off as early and as often as +possible. And her abductor is no less a person than Horatius--our own +Horatius Cocles--the one who kept the bridge in some of the best known +of English verses, not he who provoked, from the sister whom he +murdered, the greatest speech in all French tragedy before, and perhaps +not merely before, Victor Hugo. Horatius is the Philidaspes of _Clelie_, +but, as he was bound to be, an infinitely better fellow and of a better +fate. Of course the end knits straight on to the beginning. Clelie and +Aronce are united without an earthquake, and Porsena, with obliging +gallantry, resigns the crown of Clusium (from which he has himself long +been kept out by a "Mezentius," who will hardly work in with Virgil's), +not to Aronce, but to Clelie herself. The enormous interval between (the +book is practically as long as the _Cyrus_) is occupied by the same, or +(_v. sup._) nearly the same tissue of delays, digressions, and other +maze-like devices for setting you off on a new quest when you seem to be +quite close to the goal. A large part of the scene is in Carthage, +where, reversing the process in regard to Mezentius, Asdrubals and +Amilcars make their appearance in a very "mixedly" historical fashion. A +Prince of Numidia (who had heard of Numidia in Tarquin's days?) fights a +lively water-combat with Horatius actually as he is carrying Clelie off, +over the Lake of Thrasymene. All the stock legends of the Porsena siege +and others are duly brought in: and the atrocious Sextus, not contented +with his sin against Lucrece, tries to carry off Clelie likewise, but is +fortunately or wisely prevented. Otherwise the invariable propriety +which from the time of the small love-novels (_v. sup._ pp. 157-162) had +distinguished these abductions might possibly have been broken through. +These outlines might be expanded (and the process would not be very +painful to me) into an abstract quite as long as that of Cyrus; but "It +Cannot Be." + +One objection, foreshadowed, and perhaps a little more, already, must be +allowed against _Clelie_. That tendency to resort to repetition of +situations and movements--which has shown itself so often, and which +practically distinguishes the very great novelists from those not so +great by its absence or presence--is obvious here, though the huge size +of the book may conceal it from mere dippers, unless they be experts. +The similarity of the openings is, comparatively speaking, a usual +thing. It should not happen, and does not in really great writers; but +it is tempting, and is to some extent excused by the brocard about _le +premier pas_. It is so nice to put yourself in front of your +beginning--to have made sure of it! But this charity will hardly extend +to such a thing as the repetition of Cyrus's foolish promise to fight +Philidaspes before he marries Mandane in the case of Aronce, Horatius, +and Clelie. The way in which Aronce is kept an "unknown" for some time, +and that in which his actual relationship to Porsena is treated, have +also too much of the _replica_; and though a lively skirmish with a +pirate which occurs is not quite so absurd as that ready-made series of +encores which was described above (pp. 181-2), there is something a +little like it in the way in which the hero and his men alternately +reduce the enemy to extremity, and run over the deck to rescue friends +who are in the pirates' power from being butchered or flung overboard. +"Sapho's" invention, though by no means sterile, was evidently somewhat +indiscriminate, and she would seem to have thought it rather a pity that +a good thing should be used only once. + +Nevertheless the compliment given above may be repeated. If I were sent +to twelve months' imprisonment of a mild description, and allowed to +choose a library, I should include in it, from the heroic or semi-heroic +division, _Clelie_, La Calprenede's two chief books, Gomberville's +_Polexandre_, and Gombauld's _Endimion_ (this partly for the pictures), +with, as a matter of course, the _Astree_, and a choice of one other. By +reading slowly and "savouring" the process, I should imagine that, with +one's memories of other things, they might be able to last for a year. +And it would be one of the best kind of fallows for the brain. In +anticipation, let us see something of these others now. + +[Sidenote: La Calprenede: his comparative cheerfulness.] + +It has seemed, as was said, desirable to follow the common opinion of +literary history in giving Madeleine de Scudery the place of honour, and +the largest as well as the foremost share in our account of this +curious stage in the history of the novel. But if, to alter slightly a +famous quotation, I might "give a short hint to an impartial _reader_," +I should very strongly advise him to begin his studies (or at least his +enjoyment) thereof, not with "Sapho," but with Gauthier de Costes, +Seigneur de la Calprenede, himself according to Tallemant almost the +proverbial "Gascon _et demi_"; a tragic dramatist, as well as a romantic +writer; a favourite of Mme. de Sevigne, who seldom went wrong in her +preferences, except when she preferred her very disagreeable daughter to +her very agreeable son; and more than any one else the inventor, or at +least perfecter, of the hectoring heroic style which we associate with +Dryden's plays. Indeed the Artaban of _Cleopatre_ is much more the +original of Almanzor and Drawcansir than anything in Madeleine, though +_Almahide_ was actually the source of Dryden's story, or heroine. +Besides this, though La Calprenede has rather less of the +intricate-impeach character than his she-rival, there is much more +bustle and "go" in him; he has, though his books are proper enough, much +less fear of dealing with "the kissing and that sort of thing," as it +was once discreetly put; and he is sometimes positively exciting in his +imbroglios, as when the beautiful Amazon princess Menalippe fights a +real duel on horseback with Prince, afterwards King, Alcamenes of +Scythia, under the impression that he has killed a certain Alcimedon, +who was her lover; discovers, after no small time and considerable +damage, that he is Alcimedon himself; and, like a sensible and agreeable +girl, embraces him heartily in the sight of men and angels. + +[Sidenote: _Cleopatre_--the Cypassis and Arminius episode.] + +This is among the numerous _divertissements_ of _Cleopatre_ (not the +earliest, but perhaps the chief of its author's novels[200]), the +heroine of which is not + + The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands + +herself, but her daughter by Antony, who historically married Juba of +Mauretania, and is here courted by him under the name of Coriolanus, +while he is in disgrace with Augustus. La Calprenede (all these +romancers are merciful men and women to the historically unlucky, and +cruel only, or for the most part, to fictitious characters) saves her +half-brother Caesarion from his actual death, and, after the due +thousands of pages, unites him happily to Queen Candace of AEthiopia. +There is the same odd muddle (which made a not unintelligent Jesuit +label this class of books "historia _mixta_") with many other persons. +Perhaps the most curious of all episodes of this kind is the use made of +Ovid's "fusca Cypassis." If Mrs. Grundy could be supposed ever to have +read the _Amores_, the mere sight of the name of that dusky handmaid--to +whom Ovid behaved, by his own confession, in such an exceedingly shabby +as well as improper fashion--would make her shudder, if not shriek. But +La Calprenede's Cypassis, though actually a maid of honour to Julia, as +her original was a handmaid to Corinna, is of unblemished morality, +flirted with certainly by Ovid, but really a German princess, Ismenia, +in disguise, and beloved by, betrothed to, and in the end united with no +less a compatriot than Arminius. This union gives also an illustration +of the ingenious fashion in which these writers reconcile and yet omit. +La Calprenede, as we have seen, does not give Arminius's wife her usual +name of Thusnelda, but, to obviate a complaint from readers who have +heard of Varus, he invents a protest on "Herman sla lerman" part against +that general, who has trepanned him into captivity and gladiatorship, +and makes him warn Augustus that he will be true to the Romans _unless_ +Varus is sent into his country.[201] + +[Sidenote: The book generally.] + +This episode is, in many ways, so curious and characteristic, that it +seemed worth while to dwell on it for a little; but the account itself +must have shown how impossible it is to repeat the process of general +abstract. There are, I think, in the book (which took twelve years to +publish and fills as many volumes in French, while the English +translation is an immense folio of nearly a thousand pages in double +column, also entitled _Hymen's Praeludia_[202]) fewer separate +_Histoires_, though there are a good many, than in the _Cyrus_, but the +intertwined love-plots are almost more complicated. For instance, the +Herod-and-Mariamne tragedy is brought in with a strictly "proper" lover, +Tiridates, whom Salome uses to provoke Herod's patience, and who has, at +the very opening of the book, proved himself both a natural philosopher +of no mean order by seeing a fire at sea, and "judging with much +likelihood that it comes from a ship," and a brave fellow by rescuing +from the billows no less a person than the above-mentioned Queen +Candace. From her, however, he exacts immediate, and, as some moderns +might think, excessive, payment by making her listen to his own +_Histoire_. + +Not the least attractive part of _Cleopatre_ to some people will be that +very "Phebus," or amatory conceit, which made the next ages scorn it. +When one of the numerous "unknowns" of both sexes (in this case a girl) +is discovered (rather prettily) lying on a river bank and playing with +the surface of the water, "the earth which sustained this fair body +seemed to produce new grass to receive her more agreeably"--a phrase +which would have shocked good Bishop Vida many years before, as much as +it would have provoked the greater scorn of Mr. Addison about as many +after. There are many "ecphrases" or set descriptions of this kind, and +they show a good deal of stock convention. For instance, the wind is +always "most discreetly, most discreetly" ready, as indeed it was in +Mlle. de Scudery's own chaste stories, to blow up sleeves or skirts a +little, and achieve the distraction of the beholders by what it reveals. +But on the whole, as was hinted above, Gauthier de Costes de La +Calprenede is the most natural creature of the heroic band. + +[Sidenote: _Cassandre._] + +His earlier _Cassandre_ is not much inferior to _Cleopatre_, and has a +little more eccentricity about it. The author begins his Second Part by +making the ghost of Cassandra herself (who is not the Trojan Cassandra +at all) address a certain Calista, whom she mildly accuses of "dragging +her from her grave two thousand years after date," adding, as a boast of +his own in a Preface, that the very name "Cassandre" has never occurred +in the _First_ Part--a huge cantle of the work. The fact is that it is +an _alias_ for Statira, the daughter of Darius and wife of Alexander, +and is kept by her during the whole of her later married life with her +lover Oroondates, King of Scythia, who has vainly wooed her in early +days before her union with the great Emathian conqueror. Here, again, +the mere student of "unmixed" history may start up and say, "Why! this +Statira, who was also called Barsine [an independent personage here] was +murdered by Roxana after Alexander's death!" But, as was also said, +these romancers exercise the privilege of mercy freely; and though La +Calprenede's Roxana is naughty enough for anything (she makes, of +course, the most shameless love to Oroondates), she is not allowed to +kill her rival, who is made happy, after another series of endless +adventures of her own, her lover's, and other people's. The book opens +with a lively interest to students of the English novel; for the famous +two cavaliers of G. P. R. James appear, though they are not actually +riding at the moment, but have been, and, after resting, see two others +in mortal combat. Throughout there is any amount of good fighting, as, +for the matter of that, there is in _Cleopatre_ also; and there is less +duplication of detail here than in some other respects, for La +Calprenede is rather apt to repeat his characters and situations. For +instance, the fight between Lysimachus and Thalestris (La Calprenede is +fond of Amazons), though _not_ in the details, is of course in the idea +a replica of that between Alcamenes and Menalippe in _Cleopatre_; and +names recur freely. Moreover, in the less famous story, the whole +situation of hero and heroine is exactly duplicated in respect of the +above-mentioned Lysimachus and Parisatis, Cassandra's younger sister, +who is made to marry Hephaestion at first, and only awarded, in the same +fashion as her elder sister, at last to her true lover. + +By the way, the already-mentioned "harmonising" is in few places more +oddly shown than by the remark that Plutarch's error in representing +Statira as killed was due to the fact that he did not recognise her +under her later name of Cassandra--a piece of Gascon half-naivete, +half-jest which Mlle. de Scudery's Norman shrewdness[203] would hardly +have allowed. There is also much more of the supernatural in these books +than in hers, and the characters are much less prim. Roxana, who, of +course, is meant to be naughty, actually sends a bracelet of her hair to +Oroondates! which, however, that faithful lover of another instantly +returns. + +[Sidenote: _Faramond._] + +La Calprenede's third novel, _Faramond_, is unfinished as his work, and +the continuation seems to have more than one claimant to its authorship. +If the "eminent hand" was one Vaumoriere, who independently accomplished +a minor "heroic" in _Le Grand Scipion_, he was not likely to infuse much +fire into the ashes of his predecessor. As it stands in La Calprenede's +own part, _Faramond_ is a much duller book than _Cassandre_ or +_Cleopatre_. It must, of course, be remembered that, though patriotism +has again and again prompted the French to attack these misty +Merovingian times (the _Astree_ itself deals with them in the liberal +fashion in which it deals with everything), the result has rarely, if +ever, been a success. Indeed I can hardly think of any one--except our +own "Twin Brethren" in _Thierry and Theodoret_--who has made anything +good out of French history before Charlemagne.[204] The reader, +therefore, unless he be a very thorough and conscientious student, had +better let _Faramond_ alone; but its elder sisters are much pleasanter +company. Indeed the impolite thought will occur that it is much more +like the Scudery novels, part of which it succeeded, and may possibly +have been the result--not by any means the only one in literature--of an +unlucky attempt to beat a rival by copying him or her. + +[Sidenote: Gomberville--_La Caritee_.] + +If any one, seeking acquaintance with the works of Marin le Roy, +Seigneur de Gomberville, begins at the beginning with his earliest work, +and one of the earliest of the whole class, _La Caritee_ (not +"Carit_ie_," as in some reference books), he may not be greatly +appetised by the addition to the title, "contenant, sous des temps, des +personnes, et des noms supposes, plusieurs rares et veritables histoires +de notre temps." For this is a proclamation, as Urfe had _not_ +proclaimed it,[205] of the wearisome "key" system, which, though +undoubtedly it has had its partisans at all times, is loathsome as well +as wearisome to true lovers of true literature. To such persons every +lovable heroine of romance is, more or less, suggestive of more or fewer +women of history, other romance, or experience; every hero, more or +less, though to a smaller extent, recognisable or realisable in the same +way; and every event, one in which such readers have been, might have +been, or would have liked to be engaged themselves; but they do not care +the scrape of a match whether the author originally intended her for the +Princess of Kennaquhair or for Polly Jones, him and it for corresponding +realities. Nor is the sequel particularly ravishing, though it is +dedicated to "all fair and virtuous shepherdesses, all generous and +perfect shepherds." Perhaps it is because one is not a generous and +perfect shepherd that one finds the "Great Pan is Dead" story less +impressive in Gomberville's prose than in Milton's verse at no distant +period; is not much refreshed by getting to Rome about the death of +Germanicus, and hearing a great deal about his life; or later still by +Egyptian _bergeries_--things in which somehow one does not see a +concatenation accordingly; and is not consoled by having the Phoenix +business done--oh! so differently from the fashion of Shakespeare or +even of Darley. And when it finishes with a solemn function for the rise +of the Nile, the least exclusively modern of readers may prefer Moore or +Gautier. + +[Sidenote: _Polexandre._] + +But if any one, deeming not unjustly that he had drunk enough of +_Caritee_, were to conclude that he would drink no more of any of the +waters of Gomberville, he would make a mistake. _Cytheree_[1] I cannot +yet myself judge of, except at second-hand; but the first part of +_Polexandre_, if not also the continuation, _Le Jeune Alcidiane_,[206] +may be very well spoken of. It, that is to say the first part of it, was +translated into English by no less a person than William Browne, just at +the close of his life; and, perhaps for this reason, the British Museum +does not contain the French original; but those who cannot attain to +this lose the less, because the substance of the book is the principal +thing. This makes it one of the liveliest of the whole group, and one +does not feel it an idle vaunt when at the end the author observes +cheerfully of his at last united hero and heroine, "Since we have so +long enjoyed _them_, let us have so much justice as to think it fitting +now that _they_ should likewise enjoy each other." Yet the unresting and +unerring spirit of criticism may observe that even here the verbosity +which is the fault of the whole division makes its appearance. For why +not suppress most of the words after "them," and merely add, "let them +now enjoy each other"? + +The book is, in fact, rather like a modernised "number" of the _Amadis_ +series,[207], and the author has had the will and the audacity to +exchange the stale old Greeks and Romans--not the real Greeks, who can +never be stale, or the real Romans, who can stand a good deal of +staling, but the conventional classics--as well as the impossible +shadows of the Dark Ages, for Lepanto and the Western Main, Turks and +Spaniards and Mexicans, and a Prince of Scotland. Here also we find in +the hero something more like Almanzor than Artamene, if not than +Artaban: and of the whole one may say vulgarly that "the pot boils." +Now, with the usual Heroic it too often fails to attain even a gentle +simmer. + +[Sidenote: Camus--_Palombe_, etc.] + +Jean Camus [de Pontcarre?],[208] Bishop of Belley and of Arras--friend +of St. Francis of Sales and of Honore d'Urfe; author of many "Christian" +romances to counteract the bad effects of the others, of a famous +_Esprit de Saint Francois de S._, and of a very great number of +miscellaneous works,--seems to have been a rather remarkable person, +and, with less power and more eccentricity, a sort of Fenelon of the +first half of the century. His best known novel, _Palombe_, stands +practically alone in its group as having had the honour of a modern +reprint in the middle of the nineteenth century.[209] The title-giver is +a female, not a male, human dove, and of course a married one. Camus was +a divine of views which one does not call "liberal," because the word +has been almost more sullied by ignoble use in this connection than in +any other--but unconventional and independent; and he provoked great +wrath among his brethren by reflecting on the abuses of the conventual +system. _Palombe_ appears to be not uninteresting, but after all it is +but one of those parasitic exercises which have rarely been great except +in the hands of very great genius. Historically, perhaps, the much less +famous _Evenemens Singuliers_ (2 vols., 1628) are more important, though +they cannot be said to be very amusing. For (to the surprise, perhaps, +of a reader who comes to the book without knowing anything about it) it +is composed of pure Marmontel-and-Miss-Edgeworth Moral Tales about +_L'Ami Desloyal_, _La Prudente Mere_, _L'Amour et la Mort_, +_L'Imprecation Maternelle_, and the like. Of course, as one would expect +from the time, and the profession of the author, the meal of the +morality is a little above the malt of the tale; but the very titles are +"germinal." + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Hedelin d'Aubignac--_Macarise._] + +Francois Hedelin, Abbe d'Aubignac, is one of those unfortunate but +rarely quite guiltless persons who live in literary history much more by +the fact of their having attacked or lectured greater men than +themselves, and by witticisms directed against them, than by their own +actual work, which is sometimes not wholly contemptible. He concerns us +here only as the author of a philosophical-heroic romance, rather +agreeably entitled _Macarise ou La Reine des Iles Fortunees_, where the +bland naivete of the pedantry would almost disarm the present members of +that Critical Regiment, of which the Abbe, in his turn, was not so much +a chaplain as a most combatant officer. The very title goes on to +neutralise its attractiveness by explaining--with that benignant +condescension which is natural to at least some of its author's +class--that it "contains the Moral Philosophy of the Stoics under the +veil of several agreeable adventures in the form of a Romance"; and that +we may not forget this, various side-notes refer to passages in an +_Abrege_ of that philosophy. The net is thus quite frankly set in the +sight of the bird, and if he chooses to walk into it, he has only +himself to blame. The opening is a fine example of that plunge into the +middle of things which Hedelin had learnt from his classical masters to +think proper: "Les cruels persecuteurs d'Arianax l'ayant reduit a la +necessite de se precipiter[210] dans les eaux de la Sennatele avec son +frere Dinazel...." The fact that the presupposed gentle reader knows +nothing of the persons or the places mentioned is supposed to arouse in +him an inextinguishable desire to find out. That he should be at once +gratified is, of course, unthinkable. In fact his attention will soon +be diverted from Arianax and Dinazel and the banks of the Sennatele +altogether by the very tragical adventures of a certain Clearte. He, +with a company of friends, visits the country of a tyrant, who is +accustomed to welcome strangers and heap them with benefits, till a time +comes (the allegory is something obvious) when he demands it all back, +with their lives, through a cruel minister (again something "speakingly" +named) "Thanate." The head of this company, Clearte, on receiving the +sentence, talks Stoicism for many pages, and when he is exhausted, +somebody else takes up the running in such a fascinating manner that it +"seemed as if he had only to go on talking to make the victims +immortal!" But the atrocious Thanate cuts, at the same moment, the +thread of the discourse and the throat of Clearte--who is, however, +transported to the dominions of Macarise,--and _histoires_ and +"ecphrases" and interspersions of verse follow as usual. But the Abbe is +nowise infirm of purpose; and the book ends with the strangest mixture +of love-letters and not very short discourses on the various schools of +philosophy, together with a Glossary or Onomasticon interpreting the +proper names which have been used after the following fashion: +"Alcarinte. _La Crainte_, du mot francais par anagramme sans aucun +changement," though how you can have an anagram without a change is not +explained. + +[Sidenote: Gombauld--_Endimion._] + +Perhaps one may class, if, indeed, classification is necessary, with the +religious romances of Camus and the philosophical romance of Hedelin +d'Aubignac, the earlier allegorical ones of the poet Gombauld, +_Endimion_ and _Amaranthe_. The latter I have not yet seen. _Endimion_ +is rather interesting; there was an early English translation of it; and +I have always been of those who believe that Keats, somehow or other, +was more directly acquainted with seventeenth-century literature than +has generally been allowed.[211] The wanderings of the hero are as +different as possible in detail; but the fact that there _are_ +wanderings at all is remarkable, and there are other coincidences with +Keats and differences from any classical form, which it might be out of +place to dwell on here. Endymion is waked from his Latmian sleep by the +infernal clatter of the dwellers at the base of the mountain, who use +all the loudest instruments they possess to dispel an eclipse of the +moon: and is discovered by his friend Pyzandre, to whom he tells the +vicissitudes of his love and sleep. The early revealings of herself by +Diana are told with considerable grace, and the whole, which is not too +long, is readable. But there are many of the _naivetes_ and +awkwardnesses of expression which attracted to the writers of this time +the scorn of Boileau and others down to La Harpe. The Dedication to the +Queen may perhaps be excused for asserting, in its first words, that as +Endymion was put to sleep by the Moon, so he has been reawakened by the +Sun,[212] _i.e._ her Majesty. But a Nemesis of this Phebus follows. For, +later, it is laid down that "La Lune doit _toujours_ sa lumiere au +Soleil." From which it will follow that Diana owed her splendour to Anne +of Austria, or was it Marie de Medicis?[213] It was fortunate for +Gombauld that he did not live under the older dispensation. Artemis was +not a forgiving goddess like Aphrodite. + +Again, when Diana has disappeared after one of her graciousnesses, her +lover makes the following reflection--that the gods apparently can +depart _sans etre en peine de porter necessairement les pieds l'un +devant l'autre_--an observation proper enough in burlesque, for the idea +of a divine goose-step or marking time, instead of the _incessus_, is +ludicrous enough. But there is not the slightest sign of humour anywhere +in the book. Yet, again, this is a thing one would rather not have said, +"Diane cessant de m'etre favorable, Ismene[214] _me pouvait tenir lieu +de Deesse_." Now it is sadly true that the human race does occasionally +entertain, and act upon, reflections of this kind: and persons like Mr. +Thomas Moore and Gombauld's own younger contemporary, Sir John Suckling, +have put the idea into light and lively verse. But you do not expect it +in a serious romance. + +Nevertheless it may be repeated that _Endimion_ is one of the most +readable of the two classes of books--the smaller sentimental and the +longer heroic--between which it stands in scope and character. The +author's practice in the "other harmony" makes the obligatory +verse-insertions rather less clumsy than usual; and it may be permitted +to add that the illustrations of the original edition, which are +unusually numerous and elaborate, are also rather unusually effective. +"Peggy's face" is too often as "wretched" as Thackeray confessed his own +attempts were; but the compositions are not, as such, despicable--even +in the case of the immortal and immortalising kiss-scene itself. The +"delicious event," to quote the same author in another passage, is not +actually coming off--but it is very near. But it was perhaps a pity that +either Gombauld or Keats ever _waked_ Endymion. + +[Sidenote: Mme. de Villedieu.] + +The most recent book[215] but one about Mme. de Villedieu contains (and, +oddly enough, confesses itself to contain) very little about her novels, +which the plain man might have thought the only reason for writing about +her at all. It tells (partly after Tallemant) the little that is known +about her (adding a great deal more about other people, things, and +places, and a vast amount of conjecture), and not only takes the very +dubious "letters" published by herself for gospel, but attributes to +her, on the slightest evidence, if any, the anonymous _Memoires sur la +Vie de Henriette Sylvie de Moliere_, and, what is more, accepts them as +autobiographic; quotes a good deal of her very valueless verse and that +of others, and relates the whole in a most marvellous style, the +smallest and most modest effervescences of which are things like this: +"La religion arrose son ame d'une eau parfumee, et les fleurs noirs du +repentir eclosent" or "Soixante ans pesaient sur son crane ennuage d'une +perruque."[216] A good bibliography of the actual work, and not a little +useful information about books and MS. relating to the period, may +reconcile one class of readers to it, and a great deal of scandal +another; but as far as the subject of this history goes no one will be +much wiser when he closes the volume than he was when he opened it. + +The novelist-heroine's actual name was Marie Catherine Hortense des +Jardins, and she never was really Mme. de Villedieu at all, though there +was a real M. de Villedieu whom she loved, went through a marriage +ceremony and lived with, left, according to some, or was left by, +according to others. But he was already married, and this marriage was +never dissolved. Very late in life she seems actually to have married a +Marquis de Chaste, who died soon. But most of the time was spent in +rather scandalous adventures, wherein Fouquet's friend Gourville, the +minister Lyonne, and others figure. In fact she seems to have been a +counterpart as well as a contemporary of our own Afra, though she never +came near Mrs. Behn in poetry or perhaps in fiction. Her first novel, +_Alcidamie_, not to be confounded with the earlier _Alcidiane_, was a +scarcely concealed utilising of the famous scandal about Tancrede de +Rohan (Mlle. des Jardins' mother had been a dependant on the Rohan +family, and she herself was much befriended by that formidable and +sombre-fated enchantress, Mme. de Montbazon). In fact, common as is the +real or imputed "key"-interest in these romances from the _Astree_ +onwards, none seems to have borrowed more from at least gossip than +this. Her later performances, _Les Annales Galantes de la Grece_ (said +to be very rare), _Carmente_, _Les Amours des Grands Hommes_, _Les +Desordres de l'Amour_, and some smaller pieces, all rely more or less +on this or that kind of scandal. Collections appeared three or four +times in the earlier eighteenth century. + +[Sidenote: _Le Grand Alcandre Frustre._] + +Since M. Magne wrote (and it is fair to say that the main purpose of his +book was frankly avowed by its appearance as a member of a series +entitled _Femmes Galantes_), a somewhat more sober account, definitely +devoted in part to the novels, has appeared.[217] But even this is not +exhaustive from our point of view. The collected editions (of which that +of 1702, in 10 vols., said to be the best, is the one I have used) must +be consulted if one really wishes to attain a fair knowledge of what +"this questionable Hortense" (as Mr. Carlyle would probably have called +her) really did in literature; and no one, even of these, appears to +contain the whole of her ascribed compositions. What used sometimes to +be quoted as her principal work, _Le Grand Alcandre Frustre_ (the last +word being often omitted), is, in fact, a very small book, containing a +bit of scandal about the Grand Monarque, of the same kind as those which +myriad anonyms of the time printed in Holland, and of which any one who +wants them may find specimens enough in the _Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_ +edition of Bussy-Rabutin. Its chief--if not its only--attraction is an +exceedingly quaint frontispiece--a cavalier and lady standing with +joined hands under a chandelier, the torches of which are held by a ring +of seven Cupids, so that the lower one hangs downwards, and the +disengaged hand of the cavalier, which is raised, seems to be grabbing +at him. + +[Sidenote: The collected love-stories.] + +Most of the rest, putting aside the doubtful _Henriette de Moliere_ +already referred to, are collections of love-stories, which their +titles, rather than their contents, would seem to have represented to +the ordinary commentator as loose. There is really very little +impropriety, except of the mildest kind, in any of them,[218] and they +chiefly consist of the kind of quasi-historic anecdote (only better +told) which is not uncommon in English, as, for instance, in Croxall's +_Novelist_. They are rather well written, but for the most part consist +of very "public" material, scarcely made "private" by any striking +merit, and distinguished by curious liberties with history, if not with +morals. + +[Sidenote: Their historic liberties.] + +[Sidenote: _Carmente_, etc.] + +For instance, in one of her _Amours Galantes_ the +Elfrida-Ethelwold-Edgar story is told, not only with "_Edward I._ of +England" for the deceived and revengeful king, but with a further and +more startling intrusion of Eleanor of Guyenne! That of Inez de Castro +is treated in a still more audacious manner. Also (with what previous +example I know not, but Hortense was exceedingly apt to have previous +examples) the names of the heretic to whom Dante was not merciful and of +his beloved Margaret--names to which Charles Kingsley made the atonement +of two of the most charming of his neglected poems--appear as "Dulcin" +and "Marguerite," King and Queen of Lombardy, but guilty of more +offensive lubricity than the sternest inquisitor ever charged on the +historical Dolcino and his sect. For this King and Queen set up, in cold +blood, two courts of divorce, in one of which each is judge, with the +direct purpose of providing themselves with a supply of temporary wives +and husbands. Some have maintained that no less a thing than the +_Princesse de Cleves_ itself was suggested by something of Mme. de +Villedieu's; but this seems to me merely the usual plagiarism-hunter's +blunder of forgetting that the treatment, not the subject, is the _crux_ +of originality. Of her longer books, _Alcidamie_, the first, has been +spoken of. The _Amours des Grandes Hommes_ and _Cleonice ou le Roman +Galant_ belong to the "keyed" Heroics; while the _Journal Amoureux_, +which runs to nearly five hundred pages, has Diane de Poitiers for its +chief heroine. Lastly, _Carmente_ (or, as it was reprinted, _Carmante_) +is a sort of mixed pastoral, with Theocritus himself introduced, after a +fashion noted more than once before. + +[Sidenote: Her value on the whole.] + +Her most praised things, recently, have been the story of the loves of +Henri IV. and Mme. de Sauve (lightly touched on, perhaps "after" her in +both senses, by Dumas) in the _Amours Galantes_, and a doubtful story +(also attributed to the obscure M. de Preschac of the _Cabinet des +Fees_[219]) entitled _L'Illustre Parisienne_, over which folk have +quarrelled as to whether it is to be labelled "realist" or not. One +regrets, however, to have to say that--except for fresh, if not very +strong, evidence of that "questing" character which we find all over the +subjects of these two chapters--the interest of Mme. de Villedieu's work +can hardly be called great. By a long chapter of accidents, the present +writer, who had meant to read her some five-and-thirty years ago, never +read her actually till the other day--with all good will, with no +extravagant expectation beforehand, but with some disappointment at the +result. She is not a bookmaker of the worst kind; she evidently had wits +and literary velleities; and she does illustrate the blind _nisus_ of +the time as already indicated. But beyond the bookmaking class she +never, I think, gets. Her mere writing is by no means contemptible, and +we may end by pointing out two little points of interest in _Carmente_. +One is the appearance of the name "Ardelie," which our own Lady +Winchelsea took and anglicised as her coterie title. It may occur +elsewhere, but I do not recollect it. The other is yet a fresh +anticipation of that bold figure of speech which has been cited before +from Dickens--one of the characters appearing "in a very clean +shepherd's dress _and a profound melancholy_." Mme. de Villedieu (it is +about the only place she has held hitherto, if she has held any, in +ordinary Histories of French Literature) has usually been regarded as +closing the Heroic school. We may therefore most properly turn from her +directly to the last and most cheerful division of the subjects of this +chapter--the Fairy Tale. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The fairy tale.] + +One of the greatest solaces of the writer of this book, and, he would +fain hope, something of a consolation to its readers, has been the +possibility, and indeed advisability, of abstention from certain stock +literary controversies, or at worst of dismissing them with very brief +mention. This solace recurs in reference to the large, vague, and hotly +debated subject of folklore and fairy stories, their connection, and the +origin of the latter. It is true that "the pleasure gives way to a +savour of sorrow," to adopt a charming phrase of Mr. Dobson's, when I +think of the amiable indignation which the absence of what I shall not +say, and perhaps still more the presence of some things that I shall +say, would have caused in my friend, and his friend, the late Mr. Andrew +Lang.[220] But the irreparable is always with us. Despite the undoubted +omnipresence of the folk-story, with its "fairy" character in the +general sense, I have always wanted more proof than I have ever +received, that the thing is of Western rather than of Eastern origin, +and that our Western stories of the kind, in so far as they affected +literature before a very recent period, are independent. But I attach no +particular value to this opinion, and it will influence nothing that I +say here. So with a few more half-words to the wise, as that Mme. +d'Aulnoy had been in Spain, that the Crusades took place in the eleventh +century, that, independently thereof, Scandinavians had been +"Varangians" very early at Constantinople, etc. etc., let us come to the +two great literary facts--the chorus of fairy tale-telling proper at the +end of the century (of which the coryphaei are the lady already +mentioned and Perrault), and the epoch-making translation of _The +Arabian Nights_ by Galland. + +[Sidenote: Its _general_ characteristics--the happy ending.] + +In a certain sense, no doubt, the fairy tale may be said to be merely a +variety of the age-old _fabliau_ and _nouvelle_. But it is, for literary +purposes, a distinctly and importantly new variety--new not merely in +subject, even in the widest possible sense of that rather disputable +(or at least disputed) word, but in that _nescio quid_ between subject +and treatment for which I know no better term than the somewhat vague +one "atmosphere." It has the priceless quality of what may be called +good childishness; it gives not merely Fancy but Imagination the freest +play, and, till it has itself created one, it is free from any +convention. It continued, indeed, always free from those "previous" +conventions which are so intolerable. For it is constantly forgotten +that a convention in its youth is often positively healthy, and a +convention in the prime of its life a very tolerable thing. It is the +_old_ conventions which, as Mahomet rashly acknowledged about something +else (saving himself, however, most dexterously afterwards), cannot be +tolerated in Paradise. Moreover, besides creating of necessity a sort of +fresh dialect in which it had to be told, and producing a set of +personages entirely unhackneyed, it did an immense service by +introducing a sort of etiquette, quite different from the conventions +above noticed,--a set of manners, as it may almost be called, which had +the strongest and most beneficial influence--though, like all strong and +good things, it might be perverted--on fiction generally. In this all +sorts of nice things, as in the original prescription for what girls are +made of, were included--variety, gaiety, colour, surprise, a complete +contempt of the contemptible, or of that large part of it which contains +priggishness, propriety, "prunes, and prism" generally. Moreover (and +here I fear that the above promised abstinence from the contentious must +be for a little time waived) it confirmed a great principle of novel and +romance alike, that if you can you should "make a good end," as, _teste_ +Romance herself, Guinevere did, though the circumstances were +melancholy. + +The termination of a fairy tale rarely is, and never should be, anything +but happy. For this reason I have always disliked--and though some of +the mighty have left their calm seats and endeavoured to annihilate me +for it, I still continue to dislike--that old favourite of some part of +the public, _The Yellow Dwarf_. That detestable creature (who does not +even amuse me) had no business to triumph; and, what is more, I don't +believe he did. Not being an original writer, I cannot tell the true +history as it might be told; but I can criticise the false. I do not +object to this version because of its violation of poetical justice--in +which, again, I don't believe. But this is neither poetical, nor just, +nor amusing. It is a sort of police report, and I have never much cared +for police reports. I should like to have set Maimoune at the Yellow +Dwarf: and then there would have been some fun. + +It is probably unnecessary to offer any translations here, because the +matter is so generally known, and because the books edited by that +regretted friend of mine above mentioned have spread it (with much other +matter of the same kind) more widely than ever. But the points mentioned +above, and perhaps some others, can never be put too firmly to the +credit of the fairy tale as regards its influence on fiction, and on +French fiction particularly. It remains to be seen, in the next chapter, +how what a few purists may call its contamination by, but what we may +surely be permitted to call its alliance with, "polite literature" was +started, or practically started, through the direct agency of no +Frenchman, but of a man who can be claimed by England in the larger and +national sense, by Scotland and Ireland and England again in the +narrower and more parochial--by Anthony Hamilton. His work, however, +must be left till that next chapter, though in this we may, after the +"blessed originals" just mentioned, take in their sometimes degenerate +successors for nearly a hundred years after Perrault's time. + +[Sidenote: Perrault and Mme. d'Aulnoy.] + +Well, however, as the simpler and purer fairy-tales may be known to all +but twentieth-century children (who are said not to like them), it is +doubtful whether many people have considered them in the light in which +we have to regard them here, so as to see in them both a link in the +somewhat complicated chain of novel development, and also one which is +not dead metal, but serves as a medium for introducing powerful currents +of influence on the chain itself. We have dwelt on one point--the +desirableness, if not necessity, of shortness in them--as specially +valuable at the time. No doubt they need not all be as short as +Perrault's, though even among his there are instances (not to mention +_L'Adroite Princesse_ for the moment), such as _Peau d'Ane_, of more +than twenty pages, as against the five of the _Chaperon Rouge_ and the +ten of _Barbe Bleue_, _Le Chat Botte_, and _Cendrillon_. Mme. d'Aulnoy's +run longer; but of course the longest[221] of all are mites to the +mammoths of the Scudery romance. A fairy story must never "drag," +and in its better, and indeed all its genuine, forms it never does. +Further (it must be remembered that "Little Red Riding Hood," +in its unadulterated and "_un_happy ending" form, is not a fairy +story at all, for talking animals are not peculiar to that), "fairiness," +the actual presence of these gracious or ungracious but always +between-human-and-divine-creatures, is necessary,[222] and their agency +must be necessary too. In this and other ways it is interesting to +contrast two stories (which are neighbours to each other, with _Peau +d'Ane_ between them, in the convenient one-volume collection of French +Fairy Tale classics published by Gamier), Mme. d'Aulnoy's _Gracieuse et +Percinet_ and _L'Adroite Princesse ou Les Aventures de Finette_, which +appeared with Perrault's, but which I can hardly believe to be his. They +are about the same length, but the one is one of the best and the other +one of the worst examples of its author and of the general style. It may +be worth while to analyse both very briefly. As for Perrault's better +work, such analysis should be as unnecessary as it would be irreverent. + +[Sidenote: Commented examples--_Gracieuse et Percinet_.] + +That _Gracieuse et Percinet_ is of an essentially "stock" character is +not in the least against it, for so it ought to be: and the "stock" +company that plays its parts plays them well. The father is perhaps +rather excessively foolish and unnatural, but then he almost had to be. +The wicked and ugly stepmother tops, but does not overtop, _her_ part, +and her punishment is not commonplace. Gracieuse herself deserves her +name, not only "by her comely face and by her fair bodie," but by her +good but not oppressive wits, and her amiable but not faultless +disposition. She ought not to have looked into the box; but then we +should not have liked her nearly as much if she had not done so. She was +foolishly good in refusing to stay with Percinet; but we are by no means +certain that we should like her better if she had thrown herself into +his arms at the first or second time of asking. Besides, where would +have been the story? As for Percinet, he escapes in a wonderful fashion, +though partly by help of his lady's little wilfulnesses, the dangers of +the handsome, amiable, in a small way always successful, and almost +omnipotent hero. There is a sort of ironic tenderness, in his letting +Gracieuse again and again go her wilful way and show her foolish +filiality, which saves him. He is always ready, and does his spiriting +in the politest and best manner, particularly when he shepherds all +those amusing but rebellious little people into their box again--a feat +which some great novelists have achieved but awkwardly in their own +cases. There is even pathos in the apparently melancholy statement that +the fairy palace is dead, and that Gracieuse will never see it till she +is buried. I should like to have been Percinet, and I should +particularly like to have married Gracieuse. + +Moreover, the thing is full of small additional seasonings of incident +and phrase to the solid feast of fairy working which it provides. +Gracieuse's "collation," with its more than twenty pots of different +jams, has a delightful realty (which is slightly different from reality) +even for those to whom jam has never been the very highest of human +delights, because they prefer savouries to sweets. Even the abominable +duchess seems to have had a splendid cellar, before she took to filling +the casks with mere gold and jewels to catch the foolish king. It is +impossible to imagine a scene more agreeably compounded of politeness +and affection than Percinet's first introduction of himself to the +Princess: and it is extraordinarily nice to find that they knew all +about each other before, though we have had not the slightest previous +information as to the acquaintance. I am very much afraid that he made +his famous horse kick and plunge when Grognon was on him; but it must be +remembered that he had been made to lead that animal against his will. +The description of the hag's flogging Gracieuse with feathers instead of +scourges is a quite admirable adaptation of some martyrological stories; +and when, in her dilapidated condition, she remarks that she wishes he +would go away, because she has always been told that she must not be +alone with young gentlemen, one feels that the martyrdom must have been +transferred, in no mock sense, to Percinet himself. If she borrows +Psyche's trials, what good story is not another good story +refreshed?[223] + +[Sidenote: _L'Adroite Princesse._] + +But if almost everything is good and well managed in _Gracieuse_, it may +also be said that almost everything is badly managed in _Finette_.[224] +To begin with, there is that capital error which has been noticed above, +that it is not really a fairy tale at all. Except the magic +_quenouilles_, which themselves are of the smallest importance in the +story, there is nothing in it beyond the ways of an ordinary adventurous +_nouvelle_. The touch of _grivoiserie_ by which the Princesses +Nonchalante and Babillarde allow the weaknesses ticketed in their names +to hand them over as a prey to the cunning and blackguard Prince +Riche-Cautele, under pretence of entirely unceremonised and unwitnessed +"marriage," is in no way amusing. Finette's escapes from the same fate +are a little better, but the whole is told (as its author seems to have +felt) at much too great length; and the dragging in of an actual fairy +at the end, to communicate to the heroine the exceedingly novel and +recondite maxim that "Prudence is the mother of safety," is almost +idiotic. If the thing has any value, it is as an example, not of a real +fairy tale nor of a satire on fairy tales (for which it is much too much +"out of the rules" and much too stupid), but of something which may save +an ordinary reader, or even student, from attacking, as I fear we shall +have to do, the _Cabinet des Fees_ at large, and discovering, by painful +experience, how excessively silly and tedious the corruption of this +wise and delightful kind may be. + +One might, of course, draw lessons from others of the original batches, +but this may suffice for the specimen batch under immediate review. +_Peau d'Ane_, one of the most interesting to "folklorists" and +origin-hunters, is, of course, also in itself interesting to students of +literature. Its combination of the old theme of the incestuous passion +of a father for his daughter, with the special but not invariable shadow +of excuse in the selfish vanity of the mother's dying request, is quite +out of the usual way of these things. So is the curious series of fairy +failures--things apparently against the whole set of the game--beginning +with the unimaginative conception of dresses, weather-, or sky-, moon-, +and sun-colour, rendered futile by the success of the artists, and +ending in the somewhat banal device of making yourself ugly and running +away, with the odd conclusion-contrast of Peau d'Ane's squalid +appearance in public and her private splendour in the fairy garments. + +[Sidenote: The danger of the "moral."] + +Still, the lessons of correction, warning, and instruction to be drawn +from these gracious little things, for the benefit of their younger and +more elaborate successors, are not easily exhausted. They are, on the +whole, very moral, and it is well that morality, rightly understood, +should animate fiction. But they are occasionally much _too_ moral, and +then they warn off instead of cheering on. Take, for instance, two other +neighbours in the collection just quoted, _Le Prince Cheri_ and the +ever-delightful _La Belle et La Bete_. Both of these are moral; but the +latter is just moral enough, while _Cheri_, with one or two alleviations +(of which, perhaps, more presently), is hardly anything if _not_ moral, +and therefore disgusts, or at any rate bores. On the other hand, +"Beauty" is as _bonne_ as she is _belle_; her only fault, that of +overstaying her time, is the result of family affection, and her reward +and the punishment of the wicked sisters are quite copy-book. But it is +not for this part that we love what is perhaps the most engaging of all +the tales. It is for Beauty's own charm, which is subtly conveyed; for +the brisk and artistic "revolutions and discoveries"; above all, for the +far from merely sentimental pathos of the Beast's all but death _for_ +love, and the not in the least mawkish bringing of him to life again +_by_ love.[225] + +[Sidenote: Yet often redeemed.] + +One may perhaps also make amends to Prince Cheri for the abuse just +bestowed on him. His story has at least one touch which is sovereign for +a fiction-fault common in the past, and only too probable in the future, +at whatever time one takes the "present" of the story. When he is not +unjustly turned into a monster of the most allegorical-composite order +of monster architecture--a monster to whom dragons and wyverns and +chimaeras dire are as ordinary as kittens--what do they do with him? +They put him "with the other monsters." _Ce n'est pas plus raide que +ca._ The present writer need hardly fear to be thought an +anti-mediaevalist, but he is very much afraid that an average mediaeval +romancer might have thought it necessary to catalogue these other +monsters with the aid of a Bestiary. On the other hand, there have been +times--no matter which--when this abrupt introduction and dismissal of +monsters as common objects (for which any respectable community will +have proper stables or cages) would have been disallowed, or explained +away, or apologised for, or, worst of all, charged with a sort of wink +or sneer to let the reader know that the author knew what he was about. +Here there is nothing of this superfluous or offensive sort. The +appropriate and undoubting logic of the style prevails over all too +reasonable difficulties. There are monsters, or how could Cheri be made +into one? If there are monsters there must, or in the highest +probability may, be other monsters. Put him with them, and make no fuss +about it. If all novelists had had this _aplomb_, we should have been +spared a great deal of tediousness, some positive failures, and the +spoiling, or at least the blotting and marring, of many excellent +situations. But to praise the good points of fairy stories, from the +brief consummateness of _Le Chat Botte_ to the longer drawn but still +perfectly golden matter of _La Biche au Bois_, would really be +superfluous. One loathes leaving them; but one has to do it, so far as +the more unsophisticated part of them is concerned. Yet the duty of the +historian will not let him be content with these, and, to vary "The +Brave Lord Willoughby" a little, "turning to the [_others_] a thousand +more," he must "slay," or at least criticise. + +[Sidenote: The main _Cabinet des Fees_--more on Mme. d'Aulnoy.] + +He who ventures on the complete _Cabinet des Fees_[226] in its more than +forty volumes, will provide himself with "cabin furniture" of nearly as +good pastime-quality, at least to my fancy (and yet I may claim to be +something of a Balzacian), as the slightly larger shelf-ful which +suggested itself to the fancy of Mr. Browning and provoked (_as_ "cabin +furniture") the indignation of Mr. Swinburne. But he had better look +over the contents before he takes it on board, or he will find himself, +if his travelling library is anything like as large as that of the +patriarch Photius, in danger of duplication. For the _Cabinet_ holds, +not merely the _Arabian Nights_ in the original translation of Galland, +but also Hamilton: as well, of course, as much of what we may call the +classical fairy matter proper on which we have already dwelt, and which +is known to all decent people. Still, he will find more of Mme. d'Aulnoy +than, unless he is already something of an expert, he already knows, and +perhaps he will not be entirely rejoiced at the amplification. She wrote +more or less regular heroic romances,[227] which are very inferior to +her fairy tales; and though these are not in the _Cabinet_, she +sometimes "mixes the kinds" rather disastrously in shorter pieces. The +framework of _Don Gabriel Ponce de Leon_, which enshrines the sad but +charming "Golden Sheep," and a variant of _Cendrillon_, is poor stuff; +and _Les Chevaliers Errans_ only shows what we knew before, that the +junction of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is not the time or +the place in which to find the loved one, if that loved one is +mediaeval. Still, this invaluable lady does generally reck and exemplify +her own immortal rede. "Il me semble," says Prince Marcassin to the +fairies, "a vous entendre, qu'il ne faut pas meme croire ce qu'on voit." +And they reply, "La regle n'est pas toujours generale; _mais il est +indubitable que l'on doit suspendre son jugement sur bien des choses, et +penser qu'il peut entrer quelque chose de Feerie dans ce que nous paroit +de plus certain_." + +[Sidenote: Warning against disappointment.] + +Alas! it was precisely this _quelque chose de Feerie_ which is wanting +in the majority of the minor fairy-tale writers. That they should attain +the wonderful simplicity, freshness, and charm of Perrault at his best +was not to be expected; hardly that they should reach the more +sophisticated grace of Hamilton; but it might have been hoped that some +would come more or less near the lower, and much more unequal, but +occasionally very successful art or luck of Mme. d'Aulnoy herself. +Unfortunately very few of them do. It was easy enough to begin _Il +etait autrefois un roi et une reine_, to put in a Prince Charming and a +Princess Graciosa, and good fairies and bad fairies, and magicians and +ogres and talking beasts, and the like. It was not so easy to make all +these things work together to produce the peculiar spell which belongs +to the true land of Faery, and to that land alone. Still more +unfortunately, wrong ways of attempting the object (or some other +object) were as easy as the right ways were difficult. They cannot avoid +muddling the fairy tale with the heroic romance: and with the +half-historical sub-variety of this latter which Mme. de La Fayette +introduced. The worst enchanter that ever fairies had to fight with is +not such an enemy of theirs as History and Geography--two most +respectable persons in their proper places, but fatal here. They will +make King Richard of England tell fairy tales to Blondel out of the +Austrian tower, and muddle up things about his wicked brother the Count +of Mortagne. They will talk of Lemnos and Memphis and other _patatis_ +and _patatas_ of the classical dictionary and the _Grand Cyrus_. In a +fashion not perhaps so instantly suicidal, but in a sufficiently +annoying fashion, they will invent clumsy "speaking" names, or dog-Latin +and cat-Greek ones. And, perhaps worst of all, they prostitute the +delicate charms of the fairy tale to clumsy adulation of the reigning +monarch, and tedious half-veiled flattery or satire of less exalted +persons, or, if "prostitute" be too harsh a word here, attempt to force +a marriage between these charms and the dullest moralising. In fact, it +is scarcely extravagant to say that, in regard to too many of them--to +some of them at least--everything that ought not to be, such as the +things just mentioned and others, is there, and everything that ought to +be--lightness, brightness, the sense of the impossible in which it is +delightful to believe, the dream-feeling, the magic of gratified wish +and realised ideal--is not. + +[Sidenote: Mlle. de la Force and others.] + +Of course, in these other and minor writers that the _Cabinet_ has to +give, all these disappointments do not always occur, and the crop is +mixed. Mlle. de la Force[228] was one of those _dames_ or _demoiselles +de compagnie_ who figure so largely in the literary history of the +French eighteenth century, and whose group is illustrated by such names +as those of Mlle. Delaunay and Mlle. de Lespinasse. Her full name was +Charlotte Rose de Caumont de la Force, and she was, if not an +adventuress, a person of adventures, who also wrote many +quasi-historical romances in the _Princesse de Cleves_ manner. Her fairy +tales are thin, and marred by weak allegory of the "Carte de Tendre" +kind. A "Pays des Delices," very difficult to reach, and constantly +personated by a "Pays des Avances," promises little and performs less. + +The eleven (it is an exact eleven) called _Les Illustres Fees_ is +scarcely so illustrious as the All England and the United were, in the +memory of some of us, in another and better played kind of cricket. The +stories are not very long; they run to a bare eighteen small pages +apiece; but few readers are likely to wish them longer. _Blanche-Belle_ +introduces the _sylphes_--an adulteration[229] which generally produces +the effect that Thackeray deplored when his misguided friend would have +_puree_ mixed with _julienne_. _Le Roi Magicien_ is painfully destitute +of personality; we want names, and pretty names, for a fairy tale. _Le +Prince Roger_ is a descendant of Melusine, and one does not think she +would be proud of him. _Fortunio_ is better, and _Quiribirini_, one of +the numerous stories which turn on remembering or failing to remember an +odd name,[230] perhaps better still; but the rest deserve little praise, +and the last, _L'Ile Inaccessible_, appears to be, if it is anything but +pure dulness, a flat political allegory about England and France. + +The style picks up a little in the miscellany called (not without a +touch of piquancy) _La Tyrannie des Fees Detruite_, by a Mme. +d'_Auneuil_, whom persons of a sceptical turn might imagine to be a sort +of factitious rival to Mme. d'Aulnoy.[231] It returns to the Greek or +pseudo-Greek names of the heroic romance, and to its questionable device +of _histoires_ stuck like plums in a pudding. Nor are the _Sans +Parangon_ and the _Fee des Fees_ of the Sieur de Preschac utterly bad. +But _Les Aventures d'Abdalla_, besides rashly incurring the danger (to +be exemplified and commented on more fully a little later) of vying with +the _Arabian Nights_, substitutes for the genuine local colour +and speech the _fade_ jargon of French eighteenth-century +"sensibility"--_autels_ and _flammes_ and all the rest of the trumpery. +But it does worse still--it tries to be instructive, and informs us of +the difference between male and female _dives_ and _peris_, of the +custom of suttee, and of the fact that there are many professional +singers and dancers among Indian girls. This is simply intolerable.[232] + +[Sidenote: The large proportion of Eastern Tales.] + +[Sidenote: _Les Voyages de Zulma._] + +The great prominence of the Eastern Tale, indeed, in this collection is +likely to be one of the most striking things in it to a new-comer. He +would know, of course, that such tales are not uncommon in contemporary +English; he would certainly be acquainted with Addison's, Johnson's, +Goldsmith's experiments in them, perhaps with those of Hawkesworth and +others.[233] He could see for himself that the "accaparation" by France +of the peerless _Arabian Nights_ themselves must have led to a still +greater fancy for them there; and he might possibly have heard the +tradition (which the present writer[234] never traced to its source, or +connected with any real evidence either way) that no less a person than +Lesage assisted Galland in his task. But though the _Nights_ themselves +form the most considerable single group in the _Cabinet_, the united +bulk of their congeners or imitations occupies a still larger space. +There are the rather pale and "moon-like" but sometimes not +uninteresting _Thousand and One Days_, and the obviously and rather +foolishly pastiched _Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour_. There are +Persian Tales--origin of a famous and characteristic jibe at "Namby +Pamby" Philips--and Turkish Tales which are a fragment of one of the +numerous versions of the _Seven Sages_ scheme. The just mentioned +_Adventures of Abdallah_ betray their source and their nature at once; +the hoary fables of Bidpai and Lokman are modernised to keep company +with these "fakings," and there are more definitely literary attempts to +follow. _Les Voyages de Zulma_, again an incomplete thing which actually +tails off towards its failure of an end, shows some ingenuity in its +conception, but suffers, even in the beginning, from that mixing of +kinds which has been pointed out and reprobated. An attempt is made to +systematise the fairy idea by representing these gracious creatures as +offspring of Destiny and the Earth, with a cruel brother Time, and an +offset of mischievous sisters who exactly correspond to the good +ones--Disgracieuse to Gracieuse, and so on--and have a queen +Laide-des-Laides, who answers to the good fairy princess, +Belle-des-Belles. A mortal--Zulma--is, for paternal rather than personal +merits, chosen by Destiny to enjoy the privilege of entering and +understanding the fairy world, and Gracieuse is the fairy assigned as +his guide. The idea is, as has been said, rather ingenious; but it is +too systematic, and like other things in other parts of the collection, +"loses the grace and liberty of the composition" in system. Moreover, +the morality, as is rather the wont of these imitators when they are not +(as a few of the partly non-cabinetted ones are) deliberately naughty, +is much too scrupulous.[235] It is clear that Zulma is in love with +Gracieuse, that she responds to some extent, and that Her Majesty Queen +Belle-des-Belles is a little jealous and inclined to cut Gracieuse out. +But nothing in the finished part of the story gives us any of the nice +love-making that we want. + +[Sidenote: Fenelon.] + +Madame le Marchand's _Boca_ is a story which begins in Peru but finishes +in an "Isle of Ebony," where the names of Zobeide and Abdelazis seem +rather more at home; it is not without merit. As for the fables and +stories which Fenelon composed for that imperfect Marcellus, the Duke of +Burgundy, they have all the merits of style, sense, and good feeling +which they might be expected to have, and it would be absurd to ask of +them qualities which, in the circumstances, they could not display. + +The _Chinese Tales_ are about as little Chinese as may be, consisting of +accounts of his punitive metempsychoses by the Mandarin Fum Hoam (a name +afterwards borrowed in better known work), who seems to have been +excluded from the knowledge of anything particularly Celestial.[236] But +they are rather smartly told. On the other hand, _Florine ou la Belle +Italienne_, which is included in the same volume with the sham +_Chinoiseries_, is one of the worst instances of the confusion of kinds +noted above. It honestly prepares one for what is coming by a reference +in the Preface to Fenelon; but a list of _dramatis_ (or _fabulae_) +_personae_, which follows, would have tried the saintliness even of him +of Cambrai almost as much as a German occupation of his archiepiscopal +see. "Agatonphisie," for a personage who represents, we are told, "Le +Bon Sens," might break the heart of Clenardus, if not the head of +Priscian. + +_The Thousand and One Quarter Hours_, or _Contes Tartares_, have as +little of the Tartar as those above mentioned of the Chinese, but if +somewhat verbose, they are not wholly devoid of literary quality. The +substance is, as in nearly all these cases, _Arabian Nights_ rehashed; +but the hashing is not seldom done _secundum artem_, and they have, with +the _Les Sultanes de Gujerate_ and _Nouveaux Contes Orientaux_, which +follow them, the faculty of letting themselves be read. + +The best of these[237] (except the French translation of the so-called +Sir Charles Morell's (really James Ridley's) _Tales of the Genii_ (see +above)) is perhaps, on the whole, _Les Sultanes de Gujerate_, where not +only are some of the separate tales good, but the frame-story is far +more artistically worked in and round and out than is usually the case. +But taking them all together, there is one general and obvious, as well +as another local and particular objection to them. Although the +sub-title (_v. sup._ again) lets them in, the main one regards them +with, at best, an oblique countenance. The differences between the +Western fairy and the Eastern _peri_, _dive_, _djin_, or whatever one +chooses to call her, him, or it, though not at all easy to define, are +exceedingly easy to feel. The magicians and enchanters of the two kinds +are nearer to each other, but still not the same. On the other hand, it +is impossible for any one who has once felt the strange charm of the +_Arabian Nights_ not to feel the immense inferiority of these rehashes +and _croquettes_ and _rissoles_, and so forth, of the noble old haunch +or sirloin. Yet again, from the special point of view of this book, +though they cannot be simply passed over, they supply practically +nothing which marks, or causes, or even promises an advance in the +general development of fiction. They may be said to be simply a +continuation of, or a relapse upon, the pure romance of adventure, with +different dress, manners, and nomenclature. There is hardly a single +touch of character in any one; their very morals (and no shame to them) +are arch-known; and they do not possess style enough to confer +distinction of the kind open to such things. If you take _Les Quatre +Facardins_, before most of them, and _Vathek_[238] (itself, remember, +originally French in language), after them all, the want of any kind of +genius in their composers becomes almost disgustingly apparent. Yet even +these masterpieces are masterpieces outside the main run of the novel. + +[Sidenote: Caylus.] + +Although, therefore, it would be very ungrateful not to acknowledge that +they do sometimes comply with the demands of that sensible tyrant +already mentioned, Sultan Hudgiadge, and "either amuse us or send us to +sleep," it must be admitted to be with some relief that one turns once +more, at about the five and twentieth volume, to something like the +fairy tale proper, if to a somewhat artificial and sophisticated form of +it. The Comte de Caylus was a scholar and a man of unusual brains; +Moncrif showed his mixture of Scotch and French blood in a corresponding +blend of quaintness and _esprit_; others, such as Voisenon in one sex +and Voltaire's pet Mlle. de Lubert in the other, whatever they were, +were at any rate not stupid. + +[Sidenote: _Prince Courtebotte et Princesse Zibeline._] + +To Anne Claude Philippe de Tubieres de Grimoard de Pestels de Levi, +Comte de Caylus, one owes particular thanks, at least when one comes to +the history of _Le Prince Courtebotte_, after wrestling with the +_macedoine_ of orientalities just discussed. It is not, of course, +Perrault, and it is not the best Madame D'Aulnoy. But you are never "put +out" by it; the hero, if rather a hero of Scott in the uniform propriety +of his conduct, or of Virgil in his success, is not like Waverley, +partly a simpleton, nor like Aeneas, wholly a cad. One likes the +Princess Zibeline both before she had a heart and afterwards; it can be +very agreeable to know a nice girl in both states. Perhaps it was not +quite cricket of the good fairy to play that trick[239] on the +ambassador of King Brandatimor, but it was washed out in fair fight; and +King Biby and his people of poodles are delightful. One wonders whether +Dickens, who was better read in this kind of literature than in most, +consciously or unconsciously borrowed from Caylus one of his not least +known touches.[240] + +[Sidenote: _Rosanie._] + +In the next of the Caylus stories there is an Idea--the capital seems +due because the Count was a man of Science, as science (perhaps better) +went then, and because one or his other tales (not the best) is actually +called _Le Palais des Idees_. The idea of _Rosanie_ is questionable, +though the carrying of it out is all right. Two fairies are fighting for +the (fairy) crown, and the test is who shall produce the most perfect +specimen of the special fairy art of education of mortals. (I may, as a +_ci-devant_ member of this craft, be permitted to regret that the +business has been so largely taken over by persons who are neither +fairies in one sex, though there may be some exceptions here, nor +enchanters in the other, where exceptions are very rare indeed.) The +tutoress of the Princess Rosanie pursues her task, and pursues it +triumphantly, by dividing the child into twelve _interim_ personalities, +each of whom has a special characteristic--beauty, gentleness, vivacity, +discretion, and what not. At the close of the prescribed period they are +reunited, and their fortunate lover, who has hitherto been distracted +between the twelve _eidola_, is blessed with the compound Rosanie. +Although it is well known to be the rashest of things for a man to say +anything about women--although certainly sillier things have been said +by men about women than about any other subject, except, of course, +education itself--I venture to demur to the fairy method. Both _a +priori_ and from experience, I should say that unmixed Beauty would +become intolerably vain; that Discretion would grow into a hypocritical +and unpleasant prude; that Vivacity would develop into Vulgarity; and +that the reincarnation of the twelve would be one of the most +intolerable creatures ever known, if it were not that the impossibility +of the concentrated essences being united in one person, after +separation in several, would save the situation by annihilating her. + +[Sidenote: _Prince Muguet et Princesse Zaza._] + +Caylus, however, makes up in the third tale, _Le Prince Muguet et la +Princesse Zaza_, where, though the principal fairy, she of the _Hetre_, +is rather silly for one of the kind, Muguet is a not quite intolerable +coxcomb, and Zaza is positively charming. Her sufferings with a wicked +old woman are common; but her distress when the fairy makes her seem +ugly to the Prince, who has actually fallen in love with her true +portrait, and the scenes where the two meet under this spell, are among +the best in the whole _Cabinet_--which is a bold word. The others, +though naturally unequal, never or very seldom lack charm, for the +reason that Caylus knew what one has ventured to call the secret of +Fairyland--that it is the land of the attained Wish--and that he has the +art of scattering rememberable and generative phrases and fancies. +_Tourlou et Rirette_, one of the lightest of all, may not +impossibly--indeed probably--have suggested Jean Ingelow's great +single-speech poem of _Divided_; the Princesses Pimprenelle and +Lumineuse are the right sort of Princesses; _Nonchalante et Papillon_, +_Bleuette et Coquelicot_ come and take their places unpretentiously but +certainly; Mignonette and Minutieuse are not "out." Caylus is not +Hamilton by a long way; but he has something that Hamilton has not. He +is still less Perrault or Madame d'Aulnoy, but he has a sufficient +difference from either. With these predecessors he makes the select +quartette of the fairy-tale tellers of France. + +After him one expects--and meets--a drop. No reasonable person would +look for a really great fairy tale from Jean Jacques, because you must +forget yourself to write one; and _La Reine Fantasque_, though not bad, +is not good. Madame de Villeneuve may, for ought I know, have been an +excellent person in other ways, but she deserves one of the worst +bolgias in the Inferno of literature for lengthening, muddling, and +altogether spoiling the ever-beloved "Beauty and the Beast." Mlle. de +Lussan, they say,[241] was too fond of eating, and died of indigestion. +A more indigestible thing than her own _Les Veillees de Thessalie_, +which figure here (she wrote a great deal more), the present writer has +never come across. And as for _Prince Titi_, which fills a volume and a +half, it might have been passed without any remark at all if it had not +become famous in connection with the Battle of Croker and Macaulay over +the body of Boswell's _Johnson_.[242] + +A break takes place at the thirtieth volume of the _Cabinet_, and a +fresh instalment, later than the first batch, follows, with more +particulars about authors. Here we find the attributions of the very +large series of imitative Eastern tales already noticed, and to be +followed in this new parcel by _Soirees Bretonnes_, to Thomas Simon +Gueulette. The thirty-first opens with the _Funestine_ of +Beauchamps[243]--an ingenious title and heroine-name, for it avoids the +unnatural sounds so common, is a quite possible feminine appellation, +and though a "speaking" one, is only so to those who understand the +learned languages, and so deserve to be spoken to. Moreover, the idea, +though not startlingly original or a mark of genius, is good--that of an +unlucky child who attracts the malignity of _all_ fairies, and is ugly, +stupid, ill-natured, and everything that is detestable. Her reformation +by the genie Clair-Obscur would not be bad if it were cut a great deal +shorter. + +It is followed by a series of short tales, beginning with _The Little +Green Frog_, and not of the first class, which in turn are succeeded by +two (or, as the latter is in two parts, three) longer stories, sometimes +attributed to Caylus--_Le Loup Galeux_ and _Bellinette et Belline_. The +_Soirees Bretonnes_ themselves, though apparently the earliest, are not +the happiest of Gueulette's _pastiches_; the speaking names[244] +especially are irritating. A certain Madame de Lintot, who does not seem +to have had anything to do with the hero of Pope's famous "Ride with a +Bookseller," is what may be called "neutral," with _Timandre et +Bleuette_ and others; nor does a fresh instalment of Moncrif's efforts +show the historian of cats at his best. But in vol. xxxiii. Mlle. de +Lubert, glanced at before, raises the standard. She should have cut her +tales down; it is the mischief of these later things that they extend +too much. But _Lionnette et Coquerico_ is good; _Le Prince Glace et la +Princesse Etincelante_ is not bad; and _La Princesse Camion_ attracts, +by dint of extravagance in the literal sense. Fairy trials had gone far; +but the necessity of either marrying a beautiful sort of mermaid or else +of _flaying_ her, and the subsequent trial, not of flaying, but braying +her in a mortar as a shrimp, show at least a lively fancy. Nor is the +anonymous _Nourjahad_--an extremely moral but not dull tale, which +follows--at all contemptible. + +The French Bar, inexhaustible in such things, gave another tale-teller +in one Pajon, who, besides the obligatory _polissonneries_, not included +in the _Cabinet_, composed not a few harmless things of some merit. The +first, _Eritzine et Paretin_, is perhaps the best. Nor is the complement +of vol. xxxiv., the _Bibliotheque des Fees et des Genies_ (the title of +which was that of a larger collection, containing much the same matter +as the _Cabinet_, and probably in Johnson's mind when he jotted down +_Prince Titi_), quite barren. _La Princesse Minon-Minette et le Prince +Souci_, _Apranor et Bellanire_, _Grisdelin et Charmante_, are none of +them unreadable. The next volume, too, is better as a whole than any we +have had for a long time. Mme. Fagnan's _Minet Bleu et Louvette_ +contains, in its fifteen pages, a good situation by no means +ill-treated. The pair are under the same spell--that of being ugly and +witty for part of the week, handsome, stupid, and disagreeable for the +other part, and of having the times so arranged that each sees the other +at his or her most repulsive to her or his actual state. The way in +which "Love unconquered in battle" proves, though not without fairy +assistance, victorious here also, is very ingeniously managed. + +One of the cleverest of all the later fairy tales is the _Acajou et +Zirphile_ of Duclos, who, indeed, had sufficient wits to do anything +well, and was a novelist, though not a very distinguished one, on a +larger scale. The tale itself (which is said to have been written "up +to" illustrations of Boucher designed for something else) has, indeed, +a smatch of vulgarity, but a purely superfluous and easily removable +one. It is almost as cleverly written as any thing of Voltaire's: and +the final situation, where the hero, who has gone through all the +mischiefs and triumphs of one of Crebillon's, recovers his only real +love, Zirphile, in a torment and tornado of heads separated from bodies +and hands separated from arms, is rather capital. + +Not much less so, in the different way of a pretty sentimentality, is +the _Aglae ou Naboline_ of the painter Coypel; while the batch of short +stories from Mme. Le Prince de Beaumont's _Magasin des Enfants_ have had +a curious fate. They are rather pooh-poohed by French editors and +critics, and they are certainly _very_ moral, too much so, in fact, as +has been already objected to one of them, _Le Prince Cheri_. But +allowances have been allowed even there, and, somehow or other, _Fatal +et Fortune_, _Le Prince Charmant_, _Joliette_, and the rest have +recovered more of the root of the matter than most others, and have +established a just popularity in translation. + +And then comes the shortest, I think, of all the stories in the one and +forty volumes; the silliest as a composition; the most contemptibly +_thought_--but by the accidents of fate endowed later with a +tragic-satiric _moralitas_ almost if not quite unrivalled in literature. +Its author was a certain M. Selis, apparently a very respectable +schoolmaster, professor, and bookmaker of not the lowest +class--employments and occupations in respect of all of which not a few +of us have earned our bread and paid our income-tax. Unluckily for him, +there was born in his time a Dauphin, and he wrote a little adulatory +tale of the birth, and the editors of the _Cabinet_ Appendix thanked him +much for giving it them. It is not four pages long; it tells how an +ancestral genie--a great king named Louis--blessed the child, and said +that he would be called "the father of his people," and another followed +suit with "the father of letters," and a third swore _Ventre Saint +Gris!_ and named the baby's uncle as "Joseph," and a still greater Louis +said other things, and a fairy named Maria Theresa crowned the +blessings. Then came an ogre mounted on a leopard and eating raw meat, +who was of Albion, and said he was king of the country, and observed +"_God ham_" [_sic_], and was told that he would be beaten and made to +lay down his arms by the child. + +And the Dauphin, unless this _signalement_ is strangely delusive, lived +to know the worst ogres in the world (their chief was named Simon), who +were of his own people, and to die the most unhappy prince or king in +that world. And he of the Leopard who said _God ham_, would have saved +that Dauphin if he could, and did slay many of his less guiltless +relations and subjects, and beat the rest "thorough and thorough," and +restored (could they have had the will and wit to profit by it) the race +of Louis and Francis, and of the genie who said "Ventre Saint Gris!" to +their throne. And this was the end of the vaticinations of M. Selis, and +such are the tears of things. + +The rest of this volume is occupied by a baker's dozen of _Contes +Choisis_, the first of which, _Les Trois Epreuves_, seems to imitate +Voltaire, and is smartly written, while some of the others are not bad. + +Volume xxxvi. is occupied (not too appositely, though inoffensively in +itself) by a translation of Wieland's _Don Silvia de Rosalva_, which is +a German _Sir Launcelot Greaves_ or _Spiritual Quixote_, with fairy +tales substituted for romances of chivalry. The author of _Oberon_ was +seldom, if ever, unreadable, and he is not so here; but the thing is +neither a tale proper (seeing that it fills a whole volume), nor a real +fairy tale, nor French, so we may let it alone. + +Then this curious collection once more comes to an end, which is not an +end, with a very useful though not too absolutely trustworthy volume of +_Notices des Auteurs_, containing not only "bio-bibliographical" +articles on the actual writers collected, but references to others, +great and small, from Marivaux, Lesage, Prevost, and Voltaire downwards, +and glances, sometimes with actual _comptes rendus_, at pieces of the +class not included. That it is conducted on the somewhat irresponsible +and indolent principles of its time might be anticipated from previous +things, such as the clause in the Preface to Wieland's just noticed +book, that the author had "gone to Weimar, where perhaps he is still," +an observation which, from the context, seems not to be so much an +attempt at _persiflage_ as a pure piece of lazy _naivete_. The volume, +however, contains a great deal of information such as it is; some +sketches, ingeniously draped or Bowdlerised, of the "naughty" tales +excluded from the collection itself, and a few amusing stories.[245] + +As, however, has been said, there was to be still another joint to this +crocodile, and the four last volumes, xxxviii. to xli. (_not_, as is +wrongly said by some, xxxvii. to xl.), contain a somewhat rash +continuation of the _Arabian Nights_ themselves, with which Cazotte[246] +appears to have had a good deal to do, though an actual Arab monk of +the name of Chavis is said to have been mainly concerned. They are not +bad reading; but even less of fairy tales than Gueulette's +orientalities. + + * * * * * + +Not much apology is needed, it may be hoped, for the space given to this +curious kind; the bulk of its production, the length of its popularity, +and the intrinsic merit of some few of its better examples vindicate its +position here. But a confession should take the place of the unnecessary +excuse already partly made. The artificial fairy tale of the more +regular kind was not, by the law of its being, prevented almost +unavoidably from doing service to the novel at large, as the Eastern +story was; but, as a matter of fact, it did little except what will be +mentioned in the next paragraph. That it helped to exemplify afresh what +had been shown over and over again for centuries, the singular +recreative faculty of the nation and the language, was about all. But +another national characteristic, the as yet incurable set of the French +mind towards types--which, if the second volume of this work ever +appears, will, it is hoped, be shown to have spared the later +novel--seized on these tales. They are "as like as my fingers to my +fingers," and they are not very pretty fingers as a rule. Incidentally +they served as frameworks to some of the worst verse in the world, nor, +for the most part, did they even encourage very good prose. You may get +some good out of them; but unless you like hunting, and are not vexed by +frequent failures to "draw," the _Cabinet des Fees_ is best left to +exploration at second-hand. + + * * * * * + +To collect the results of this long chapter, we may observe that in +these three departments--Pastoral, Heroic, and Fairy--various important +elements of _general_ novel material and construction are provided in a +manner not yet noticed. The Pastoral may seem to be the most obsolete, +the most of a mere curiosity. But the singular persistence and, in a +way, universality of this apparently fossil convention has been already +pointed out; and it is perhaps only necessary to shift the pointer to +the fact that the novels with which one of the most modern, in perhaps +the truest sense of that word, of modern novelists, though one of the +eldest, Mr. Thomas Hardy, began to make his mark--_Under the Greenwood +Tree_ and _Far from the Madding Crowd_--may be claimed by the pastoral +with some reason. And it has another and a wider claim--that it keeps +up, in its own way, the element of the imaginative, of the fanciful--let +us say even of the unreal--without which romance cannot live, without +which novel is almost repulsive, and which the increasing advances of +realism itself were to render more than ever indispensable. As for the +Heroic, we have already shown how much, with all its faults, it did for +the novel generally in construction and in other ways. It has been shown +likewise, it is hoped, how the Fairy story, besides that additional +provision of imagination, fancy, and dream which has just been said to +be so important--mingled with this a kind of realism which was totally +lacking in the others, and which showed itself especially in one +immensely important department wherein they had been so much to seek. +Fairies may be (they are not to my mind) things that "do not happen"; +but the best of these fairies are fifty times more natural, not merely +than the characters of Scudery and Gomberville, but than those (I hold +to my old blasphemy) of Racine. Animals may not talk; but the animals +of Perrault and even of Madame d'Aulnoy talk divinely well, and, what is +more, in a way most humanly probable and interesting. Never was there +such a triumph of the famous impossible-probable as a good fairy story. +Except to the mere scientist and to (of course, quite a different +person) the unmitigated fool, these stories, at least the best of them, +fully deserve the delightful phrase which Southey attributes to a friend +of his. They are "necessary and voluptuous and right." They were, to the +French eighteenth century and to French prose, almost what the ballad +was to the English eighteenth century and to English verse; almost what +the _Maerchen_ was to the prose and verse alike of yet un-Prussianised +Germany. They were more than twice blessed: for they were charming in +themselves; they exercised good influence on other literary productions; +and they served as precious antidotes to bad things that they could not +improve, and almost as precious alternatives to things good in +themselves but of a different kind from theirs. + +What, however, none of the kinds discussed in this chapter gave +entirely, while only the fairy story gave in part, and that in strong +contrast to another part of itself, was a history of ordinary +life--high, low, or middle--dealing with characters more or less +representing live and individual personages; furnished with incidents of +a possible and probable character more or less regularly constructed; +furnished further with effective description of the usual scenery, +manners, and general accessories of living; and, finally, giving such +conversation as might be thought necessary in forms suitable to "men of +this world," in the Shakespearian phrase. In other words, none of them +attained, or even attempted to fulfil, the full definition of the novel. +The scattered books to be mentioned in the next chapter did not, +perhaps, in any one case--even Madame de la Fayette's--quite achieve +this; but in all of them, even in Sorel's, we see more or less conscious +or unconscious attempt at it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124] Herr Koerting (_v. sup._ p. 133) gave considerable space to +Barclay's famous _Argenis_, which also appeared fairly early in the +century. To treat, however, a Latin book, written by a Scotsman, with +admittedly large if not main reference to European politics, as a +"French novel," seems a literary solecism. I do not know whether it is +rash to add that the _Argenis_ itself seems to me to have been wildly +overpraised. It is at any rate one of the few books--one of the still +fewer romances--which have defied my own powers of reading at more than +one attempt. + +[125] + +[Sidenote: Note on marked influence of Greek Romance.] + +The repetition, in the seventeenth century, of something very like a +phenomenon which we noticed in the twelfth, is certainly striking, and +may seem at first sight rather uncanny. But those who have made some +attempt to "find the whole" in literature, and in that attempt have at +least found out something about the curious laws of revolution and +recurrence which take the place of any progress in a straight line, will +deem the thing natural enough. We declined, in the earlier case, to +admit much, if any, direct influence of the accomplished Greek Romance +on the Romance of the West; but we showed how classical subjects, +whether pure or tinctured with Oriental influence, induced an immensely +important development of this same Western Romance in two +directions--that of manners, character, and passion, and that of marvel. +In the later period classical influences of all sorts are again at work; +but infinitely the larger part of that work is done by the Greek +Romances themselves--pastoral, adventurous, and sentimental,--the dates +of the translations of which will be given presently. And the newer +Oriental kind--coming considerably later still and sharing its nature +certainly, and perhaps its origin, not now with classical mythology, but +again, in the most curious way, with Western folk stories--supplements +and diversifies the reinforcement. + +[126] Scudery writes "Urfe," and this confirms the _obiter dictum_ of +Sainte-Beuve, that with the Christian name, the "Monsieur," or some +other title you must use the "_de_," otherwise not. But in this +particular instance I think most French writers give the particle. + +[127] I myself, in writing a _Short History of French Literature_ many +years ago, had to apologise for incomplete knowledge; and I will not +undertake even now to have read every romance cursorily mentioned in +this chapter--indeed, some are not very easy to get at. But I have done +my best to extend my knowledge, assisted by a rather minute study of the +contemporary English heroic romance in prose and verse; and I believe I +may say that I do now really know the _Grand Cyrus_, though even now I +will again not say that I have read every one of its perhaps two million +words, or even the whole of every one of its more than 12,000 pages. In +regard to the _Astree_ I have been less fortunately situated; but "I +have been there and still would go." + +[128] The above remarks are most emphatically _not_ intended to refer to +the work of Mr. Greg. + +[129] The sheep, whether as a beast of most multitude or for more +recondite reasons, has, of course, the preference; but it may be +permissible to say that no guardian of animals is excluded. Goat-herds +in the Greek ran the shepherd hard; neat-herds and swine-herds abound +everywhere except, as concerns the last, in Jewry; even the goose-girl +figures, and has in Provencal at least a very pretty name--_auquiera_. + +[130] The mediaeval _pastourelle_ is no doubt to some extent +conventional and "made in moulds." But it is by no means so unreal as +(whether Greek was so or not) Roman pastoral pretty certainly was, and +as modern has been beyond possibility of doubt. How good it could be, +without any convention at all, Henryson showed once for all in our own +language by _Robene and Makyne_. + +[131] _Theagenes and Chariclea_ had preceded it by thirteen years, +though a fresh translation appeared in the same year, as did the first +of _Hysminias and Hysmine_. Achilles Tatius (_Cleitophon and Leucippe_) +had been partly done in 1545, but waited till 1568 for completion. + +[132] _Op. cit. sup._ + +[133] They are almost always _Amours_ after their Greek prototypes, +sometimes simple, often qualified, and these most frequently by such +adjectives as "Infortunees et chastes," "Constantes et infortunees," +"Chastes et heureuses," "Pudiques," etc. etc. Not a few are taken direct +from episodes of Ariosto or other elders; otherwise they are "loves" of +Laoniphile, Lozie, Poliphile and Mellonimphe, Pegase (who has somehow or +other become a nymph) and Leandre, Dachmion and Deflore (a rather +unlucky heroine-name), etc. etc. Their authors are nearly as numerous as +their titles; but the chief were a certain Sieur de Nerveze, whose +numerous individual efforts were collected more than once to the number +at least of a good baker's dozen, and a Sieur des Escuteaux, who had the +same fortune. Sometimes the Hellenism went rather to seed in such titles +as _Erocaligenese_, which supposed itself to be Greek for "Naissance +d'un bel amour." It is only (at least in England) in the very largest +libraries, perhaps in the British Museum alone, that there is any chance +of examining these things directly; some of them escaped even the mighty +hunt of M. Reynier himself. What the present writer has found is treated +shortly in the text. + +[134] M. Reynier (most justly, but of course after many predecessors) +points out that the common filiation of these things on Marini and +Gongora is chronologically impossible. We could, equally of course, +supply older examples still in English; and persons of any reading can +carry the thing back through sixteenth- and fifteenth-century examples +to the Dark Ages and the late Greek classics--if no further. + +[135] It is fair to say that the first is "make-weighted" with a +pastoral play entitled _Athlette_, from the heroine's rather curious +name. + +[136] It _has_ two poems and some miscellanea. Something like this is +the case with another bookmaker of the class, Du Souhait. + +[137] It may be childish, but the association in this group of +ladies--three of them bearing some of the greatest historic names of +France, and the fourth that of the admirable critic with no other +namesake of whom I ever met--seemed to me interesting. It is perhaps +worth adding that Isabel de Rochechouart seems to have been not merely +dedicatee but part author of the first tale. + +[138] The habit is common with these authors. + +[139] He gives more analysis than usual, but complains of the author's +"affectation and bad taste." I venture to think this relatively rather +harsh, though it is positively too true of the whole group. + +[140] _La Vie et les Oeuvres de Honore d'Urfe._ Par le Chanoine O. C. +Reure, Paris, 1910. + +[141] The Abbe Reure, to whom I owe my own knowledge of the translation +and dedication, says nothing more. + +[142] M. Reynier, in the useful book so often quoted, has shown that, as +one would expect, this influence is not absent from the smaller French +love-novels which preceded the _Astree_; indeed, as we saw, it is +obvious, though in a form of more religiosity, as early as the +_Heptameron_. But it was not till the seventeenth century in France, or +till a little before it in some cases with us, that "Love in fantastic +triumph sat" between the shadowing wings of sensual and intellectual +passion. + +[143] They had, indeed, neither luck nor distinction after Honore's +death: and the last of the family died, like others of the renegade +nobles of France, by his own hand, to escape the guillotine which he +himself had helped to establish. + +[144] The more orthodox "laws of love" which Celadon puts up in his +"Temple of Astraea" are less amusing. + +[145] He constantly plays this part of referee and moraliser. But he is +by no means exempt from the pleasing fever of the place, and some have +been profane enough to think his mistress, Diane, more attractive than +the divine Astree herself. + +[146] Very delicate persons have been shocked by the advantages afforded +to Celadon in his disguise as the Druid's daughter, and the consequent +familiarity with the innocent unrecognising heroine. But _honi soit_ +will cover them. + +[147] There is plenty of this, including a regular siege of the capital, +Marcilly. + +[148] The constant confusion, in these quasi-classical romances, of +masculine and feminine names is a rather curious feature. But the late +Sir W. Gilbert played some tricks of the kind in _Pygmalion and +Galatea_, and I remember an English novelist, with more pretensions to +scholarship than Gilbert, making the particularly unfortunate blunder of +attributing to Longus a book called "_Doris_ and Chloe." + +[149] It is fair to say that Urfe has been praised for these historical +excursions or incursions of his. + +[150] Its difficulty of access in the French has been noted. The English +translation may be less rare, but it is not a good one even of its kind. +And, in face of the most false and misleading statements, never more +frequent than at the present moment, about the efficacy of translations, +it may be well to insist on the truth. For science, history philosophy +(though in a descending ratio through these three) translations may +serve. The man who knows Greek or Latin or any other _literature_ only +through them knows next to nothing of that literature as such, and in +its literary quality. The version may be, as in the leading case of +FitzGerald's Omar Khayyam, literature itself of the highest class; but +it is quite other literature than the original, and is, in fact, a new +original itself. It may, while keeping closer, be as good as Catullus on +Sappho or as bad as Mr. Gladstone on Toplady in form; but the form, even +if copied, is always again other. + +[151] Some reasons will be given later for taking this first--not the +least being the juxtaposition with the _Astree_. The actual order of the +chief "Heroic" authors and books is as follows: Gomberville, _La +Caritee_, 1622; _Polexandre_, 1632; _Citheree_, 1640-42. _La +Calprenede_, _Cassandre_, 1642; _Cleopatre_, 1648; _Faramond_, 1662. +Mlle. de Scudery, _Ibrahim_, 1641; _Artamene_, 1649; _Clelie_, 1656; +_Almahide_, 1660. + +[152] Cousin relieved his work on "The True, the Good, and the +Beautiful" not only with elaborate disquisitions on the ladies of the +Fronde who, though certainly beautiful were not very very good, but with +a long exposition of French society as revealed in the _Grand Cyrus_ +itself. + +[153] Scudery bore, and evidently rejoiced in, this sounding title, +which can never have had a titular to whom it was more appropriate. The +place seems to have been an actual fortress, though a small one, near +Marseilles. + +[154] I blushed for my namesake when I found, some time afterwards, that +he had copied this unusual (save in German) feminisation of the sun from +Gomberville (_v. inf._ p. 240). + +[155] That is classical education: in comparison with which "all others +is cagmaggers." + +[156] I have wavered a little between adopting French or Greek forms of +names. But as the authors are not consistent, and as some of their more +fanciful compounds classicalise badly, I have finally decided to stick +to the text in every case, except in those of historical persons where +French forms such as "Pisistrate" would jar. + +[157] Like Robina in _Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy_. + +[158] There are ten parts, each divisible into two _volumes_ and three +books. There is also a division at the end of the fifth "part" and the +tenth volume, the first five (ten) having apparently been issued +together. The "parts" are continuously paged--running never, I think, to +less than 1000 pages and more than once to a little over 1400. + +[159] Drama may have done harm here, if those dramatic critics who say +that you must never "puzzle the audience" are right. The happy +novel-reader is of less captious mood and mould: he trusts his author +and hopes his author will pull him through. + +[160] Some exception in the way of occasional flashes may be made for +two lively maids of honour to be mentioned later, Martesie and Doralise. + +[161] There is an immense "throw-back" after the Sinope affair, in which +the previous history of Artamene and the circumstances of Mandane's +abduction are recounted up to date--I hope that some readers at least +will not have forgotten the introduction of Lancelot to Guinevere. We +have here the Middle Age and the _Grand Siecle_ like philippines in a +nutshell. + +[162] To understand the account, it must be remembered that the combat +takes place in a position secluded from the two armies and strictly +forbidden to lookers-on; also that it is to be absolutely _a outrance_. + +[163] It is not perhaps extravagant to suggest that Sir Walter had +something of this fight, as well as of the _Combat des Trente_, in his +mind when he composed the famous record of the Clan Chattan and Clan +Quhele battle. + +[164] Praed's delightful Medora might have found the practice of the +_Grand Cyrus_ rather oppressive; but she would have thoroughly approved +its principles. + +[165] He is King of Cappadocia now, Astyages being alive; and only +succeeds to Media later. It must never be forgotten that the +_Cyropaedia_, not Herodotus, is the chief authority relied upon by the +authors, though they sometimes mix the two. + +[166] There is a very great physical resemblance between the two, and +this plays an important and repeated part in the book. + +[167] The King of Assyria, the King of Pontus, and the later Aryante +(_v. inf._). The fourth is the "good Rival" Mazare, who, though he also +is at one time in possession of the prize, and though he never is weary +of "loving unloved," is too honourable a gentleman to force his +attentions on an unwilling mistress. + +[168] It is probably, however, not quite fair to leave the reader, even +for a time, under the impression that it is _merely_ an excursion. Of +all the huge and numerous loop-lines, backwaters, ramifications, +reticulations, episodes, or whatever they may be called, there is hardly +one which has not a real connection with the general plot; and the +appearance of Thomyris here has such connection (as will be duly seen) +in a capital and vital degree. + +[169] Some readers no doubt will not need to be reminded that this is +the original title of _The Marriage of Kitty_,--literally "gangway," but +in the sense of "makeshift" or "_locum tenens_." + +[170] Cf. John Heywood's Interlude of _Love_. These stories also remind +one of the short romances noticed above. + +[171] No gentleman, of course, could refuse a challenge pure and simple, +unless in very peculiar circumstances; but hardly Sir Lucius O'Trigger +or Captain M'Turk would oblige a friend to enter into this curious kind +of bargain. + +[172] Another instance of the astonishing interweaving of the book +occurs here; for here is the first mention of Sappho and other persons +and things to be caught up sooner or later. + +[173] Such knowledge as I have of the other romances of the "heroic" +group shows them to be, with the possible exception of those of La +Calprenede, inferior in this respect, even allowing for the influence of +the _Cyropaedia_. + +[174] An extract may be worth giving in a note: "For the rest, if there +is anybody who is not acquainted enough with all my authors [_this is a +very delightful sweep over literature_] to know what was the Ring of +Gyges which is spoken of in this volume, let him not imagine that it is +Angelica's, with which I chose to adorn Artamene; and let him, on the +contrary, know that it was Ariosto who stole this famous ring which gave +his Paladins so much trouble; that _he_ took it from those great men +whom I am obliged to follow" [_a sweep of George's plumed hat in the +best Molieresque marquis style to Herodotus, Xenophon, and Cicero (who +comes in shortly) and the others_]. + +[175] The opening sentences of this _Histoire_ give a curious picture of +the etiquette of these spoken narrative episodes, which, from the +letters and memoirs of the time, we can see to have been actually +practised in the days of _Precieuse_ society. [_The story is not of +course delivered in the presence of Panthea herself; but she sends a +confidante, Pherenice, to tell it._] "They were no sooner in Araminta's +apartment than, after having made Cyrus sit down, and placed Pherenice +on a seat opposite to them, she begged her to begin her narrative and +not to hide from them, if it were possible, the smallest thought of +Abradates and Panthea. Accordingly this agreeable person, having made +them a compliment so as to ask their pardon for the scanty art she +brought to the story she was going to tell, actually began as follows:" + +[176] Observe how _vague_ what follows is. A scholar and a _modiste_, +working in happiest conjunction, might possibly "create" the dress; but +as for the face it might be any one out of those on one hundred +chocolate-boxes. + +[177] This passage gives a key to the degradation of the word "elegant." +It has kept the connotation of "grace," but lost that of "nobility." + +[178] _Abstracts_ of all the principal members of this group and others +occurred in the _Bibliotheque Universelle des Romans_, which appeared as +a periodical at Paris in 1778. But what I do not know is whether any one +ever arranged an elaborate tabular syllabus of the book like that of +Burton's _Anatomy_. It would lend itself admirably to the process if any +one had time and inclination to do the thing. + +[179] With the exception, already noted, of Urfe; and even he is far +below Donne. + +[180] There were, though not many, actual instances of capital +punishment for disregard of the edicts against duelling, and +imprisonment was common. But the deterrent effect was very small. +Montmorency-Bouteville was the best-known victim. + +[181] It is amusing, as one reads this, to remember Hume's essay in +which he lays stress on the _contrast_ between Greek and French ideas in +this very matter of the duel. + +[182] A curious and rather doubtful position; well worth the +consideration of anybody who wishes to write the much-wanted _History +and Philosophy of Duelling_. + +[183] The author uses "Prince," as indeed one might expect, rather in +the Continental than in the English way, and the persons who bear it are +not always sons of kings or members of reigning families. The two most +agreeable _quiproquos_ arising from this difference are probably the +fictitious unwillingness of the excellent Miss Higgs to descend from +"Princesse de Montcontour" to "Duchesse d'Ivry," and the, it is said, +historical contempt of a comparatively recent Papal dignitary for an +English Roman Catholic document which had no Princes among the +signatories. + +[184] Nobody, unless I forget, has the wisdom to put the +counter-question, "Can you ever cease loving if you have once really +loved?" which is to be carefully distinguished from a third, "Can you +love more than once?" But there are more approaches to these _arcana_ in +the _Astree_ than in Mlle. de Scudery. + +[185] A very nice phrase. + +[186] He had refused to cross swords with her, and had lowered his own +in salute. + +[187] Compare the not quite so ingenious adjustment of the intended +burning of Croesus. + +[188] _Clelie_ is about as bad in this respect, _v. inf._: the others +less so. + +[189] I have said that you _can_ do this with the _Astree_, and that +this makes for superiority in it: but there also I think absolutely +continuous reading of the whole would become "collar-work." + +[190] That is to say, several weeks occupied in the manner above +indicated. You may sometimes read two of the volumes in a day, but much +oftener you will find one enough; in the actual process for the present +history some intervals must be allowed for digestion and _precis_; and, +as above remarked, if other forms of "cheerfulness," in Dr. Johnson's +friend Mr. Edwards's phrase, do not "break in" of themselves, you must +make them, to keep any freshness in the task. I fancy the twenty volumes +were, if not "my _sole_ occupation" (like that more cheerful and +charitable one of the head-waiter at Limmer's), my main one for nearly +twice twenty days. + +[191] In this respect the remarks above extend backwards to the +_Astree_, and even to some of the smaller and earlier novels mentioned +in connection with it. But the "Heroics," especially Mlle. de Scudery, +_modernise_ the treatment not inconsiderably. + +[192] Achilles Tatius and the author of _Hysminias and Hysmine_ come +nearest. But the first is too ancient and the last too modern. + +[193] We have indeed endeavoured to discover a "form" of the greatest +and best kind in the Arthurian, but it has been acknowledged that it may +not have been deliberately reached--or approached--by even a single +artist, and that, if it was, the identity of that artist is not quite +certain. + +[194] The intolerance of anything but scraps is one of the numerous arms +and legs of the twentieth century Baal. There are some who have not +bowed down to it. + +[195] For Soliman is not indisposed to fall in love with his illustrious +Bassa's beloved. + +[196] At the close of _Old Mortality_. + +[197] One is lost if one begins quoting from these books. But there is +another passage at the end of the same volume worth glancing at for its +oddity. It is an elaborate chronological "checking" of the age of the +different characters; and, odd as it is, one cannot help remembering +that not a few authors from Walter Map (or whoever it was) to Thackeray +might have been none the worse for similar calculations. + +[198] It is not, I hope, frivolous or pusillanimous, but merely honest, +to add that, as I have spent much less time on _Clelie_ than on the +other book, it has had less opportunity of boring me. + +[199] Cf. the _Astree_ as noted above. + +[200] He also wrote several plays. + +[201] This would supply the ghost of Varus with a crushing answer to +"Give me back my legions!" in such form as "Why did you send me with +them?" + +[202] At another time there might have been a little gentle satire in +this, but hardly then. + +[203] It would seem, however, that the Scuderys were not originally +Norman. + +[204] Chateaubriand hardly counts in strictness. + +[205] Although some say that almost every one of the numerous _personae_ +of the _Astree_ had a live original. + +[206] These books, having been constantly referred to in this fashion, +offer a good many traps, into some of which I have fallen in the past, +and may have done so even now. For instance, Koerting rightly points out +that almost every one calls this "_La_ Jeune Alcidiane," whereas A. is +the hero, who bears his mother's name. + +[207] I had made this remark before I knew that Koerting had anticipated +it. + +[208] The more recent books which refer to him, and (I think) the +British Museum Catalogue, drop this addition. But he was admittedly of +the Pontcarre family. + +[209] Neither the original, however, nor this revision seems to have +enjoyed the further honour of a place in the British Museum. Other books +of his which at least sound novelish were _Darie_, _Aristandre_, +_Diotrephe_, _Cleoreste_ (of which as well as of _Palombe_ analyses may +be found in Koerting). The last would seem to be the most interesting. +But in the bibliography of the Bishop's writings there are at least a +dozen more titles of the same kind. + +[210] Cf. the "self-precipitation" of Celadon. Perhaps no class of +writers has ever practised "imitation," in the wrong sense, more than +these "heroic" romancers. + +[211] I am glad to find the high authority of my friend Sir Sidney +Colvin on my side here as to the wider position--though he tells me that +he was not, when he read _Endimion_, conscious of any positive +indebtedness on Keats' part. + +[212] _V. sup._ p. 177, note 3. + +[213] Gombauld seems to have been a devotee of both Queens: and +commentators will have it that this whole book is courtship as well as +courtiership in disguise. + +[214] A kind of intermediary nymph--an enchantress indeed--who has +assisted and advised him in his quests for the goddess. + +[215] Emile Magne, _Mme. de V._, Paris, 1907. + +[216] This sometimes causes positive obscurity as to fact. Thus it is +impossible to make out from M. Magne whether Hortense, in her last days, +actually married the cousin with whom she had been intimate in youth, or +merely lived with him. + +[217] By M. H. E. Chatenet, Paris, 1911. + +[218] There is a little in the verse, most of which belongs to the +"flying" kind so common in the century. + +[219] _V. inf._ upon it. + +[220] His own admirable introduction to Perrault in the Clarendon Press +series will, as far as our subject is directly concerned, supply +whatever a reader, within reason further curious, can want: and his +well-known rainbow series of Fairy Books will give infinite +illustration. + +[221] The longest of all, in the useful collection referred to in the +text, are the _Oiseau Bleu_ and the charming _Biche au Bois_, each of +which runs to nearly sixty pages. But both, though very agreeable, are +distinctly "sophisticated," and for that very reason useful as gangways, +as it were, from the simpler fairy tale to the complete novel. + +[222] Enchanters, ogres, etc. "count" as fairies. + +[223] Apuleius, who has a good deal of the "fairy" element in him, was +naturally drawn upon in this group. The _Psyche_ indebtedness reappears, +with frank acknowledgment, in _Serpentin Vert_. + +[224] If Perrault really wrote this, the Muses, rewarding him elsewhere +for the good things he said in "The Quarrel," must have punished him +here for the silly ones. It has, in fact, most of the faults which +_neo_-classicism attributed to its opposite. + +[225] For a spoiling of this delightful story _v. inf._ on the +_Cabinet_. + +[226] Its full title, "ou Collection Choisie des C. des F. _et autres +Contes Merveilleux_," should in justice be remembered, when one feels +inclined to grumble at some of the contents. + +[227] This indeed was the case, in one or other kind of longer fiction +writing, with most of the authors to be mentioned. The total of this in +the French eighteenth century was enormous. + +[228] She is even preceded by a Mme. de Murat, a friend of Mme. de +Parabere, but a respectable fairy-tale writer. It does not seem +necessary, according to the plan of this book, to give many particulars +about these writers; for it is their writings, not themselves, that our +subject regards. The curious may be referred to Walckenaer on the Fairy +Tale in general, and Honore Bonhomme on the _Cabinet_ in particular, as +well as (_v. inf._) to the thirty-seventh volume of the collection +itself. + +[229] There is sometimes alliance and sometimes jealousy on this +subject. In one tale the "Comte de Gabalis" is solemnly "had up," tried, +and condemned as an impostor. + +[230] _Ricdin-Ricdon_, one of those which pass between Coeur de Lion and +Blondel, is of the same kind, is also good, and is longer. + +[231] She seems, however (see vol. 37 as above), to have been a real +person. + +[232] The would-be anonymous compiler (he was really Gueulette, on whom +_v. inf._) of this and the other collections now to be noticed, when +acknowledging his sufficiently evident _supercherie_ and some of his +indebtednesses (_e.g._ to Straparola), defends this on Edgeworthian +principles. But though it is quite true that a healthy curiosity as to +such things may be aroused by tales, it should be left to satisfy +itself, not forestalled and spoilt and stunted by immediate information. + +[233] The once very popular _Tales of the Genii_ (_v. inf._) which are +often referred to by Scott and other men of his generation, seem to have +dropped out of notice comparatively. We shall meet them here in French. + +[234] The late Mr. Henley was at one time much interested in this point, +and consulted me about it. But I could tell him nothing; and I do not +know whether he ever satisfied himself on the subject. Lesage _is_ said +(though I am not sure that the evidence goes beyond _on dit_) to have +revised the work of Petis de La Croix in the _Days_; and some of his own +certainly corresponds to it. + +[235] Or, as it was once put, with easy epigram, when the artificial +fairy tale is not dreadfully improper it is apt to be dreadfully proper. + +[236] Nothing suits the entire group better than the reply of the +ferocious and sleepless but not unintelligent Sultan Hudgiadge, in the +_Nouveaux Contes Orientaux_, when his little benefactress Moradbak says +that she will have the honour to-morrow of telling him a _histoire +Mongole_. "Le pays n'y fait rien," says he. And it doesn't. + +[237] All of them, be it remembered, the work of Gueulette (_v. inf._). + +[238] The recently recovered "episodes" of this are rather more like the +_Cabinet_ stories than _Vathek_ itself; and perhaps a sense of this may +have been part of the reason why Beckford never published them. + +[239] He came to ask, or rather demand, Zibeline's hand for his master: +and the fairy made his magnificence appear rags and rubbish. + +[240] Mr. Toots's "I'm a-a-fraid you must have got very wet." When +Courtebotte returns from his expedition, across six months of snow, to +the Ice Mountain on the top of which rests Zibeline's heart, "many +thousand persons" ask him, "_Vous avez donc eu bien froid?_" + +[241] She is also said to have been a "love-child" of no less a father +than Prince Eugene. + +[242] Anybody who is curious as to this should look up the matter, as +may be done most conveniently in an _excursus_ of Napier's edition, +where my "friend of" [more than] "forty years," the late Mr. Mowbray +Morris, in a note to his own admirable one-volume "Globe" issue, thought +that Macaulay was "proved to be absolutely right." Morris, though his +published and signed writings were few, and though he pushed to its very +furthest the hatred of personal advertisement natural to most English +"_gentlemen_ of the press," was a man of the world and of letters in +most unusual combination; of a true Augustan taste both in criticism and +in composition; of wit and of _savoir vivre_ such as few possess. But, +like all men who are good for anything, he had some crazes: and one of +them was Macaulay. I own that I do not think all the honours were on T. +B. M.'s side in this mellay: but this is not the place to reason out the +matter. What is quite certain is that in this long-winded and mostly +trivial performance there is a great deal of intended, or at least +suggested, political satire. But Johnson, though he might well think +little of _Titi_, need not have despised the whole _Cabinet_ (or as he +calls it, perhaps using the real title of another issue, +_Bibliotheque_), and would not on another occasion. Indeed the +diary-notes in which the thing occurs are too much in shorthand to be +trustworthy texts. + +[243] Pierre Francois Godard de Beauchamps seems to have been another +fair example of the half-scholarly bookmakers of the eighteenth century. +He wrote a few light plays and some serious _Recherches sur les Theatres +de France_ which are said to have merit. He translated the late and +coxcombical but not uninteresting Greek prose romance of _Hysminias and +Hysmine_, as well as that painful verse-novel, the _Rhodanthe and +Dosicles_ of Theodoras Prodromus: and he composed, under a pseudonym, of +course, a naughty _Histoire du Prince Apprius_ to match his good +_Funestine_. The contrasted ways and works of such bookmakers at various +times would make a not uninteresting essay of the Hayward type. + +[244] "Engageant," "Adresse," "Parlepeu," etc. The _Avertissement de +l'Auteur_ is possibly a joke, but more probably an awkward and miss-fire +_supercherie_ revealing the usual ignorance of the time as to matters +mediaeval. "Alienore" (though it would be better without the final _e_) +is a pretty as well as historic form of one of the most beautiful and +protean of girl's names: but how did her father, a "seigneur _anglais_," +come to be called "Rivalon Murmasson"? And did they know much about +Arabia Felix in Brittany when "Daniel Dremruz" reigned there between +A.D. 680 and 720? Gueulette himself was a barrister and +Procureur-Substitut at the Chatelet. He seems to have imitated Hamilton, +to whom the editors of the Cabinet rather idly think him "equal," +though, inconsistently, they admit that Hamilton "stands alone" and +Gueulette does not. On the other hand, they charge Voltaire with +actually "tracing" over Gueulette. ("_Zadig_ est calque sur les _Soirees +Bretonnes_.") This is again an exaggeration; but Gueulette had, +undoubtedly, a pleasant and exceedingly fertile fancy, and a good knack +of narrative. + +[245] The best perhaps is of a certain peppery Breton, Saint-Foix, who +was successively a mousquetaire, a lieutenant of cavalry, aide-de-camp +to "Broglie the War-god," and a long-lived _litterateur_ in Paris. M. de +Saint-Foix picked a quarrel in the _foyer_ of the opera with an unknown +country gentleman, as it seemed, and "gave him a rendezvous." But the +other party replied coolly that it "was his custom" to be called on if +people had business with him, and gave his address. Saint-Foix goes next +morning, and is received with the utmost politeness and asked to +breakfast. "That's not the question," says the indignant Breton. "Let us +go out." "I never go out without breakfasting; _it is my custom_," says +the provincial, and does as he says, politely repeating invitations from +time to time to his fretting adversary. At last they do go out, to +Saint-Foix's great relief; but they pass a _cafe_, and it is once more +the stranger's sacred custom to play a game of chess or draughts after +breakfast. The same thing happens with a "turn" in the Tuileries, at +which Saint-Foix does not fume quite so much, because it is on the way +to the Champs Elysees, where fighting is possible. The "turn" achieved, +he himself proposes to adjourn there. "What for?" says the stranger +innocently. "What _for_? A pretty question _pardieu_! To fight, of +course! Have you forgotten it?" "_Fight!_ Why, sir, what are you +thinking of? What would people say of me? A magistrate, a treasurer of +France, put sword in hand? They would take us for a couple of fools." +Which argument being unanswerable, according to the etiquette of the +time, Saint-Foix leaves the dignitary--who himself takes good care to +tell the story. It must be remembered--first that no actual _challenge_ +had passed, merely an ambiguous demand for addresses; secondly, that the +treasurer, as the superior by far in rank, had a right to suppose +himself known to his inferiors; and thirdly, that to challenge a +"magistrate" was in France equivalent to being, in the words of a +lampoon quoted by Macaulay, "'Gainst ladies and bishops excessively +valiant" in England. + +[246] Although there is a good deal of merit in some of these tales, +none of them approaches the charming _Diable Amoureux_ which Cazotte +produced in 1772, twenty years before his famous and tragical death +after once escaping the Revolutionary fangs. This little story, which is +at least as much of a fairy tale as many things "cabinetted," would be +nearly perfect if Cazotte had not unluckily botched it with a double +ending, neither of the actual closes being quite satisfactory. If, in +one of them, he had had the pluck to stop at the outcry of the succubus +Biondetta when she has at last attained her object, + + "Je suis le diable! mon cher Alvare, je suis le diable!" + +and let the rest be "wrop in mystery," it would probably have been the +best way. But the bulk of the book is beyond improvement: and there is a +fluid grace about the autobiographical _recit_ which is very rare +indeed, at least in French, except in the unfortunate Gerard de Nerval, +who was akin to Cazotte in many ways, and actually edited him. A very +carping critic may object to the not obvious nor afterwards explained +interposition of a pretty little spaniel between the original diabolic +avatar of the hideous camel's head and the subsequent incarnation of the +beautiful Biondetto-Biondetta; especially as the later employment of +another dog, to prevent Alvare's succumbing to temptation earlier than +he did, is confusing. But this would be "seeking a knot in a reed." +Perhaps the greatest merit of the story, next to the pure tale-telling +charm above noted, is the singular taste and skill with which Biondetta, +except for her repugnance to the marriage ceremony, is prevented from +showing the slightest diabolic character during her long cohabitation +with Alvare, and her very "comingnesses" are arranged so as to give the +idea, not in the least of a temptress, but of an extra-innocent but +quite natural _ingenue_. Monk Lewis, of course, knew Cazotte, but he has +coarsened his original woefully. It may perhaps be added that the first +illustrations, reproduced in Gerard's edition as curiosities, are such +in the highest degree. They are ushered with an ironic Preface: and they +sometimes make one rub one's eyes and wonder whether Futurism and Cubism +are not, like so many other things, merely recooked cabbage. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--II + +_From "Francion" to "La Princesse de Cleves"_--_Anthony Hamilton_[247] + + +[Sidenote: The material of the chapter.] + +Justice has, it is hoped, been done to the great classes of fictitious +work which, during the seventeenth century, made fiction, as such, +popular with high and of low in France. But it is one of the not very +numerous safe generalisations or inductions which may be fished out from +the wide and treacherous Syrtes of the history of literature, that it is +not as a rule from "classes" that the best work comes; and that, when it +does so come, it generally represents a sort of outside and uncovenanted +element or constituent of the class. We have, unfortunately, lost the +Greek epic, as a class; but we know enough about it, with its few +specimens, such as Apollonius Rhodius earlier and Nonnus later, to warn +us that, if we had more, we should find Homer not merely better, but +different, and this though probably every practitioner was at least +trying to imitate or surpass Homer. Dante stands in no class at all, nor +does Milton, nor does Shelley; and though Shakespeare indulgently +permits himself to be classed as an "Elizabethan dramatist," what +strikes true critics most is again hardly more his "betterness" than +his difference. The very astonishment with which we sometimes say of +Webster, Dekker, Middleton, that they come near Shakespeare, is not due, +as foolish people say, to any only less foolish idolatry, but to a true +critical surprise at the approximation of things usually so very +distinct. + +The examples in higher forms of literature just chosen for comparison do +not, of course, show any wish in the chooser to even any French +seventeenth-century novelist with Homer or Shakespeare, with Dante or +Milton or Shelley. But the work noticed in the last chapter certainly +includes nothing of strong idiosyncrasy. In other books scattered, in +point of time of production, over great part of the period, such +idiosyncrasy is to be found, though in very various measure. Now, +idiosyncrasy is, if not the only difference or property, the inseparable +accident of all great literature, and it may exist where literature is +not exactly great. Moreover, like other abysses, it calls to, and calls +into existence, yet more abysses of its own kind or not-kind; while +school- and class-work, however good, can never produce anything but +more class- and school-work, except by exciting the always dubious and +sometimes very dangerous desire "to be different." The instances of this +idiosyncrasy with which we shall now deal are the _Francion_ of Charles +Sorel; the _Roman Comique_ of Paul Scarron; the _Roman Bourgeois_ of +Antoine Furetiere; the _Voyages_, as they are commonly called (though +the proper title is different[248]), _a la Lune et au Soleil_, of Cyrano +de Bergerac, and the _Princesse de Cleves_ of Mme. de La Fayette; while +last of all will come the remarkable figure of Anthony Hamilton, less +"single-speech"[249] than the others and than his namesake later, but +possessor of greater genius than any. + +[Sidenote: Sorel and _Francion_.] + +The present writer has long ago been found fault with for paying too +much attention to _Francion_, and he may possibly (if any one thinks it +worth while) be found fault with again for placing it here. But he does +so from no mere childish desire to persist in some rebuked naughtiness, +but from a sincere belief in the possession by the book of some +historical importance. Any one who, on Arnoldian principles, declines to +take the historic estimate into account at all, is, on those principles, +justified in neglecting it altogether; whether, on the other hand, such +neglect does not justify a suspicion of the soundness of the principles +themselves, is another question. Charles Sorel, historiographer of +France, was a very voluminous and usually a very dull writer. His +voluminousness, though beside the enormous compositions of the last +chapter it is but a small thing, is not absent from _Francion_, nor is +his dulness. Probably few people have read the book through, and I am +not going to recommend anybody to do so. But the author does to some +extent deserve the cruel praise of being "dull in a new way" (or at +least of being evidently in quest of a new way to be dull in), as +Johnson wrongfully said of Gray. His book is not a direct imitation of +any one thing, though an attempt to adapt the Spanish picaresque style +to French realities and fantasies is obvious enough, as it is likewise +in Scarron and others. But this is mixed with all sorts of other +adumbrations, if not wholly original, yet showing that quest of +originality which has been commended. It is an almost impossible book to +analyse, either in short or long measure. The hero wanders about France, +and has all sorts of adventures, the recounting of which is not without +touches of Rabelais, of the _Moyen de Parvenir_, perhaps of the rising +fancies about the occult, which generated Rosicrucianism and "astral +spirits" and the rest of it--a whole farrago, in short, of matters +decent and indecent, congruous seldom and incongruous often. It is not +like Sterne, because it is dull, and at the same time quasi-romantic; +while "sensibility" had not come in, though we shall see it do so within +the limits of this chapter. It has a resemblance, though not very much +of one, to the rather later work of Cyrano. But it is most like two +English novels of far higher merit which were not to appear for a +century or a century and a half--Amory's _John Buncle_ and Graves's +_Spiritual Quixote_. As it is well to mention things together without +the danger of misleading those who run as they read, and mind the +running rather than the reading, let me observe that the liveliest part +of _Francion_ is duller than the dullest of _Buncle_, and duller still +than the least lively thing in Graves. The points of resemblance are in +pillar-to-postness, in the endeavour (here almost entirely a failure, +but still an endeavour) to combine fancy with realism, and above all in +freedom from following the rules of any "school." Realism in the good +sense and originality were the two things that the novel had to achieve. +Sorel missed the first and only achieved a sort of "distanced" position +in the second. But he tried--or groped--for both. + +[Sidenote: The _Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_.] + +I am bound to say that in Sorel's other chief works of fiction, the +_Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_, I find the same curious mixture of +qualities which have made me more lenient than most critics to +_Francion_. And I do not think it unfair to add that they also incline +me still more to think that there was perhaps a little of the _Pereant +qui ante nos_ feeling in Furetiere's attack (_v. inf._ p. 288). Neither +could possibly be called by any sane judge a good book, and both display +the uncritical character,[250] the "pillar-to-postness," the +marine-store and almost rubbish-heap promiscuity, of the more famous +book. Like it, they are much too big.[251] But the _Berger Extravagant_, +in applying (very early) the _Don Quixote_ method, as far as Sorel could +manage it, to the _Astree_, is sometimes amusing and by no means always +unjust. _Polyandre_ is, in part, by no means unlike an awkward first +draft of a _Roman Bourgeois_. The scene in the former, where Lysis--the +Extravagant Shepherd and the Don Quixote of the piece,--making an +all-night sitting over a poem in honour of his mistress Charite (the +Dulcinea), disturbs the unfortunate Clarimond--a sort of "bachelor," the +sensible man of the book, and a would-be reformer of Lysis--by constant +demands for a rhyme[252] or an epithet, is not bad. The victim revenges +himself by giving the most ludicrous words he can think of, which Lysis +duly works in, and at last allows Clarimond to go to sleep. But he is +quickly waked by the poet running about and shouting, "I've got it! I've +found it. The finest _reprise_ [= refrain] ever made!" And in +_Polyandre_ there is a sentence (not the only one by many) which not +only gives a _point de repere_ of an interesting kind in itself, but +marks the beginning of the "_farrago libelli_ moderni": "Ils ont des +mets qu'ils nomment des _bisques_; je doute si c'est potage ou +fricassee." + +Here we have (1) Evidence that Sorel was a man of observation, and took +an interest in really interesting things. + +(2) A date for the appearance, or the coming into fashion, of an +important dish. + +(3) An instance of the furnishing of fiction with something more than +conventional adventure on the one hand, and conventional harangues or +descriptions on the other. + +(4) An interesting literary parallel; for here is the libelled +"Charroselles" (_v. inf._ p. 288) two centuries beforehand, feeling a +doubt, exactly similar to Thackeray's, as to whether a _bouillabaisse_ +should be called soup or broth, brew or stew. Those who understand the +art and pastime of "book-fishing" will not go away with empty baskets +from either of these neglected ponds. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Scarron and the _Roman Comique_.] + +Almost as different a person as can possibly be conceived from Sorel was +Paul Scarron, Abbe, "Invalid to the Queen," husband of the future Mme. +de Maintenon, author of burlesques which did him no particular honour, +of plays which, if not bad, were never first rate, of witticisms +innumerable, most of which have perished, and of other things, besides +being a hero of some facts and more legends; but author also of one book +in our own subject of much intrinsic and more historical interest, and +original also of passages in later books more interesting still to all +good wits. Not a lucky man in life (except for the possession of a +lively wit and an imperturbable temper), he was never rich, and he +suffered long and terribly from disease--one of the main subjects of his +legend, but, after all discussions and carpings, looking most like +rheumatoid arthritis, one of the most painful and incurable of ailments. +But Scarron was, and has been since, by no means unlucky in literature. +He had, though of course not an unvaried, a great popularity in a +troubled and unscrupulous time: and long after his death two of the +foremost novelists of his country selected him for honourable treatment +of curiously different kinds. Somehow or other the introduction of men +of letters of old time into modern books has not been usually very +fortunate, except in the hands of Thackeray and a very few more. Among +these latter instances may certainly be ranked the pleasant picture of +Scarron's house, and of the attention paid to him by the as yet +unmarried Francoise d'Aubigne, in Dumas's _Vingt Ans Apres_. Nor is it +easy to think of any literary following that, while no doubt bettering, +abstains so completely from robbing, insulting, or obscuring its model +as does Gautier's _Capitaine Fracasse_. + +It is, however, with this pleasant book itself that we are concerned. +Here again, of course, the picaresque model comes in, and there is a +good deal of directly borrowed matter. But a much greater talent, and +especially a much more acute and critical wit than Sorel's, brings to +that scheme the practical-artistic French gift, the application of which +to the novel is, in fact, the subject of this whole chapter. Not +unkindly judges have, it is true, pronounced it not very amusing; and an +uncritical comparer may find it injured by Gautier's book. The older +novel has, indeed, nothing of the magnificent style of the overture of +this latter. _Le Chateau de la Misere_ is one of the finest things of +the kind in French; for exciting incident there is no better duel in +literature than that of Sigognac and Lampourde; and the delicate +pastel-like costumes and manners and love-making of Gautier's longest +and most ambitious romance are not to be expected in the rough +"rhyparography"[253] of the seventeenth century. But in itself the +_Roman Comique_ is no small performance, and historically it is almost +great. We have in it, indeed, got entirely out of the pure romance; but +we have also got out of the _fatrasie_--the mingle-mangle of story, +jargon, nonsense, and what not,--out of the mere tale of adventure, out +of the mere tale of _grivoiserie_. We have borrowed the comic +dramatist's mirror--the "Muses' Looking-glass"--and are holding it up to +nature without the intervention of the conventionalities of the stage. +The company to which we are introduced is, no doubt, pursuing a somewhat +artificial vocation; but it is pursuing it in the way of real life, as +many live men and women have pursued it. The mask itself may be of their +trade and class; but it is taken off them, and they are not merely +_personae_, they are persons. + +To re-read the _Roman Comique_ just after reading the _Grand Cyrus_ came +into the present plan partly by design and partly by accident; but I had +not fully anticipated the advantage of doing so. The contrast of the +two, and the general relation between them could, indeed, escape no one; +but an interval of a great many years since the last reading of +Scarron's work had not unnaturally caused forgetfulness of the +deliberate and minute manner in which he himself points that contrast, +and even now and then satirises the _Cyrus_ by name. The system of inset +_Histoires_,[254] beginning with the well-told if borrowed story of Don +Carlos of Aragon and his "Invisible Mistress," is, indeed, hardly a +contrast except in point of the respective lengths of the digressions, +nor does it seem to be meant as a parody. It has been said that this +"inset" system, whether borrowed from the episodes of the ancients or +descended from the constant divagations of the mediaeval romances, is +very old, and proved itself uncommonly tenacious of life. But the +difference between the opening of the two books can hardly have been +other than intentional on the part of the later writer; and it is a very +memorable one, showing nothing less than the difference between romance +and novel, between academic generalities and "realist" particularism, +and between not a few other pairs of opposites. It has been fully +allowed that the overture of the _Grand Cyrus_ is by no means devoid of +action, even of bustle, and that it is well done of its kind. But that +kind is strongly marked in the very fact that there is a sort of +faintness in it. The burning of Sinope, the distant vessel, the +street-fighting that follows, are what may be called "cartoonish"--large +washes of pale colour. The talk, such as there is, is stage-talk of the +pseudo-grand style. It is curious that Scarron himself speaks of the +_Cyrus_ as being the most "furnitured" romance, _le roman le plus +meuble_, that he knows. To a modern eye the interiors are anything but +distinct, despite the elaborate _ecphrases_, some of which have been +quoted.[255] + +Now turn to the opening passage of the _Roman Comique_, which strikes +the new note most sharply. It is rather well known, probably even to +some who have not read the original or Tom Brown's congenial translation +of it; for it has been largely laid under contribution by the +innumerable writers about a much greater person than Scarron, Moliere. +The experiences of the _Illustre Theatre_ were a little later, and +apparently not so sordid as those of the company of which Scarron +constituted himself historiographer; but they cannot have been very +dissimilar in general kind, and many of the characteristics, such as the +assumption now of fantastic names, "Le Destin," "La Rancune," etc., now +of rococo-romantic ones, such as "Mademoiselle de l'Etoile," remained +long unaltered. But perhaps a fresh translation may be attempted, and +the attempt permitted. For though the piece, of course, has recent +Spanish and even older Italian examples of a kind, still the change in +what may be called "particular universality" is remarkable. + + [Sidenote: The opening scene of this.] + + The sun had finished more than half his course, and his + chariot, having reached the slope of the world, was running + quicker than he wished. If his horses had chosen to avail + themselves of the drop of the road, they would have got + through what remained of the day in less than half or + quarter of an hour; but instead of pulling at full strength, + they merely amused themselves by curvetting, as they drew in + a salt air, which told them the sea, wherein men say their + master goes to bed every night, was close at hand. To speak + more like a man of this world, and more intelligibly, it was + between five and six o'clock, when a cart came into the + market-place of Le Mans. This cart was drawn by four very + lean oxen, with, for leader, a brood-mare, whose foal + scampered about round the cart, like a silly little thing as + it was. The cart was full of boxes and trunks, and of great + bundles of painted canvas, which made a sort of pyramid, on + the top of which appeared a damsel, dressed partly as for + town, partly for country. By the side of the cart walked a + young man, as ill-dressed as he was good-looking. He had on + his face a great patch, which covered one eye and half his + cheek, and he carried a large fowling-piece on his shoulder. + With this he had slain divers magpies, jays, and crows; and + they made a sort of bandoleer round him, from the bottom + whereof hung a pullet and a gosling, looking very like the + result of a plundering expedition. Instead of a hat he had + only a night-cap, with garters of divers colours twisted + round it, which headgear looked like a very unfinished + sketch of a turban. His coat was a jacket of grey stuff, + girt with a strap, which served also as a sword-belt, the + sword being so long that it wanted a fork to draw it neatly + for use. He wore breeches trussed, with stockings attached + to them, as actors do when they play an ancient hero; and + he had, instead of shoes, buskins of a classical pattern, + muddied up to the ankle. An old man, more ordinarily but + still very ill-dressed, walked beside him. He carried on his + shoulders a bass-viol, and as he stooped a little in + walking, one might, at a distance, have taken him for a + large tortoise walking on its hind legs. Some critic may + perhaps murmur at this comparison; but I am speaking of the + big tortoises they have in the Indies, and besides I use it + at my own risk. Let us return to our caravan. + + It passed in front of the tennis-court called the Doe, at + the door of which were gathered a number of the topping + citizens of the town. The novel appearance of the conveyance + and team, and the noise of the mob who had gathered round + the cart, induced these honourable burgomasters to cast an + eye upon the strangers; and among others a Deputy-Provost + named La Rappiniere came up, accosted them, and, with the + authority of a magistrate, asked who they were. The young + man of whom I have just spoken replied, and without touching + his turban (inasmuch as with one of his hands he held his + gun and with the other the hilt of his sword, lest it should + get between his legs) told the Provost that they were French + by birth, actors by profession, that his stage-name was Le + Destin, that of his old comrade La Rancune, and that of the + lady who was perched like a hen on the top of their baggage, + La Caverne. This odd name made some of the company laugh; + whereat the young actor added that it ought not to seem + stranger to men with their wits about them than "La + Montagne," "La Vallee," "La Rose," or "L'Epine." The talk + was interrupted by certain sounds of blows and oaths which + were heard from the front of the cart. It was the + tennis-court attendant, who had struck the carter without + warning, because the oxen and the mare were making too free + with a heap of hay which lay before the door. The row was + stopped, and the mistress of the court, who was fonder of + plays than of sermons or vespers, gave leave, with a + generosity unheard of in her kind, to the carter to bait his + beasts to their fill. He accepted her offer, and, while the + beasts ate, the author rested for a time, and set to work to + think what he should say in the next chapter. + +The sally in the last sentence, with the other about the tortoise, and +the mock solemnity of the opening, illustrate two special +characteristics, which will be noticed below, and which may be taken in +each case as a sort of revulsion from, or parody of, the solemn ways of +the regular romance. There may be even a special reference to the +"_Phebus_" the technical name or nickname of the "high language" in +these repeated burlesque introductions of the sun. And the almost pert +flings and cabrioles of the narrator form a still more obvious and +direct Declaration of Independence. But these are mere details, almost +trivial compared with the striking contrast of the whole presentation +and _faire_ of the piece, when taken together with most of the subjects +of the last chapter. + +It may require a little, but it should not require much, knowledge of +literary history to see how modern this is; it should surely require +none to see how vivid it is--how the sharpness of an etching and the +colour of a bold picture take the place of the shadowy "academies" of +previous French writers.[256] There may be a very little exaggeration +even here--in other parts of the book there is certainly some--and +Scarron never could forget his tendency to that form of exaggeration +which is called burlesque. But the stuff and substance of the piece is +reality. + +An important item of the same change is to be found in the management of +the insets, or some of them. One of the longest and most important is +the autobiographical history of Le Destin or Destin (the article is +often dropped), the tall young man with the patch on his face. But this +is not thrust bodily into the other body of the story, _Cyrus_-fashion; +it is alternated with the passages of that story itself, and that in a +comparatively natural manner--night or some startling accident +interrupting it; while how even courtiers could find breath to tell, or +patience and time to hear, some of the interludes of the _Cyrus_ and its +fellows is altogether past comprehension. There is some coarseness in +Scarron--he would not be a comic writer of the seventeenth century if +there were none. Not very long after the beginning the tale is +interrupted by a long account of an unseemly practical joke which surely +could amuse no mortal after a certain stage of schoolboyhood. But there +is little or no positive indecency: the book contrasts not more +remarkably with the Aristophanic indulgence of the sixteenth century +than with the sniggering suggestiveness of the eighteenth. Some remnants +of the Heroic convention (which, after all, did to a great extent +reflect the actual manners of the time) remain, such as the obligatory +"compliment." Le Destin is ready to hang himself because, at his first +meeting with the beautiful Leonore, his shyness prevents his getting a +proper "compliment" out. On the other hand, the demand for _esprit_, +which was confined in the Heroics to a few privileged characters, now +becomes almost universal. There are tricks, but fairly novel +tricks--affectations like "I don't know what they did next" and the +others noted above: while the famous rhetorical beginnings of chapters +appear not only at the very outset, but at the opening of the second +volume, "Le Soleil donnant aplomb sur les antipodes,"--things which a +century later Fielding, and two centuries later Dickens, did not disdain +to imitate. + +Scarron did not live to finish the book, and the third part or volume, +which was tinkered--still more the _Suite_, which was added--by somebody +else, are very inferior. The somewhat unfavourable opinions referred to +above may be partly based on the undoubted fact that the story is rather +formless; that its most important machinery is dependent, after all, on +the old _rapt_ or abduction, the heroines of which are Mademoiselle de +l'Etoile (nominally Le Destin's sister, really his love, and at the end +his wife) and Angelique, daughter of La Caverne, who is provided with a +lover and husband of 12,000 (_livres_) a year in the person of Leandre, +one of the stock theatrical names, professedly "valet" to Le Destin, but +really a country gentleman's son. Thus everybody is somebody else, again +in the old way. Another, and to some tastes a more serious, blot may be +found in the everlasting practical jokes of the knock-about kind, +inflicted on the unfortunate Ragotin, a sort of amateur member of the +troupe. But again these "_low_ jinks" were an obvious reaction from +(just as the ceremonies were followings of) the solemnity of the +Heroics; and they continued to be popular for nearly two hundred years, +as English readers full well do know. Nevertheless these defects merely +accompany--they do not mar or still less destroy--the striking +characteristics of progress which appear with them, and which, without +any elaborate abstract of the book, have been set forth somewhat +carefully in the preceding pages. Above all, there is a real and +considerable attempt at character, a trifle _typy_ and stagy perhaps, +but still aiming at something better; and the older _nouvelle_-fashion +is not merely drawn upon, but improved upon, for curious anecdotes, +striking situations, effective names. Under the latter heads it is +noteworthy that Gautier simply "lifted" the name Sigognac from Scarron, +though he attached it to a very different personage; and that Dumas got, +from the same source, the startling incident of Aramis suddenly +descending on the crupper of D'Artagnan's horse. The jokes may, of +course, amuse or not different persons, and even different moods of the +same person; the practical ones, as has been hinted, may pall, even when +they are not merely vulgar. Practical joking had a long hold of +literature, as of life; and it would be sanguine to think that it is +dead. Izaak Walton, a curious contemporary--"disparate," as the French +say, of Scarron, would not quite have liked the quarrel between the +dying inn-keeper, who insists on being buried in his oldest sheet, full +of holes and stains, and his wife, who asks him, from a sense rather of +decency than of affection, how he can possibly think of appearing thus +clad in the Valley of Jehoshaphat? But there is something in the book +for many tastes, and a good deal more for the student of the history of +the novel. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Furetiere and the _Roman Bourgeois_.] + +The couplet-contrast of the Comic Romance of Scarron and the "Bourgeois" +Romance of Furetiere[257] is one of the most curious among the minor +phenomena of literary history; but it repeats itself in that history so +often that it becomes, by accumulation, hardly minor. There is a vast +difference between Furetiere and Miss Austen, and a still vaster one +between Scarron and Scott; but the two French books stand to each other, +on however much lower a step of the stair, very much as _Waverley_ +stands to _Pride and Prejudice_, and they carry on a common revulsion +against their forerunners and a common quest for newer and better +developments. The _Roman Bourgeois_, indeed, is more definitely, more +explicitly, and in further ways of exodus, a departure from the subjects +and treatment of most of the books noticed in the last chapter. It is +true that its author attributes to the reading of the regular romances +the conversion of his pretty idiot Javotte from a mere idiot to +something that can, at any rate, hold her own in conversation, and take +an interest in life.[258] But he also adds the consequence of her +elopement, without apparently any prospect of marriage, but with an +accomplished gentleman who has helped her to _esprit_ by introducing her +to those very same romances; and he has numerous distinct girds at his +predecessors, including one at the multiplied abductions of Mandane +herself. Moreover his inset tale _L'Amour Egare_ (itself something of a +parody), which contains most of the "key"-matter, includes a satirical +account (not uncomplimentary to her intellectual, but exceedingly so to +her physical characteristics) of "Sapho" herself. For after declining to +give a full description of poor Madeleine, for fear of disgusting his +readers, he tells us, in mentioning the extravagant compliments +addressed to her in verse, that she only resembled the Sun in having a +complexion yellowed by jaundice; the Moon in being freckled; and the +Dawn in having a red tip to her nose! + +But this last ill-mannered particularity illustrates the character, and +in its way the value, of the whole book. A romance, or indeed in the +proper sense a story--that is to say, _one_ story,--it certainly is +not: the author admits the fact frankly, not to say boisterously, and +his title seems to have been definitely suggested by Scarron's. The two +parts have absolutely no connection with one another, except that a +single personage, who has played a very subordinate part in the first, +plays a prominent but entirely different one in the second. This second +is wholly occupied by legal matters (Furetiere had been "bred to the +law"), and the humours and amours of a certain female litigant, +Collantine, to whom Racine and Wycherley owe something, with the unlucky +author "Charroselles"[259] and a subordinate judge, Belastre, who has +been pitch-forked by interest into a place which he finally loses by his +utter incapacity and misconduct. To understand it requires even more +knowledge of old French law terms generally than parts of Balzac do of +specially commercial and financial lingo. + +This "specialising" of the novel is perhaps of more importance than +interest; but interest itself may be found in the First Part, where +there is, if not much, rather more of a story, some positive +character-drawing, a fair amount of smart phrase, and a great deal of +lively painting of manners. There is still a good deal of law, to which +profession most of the male characters belong, but there are plentiful +compensations. + +As far as there is any real story or history, it is that of two girls, +both of the legal _bourgeoisie_ by rank. The prettier, Javotte, has been +briefly described above. She is the daughter of a rich attorney, and +has, before her emancipation and elopement, two suitors, both +advocates; the one, Nicodeme, young, handsome, well dressed, and a great +flirt, but feather-headed; the other, Bedout, a middle-aged sloven, +collector, and at the same time miser, but very well off. The second +heroine, Lucrece, is also handsome, though rather less so than Javotte: +but she has plenty of wits. She is, however, in an unfortunate position, +being an orphan with no fortune, and living with an uncle and aunt, the +latter of whom has a passion for gaming, and keeps open house for it, so +that Lucrece sees rather undesirable society. Despite her wits, she +falls a victim to a rascally marquis, who first gives her a written +promise of marriage, and afterwards, by one of the dirtiest tricks ever +imagined by a novelist--a trick which, strange to say, the present +writer does not remember to have seen in any other book, obvious though +it is--steals it.[260] Fortunately for her, Nicodeme, who is of her +acquaintance, and a general lover, has also given her, though not in +earnest and for no serious "consideration," a similar promise: and by +the help of a busybody legal friend she gets 2000 crowns out of him to +prevent an action for breach. And, finally, Bedout, after displacing the +unlucky Nicodeme (thus left doubly in the cold), and being himself +thrown over by Javotte's elopement, takes to wife, being induced to do +so by a cousin, Lucrece herself, in blissful ignorance (which is never +removed) of her past. The cousin, Laurence, has also been the link of +these parts of the tale with an episode of _precieuse_ society in which +the above-mentioned inset is told; a fourth feminine character, +Hyppolyte (_vice_ Philipote), of some individuality, is introduced; +Javotte makes a greater fool of herself than ever; and her future +seducer, Pancrace, makes his appearance. + +Thus reduced to "argument" form, the story may seem even more modern +than it really is, and the censures, apologies, etc., put forward above +may appear rather unjust. But few people will continue to think so +after reading the book. The materials, especially with the "trimmings" +to be mentioned presently, would have made a very good novel of the +completest kind. But, once more, the time had not come, though Furetiere +was, however unconsciously, doing his best to bring it on. One fault, +not quite so easy to define as to feel, is prominent, and continued to +be so in all the best novels, or parts of novels, till nearly the middle +of the nineteenth century. There is far too much mere _narration_--the +things being not smartly brought before the mind's eye as _being_ done, +and to the mind's ear as _being_ said, but recounted, sometimes not even +as present things, but as things that _have been_ said or done already. +This gives a flatness, which is further increased by the habit of not +breaking up even the conversation into fresh paragraphs and lines, but +running the whole on in solid page-blocks for several pages together. +Yet even if this mechanical mistake were as mechanically redressed,[261] +the original fault would remain and others would still appear. A scene +between Javotte and Lucrece, to give one instance only, would enliven +the book enormously; while, on the other hand, we could very well spare +one of the few passages in which Nicodeme is allowed to be more than the +subject of a _recit_, and which partakes of the knock-about character so +long popular, the young man and Javotte bumping each other's foreheads +by an awkward slip in saluting, after which he first upsets a piece of +porcelain and then drags a mirror down upon himself. There is "action" +enough here; while, on the other hand, the important and promising +situations of the two promises to Lucrece, and the stealing by the +Marquis of his, are left in the flattest fashion of "recount." But it +was very long indeed before novelists understood this matter, and as +late as Hope's famous _Anastasius_ the fault is present, apparently to +the author's knowledge, though he has not removed it. + +To a reader of the book who does not know, or care to pay attention to, +the history of the matter, the opening of the _Roman Bourgeois_ may seem +to promise something quite free, or at any rate much more free than is +actually the case, from this fault. But, as we have seen, they generally +took some care of their openings, and Furetiere availed himself of a +custom possibly, to present readers, especially those not of the Roman +Church, possessing an air of oddity, and therefore of freshness, which +it certainly had not to those of his own day. This was the curious +fashion of _quete_ or collection at church--not by a commonplace verger, +or by respectable churchwardens and sidesmen, but by the prettiest girl +whom the _cure_ could pitch upon, dressed in her best, and lavishing +smiles upon the congregation to induce them to give as lavishly, and to +enable her to make a "record" amount. + +The original meeting of Nicodeme and the fair Javotte takes place in +this wise, and enables the author to enlighten us further as to matters +quite proper for novel treatment.[262] The device of keeping gold and +large silver pieces uppermost in the open "plate"; the counter-balancing +mischief of covering them with a handful of copper; the licensed habit, +a rather dangerous one surely, of taking "change" out of that plate, +which enables the aspirant for the girl's favour to clear away the +obnoxious _sous_ as change for a whole pistole--all this has a kind of +attraction for which you may search the more than myriad pages of +_Artamene_ without finding it. The daughter of a citizen's family, in +the French seventeenth century, was kept with a strictness which perhaps +explains a good deal in the conduct of an Agnes or an Isabelle in +comedy. She was almost always tied to her mother's apron-strings, and +even an accepted lover had to carry on his courtship under the very +superfluous number of _six_ eyes at least. But the Church was +misericordious. The custom of giving and receiving holy water could be +improved by the resources of amatory science; but this of the _quete_ +was, it would seem, still more full of opportunity. Apparently (perhaps +because in these city parishes the church was always close by, and the +whole proceedings public) the fair _queteuse_ was allowed to walk home +alone; and in this instance Nicodeme, having ground-baited with his +pistole, is permitted to accompany Javotte Vollichon to her father's +door--her extreme beauty making up for the equally extreme silliness of +her replies to his observations. + +The possible objection that these things, fresh and interesting to us, +were ordinary and banal to them, would be a rather shallow one. The +point is that, in previous fiction, circumstantial verisimilitude of +this kind had hardly been tried at all. So it is with the incident of +Nicodeme sending a rabbit (supposed to be from his own estate, but +really from the market--a joke not peculiar to Paris, but specially +favoured there), or losing at bowls a capon, to old Vollichon, and on +the strength of each inviting himself to dinner; the fresh girds at the +extraordinary and still not quite accountable plenty of marquises +(Scarron, if I remember rightly, has the verb _se marquiser_); and the +contributory (or, as the ancients would have said, symbolic) dinners--as +it were, picnics at home--of _bourgeois_ society at each other's houses, +with not a few other things. A curious plan of a fashion-review, with +patterns for the benefit of ladies, is specially noticeable at a period +so early in the history of periodicals generally, and is one of the not +few points in which there is a certain resemblance between Furetiere and +Defoe. + +It is in this daring to be quotidian and contemporary that his claim to +a position in the history of the novel mainly consists. Some might add a +third audacity, that of being "middle-class." Scarron had dealt with +barn-mummers and innkeepers and some mere riff-raff; but he had included +not a few nobles, and had indulged in fighting and other "noble" +subjects. There is no fighting in Furetiere, and his chief "noble" +figure--the rascal who robbed Lucrece of her virtue and her keys--is +the sole figure of his class, except Pancrace and the _precieuse_ +Angelique. This is at once a practical protest against the common +interpretation and extension of Aristotle's prescription of +"distinguished" subjects, and an unmistakable relinquishment of mere +picaresque squalor. Above all, it points the way in practice, indirectly +perhaps but inevitably, to the selection of subjects that the author +really _knows_, and that he can treat with the small vivifying details +given by such knowledge, and by such knowledge alone. There is an +advance in character, an advance in "interior" description--the +Vollichon family circle, the banter and the gambling at Lucrece's home, +the humour of a _precieuse_ meeting, etc. In fact, whatever be the +defects[263] in the book, it may almost be called an advance all round. +A specimen of this, as of other pioneer novels, may not be superfluous; +it is the first conversation, after the collection, between Nicodeme and +Javotte. + + [Sidenote: Nicodeme takes Javotte home from church.] + + This new kind of gallantry [_his removing the offensive + copper coins as pretended "change" for his pistole_] was + noticed by Javotte, who was privately pleased with it, and + really thought herself under an obligation to him. + Wherefore, on their leaving the church, she allowed him to + accost her with a compliment which he had been meditating + all the time he was waiting for her. This chance favoured + him much, for Javotte never went out without her mother, who + kept her in such a strait fashion of living that she never + allowed her to speak to a man either abroad or at home. Had + it not been so, he would have had easy access to her; for as + she was a solicitor's daughter and he was an advocate, they + were in relations of close affinity and sympathy--such as + allow as prompt acquaintance as that of a servant-maid with + a _valet-de-chambre_.[264] + + + As soon as the service was over and he could join her, he + said, as though with the most delicate attention, + "Mademoiselle, as far as I can judge, you cannot have failed + to be lucky in your collection, being so deserving and so + beautiful." "Alas! Sir," replied Javotte in the most + ingenuous fashion, "you must excuse me. I have just been + counting it up with the Father Sacristan, and I have only + made 65 livres 5 sous. Now, Mademoiselle Henriette made 90 + livres a little time since; 'tis true she collected all + through the forty hours'[265] service, and in a place where + there was the finest Paradise ever seen." "When I spoke," + said Nicodeme, "of the luck of your collection, I was not + only speaking of the charity you got for the poor and the + church; I meant as well what you gained for yourself." "Oh, + Sir!" replied Javotte, "I assure you I gained nothing. There + was not a farthing more than I told you; and besides, can + you think I would butter my own bread[266] on such an + occasion? 'Twould be a great sin even to think of it." "I + was not speaking," said Nicodeme, "of gold or silver. I only + meant that nobody can have given you his alms without at the + same time giving you his heart." "I don't know," quoth + Javotte, "what you mean by hearts; I didn't see one in the + plate." "I meant," added Nicodeme, "that everybody before + whom you stopped must, when he saw such beauty, have vowed + to love and serve you, and have given you his heart. For my + own part I could not possibly refuse you mine." Javotte + answered him naively, "Well! Sir, if you gave it me I must + have replied at once, 'God give it back to you.'"[267] + "What!" cried Nicodeme rather angrily, "can you jest with me + when I am so much in earnest, and treat in such a way the + most passionate of all your lovers?" Whereat Javotte blushed + as she answered, "Sir, pray be careful how you speak. I am + an honest girl. I have no lovers. Mamma has expressly + forbidden me to have any." "I have said nothing to shock + you," replied Nicodeme. "My passion for you is perfectly + honest and pure, and its end is only a lawful suit." "Then, + Sir," answered Javotte, "you want to marry me? You must ask + my papa and mamma for that; for indeed I do not know what + they are going to give me when I marry." "We have not got + quite so far yet," said Nicodeme. "I must be assured + beforehand of your esteem, and know that you have admitted + me to the honour of being your servant." "Sir," said + Javotte, "I am quite satisfied with being my own servant, + and I know how to do everything I want." + +Now this, of course, is not extraordinarily brilliant; but it +is an early--a _very_ early--beginning of the right sort of +thing--conversation of a natural kind transferred from the boards to the +book, sketches of character, touches of manners and of life generally, +individual, national, local. The cross-purposes of the almost idiotic +_ingenue_ and the philandering gallant are already very well done; and +if Javotte had been as clever as she was stupid she could hardly have +set forth the inwardness of French marriages more neatly than by the +blunt reference to her _dot_, or have at the same moment more thoroughly +disconcerted Nicodeme's regularly laid-out approaches for a flirtation +in form, with only a possible, but in any case distant, termination in +anything so prosaic as marriage.[268] The thing as a whole is, in +familiar phrase, "all right" in kind and in scheme. It requires some +perfecting in detail; but it is in every reasonable sense perfectible. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Cyrano de Bergerac and his _Voyages_.] + +It has been possible to speak of one of the pioneer books mentioned in +this chapter with more allowance than most of the few critics and +historians who have discussed or mentioned it have given it, and to +recommend the others, not uncritically but quite cheerfully. This +satisfactory state of things hardly persists when we reach what seems +perhaps, to those who have never read it, not the least considerable of +the batch--the _Voyage a la Lune_ of Cyrano de Bergerac, as his name is +in literary history, though he never called himself so.[269] Cyrano, +though he does not seem to have had a very fortunate life, and died +young, yet was not all unblest, and has since been rather blessed than +banned. Even in his own day Boileau spoke of him with what, in the +"Bollevian" fashion, was comparative compliment--that is to say, he said +that he did not think Cyrano so bad as somebody else. But long +afterwards, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Gautier took him up +among his _Grotesques_ and embalmed him in the caressing and +immortalising amber of his marvellous style and treatment; while at the +end of the same century one of the chief living poets and playwrights of +France made him the subject of a popular and really pathetic drama. His +_Pedant Joue_ is not a stupid comedy, and had the honour of furnishing +Moliere with some of that "property" which he was, quite rightly, in the +habit of commandeering wherever he found it. _La Mort d'Agrippine_ is by +no means the worst of that curious school of tragedy, so like and so +unlike to that of our own "University wits," which was partly +exemplified and then transcended by Corneille, and which some of us are +abandoned enough to enjoy more as readers, though as critics we may find +more faults with it, than we find it possible to do with Racine. But the +_Voyage a la Lune_, as well as, though rather less than, its +complementary dealing with the Sun, has been praised with none of these +allowances. On the contrary, it has had ascribed to it the credit of +having furnished, not scraps of dialogue or incident, but a solid +suggestion to an even greater than Moliere--to Swift; remarkable +intellectual and scientific anticipations have been discovered in it, +and in comparatively recent times versions of it have been published to +serve as proofs that Cyrano was actually a father[270] of French +eighteenth-century _philosophie_--a different thing, once more, from +philosophy. + +Let us, however, use the utmost possible combination of critical +magnanimity with critical justice: and allow these precious additions, +which did not form part of the "classical" or "received" text of the +author, not to count against him. _For_ him they can only count with +those who still think the puerile and now hopelessly stale jests about +Enoch and Elijah and that sort of thing clever. But they can be either +disregarded or at least left out of the judgment, and it will yet remain +true that the so-called _Voyage_ is a very disappointing book indeed. As +this is one of the cases where the record of personal experience is not +impertinent, I may say that I first read it some forty years ago, when +fresh from reading about it and its author in "Theo's" prose; that I +therefore came to it with every prepossession in its favour, and strove +to like it, or to think I did. I read it again, if I remember rightly, +about the time of the excitement about M. Rostand's _Cyrano_, and liked +it less still; while when I re-read it carefully for this chapter, I +liked it least of all. There is, of course, a certain fancifulness about +the main idea of a man fastening bottles of dew round him in the +expectation (which is justified) that the sun's heat will convert the +dew into steam and raise him from the ground. But the reader (it is not +necessary to pay him the bad compliment of explaining the reasons) will +soon see that the scheme is aesthetically awkward, if not positively +ludicrous, and scientifically absurd. Throwing off bottles to lower your +level has a superficial resemblance to the actual principles and +practice of ballooning; but in the same way it will not here "work" at +all. + +This, however, would be a matter of no consequence whatever if the +actual results of the experiment were amusing. Unfortunately they are +not. That the aeronaut's first miss of the Moon drops him into the new +French colony of Canada may have given Cyrano some means of interesting +people then; but, reversing the process noticed in the cases of Scarron +and Furetiere, it does not in the least do so now. We get nothing out of +it except some very uninteresting gibes at the Jesuits, and, connected +with these, some equally uninteresting discussions whether the flight to +the Moon is possible or not. + +Still one hopes, like the child or fool of popular saying, for the Moon +itself to atone for Canada, and tolerates disappointment till one +actually gets there. Alas! of all Utopias that have ever been Utopiated, +Cyrano's is the most uninteresting, even when its negative want of +interest does not change into something positively disagreeable. The +Lunarians, though probably intended to be, are hardly at all a satire on +us Earth-dwellers. They are bigger, and, as far as the male sex is +concerned, apparently more awkward and uglier; and their ideas in +religion, morals, taste, etc., are a monotonously direct reversal of our +orthodoxies. There is at least one passage which the absence of all +"naughty niceness" and the presence of the indescribably nasty make a +good "try" for the acme of the disgusting. More of it is less but still +nasty; much of it is silly; all of it is dull.[271] + +Nevertheless it is not quite omissible in such a history as this, or in +any history of French literature. For it is a notable instance of the +coming and, indeed, actual invasion, by fiction, of regions which had +hitherto been the province of more serious kinds; and it is a link, not +unimportant if not particularly meritorious, in the chain of the +eccentric novel. Lucian of course had started it long ago, and Rabelais +had in a fashion taken it up but a century before. But the fashioners of +new commonwealths and societies, More, Campanella, Bacon, had been as a +rule very serious. Cyrano, in his way, was serious too; but the way +itself was not one of those for which the ticket has been usually +reserved. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Mme. de la Fayette and _La Princesse de Cleves_.] + +But the last of this batch is the most important and the best of the +whole. This is _La Princesse de Cleves_, by Marie Madeleine Pioche de +Lavergne, Comtesse de la Fayette, friend of Madame de Sevigne and of +Huet; more or less Platonic, and at any rate last, love of La +Rochefoucauld; a woman evidently of great charm as well as of great +ability, and apparently of what was then irreproachable character. She +wrote, besides other matter of no small literary value and historical +interest, four novels, the minor ones, which require no special notice +here, being _Zaide_, _La Comtesse de Tende_, and (her opening piece) +_Madame de Montpensier_. Their motives and methods are much the same as +those of the _Princesse de Cleves_, but this is much more effectively +treated. In fact, it is one of the very few highly praised books, at the +beginnings of departments of literature, which ought not to disappoint +candid and not merely studious readers. + +It begins with a sketch, very cleverly done, of the Court of Henri II., +with the various prominent personages there--the King and the Queen, +Diane de Poitiers, Queen Mary of Scotland ("La Reine Dauphine"), +"Madame, soeur du Roi" (the second Margaret of Valois--not so clever +as her aunt and niece namesakes, and not so beautiful as the latter, +but, like both of them, a patroness of men of letters, especially +Ronsard, and apparently a very amiable person, though rude things were +said of her marriage, rather late in life, to the Duke of Savoy), with +many others of, or just below, royal blood. Of these latter there are +Mademoiselle de Chartres, the Prince de Cleves, whom she marries, and +the Duc de Nemours, who completes the usual "triangle."[272] As is also +usual--in a way not unconnected in its usuality with that of triangular +sequences--the Princess has more _amitie_ and _estime_ than _amour_ for +her husband, though he, less usually, is desperately in love with her. +So, very shortly, is Nemours, who is represented as an almost +irresistible lady-killer, though no libertine, and of the "respectful" +order. His conduct is not quite that of the Elizabethan or Victorian +ideal gentleman; for he steals his mistress's portrait while it is being +shown to a mixed company; eavesdrops (as will be seen presently) in the +most atrocious manner; chatters about his love affairs in a way almost +worse; and skulks round the Princess's country garden at night in a +manner exceedingly unlikely to do his passion any good, and nearly +certain to do (as it does) her reputation much harm. Still, if not an +Amadis, he is not in the least a Lovelace, and that is saying a good +deal for a French noble of his time. The Princess slowly falls in love +with him (she has seen him steal the portrait, though he does not know +this and she dares say nothing for fear of scandal); and divers Court +and other affairs conduct this concealed _amourette_ (for she prevents +all "declaration") in a manner very cleverly and not too tediously told, +to a point when, though perfectly virtuous in intention, she feels that +she is in danger of losing self-control. + +[Sidenote: Its central scene.] + +Probably, though it is the best known part of the book, it may be well +to give the central scene, where M. de Nemours plays the eavesdropper to +M. and Mme. de Cleves, and overhears the conversation which, with equal +want of manners and of sense, he afterwards (it is true, without names) +retails to the Vidame de Chartres, a relation of Mme. de Cleves herself, +and a well-known gossip, with a strong additional effect on the fatal +consequences above described. It is pretty long, and some "cutting" will +be necessary. + + He[273] heard M. de Cleves say to his wife, "But why do you + wish not to return to Paris? What can keep you in the + country? For some time past you have shown a taste for + solitude which surprises me and pains me, because it keeps + us apart. In fact, I find you sadder than usual, and I am + afraid that something is annoying you." "I have no + mind-trouble," she answered with an embarrassed air; "but + the tumult of the Court is so great, and there is always so + much company at home, that both body and mind must needs + grow weary, and one wants only rest." "Rest," replied he, + "is not the proper thing for a person of your age. Your + position is not, either at home or at Court, a fatiguing + one, and I am rather afraid that you do not like to be with + me." "You would do me a great injustice if you thought so," + said she with ever-increasing embarrassment, "but I entreat + you to leave me here. If you would stay too, I should be + delighted--if you would stay here alone and be good enough + to do without the endless number of people who never leave + you." "Oh! Madam," cried M. de Cleves, "your looks and your + words show me that you have reasons for wishing to be alone + which I do not know, and which I beg you to tell me." He + pressed her a long time to do so without being able to + induce her, and after excusing herself in a manner which + increased the curiosity of her husband, she remained in deep + silence with downcast eyes. Then suddenly recovering her + speech, and looking at him, "Do not force me," said she, "to + a confession which I am not strong enough to make, though I + have several times intended to do so. Think only that + prudence forbids a woman of my age, who is her own + mistress,[274] to remain exposed to the trials[275] of a + Court." "What do you suggest, Madame?" cried M. de Cleves. + "I dare not put it in words for fear of offence." She made + no answer, and her silence confirming her husband in his + thought, he went on: "You tell me nothing, and that tells me + that I do not deceive myself." "Well then, Sir!" she + answered, throwing herself at his feet, "I will confess to + you what never wife has confessed to her husband; but the + innocence of my conduct and my intentions gives me strength + to do it. It is the truth that I have reasons for quitting + the Court, and that I would fain shun the perils in which + people of my age sometimes find themselves. I have never + shown any sign of weakness, and I am not afraid of allowing + any to appear if you will allow me to retire from the Court, + or if I still had Mme. de Chartres to aid in guarding me. + However risky may be the step I am taking, I take it + joyfully, as a way to keep myself worthy of being yours. I + ask your pardon a thousand times if my sentiments are + disagreeable to you; at least my actions shall never + displease you. Think how--to do as I am doing--I must have + more friendship and more esteem for you than any wife has + ever had for any husband. Guide me, pity me, and, if you + can, love me still." M. de Cleves had remained, all the time + she was speaking, with his head buried in his hands, almost + beside himself; and it had not occurred to him to raise his + wife from her position. When she finished, he cast his eyes + upon her and saw her at his knees, her face bathed in tears, + and so admirably lovely that he was ready to die of grief. + But he kissed her as he raised her up, and said: + +[_The speech which follows is itself admirable as an expression of +despairing love, without either anger or mawkishness; but it is rather +long, and the rest of the conversation is longer. The husband naturally, +though, as no doubt he expects, vainly, tries to know who it is that +thus threatens his wife's peace and his own, and for a time the +eavesdropper (one wishes for some one behind him with a jack-boot on) is +hardly less on thorns than M. de Cleves himself. At last a reference to +the portrait-episode (see above) enlightens Nemours, and gives, if not +an immediate, a future clue to the unfortunate husband._] + +It will be seen at once that this is far different from anything we have +had before--a much further importation of the methods and subjects of +poetry and drama into the scheme of prose fiction. + +We need only return briefly to the main story, the course of which, as +one looks back to it through some 250 years of novels, cannot be very +difficult to "_pro_ticipate." A continuance of Court interviews and +gossip, with the garrulity of Nemours himself and the Vidame, as well as +the dropping of a letter by the latter, brings a complete +_eclaircissement_ nearer and nearer. The Countess, though more and more +in love, remains virtuous, and indeed hardly exposes herself to direct +temptation. But her husband, becoming aware that Nemours is the lover, +and also that he is haunting the grounds at Coulommiers by night when +the Princess is alone, falls, though his suspicion of actual infidelity +is removed too late, into hopeless melancholy and positive illness, till +the "broken heart" of fact or fiction releases him. Nemours is only too +anxious to marry the widow, but she refuses him, and after a few years +of "pious works" in complete retirement, herself dies early. + +It is possible that, even in this brief sketch, some faults of the book +may appear; it is certain that actual reading of it will not utterly +deprive the fault-finder of his prey. The positive history--of which +there is a good deal, very well told in itself,[276] and the appearance +of which at all is interesting--is introduced in too great proportions, +so as to be largely irrelevant. Although we know that this extremely +artificial world of love-making with your neighbours' wives was also +real, in a way and at a time, the reality fails to make up for the +artifice, at least as a novel-subject. It is like golf, or acting, or +bridge--amusing enough to the participants, no doubt, but very tedious +to hear or read about.[277] Another point, again true to the facts of +the time, no doubt, but somewhat repulsive in reading, is the almost +entire absence of Christian names. The characters always speak to each +other as "Monsieur" and "Madame," and are spoken of accordingly. I do +not think we are ever told either of M. or of Mme. de Cleves's name. Now +there is one person at least who cannot "see" a heroine without knowing +her Christian name. More serious, in different senses of that word, is +the fact that there is still ground for the complaint made above as to +the too _solid_ character of the narrative. There is, indeed, more +positive dialogue, and this is one of the "advances" of the book. But +even there the writer has not had the courage to break it up into +actual, not "reported," talk, and the "said he's" and "said she's," +"replied so and so's" and "observed somebody's" perpetually get in the +way of smooth reading. + +So much in the way of alms for Momus. Fortunately a much fuller +collection of points for admiration offers itself. It has been admitted +that the historical element[278] is perhaps, in the circumstances and +for the story, a trifle irrelevant and even "in the way." But its +presence at all is the important point. Some, at any rate, of the +details--the relations of that Henri II., with whom, it seems, we may +_not_ connect the very queer, very rare, but not very beautiful +_faience_ once called "Henri Deux" ware,[279] with his wife and his +mistress; his accidental death at the hands of Montgomery; the history +of Henry VIII.'s matrimonial career, and the courtship of his daughter +by a French prince (if not _this_ French prince)--are historical enough +to present a sharp contrast with the cloudy pseudo-classical canvas of +the Scudery romances, or the mere fable-land of others. Any critical +Brown ought to have discovered "great capabilities" in it; and though it +was not for more than another century that the true historical novel got +itself born, this was almost the nearest experiment to it. But the other +side--the purely sentimental--let us not say psychological--side, is of +far more consequence; for here we have not merely aspiration or +chance-medley, we have attainment. + +There is a not wholly discreditable prejudice against abridgments, +especially of novels, and more especially against what are called +condensations. But one may think that the simple knife, without any +artful or artless aid of interpolated summaries, could carve out of _La +Princesse de Cleves_, as it stands, a much shorter but fully +intelligible presentation of its passionate, pitiful subject. A slight +want of _individual_ character may still be desiderated; it is hardly +till _Manon Lescaut_ that we get that, but it was not to be expected. +Scarcely more to be expected, but present and in no small force, is that +truth to life; that "knowledge of the human heart" which had been +hitherto attempted by--we may almost say permitted to--the poet, the +dramatist, the philosopher, the divine; but which few, if any, romancers +had aimed at. This knowledge is not elaborately but sufficiently "set" +with the halls and _ruelles_ of the Court, the gardens and woods of +Coulommiers; it is displayed with the aid of conversation, which, if it +seems stilted to us, was not so then; and the machinery employed for +working out the simple plot--as, for instance, in the case of the +dropped letter, which, having originally nothing whatever to do with any +of the chief characters, becomes an important instrument--is sometimes +far from rudimentary in conception, and very effectively used. + +It is therefore no wonder that the book did two things--things of +unequal value indeed, but very important for us. In the first place, it +started the School of "Sensibility"[280] in the novel, and so provided a +large and influential portion of eighteenth-century fiction. In the +second--small as it is--it almost started the novel proper, the class of +prose fiction which, though it may take on a great variety of forms and +colours, though it may specialise here and "extravagate" there, yet in +the main distinguishes itself from the romance by being first of all +subjective--by putting behaviour, passion, temperament, character, +motive before incident and action in the commoner sense--which had had +few if any representatives in ancient times, had not been disentangled +from the romantic envelope in mediaeval, but was to be the chief new +development of modern literature. + + * * * * * + +There seemed to be several reasons for separating Hamilton from the +other fairy-tale writers. The best of all is that he has the same +qualification for the present chapter as that which has installed in it +the novelists already noticed--that of idiosyncrasy. This leads to, or +rather is founded on, the consideration that his tales are fairy-tales +only "after a sort," and testify rather to a prevalent fashion than to a +natural affection for the kind.[281] Thirdly, he exhibits, in his +supernatural matter, a new and powerful influence on fiction +generally--that of the first translated _Arabian Nights_. Lastly, he is +in turn himself the head of two considerable though widely different +sub-departments of fiction--the decadent and often worthless but largely +cultivated department of what we may call the fairy-tale +_improper_,[282] and the very important and sometimes consummately +excellent "ironic tale," to be often referred to, and sometimes fully +discussed, hereafter. + +The singularity of Hamilton's position has always been recognised; but +until comparatively recently, his history and family relations were very +little understood. Since the present writer discussed him in a +paper[283] now a quarter of a century old in print, and older in +composition, further light has been thrown on his life and surroundings +in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and more still in a monograph +by a lady[284] whose researches will, it is hoped, sooner or later be +published. A very little, too, of the unprinted work which was held back +at his death has been recovered. But this, it seems, includes nothing of +importance; and his fame will probably always rest, as it has so long +and so securely rested, on the _Memoires de Grammont_, the few but +sometimes charming independent verses, some miscellanies not generally +enough appreciated, and the admirable group of ironic tales which set a +fashion hardly more admirably illustrated since by Voltaire and +Beckford[285] and Lord Beaconsfield, to name no others. Of these things +the verses,[286] unfortunately, do not concern us at all; and the +_Memoires_ and miscellanies[286] only in so far as they add another, and +one of the very best, to the brilliant examples of personal narrative of +which the century is so full, and which have so close a connection with +the novel itself. But the _Tales_ are, of course, ours of most obvious +right; and they form one of the most important _points de repere_ in our +story. + +To discuss, on the one hand, how Hamilton's singularly mixed conditions +and circumstances of birth[287] and life[288] influenced his literary +production would be interesting, but in strictness rather irrelevant. To +attempt, on the other, at any great length to consider the influences +which produced the kind of tale he wrote would have more relevance, but +would, if pursued in similar cases elsewhere, lengthen the book +enormously. Two main ancestor or progenitor forces, as they may be +called, though both were of very recent date and one actually +contemporary, may be specified. The one was the newborn fancy for +fairy-tales, and Eastern tales in particular. The other was the now +ingrained disposition towards ironic writing which, begun by Rabelais, +as a most notable origin, varied and increased by Montaigne and others, +had, just before Hamilton, received fresh shaping and tempering from not +a few writers, especially Saint-Evremond. There is indeed no doubt that +this last remarkable and now far too little read writer,[289] who, let +it be remembered, was, like Hamilton, and even more so, an intimate +friend of Grammont and also an inmate of Charles's court, was Hamilton's +direct and immediate model so far as he had any such--his "master" in +the general tone of _persiflage_. But master and pupil chose, as a rule, +different subjects, and the idiosyncrasy of each was intense; it must be +remembered, too, that both were of Norman blood, though that of the +Hamiltons had long been transfused into the veins of a new nationality, +while Saint-Evremond was actually born in Normandy. The Norman (that is +to say, the English, with a special intention of difference[290]) in +each could be very easily pointed out if such things were our business. +But it is the application of this, and of other things in relation to +the development of the novel, that we have to deal with. + +It is said, and there is good reason for believing it to be true, that +all the stories have a more or less pervading vein of "key" application +in them. But this, except for persons particularly interested in such +things, has now very little attraction. It has been admitted that it +probably exists, as indeed it does in almost everything of the day, from +the big as well as "great" _Cyrus_ to the little, but certainly not much +less great, _Princesse de Cleves_. But our subject is what Hamilton +writes about these people, not the people about whom he may or may not +be writing. + +What we have left of Hamilton's tales, as far as they have been printed +(and, as was said above, not much more seems to exist), consists of five +stories of very unequal length, and in two cases out of the five +unfinished. One of the finished pieces, _Fleur d'Epine_, and one of the +unfinished--although unfinished it is not only one of the longest, but, +unluckily in a way, by far the best of all--_Les Quatre Facardins_, are +"framework" stories, and avowedly attach themselves, in an irreverent +sort of attachment, to the _Arabian Nights_; the others, _Le Belier_, +_Zeneyde_ (unfinished), and _L'Enchanteur Faustus_, are independent, and +written in the mixed verse-and-prose style which had been made popular +by various writers, especially Chapelle, but which cannot be said to be +very acceptable in itself. Taken together, they fill a volume of just +over 500 average octavo pages in the standard edition of 1812; but their +individual length is very unequal. The two longest, the fragmentary +_Quatre Facardins_ and the finished _Le Belier_, run each of them to 142 +pages; the shortest, _L'Enchanteur Faustus_, has just five-and-twenty; +while _Fleur d'Epine_, in its completeness, has 114, and _Zeneyde_, in +its incompleteness, runs to 78, and might have run, for aught one can +tell--in the mixed tangle of Roman and Merovingian history in which the +author (possibly in ridicule of Madeleine de Scudery's classical +chronicling) has chosen to plunge it--to 780 or 7800, which latter +figure would, after all, have been little more than half the length of +the _Grand Cyrus_ itself. + +We may take _L'Enchanteur Faustus_ first, as it requires the shortest +notice. In fact, if it had not been Hamilton's, it would hardly require +any. Written to a "charmante Daphne" (evidently one of the English +Jacobite exiles, from a reference to a great-great-grandfather of hers +who was "admiral in Ireland" during Queen Elizabeth's time), it is +occupied by a story of the great Queen herself, who is treated with the +mixture of admiration (for her intelligence and spirit) with "scandal" +(about her person and morals) that might be expected at St. Germains. +The subject is the usual exhibition of dead beauties (here by, not to, +Faustus), with Elizabeth's affected depreciation of Helen, Cleopatra, +and Mariamne, and her equally affected admiration of Fair Rosamond,[291] +whom she insists on summoning _twice_, despite Faustus's warning, and +with disastrous consequences. Hamilton's irony is so pervading that one +does not know whether ignorance, carelessness, or intention made him not +only introduce Sidney and Essex as contemporary favourites of Elizabeth, +but actually attribute Rosamond's end to poor Jane Shore instead of to +Queen Eleanor! This would matter little if the tale had been stronger; +but though it is told with Hamilton's usual easy fluency, the Queen's +depreciations, the flattery of the courtiers, and the rest of it, are +rather slightly and obviously handled. One would give half a dozen like +it for that _Second_ (but not necessarily _Last_) _Part_ of the +_Facardins_, which Crebillon the younger is said to have actually seen +and had the opportunity of saving, a chance which he neglected till too +late. + +As _L'Enchanteur Faustus_ is the shortest of the completed tales, so _Le +Belier_ is the longest; indeed, as indicated above, it is the same +length as what we have of _Les Quatre Facardins_. It is also--in that +unsatisfactory and fragmentary way of knowledge with which literature +often has to content itself--much the best known, because of the +celebrated address of the giant Moulineau to the hero-beast "Belier, mon +ami,... si tu voulais bien commencer par le commencement, tu me ferais +plaisir." There are many other agreeable things in it; but it has on the +whole a double or more than double portion of the drawback which attends +these "key" stories. It was written to please his sister, Madame de +Grammont, who had established herself in a country-house, near +Versailles. This she transformed from a mere cottage, called Moulineau, +into an elegant villa to which she gave the name of Pontalie. There were +apparently some difficulties with rustic neighbours, and Anthony wove +the whole matter into this story, with the giant and the (of course +enchanted) ram just mentioned; and the beautiful Alie who hates all men +(or nearly all); and her father, a powerful druid, who is the giant's +enemy; and the Prince de Noisy and the Vicomte de Gonesse, and other +personages of the environs of Paris, who were no doubt recognisable and +interesting once, but who, whether recognisable or not, are not +specially interesting now. To repeat that there are good scenes and +piquant remarks is merely to say once more that the thing is Hamilton's. +But, on the whole, the present writer at any rate has always found it +the least interesting (next to _L'Enchanteur Faustus_) of all. + +On the other hand, _Zeneyde_--though unfinished, and though containing, +in its ostensibly main story, things compared to which the Prince de +Noisy and the Vicomte de Gonesse excite to palpitation--has points of +remarkable interest about it. One of these--a prefatory sketch of the +melancholy court of exiles at St. Germains--is like nothing else in +Hamilton and like very few things anywhere else. This is in no sense +fiction--it is, in fact, a historical document of the most striking +kind; but it makes background and canvas for fiction itself,[292] and it +gives us, besides, a most vivid picture of the priest-ridden, caballing +little crowd of folk who had made great renunciations but could not make +small. It also shows us in Hamilton a somewhat darker but also a +stronger side of satiric powers, differently nuanced from the quiet +_persiflage_ of the _Contes_ themselves. This, however, though easily +"cobbled on" to the special tale, and possibly not unconnected with it +key-fashion, is entirely separable, and might just as well have formed +part of an actual letter to the "Madame de P.," to whom it is addressed. + +The tale itself, like some if not all the others, but in a much more +strikingly contrasted fashion, again consists of two strands, interwoven +so intimately, however, that it is almost impossible to separate them, +though it is equally impossible to conceive two things more different +from each other. The ostensible theme is a history of herself, given by +the Nymph of the Seine to the author--a history of which more presently. +But this is introduced at considerable length, and interrupted more than +once, by scenes and dialogues, between the nymph and her distinctly +unwilling auditor, which are of the most whimsically humorous character +to be found even in Hamilton himself. + +The whole account of the self-introduction of the nymph to the narrator +is extremely quaint, but rather long to give here as a whole. It is +enough to say that Hamilton represents himself as by no means an ardent +nympholept, or even as flattered by demi-goddess-like advances, which +are of the most obliging description; and that the lady has not only to +make fuller and fuller revelations of her beauty, but at last to exert +her supernatural power to some extent in order to carry the recreant +into her "cool grot," not, indeed, under water, but invisibly situated +on land. What there takes place is, unfortunately, as has been said, +mainly the telling of a very dull story with one not so dull episode. +But the conclusion of the preface exemplifies the whimsicality even of +the writer, and points to the existence of a commodity in the fashion of +wig-wearing which few who glory in "their own hair," and despise their +periwigged forefathers, are likely to have thought of: + + [Sidenote: Hamilton and the Nymph.] + + At these words [_her own_] raising her eyes to heaven, she + sighed several times; and though she tried to keep them + back, I saw, coursing the length of her cheeks and falling + on her beautiful neck, tears so natural, in the midst of a + silence so touching, that I was just about to follow her + example.[293] But she soon recovered herself; and having + shown me by a languishing look that she was not insensible + to my sympathetic emotion ... [_she enjoins discretion, and + then_:--] After having looked at me attentively for some + time she came closer to me, and as she gently pulled one + side of my wig in order to whisper in my ear, I had to lean + over her in a rather familiar manner.[294] Her face touched + mine, and it seemed to me animated by a lively warmth, very + different from the insensibility which I had accused[295] + her of shedding upon me when she came out of the water. Her + breath was pure and fresh, and her goddess-ship, which I had + suspected of being something marshy, had no taint of mud + about it. If only I might reveal all that she said to me in + a confidence which I could have wished longer![295] But + apparently she got tired of it[295] and let go my wig. + "'Twould be too tiresome," she said, "to go on talking like + this. Go out there, and leave us alone!" I turned round, and + seeing no one in the room, I thought this order was + addressed to me, so I was just rising.... + +This quaint presentation of a craven swain is perhaps as good an example +as could be found of the curious mixture of French and English in +Hamilton. Hardly any Frenchman could have borne to put even a fictitious +eidolon of himself in such a contemptible light; very few Englishmen, +though they might easily have done this, would have done it so neatly, +and with so quaint a travesty of romantic situation. But the main story, +as admitted above, is _assommant_, though, just before the breach, a +substitution of three agreeable damsels for the nymph herself promises +something better. + +This combination of the dullest with some of the finest and most +characteristic work of the author, would be rather a puzzle in a more +"serious" writer than Hamilton; but in his case there is no need to +distress, or in any way to cumber, oneself about the matter. The whole +thing was a "compliment," as the age would have said, to Fantasy; and +the rules of the Court of Quintessence, though not non-existent as dull +fools suppose, are singularly elastic to skilled players. + +We are left with what, even as it exists, is by far his most ambitious +attempt, and with one in which, considering all its actual features, one +need not be taking things too seriously if one decides that he had an +aim at something like a whole--even if the legends[296] about further +parts, actually seen and destroyed by a more than Byzantine pudibundity, +are not taken as wholly gospel. + +The completed _Fleur d'Epine_ and the uncompleted _Quatre +Facardins_[297] are in effect continuous parts (and to all appearance +incomplete in more than the finishing of the second story) of an +untitled but intelligibly sketched continuation of the _Arabian Nights_ +themselves. Hamilton, like others since, had evidently conceived an +affection for Dinarzade: and a considerable contempt for Schahriar's +notion of the advantages of matrimony. It is less certain, but I think +possible, that he had anticipated the ideas of those who think that the +unmarried sister went at least halves in the composition or remembrance +of the stories themselves, or she could not have varied her timing at +dawn so adroitly. He had, at any rate, an Irish-Englishman's sense of +honest if humorous indignation at the part which she has to play (or +rather endure) in these "two years" (much nearer three!), and the sequel +in a way revenges her. + +I should imagine that Thackeray must have been reminiscent of Hamilton +when he devised the part of "Sister Anne" in _Bluebeard's Ghost_. Like +her, Hamilton's Dinarzade is slightly flippant; she would most certainly +have observed "Dolly Codlins is the matter" in Anne's place. Like her, +she is not unprovided with lovers; she actually, at the beginning, +"takes a night off" that she may entertain the Prince of Trebizond; and +it is the Prince himself who relates the great, but, alas! torsoed epic +of the Facardins,[298] of whom he is himself one. But as there are only +two stories, there is no room for much framework, and we see much less +of the "resurrected" Dinarzade[299] than we could wish from what we do +see and hear. + +_Fleur d'Epine_, which she herself tells, is a capital story, somewhat +closer to the usual norm of the _Nights_ than is usual with Hamilton. It +bases itself on the well-known legends of the Princess with the +literally murderous eyes; but this Princess Luisante is not really the +heroine, and is absent from the greater part of the tale, though she is +finally provided with the hero's brother, who is a reigning prince, and +has everything handsome about him. The actual hero Tarare (French for +"Fiddlestick!" or something of that sort, and of course an assumed +name), in order to cure Luisante's eyes of their lethal quality, has to +liberate a still more attractive damsel--the title-heroine--putative +daughter of a good fairy and actual victim of a bad one, quite in the +orthodox style. He does this chiefly by the aid of a very amiable mare, +who makes music wherever she goes, and can do wonderful things when her +ears are duly manipulated. It is a good and pleasant story, with plenty +of the direct relish of the fairy-tale, Eastern and Western, and plenty +also of satirical parody of the serious romance. But it is not quite +consummate. The opening, however, as a fair specimen of Hamilton's +style, may be given. + + [Sidenote: The opening of _Fleur d'Epine_.] + + Two thousand four hundred and fifty-three leagues from here + there is an extraordinarily fine country called Cashmere. In + this country reigned a Caliph; that Caliph had a daughter, + and that daughter had a face; but people wished more than + once that she had never had any. Her beauty was not + insupportable till she was fifteen; but at that age it + became impossible to endure it. She had the most beautiful + mouth in the world; her nose was a masterpiece; the lilies + of Cashmere--a thousand times whiter than ours--were + discoloured beside her complexion; and it seemed impertinent + of the fresh-blown rose to show itself beside the carnation + of her cheek. Her forehead was unmatchable for shape and + brilliancy; its whiteness was contrasted with a Vandyke + point of hair blacker and more shining than jet--whence she + took her name of "Luisante"; the shape of her face seemed + made to frame so many wonders. But her eyes spoilt + everything. + + No one had ever been able to look at them long enough to + distinguish their exact colour; for as soon as one met her + glance it was like a stroke of lightning. When she was eight + years old her father, the Caliph, was in the habit of + sending for her, to admire his offspring and give the + courtiers the opportunity of paying a thousand feeble + compliments to her youthful beauty; for even then they used + to put out the candles at midnight, no other light being + necessary except that of the little one's eyes. Yet all this + was nothing but--in the literal sense, and the + other--child's play; it was when her eyes had acquired full + strength that they became no joking matter. + +[_The fatal effects--killing men in twenty-four hours, and blinding +women--are then told, with the complaints of the nobility whose sons +have fallen victims, and the various suggestions for remedying the evil +made at a committee, which is presided over by the Seneschal of the +kingdom ... "the silliest man who had ever held such an office--so much +so that the caliph could not possibly think of choosing any one less +silly." Tarare happens to be in this pundit-potentate's service; and so +the story starts._] + +[Sidenote: _Les Quatre Facardins._] + +But--and indeed the writer's opinion on this point has already been +indicated--Hamilton's masterpiece, unfinished as it is, is _Les Quatre +Facardins_. Indeed, though unfinished in one sense, it is, in another, +the most finished of all. Beside it the completed _Faustus_ is a mere +trifle, and not a very interesting trifle. It has no dull parts like +_Zeneyde_ and even _Le Belier_. It has much greater complication of +interest and variety of treatment than _Fleur d'Epine_, in which, after +the opening, Hamilton's peculiar _persiflage_, though not absent, is +much less noticeable. It at least suggests, tantalising as the +suggestion is, that the author for once really intended to wind up all +his threads into a compact ball, or (which is the better image) to weave +them into a new and definite pattern. Moreover--this may not be a +recommendation to everybody, but it is a very strong one to the present +historian,--it has no obvious or insistent "key"-element whatsoever. It +is, indeed, not at all unlikely that there _is_ one, for the trick was +ingrained in the literature and the society of the time. But if so, it +is a sleeping dog that neither bites nor barks; and if you let it alone +it will stay in its kennel, and not even obtrude itself upon your view. + +To these partly, if not wholly, negative merits it adds positive ones of +a very considerable and delectable kind. The connection with the +_Arabian Nights_ is brought closer still in the fact that it is not only +told (as of himself) by the Prince of Trebizond, Dinarzade's +servant-cavalier, but is linked--to an important extent, and not at all +to Schahriar's unmixed satisfaction--with one of the earliest incidents +of the _Nights_ themselves, the remarkable story how the Lady from the +Sea increases her store of rings at the cost of some exertion and +alarm--not to mention the value of the rings themselves--to the Sultan +and his brother, the King of Tartary. This lady, with her genie and her +glass box, reappears as "Cristalline la Curieuse"--one of the two +heroines. The other, of whose actual adventures we hear only the +beginning, and that at the very close of the story, is Mousseline la +Serieuse, who never laughs, and who, later, escaping literally by the +loss of her last garment, twitched off by the jaws of an enormous +crocodile, afterwards the pest of the country, finds herself under a +mysterious weird. She is never able to get a similar vestment made for +her, either of day- or night-fashion. Three hundred and seventy-four +dozen of such things, which formed her wardrobe, had disappeared[300] +after the death (actually crocodile-devoured) of her Mistress of the +Robes; and although she used up all the linen-drapers' stocks of the +capital in trying to get new ones, they were all somewhat milder +varieties of the shirt of Nessus. For the day-shifts deprived her of all +appetite for food or drink, and the night ones made it impossible for +her to sleep. + +This particular incident comes, as has been said, just at the end of +what we have of the book; indeed there is nothing more, save a burlesque +embassy, amply provided with painted cloth[301] and monkeys, to the +great enchanter Caramoussal (who has already figured in the book), and +the announcement, by one of the other Facardins, of its result--a new +adventure for champions, who must either make the Princess laugh or kill +the crocodile. "It is indifferent," we learn from a most Hamiltonian +sentence, "whether you begin with the crocodile or with the Princess." +Indeed there is yet another means of restoring peace in the Kingdom of +Astrachan, according to the enchanter himself, who modestly disclaims +being an enchanter, observing (again in a thoroughly Hamiltonian manner) +that as he lives on the top of a mountain close to the stars, they +probably tell him more than they tell other people. It is to collect +three spinning-wheels[302] which are scattered over the universe, but +of some of which we have heard earlier in the story. + +One takes perhaps a certain pleasure in outraging the feelings of the +giant Moulineau, so hateful to Madame de Grammont, by beginning not +merely in the middle but at the end--an end, alas! due, if we believe +all the legends, to her own mistaken zeal when she became a _devote_--a +variety of person for whom her brother[303] certainly had small +affection, though he did not avenge himself on it in novel-form quite so +cruelly as did Marivaux later. It is, however, quite good to begin at +the beginning, though the verse-preface needs perhaps to be read with +eyes of understanding. Ostensibly, it is a sort of historical +condemnation of all the species of fiction which had been popular for +half a century or so, and is thus very much to our purpose, though, like +almost all the verses included in these tales, it does not show the +poetic power which the author of _Celle que j'adore_[304] undoubtedly +possessed. Mere tales, he says, have quite banished from court favour +romances, celebrated for their sentiments, from _Cyrus_ to _Zaide_, +_i.e._ from Mlle. de Scudery to Mme. de la Fayette. _Telemaque_ had no +better fate + + On courut au Palais[305] le rendre, + Et l'on s'empressa d'y reprendre + Le Rameau d'Or et l'Oiseau Bleu.[306] + +Then came the "Arabian tales," of which he speaks with a harshness, the +sincerity or design of which may be left to the reader; and then he +himself took up the running, of course obliged by request of +irresistible friends of the other sex. All which may or may not be read +with grains of salt--the salt-merchant of which everybody is at liberty +to choose for himself. Something may be said on the subject when we, in +all modesty, try to sum up Hamilton and the period. + +But we must now give some more account of the "Four Facardins" +themselves. He of Trebizond is a tributary Prince of Schahriar's, much +after the fashion (it is to be feared here burlesqued) of the +innumerable second- and third-class heroes whom one meets in the +_Cyrus_. He begins, like Dinarzade,[307] by "cheeking" the Sultan on his +views of matrimony; and then he tells how he set out from his dominions +in quest of adventures, and met another bearer of the remarkable name +which his mother had insisted on giving him. This second adventurer +happened to be bearer also of a helmet with a strange bird, apparently +all made of gems, as its crest. They exchange confidences, which are to +the effect that the Trebizondian Facardin is a lady-killer of the most +extravagant success, while the other (who is afterwards called Facardin +of the Mountain) is always unfortunate in love; notwithstanding which he +proposes to undertake the adventure (to be long afterwards defined) of +Mousseline la Serieuse. For the present he contents himself with two or +three more stories (or, rather, one in several "fyttes"), which reduce +the wildest of the _Nights_ to simple village tales--of an island where +lions are hunted with a provision of virgins, chanticleers, and small +deer on an elaborately ruled system; of a mountain full of wild beasts, +witches, lovely nymphs, savages, and an enchanter at the top. After an +interruption very much in the style of Chaucer's Host and _Sir Thopas_, +from Dinarzade, who is properly rebuked by the Sultan, Facardin of the +Mountain (he has quite early in the story received the celebrated +scratch from a lion's claw, "from his right shoulder to his left heel") +recounts a shorter adventure with Princess Sapinelle of Denmark, and at +last, after a fresh outburst from Dinarzade, the Prince of Trebizond +comes to his own affairs. + +Then it is that (after some details about the Prince of Ophir, who has a +minim mouth and an enormous nose, and the Princess of Bactria, whose +features were just the reverse) we recover Cristalline. It is perhaps +only here that even Mrs. Grundy, though she may have been uncomfortable +elsewhere, can feel really shocked at Hamilton; others than Mrs. Grundy +need not be so even here. The genie has discovered his Lady's little +ways, and has resolved to avenge himself on her by strict custody, and +by a means of delivery which, if possible, might not have entirely +displeased her. The hundred rings are bewitched to their chain, and are +only to be recovered by the same process which strung them on it. But +this process must be applied by one person in the space of twelve hours, +and the conditions are only revealed to him after he has been kidnapped +or cajoled within the genie's power. If he refuses to try, he is clad as +Omphale clad Hercules, and set to work. If he tries and fails, he is to +be flayed alive and burnt. Facardin, to the despair of his secretary, +enters--beguiled by a black ambassadress, who merely informs him that a +lady wants help--the enchanted boat which takes him to the fatal scene. +But when he is to be introduced to the lady he entirely declines to part +with his sword; and when the whole secret is revealed he, with the help +of Cristalline, who is really a good-natured creature in more senses +than one, slays the three chief minions of the tyrant--a watchmaker who +sets the clock, a locksmith who is to count the detached rings, and a +kind of Executioner High-priest who is to do the flaying and +burning,--cuts his way with Cristalline herself to the enchanted boat, +regaining _terra firma_ and (relatively speaking) _terra_ not too much +enchanted. But at his very landing at the mouth of the crocodile river +he again meets Facardin of the Mountain (who has figured in +Cristalline's history earlier) with the two others, whose stories we +shall never hear; and is told about Mousseline; whereat we and the tale +"join our ends" as far as is permitted. + +It would be easy to pick from this story alone a sort of nosegay of +Hamiltonisms like that from Fuller, which Charles Lamb selected so +convincingly that some have thought them simply invented. But it would +be unjust to Anthony, because, unless each was given in a _matrix_ of +context, nobody could, in most cases at any rate, do justice to this +curious glancing genius of his. It exists in Sydney Smith to some +extent--in Thackeray to more--among Englishmen. There is, in French, +something of it in Lesage, who possibly learnt it directly from him; and +of course a good deal, though of a lower kind, in Voltaire, who +certainly did learn it from him. But it is, with that slight +indebtedness to Saint-Evremond noticed above, essentially new and +original. It is a mixture of English-Irish (that is to say, +Anglo-Norman) humour with French wit, almost unattainable at that day +except by a man who, in addition to his natural gifts, had the mixed +advantages and disadvantages of his exile position. + +Frenchmen at the time--there is abundance, not of mere anecdote, but of +solid evidence to prove it--knew practically nothing of English +literature. Englishmen knew a good deal more of French, and imitated and +translated it, sometimes more eagerly than wisely. But they had not as +yet assimilated or appreciated it: that was left for the eighteenth +century to do. Meanwhile Hamilton brought the double influence to bear, +not merely on the French novel, but on the novel in general and on the +eccentric novel in particular. To appreciate him properly, he ought to +be compared with Rabelais before him and with Voltaire or Sterne--with +both, perhaps, as a counsel of perfection--after him. He is a smaller +man, both in literature and in humanity, than Master Francis; but the +phrase which Voltaire himself rather absurdly used of Swift might be +used without any absurdity in reference to him. He _is_ a "Rabelais de +bonne compagnie," and from the exactly opposite point of view he might +be called a Voltaire or a Sterne _de bonne compagnie_ likewise. That is +to say, he is a gentleman pretty certainly as well as a genius, which +Rabelais might have been, at any rate in other circumstances, but did +not choose to be, and which neither Francois Arouet nor Laurence Sterne +could have been, however much either had tried, though the metamorphosis +is not quite so utterly inconceivable in Sterne's case as in the +other's. Hamilton, it has been confessed, is sometimes "naughty"; but +his naughtiness is neither coarse nor sniggering,[308] and he depends +upon it so little--a very important point--that he is sometimes most +amusing when he is not naughty at all. In other words, he has no need of +it, but simply takes it as one of the infinite functions of human +comedy. Against which let Mrs. Grundy say what she likes. + + * * * * * + +It is conceivable that objection may be taken, or at any rate surprise +felt, at the fulness with which a group of mostly little books--no one +of them produced by an author of the first magnitude as usual estimates +run--has been here handled. But the truth is that the actual birth of +the French novel took a much longer time than that of the English--a +phenomenon explicable, without any national vainglory, by the fact that +it came first and gave us patterns and stimulants. The writers surveyed +in this chapter, and those who will take their places in the next--at +least Scarron, Furetiere, Madame de La Fayette and Hamilton, Lesage, +Marivaux, and Prevost--whatever objections or limitations may be brought +against them, form the central group of the originators of the modern +novel. They open the book of life, as distinguished from that of +factitious and rather stale literature; they point out the varieties of +incident and character; the manners and interiors and fantastic +adjustments; the sentiment rising to passion--which are to determine the +developments and departments of the fiction of the future. They leave, +as far as we have seen them, great opportunities for improvement to +those immediate followers to whom we shall now turn. Hamilton is, +indeed, not yet much followed, but Lesage far outgoes Scarron in the +raising of the picaresque; Marivaux distances Furetiere in painting of +manners and in what some people call psychology; _Manon Lescaut_ throws +_La Princesse de Cleves_ into the shade as regards the greatest and +most novel-breeding of the passions. But the whole are really a _bloc_, +the continental sense of which is rather different from our "block." And +perhaps we shall find that, though none of them was equal in genius to +some who succeeded them in novel-writing, the novel itself made little +progress, and some backsliding, during nearly a hundred years after they +ceased to write. + + +NOTE ON _TELEMAQUE_ + + It may not perhaps be superfluous to give the rest of that + criticism of Hamilton's on _Telemaque_, the conclusion of + which has been quoted above. "In vain, from the famous + coasts of Ithaca, the wise and renowned Mentor came to + enrich us with those treasures of his which his _Telemaque_ + contains. In vain the art of the teacher delicately + displays, in this romance of a rare kind, the usefulness and + the deceitfulness of politics and of love, as well as that + fatal sweetness--frail daughter of luxury--which intoxicates + a conquering hero at the feet of a young mistress or of a + skilful enchantress, such as in each case this Mentor + depicts them. But, well-versed as he was in human weakness, + and elaborately as he imitated the style and the stories of + Greece, the vogue that he had was of short duration. Weary + of inability to understand the mysteries which he unfolded, + men ran to the Palais to give back the volume," etc., etc. + + Hamilton, no doubt intentionally, has himself made this + criticism rather "mysterious." It is well known that, if not + quite at first, very soon after its appearance, the fact + that the politics, if not also the morals, of Fenelon's book + were directly at variance with Court standards was + recognised. At a time when Court favour and fashion were the + very breath of the upper circles, and directly or indirectly + ruled the middle, the popularity of this curious + romance-exhortation was, at any rate for a time, nipped in + the bud, to revive only in the permanent but not altogether + satisfactory conditions of a school-book. Whether Hamilton + dealt discreetly with the matter by purposely confining + himself to the record of a fact, or at least mixing praise + to which no exception could be taken, with what might be + taken for blame, one cannot say. By dotting a few i's, + crossing the t's, and perhaps touching up some hidden + letters with the requisite reagent, one can, however, get a + not unfair or unshrewd criticism of the book out of this + envelope. _Telemaque_, if it is not, as one of Thackeray's + "thorn" correspondents suggested, superior to "_Lovel + Parsonage_ and _Framley the Widower_," has, or with some + easy suppressions and a very few additions and developments + might have, much more pure romance interest than its + centuries of scholastic use allow it to have for most + people. Eucharis is capable of being much more than she is + allowed to show herself; and some Mrs. Grundys, with more + intelligence than the average member of the clan, have + hinted that Calypso might be dangerous if the persons who + read about her were not likely to consider her as too old to + be interesting. The style is, of course, admirable--there + has hardly ever been a better writer of French than Fenelon, + who was also a first-rate narrator and no mean critic. + Whether by the "mysteries" Hamilton himself meant politics, + morals, religion, or all three and other "serious" things, + is a point which, once more, is impossible to settle. But it + is quite certain that, whether there is any difficulty in + comprehending them or not, a great many--probably the huge + majority--of novel readers would not care to take the + trouble to comprehend them, and might, even if they found + little difficulty, resent being asked to do so. And so we + have here not the first--for, as has been said, the Heroic + romance itself had much earlier been "conscripted" into the + service of didactics--but the first brilliant, or almost + brilliant, example of that novel of purpose which will meet + us so often hereafter. It may be said to have at once + revealed (for the earlier examples were, as a rule, too dull + to be fair tests) the ineradicable defects of the species. + Even when the purpose does not entirely preclude the + possibility of enjoyment, it always gets in the way thereof; + and when the enjoyable matter does not absorb attention to + the disregard of the purpose altogether, it seldom--perhaps + never--really helps that purpose to get itself fulfilled. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[247] It is perhaps not quite superfluous to point out that the +principle of separation in these chapters is quite different from that +(between "idealist" and "realist") pursued by Koerting and others, and +reprobated, partially or wholly, by MM. Le Breton and Brunetiere. + +[248] _L'Autre Monde: ou Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la +Lune_, etc. + +[249] It must be remembered that even Gerard Hamilton made many more +speeches, but only one good one, while the novelists discussed here +wrote in most cases many other books. But their goodness shows itself in +hardly more than a single work in each case. Anthony Hamilton's is in +all his. + +[250] It has been noted, I think, by all who have written about the +_Berger_, that Sorel is a sort of Balak and Balaam in one. He calls on +himself to curse the _Astree_, but he, sometimes at least, blesses it. + +[251] The _Berger_ fills two volumes of some nine hundred pages; +_Polyandre_, two of six hundred each! But it must be admitted that the +print is very large and widely spaced. + +[252] One remembers the story of the greater Corneille calling to the +lesser down a trap between their two houses, "Sans-Souci!--une rime!" + +[253] I have known this word more than once objected to as pedantic. But +pedantry in this kind consists in using out-of-the-way terms when common +ones are ready to hand. There is no single word in English to express +the lower kind of "Dutch-painting" as this Greek word does. And Greek is +a recognised and standing source of words for English. If geography, why +not rhyparography?--or, if any one prefers it, "rhypography," which, +however, is not, I think, so good a form. + +[254] There is, no doubt, significance in the fact that they are +definitely called _nouvelles_. + +[255] _V. sup._ p. 204. The habit of these continues in all the books. +_L'Illustre Bassa_ opens with a most elaborate, but still not very much +"alive," procession and sham fight. + +[256] Of course Cervantes is not shadowy. + +[257] As far as mere chronology goes, Cyrano, _v. inf._, should come +between; but it would split the parallel. + +[258] Scarron had, in Le Destin's account of himself, made a distinction +between the pastoral and heroic groups and the "old" romances, meaning +thereby not the true mediaeval specimens but the _Amadis_ cycle. +Furetiere definitely classes all of them together. + +[259] The time is well known to have been fond of anagrams, and +"Charroselles" is such an obvious one for "Charles Sorel" that for once +there is no need to gainsay or neglect the interpreters. The thing, if +really meant for a real person, is a distinct lampoon, and may perhaps +explain the expulsion and persecution of Furetiere, by his colleagues of +the Academy, almost as well as the ostensible cause thereof--his +compiling, in competition with the Academy itself, of a French +Dictionary, and a very good one, which was not printed till after his +death, and ultimately became the famous _Dictionnaire de Trevoux_. Not +that Sorel himself was of much importance, but that the thing shows the +irritable and irritating literary failing in the highest degree. +Furetiere had friends of position, from Boileau, Racine, and Bossuet +downwards; and the king himself, though he did not interfere, seems to +have disapproved the Academy's action. But the _Roman_ was heavily +"slated" for many years, though it had a curious revival in the earlier +part of the next century; and for the rest of that century and the first +part of the nineteenth it was almost wholly forgotten. + +[260] She falls in love with an ebony cabinet at a fair which they visit +together, and he gives it her. But, anticipating that she will use it +for her most precious things, he privately gets a second set of keys +from the seller, and in her absence achieves the theft of the promise. + +[261] Any one who has, as the present writer has had, opportunities of +actually doing this, will find it a not uninteresting operation, and one +which "amply repays the expense" of time and trouble. + +[262] This is a point of importance. Details of a life-like character +are most valuable in the novel; but if they are not "material" in the +transferred sense they are simply a bore. Scott undoubtedly learnt this +lesson from his prentice work in finishing Strutt's _Queenhoo Hall_, +where the story is simply a clumsy vehicle for conveying information +about sports and pastimes and costumes and such-like "antiqu_ar_ities." + +[263] To us small, as are not those of its predecessors. + +[264] Not a bad instance of the subacid touches which make the book +lively, and which probably supply some explanation of its author's +unpopularity. The "furred law-cats" of all kinds were always a +prevailing party in Old France, and required stout gloves to touch them +with. + +[265] This (often called by its Italian name of Quarant' ore) is a +"Devotion" during an exposure of the Sacrament for that time, in memory +of the interval between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of Our +Lord. It is a public service, and, I suppose, collections were made _at +intervals_. No one, especially no girl, could stand the time straight +through. The "Paradise" was, of course, a "decoration." + +[266] Javotte says "shoe the mule"--"ferrer la mule"--one of the phrases +like "faire danser l'anse du panier" and others, for taking +"self-presented testimonials," as Wilkie Collins's Captain Wragge more +elegantly and less cryptically calls it. + +[267] Of course the regular "thanks" of a collector for pious purposes. + +[268] He does later seek this, and only loses her (if she can be called +a loss) by his own folly. But his main objective is to _conter_ (or as +Furetiere himself has it, _debiter_) _la fleurette_. It ought, perhaps, +to be mentioned, as a possible counterweight or drawback, that the +novelist breaks off to discuss the too great matter-of-factness of +bourgeois girls and women. But he was to have great followers in this +also. + +[269] He was born and baptised Savinien de Cyrano, and called himself de +Cyrano-Bergerac. The sound of the additional designation and some of his +legendary peculiarities probably led to his being taken for a Gascon; +but there is no evidence of meridional extraction or seat, and there +appears to be some of Breton or other Western connection. + +[270] There is nothing in the least astonishing in his having been +this--if he was. The tendency of the Renaissance towards what is called +"free thought" is quite well known; and the existence, in the +seventeenth century, of a sort of school of boisterous and rather vulgar +infidelity is familiar--with the names of Bardouville, and Saint-Ibal or +Saint-Ibar, as members of it--to all readers of Saint-Evremond, +Tallemant, the _Ana_, etc. + +[271] Perhaps the dullest part is where (save the mark!) the Demon of +Socrates is brought in to talk sometimes mere platitudes, sometimes tame +paradoxes which might as well be put in the mouth of any pupil-teacher, +or any popular journalist or dramatist, of the present day.--Of the +attempt to make Swift Cyrano's debtor one need say little: but among +predecessors, if not creditors, Ben Jonson, for his _News from the New +World discovered in the Moon_, may at least be mentioned. + +[272] The key-mongers, of course, identify the three with the author, +her own husband, and La Rochefoucauld. + +[273] He has ensconced himself in one of the smaller rooms of a garden +pavilion outside of which they are sitting, having left their suite at +some distance. + +[274] _Maitresse de sa conduite_, a curious but not difficult text as to +French ideas of marriage. + +[275] I have been obliged to insert "trials" to bring out the meaning of +"_exposee au milieu_." "_Exposee_" has a fuller sense than the simple +English verb, and almost equals the legal "exposed for sale." + +[276] Mme. de la Fayette was a very accomplished woman, and, possibly +from her familiarity with Queen Henrietta Maria, well acquainted with +English as well as French history. But our proper names, as usual, +vanquish her, and she makes Henry VIII. marry Jane _Seimer_ and +Catherine _Havart_. + +[277] This does not apply to the _main_ love story but to the atmosphere +generally. The Vidame de Chartres, for instance, is represented as in +love with (1) Queen Catherine; (2) a Mme. de Themines, with whom he is +not quite satisfied; (3) a Mme. de Martignes, with whom he is; (4) a +lady unnamed, with whom he has _trompe_ them all. This may be true +enough to life; but it is difficult to make it into good matter of +fiction, especially with a crowd of other people doing much the same. + +[278] It ought, perhaps, to be added that though manners, etc., altered +not a little between Henri II. and Louis XIV., the alteration was much +less than in most other histories at most other periods. It would be +easy to find two persons in Tallemant whose actual experience covered +the whole time. + +[279] You _had_ to call it so when I first saw it; when I last did so it +was "Oiron." No doubt it is something else now. + +[280] For that, see Chapter XII. + +[281] See below on the version Introduction to the _Quatre Facardins_. + +[282] Including miscellaneous imbecility and unsuitableness as well as +moral indecorum. + +[283] Written for the _Fortnightly Review_ in 1882, but by a chapter of +accidents not printed till 1890. Reprinted next year in _Essays on +French Novelists_ (London, 1891). + +[284] Miss Ruth Clark. + +[285] The conclusion of _Vathek_ is of course undoubtedly more +"admirable" than anything of Hamilton's; but it is in a quite different +genus. + +[286] The piece _Celle que j'adore_ is the best of the casual verses, +though there are other good songs, etc. Those which alternate with the +prose of some of the tales are too often (as in the case of the +_Cabinet_ insets, _v. sup._) rather prosaic. Of the prose miscellanies +the so-called _Relations_ "of different places in Europe," and "of a +voyage to Mauritania," contain some of the cream of Hamilton's almost +uniquely ironic narrative and commentary. When that great book, "The +Nature and History of Irony," which has to be written is written--the +last man died with the last century and the next hour seems far off--a +contrast of Hamilton and Kinglake will probably form part of it. + +[287] As a member, though a cadet, of a cadet branch of one of the +noblest families of Great Britain and Ireland. + +[288] As a soldier, a courtier of Charles II., and a Jacobite exile in +France. + +[289] I may perhaps be allowed to refer to another essay of mine on him +in _Miscellaneous Essays_ (London, 1892). It contains a full account, +and some translation, of the _Conversation du marechal d'Hocquincourt +avec le Pere Canaye_, which is at once the author's masterpiece of quiet +irony, his greatest pattern for the novelist, and his clearest evidence +of influence on Hamilton. + +[290] There are some who hold that _the_ "English" differentia, whether +shown in letters or in life, whether south or north of Tweed, east or +west of St. George's Channel is always Anglo-Norman. + +[291] The "Marian" and Roman comparison of Anne Boleyn's position to +Rosamond's is interesting. + +[292] It is a sort of brief lift and drop of the curtain which still +concealed the true historical novel; it has even got a further literary +interest as giving the seamy side of the texture of Macaulay's admirable +_Jacobite's Epitaph_. The account would be rather out of place here, but +may be found translated at length (pp. 44-46) in the volume of _Essays +on French Novelists_ more than once referred to. + +[293] The most unexpected bathos of these last three words is of course +intentional, and is Hamilton all over. + +[294] The nymph is lying on a couch, and her companion (who has been +recalcitrant even to this politeness) is sitting beside her. + +[295] This is as impudent as the other passages below are imbecile--of +course in each case (as before) with a calculated impudence and +imbecility. The miserable creature had himself obliged her to "come out +of the water" by declining to join her there on the plea that he was +never good for an assignation when he was wet! + +[296] If they are true, and if Madame de Grammont was the culprit, it is +a sad confirmation of the old gibe, "Skittish in youth, prudish in age." +It can only be pleaded in extenuation that some youth which was not +skittish, such as Sarah Marlborough's, matured or turned into something +worse than "devotion." And Elizabeth Hamilton was so very pretty! + +[297] "Completions" of both _Zeneyde_ and _Les Quatre Facardins_, by the +Duke de Levis, are included in some editions, but they are, after the +fashions of such things, very little good. + +[298] The name is not, like "Tarare," a direct burlesque; but it +suggests a burlesque intention when taken with "facond" and others +including, perhaps, even _faquin_. + +[299] The Sultaness is almost _persona muta_--and indeed her tongue must +have required a rest. + +[300] As Hamilton's satiric intention is as sleepless as poor Princess +Mousseline herself, it is not impossible that he remembered the incident +recorded by Pepys, or somebody, how King Charles the Second could not +get a sheet of letter paper to write on for all the Royal Households and +Stationery Offices and such-like things in the English world. + +[301] _I.e._ colour-printed cotton from India--a novelty "fashionable" +and, therefore, satirisable in France. + +[302] Or "distaffs and spindles"? + +[303] She is indeed said to have "converted" both him and Grammont, the +latter perhaps the most remarkable achievement of its kind. + +[304] Mr. Austin Dobson's charming translation of this was originally +intended to appear in the present writer's essay above mentioned. + +[305] The chief region of bookselling. Cf. Corneille's early comedy, _La +Galerie du Palais_. + +[306] For note on _Telemaque_ see end of chapter. + +[307] Who is here herself an improved Doralise. + +[308] To put it otherwise in technical French, there is a little +_grivoiserie_ in him, but absolutely no _polissonnerie_, still less any +_cochonnerie_. Or it may be put, best of all, in his own words when, in +a short French-Greek dialogue, called _La Volupte_, he makes Aspasia say +to Agathon, "Je vous crois fort voluptueux, sans vous croire debauche." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LESAGE, MARIVAUX, PREVOST, CREBILLON + + +The words which closed the last chapter should make it unnecessary to +prefix much of the same kind to this, though at the end we may have +again to summarise rather more fully. + +[Sidenote: The subjects of the chapter.] + +As was there observed, our figures here are, with the possible exception +of Crebillon _Fils_, "larger" persons than those dealt with before them; +and they also mark a further transition towards the condition--the +"employment or vocation"--of the novelist proper, though the polygraphic +habit which has grown upon all modern literature, and which began in +France almost earlier than anywhere else, affects them. Scarron was even +more of a dramatist than of a novelist; and though this was also the +case with Lesage and Marivaux--while Prevost was, save for his +masterpiece, a polygraph of the polygraphs--their work in fiction was +far larger, both positively and comparatively, than his. _Gil Blas_ for +general popularity, and _Manon Lescaut_ for enthusiastic admiration of +the elect, rank almost, if not quite, among the greatest novels of the +world. Marivaux, for all his irritating habit of leaving things +unfinished, and the almost equally irritating affectation of phrase, in +which he anticipated some English novelists of the late nineteenth and +earliest twentieth century, is almost the first "psychologist" of prose +fiction; that is to say, where Madame de la Fayette had taken the +soul-analysis of hardly more than two persons (Nemours scarcely counts) +in a single situation, Marivaux gives us an almost complete dissection +of the temperament and character of a girl and of a man under many +ordinary life-circumstances for a considerable time. + +[Sidenote: Lesage--his Spanish connections.] + +But we must begin, not with him but with Lesage, not merely as the older +man by twenty years, but in virtue of that comparative "greatness" of +his greatest work which has been glanced at. There is perhaps a doubt +whether _Gil Blas_ is as much read now as it used to be; it is pretty +certain that _Le Diable Boiteux_ is not. The certainty is a pity; and if +the doubt be true, it is a greater pity still. For more than a century +_Gil Blas_ was almost as much[309] a classic, either in the original or +in translation, in England as it was in France; and the delight which it +gave to thousands of readers was scarcely more important to the history +of fiction generally than the influence it exerted upon generation after +generation of novelists, not merely in its own country, but on the far +greater artists in fiction of the eighteenth and early nineteenth +century in England from Fielding to Scott, if not to Dickens. Now, I +suppose, that we are told to start with the axiom that even Fielding's +structure of humanity is a simple toy-like thing, how much more is +Lesage's? But for those of us who have not bowed the knee to foolish +modern Baals, "They reconciled us; we embraced, and we have since been +mortal enemies"; and the trout; and the soul of the licentiate; and Dr. +Sangrado; and the Archbishop of Granada--to mention only the most famous +and hackneyed matters--are still things a little larger, a little more +complex, a little more eternal and true, than webs of uninteresting +analysis told in phrase to which Marivaudage itself is golden and +honeyed Atticism. + +Yet once more we can banish, with a joyful and quiet mind, a crowd of +idle fancies and disputes, apparently but not really affecting our +subjects. The myth of a direct Spanish origin for _Gil Blas_ is almost +as easily dispersible by the clear sun of criticism as the exaggeration +of the debt of the smaller book to Guevara. On the other hand, the +_general_ filiation of Lesage on his Spanish predecessors is undeniable, +and not worth even shading off and toning down. A man is not ashamed of +having good fathers and grandfathers, whose property he now enjoys, +before him in life; and why should he be in literature? + +[Sidenote: Peculiarity of his work generally.] + +Lesage's work, in fiction and out of it, is considerable in bulk, but it +is affected (to what extent disadvantageously different judges may judge +differently) by some of the peculiarities of the time which have been +already mentioned, and by some which have not. It is partly original, +partly mere translation, and partly also a mixture of the strangest +kind. Further, its composition took place in a way difficult to adjust +to later ideas. Lesage was not, like Marivaux, a professed and shameless +"_un_finisher," but he took a great deal of time to finish his +work.[310] He was not an early-writing author; and when he did begin, he +showed something of that same strange need of a suggestion, a +"send-off," or whatever anybody likes to call it, which appears even in +his greatest work. He began with the _Letters_ of Aristaenetus, which, +though perhaps they have been abused more than they deserve by people +who have never read them, and would never have heard of them if it had +not been for Alain Rene, are certainly not the things that most +scholars, with the whole range of Greek literature before them to choose +from, would have selected. His second venture was almost worse than his +first; for there _are_ some prettinesses in Aristaenetus, and except for +the one famous passage enshrined by Pope in the _Essay on Criticism_, +there is, I believe,[311] nothing good in the continuation of _Don +Quixote_ by the so-called Avellaneda. But at any rate this job, which +is attributed to the suggestion of the Abbe de Lyonne, "put" Lesage on +Spanish, and never did fitter seed fall on more fertile soil. + +[Sidenote: And its variety.] + +Longinus would, I think, have liked _Gil Blas_, and indeed Lesage, very +much. You might kill ten asses, of the tallest Poitou standard in size +and the purest Zoilus or Momus sub-variety in breed, under you while +going through his "faults." He translates; he borrows; he "plagiarises" +about as much as is possible for anybody who is not a mere dullard to +do. Of set plot there is nothing in his work, whether you take the two +famous pieces, or the major adaptations like _Estevanille Gonzales_ and +_Guzman d'Alfarache_, or the lesser things, more Lucianic than anything +else, such as the _Cheminees de Madrid_[312] and the _Journee des +Parques_ and the _Valise Trouvee_. "He worked for his living" (as M. +Anatole France long ago began a paper about him which is not quite the +best of its very admirable author's work), and though the pot never +boiled quite so merrily as the cook deserved, the fact of the +pot-boiling makes itself constantly felt. _Les chaines de l'esclavage_ +must have cut deep into his soul, and the result of the cutting is +evident enough in his work. But the vital marks on that work are such as +many perfectly free men, who have wished to take literature as a +mistress only, have never been able to impress on theirs. He died full +of years, but scarcely of the honours due to him, failing in power, and +after a life[313] of very little luck, except as regards possession of a +wife who seems to have been beautiful in youth and amiable always, with +at least one son who observed the Fifth Commandment to the utmost. But +he lives among the immortals, and there are few names in our present +history which are of more importance to it than his. + +Some of his best and least unequal work is indeed denied us. We have +nothing to do with his drama, though _Turcaret_ is something like a +masterpiece in comedy, and _Crispin Rival de son Maitre_ a capital +farce. We cannot even discuss that remarkable _Theatre de la Foire_, +which, though a mere collection of the lightest Harlequinades, has more +readable matter of literature in it than the whole English comic drama +since Sheridan, with the exception of the productions of the late Sir +William Gilbert. + +Nor must much be said even of his minor novel work. The later +translations and adaptations from the Spanish need hardly any notice for +obvious reasons; whatever is good in them being either not his, or +better exemplified in the _Devil_ and in _Gil_. The extremely curious +and very Defoe-like book--almost if not quite his last--_Vie et +Aventures de M. de Beauchesne, Capitaine de Flibustiers_, is rather a +subject for a separate essay than for even a paragraph here. But Lesage, +from our point of view, is _Le Diable Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_, and to +the _Diable Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_ let us accordingly turn. + +[Sidenote: _Le Diable Boiteux._] + +The relations of the earlier and shorter book to the _Diablo Cojuelo_ of +Luis Velez de Guevara are among the most open secrets of literature. The +Frenchman, in a sort of prefatory address to his Spanish parent and +original, has put the matter fairly enough; anybody who will take the +trouble can "control" or check the statement, by comparing the two books +themselves. The idea--the rescuing of an obliging demon from the grasp +of an enchanter, and his unroofing the houses of Madrid to amuse his +liberator--is entirely Guevara's, and for a not inconsiderable space of +time the French follows the Spanish closely. But then it breaks off, and +the remainder of the book is, except for the carrying out of the general +idea, practically original. The unroofing and revealing of secrets, from +being merely casual and confined to a particular neighbourhood, becomes +systematised: a lunatic asylum and a prison are subjected to the +process; a set of dreamers are obliged to deliver up what Queen Mab is +doing with them; and, as an incident, the student Don Cleofas, who has +freed Asmodeus,[314] gains through the friendly spirit's means a rich +and pretty bride whom the demon--naturally immune from fire--has rescued +in Cleofas's likeness from a burning house. + +[Sidenote: Lesage and Boileau.] + +The thing therefore neither has, nor could possibly pretend to have, any +merit as a plotted and constructed whole in fiction. It is merely a +variety of the old "framed" tale-collection, except that the frame is of +the thinnest; and the individual stories, with a few exceptions, are +extremely short, in fact little more than anecdotes. The power and +attraction of the book lie simply in the crispness of the style, the +ease and flow of the narrative, and the unfailing satiric knowledge of +human nature which animates the whole. As it stands, it is double its +original length; for Lesage, finding it popular, and never being under +the trammels of a fixed design, very wisely, and for a wonder not +unsuccessfully, gave it a continuation. And, except the equally obvious +and arbitrary one of the recapture of the spirit by the magician, it has +and could have no end. The most famous of the anecdotes about it is that +Boileau--in 1707 a very old man--found his page reading it, and declared +that such a book and such a critic as he should never pass a night under +the same roof. Boileau, though he often said rude, unjust, and +uncritical things, did not often say merely silly ones; and it has been +questioned what was his reason for objecting to a book by no means +shocking to anybody but Mrs. Grundy Grundified to the very _n_th, +excellently written, and quite free from the bombast and the +whimsicality which he loathed. Jealousy for Moliere,[315] to whom, in +virtue of _Turcaret_, Lesage had been set up as a sort of rival; mere +senile ill-temper, and other things have been suggested; but the matter +is of no real importance even if it is true. Boileau was one of the +least catholic and the most arbitrary critics who ever lived; he had +long made up and colophoned the catalogue of his approved library; he +did not see his son's coat on the new-comer, and so he cursed him. It is +not the only occasion on which we may bless what Boileau cursed. + +[Sidenote: _Gil Blas_--its peculiar cosmopolitanism.] + +_Gil Blas_, of course, is in every sense a "bigger" book of literature. +That it has, from the point of view of the straitest sect of the +Unitarians--and not of that sect only--much more unity than the +_Diable_, would require mere cheap paradox to contend. It has neither +the higher unity, say, of _Hamlet_, where every smallest scene and +almost personage is connected with the general theme; nor the lower +unity of such a thing as _Phedre_, where everything is pared down, or, +as Landor put it in his own case, "boiled off" to a meagre residuum of +theme special. It has, at the very most, that species of unity which +Aristotle did not like even in epic, that of a succession of events +happening to an individual; and while most of these might be omitted, or +others substituted for them, without much or any loss, they exist +without prejudice to mere additions to themselves. As the excellent Mr. +Wall, sometime Professor of Logic at Oxford, and now with God, used to +say, "Gentlemen, I can conceive an elephant," so one may conceive a _Gil +Blas_, not merely in five instead of four, but in fifty or five hundred +volumes. But, on the other hand, it has that still different unity (of +which Aristotle does not seem to have thought highly, even if he thought +of it at all), that all these miscellaneous experiences do not merely +happen to a person with the same name--they happen to the same +person.[316] And they have themselves yet another unity, which I hardly +remember any critic duly insisting on and discussing, in the fact that +they all are possibly human accidents or incidents. Though he was a +native of one of the most idiosyncratic provinces of not the least +idiosyncratic country in Europe, Lesage is a citizen not of Brittany, +not of France, not of Europe even, but of the world itself, in far more +than the usual sense of cosmopolitanism. He has indeed coloured +background and costume, incident and even personage itself so deeply +with essence of "things of Spain," that, as has been said, the +Spaniards, the most jealous of all nationalities except the smaller +Celtic tribes, have claimed his work for themselves. Yet though Spain +has one of the noblest languages, one of the greatest literatures in +quality if not in bulk, one of the most striking histories, and one of +the most intensely national characters in the world, it is--perhaps for +the very reason last mentioned--as little cosmopolitan as any country, +and Lesage, as has been said, is inwardly and utterly cosmopolitan or +nothing. + + At Paris, at Rome, at the Hague he's at home; + +and though he seems to have known little of England, and, as most +Frenchmen of his time had reason to do, to have disliked us, he has +certainly never been anywhere more at home than in London. In fact--and +it bears out what has been said--there is perhaps no capital in Europe +where, in the two hundred years he has had to nationalise himself, +Lesage has been less at home than at Paris itself. The French are of +course proud of him in a way, but there is hardly one of their great +writers about whom they have been less enthusiastic. The technical, and +especially the neo-classically technical, shortcomings which have been +pointed out may have had something to do with this; but the +cosmopolitanism has perhaps more. + +[Sidenote: And its adoption of the _homme sensuel moyen_ fashion.] + +For us Lesage occupies a position of immense importance in the history +of the French novel; but if we were writing a history of the novel at +large it would scarcely be lessened, and might even be relatively +larger. He had come to it perhaps by rather strange ways; but it is no +novelty to find that conjunction of road and goal. The Spanish +picaresque romance was not in itself a very great literary kind; but it +had in it a great faculty of _emancipation_. Outside the drama[317] it +was about the first division of literature to proclaim boldly the +refusal to consider anything human as alien from human literary +interest. But, as nearly always happens, it had exaggerated its +protests, and become sordid, merely in revolt from the high-flown +non-sordidness of previous romance. Lesage took the principle and +rejected the application. He dared, practically for the first time, to +take the average man of unheroic stamp, the _homme sensuel moyen_ of a +later French phrase, for his subject. _Gil Blas_ is not a virtuous +person,[318] but he is not very often an actual scoundrel.[319] (Is +there any of us who has never been a scoundrel at all at all?) He is +clever after his fashion, but he is not a genius; he is a little bit of +a coward, but can face it out fairly at a pinch; he has some luck and +ill-luck; but he does not come in for _montes et maria_, either of gold +or of misery. I have no doubt that the comparison of _Gil Blas_ and _Don +Quixote_ has often been made, and it would be rather an _excursus_ here. +But inferior as Lesage's work is in not a few ways, it has, like other +non-quintessential things, much more virtue as model and pattern. +Imitations of _Don Quixote_ (except Graves's capital book, where the +following is of the freest character) have usually been failures. It is +hardly an extravagance to say that every novel of miscellaneous +adventure since its date owes something, directly or indirectly, to _Gil +Blas_. + +One of the "faults"--it must be understood that between "faults" with +inverted commas and faults without them there is a wide and sometimes an +unbridgeable gulf--lies in the fact that the book is after all not much +more of a whole, in any sense but that noted above, than _Le Diable +Boiteux_ itself. The innumerable incidents are to a very large extent +episodes merely, and episodes in the loose, not the precise, sense of +the term. That is to say, they are not merely detachable; they might be +reattached to almost any number of other stories. But the redeeming +feature--which is very much more than a _mere_ redeeming feature--is the +personality of the hero which has been already referred to. Lesage's +scrip and staff, to apply the old images exactly enough, are his +inexhaustible fertility in well-told stories and his faculty of +delineating a possible and interesting human character. + +[Sidenote: Its inequality--in the Second and Fourth Books especially.] + +The characteristics of the successive parts of _Gil Blas_ are distinct +and interesting, the distinctions themselves being also rather curious. +The anecdote cited above as to the Fourth and last volume is certainly +confirmed by, and does not seem, as so many anecdotes of the kind do, to +have been even possibly drawn from, the volume itself. Although the old +power is by no means gone, the marks of its failing are pretty obvious. +A glance has been given already to the unnecessary and disgusting +repetition of the Pandar business--made, as it is, more disgusting by +the distinctly tragic touch infused into it. The actual _finale_ is, on +the other hand, a good comedy ending of a commonplace kind, except that +a comic author, such as Lesage once had been on and off the stage, would +certainly have made _Gil Blas_ suffer in his second marriage for his +misdeeds of various kinds earlier, instead of leaving him in the not too +clean cotton or clover of an old rip with a good young wife. If he had +wanted a happy ending of a still conventional but satisfactory kind, he +should have married Gil to Laure or Estelle (they were, in modern slang, +sufficiently "shop-worn goods" not to be ill-mated, and Laure is perhaps +the most attractive character in the whole book); have legitimated +Lucrece, as by some odd crotchet he definitely refuses to do;[320] have +dropped the later Leporello business, in which his old love and her +daughter are concerned, altogether, and have left us in a mild sunset of +"reconciliation." If anybody scorns this suggestion as evidence of a +futile liking for "rose-pink," let him remember that Gil Blas, +_ci-devant picaro_ and other ugly things, is actually left lapped in an +Elysium not less improbable and much more undeserved than this. But it +is disagreeable to dwell on the shortcomings of age, and it has only +been done to show that this is a criticism and not a mere panegyric. + +Oddly enough, the Second volume is also open to much exception of +something, though not quite, the same kind; it seems as if Lesage, after +making strong running, had a habit of nursing himself and even +going to sleep for a while. The more than questionable habit of +_histoire_-insertions revives; that of the rascal-hermit _picaro_, "Don +Raphael," is, as the author admits, rather long, and, as he might have +admitted, and as any one else may be allowed to say, very tiresome. Gil +Blas himself goes through a long period of occultation, and the whole +rather drags. + +The First and the Third are the pillars of the house; and the Third, +though (with the exception of the episode of the Archbishop, and that +eternal sentence governing the relations of author and critic that "the +homily which has the misfortune not to be approved" by the one is the +very best ever produced by the other) not so well known, is perhaps even +better than anything in the First. But the later part has, of course, +not quite so much freshness; and nobody need want anything better than +the successive scenes, slightly glanced at already, in which Gil Blas is +taught, by no means finally,[321] the ways of the world; the pure +adventure interest of the robbers' cave, so admirably managed and so +little over-dwelt on; the experiences of travel and of the capital; the +vivid pictures of _petit maitre_ and actress life; the double +deception--thoroughly Spanish this, but most freshly and universally +handled--by Laure and Gil; many other well-known things; all deserve the +knowledge and the admiration that they have won. But the Third, in which +the hero is hardly ever off the scene from first to last, is my own +favourite. He shows himself--not at his best, but humanly enough--in the +affair with the ill-fated Lorenca, on which the Leyva family might have +looked less excusingly if the culprit had been anybody but Gil. The +Granada scenes, however, and not by any means merely those with the +Archbishop, are of the very first class; and the reappearance of Laure, +with the admirable coolness by which she hoodwinks her "keeper" +Marialva, yields to nothing in the book. For fifty pages it is all +novel-gold; and though Gil Blas, in decamping from the place, and +leaving Laure to bear the brunt of a possible discovery, commits one of +his least heroic deeds, it is so characteristic that one forgives, not +indeed him, but his creator. The whole of the Lerma part is excellent +and not in the least improbably impossible; there is infinitely more +"human natur'" in it, as Marryat's waterman would have said, than in the +_rechauffe_ of the situation with Olivares. + +[Sidenote: Lesage's quality--not requiring many words, but +indisputable.] + +The effect indeed which is produced, in re-reading, by _Le Diable +Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_, but especially by the latter, is of that +especial kind which is a sort of "_a posteriori_ intuition," if such a +phrase may be permitted, of "classical" quality.[322] This sensation, +which appears, unfortunately, to be unknown to a great many people, is +sometimes set down by the more critical or, let us say, the more +censorious of them, to a sort of childish prepossession--akin to that +which makes a not ill-conditioned child fail to discover any +uncomeliness in his mother's or a favourite nurse's face. There is no +retort to such a proposition as this so proper as the argument not _ad +hominem_, but _ab_ or _ex homine_. The present writer did not read the +_Devil_ till he had reached quite critical years; and though he read +_Gil Blas_ much earlier, he was not (for what reason he cannot say) +particularly fond of it until the same period was reached. And yet its +attractions cannot possibly be said to be of any recondite or artificial +kind, and its defects are likely to be more, not less, recognised as the +critical faculty acquires strength and practice. Nevertheless, recent +reperusal has made him more conscious than ever of the existence of this +quality of a classic in both, but especially in the larger and more +famous book. And this is a mere pailful added to an ocean of previous +and more important testimony. _Gil Blas_ has certainly "classed" itself +in the most various instances, of essentially critical, not specially +critical but generally acute and appreciative, and more or less +unsophisticated and ordinary judgments, as a thing that is past all +question, equally enjoyable for its incidents, its character-sketches, +and its phrasing--though the first are (for time and country) in no +sense out of the way, the second scarcely go beyond the individualised +type, and the third is neither gorgeous nor "alambicated," as the French +say, nor in any way peculiar, except for its saturation with a sharp, +shrewd, salt wit which may be described as the spirit of the popular +proverb, somehow bodied and clothed with more purely literary form. It +is true that, in the last few clauses, plenty of ground has been +indicated for ascription of classicality in the best sense; and perhaps +Lesage himself has summed the whole thing up when, in the "Declaration" +of the author at the beginning of _Gil Blas_, he claims "to have set +before himself only the representation of human life as it is." He has +said it; and in saying and doing it he has said and done everything for +his merits as a novelist and his place in the history of the novel. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Marivaux--_Les Effets de la Sympathie (?)_] + +The Archbishop of Sens, who had the duty of "answering" Marivaux's +"discourse of reception" into the Academy in the usual _aigre-doux_ +manner, informed him, with Academic frankness and Archiepiscopal +propriety, that "in the small part of your work which I have run +through, I soon recognised that the reading of these agreeable romances +did not suit the austere dignity with which I am invested, or the purity +of the ideas which religion prescribes me." This was all in the game, +both for an Academician and for an Archbishop, and it probably did not +discompose the novelist much. But if his Grace had read _Les Effets de +la Sympathie_, and had chosen to criticise it, he might have made its +author (always supposing that Marivaux _was_ its author, which does not +seem to be at all certain) much more uncomfortable. Although there is +plenty of incident, it is but a dull book, and it contains not a trace +of "Marivaudage" in style. A hero's father, who dies of poison in the +first few pages, and is shown to have been brought round by an obliging +gaoler in the last few; a hero himself, who thinks he has fallen in love +with a beautiful and rich widow, playing good Samaritaness to him after +he has fallen in among thieves, but a page or two later really does fall +in love with a fair unknown looking languishingly out of a window; a +_corsaire_,[323] with the appropriate name of Turcamene, who is +robustious almost from the very beginning, and receives at the end a +fatal stab with his own poniard from the superfluous widow, herself also +fatally wounded at the same moment by the same weapon (an economy of +time, incident, and munitions uncommon off the stage); an intermediate +personage who, straying--without any earthly business there--into one of +those park "pavilions" which play so large a part in these romances, +finds a lady asleep on the sofa, with her hand invitingly dropped, +promptly kneels down, and kisses it: these and many other things fill up +a Spanish kind of story, not uningeniously though rather improbably +engineered, but dependent for its interest almost wholly on incident; +for though it is not devoid of conversation, this conversation is +without spirit or sparkle. It is, in fact, a "circulating library" novel +before--at any rate at an early period of--circulating libraries: not +unworkmanlike, probably not very unsatisfactory to its actual readers, +and something of a document as to the kind of satisfaction they +demanded; but not intrinsically important. + +One has not seen much, in English,[324] about Marivaux, despite the +existence, in French, of one of the best[325] of those monographs which +assist the foreign critic so much, and sometimes perhaps help to beget +his own lucubrations. Yet he is one of the most interesting writers of +France, one of the most curious, and, one may almost say, one of the +most puzzling. This latter quality he owes, in part at least, to a +"skiey influence" of the time, which he shares with Lesage and Prevost, +and indeed to some extent with most French writers of the eighteenth +century--the influence of the polygraphic habit. + +[Sidenote: His work in general.] + +He was a dramatist, and a voluminous one, long before he was a novelist: +and some of his thirty or forty plays, especially _Les Fausses +Confidences_ and _Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard_, still rank among at +least the second-class classics of the French comic stage. He tried, for +a time, one of the worst kinds of merely fashionable literature, the +travesty-burlesque.[326] He was a journalist, following Addison openly +in the title, and to some extent in the manner, of _Le Spectateur_, +which he afterwards followed by _Le Cabinet d'un Philosophe_, showing, +however, here, as he was more specially tempted to do, his curious, and +it would seem unconquerable, habit of leaving things unfinished, which +only does not appear in his plays, for the simple and obvious reason +that managers will not put an unfinished play on the stage, and that, if +they did, the afterpiece would be premature and of a very lively +character. But the completeness of his very plays is incomplete; they +"run huddling" to their conclusion, and are rather bundles of good or +not so good acts and scenes than entire dramas. We are, however, only +concerned with the stories, of which there are three: the early, +complete, but doubtful _Effets de la Sympathie_, already discussed; the +central in every way, but endlessly dawdled over, _Marianne_, which +never got finished at all (though Mme. Riccoboni continued it in +Marivaux's own lifetime, and with his placid approval, and somebody +afterwards botched a clumsy _Fin_); and _Le Paysan Parvenu_, the latter +part of which is not likely to be genuine, and, even if so, is not a +real conclusion. We may, however, with some, advantage, take it before +_Marianne_, if only because it is not the book generally connected with +its author's name. + +[Sidenote: _Le Paysan Parvenu._] + +Notwithstanding this comparative oblivion, _Le Paysan Parvenu_ is an +almost astonishingly clever and original book, at least as far as the +five of its eight parts, which are certainly Marivaux's, go. I have read +the three last twice critically, at a long interval of time, and I feel +sure that the positive internal evidence confirms, against their +authenticity, the negative want of external for it. In any case they add +nothing--they do not, as has been said, even really "conclude"--and we +may, therefore, without any more apology, confine ourselves to the part +which is certain. Some readers may possibly know that when that +strangest of strange persons, Restif de la Bretonne (see the last +chapter of this book), took up the title with the slight change or gloss +of _Parvenu_ to _Perverti_, he was at least partly actuated by his own +very peculiar, but distinctly existing, variety of moral indignation. +And though Pierre Carlet (which was Marivaux's real name) and "Monsieur +Nicolas" (which was as near a real name as any that Restif had) were, +the one a quite respectable person on ordinary standards, and the other +an infinitely disreputable creature, still the later novelist was +perhaps ethically justified. Marivaux's successful rustic does not, so +far as we are told, actually do anything that contravenes popular +morality, though he is more than once on the point of doing so. He is +not a bad-blooded person either; and he has nothing of the wild-beast +element in the French peasantry which history shows us from the +Jacquerie to the Revolution, and which some folk try to excuse as the +result of aristocratic tyranny. But he is an elaborate and exceedingly +able portrait of another side of the peasant, and, if we may trust +literature, even with some administration of salt, of the French peasant +more particularly. He is what we may perhaps be allowed to call +unconsciously determined to get on, though he does not go quite to the +length of the _quocunque modo_, and has, as far as men are concerned, +some scruples. But in relation to the other sex he has few if any, +though he is never brutal. He is, as we may say, first "perverted," +though not as yet _parvenu_,[327] in the house of a Parisian, himself a +_nouveau riche_ and _novus homo_, on whose property in Champagne his own +father is a wine-farmer. He is early selected for the beginnings of +Lady-Booby-like attentions by "Madame," while he, as far as he is +capable of the proceeding, falls in love with one of Madame's maids, +Genevieve. It does not appear that, if the lady's part of the matter had +gone further, Jacob (that is his name) would have been at all like +Joseph. But when he finds that the maid is also the object of +"Monsieur's" attentions, and when he is asked to take the profits of +this affair (the attitude[328] of the girl herself is very skilfully +delineated) and marry her, his own _point d'honneur_ is reached.[329] +Everything is, however, cut short by the sudden death, in hopelessly +embarrassed circumstances, of Monsieur, and the consequent cessation of +Madame's attraction for a young man who wishes to better himself. He +leaves both her and Genevieve with perfect nonchalance; though he has +good reason for believing that the girl really loves him, however she +may have made a peculiar sort of hay when the sun shone, and that both +she and his lady are penniless, or almost so. + +He has, however, the luck which makes the _parvenu_, if in this instance +he can hardly be said to deserve it. On the Pont Neuf he sees an elderly +lady, apparently about to swoon. He supports her home, and finds that +she is the younger and more attractive of two old-maid and _devote_ +sisters. The irresistibleness to this class of the feminine sex (and +indeed by no means to this class only) of a strapping and handsome +footman is a commonplace of satire with eighteenth-century writers, both +French and English. It is exercised possibly on both sisters, though the +elder is a shrew; certainly on the younger, and also on their elderly +_bonne_, Catherine. But it necessarily leads to trouble. The younger, +Mlle. Habert (the curious hiding of Christian names reappears here), +wants to retain Jacob in the joint service, and Catherine at least makes +no objection, for obvious reasons. But the elder sister recalcitrates +violently, summoning to her aid her "director," and the younger, who is +financially independent,[330] determines to leave the house. She does so +(_not_ taking Catherine with her, though the _bonne_ would willingly +have shared Jacob's society), and having secured lodgings, regularly +proposes to her (the word may be used almost accurately) "swain." Jacob +has no scruples of delicacy here, though the nymph is thirty years older +than himself, and though he has, if no dislike, no particular affection +for her. But it is an obvious step upwards, and he makes no +difficulties. The elder sister, however, makes strong efforts to forbid +the banns, and her interest prevails on a "President" (the half-regular +power of the French _noblesse de robe_, though perhaps less violently +exercised, must have been almost as galling as the irresponsibleness of +men of birth and "sword") to interpose and actually stop the arranged +ceremony. But Jacob appears in person, and states his case convincingly; +the obstacle is removed, and the pair are made happy at an extraordinary +hour (two or three in the morning), which seems to have been then +fashionable for marriages. The conventional phrase is fairly justified; +for the bride is completely satisfied, and Jacob is not displeased. + +His marriage, however, interferes not in the very least with his +intention to "get on" by dint of his handsome face and brawny figure. On +the very day of his wedding he goes to visit a lady of position, and +also of devoutness, who is a great friend of the President and his wife, +has been present at the irregular enquiry, and has done something for +him. This quickly results in a regular assignation, which, however, is +comically broken off. Moreover this lady introduces him to another of +the same temperament--which indeed seems to have been common with French +ladies (the Bellaston type being not the exception, but the rule). _She_ +is to introduce him to her brother-in-law, an influential financier, and +she quickly makes plain the kind of gratitude she expects. This also is, +as far as we are told, rather comically interfered with--Marivaux's +dramatic practice made him good at these disappointments. She does give +the introduction, and her brother-in-law, though a curmudgeon, is at +first disposed to honour her draft. But here an unexpected change is +made by the presentation of Jacob as a man of noble sentiment. The place +he is to have is one taken from an invalid holder of it, whose wife +comes to beg mercy: whereat Jacob, magnanimously and to the financier's +great wrath, declines to profit by another's misfortune. Whether the +fact that the lady is very pretty has anything to do with the matter +need not be discussed. His--let us call it at least--good nature, +however, indirectly makes his fortune. Going to visit the husband and +wife whom he has obliged, he sees a young man attacked by three enemies +and ill-bested. Jacob (who is no coward, and, thanks to his wife +insisting on his being a gentleman and "M. de la Vallee," has a sword) +draws and uses it on the weaker side, with no skill whatever, but in the +downright, swash-and-stab, short- and tall-sailor fashion, which (in +novels at least) is almost always effective. The assailants decamp, and +the wounded but rescued person, who is of very high rank, conceives a +strong friendship for his rescuer, and, as was said above, makes his +fortune. The last and doubtful three-eighths of the book kill off poor +Mlle. Habert (who, although Jacob would never have been unkind to her, +was already beginning to be very jealous and by no means happy), and +marry him again to a younger lady of rank, beauty, fashion, and fortune, +in the imparted possession of all of which we leave him. But, except to +the insatiables of "what happened next," these parts are as questionably +important as they are decidedly doubtful. + +The really important points of the book are, in the first place, the +ease and narrative skill with which the story is told in the difficult +form of autobiography, and, secondly, the vivacity of the characters. +Jacob himself is, as will have been seen already, a piebald sort of +personage, entirely devoid of scruple in some ways, but not ill-natured, +and with his own points of honour. He is perfectly natural, and so are +all the others (not half of whom have been mentioned) as far as they go. +The cross sister and the "kind" one; the false prude and false _devote_ +Mme. de Ferval, and the jolly, reckless, rather coarse Mme. de Fecour; +the tyrannical, corrupt, and licentious financier, with others more +slightly drawn, are seldom, if ever, out of drawing. The contemporary +wash of colour passes, as it should, into something "fast"; you are in +the Paris of the Regency, but you are at the same time in general human +time and place, if not in eternity and infinity. + +[Sidenote: _Marianne_--outline of the story.] + +The general selection, however, of _Marianne_ as Marivaux's masterpiece +is undoubtedly right, though in more ways than one it has less engaging +power than the _Paysan_, and forebodes to some extent, if it does not +actually display, the boring qualities which novels of combined analysis +and jargon have developed since. The opening is odd: the author having +apparently transplanted to the beginning of a novel the promiscuous +slaughter with which we are familiar at the end of a play. Marianne (let +us hail the appearance of a Christian-named heroine at last), a small +child of the tenderest years, is, with the exception of an ecclesiastic, +who takes to his heels and gets off, the sole survivor of a coachful of +travellers who are butchered by a gang of footpads,[331] because two of +the passengers have rashly endeavoured to defend themselves. Nothing can +be found out about the child--an initial improbability, for the party +has consisted of father, mother, and servants, as well as Marianne. But +the good _cure_ of the place and his sister take charge of her, and +bring her up carefully (they are themselves "gentle-people," as the good +old phrase, now doubtless difficult of application, went) till she is +fifteen, is very pretty, and evidently must be disposed of in some way, +for her guardians are poor and have no influential relations. The +sister, however, takes her to Paris--whither she herself goes to secure, +if possible, the succession of a relative--to try to obtain some +situation. But the inheritance proves illusory; the sister falls ill at +Paris and dies there; while the brother is disabled, and his living has +to be, if not transferred to, provided with, a substitute. This second +massacre (for the brother dies soon) provides Marivaux with the +situation he requires--that of a pretty girl, alone in the capital, and +absolutely unfriended. Fortunately a benevolent Director knows a pious +gentleman, M. de Climal, who is fond of doing good, and also, as it +appears shortly by the story, of pretty girls. Marianne, with the +earliest touch of distinct "snobbishness"--let it be proudly pointed out +that the example is not English,[332]--declines to go into service, but +does not so much mind being a shop-girl, and M. de Climal establishes +her with his _lingere_, a certain Mme. Dutour. + +This good lady is no procuress, but her morals are of a somewhat +accommodating kind, and she sets to work, experiencing very little +difficulty in the process, to remove Marianne's scruples about accepting +presents from M. de Climal--pointing out, very logically, that there is +no obligation to (as Chesterfield put it not long after) _payer de sa +personne_; though she is naturally somewhat disgusted when the gifts +take the form of handsome _lingerie_ bought at another shop. When this, +and a dress to match, are made up, Marianne as naturally goes to church +to show them: and indulges in very shrewd if not particularly amiable +remarks on her "even-Christians"--a delightful English archaism, which +surely needs no apology for its revival. Coming out, she slips and +sprains her ankle, whereupon, still naturally, appears the inevitable +young man, a M. de Valville, who, after endless amicable wrangling, +procures her a coach, but not without an awkward meeting. For M. de +Valville turns out to be the nephew of M. de Climal; and the uncle, with +a lady, comes upon the nephew and Marianne; while, a little later, each +finds the other in turn at the girl's feet. Result: of course more than +suspicion on the younger man's part, and a mixture of wrath and desire +to hurry matters on the elder's. He offers Marianne a regular (or +irregular) "establishment" at a dependent's of his own, with a small +income settled upon her, etc. She refuses indignantly, the indignation +being rather suspiciously divided between her two lovers; is "planted +there" by the old sinner Climal, and of course requested to leave by +Mme. Dutour; returns all the presents, much to her landlady's disgust, +and once more seeks, though in a different mood, the shelter of the +Church. Her old helper the priest for some time absolutely declines to +admit the notion of Climal's rascality; but fortunately a charitable +lady is more favourable, and Marianne gets taken in as a _pensionnaire_ +at a convent. Climal, whose sister and Valville's mother the lady turns +out to be, falls ill, repents, confesses, and leaves Marianne a +comfortable annuity. Union with Valville is not opposed by the mother; +but other members of the family are less obliging, and Valville himself +wanders after an English girl of a Jacobite exiled family, Miss Warton +(Varthon). The story then waters itself out, before suddenly collapsing, +with a huge and uninteresting _Histoire d'une Religieuse_. Whereat some +folk may grumble; but others, more philosophically, may be satisfied, in +no uncomplimentary sense, without hearing what finally made Marianne +Countess of Three Stars, or indeed knowing any more of her actual +history. + +For in fact the entire interest of _Marianne_ is concentrated in and on +Marianne herself, and the fact that this is so at once makes +continuation superfluous, and gives the novel its place in the history +of fiction. We have quite enough, as it is, to show us--as the Princess +Augusta said to Fanny Burney of the ill-starred last of French "Mesdames +Royales"--"what sort of a girl she is." And her biographer has made her +a very interesting sort of girl, and himself in making her so, a very +interesting, and almost entirely novel, sort of novelist. To say that +she is a wholly attractive character would be entirely false, except +from the point of view of the pure student of art. She is technically +virtuous, which is, of course, greatly to her credit.[333] She is not +bad-blooded, but if there were such a word as "good-blooded" it could +hardly be applied to her. With all her preserving borax- or +formalin-like touch of "good form," she is something of a minx. She is +vain, selfish--in fact wrapped up in self--without any sense of other +than technical honour. But she is very pretty (which covers a multitude +of sins), and she is really clever. + +[Sidenote: Importance of Marianne herself.] + +Yet the question at issue is not whether one can approve of Marianne, +nor whether one can like her, nor even whether, approving and liking her +or not, one could fall in love with her "for her comely face and for her +fair bodie," as King Honour did in the ballad, and as _homo rationalis_ +usually, though not invariably, does fall in love. The question is +whether Marivaux has, in her, created a live girl, and to what extent he +has mastered the details of his creation. The only critical answer, I +think, must be that he has created such a girl, and that he has not left +her a mere outline or type, but has furnished the house as well as built +it. She is, in the particular meaning on which Mr. Hardy's defenders +insist, as "pure" a "woman" as Tess herself. And if there is a good deal +missing from her which fortunately some women have, there is nothing in +her which some women have not, and not so very much which the majority +of women have not, in this or that degree. It is difficult not to smile +when one compares her quintessence with the complicated and elusive +caricatures of womanhood which some modern novel-writers--noisily hailed +as _gyno_sophists--have put together, and been complimented on putting +together. What is more, she is perhaps the first nearly complete +character of the kind that had been presented in novel at her date. This +is a great thing to say for Marivaux, and it can be said without the +slightest fear of inability to support the saying.[334] + +[Sidenote: Marivaux and Richardson--"Marivaudage."] + +Although, therefore, we may not care much to enter into calculations as +to the details of the indebtedness of Richardson to Marivaux, some +approximations of the two, for critical purposes, may be useful. One may +even see, without too much folly of the Thaumast kind, an explanation, +beyond that of mere idleness, in the Frenchman's inveterate habit of not +completing. He did not want you to read him "for the story"; and +therefore he cared little for the story itself, and nothing at all for +the technical finishing of it. The stories of both his characteristic +novels are, as has been fairly shown, of the very thinnest. What he did +want to do was to analyse and "display," in a half-technical sense of +that word, his characters; and he did this as no man had done before +him, and as few have done since, though many, quite ignorant of their +indebtedness, have taken the method from him indirectly. In the second +place, his combination of method and phrase is for infinite thoughts. +This combination is not necessary; there is, to take up the comparative +line, nothing of it in Richardson, nothing in Fielding, nothing in +Thackeray. A few French eighteenth-century writers have it in direct +imitation of Marivaux himself; but it dies out in France, and in the +greatest novel-period there is nothing of it. It revives in the later +nineteenth century, especially with us, and, curiously enough, if we +look back to the beginnings of Romance in Greek, there is a good deal +there, the crown and flower being, as has been before remarked, in +Eustathius Macrembolita, but something being noticeable in earlier folk, +especially Achilles Tatius, and the trick having evidently come from +those rhetoricians[335] of whose class the romancers were a kind of +offshoot. It is, however, only fair to say that, if Marivaux thought in +intricate and sometimes startling ways, his actual expression is never +obscure. It is a maze, but a maze with an unbroken clue of speech +guiding you through it.[336] + +[Sidenote: Examples:--Marianne on the _physique_ and _moral_ of +Prioresses and Nuns.] + +A few examples of method and style may now be given. Here is Marianne's +criticism--rather uncannily shrewd and very characteristic both of her +subject and of herself--of that peculiar placid plumpness which has been +observed by the profane in devout persons, especially in the Roman +Church and in certain dissenting sects (Anglicanism does not seem to be +so favourable to it), and in "persons of religion" (in the technical +sense) most of all. + + This Prioress was a short little person, round and white, + with a double chin, and a complexion at once fresh and + placid. You never see faces like that in worldly persons: it + is a kind of _embonpoint_ quite different from others--one + which has been formed more quietly and more + methodically--that is to say, something into which there + enters more art, more fashioning, nay, more self-love, than + into that of such as we.[337] + + As a rule, it is either temperament, or feeding, or laziness + and luxury, which give _us_ such of it as we have. But in + order to acquire the kind of which I am speaking, it is + necessary to have given oneself up with a saintlike + earnestness to the task. It can only be the result of + delicate, loving, and devout attention to the comfort and + well-being of the body. It shows not only that life--and a + healthy life--is an object of desire, but that it is wanted + soft, undisturbed, and dainty; and that, while enjoying the + pleasures of good health, the person enjoying it bestows on + herself all the pettings and the privileges of a perpetual + convalescence. + + Also this religious plumpness is different in outward form + from ours, which is profane of aspect; it does not so much + make a face fat, as it makes it grave and decent; and so it + gives the countenance an air, not so much joyous, as + tranquil and contented. + + Further, when you look at these good ladies, you find in + them an affable exterior; but perhaps, for all that, an + interior indifference. Their faces, and not their souls, + give you sympathy and tenderness; they are comely images, + which seem to possess sensibility, and which yet have merely + a surface of kindness and sentiment.[338] + +Acute as this is, it may be said to be somewhat displaced--though it +must be remembered that it is the Marianne of fifty, "Mme. la Comtesse +de * * *," who is supposed to be writing, not the Marianne of fifteen. +No such objection can be taken to what follows. + +[_She is, after the breach with Climal, and after Valville has earlier +discovered his wicked uncle on his knees before her, packing up +the--well! not wages of iniquity, but baits for it--to send back to the +giver. A little "cutting" may be made._] + +[Sidenote: She returns the gift-clothes.] + + Thereupon I opened my trunk to take out first the newly + bought linen. "Yes, M. de Valville, yes!" said I, pulling it + out, "you shall learn to know me and to think of me as you + ought." This thought spurred me on, so that, without my + exactly thinking of it, it was rather to him than to his + uncle that I was returning the whole, all the more so that + the return of linen, dress, and money, with a note I should + write, could not fail to disabuse Valville, and make him + regret the loss of me. He had seemed to me to possess a + generous soul; and I applauded myself beforehand on the + sorrow which he would feel at having treated so + outrageously a girl so worthy of respectful treatment as I + was--for I saw in myself, confessedly, I don't know how many + titles to respect. + + In the first place I put my bad luck, which was unique; to + add to this bad luck I had virtue, and they went so well + together! Then I was young, and on the top of it all I was + pretty, and what more do you want? If I had arranged matters + designedly to render myself an object of sympathy, to make a + generous lover sigh at having maltreated me, I could not + have succeeded better; and, provided I hurt Valville's + feelings, I was satisfied. My little plan was never to see + him again in my lifetime; and this seemed to me a very fair + and proud one; for I loved him, and I was even very glad to + have loved him, because he had perceived my love, and, + seeing me break with him, notwithstanding, would see also + what a heart he had had to do with. + +The little person goes on very delectably describing the packing, and +how she grudged getting rid of the pretty things, and at last sighed and +wept--whether for herself, or Valville, or the beautiful gown, she +didn't know. But, alas! there is no more room, except to salute her as +the agreeable ancestress of all the beloved coquettes and piquant minxes +in prose fiction since. Could anything handsomer be said of her creator? + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Prevost.] + +[Sidenote: His minor novels--the opinions on them of Sainte-Beuve.] + +[Sidenote: And of Planche.] + +It is, though an absolute and stereotyped commonplace, an almost equally +absolute necessity, to begin any notice of the Abbe Prevost by remarking +that nothing of his voluminous work is now, or has been for a long time, +read, except _Manon Lescaut_. It may be added, though one is here +repeating predecessors to not quite the same extent, that nothing else +of his, in fiction at least, is worth reading. The faithful few who do +not dislike old criticism may indeed turn over his _Le Pour et [le] +Contre_ not without reward. But his historical and other +compilations[339]--his total production in volumes is said to run over +the hundred, and the standard edition of his _Oeuvres Choisies_ +extends to thirty-nine not small ones--are admittedly worthless. As to +his minor novels--if one may use that term, albeit they are as major in +bulk as they are minor in merit--opinions of importance, and presumably +founded on actual knowledge, have differed somewhat strangely. +Sainte-Beuve made something of a fight for them, but it was the +Sainte-Beuve of almost the earliest years (1831), when, according to a +weakness of beginners in criticism, he was a little inclined "to be +different," for the sake of difference. Against _Cleveland_ even he +lifts up his heel, though in a rather unfortunate manner, declaring the +reading of the greater part to be "aussi fade que celle d'_Amadis_." Now +to some of us the reading of _Amadis_ is not "fade" at all. But he finds +some philosophical and psychological passages of merit. Over the +_Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_--that huge and unwieldy galleon to +which the frail shallop of _Manon_ was originally attached, and which +has long been stranded on the reefs of oblivion, while its fly-boat +sails for ever more--he is quite enthusiastic, finds it, though with a +certain relativity, "natural," "frank," and "well-preserved," gives it a +long analysis, actually discovers in it "an inexpressible savour" +surpassing modern "local colour," and thinks the handling of it +comparable in some respects to that of _The Vicar of Wakefield_! The +_Doyen de Killerine_--the third of Prevost's long books--is "infinitely +agreeable," "si l'on y met un peu de complaisance." (The Sainte-Beuve of +later years would have noticed that an infinity which has to be made +infinite by a little complaisance is curiously finite). The later and +shorter _Histoire d'une Grecque moderne_ is a _joli roman_, and +_gracieux_, though it is not so charming and subtle as Crebillon _fils_ +would have made it, and is "knocked off rather haphazardly." Another +critic of 1830, now perhaps too much forgotten, Gustave Planche, does +not mention the _Grecque_, and brushes aside the three earlier and +bigger books rather hastily, though he allows "interest" to both +_Cleveland_ and the _Doyen_. Perhaps, before "coming to real things" (as +Balzac once said of his own work) in _Manon_, some remarks, not long, +but first-hand, and based on actual reading at more than one time of +life, as to her very unreal family, may be permitted here, though they +may differ in opinion from the judgment of these two redoubtable +critics. + +[Sidenote: The books themselves--_Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_.] + +I do not think that when I first wrote about Prevost (I had read _Manon_ +long before) more than thirty years ago, in a _Short History of French +Literature_, I paid very much attention to these books. I evidently had +not read the _Grecque Moderne_, for I said nothing about it. Of the +others I said only that they are "romances of adventure, occupying a +middle place between those of Lesage and Marivaux." It is perfectly +true, but of course not very "in-going," and whatever reading I then +gave any of them had not left very much impression on my mind, when +recently, and for the purpose of the present work, I took them up again, +and the _Histoire_ as well. This last is the story of a young modern +Greek slave named Theophe (a form of which the last syllable seems more +modern than Greek), who is made visible in full harem by her +particularly complaisant master, a Turkish pasha, to a young Frenchman, +admired and bought by this Frenchman (the relater of the story), and +freed by him. He does not at first think of making her his mistress, but +later does propose it, only to meet a refusal of a somewhat +sentimental-romantic character, though she protests not merely +gratitude, but love for him. The latter part of the book is occupied by +what Sainte-Beuve calls "delicate" ambiguities, which leave us in doubt +whether her "cruelty" is shown to others as well, or whether it is not. +In suggesting that Crebillon would have made it charming, the great +critic has perhaps made another of those slips which show the novitiate. +The fact is that it is an exceedingly dull book: and that to have made +it anything else, while retaining anything like its present "propriety," +either an entire metamorphosis of spirit, which might have made it as +passionate as _Manon_ itself, or the sort of filigree play with thought +and phrase which Marivaux would have given, would be required. As a +"Crebillonnade" (_v. inf._) it might have been both pleasant and subtle, +but it could only have been made so by becoming exceedingly indecent. + +[Sidenote: _Cleveland._] + +Still, its comparative (though only comparative) shortness, and a +certain possibility rather than actuality of interest in the +situation,[340] may recommend this novel at least to mercy. If the +present writer were on a jury trying _Cleveland_, no want of food or +fire should induce him to endorse any such recommendation in regard to +that intolerable book. It is, to speak frankly, one of the very few +books--one of the still fewer novels--which I have found it practically +impossible to read even in the "skim and skip and dip" fashion which +should, no doubt, be only practised as a work of necessity (_i.e._ duty +to others) and of mercy (to oneself) on extraordinary occasions, but +which nobody but a prig and a pedant will absolutely disallow. Almost +the only good thing I can find to say about it is that Prevost, who +lived indeed for some time in England, is now and then, if not always, +miraculously correct in his proper names. He can actually spell +Hammersmith! Other merit--and this is not constant (in the dips which I +have actually made, to rise exhausted from each, and skip rather than +even skim to the rest)--I can find none. The beginning is absurd and +rather offensive, the hero being a natural son of Cromwell by a woman +who has previously been the mistress of Charles I. The continuation is a +mish-mash of adventure, sometimes sanguinary, but never exciting, travel +(in fancy parts of the West Indies, etc.), and the philosophical +disputations which Sainte-Beuve found interesting. As for the end, no +two persons seem quite agreed what _is_ the end. Sainte-Beuve speaks of +it as an attempted suicide of the hero--the most justifiable of all his +actions, if he had succeeded. Prevost himself, in the Preface to the +_Doyen de Killerine_, repeats an earlier disavowal (which he says he +had previously made in Holland) of a fifth volume, and says that his own +work ended with the murder of Cleveland by one of the characters. Again, +this is a comprehensible and almost excusable action, and might have +followed, though it could not have preceded, the other. But if it was +the end, the other was not. A certain kind of critic may say that it is +my duty to search and argue this out. But, for my part, I say as a +reader to _Cleveland_, "No more _in_ thee my steps shall be, For ever +and for ever."[341] + +[Sidenote: _Le Doyen de Killerine._] + +_Le Doyen de Killerine_ is not perhaps so utterly to be excommunicated +as _Cleveland_, and, as has been said above, some have found real +interest in it. It is not, however, free either from the +preposterousness or from the dulness of the earlier book, though the +first characteristic is less preposterous as such preposterousness goes. +The Dean of Killerine (Coleraine) is a Roman Catholic dean, just after +the expulsion of James II., when, we learn with some surprise, that +neighbourhood was rather specially full of his co-religionists. He is a +sort of _lusus naturae_, being bow-legged, humpbacked, potbellied, and +possessing warts on his brows, which make him a sort of later horned +Moses. The eccentricity of his appearance is equalled by that of his +conduct. He is the eldest son of an Irish gentleman (nobleman, it would +sometimes seem), and his father finds a pretty girl who is somehow +willing to marry him. But, feeling no vocation for marriage, he suggests +to her (a suggestion perhaps unique in fiction if not in fact) that she +should marry his father instead. This singular match comes off, and a +second family results, the members of which are, fortunately, not _lusus +naturae_, but a brace of very handsome and accomplished boys, George and +Patrick, and an extremely pretty girl, Rosa. Of these three, their +parents dying when they are something short of full age, the excellent +dean becomes a sort of guardian. He takes them to the exiled court of +Versailles, and his very hen-like anxieties over the escapades of these +most lively ducklings supply the main subject of the book. It might have +been made amusing by humorous treatment, but Prevost had no humour in +him: and it might have been made thrilling by passion, but he never, +except in the one great little instance, compressed or distilled his +heaps and floods of sensibility and sensationalism into that. The scene +where a wicked Mme. de S---- plays, and almost outplays, Potiphar's wife +to the good but hideous Dean's Joseph is one of the most curious in +novel-literature, though one of the least amusing. + +[Sidenote: The _Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_.] + +We may now go back to the _Memoires_, partly in compliment to the master +of all mid-nineteenth-century critics, but more because of their almost +fortuitous good luck in ushering _Manon_ into the world. There is +something in them of both their successors, _Cleveland_ and the _Doyen_, +but it may be admitted that they are less unreadable than the first, and +less trivial than the second. The plan--if it deserve that name--is odd, +one marquis first telling his own fortunes and voyages and whatnots, and +then serving as Mentor (the application, though of course not original, +is inevitable) to another marquis in further voyages and adventures. +There are Turkish brides and Spanish murdered damsels; English politics +and literature, where, unfortunately, the spelling _does_ sometimes +break down; glances backward, in "Histoires" of the _Grand Siecle_, at +meetings with Charles de Sevigne, Racine, etc.; mysterious remedies, a +great deal of moralising, and a great deal more of weeping. Indeed the +whole of Prevost, like the whole of that "Sensibility Novel" of which he +is a considerable though rather an outside practitioner, is pervaded +with a gentle rain of tears wherein the personages seem to revel--indeed +admit that they do so--in the midst of their woes. + +[Sidenote: Its miscellaneous curiosities.] + +On the whole, however, the youthful--or almost youthful--half-wisdom of +Sainte-Beuve is better justified of its preference for the _Memoires_ +than of other things in the same article. I found it, reading it later +on purpose and with "preventions" rather the other way, very much more +readable than any of its companions (_Manon_ is not its companion, but +in a way its constituent), without being exactly readable _simpliciter_. +All sorts of curious things might be dug out of it: for instance, quite +at the beginning, a more definite declaration than I know elsewhere of +that curious French title-system which has always been such a puzzle to +Englishmen. "Il _se fit_ appeler le Comte de ... et, se voyant un fils, +il _lui donna_ celui de Marquis de ..." There is a good deal in it which +makes us think that Prevost had read Defoe, and something which makes it +not extravagant to fancy that Thackeray had read Prevost. But once more +"let us come to the real things--let us speak of" _Manon Lescaut_. + +[Sidenote: _Manon Lescaut._] + +[Sidenote: Its uniqueness.] + +It would be a very interesting question in that study of +literature--rather unacademic, or perhaps academic in the best sense +only--which might be so near and is so far--whether the man is most to +be envied who reads _Manon Lescaut_ for the first time in blissful +ignorance of these other things, and even of what has been said of them; +or he who has, by accident or design, toiled through the twenty volumes +of the others and comes upon Her. My own case is the former: and I am +far from quarrelling with it. But I sometimes like to fancy--now that I +have reversed the proceeding--what it would have been like to dare the +voices--the endless, dull, half-meaningless, though not threatening +voices--of those other books--to refrain even from the appendix to the +_Memoires_ as such, and never, till the _Modern Greekess_ has been +dispatched, return to and possess the entire and perfect jewel of +_Manon_. I used to wonder, when, for nearer five and twenty than twenty +years, I read for review hundreds of novels, English and French, whether +anybody would ever repeat Prevost's extraordinary spurt and "sport" in +this wonderful little book. I am bound to say that I never knew an +instance. The "first book" which gives a promise--dubious it may be, but +still promising--and is never followed by anything that fulfils this, is +not so very uncommon, though less common in prose fiction than in +poetry. The not so very rare "single-speech" poems are also not real +parallels. It is of the essence of poetry, according to almost every +theory, that it should be, occasionally at least, inexplicable and +unaccountable. I believe that every human being is capable of poetry, +though I should admit that the exhibition of the capability would be in +most cases--I am sure it would be in my own--"highly to be deprecated." +But with a sober prose fiction of some scope and room and verge it is +different. The face of Helen; the taste of nectar; the vision of the +clouds or of the sea; the passion of a great action in oneself or +others; the infinite poignancy of suffering or of pleasure, may +draw--once and never again--immortal verse from an exceedingly mortal +person. Such things might also draw a phrase or a paragraph of prose. +But they could not extract a systematic and organised prose tale of some +two hundred pages, each of them much fuller than those of our average +six-shilling stuff; and yet leave the author, who had never shown +himself capable of producing anything similar before, unable to produce +anything in the least like it again. I wonder that the usual literary +busybodies have never busied themselves--perhaps they have, for during a +couple of decades I have not had the opportunity of knowing everything +that goes on in French literature as I once did--with Prevost, +demonstrating that _Manon_ was a posthumous work of the Regent (who was +a clever man), or an expression of a real passion which lay at the back +of Richelieu's debauchery, or written by some unknown author from whom +the Abbe bought it, and who died early, or something else of the kind. + +There does not, however, appear to be the slightest chance or hope or +fear (whichever expression be preferred) of the kind. Although Prevost +elsewhere indulges--as everybody else for a long time in France and +England alike did, save creative geniuses like Fielding--in +transparently feigned talk about the origins of his stories, he was a +very respectable man in his way, and not at all likely to father or to +steal any one else's work in a disreputable fashion. There are no other +claimants for the book: and though it may be difficult for a foreigner +to find the faults of style that Gustave Planche rebukes in Prevost +generally, there is nothing in the mere style of _Manon_ which sets it +above the others. + +For once one may concede that the whole attraction of the piece, barring +one or two transient but almost Shakespearian flashes of +expression--such as the famous "Perfide Manon! Perfide!" when she and +Des Grieux first meet after her earliest treason--is to be found in its +marvellous humanity, its equally marvellous grasp of character, and the +intense, the absolutely shattering pathos of the relations of the hero +and heroine. There are those, of course, who make much of the _persona +tertia_, Tiberge, the virtuous and friendly priest, who has a remarkable +command of money for a not highly placed ecclesiastic, lends it with +singular want of circumspection, and then meddles with the best of +intentions and the most futile or mischievous of results. Very +respectable man, Tiberge; but one with whom _on n'a que faire_. Manon +and Des Grieux; Des Grieux and Manon--these are as all-sufficient to the +reader as Manon was more than sufficient to Des Grieux, and as he, alas! +was, if only in some ways, _in_sufficient to Manon. + +One of the things which are nuisances in Prevost's other books becomes +pardonable, almost admirable, in this. His habit of incessant, +straight-on narration by a single person, his avoidance of dialogue +properly so called, is, as has been noted, a habit common to all these +early novels, and, to our taste if not to that of their early readers, +often disastrous. Here it is a positive advantage. Manon speaks very +little; and so much the better. Her "comely face and her fair bodie" (to +repeat once more a beloved quotation) speak for her to the ruin of her +lover and herself--to the age-long delectation of readers. On the other +hand, the whole speech is Des Grieux', and never was a monologue better +suited or justified. The worst of such things is usually that there are +in them all sorts of second thoughts of the author. There is none of +this littleness in the speech of Des Grieux. He is a gentle youth in the +very best sense of the term, and as we gather--not from anything he says +of himself, but from the general tenor--by no means a "wild gallant"; +affectionate, respectful to his parents, altogether "douce," and, +indeed, rather (to start with) like Lord Glenvarloch in _The Fortunes of +Nigel_. He meets Manon (Prevost has had the wits to make her a little +older than her lover), and _actum est de_ both of them. + +[Sidenote: The character of its heroine.] + +But Manon herself? She talks (it has been said) very little, and it was +not necessary that she should talk much. If she had talked as Marianne +talks, we should probably hate her, unless, as is equally probable, we +ceased to take any interest in her. She is a girl not of talk but of +deeds: and her deeds are of course quite inexcusable. But still that +great and long unknown verse of Prior, which tells how a more harmless +heroine did various things-- + + As answered the end of her being created, + +fits her, and the deeds create her in their process, according to the +wonderful magic of the novelist's art. Manon is not in the least a +Messalina; it is not what Messalina wanted that she wants at all, though +she may have no physical objection to it, and may rejoice in it when it +is shared by her lover. Still less is she a Margaret of Burgundy, or one +of the tigress-enchantresses of the Fronde, who would kill their lovers +after enjoying their love. It has been said often, and is beyond all +doubt true, that she would have been perfectly happy with Des Grieux if +he had fulfilled the expostulations of George the Fourth as to Mr. +Turveydrop, and had not only been known to the King, but had had twenty +thousand a year. She wants nobody and nothing but him, as far as the +"Him" is concerned: but she does not want him in a cottage. And here the +subtlety comes in. She does not in the least mind giving to others what +she gives him, provided that they will give her what he cannot give. The +possibility of this combination is of course not only shocking to Mrs. +Grundy, but deniable by persons who are not Mrs. Grundy at all. Its +existence is not really doubtful, though hardly anybody, except Prevost +and (I repeat it, little as I am of an Ibsenite) Ibsen in the _Wild +Duck_, has put it into real literature. Manon, like Gina and probably +like others, does not really think what she gives of immense, or of any +great, importance. People will give her, in exchange for it, what she +does think of great, of immense importance; the person to whom she would +quite honestly prefer to give it cannot give her these other things. And +she concludes her bargain as composedly as any _bonne_ who takes the +basket to the shops and "makes its handle dance"--to use the French +idiom--for her own best advantage. It does annoy her when she has to +part from Des Grieux, and it does annoy her that Des Grieux should be +annoyed at what she does. But she is made of no nun's flesh, and such +soul as she has is filled with much desire for luxury and pleasure. The +desire of the soul will have its way, and the flesh lends itself readily +enough to the satisfaction thereof. + +[Sidenote: And that of the hero.] + +So, too, there is no such instance known to me of the presentation of +two different characters, in two different ways, so complete and yet so +idiosyncratic in each. Sainte-Beuve showed what he was going to become +(as well, perhaps, as something which he was going to lose) in his +slight but suggestive remarks on the relation of Des Grieux to the +average _roue_ hero of that most _roue_ time. It is only a suggestion; +he does not work it out. But it is worth working out a little. Des +Grieux is _ab initio_, and in some ways _usque ad finem_, a sort of +_ingenu_. He seems to have no vicious tendencies whatever; and had Manon +not supervened, might have been a very much more exemplary Chevalier de +Malte than the usual run of those dignitaries, who differed chiefly +from their uncrossed comrades and brethren in having no wife to be +unfaithful to. He is never false to Manon--the incident of one of +Manon's lovers trying vainly to tempt his rival, with a pretty cast-off +mistress of his own, is one of the most striking features of the book. +He positively reveres, not his mother, who is dead, and reverence for +whom would be nothing in a Frenchman, but his father, and even, it would +seem, his elder brother--a last stretch of reverence quite unknown to +many young English gentlemen who certainly would not do things that Des +Grieux did. Except when Manon is concerned, it would seem that he might +have been a kind of saint--as good at least as Tiberge. But his love for +her and his desire for her entirely saturate and transform him. That he +disobeys his father and disregards his brother is nothing: we all do +that in less serious cases than his, and there is almost warrant for it +in Scripture. But he cheats at play (let us frankly allow, remembering +Grammont and others, that this was not in France the unpardonable sin +that it has--for many generations, fortunately--been with us), at the +suggestion of his rascally left-hand brother-in-law, in order to supply +Manon's wants. He commits an almost deliberate (though he makes some +excuses on this point) and almost cowardly murder, on an unarmed +lay-brother of Saint-Sulpice, to get to Manon. And, worst of all, he +consents to the stealing of moneys given to her by his supplanters in +order to feed her extravagance. After this his suborning the King's +soldiers to attack the King's constabulary on the King's highway to +rescue Manon is nothing. But observe that, though it is certainly not +"All for God," it _is_ "All for Her." And observe further that all these +things--even the murder--were quite common among the rank and file of +that French aristocracy which was so busily hurrying on the French +Revolution. Only, Des Grieux himself would pretty certainly not have +done them if She had never come in his way. And he tells it all with a +limpid and convincing clarity (as they would say now) which puts the +whole thing before us. No apology is made, and no apology is needed. It +is written in the books of the chronicles of Manon and Des Grieux; in +the lives of Des Grieux and Manon, suppose them ever to have existed or +to exist, it could not but happen. + +[Sidenote: The inevitableness of both and the inestimableness of their +history.] + +It is surely not profane (and perhaps it has been done already) to +borrow for these luckless, and, if you will, somewhat graceless persons, +the words of the mighty colophon of Matthew Arnold's most unequal but in +parts almost finest poem, at least the first and last lines: + + So rest, for ever rest, immortal pair, + +and + + The rustle of the eternal rain of love. + +Nor is it perhaps extravagant to claim for their creator--even for their +reporter--the position of the first person who definitely vindicated for +the novel the possibility of creating a passionate masterpiece, +outstripping _La Princesse de Cleves_ as _Othello_ outstrips _A Woman +Killed with Kindness_. As for the enormous remainder of him, if it is +very frankly negligible by the mere reader, it is not quite so by the +student. He was very popular, and, careless bookmaker as he was in a +very critical time, his popularity scarcely failed him till his horrible +death.[342] It can scarcely be said that, except in the one great cited +instance, he heightened or intensified the French novel, but he enlarged +its scope, varied its interests, and combined new objectives with its +already existing schemes, even in his less good work. In _Manon Lescaut_ +itself he gave a masterpiece, not only to the novel, not only to France, +but to all literature and all the world. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Crebillon _fils_.] + +The unfortunate nobleman as to whom Dickens has left us in doubt whether +he was a peer in his own right or the younger son or a Marquis or Duke, +pronounced Shakespeare "a clayver man." It was perhaps, in the +particular instance, inadequate though true. I hardly know any one in +literature of whom it is truer and more adequate than it is of Claude +Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon the younger, commonly called Crebillon +_fils_.[343] His very name is an abomination to Mrs. Grundy, who +probably never read, or even attempted to read, one of his naughty +books. Gray's famous tribute[344] to him--also known to a large number +who are in much the same case with Mrs. Grundy--is distinctly +patronising. But he is a very clever man indeed, and the cleverness of +some of his books--especially those in dialogue--is positively amazing. + +[Sidenote: The case against him.] + +At the same time it is of the first importance to make the due provisos +and allowances, the want of which so frequently causes disappointment, +if not positive disgust, when readers have been induced by unbalanced +laudation to take up works of the literature of other days. There are, +undoubtedly, things--many and heavy things--to be said against +Crebillon. A may say, "I am not, I think, _Mr._ Grundy: but I cannot +stand your Crebillon. I do not like a world where all the men are +apparently atheists, and all the women are certainly the other thing +mentioned in Donne's famous line. It disgusts and sickens me: and I will +have none of it, however clever it may be." B, not quite agreeing with +A, may take another tone, and observe, "He _is_ clever and he _is_ +amusing: but he is terribly monotonous. I do not mind a visit to the +'oyster-bearing shores' now and then, but I do not want to live in +Lampsacus. After all, even in a pagan Pantheon, there are other +divinities besides a cleverly palliated Priapus and a comparatively +ladylike Cotytto. Seven volumes of however delicately veiled +'sculduddery' are nearly as bad as a whole evening's golf-talk in a St. +Andrews hotel, or a long men's dinner, where everybody but yourself is a +member of an Amateur Dramatic Society." The present writer is not far +from agreeing with B, while he has for A a respect which disguises no +shadow of a sneer. Crebillon does harp far too much on one string, and +that one of no pure tone: and even the individual handlings of the +subject are chargeable throughout his work with _longueurs_, in the +greater part of it with sheer tedium. It is very curious, and for us of +the greatest importance, to notice how this curse of long-windedness, +episodic and hardly episodic "inset," endless talk "about it and about +it," besets these pioneers of the modern novel. Whether it was a legacy +of the "Heroics" or not it is difficult to say. I think it was--to some +extent. But, as we have seen, it exists even in Lesage; it is found +conspicuously in Marivaux; it "advances insupportably" in Prevost, +except when some God intervenes to make him write (and to stop him +writing) _Manon_; and it rests heavily even on Crebillon, one of the +lightest, if not one of the purest, of literary talents. It is +impossible to deny that he suffers from monotony of general theme: and +equally impossible to deny that he suffers from spinning out of +particular pieces. There is perhaps not a single thing of his which +would not have been better if it had been shorter: and two of his +liveliest if also most risky pieces, _La Nuit et le Moment_ and _Le +Hasard au Coin du Feu_, might have been cut down to one half with +advantage, and to a quarter with greater advantage still. + +There are, however, excuses for Crebillon: and though it may seem a rash +thing to say, and even one which gives the case away, there is, at least +in these two and parts of _Le Sopha_, hardly a page--even of the parts +which, if "cut," would improve the work as a whole--that does not in +itself prove the almost elfish cleverness now assigned to him. + +[Sidenote: For the defendant--The veracity of his artificiality and his +consummate cleverness.] + +The great excuse for him, from the non-literary point of view, is that +this world of his--narrow though crowded as it is, corrupt, +preposterous, inviting the Judgment that came after it as no period +perhaps has ever done, except that immediately before the Deluge, that +of the earlier Roman empire, and one other--was a real world in its day, +and left, as all real things do, an abiding mark and influence on what +followed. One of the scores and almost hundreds of sayings which +distinguish him, trivial as he seems to some and no doubt disgusting as +he seems to others, is made by one of his most characteristic and most +impudent but not most offensive heroes _a la_ Richelieu, who says, not +in soliloquy nor to a brother _roue_, but to the mistress of the moment: +"If love-making is not always a pleasure, at any rate it is always a +kind of occupation." That is the keynote of the Crebillon novel: it is +the handbook, with illustrative examples, of the business, employment, +or vocation of flirting, in the most extensive and intensive meanings of +that term comprehensible to the eighteenth century. + +[Sidenote: The Crebillonesque atmosphere and method.] + +Now you should never scamp or hurry over business: and Crebillon +observes this doctrine in the most praiseworthy fashion. With the +thorough practicality of his century and of his nation (which has always +been in reality the most practical of all nations) he sets to work to +give us the ways and manners of his world. It is an odd world at first +sight, but one gets used to its conventions. It is a world of what they +used to call, in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century, +"high fellers" and of great ladies, all of whom--saving for glimpses of +military and other appointments for the men, which sometimes take them +away and are useful for change of scene, of theatres, balls, +gaming-tables for men and women both--"have nothing in the world to do" +but carry on that occupation which Clitandre of "The Night and the +Moment," at an extremely suitable time and in equally appropriate +circumstances, refers to in the words quoted above. There are some other +oddities about this world. In some parts of it nobody seems to be +married. Mrs. Grundy, and even persons more exercised in actual fact +than Mrs. Grundy, would expect them all to be, and to neglect the tie. +But sometimes Crebillon finds it easier to mask this fact. Often his +ladies are actual widows, which is of course very convenient, and might +be taken as a sign of grace in him by Mrs. G.: oftener it is difficult +to say what they are legally. They are nearly all duchesses or +marchionesses or countesses, just as the men hold corresponding ranks: +and they all seem to be very well off. But their sole occupation is that +conducted under the three great verbs, _Prendre_; _Avoir_; _Quitter_. +These verbs are used rather more frequently, but by no means +exclusively, of and by the men. Taking the stage nomenclature familiar +to everybody from Moliere, which Crebillon also uses in some of his +books, though he exchanges it for proper names elsewhere, let us suppose +a society composed of Oronte, Clitandre, Eraste, Damis (men), and +Cydalise, Celie, Lucinde, Julie (ladies). Oronte "takes" Lucinde, +"possesses" her for a time, and "quits" her for Julie, who has been +meanwhile "taken," "possessed," and "quitted" by Eraste. Eraste passes +to the conjugation of the three verbs with Cydalise, who, however, takes +the initiative of "quitting" and conjugates "take" in joint active and +passive with Damis. Meanwhile Celie and Clitandre are similarly occupied +with each other, and ready to "cut in" with the rest at fresh +arrangements. These processes require much serious conversation, and +this is related with the same mixture of gravity and irony which is +bestowed on the livelier passages of action. + +The thing, in short, is most like an intensely intricate dance, with +endless figures--with elaborate, innumerable, and sometimes +indescribable stage directions. And the whole of it is written down +carefully by M. Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon. + +He might have occupied his time much better? Perhaps, as to the subject +of occupation. But with that we have, if not nothing, very little to do. +The point is, How did he handle these better-let-alone subjects? and +what contribution, in so handling them, did he make to the general +development of the novel? + +I am bound to say that I think, with the caution given above, he handled +them, when he was at his best, singularly well, and gave hints, to be +taken or left as they chose, to handlers of less disputable subjects +than his. + +One at least of the most remarkable things about him is connected with +this very disputableness. Voltaire and Sterne were no doubt greater men +than Crebillon _fils_: and though both of them dealt with the same class +of subject, they also dealt with others, while he did not. But, +curiously enough, the reproach of sniggering, which lies so heavily on +Laurence Sterne and Francois Arouet, does not lie on Crebillon. He has +an audacity of grave persiflage[345] which is sometimes almost Swiftian +in a lower sphere: and it saves him from the unpardonable sin of the +snigger. He has also--as, to have this grave persiflage, he almost +necessarily must have--a singularly clear and flexible style, which is +only made more piquant by the "-assiez's" and "-ussiez's" of the older +language. Further, and of still greater importance for the novelist, he +has a pretty wit, which sometimes almost approaches humour, and, if not +a diabolically, a _diablotin_ically acute perception of human nature as +it affects his subject. This perception rarely fails: and conventional, +and very unhealthily conventional, as the Crebillon world is, the people +who inhabit it are made real people. He is, in those best things of his +at least, never "out." We can see the ever-victorious duke (M. de +Clerval of the _Hasard_ is perhaps the closest to the Richelieu model of +all Crebillon's coxcomb-gallants), who, even after a lady has given him +most unequivocal proofs of her affection, refuses for a long time, if +not finally, to say that he loves her, because he has himself a +graduated scheme of values in that direction, and though she may have +touched his heart, etc., she has not quite come up to his "love" +standard.[346] And we know, too, though she is less common, the +philosophical Marquise herself, who, "possessing" the most notoriously +inconstant lover in all Paris (this same M. de Clerval, it happens), +maintains her comparative indifference to the circumstance, alleging +that even when he is most inconstant he is always "very affectionate, +though a little _extinguished_." And in fact he goes off to her from the +very fireside, where such curious things have chanced. Extravagant as +are the situations in _La Nuit et le Moment_, the other best thing, they +are, but for the _longueurs_ already censured, singularly verisimilar on +their own postulates. The trusty coachman, who always drives +particularly slowly when a lady accompanies his master in the carriage, +but would never think of obeying the check-string if his master's own +voice did not authorise it; the invaluable _soubrette_ who will sit up +to any hour to play propriety, when her mistress is according a +_tete-a-tete_, but who, most naturally, always falls asleep--these +complete, at the lower end of the scale, what the dukes and the +countesses have begun at the upper. And Crebillon, despite his +verbosity, is never at a loss for pointed sayings to relieve and froth +it up. Nor are these mere _mots_ or _pointes_ or conceits--there is a +singular amount of life-wisdom in them, and a short anthology might be +made here, if there were room for it, which would entirely vindicate the +assertion. + +[Sidenote: Inequality of his general work--a survey of it.] + +It is true that the praises just given to Crebillon do not (as was +indeed hinted above) apply to the whole of his work, or even to the +larger part of it. An unfavourable critic might indeed say that, in +strictness, they only apply to parts of _Le Sopha_ and to the two little +dialogue-stories just referred to. The method is, no doubt, one by no +means easy to apply on the great scale, and the restriction of the +subject adds to the difficulty. The longest regular stories of all, _Ah! +Quel Conte!_ and _Le Sopha_ itself, though they should have been +mentioned in reverse order, are resumptions of the Hamiltonian idea[347] +of chaining things on to the _Arabian Nights_. Crebillon, however, does +not actually resuscitate Shahriar and the sisters, but substitutes a +later Caliph, Shah Baham, and his Sultana. The Sultan is exceedingly +stupid, but also very talkative, and fond of interrupting his vizier and +the other tale-tellers with wiseacreries; the Sultana is an acute enough +lady, who governs her tongue in order to save her neck. The framework is +not bad for a short story, but becomes a little tedious when it is made +to enshrine two volumes, one of them pretty big. It is better in _Le +Sopha_ than in _Ah! Quel Conte!_ and some of the tales that it gives us +in the former are almost equal to the two excepted dialogues. Moreover, +it is unluckily true that _Ah! Quel Conte!_ (an ejaculation of the +Sultana's at the beginning) might be, as Crebillon himself doubtless +foresaw, repeated with a sinister meaning by a reader at the end. +_Tanzai et Neadarne_ or _L'Ecumoire_, another fairy story, though +livelier in its incidents than _Ah! Quel Conte!_--nay, though it +contains some of Crebillon's smartest sayings, and has perhaps his +nicest heroine,--is heavy on the whole, and in it, the author's +_gauffre_-like lightness of "impropriety" being absent, the tone +approaches nearer to that dismallest form of literature or +non-literature--the deliberate obscene. + +_Les Egarements du Coeur et de l'Esprit_, on the other hand--one of +the author's earliest books--is the furthest from that most undesirable +consummation, and one of the most curious, if not of the most amusing, +of all. It recounts, from the mouth of the neophyte himself, the +"forming" of a very young man--almost a boy--to this strange kind of +commerce, by an elderly, but not yet old, and still attractive +coquette, Madame de Lursay, whose earlier life has scandalised even the +not easily scandalisable society of her time (we are not told quite +how), but who has recovered a reputation very slightly tarnished. The +hero is flattered, but for a long time too timid and innocent to avail +himself of the advantages offered to him; while, before very long, +Madame de Lursay's wiles are interfered with by an "Inconnue-Ingenue," +with whom he falls in deep calf-love of a quasi-genuine kind. The book +includes sketches of the half-bravo gallants of the time, and is not +negligible: but it is not vividly interesting. + +Still less so, though they contain some very lively passages, and are +the chief _locus_ for Crebillon's treatment of the actual trio of +husband, wife, and lover, are the _Lettres de la Marquise de M---- au +Comte de P----_. The scene in which the husband--unfaithful, peevish, +and a _petit maitre_--enters his wife's room to find an ancient, gouty +Marquis, who cannot get off his knees quick enough, and terminates the +situation with all the _aplomb_ of the Regency, is rather nice: and the +gradual "slide" of the at first quite virtuous writer (the wife herself, +of course) is well depicted. But love-letters which are neither +half-badinage--which these are not--nor wholly passionate--which these +never are till the last,[348] when the writer is describing a state of +things which Crebillon could not manage at all--are very difficult +things to bring off, and Claude Prosper is not quite equal to the +situation. + +It will thus be seen that the objectors whom we have called A and B--or +at least B--will find that they or he need not read all the pages of all +the seven volumes to justify their views: and some other work, still to +be mentioned, completes the exhibition. I confess, indeed, once more +unblushingly, that I have not read every page of them myself. Had they +fallen in my way forty years ago I should, no doubt, have done so; but +forty years of critical experience and exercise give one the power, and +grant one the right, of a more summary procedure in respect of matter +thus postponed, unless it is perceived to be of very exceptional +quality. These larger works of Crebillon's are not good, though they are +not by any means so bad as those of Prevost. There are nuggets, of the +shrewd sense and the neat phrase with which he has been credited, in +nearly all of them: and these the skilled prospector of reading gold +will always detect and profit by. But, barring the possibility of a +collection of such, the _Oeuvres Choisies_ of Crebillon need not +contain more than the best parts of _Le Sopha_, the two comparatively +short dialogue-tales, and a longer passage or two from _Tanzai et +Neadarne_. It would constitute (I was going to say a respectable, but as +that is hardly the right word, I will say rather) a tolerable volume. +Even in a wider representation _Les Heureux Orphelins_ and _Lettres +Atheniennes_ would yield very little. + +The first begins sensationally with the discovery, by a young English +squire in his own park, of a foundling girl and boy--_not_ of his own +production--whom he brings up; and it ends with a tedious description of +how somebody founded the first _petite maison_ in England--a worthy work +indeed. It is also noteworthy for a piece of bad manners, which, one +regrets to say, French writers have too often committed; lords and +ladies of the best known names and titles in or near Crebillon's own +day--such as Oxford, Suffolk, Pembroke--being introduced with the utmost +nonchalance.[349] Our novelists have many faults to charge themselves +with, and Anthony Trollope, in _The Three Clerks_, produced a Frenchman +with perhaps as impossible a name as any English travesty in French +literature. But I do not remember any one introducing, in a _not_ +historical novel, a Duc de la Tremoille or a member of any of the +branches of Rohan, at a time when actual bearers of these titles existed +in France. As for the _Lettres Atheniennes_, if it were not for +completeness, I should scarcely even mention them. Alcibiades is the +chief male writer; Aspasia the chief female; but all of them, male and +female, are equally destitute of Atticism and of interest. The contrast +of the contrasts between Crebillon's and Prevost's best and worst work +is one of the oddest things in letters. One wonders how Prevost came to +write anything so admirable as _Manon Lescaut_; one wonders how +Crebillon came to write anything so insufficient as the two books just +criticised, and even others. + +It may be said, "This being so, why have you given half a chapter to +these two writers, even with Lesage and Marivaux to carry it off?" The +reason is that this is (or attempts to be) a history of the French +novel, and that, in such a history, the canons of importance are not the +same as those of the novel itself. _Gil Blas_, _Marianne_, _Manon +Lescaut_, and perhaps even _Le Hasard au Coin du Feu_ are interesting in +themselves; but the whole work of their authors is important, and +therefore interesting, to the historical student. For these authors +carried further--a great deal further--the process of laying the +foundations and providing the materials and plant for what was to come. +Of actual masterpieces they only achieved the great, but not _equally_ +great, one of _Gil Blas_ and the little one of _Manon Lescaut_. But it +is not by masterpieces alone that the world of literature lives in the +sense of prolonging its life. One may even say--touching the unclean +thing paradox for a moment, and purifying oneself with incense, and +salt, and wine--that the masterpieces of literature are more beautiful +and memorable and delectable in themselves than fertile in results. They +catch up the sum of their own possibilities, and utter it in such a +fashion that there is no more to say in that fashion. The dreary +imitation _Iliads_, the impossible sham _Divina Commedias_, the +Sheridan-Knowles Shakespearian plays, rise up and terrify or bore us. +Whereas these second-rate experimenters, these adventurers in quest of +what they themselves hardly know, strike out paths, throw seed, sketch +designs which others afterwards pursue, and plant out, and fill up. +There are probably not many persons now who would echo Gray's wish for +eternal romances of either Marivaux or Crebillon; and the accompanying +remarks in the same letter on _Joseph Andrews_, though they show some +appreciation of the best characters, are quite inappreciative of the +merit of the novel as a whole. For eternal variations of _Joseph +Andrews_, "_Passe!_" as a French Gray might have said. + +Nevertheless, I am myself pretty sure that Marivaux at least helped +Richardson and Fielding, and there can be no doubt that Crebillon helped +Sterne. And what is more important to our present purpose, they and +their companions in this chapter helped the novel in general, and the +French novel in particular, to an extent far more considerable. We may +not, of course, take the course of literary history--general or +particular--which has been, as the course which in any case must have +been. But at the same time we cannot neglect the facts. And it is a +quite certain fact that, for the whole of the last half of the +eighteenth century, and nearly the whole of the first quarter of the +nineteenth, the French novel, as a novel, made singularly little +progress. We shall have to deal in the next chapter, if not in the next +two chapters, with at least two persons of far greater powers than any +one mentioned in the last two. But we shall perhaps be able to show +cause why even Voltaire and Rousseau, why certainly Diderot, why +Marmontel and almost every one else till we come, not in this volume, to +Chateaubriand, whose own position is a little doubtful, somehow failed +to attain the position of a great advancer of the novel. + +These others, whatever their shortcomings, _had_ advanced it by bringing +it, in various ways, a great deal nearer to its actual ideal of a +completed picture of real human life. Lesage had blended with his +representation a good deal of the conventional picaresque; Marivaux had +abused preciousness of language and petty psychology; Prevost, save in +that marvellous windfall of his and the Muses which the historian of +novels can hardly mention without taking off his hat if he has one on, +or making his best bow if he has not, had gone wandering after +impossible and uninteresting will-o'-the-wisps; Crebillon had done worse +than "abide in his inn," he had abided almost always in his polite[350] +bordello. But all of them had meant to be real; and all of them had, if +only now and then, to an extent which even Madame de la Fayette had +scarcely achieved before, attained reality. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[309] In fact it has been said, and may be said again, that Lesage is +one of the prophets who have never had so much justice done them in +their own countries as abroad. + +[310] The first part of _Gil Blas_ appeared in 1715; and nearly twenty +years later gossip said that the fourth was not ready, though the author +had been paid in advance for it six or seven years earlier. + +[311] I have never read it in the original, being, though a great +admirer of Spanish, but slightly versed therein. + +[312] This, which is a sort of Appendix to the _Diable Boiteux_, is much +the best of these _opera minora_. + +[313] He had a temper of the most _Breton-Bretonnant_ type--not +ill-natured but sturdy and independent, recalcitrant alike to +ill-treatment and to patronage. He got on neither at the Bar, his first +profession, nor with the regular actors, and he took vengeance in his +books on both; while at least one famous anecdote shows his way of +treating a patron--indeed, as it happened, a patroness--who presumed. + +[314] Asmodeus, according to his usual station in the infernal +hierarchy, is _demon de la luxure_: but any fears or hopes which may be +aroused by this description, and the circumstances of the action, will +be disappointed. Lesage has plenty of risky situations, but his language +is strictly "proper." + +[315] Against this may be cited his equally anecdotic acceptance of +Regnard, who was also "run" against Moliere. But Regnard was a "classic" +and orthodox in his way; Lesage was a free-lance, and even a Romantic +before Romanticism. Boileau knew that evil, as evil seemed to him, _had_ +come from Spain; he saw more coming in this, and if he anticipated more +still in the future, 1830 proved him no false prophet. + +[316] In other words, there is a unity of personality in the attitude +which the hero takes to and in them. + +[317] And in it too, of course; as well as in Spain's remarkable but too +soon re-enslaved criticism. + +[318] As he says of himself (vii. x.): _Enfin, apres un severe examen je +tombais d'accord avec moi-meme, que si je n'etais pas un fripon, il ne +s'en fallait guere._ And the Duke of Lerma tells him later, "_M. de +Santillane, a ce que je vois, vous avez ete tant soit peu_ picaro." + +[319] The two most undoubted cases--his ugly and, unluckily, repeated +acceptance of the part of Pandarus-Leporello--were only too ordinary +rascalities in the seventeenth century. The books of the chronicles of +England and France show us not merely clerks and valets but gentlemen of +every rank, from esquire to duke, eagerly accepting this office. + +[320] In a curious passage of Bk. XII. Chap. I. in which Gil disclaims +paternity and resigns it to Marialva. This may have been prompted by a +desire to lessen the turpitude of the go-between business; but it is a +clumsy device, and makes Gil look a fool as well as a knave. + +[321] One of Lesage's triumphs is the way in which, almost to the last, +"M. de Santillane," despite the rogueries practised often on and +sometimes by him, retains a certain gullibility, or at least +ingenuousness. + +[322] Not of course as opposed to "romantic," but as = "chief and +principal." + +[323] The reader must not forget that this formidable word means +"privateer" rather than "pirate" in French, and that this was the golden +age of the business in that country. + +[324] Those who are curious may find something on him by the present +writer, not identical with the above account, in an essay entitled _A +Study of Sensibility_, reprinted in _Essays on French Novelists_ +(London, 1891), and partly, but outside of the Marivaux part, reproduced +in Chap. XII. of the present volume. + +[325] By M. Gustave Larroumet. Paris, 1882. + +[326] I need hardly say that I am not referring to things like _Rebecca +and Rowena_ or _A Legend of the Rhine_, which "burst the outer shell of +sin," and, like Mrs. Martha Gwynne in the epitaph, "hatch themselves a +cherubin" in each case. + +[327] The reader will perhaps excuse the reminder that the sense in +which we (almost exclusively) use this word, and which it had gained in +French itself by the time of Talleyrand's famous double-edged sarcasm on +person and world (_Il n'est pas parvenu: il est arrive_), was not quite +original. The _parvenu_ was simply a person who _had_ "got on": the +disobliging slur of implication on his former position, and perhaps on +his means of freeing himself from it, came later. It is doubtful whether +there is much, if indeed there is any, of this slur in Marivaux's title. + +[328] It is the acme of what may be called innocent corruption. She does +not care for her master, nor apparently for vicious pleasure, +nor--certainly--for money as such. She does care for Jacob, and wants to +marry him; the money will make this possible; so she earns it by the +means that present themselves, and puts it at his disposal. + +[329] He is proof against his master's threats if he refuses; as well as +against the money if he accepts. Unluckily for Genevieve, when he breaks +away she faints. Her door and the money-box are both left open, and the +latter disappears. + +[330] Here and elsewhere the curious cheapness of French living (despite +what history tells of crushing taxation, etc.) appears. The _locus +classicus_ for this is generally taken to be Mme. de Maintenon's +well-known letter about her brother's housekeeping. But here, well into +another century, Mlle. Habert's 4000 _livres_ a year are supposed to be +at least relative affluence, while in _Marianne_ (_v. inf._) M. de +Climal thinks 500 or 600 enough to tempt her, and his final bequest of +double that annuity is represented as making a far from despicable _dot_ +even for a good marriage. + +[331] The much greater blood-thirstiness of the French highwayman, as +compared with the English, has been sometimes attributed by +humanitarians to the "wheel"--and has often been considered by persons +of sense as justifying that implement. + +[332] The Devil's Advocate may say that Marianne turns out to be of +English extraction after all--but it is not Marivaux who tells us so. + +[333] To question or qualify Marianne's virtue, even in the slightest +degree, may seem ungracious; for it certainly withstands what to some +girls would have been the hardest test of all--that is to say, not so +much the offer of riches if she consents, as the apparent certainty of +utter destitution if she refuses. At the same time, the Devil's Advocate +need not be a Kelly or a Cockburn to make out some damaging suggestions. +Her vague, and in no way solidly justified, but decided family pride +seems to have a good deal to do with her refusal; and though this shows +the value of the said family pride, it is not exactly virtue in itself. +Still more would appear to be due to the character of the suit and the +suitor. M. de Climal is not only old and unattractive; not only a sneak +and a libertine; but he is a clumsy person, and he has not, as he might +have done, taken Marianne's measure. The mere shock of his sudden +transformation from a pious protector into a prospective "keeper," who +is making a bid for a new concubine, has evidently an immense effect on +her quick nervous temperament. She is not at all the kind of girl to +like to be the plaything of an old man; and she is perfectly shrewd +enough to see that vengeance, and fear as regards his nephew, have as +much as anything else, or more, to do with the way in which he brusques +his addresses and hurries his gift. Further, she has already conceived a +fancy, at least, for that nephew himself; and one sees the "jury droop," +as Dickens has put it, with which the Counsel of the Prince of the Air +would hint that, if the offers had come in a more seductive fashion from +Valville himself, they might not have been so summarily rejected. But +let it be observed that these considerations, while possibly unfair to +Marianne, are not in the least derogatory to Marivaux himself. On the +contrary, it is greatly to his credit that he should have created a +character of sufficient lifelikeness and sufficient complexity to serve +as basis for "problem"-discussions of the kind. + +[334] To put the drift of the above in other words, we do not need to +hear any more of Marianne in any position, because we have had enough +shown us to know generally what she would do, say, and think, in all +positions. + +[335] It has been observed that there is actually a Meredithian quality +in Aristides of Smyrna, though he wrote no novel. A tale in Greek, to +illustrate the parallel, would be an admirable subject for a University +Prize. + +[336] Two descriptions of "Marivaudage" (which, by the way, was partly +anticipated by Fontenelle)--both, if I do not mistake, by Crebillon +_fils_--are famous: "Putting down not only everything you said and +thought, but also everything you would like to have thought and said, +but did not," and, "Introducing to each other words which never had +thought of being acquainted." Both of these perhaps hit the modern forms +of the phenomenon even harder than they hit their original butt. + +[337] It is only fair to the poor Prioress to say that there is hardly a +heroine in fiction who is more deeply in love with her own pretty little +self than Marianne. + +[338] One does not know whether it was prudence, or that materialism +which, though he was no _philosophe_, he shared with most of his +contemporaries, which prevented Marivaux from completing this sharp +though mildly worded criticism. The above-mentioned profane have hinted +that both the placidity and the indifference of the persons concerned, +whether Catholic or Calvinist, arise from their certainty of their own +safety in another world, and their looking down on less "guaranteed" +creatures in this. It may be just permissible to add that a comparison +of Chaucer's and Marivaux's prioresses will suggest itself to many +persons, and should be found delectable by all fit ones. + +[339] His books on Margaret of Anjou and William the Conqueror are odd +crosses between actual historical essays and the still unborn historical +novel. + +[340] Mlle. de Launay, better known as Mme. de Staal-Delaunay, saw, as +most would have seen, a resemblance in this to the famous Mlle. Aisse's. +But the latter was bought as a little child by her provident +"protector," M. de Ferreol. Mlle. Aisse herself had earlier read the +_Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_ and did not think much of them. But +this was the earlier part. It would be odd if she had not appreciated +Manon had she read it: but she died in the year of its appearance. + +[341] The excellent but rather stupid editor of the [Dutch] _Oeuvres +Choisies_ above noticed has given abstracts of Prevost's novels as well +as of Richardson's, which the Abbe translated. These, with +Sainte-Beuve's of the _Memoires_, will help those who want something +more than what is in the text, while declining the Sahara of the +original. But, curiously enough, the Dutchman does not deal with the end +of _Cleveland_. + +[342] He had a fit of apoplexy when walking, and instead of being bled +was actually cut open by a village super-Sangrado, who thought him dead +and only brought him to life--to expire actually in torment. + +[343] Crebillon _pere_, tragedian and academician, is one of the persons +who have never had justice done to them: perhaps because they never +quite did justice to themselves. His plays are unequal, rhetorical, and +as over-heavy as his son's work is over-light. But, if we want to find +the true tragic touch of verse in the French eighteenth century, we must +go to him. + +[344] "Be it mine to read endless romances of Marivaux and Crebillon." + +[345] Learnt, no doubt, to a great extent from Anthony Hamilton, with +whose family, as has been noticed, he had early relations. + +[346] He goes further, and points out that, as she is his _really_ +beloved Marquise's most intimate friend, she surely wouldn't wish him to +declare himself false to that other lady?--having also previously +observed that, after what has occurred, he could never think of +deceiving his Celie herself by false declarations. These +topsy-turvinesses are among Crebillon's best points, and infinitely +superior to the silly "platitudes reversed" which have tried to produce +the same effect in more recent times. + +[347] It has been said more than once that Crebillon had early access to +Hamilton's MSS. He refers directly to the Facardins in _Ah! Quel Conte!_ +and makes one of his characters claim to be grand-daughter of +Cristalline la Curieuse herself. + +[348] Nor perhaps even then, for passion is absolutely unknown to our +author. One touch of it would send the curious Rupert's drop of his +microcosm to shivers, as _Manon Lescaut_ itself in his time, and +_Adolphe_ long after, show. + +[349] Some remarks are made by "Madame _Hepenny_"--a very pleasing +phoneticism, and, though an actual name, not likely to offend any actual +person. + +[350] No sneer is intended in this adjective. Except in one or two of +the personages of _Les Egarements_, Crebillon's intended gentlemen are +nearly always well-bred, however ill-moralled they may be, and his +ladies (with the same caution) are ladies. It is with him, in this last +point at any rate, as with our own Congreve, whom he rather closely +resembles in some ways: though I was amused the other day to find some +twentieth-century critical objections to actresses' rendering of _Love +for Love_ as "too well-bred." The fact is that the tradition of +"breeding" never broke down in France till the _philosophe_ period, +while with us it lasted till--when shall we say? + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE _PHILOSOPHE_ NOVEL + + +[Sidenote: The use of the novel for "purpose"--Voltaire.] + +It has been for some time a commonplace--though, like most commonplaces, +it is probably much more often simply borrowed than an actual and (even +in the sense of _communis_) original perception of the borrowers--that +nothing shows the comparative inevitableness of the novel in the +eighteenth century better than the use of it by persons who would, at +other times, have used quite different forms to subserve similar +purposes. The chief instance of this with us is, of course, Johnson in +_Rasselas_, but it is much more variously and voluminously, if not in +any single instance much better, illustrated in France by the three +great leaders of the _philosophe_ movement; by considerable, if +second-rate figures, more or less connected with that movement, like +Marmontel and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre; and by many lesser writers. + +There can be no question that, in more ways than one, Voltaire[351] +deserves the first place in this chapter, not only by age, by volume, +and by variety of general literary ability, but because he, perhaps more +than any of the others, is a tale-teller born. That he owes a good deal +to Hamilton, and something directly to Hamilton's master, +Saint-Evremond, has been granted elsewhere; but that he is dependent on +these models to such an extent as to make his actual production unlikely +if the models had not been ready for him, may be roundly denied. There +are in literature some things which must have existed, and of which it +is not frivolous to say that if their actual authors had not been there, +or had declined to write them, they would have found somebody else to do +it. Of these, _Candide_ is evidently one, and more than one of +_Candide's_ smaller companions have at least something of the same +characteristic. Yet one may also say that if Voltaire himself had not +written these, he must have written other things of the kind. The +mordant wit, the easy, fluent, rippling style, so entirely free from +boisterousness yet with constant "wap" of wavelet and bursting of +foam-bubble; above all, the pure unadulterated faculty of tale-telling, +must have found vent and play somehow. It had been well if the +playfulness had not been, as playfulness too often is, of what +contemporary English called an "unlucky" (that is, a "mischievous") +kind; and if the author had not been constantly longing to make somebody +or many bodies uncomfortable,[352] to damage and defile shrines, to +exhibit a misanthropy more really misanthropic, because less passionate +and tragical, than Swift's, and, in fact, as his patron, persecutor, and +counterpart, Frederick the Jonathan-Wildly Great, most justly observed +of him, to "play monkey-tricks," albeit monkey-tricks of immense talent, +if not actually of genius. If the recent attempts to interpret +monkey-speech were to come to something, and if, as a consequence, +monkeys were taught to write, one may be sure that prose fiction would +be their favourite department, and that their productions would be, +though almost certainly disreputable, quite certainly amusing. In fact +there would probably be some among these which would be claimed, by +critics of a certain type, as hitherto unknown works of Voltaire +himself. + +Yet if the straightforward tale had not, owing to the influences +discussed in the foregoing chapters, acquired a firm hold, it is at +least possible that he would not have adopted it (for originality of +form was not Voltaire's _forte_), but would have taken the dialogue, or +something else capable of serving his purpose. As it was, the particular +field or garden had already been marked out and hedged after a fashion; +tools and methods of cultivation had been prepared; and he set to work +to cultivate it with the application and intelligence recommended in the +famous moral of his most famous tale--a moral which, it is only fair to +say, he did carry out almost invariably. A garden of very questionable +plants was his, it may be; but that is another matter. The fact and the +success of the cultivation are both undeniable. + +[Sidenote: General characteristics of his tales.] + +At the same time, Voltaire--if indeed, as was doubted just now, he be a +genius at all--is not a genius, or even a djinn, of the kind that +creates and leaves something Melchisedec-like; alone and isolated from +what comes before and what comes after. He is an immense talent--perhaps +the greatest talent-but-not-genius ever known--who utilises and improves +and develops rather than invents. It is from this that his faculty of +never boring, except when he has got upon the Scriptures, comes; it is +because of this also that he never conceives anything really, simply, +absolutely _great_. His land is never exactly weary, but there is no +imposing and sheltering and refreshing rock in it. These _romans_ and +_contes_ and _nouvelles_ of his stimulate, but they do not either rest +or refresh. They have what is, to some persons at any rate, the +theatrical quality, not the poetical or best-prosaic. But as nearly +consummate works of art, or at least craft, they stand almost alone. + +He had seen[353] the effect of which the fairy tale of the +sophisticated kind was capable, and the attraction which it had for both +vulgars, the great and the small: and he made the most of it. He kept +and heightened its _haut gout_; he discarded the limitations to a very +partial and conventional society which Crebillon put on it; but he +limited it in other ways to commonplace and rather vulgar fancy, without +the touches of imagination which Hamilton had imparted. Yet he infused +an even more accurate appreciation of certain phases of human nature +than those predecessors or partial contemporaries of his who were +discussed in the last chapter had introduced; he _practicalised_ it to +the _n_th, and he made it almost invariably subordinate to a direct, +though a sometimes more or less ignoble, purpose. There is no doubt that +he had learnt a great deal from Lucian and from Lucian's French +imitators, perhaps as far back as Bonaventure des Periers; there is, I +think, little that he had added as much as he could add from Swift.[354] +His stolen or borrowed possessions from these sources, and especially +this last, remind one in essence rather of the pilferings of a "light +horseman," or river-pirate who has hung round an "old three-decker," +like that celebrated in Mr. Kipling's admirable poem, and has caught +something even of the light from "her tall poop-lanterns shining so far +above him," besides picking up overboard trifles, and cutting loose +boats and cables. But when he gets to shore and to his own workshop, his +almost unequalled power of sheer wit, and his general craftsmanship, +bring out of these lootings something admirable in its own way. + +[Sidenote: _Candide._] + +_Candide_ is almost "great," and though the breed of Dr. Pangloss in its +original kind is nearly extinct, the England which suffered the +approach, and has scarcely yet allowed itself to comprehend the reality, +of the war of 1914, ought to know that there have been and are +Pangloss_otins_ of almost appalling variety. The book does not really +require the smatches of sculduddery, which he has smeared over it, to +be amusing; for its lifelikeness carries it through. As is well known, +Johnson admitted the parallel with _Rasselas_, which is among the most +extraordinary coincidences of literature. I have often wondered whether +anybody ever took the trouble to print the two together. There would be +many advantages in doing so; but they might perhaps be counter-balanced +by the fact that some of the most fervent admirers of _Rasselas_ would +be infinitely shocked by _Candide_, and that perhaps more of the special +lovers of _Candide_ would find themselves bored to extinction by +_Rasselas_. Let those who can not only value but enjoy both be thankful, +but not proud. + +Many people have written about the Consolations of Old Age, not seldom, +it is to be feared, in a "Who's afraid?" sort of spirit. But there are a +few, an apple or two by the banks of Ulai, which we may pluck as the +night approaches. One is almost necessarily accidental, for it would be +rash and somewhat cold-blooded to plan it. It consists in the reading, +after many years, of a book once familiar almost to the point of knowing +by heart, and then laid aside, not from weariness or disgust, but merely +as things happened. This, as in some other books mentioned in this +history, was the case with the present writer in respect of _Candide_. +From twenty to forty, or thereabouts, I must have read it over and over +again; the sentences drop into their places almost without exercising +any effort of memory to recognise them. From forty to seventy I do not +think I read it at all; because no reason made reading necessary, and +chance left it untouched on the shelf. Sometimes, as everybody knows, +the result of renewed acquaintance in such cases is more or less severe +disappointment; in a few of the happiest, increased pleasure. But it is +perhaps the severest test of a classic (in the exact but limited sense +of that word) that its effect shall be practically unchanged, shall have +been established in the mind and taste with such a combination of +solidity and _nettete_, that no change is possible. I do not think I +have ever found this to be more the case than with the history of +Candide (who was such a good fellow, without being in the least a prig, +as I am afraid Zadig was, that one wonders how Voltaire came to think of +him) and of Mademoiselle Cunegonde (nobody will ever know anything about +style who does not feel what the continual repetition in Candide's mouth +of the "Mademoiselle" does) of the indomitable Pangloss, and the +detestable baron, and the forgivable Paquette, and that philosopher +Martin, who did _not_ "let cheerfulness break in," and the admirable +Cacambo, who shows that, much as he hated Rousseau, Voltaire himself was +not proof against the noble savage mania.[355] + +As a piece (_v. sup._) of art or craft, the thing is beyond praise or +pay. It could not be improved, on its own specification, except that +perhaps the author might have told us how Mademoiselle Cunegonde, who +had kept her beauty through some very severe experiences, suddenly lost +it. It is idle as literary, though not as historical, criticism to say, +as has been often said about the Byng passage, that Voltaire's smartness +rather "goes off through the touch-hole," seeing that the admiral's +execution did very considerably "encourage the others." It is +superfluous to urge the unnecessary "smuts," which are sometimes not in +the least amusing. All these and other sought-for knots are lost in the +admirable smoothness of this reed, which waves in the winds of time with +unwitherable greenness, and slips through the hand, as you stroke it, +with a coaxing tickle. To praise its detail would again be idle--nobody +ought to read such praise who can read itself; and if anybody, having +read its first page, fails to see that it is, and how it is, +praiseworthy, he never will or would be converted if all the eulogies of +the most golden-mouthed critics of the world were poured upon him in a +steady shower. As a whole it is undoubtedly the best, and (except part +of _Zadig_) it is nowhere else matched in the book of the romances of +Voltaire, while for those who demand "purposes" and "morals," it stands +almost alone. It is the comic "Vanity of Human Wishes" in prose, as +_Rasselas_ is the tragic or, at least, serious version: and, as has been +said, the two make an unsurpassable sandwich, or, at least, _tartine_. +Nor could it have been told, in any other way than by prose fiction, +with anything like the same effect, either as regards critical judgment +or popular acceptance. + +[Sidenote: _Zadig_ and its satellites.] + +_Zadig_, as has been indicated already, probably ranks in point of merit +next to _Candide_. If it had stopped about half-way, there could be no +doubt about the matter. The reader is caught at once by one of the most +famous and one of the most Voltairian of phrases, "Il savait de la +metaphysique ce qu'on a su dans tous les ages, c'est-a-dire fort peu de +chose," a little more discussion of which saying, and of others like it, +may perhaps be given later. The successive disappointments of the almost +too perfect[356] hero are given with the simplicity just edged with +irony which is Voltaire's when he is at his best, though he undoubtedly +learnt it from the masters already assigned, and--the suggestion would +have made him very angry, and would probably have attracted one of his +most Yahoo-like descents on this humble and devoted head--from Lesage. +But though the said head has no objection--much the reverse--to "happy +endings," the romance-finish of _Zadig_ has always seemed to it a +mistake. Still, how many mistakes would one pardon if they came after +such a success? _Babouc_, the first of those miniature _contes_ (they +are hardly "tales" in one sense), which Voltaire managed so admirably, +has the part-advantage part-disadvantage of being likewise the first of +a series of satires on French society, which, piquant as they are, would +certainly have been both more piquant and more weighty if there had been +fewer of them. It is full of the perfect, if not great, Voltairian +phrases,--the involuntary _Mene Tekel_, "Babouc conclut qu'une telle +societe ne pouvait subsister"; the palinode after a fashion, "Il +s'affectionnait a la ville, dont le peuple etait doux [oh! Nemesis!] +poli et bien-faisant, quoique leger, medisant et plein de vanite"; and +the characteristic collection of parallel between Babouc and Jonah, +surely not objectionable even to the most orthodox, "Mais quand on a ete +trois jours dans le corps d'une baleine on n'est pas de si bonne humeur +que quand on a ete a l'opera, a la comedie et qu'on a soupe en bonne +compagnie." + +[Sidenote: _Micromegas._] + +_Memnon, ou La Sagesse Humaine_ is still less of a tale, only a lively +sarcastic apologue; but he would be a strange person who would quarrel +with its half-dozen pages, and much the same may be said of the _Voyages +de Scarmentado_. Still, one feels in both of them, and in many of the +others, that they are after all not much more than chips of an inferior +rehandling of _Gulliver_. _Micromegas_, as has been said, does not +disguise its composition as something of the kind; but the desire to +annoy Fontenelle, while complimenting him after a fashion as the "dwarf +of Saturn," and perhaps other strokes of personal scratching, have put +Voltaire on his mettle. You will not easily find a better Voltairism of +its particular class than, "Il faut bien citer ce qu'on ne comprend +point du tout, dans la langue qu'on entend le moins." But, as so often +happens, the cracker in the tail is here the principal point. +Micromegas, the native of Sirius, who may be Voltaire himself, or +anybody else--after his joint tour through the universes (much more +amusing than that of the late Mr. Bailey's Festus), with the smaller but +still gigantic Saturnian--writes a philosophical treatise to instruct us +poor microbes of the earth, and it is taken to Paris, to the secretary +of the Academy of Science (Fontenelle himself). "Quand le secretaire +l'eut ouvert il ne vit rien qu'un livre tout blanc. 'Ah!' dit-il, 'je +m'en etais bien doute.'" Voltaire did a great deal of harm in the world, +and perhaps no solid good;[357] but it is things like this which make +one feel that it would have been, a loss had there been no Voltaire. + +[Sidenote: _L'Ingenu._] + +_L'Ingenu_, which follows _Candide_ in the regular editions, falls +perhaps as a whole below all these, and _L'Homme aux Quarante Ecus_, +which follows it, hardly concerns us at all, being mere political +economy of a sort in dialogue. _L'Ingenu_ is a story, and has many +amusing things in it. But it is open to the poser that if Voltaire +really accepted the noble savage business he was rather silly, and that +if he did not, the piece is a stale and not very biting satire. It is, +moreover, somewhat exceptionally full (there is only one to beat it) of +the vulgar little sniggers which suggest the eunuch even more than the +schoolboy, and the conclusion is abominable. The seducer and, +indirectly, murderer Saint-Pouange may only have done after his kind in +regard to Mlle. de Saint-Yves; but the Ingenu himself neither acted up +to his Huron education, nor to his extraction as a French gentleman, in +forgiving the man and taking service under him. + +[Sidenote: _La Princesse de Babylone._] + +_La Princesse de Babylone_ is more like Hamilton than almost any other +of the tales, and this, it need hardly be said here, is high praise, +even for a work of Voltaire. For it means that it has what we commonly +find in that work, and also something that we do not. But it has that +defect which has been noticed already in _Zadig_, and which, by its +absence, constitutes the supremacy of _Candide_. There is in it a sort +of "break in the middle." The earlier stages of the courtship of +Formosante are quite interesting; but when she and her lover begin +separately to wander over the world, in order that their chronicler may +make satiric observations on the nations thereof, one feels inclined to +say, as Mr. Mowbray Morris said to Mr. Matthew Arnold (who thought it +was Mr. Traill): + + Can't you give us something new? + +[Sidenote: Some minors.] + +_Le Blanc et le Noir_ rises yet again, and though it has perhaps not +many of Voltaire's _mots de flamme_, it is more of a fairy moral +tale--neither a merely fantastic mow, nor sicklied over with its +morality--than almost any other. It is noteworthy, too, that the author +has hardly any recourse to his usual clove of garlic to give seasoning. +_Jeannot et Colin_ might have been Marmontel's or Miss Edgeworth's, +being merely the usual story of two rustic lads, one of whom becomes +rich and corrupt till, later, he is succoured by the other. Now +Marmontel and Miss Edgeworth are excellent persons and writers; but +their work is not work for Voltaire. + +The _Lettres d'Amabed_[358] are the dirtiest and the dullest of the +whole batch, and the _Histoire de Jenni_, though not particularly dirty, +is very dull indeed, being the "History of a Good Deist," a thing +without which (as Mr. Carlyle used to say) we could do. The same sort of +"purpose" mars _Les Oreilles du Comte de Chesterfield_, in which, after +the first page, there is practically nothing about Lord Chesterfield or +his deafness, but which contains a good deal of Voltaire's crispest +writing, especially the definition of that English freedom which he +sometimes used to extol. With thirty guineas a year,[359] the +materialist doctor Sidrac informs the unfortunate Goudman, who has lost +a living by the said deafness, "on peut dire tout ce qu'on pense de la +compagnie des Indes, du parlement, de nos colonies, du roi, de l'etat en +general, de l'homme et de Dieu--ce qui est un grand amusement." But the +piece itself would be more amusing if Voltaire could let the Bible +alone, though he does not here come under the stroke of Diderot's +sledge-hammer as he does in _Amabed_. + +One seldom, however, echoes this last wish, and remembers the stroke +referred to, more than in reference to _Le Taureau Blanc_. Here, if +there were nobody who reverenced the volume which begins with _Genesis_ +and ends with _Revelation_, the whole thing would be utterly dead and +stupid: except for a few crispnesses of the Egyptian Mambres, which +could, almost without a single exception, have been uttered on any other +theme. The identification of Nebuchadnezzar with the bull Apis is not +precisely an effort of genius; but the assembling, and putting through +their paces, of Balaam's ass and Jonah's whale, the serpent of Eden, and +the raven of the Ark, with the three prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and +Daniel, and with an historical King Amasis and an unhistorical Princess +Amaside thrown in, is less a _conte a dormir debout_, as Voltaire's +countrymen and he himself would say, than a tale to make a man sleep +when he is running at full speed--a very dried poppy-head of the garden +of tales. On the other hand, the very short and very early _Le +Crocheteur Borgne_, which, curiously enough, Voltaire never printed, and +the not much longer _Cosi-Sancta_, which he printed in his queer +ostrich-like manner, are, though a little naughty, quite nice; and have +a freshness and demure grace about their naughtiness which contrasts +remarkably with the ugly and wearisome snigger of later work. + +[Sidenote: Voltaire--the Kehl edition--and Plato.] + +The half-dozen others,[360] filling scarce twenty pages between them, +which conclude the usual collection, need little comment; but a "Kehl" +note to the first of them is for considerable thoughts: + + M. de Voltaire s'est egaye quelquefois sur Platon, dont le + galimatias, regarde autrefois comme sublime, a fait plus de + mal au genre humain qu'on ne le croit communement. + +One should not hurry over this, but muse a little. In copying the note, +I felt almost inclined to write "_M. de_ Platon" in order to put the +whole thing in a consistent key; for somehow "Plato" by itself, even in +the French form, transports one into such a very different world that +adjustment of clocks and compasses becomes at once necessary and +difficult. "Galimatias" is good, "autrefois" is possibly better, the +"evils inflicted on the human race" better still, but _egaye_ perhaps +best of all. The monkey, we know, makes itself gay with the elephant, +and probably would do so with the lion and the tiger if these animals +had not an unpleasant way of dealing with jokers. And the tomtit and +canary have, no doubt, at least private agreement that the utterances of +the nightingale are _galimatias_, while the carrion crow thinks the +eagle a fool for dwelling so high and flying so much higher. But as for +the other side of the matter, how thin and poor and puerile even those +smartest things of Voltaire's, some of which have been quoted and +praised, sound, if one attempts to read them after the last sentence of +the _Apology_, or after passage on passage of the rest of the +"galimatias" of Plato! + +Nevertheless, though you may answer a fool according to his folly, you +should not, especially when he is not a fool absolute, judge him solely +thereby. When Voltaire was making himself gay with Plato, with the +Bible, and with some other things, he was talking, not merely of +something which he did not completely understand, but of something +altogether outside the range of his comprehension. But in the judgment +of literature the process of "cancelling" does not exist. A quality is +not destroyed or neutralised by a defect, and, properly speaking (though +it is hard for the critic to observe this), to strike a balance between +the two is impossible. It is right to enter the non-values; but the +values remain and require chief attention. + +[Sidenote: An attempt at different evaluation of himself.] + +From what has been already said, it will be clear that there is no +disposition here to give Voltaire anything short of the fullest credit, +both as an individual writer of prose fiction and as a link in the chain +of its French producers. He worked for the most part in miniature, and +even _Candide_ runs but to its bare hundred pages. But these are of the +first quality in their own way, and give the book the same position for +the century, in satiric and comic fiction, which _Manon Lescaut_ holds +in that of passion. That both should have taken this form, while, +earlier, _Manon_, if written at all, would probably have been a poem, +and _Candide_ would have been a treatise, shows on the one side the +importance of the position which the novel had assumed, and on the other +the immense advantages which it gave, as a kind, to the artist in +literature. I like poetry better than anything, but though the subject +could have been, and often has been, treated satirically in verse, a +verse _narrative_ could hardly have avoided inferiority, while even +Berkeley (who himself borrowed a little of novel-form for _Alciphron_) +could not have made _Candide_ more effective than it is. It is of course +true that Voltaire's powers as a "fictionist" were probably limited in +fact, to the departments, or the department, which he actually occupied, +and out of which he wisely did not go. He must have a satiric purpose, +and he must be allowed a very free choice of subject and seasoning. In +particular, it may be noted that he has no grasp whatever of individual +character. Even Candide is but a "humour," and Pangloss a very decided +one; as are Martin, Gordon in _L'Ingenu_, and others. His women are all +slightly varied outline-sketches of what he thought women in general +were, not persons. Plot he never attempted; and racy as his dialogue +often is, it is on the whole merely a setting for these very sparkles of +wit some of which have been quoted. + +It is in these scintillations, after all, that the chief delight of his +tales consists; and though, as has been honestly confessed and shown, he +learnt this to some extent from others, he made the thing definitely his +own. When the Babylonian public has been slightly "elevated" by the +refreshments distributed at the great tournament for the hand of the +Princess Formosante, it decides that war, etc., is folly, and that the +essence of human nature is to enjoy itself, "Cette excellente morale," +says Voltaire gravely, "n'a jamais ete dementie" (the words really +should be made to come at the foot of a page so that you might have to +turn over before coming to the conclusion of the sentence) "que par les +faits." Again, in the description of the Utopia of the Gangarides (same +story), where not only men but beasts and birds are all perfectly wise, +well conducted, and happy, a paragraph of quite sober description, +without any flinging up of heels or thrusting of tongue in cheek, ends, +"Nous avons surtout des perroquets qui prechent a merveille," and for +once Voltaire exercises on himself the Swiftian control, which he too +often neglected, and drops his beloved satire of clerics after this +gentle touch at it.[361] + +He is of course not constantly at his best; but he is so often enough to +make him, as was said at the beginning, very delectable reading, +especially for the second time and later, which will be admitted to be +no common praise. When you read him for the first time his bad taste, +his obsession with certain subjects, his repetition of the same gibes, +and other things which have been duly mentioned, strike and may +disgust--will certainly more or less displease anybody but a partisan on +the same side. On a second or later reading you are prepared for them, +and either skip them altogether or pass them by without special notice, +repeating the enjoyment of what is better in an unalloyed fashion. And +so doth the excellent old chestnut-myth, which probably most of us have +heard told with all innocence as an original witticism, justify itself, +and one should "prefer the second hour" of the reading to the first. But +if there is a first there will almost certainly be a second, and it will +be a very great pity if there is no reading at all. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Rousseau--the novel-character of the _Confessions_.] + +According to the estimate of the common or vulgate (I do not say +"vulgar," though in the best English there is little or no difference) +literary history, Rousseau[362] ranks far higher in the scale of +novel-writing than Voltaire, having left long and ambitious books of the +kind against Voltaire's handful of short, shorter, and shortest stories. +It might be possible to accept this in one sense, but in one which would +utterly disconcert the usual valuers. The _Confessions_, if it were not +an autobiography, would be one of the great novels of the world. A large +part of it is probably or certainly "fictionised"; if the whole were +fictitious, it would lose much of its repulsiveness, retain (except for +a few very matter-of-fact judges) all its interest, and gain the +enormous advantage of art over mere _reportage_ of fact. Of course +Rousseau's art of another kind, his mere mastery of style and +presentation, does redeem this _reportage_ to some extent; but this +would remain if the thing were wholly fiction, and the other art of +invention, divination, _mimesis_--call it what you will--would come in. +Yet it is not worth while to be idly unlike other people and claim it as +an actual novel. It may be worth while to point out how it displays some +of the great gifts of the novel-writer. The first of these--the greatest +and, in fact, the mother of all the rest--is the sheer faculty, so often +mentioned but not, alas! so invariably found, of telling the tale and +holding the reader, not with any glittering eye or any enchantment, +white or black, but with the pure grasping--or, as French admirably has +it, "enfisting"--power of the tale itself. Round this there cluster--or, +rather, in this necessarily abide--the subsidiary arts of managing the +various parts of the story, of constructing characters sufficient to +carry it on, of varnishing it with description, and to some extent, +though naturally to a lesser one than if it had been fiction pure and +simple, "lacing" it, in both senses of the word, with dialogue. +Commonplace (but not the best commonplace) taste often cries "Oh! if +this were only true!" The wiser mind is fain sometimes--not often, for +things are not often good enough--to say, "Oh! if this were only +_false_!" + +[Sidenote: The ambiguous position of _Emile_.] + +But if a severe auditor were to strike the _Confessions_ out of +Rousseau's novel-account to the good, on the score of technical +insufficiency or disqualification, he could hardly refuse to do the same +with _Emile_ on the other side of the sheet. In fact its second title +(_de l'Education_), its opening remarks, and the vastly larger part of +the text, not only do not pretend to be a novel but frankly decline to +be one. In what way exactly the treatise, from the mere assumption of a +supposed "soaring human boy" named Emile, who serves as the victim of a +few _Sandford-and-Merton_-like illustrations, burgeoned into the romance +of actual novel-kind with Sophie in the Fifth Book, and the purely +novel-natured, but unfinished and hardly begun, sequel of _Emile et +Sophie ou Les Solitaires_, it is impossible to say. From the sketch of +the intended conclusion of this latter given by Prevost[363] it would +seem that we have not lost much, though with Rousseau the treatment is +so constantly above the substance that one cannot tell. As it is, the +novel part is nearly worthless. Neither Emile nor Sophie is made in the +least a live person; the catastrophe of their at first ideal union might +be shown, by an advocate of very moderate skill, to be largely if not +wholly due to the meddlesome, muddle-headed, and almost inevitably +mischievous advice given to them just after their marriage by their +foolish Mentor; and one neither finds nor foresees any real novel +interest whatever. Anilities in the very worst style of the eighteenth +century--such as the story how Emile instigated mutiny in an Algerian +slave-gang, failed, made a noble protest, and instead of being impaled, +flayed, burnt alive, or otherwise taught not to do so, was made overseer +of his own projects of reformed discipline--are sufficiently +unrefreshing in fact. And the sort of "double arrangement" foreshadowed +in the professorial programme of the unwritten part, where, in something +like Davenant and Dryden's degradation of _The Tempest_, Emile and +Sophie, she still refusing to be pardoned her fault, are brought +together after all, and are married, in an actual though not consummated +cross-bigamy, with a mysterious couple, also marooned on a desert +island, is the sort of thing that Rousseau never could have managed, +though Voltaire, probably to the discontent of Mrs. Grundy, could have +done it in one way, and Sir William Gilbert would have done it +delightfully in another. But Jean-Jacques's absolute lack of humour +would have ensured a rather ghastly failure, relieved, it may be, by a +few beautiful passages. + +[Sidenote: _La Nouvelle Heloise._] + +If, therefore, Rousseau had nothing but _Emile_, or even nothing but +_Emile_ and the _Confessions_ to put to his credit, he could but obtain +a position in our "utmost, last, provincial band," and that more because +of his general literary powers than of special right. But, as everybody +knows, there is a third book among his works which, whether universally +or only by a majority, whether in whole or in part, whether with heavy +deductions and allowances or with light ones, has been reckoned among +the greatest and most epoch-making novels of the world. The full title +of it is _Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise, ou Lettres de deux Amans, +habitans d'une petite ville au pied des Alpes, recueillies et publiees, +par J. J. Rousseau_.[364] Despite its immense fame, direct and at +second-hand--for Byron's famous outburst, though scarcely less +rhetorical, is decidedly more poetical than most things of his, and has +inscribed itself in the general memory--one rather doubts whether the +book is as much read as it once was. Quotations, references, and those +half-unconscious reminiscences of borrowing which are more eloquent +than anything else, have not recently been very common either in English +or in French. It has had the fate--elsewhere, I think, alluded to--of +one of the two kinds of great literature, that it has in a manner seeded +itself out. An intense love-novel--it is some time since we have seen +one till the other day--would be a descendant of Rousseau's book, but +would not bear more than a family likeness to it. Yet this, of itself, +is a great testimony. + +[Sidenote: Its numerous and grave faults.] + +Except in rhetoric or rhapsody, the allowances and deductions above +referred to must be heavy; and, according to a custom honoured both by +time and good result, it is well to get them off first. That peculiarity +of being a novelist only _par interim_, much more than Aramis was a +mousquetaire, appears, even in _Julie_, so glaringly as to be dangerous +and almost fatal. The book fills, in the ordinary one-volume editions, +nearly five hundred pages of very small and very close print. Of these +the First Part contains rather more than a hundred, and it would be +infinitely better if the whole of the rest, except a few passages (which +would be almost equally good as fragments), were in the bosom of the +ocean buried. Large parts of them are mere discussions of some of +Rousseau's own fads; clumsy parodies of Voltaire's satiric +manners-painting; waterings out of the least good traits in the hero and +heroine; uninteresting and superfluous appearances of the third and only +other real person, Claire; a dreary account of Julie's married life; +tedious eccentricities of the impossible and not very agreeable Lord +Edward Bomston, who shares with Dickens's Lord Frederick Verisopht the +peculiarity of being alternately a peer and a person with a courtesy +"Lord"-ship; a rather silly end for the heroine herself;[365] and +finally, a rather repulsive and quite incongruous acknowledgment of +affection for the creature Saint-Preux, with a refusal to "implement" +it (as they say in Scotland) matrimonially, by Claire, who is by this +time a widow.[366] If mutilating books[367] were not a crime deserving +terrible retribution in this life or after it, one could be excused for +tearing off the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Parts, with the +_Amours de Lord Edouard_ which follow. If one was rich, one would be +amply justified in having a copy of Part I., and the fragments above +indicated, printed for oneself on vellum. + +[Sidenote: The minor characters.] + +But this is not all. Even the First Part--even the presentation of the +three protagonists--is open to some, and even to severe, criticism. The +most guiltless, but necessarily much the least important, is Claire. She +is, of course, an obvious "borrow" from Richardson's lively second +heroines; but she is infinitely superior to them. It is at first sight, +though not perhaps for long, curious--and it is certainly a very great +compliment to Madame de Warens or Vuarrens and Madame d'Houdetot, and +perhaps other objects of his affections--that Rousseau, cad as he was, +and impossible as it was for him to draw a gentleman, could and did draw +ladies. It was horribly bad taste in both Julie and Claire to love such +a creature as Saint-Preux; but then _cela s'est vu_ from the time of the +Lady of the Strachy downwards, if not from that of Princess Michal. But +Claire is faithful and true as steel, and she is lively without being, +as Charlotte Grandison certainly is, vulgar. She is very much more a +really "reasonable woman," even putting passion aside, than the somewhat +sermonising and syllogising Julie; and it would have been both agreeable +and tormenting to be M. d'Orbe. (Tormenting because she only half-loved +him, and agreeable because she did love him a little, and, whether it +was little or much, allowed herself to be his.) He himself, slight and +rather "put upon" as he is, is also much the most agreeable of the +"second" male characters. Of Bomston and Wolmar we shall speak +presently; and there is so little of the Baron d'Etange that one really +does not know whether he was or was not something more than the +tyrannical husband and father, and the ill-mannered specimen of the +lesser nobility, that it pleased Saint-Preux or Rousseau to represent +him as being. He had provocation enough, even in the case of his +otherwise hardly pardonable insolence to Bomston.[368] + +[Sidenote: The delinquencies of Saint-Preux.] + +But Saint-Preux himself? How early was the obvious jest made that he is +about as little of a _preux_ as he is of a saint? I have heard, or +dreamt, of a schoolboy who, being accidentally somewhat precocious in +French, and having read the book, ejaculated, "_What_ a sweep he is!" +and I remember no time of my life at which I should not have heartily +agreed with that youth. I do not suppose that either of us--though +perhaps we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for not doing so--founded +our condemnation on Saint-Preux's "forgetfulness of all but love." That +is a "forfeit," in French and English sense alike, which has itself +registered and settled in various tariffs and codes, none of which +concerns the present history. It is not even that he is a most +unreasonable creature now and then; that can be pardoned, being +understood, though he really does strain the benefit of _amare et +sapere_ etc. It is that, except when he is in the altitudes of passion, +and not always then, he never "knows how to behave," as the simple and +sufficient old phrase had it. If M. d'Etange had had the wits, and had +deigned to do it, he might even, without knowing his deepest cause of +quarrel with the treacherous tutor, have pointed out that Saint-Preux's +claim to be one of God Almighty's gentlemen was as groundless as his +"proofs," in the French technical sense of gentility, were non-existent. +It is impossible to imagine anything in worse taste than his reply to +the Baron's no doubt offensive letter, and Julie's enclosed +renunciation. Even the adoring Julie herself, and the hardly less +adoring Claire--the latter not in the least a prude, nor given to giving +herself "airs"--are constantly obliged to pull him up for his want of +_delicatesse_. He is evidently a coxcomb, still more evidently a prig; +selfish beyond even that selfishness which is venial in a lover; not in +the least, though he can exceed in wine, a "good fellow," and in many +ways thoroughly unmanly. A good English school and college might have +made him tolerable: but it is rather to be doubted, and it is certain +that his way as a transgressor would have been hard at both. As it is, +he is very largely the embodiment--and it is more charitable than +uncharitable to regard him as largely the cause--of the faults of the +worst kind of French, and not quite only French, novel-hero ever since. + +[Sidenote: And the less charming points of Julie. Her redemption.] + +One approaches Julie herself, in critical intent, with mixed feelings. +One would rather say nothing but good of her, and there is plenty of +good to say: how much will be seen in a moment. Most of what is not so +good belongs, in fact, to the dreary bulk of sequel tacked on by +mistaken judgment to that more than true history of a hundred pages, +which leaves her in despair, and might well have left her altogether. +Even here she is not faultless, quite independently of her sins +according to Mrs. Grundy and the Pharisees. If she had not been, as +Claire herself fondly but truly calls her, such a _precheresse_, she +might not have fallen a victim to such a prig. One never can quite +forgive her for loving him, except on the all-excusing ground that she +loved him so much; and though she is perhaps not far beyond the licence +of "All's fair, in certain conditions," there is no doubt that, like her +part-pattern Clarissa, she is not passionately attached to the truth. +It might be possible to add some cavils, but for the irresistible plea +just glanced at, which stops one. + +_Quia multum amavit!_ Nobody--at least no woman--had loved like that in +a prose novel before; nobody at all except Des Grieux, and he is but as +a sketch to an elaborate picture. She will wander after Pallas, and +would like to think that she would like to be of the train of Dian (one +shudders at imagining the scowl and the shrug and the twist of the skirt +of the goddess!). But the kiss of Aphrodite has been on her, and has +mastered her whole nature. How the thing could be done, out of poetry, +has always been a marvel to me; but I have explained it by the +supposition that the absolute impossibility of writing poetry at this +time in French necessitated the break-out in prose. Rousseau's wonderful +style--so impossible to analyse, but so irresistible--does much; the +animating sense of his native scenery something. But, after all, what +gives the thing its irresistibleness is the strange command he had of +Passion and of Sorrow--two words, the first of which is actually, in the +original sense, a synonym of the second, though it has been expanded to +cover the very opposite. + +[Sidenote: And the better side of the book generally.] + +But it would be unfair to Rousseau, especially in such a place as this, +to confine the praise of _Julie_ as a novel to its exhibition of +passion, or even to the charm of Julie herself. Within its proper +limits--which are, let it be repeated, almost if not quite exactly those +of the First Part--many other gifts of the particular class of artist +are shown. The dangerous letter-scheme, which lends itself so easily, +and in the other parts surrenders itself so helplessly and hopelessly, +to mere "piffle" about this and that, is kept well in hand. Much as +Rousseau owes to Richardson, he has steered entirely clear of that +system of word-for-word and incident-for-incident reporting which makes +the Englishman's work so sickening to some. You have enough of each and +no more, this happy mean affecting both dialogue and description. The +plot (or rather the action) is constantly present, probably managed, +always enlivened by the imminence of disastrous discovery. As has been +already pointed out, one may dislike--or feel little interest in--some +of the few characters; but it is impossible to say that they are out of +drawing or keeping. Saint-Preux, objectionable and almost loathsome as +he may be sometimes, is a thoroughly human creature, and is undoubtedly +what Rousseau meant him to be, for the very simple reason that he is +(like the Byronic hero who followed) what Rousseau wished to be, if not +exactly what he was, himself. Bomston is more of a lay figure; but then +the _Anglais philosophe de qualite_ of the French imagination in the +eighteenth century was a lay figure, and, as has been excellently said +by De Quincey in another matter, nothing can be wrong which conforms to +the principles of its own ideal. As for Julie and Claire, they once more + + Answer the ends of their being created. + +Even the "talking-book" is here hardly excessive, and comes legitimately +under the excuse of showing how the relations between the hero and +heroine originally got themselves established.[369] + +[Sidenote: But little probability of more good work in novel from its +author.] + +Are we, then, from the excellence of the "Confessions" _in pari materia_ +and _in ipsa_ of _Julie_, to lament that Rousseau did not take to +novel-writing as a special and serious occupation? Probably not. The +extreme weakness and almost _fadeur_ of the strictly novel part of +_Emile_, and the going-off of _Julie_ itself, are very open warnings; +the mere absence of any other attempts worth mentioning[370] is evidence +of a kind; and the character of all the rest of the work, and of all +this part of the work but the opening of _Julie_, and even of that +opening itself, counsel abstention, here as everywhere, from quarrelling +with Providence. Rousseau's superhuman concentration on himself, while +it has inspired the relevant parts of the _Confessions_ and of _Julie_, +has spoilt a good deal else that we have, and would assuredly have +spoilt other things that we have not. It has been observed, by all acute +students of the novel, that the egotistic variety will not bear heavy +crops of fruit by itself; and that it is incapable, or capable with very +great difficulty, of letting the observed and so far altruistic kind +grow from the same stool. Of what is sometimes called the dramatic +faculty (though, in fact, it is only one side of that),--the faculty +which in different guise and with different means the general novelist +must also possess,--Rousseau had nothing. He could put himself in no +other man's skin, being so absolutely wrapped up in his own, which was +itself much too sensitive to be disturbed, much less shed. Anything or +anybody that was (to use Mill's language) a permanent or even a +temporary possibility of sensation to him was within his power; anything +out of immediate or closely impending contact was not. Now some of the +great novelists have the external power--or at least the will to use +that power--alone, others have had both; but Rousseau had the internal +only, and so was, except by miracle of intensive exercise, incapable of +further range. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The different case of Diderot.] + +Neither of the disabilities which weighed on Voltaire and Rousseau--the +incapacity of the former to construct any complex character, and of the +latter to portray any but his own, or some other brought into intensest +communion, actually or as a matter of wish, with his own--weighed upon +the third of the great trio of _philosophe_ leaders. There is every +probability that Diderot might have been a very great novelist if he had +lived a hundred years later; and not a little evidence that he only +missed being such, even as it was, because of that mysterious curse +which was epigrammatically expressed about him long ago (I really +forget who said it first), "Good pages, no good book." So far from being +self-centred or of limited interests, he could, as hardly any other man +ever could, claim the hackneyed _Homo sum_, etc., as his rightful motto. +He had, when he allowed himself to give it fair play, an admirable gift +of tale-telling; he could create character, and set it to work, almost +after the fashion of the very greatest novelists; his universal interest +and "curiosity" included such vivid appreciation of literature, and of +art, and of other things useful to the novel-writer, that he never could +have been at a loss for various kinds of "seasoning." He had keen +observation, an admittedly marvellous flow of ideas, and a style which +(though, like everything else about him, careless) was of singular +vigour and freshness when, once more, he let it have fair play. But his +time, his nature, and his circumstances combined to throw in his way +traps and snares and nets which he could not, or would not, avoid. His +anti-religiosity, though sometimes greatly exaggerated, was a bad +stumbling-block; although he was free from the snigger of Voltaire and +of Sterne, you could not prevent him, as Horace Walpole complains of his +distinguished sire, from blurting out the most improper remarks and +stories at the most inconvenient times and in the most unsuitable +companies; while his very multiscience, and his fertility of thought and +imagination, kept him in a whirl which hindered his "settling" to +anything. Although in one sense he had the finest and wisest critical +taste of any man then living--I do not bar even Gray or even +Lessing--his taste in some other ways was utterly untrustworthy and +sometimes horribly bad; while even his strictly critical faculty seems +never to have been exercised on his own books--a failure forming part of +the "ostrich-like indifference" with which he produced and abandoned +them.[371] + +[Sidenote: His gifts and the waste of them.] + +It is sometimes contended, and in many cases, no doubt, is the fact, +that "Selections" are disgraceful and unscholarly. But what has been +said will show that this is an exceptional case. The present writer +waded through the whole of twenty-volume edition of Assezat and Tourneux +when it first appeared, and is very glad he did; nor is there perhaps +one volume (he does not say one page, chapter, or even work) which he +has not revisited more or fewer times during the forty years in which +(alas! for the preterite) they remained on his shelves. But it is +scarcely to be expected that every one, that many, or that more than a +very few readers, have done or will do the same. It so happens, however, +that Genin's _Oeuvres Choisies_--though it has been abused by some +anti-Ydgrunites as too much Bowdlerised--gives a remarkably full and +satisfactory idea of this great and seldom[372] quite rightly valued +writer. It must have cost much, besides use of paste and scissors, to +do; for the extracts are often very short, and the bulk of matter to be +thoroughly searched for extraction is, as has just been said, huge. A +third volume might perhaps be added;[373] but the actual two are far +from unrepresentative, while the Bowdlerising is by no means +ultra-Bowdlerish. + +[Sidenote: The various display of them.] + +The reader, even of this selection, will see how, in quite miscellaneous +or heterogeneous writing, Diderot bubbles out into a perfectly told tale +or anecdote, no matter what the envelope (as we may call it) of this +tale or anecdote may be. All his work is more or less like conversation: +and these excursus are like the stories which, if good, are among the +best, just as, if bad, they are the worst, sets-off to conversation +itself. Next to these come the longer _histoires_--as one would call +them in the Heroic novel and its successors--things sometimes found by +themselves, sometimes ensconced in larger work[374]--the story of +Desroches and Mme. de la Carliere, _Les Deux Amis de Bourbonne_, the +almost famous _Le Marquis des Arcis et Mme. de la Pommeraye_, of which +more may be said presently; and things which are not exactly tales, but +which have the tale-quality in part, like the charming _Regrets sur ma +Vieille Robe de Chambre, Ceci n'est pas un conte_, etc. Thirdly, and to +be spoken of in more detail, come the things that are nearest actual +novels, and in some cases are called so, _Le Neveu de Rameau_, the +"unspeakable" _Bijoux Indiscrets_, _Jacques le Fataliste_ (the matrix of +_Le Marquis des Arcis_) and _La Religieuse_. + +The "unspeakable" one does not need much speaking from any point of +view. If it is not positively what Carlyle called it, "the beastliest of +all dull novels, past, present, or to come," it really would require a +most unpleasant apprenticeship to scavenging in order to discover a +dirtier and duller. The framework is a flat imitation of Crebillon, the +"insets" are sometimes mere pornography, and the whole thing is +evidently scribbled at a gallop--it was actually a few days' work, to +get money, from some French Curll or Drybutter, to give (the +appropriateness of the thing at least is humorous) to the mistress of +the moment, a Madame de Puisieux,[375] who, if she was like Crebillon's +heroines in morals, cannot have been like the best of them in manners. +Its existence shows, of course, Diderot's worst side, that is to say, +the combination of want of breeding with readiness to get money anyhow. +If it is worth reading at all, which may be doubted, it is to show the +real, if equivocal, value of Crebillon himself. For it is vulgar, which +he never is. + +[Sidenote: _Le Neveu de Rameau._] + +_Le Neveu de Rameau_, has only touches of obscenity, and it has been +enormously praised by great persons. It is very clever, but it seems to +me that, as a notable critic is said to have observed of something else, +"it has been praised quite enough." It is a sketch, worked out in a sort +of monologue,[376] of something like Diderot's own character without his +genius and without his good fellowship--a gutter-snipe of art and +letters possessed of some talent and of infinite impudence. It shows +Diderot's own power of observation and easy fluid representation of +character and manners, but not, as I venture to think, much more. + +[Sidenote: _Jacques le Fataliste._] + +_Jacques le Fataliste_ is what may be called, without pedantry or +preciousness, eminently a "document." It is a document of Diderot's +genius only indirectly (save in part), and to those who can read not +only in the lines but between them: it is a document, directly, of the +insatiable and restless energy of the man, and of the damage which this +restlessness, with its accompanying and inevitable want of +self-criticism, imposed upon that genius. Diderot, though he did not +rhapsodise about Sterne as he rhapsodised about Richardson, was, like +most of his countrymen then, a great admirer of "Tristram," and in an +evil hour he took it into his head to Shandyise. The book starts with an +actual adaptation of Sterne,[377] which is more than once repeated; its +scheme--of a master (who is as different as possible from my Uncle Toby, +except that when not in a passion he is rather good-natured, and at +almost all times very easily humbugged) and a man (who is what Trim +never is, both insolent and indecent)--is at least partially the same. +But the most constant and the most unfortunate imitation is of Sterne's +literally eccentric, or rather zigzag and pillar-to-post, fashion of +narration. In the Englishman's own hands, by some prestidigitation of +genius, this never becomes boring, though it probably would have become +so if either book had been finished; for which reason we may be quite +certain that it was not only his death which left both in fragments. In +the hands of his imitators the boredom--simple or in the form of +irritation--has been almost invariable;[378] and with all his great +intellectual power, his tale-telling faculty, his _bonhomie_, and other +good qualities, Diderot has not escaped it--has, in fact, rushed upon it +and compelled it to come in. It is comparatively of little moment that +the main ostensible theme--the very unedifying account of the loves, or +at least the erotic exercises, of Jacques and his master--is +deliberately, tediously, inartistically interrupted and "put off." The +great feature of the book, which has redeemed it with some who would +otherwise condemn it entirely, the Arcis and La Pommeraye episode (_v. +inf._), is handled after a fashion which suggests Mr. Ruskin's famous +denunciation in another art. The _ink_pot is "flung in the face of the +public" by a purely farcical series of interruptions, occasioned by the +affairs of the inn-landlady, who tells the story, by her servants, dog, +customers, and Heaven only knows what else; while the minor incidents +and accidents of the book are treated in the same way, in and out of +proportion to their own importance; the author's "simple plan," though +by no means "good old rule," being that _everything_ shall be +interrupted. Although, in the erotic part, the author never returns +quite to his worst _Bijoux Indiscrets_ style, he once or twice goes very +near it, except that he is not quite so dull; and when the book comes to +an end in a very lame and impotent fashion (the farce being kept up to +the last, and even this end being "recounted" and not made part of the +mainly dialogic action), one is rather relieved at there being no more. +One has seen talent; one has almost glimpsed genius; but what one has +been most impressed with is the glaring fashion in which both the +certainty and the possibility have been thrown away. + +[Sidenote: Its "Arcis-Pommeraye" episode.] + +The story which has been referred to in passing as muddled, or, to adopt +a better French word, for which we have no exact equivalent, _affuble_ +(travestied and overlaid) with eccentricities and interruptions, the +_Histoire_ of the Marquis des Arcis and the Marquise de la Pommeraye, +has received a great deal of praise, most of which it deserves. The +Marquis and the Marquise have entered upon one of the fashionable +_liaisons_ which Crebillon described in his own way. Diderot describes +this one in another. The Marquis gets tired--it is fair to say that he +has offered marriage at the very first, but Madame de la Pommeraye, a +widow with an unpleasant first experience of the state, has declined it. +He shows his tiredness in a gentlemanly manner, but not very mistakably. +His mistress, who is not at first _femina furens_, but who possesses +some feminine characteristics in a dangerous degree, as he might perhaps +have found out earlier if he had been a different person, determines to +make sure of it. She intimates _her_ tiredness, and the Marquis makes +his first step downwards by jumping at the release. They are--the old, +old hopeless folly!--to remain friends, but friends only. But she really +loves him, and after almost assuring herself that he has really ceased +to love her (which, in the real language of love, means that he has +never loved her at all), devises a further, a very clever, but a rather +diabolical system of last proof, involving vengeance if it fails. She +has known, in exercises of charity (the _femme du monde_ has seldom +quite abandoned these), a mother and daughter who, having lost their +means, have taken to a questionable, or rather a very unquestionable +manner of life, keeping a sort of private gaming-house, and extending to +those frequenters of it who choose, what the late George Augustus Sala +not inelegantly called, in an actual police-court instance, "the +thorough hospitality characteristic of their domicile." She prevails on +them to leave the house, get rid of all their belongings (down to +clothes) which could possibly be identified, change their name, move to +another quarter of Paris, and set up as _devotes_ under the full +protection of the local clergy. Then she manages an introduction, of an +apparently accidental kind, to the Marquis. He falls in love at once +with the daughter, who is very pretty, and with masculine (or at least +_some_ masculine) fatuity, makes Madame de la Pommeraye his confidante. +She gives him rope, but he uses it, of course, only to hang himself. He +tries the usual temptations; but though the mother at least would not +refuse them, Madame de la Pommeraye's hand on the pair is too tight. At +last he offers marriage, and--with her at least apparent consent--is +married. The next day she tells him the truth. But her diabolism fails. +At first there is of course a furious outburst. But the girl is +beautiful, affectionate, and humble; the mother is pensioned off; the +Marquis and Marquise des Arcis retire for some years to those invaluable +_terres_, after a sojourn at which everything is forgotten; and the +story ends. Diderot, by not too skilfully throwing in casuistical +attacks and defences of the two principal characters, but telling us +nothing of Madame de la Pommeraye's subsequent feelings or history, does +what he can, unluckily after his too frequent fashion, to spoil or at +least to blunt his tale. It is not necessary to imitate him by +discussing the _pros_ and _cons_ at length. I think myself that the +Marquis, both earlier and later, is made rather too much of a _benet_, +or, in plain English, a nincompoop. But nincompoops exist: in fact how +many of us are not nincompoops in certain circumstances? Madame de la +Pommeraye is, I fear, rather true, and is certainly sketched with +extraordinary ability. On a larger scale the thing would probably, at +that time and by so hasty and careless a workman, have been quite +spoilt. But it is obviously the skeleton--and something more--of a +really great novel. + +[Sidenote: _La Religieuse._] + +It may seem that a critic who speaks in this fashion, after an initial +promise of laudation, is a sort of Balaam topsyturvied, and merely +curses where he is expected to bless. But ample warning was given of the +peculiar position of Diderot, and when we come to his latest known and +by far his best novel, _La Religieuse_, the paradox (he was himself very +fond of paradoxes,[379] though not of the wretched things which now +disgrace the name) remains. The very subject of the book, or of the +greatest part of it, was for a long time, if it is not still, taboo; and +even if this had not been the case, it has other drawbacks. It +originated in, and to some extent still retains traces of, one of the +silly and ill-bred "mystifications" in which the eighteenth and early +nineteenth century delighted.[380] It is, at least in appearance, badly +tainted with purpose; and while it is actually left unfinished, the last +pages of it, as they stand, are utterly unworthy of the earlier part, +and in fact quite uninteresting. Momus or Zoilus must be allowed to say +so much: but having heard him, let us cease to listen to the half-god or +the whole philologist. + +[Sidenote: Its story.] + +Yet _La Religieuse_, for all its drawbacks, is almost a great, and might +conceivably have been a very great book. Madame d'Holbach is credited by +Diderot's own generosity with having suggested its crowning _mot_,[381] +and her influence may have been in other ways good by governing the +force and fire, so often wasted or ill-directed, of Diderot's genius. +Soeur Sainte-Suzanne is the youngest daughter of a respectable +middle-class family. She perceives, or half-perceives (for, though no +fool, she is a guileless and unsuspicious creature), that she is +unwelcome there; the most certain sign of which is that, while her +sisters are married and dowered handsomely, she is condemned to be a +nun. She has, though quite real piety, no "vocation," and though she +allows herself to be coaxed through her novitiate, she at last, in face +of almost insuperable difficulties, summons up courage enough to +refuse, at the very altar, the final profession. There is, of course, a +terrible scandal; she has more black looks in the family than ever, and +at last her mother confesses that she is an illegitimate child, and +therefore hated by her putative father, whose love for his wife, +however, has induced him to forgive her, and not actually renounce (as +indeed, by French law, he could not) the child. Broken in heart and +spirit, Suzanne at last accepts her doom. She is fortunate in one +abbess, but the next persecutes her, brings all sorts of false +accusations against her, strips, starves, imprisons, and actually +tortures her by means of the _amende honorable_. She manages to get her +complaints known and to secure a counsel, and though she cannot obtain +liberation from her vows, the priest who conducts the ecclesiastical +part of the enquiry is a just man, and utterly repudiates the methods of +persecution, while he and her lay lawyer procure her transference to +another convent. Here her last trial (except those of the foolish +post-_scrap_, as we may call it) begins, as well as the most equivocal +and the greatest part of the book. Her new superior is in every respect +different from any she has known--of a luxurious temperament, +good-natured, though capricious, and inclined to be very much too +affectionate. Her temptation of the innocent Suzanne is defeated by this +very innocence, and by timely revelation, though the revealer does not +know what she reveals, to a "director"; and the wayward and corrupted +fancy turns by degrees to actual madness, which proves fatal, Suzanne +remaining unharmed, though a piece of not inexcusable eavesdropping +removes the ignorance of her innocence. + +[Sidenote: A hardly missed, if missed, masterpiece.] + +If the subject be not simply ruled out, and the book indexed for +silence, it is practically impossible to suggest that it could have been +treated better. Even the earlier parts, which could easily have been +made dull, are not so; and it is noteworthy that, anti-religionist as +Diderot was, and directly as the book is aimed at the conventual +system,[382] all the priests who are introduced are men of honour, +justice, and humanity. But the wonder is in the treatment of the +"scabrous" part of the matter by the author of Diderot's other books. +Whether Madame d'Holbach's[383] influence, as has been suggested, was +more widely and subtly extended than we know, or whatever else may be +the cause, there is not a coarse word, not even a coarsely drawn +situation, in the whole. Suzanne's innocence is, in the subtlest manner, +prevented from being in the least _bete_. The fluctuations and +ficklenesses of the abbess's passion, and in a less degree of that of +another young nun, whom Suzanne has partially ousted from her favour, +are marvellously and almost inoffensively drawn, and the stages by which +erotomania passes into mania general and mortal, are sketched slightly, +but with equal power. There is, I suppose, hardly a book which one ought +to discommend to the young person more than _La Religieuse_. There are +not many in which the powers required by the novelist, in delineating +morbid, and not only morbid, character, are more brilliantly shown. + +It is not the least remarkable thing about this remarkable book, and not +the least characteristic of its most remarkable author, that its very +survival has something extraordinary about it. Grimm, who was more +likely than any one else to know, apparently thought it was destroyed or +lost; it never appeared at all during Diderot's life, nor for a dozen +years after his death, nor till seven after the outbreak of the +Revolution, and six after the suppression of the religious orders in +France. That it might have brought its author into difficulties is more +than probable; but the undisguised editor of the _Encyclopedie_, the +author, earlier, of the actually disgraceful _Bijoux Indiscrets_, and +the much more than suspected principal begetter of the _Systeme de la +Nature_, could not have been much influenced by this. The true cause of +its abscondence, as in so much else of his work, was undoubtedly that +ultra-Bohemian quality of indifference which distinguished Diderot--the +first in a way, probably for ever the greatest, and, above all, the most +altruistic of literary Bohemians. Ask him to do something definite, +especially for somebody else's profit, to be done off-hand, and it was +done. Ask him to bear the brunt of a dangerous, laborious, by no means +lucrative, but rather exciting adventure, and he would, one cannot quite +say consecrate, but devote (which has two senses) his life to it. But +set him to elaborate artistic creation, confine him to it, and expect +him to finish it, and you were certain to be disappointed. At another +time, even at this time, if his surroundings and his society, his +education and his breeding had been less unfortunate, he might, as it +seems to me, have become a very great novelist indeed. As it is, he is a +great possibility of novel and of much other writing, with occasional +outbursts of actuality. The _Encyclopedie_ itself, for aught I care, +might have gone in all its copies, and with all possibility of +recovering or remembering it on earth, to the place where so many people +at the time would have liked to send it. But in the rest of him, and +even in some of his own Encyclopaedia articles,[384] there is much of +quite different stuff. And among the various gifts, critical and +creative, which this stuff shows, not the least, I think, was the +half-used and mostly ill-used gift of novel-writing. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The successors--Marmontel.] + +What has been called the second generation of the _philosophes_, who +were naturally the pupils of the first, "were not like [that] first," +that is to say, they did not reproduce the special talents of their +immediate masters in this department of ours, save in two instances. +Diderot's genius did not propagate itself in the novel way at all[385]: +indeed, as has been said, his best novel was not known till this second +generation itself was waning. The most brilliant of his direct hearers, +Joubert, took to another department; or rather, in his famous _Pensees_, +isolated and perfected the utterances scattered through the master's +immense and disorderly work. Naigeon, the most devoted, who might have +taken for his motto a slight alteration of the Mahometan confession of +faith, "There is no God; but there is only one Diderot, and I am his +prophet," was a dull fellow, and also, to adopt a Carlylian epithet, a +"dull-snuffling" one, who could not have told a neck-tale if the +Hairibee of the guillotine had caught him and given him a merciful +chance. Voltaire in Marmontel, and Rousseau in Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre, were more fortunate, though both the juniors considerably +transformed their masters' fashions; and Marmontel was always more or +less, and latterly altogether, an apostate from the principle that the +first and last duty of man is summed up in _ecrasons l'infame_. + +This latter writer has had vicissitudes both in English and French +appreciation. We translated him early, and he had an immense influence +on the general Edgeworthian school, and on Miss Edgeworth herself. Much +later Mr. Ruskin "took him up."[386] But neither his good nor his bad +points have, for a long time, been such as greatly to commend +themselves, either to the major part of the nineteenth century, or to +what has yet passed of the twentieth, on either side of the channel. + +He was, no doubt, only a second-class man of letters, and though he +ranks really high in this class, he was unfortunately much influenced by +more or less passing fashions, fads, and fancies of his +time--_sensibilite_ (see next chapter) philosophism, +politico-philanthropic economy, and what not. He was also much of a +"polygraph," and naturally a good deal of his polygraphy does not +concern us, though parts of his _Memoirs_, especially the rather +well-known accounts of his sufferings as a new-comer[387] in the +atrocious Bastille, show capital tale-telling faculty. His unequal +criticism, sometimes very acute, hardly concerns us at all; his _Essai +sur les Romans_ being very disappointing.[388] But he wrote not a little +which must, in different ways and "strengths," be classed as actual +fiction, and this concerns us pretty nearly, both as evidencing that +general set towards the novel which is so important, and also in detail. + +[Sidenote: His "Telemachic" imitations worth little.] + +It divides itself quite obviously into two classes, the almost didactic +matter of _Belisaire_ and _Les Incas_, and the still partly didactic, +but much more "fictionised" _Contes Moraux_. The first part (which is +evidently of the family of _Telemaque_) may be rapidly dismissed. Except +for its good French and good intentions, it has long had, and is likely +always to have, very little to say for itself. We have seen that Prevost +attempted a sort of quasi-historical novel. Of actual history there is +little in _Belisaire_, rather more in _Les Incas_. But historical fact +and story-telling art are entirely subordinated in both to moral +purpose, endless talk about virtue and the affections and justice and +all the rest of it--the sort of thing, in short, which provoked the +immortal outburst, "In the name of the Devil and his grandmother, _be_ +virtuous and have done with it!" There is, as has just been said, a +great deal of this in the _Contes_ also; but fortunately there is +something else. + +[Sidenote: The best of his _Contes Moraux_ worth a good deal.] + +The something else is not to be found in the "Sensibility" parts,[389] +and could not be expected to be. They do, indeed, contain perhaps the +most absolutely ludicrous instance of the absurdest side of that +remarkable thing, except Mackenzie's great _trouvaille_ of the +press-gang who unanimously melted into tears[390] at the plea of an +affectionate father. Marmontel's masterpiece is not so very far removed +in subject from this. It represents a good young man, who stirs up the +timorous captain and crew of a ship against an Algerine pirate, and in +the ensuing engagement, sabre in hand, makes a terrible carnage: "As +soon as he sees an African coming on board, he runs to him and cuts him +in half, crying, 'My poor mother!'" The filial hero varies this a +little, when "disembowelling" the Algerine commander, by requesting the +Deity to "have pity on" his parent--a proceeding faintly suggestive of a +survival in his mind of the human-sacrifice period. + +Fortunately, as has been said, it is not always thus: and some of the +tales are amusing in almost the highest degree, being nearly as witty as +Voltaire's, and entirely free from ill-nature and sculduddery. Not that +Marmontel--though a great advocate for marriage, and even (for a +Frenchman of his time) wonderfully favourable to falling in love +_before_ marriage--pretends to be altogether superior to the customs of +his own day. We still sometimes have the "Prendre-Avoir-Quitter" series +of Crebillon,[391] though with fewer details; and Mrs. Newcome would +have been almost more horrified than she was at _Joseph Andrews_ by the +perusal of one of Marmontel's most well-intentioned things, _Annette et +Lubin_. But he never lays himself out for attractions of a doubtful +kind, and none of his best stories, even when they may sometimes involve +bowing in the house of Ashtoreth as well as that of Rimmon, derive their +bait from this kind. Indeed they rather "assume and pass it by" as a +fashion of the time. + +[Sidenote: _Alcibiade ou le Moi._] + +We may take three or four of them as examples. One is the very first of +the collection, _Alcibiade ou le Moi_. Hardly anybody need be told that +the Alcibiades of the tale, though nominally, is not in the least really +the Alcibiades of history, or that his Athens is altogether Paris; while +his Socrates is a kind of _philosophe_, the good points of Voltaire, +Rousseau, and Diderot being combined with the faults of none of them, +and his ladies are persons who--with one exception--simply could not +have existed in Greece. This Alcibiades wishes to be loved "for +himself," and is (not without reason) very doubtful whether he ever has +been, though he is the most popular and "successful" man in Athens. His +_avoir_, for the moment, is concerned with a "Prude." (Were there prudes +in Greece? I think Diogenes would have gladly lent his lantern for the +search.) He is desperately afraid that she only loves him for _her_self. +He determines to try her; takes her, not at her deeds, but at her words, +which are, of course, such as would have made the Greeks laugh as +inextinguishably as their gods once did. She expresses gratitude for his +unselfishness, but is anything but pleased. Divers experiments are tried +by her, and when at last he hopes she will not tempt him any more, +exclaiming that he is really "l'amant le plus fidele, le plus tendre et +le plus respectueux" ... "et le plus sot," adds she, sharply, concluding +the conversation and shutting her, let us say, doors[392] on him. + +He is furious, and tries "Glicerie" (the form might be more Greek), an +_ingenue_ of fifteen, who was "like a rose," who had attracted already +the vows of the most gallant youths, etc. The most brilliant of these +youths instantly retire before the invincible Alcibiades. But in the +first place she wishes that before "explanations"[393] take place, a +marriage shall be arranged; while he, oddly enough, wishes that the +explanations should precede the hymen. Also she is particular about the +consent of her parents: and, finally, when he asks her whether she will +swear constancy against every trial, to be his, and his only, whatever +happens, she replies, with equal firmness and point, "Never!" So he is +furious again. But there is a widow, and, as we have seen in former +cases, there was not, in the French eighteenth century, the illiberal +prejudice against widows expressed by Mr. Weller. She is, of course, +inconsolable for her dear first, but admits, after a time, the +possibility of a dear second. Only it must be kept secret as yet. For a +time Alcibiades behaves nobly, but somehow or other he finds that +everybody knows the fact; he is treated by his lady-love with obvious +superiority; and breaks with her. An interlude with a "magistrate's" +wife, on less proper and more Crebillonish lines, is not more +successful. So one day meeting by the seashore a beautiful courtesan, +Erigone, he determines, in the not contemptible language of that +single-speech poetess, Maria del Occidente, to "descend and sip a lower +draught." He is happy after a fashion with her for two whole months: but +at the end of that time he is beaten in a chariot race, and, going to +Erigone for consolation, finds the winner's vehicle at her door. +Socrates, on being consulted, recommends Glicerie as, after all, the +best of them, in a rather sensible discourse. But the concluding words +of the sage and the story are, as indeed might be expected from +Xanthippe's husband, not entirely optimist: "If your wife is well +conducted and amiable, you will be a happy man; if she is ill-tempered +and a coquette, you will become a philosopher--so you must gain in any +case." An "obvious," perhaps, but a neat and uncommonly well-told story. + +[Sidenote: _Soliman the Second._] + +_Soliman the Second_ is probably the best known of Marmontel's tales, +and it certainly has great merits. It is hardly inferior in wit to +Voltaire, and is entirely free from the smears of uncomeliness and the +sniggers of bad taste which he would have been sure to put in. The +subject is, of course, partly historical, though the reader of Knollys +(and one knows more unhappy persons) will look in vain there, not, +indeed, for Roxelana, but for the _nez retrousse_, which is the +important point of the story. The great Sultan tires of his Asiatic +harem, complaisant but uninteresting, and orders European damsels to be +caught or bought for him. The most noteworthy of the catch or batch are +Elmire, Delia, and Roxelane. Elmire comes first to Soliman's notice, +charms him by her sentimental ways, and reigns for a time, but loses her +piquancy, and (by no means wholly to her satisfaction) is able to avail +herself of the conditional enfranchisement, and return to her country, +which his magnanimity has granted her. Her immediate supplanter, Delia, +is an admirable singer, and possessed of many of the qualifications of +an accomplished _hetaera_. But for that very reason the Sultan tires of +her likewise; and for the same, she is not inconsolable or restive: +indeed she acts as a sort of Lady Pandara, if not to introduce, at any +rate to tame, the third, Roxelane, a French girl of no very regular +beauty, but with infinite attractions, and in particular possessed of +what Mr. Dobson elegantly calls "a madding ineffable nose" of the +_retrousse_ type. + +The first thing the Sultan hears of this damsel is that the Master of +the Eunuchs cannot in the least manage her; for she merely laughs at all +he says. The Sultan, out of curiosity, orders her to be brought to him, +and she immediately cries: "Thank Heaven! here is a face like a man's. +Of course you are the sublime Sultan whose slave I have the honour to +be? Please cashier this disgusting old rascal." To which extremely +irreverent address Soliman makes a dignified reply of the proper kind, +including due reference to "obedience" and his "will." This brings down +a small pageful of raillery from the young person, who asks "whether +this is Turkish gallantry?" suggests that the restrictions of the +seraglio involve a fear that "the skies should rain men," and more than +hints that she should be very glad if they did. For the moment Soliman, +though much taken with her, finds no way of saving his dignity except by +a retreat. The next time he sends for her, or rather announces his own +arrival, she tells the messenger to pack himself off: and when the +Commander of the Faithful does visit her and gives a little good advice, +she is still incorrigible. She will, once more, have nothing to do with +the words _dois_ and _devoir_. When asked if she knows what he is and +what _she_ is, she answers with perfect _aplomb_, "What we are? You are +powerful, and I am pretty; so we are quite on an equality." In the most +painfully confidential and at the same time quite decent manner, she +asks him what he can possibly do with five hundred wives? and, still +more intolerably, tells him that she likes his looks, and has already +loved people who were not worth him. The horror with which this Turkish +soldan, himself so full of sin, ejaculates, "Vous _avez_ aime?" may be +easily imagined, and again she simply puts him to flight. When he gets +over it a little, he sends Delia to negotiate. But Roxelane tells the +go-between to stay to supper, declaring that she herself does not feel +inclined for a _tete-a-tete_ yet, and finally sends him off with this +obliging predecessor and substitute, presenting her with the legendary +handkerchief, which she has actually borrowed from the guileless +Padishah. There is some, but not too much more of it; there can but be +one end; and as he takes her to the Mosque to make her legitimate +Sultana, quite contrary to proper Mussulman usage, he says to himself, +"Is it really possible that a little _retrousse_ nose should upset the +laws of an empire?" Probably, though Marmontel does not say so, he +looked down at the said nose, as he communed with himself, and decided +that cause and effect were not unworthy of each other. There is hardly a +righter and better hit-off tale of the kind, even in French. + +[Sidenote: _The Four Flasks._] + +"The Four Flasks" or "The Adventures of Alcidonis of Megara," a sort of +outside fairy tale, is good, but not quite so good as either of the +former. Alcidonis has a fairy protectress, if not exactly godmother, who +gives him the flasks in question to use in amatory adventures. One, with +purple liquor in it, sets the drinker in full tide of passion; the +second (rose-coloured) causes a sort of flirtation; the third (blue) +leads to sentimental and moderate affection; and the last (pure white) +recovers the experimenter from the effects of any of the others. He +tries all, and all but the last are unsatisfactory, though, much as in +the case of Alcibiades and Glicerie, the blue has a second chance, the +results of which are not revealed. This is the least important of the +group, but is well told. + +[Sidenote: _Heureusement._] + +There is also much good in _Heureusement_, the nearest to a +"Crebillonnade" of all, though the Crebillonesque situations are +ingeniously broken off short. It is told by an old marquise[394] to an +almost equally old abbe, her crony, who only at the last discovers that, +long ago, he himself was very nearly the shepherd of the proverbial +hour. And _Le Mari Sylphe_, which is still more directly connected with +one of Crebillon's actual pieces, and with some of the weaker stories +(_v. sup._) of the _Cabinet des Fees_, would be good if it were not much +too long. Others might be mentioned, but my own favourite, though it has +nothing quite so magnetic in it as the _nez de Roxelane_, is _Le +Philosophe Soi-disant_, a sort of apology for his own clan, in a satire +on its less worthy members, which may seem to hit rather unfairly at +Rousseau, but which is exceedingly amusing. + +[Sidenote: _Le Philosophe Soi-disant._] + +Clarice--one of those so useful young widows of whom the novelists of +this time might have pleaded that they took their ideas of them from the +Apostle St. Paul--has for some time been anxious to know a _philosophe_, +though she has been warned that there are _philosophes_ and +_philosophes_, and that the right kind is neither common nor very fond +of society. She expresses surprise, and says that she has always heard a +_philosophe_ defined as an odd creature who makes it his business to be +like nobody else. "Oh," she is told, "there is no difficulty about +_that_ kind," and one, by name Ariste, is shortly added to her +country-house party. She politely asks him whether he is not a +_philosophe_, and whether philosophy is not a very beautiful thing? He +replies (his special line being sententiousness) that it is simply the +knowledge of good and evil, or, if she prefers it, Wisdom. "Only that?" +says wicked Doris; but Clarice helps him from replying to the scoffer by +going on to ask whether the fruit of Wisdom is not happiness? "And, +Madame, the making others happy." "Dear me," says naive Lucinde, half +under her breath, "I must be a _philosophe_, for I have been told a +hundred times that it only depended on myself to be happy by making +others happy." There is more wickedness from Doris; but Ariste, with a +contemptuous smile, explains that the word "happiness" has more than one +meaning, and that the _philosophe_ kind is different from that at the +disposal and dispensation of a pretty woman. Clarice, admitting this, +asks what _his_ kind of happiness is? The company then proceeds, in the +most reprehensible fashion, to "draw" the sage: and they get from him, +among other things, an admission that he despises everybody, and an +unmistakable touch of disgust when somebody speaks of "his +_semblables_."[395] + +Clarice, however, still plays the amiable and polite hostess, lets him +take her to dinner, and says playfully that she means to reconcile him +to humanity. He altogether declines. Man is a vicious beast, who +persecutes and devours others, he says, making all the time a +particularly good dinner while denouncing the slaughter of animals, and +eulogising the "sparkling brook" while getting slightly drunk. He +declaims against the folly and crime of the modern world in not making +philosophers kings, and announces his intention of seeking complete +solitude. But Clarice, still polite, decides that he must stay with them +a little while, in order to enlighten and improve the company. + +After this, Ariste, in an alley alone, to digest his dinner and walk off +his wine, persuades himself that Clarice has fallen in love with him, +and that, to secure her face and her fortune, he has only got to go on +playing the misanthrope and give her a chance of "taming the bear." The +company, perfectly well knowing his thoughts, determine to play up to +them--not for his greater glory; and Clarice, not quite willingly, +agrees to take the principal part. In a long _tete-a-tete_ he makes his +clumsy court, airs his cheap philosophy, and lets by no means the mere +suggestion of a cloven foot appear, on the subject of virtue and vice. +However, she stands it, though rather disgusted, and confesses to him +that people are suggesting a certain Cleon, a member of the party, as +her second husband; whereon he decries marriage, but proposes himself as +a lover. She reports progress, and is applauded; but the Presidente de +Ponval, another widow, fat, fifty, fond of good fare, possessed of a +fine fortune, but very far from foolish, vows that _she_ will make the +greatest fool of Ariste. Cleon, however, accepts his part; and appears +to be much disturbed at Clarice's attentions to Ariste, who, being shown +to his room, declaims against its luxuries, but avails himself of them +very cheerfully. In the morning he, though rather doubtfully, accepts a +bath; but on his appearance in company Clarice makes remonstrances on +his dress, etc., and actually prevails on him to let a valet curl his +hair. This is an improvement; but she does not like his brown +coat.[396] He must write to Paris and order a suit of _gris-de-lin +clair_, and after some wrangling he consents. But now the Presidente +takes up the running. After expressing the extremest admiration for his +coiffure, she makes a dead set at him, tells him she wants a second +husband whom she can love for himself, and goes off with a passionate +glance, the company letting him casually know that she has ten thousand +crowns a year. He affects to despise this, which is duly reported to her +next morning. She vows vengeance; but he dreams of her (and the crowns) +meanwhile, and with that morning the new suit arrives. He is admiring +himself in it when Cleon comes in, and throws himself on his mercy. He +adores Clarice; Ariste is evidently gaining fatally on her affections; +will he not be generous and abstain from using his advantages? But if +_he_ is really in love Cleon will give her up. + +The hook is, of course, more than singly baited and barbed. Ariste can +at once play the magnanimous man, and be rewarded by the Presidente's +ten thousand a year. He will be off with Clarice and on with Mme. de +Ponval, whom he visits in his new splendour. She admires it hugely, but +is alarmed at seeing him in Clarice's favourite colour. An admirable +conversation follows, in which she constantly draws her ill-bred, +ill-blooded, and self-besotted suitor into addressing her with insults, +under the guise of compliments, and affects to enjoy them. He next +visits Clarice, with whom he finds Cleon, in the depths of despair. She +begins to admire the coat, and to pride herself on her choice, when he +interrupts her, and solemnly resigns her to Cleon. Doris and Lucinde +come in, and everybody is astounded at Ariste's generosity as he takes +Clarice's hand and places it in that of his rival. Then he goes to the +Presidente, and tells her what he has done. She expresses her delight, +and he falls at her feet. Thereupon she throws round his neck a +rose-coloured ribbon (_her_ colours), calls him "her Charming man,"[397] +and insists on showing him to the public as her conquest and captive. He +has no time to refuse, for the door opens and they all appear. "Le +voila," says she, "cet homme si fier qui soupire a mes genoux pour les +beaux yeux de ma cassette! Je vous le livre. Mon role est joue." So +Ariste, tearing his curled hair, and the _gris-de-lin clair_ coat, and, +doubtless, the Presidente's "red rose chain," cursing also terribly, +goes off to write a book against the age, and to prove that nobody is +wise but himself. + +I can hardly imagine more than one cavil being made against this by the +most carping of critics and the most wedded to the crotchet of +"kinds"--that it is too dramatic for a _story_, and that we ought to +have had it as a drama. If this were further twisted into an accusation +of plagiarism from the actual theatre, I think it could be rebutted at +once. The situations separately might be found in many dramas; the +characters in more; but I at least am not aware of any one in which they +had been similarly put together. Of course most if not all of us have +seen actresses who would make Clarice charming, Madame de Ponval +amusing, and Doris and Lucinde very delectable adjuncts; as well as +actors by whom the parts of Cleon and Ariste would be very effectively +worked out. But why we should be troubled to dress, journey, waste time +and money, and get a headache, by going to the theatre, when we can +enjoy all this "in some close corner of [our] brain," I cannot see. As I +read the story in some twenty minutes, I can see _my_ Clarice, _my_ +Madame de Ponval, _my_ Doris and Lucinde and Cleon and Ariste and +Jasmin--the silent but doubtless highly appreciative valet,--and I +rather doubt whether the best company in the world could give me quite +that. + +[Sidenote: A real advance in these.] + +But, even in saying this, full justice has not yet been done to +Marmontel. He has, from our special point of view, made a real further +progress towards the ideal of the ordinary novel--the presentation of +ordinary life. He has borrowed no supernatural aid;[398] he has laid +under contribution no "fie-fie" seasonings; he has sacrificed nothing, +or next to nothing, in these best pieces, whatever he may have done +elsewhere, to purpose and crotchet. He has discarded stuffing, +digression, episode, and other things which weighed on and hampered his +predecessors. In fact there are times when it seems almost unjust, in +this part of his work, to "second" him in the way we have done; though +it must be admitted that if you take his production as a whole he +relapses into the second order. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.] + +The actual books, in anything that can be called fiction, of Bernardin +de Saint-Pierre are of far less merit than Marmontel's; but most people +who have even the slightest knowledge of French literature know why he +cannot be excluded here. Personally, he seems to have been an +ineffectual sort of creature, and in a large part of his rather +voluminous work he is (when he ceases to produce a sort of languid +amusement) a distinctly boring one.[399] He appears to have been +unlucky, but to have helped his own bad luck with the only signs of +effectualness that he ever showed. It is annoying, no doubt, to get +remonstrances from headquarters as to your not sending any work (plans, +reports, etc.) as an engineer, and to find, or think you find, that +your immediate C.O. has suppressed them. But when you charge him with +his disgraceful proceeding, and he, as any French officer in his +position at his time was likely to do, puts his hand on his sword, it is +undiplomatic to rush on another officer who happens to be present, grab +at and draw his weapon (you are apparently not entitled to one), and +attack your chief. Nor when, after some more unsuccessful experiences at +home and abroad, you are on half or no pay, and want employment, would +it seem to be exactly the wisdom of Solomon to give a minister the +choice of employing you on (1) the civilisation of Corsica, (2) the +exploration of the unknown parts of the Western Continent, (3) the +discovery of the sources of the Nile, and (4) a pedestrian tour +throughout India. But, except in the first instance (for the "Citizen of +Geneva" did not meddle much with cold steel), it was all very like a +pupil, and (in the Citizen's later years) a friend, of Rousseau, +carrying out his master's ideas with a stronger dose of Christianity, +but with quite as little common sense. I have not seen (or remembered) +any more exact account of Saint-Pierre's relations with Napoleon than +that given by the excellent Aime-Martin, an academic euphemiser of the +French kind. But, even reading between his lines, they must have been +very funny.[400] + +_Paul et Virginie_, however, is one of those books which, having +attained and long kept a European reputation, cannot be neglected, and +it may be added that it does deserve, though for one thing only, never +to be entirely forgotten. It is chock-full of _sensibilite_, the +characters have no real character, and all healthy-minded persons have +long ago agreed that the concomitant facts, if not causes, of Virginie's +fate are more nasty than the nastiest thing in Diderot or Rabelais.[401] +But the descriptions of the scenery of Mauritius, as sets-off to a +novel, are something new, and something immensely important. _La +Chaumiere Indienne_, though less of a story in size and general texture, +is much better from the point of view of taste. It has touches of real +irony, and almost of humour, though its hero, the good pariah, is a +creature nearly as uninteresting as he is impossible. Yet his "black and +polished" baby is a vivid property, and the descriptions are again +famous. The shorter pieces, _Le Cafe de Surate_, etc., require little +notice. + + * * * * * + +It will, however, have been seen by anybody who can "seize points," that +this _philosophe_ novel, as such, is a really important agent in +bringing on the novel itself to its state of full age. That men like the +three chiefs should take up the form is a great thing; that men who are +not quite chiefs, like Marmontel and Saint-Pierre, should carry it on, +is not a small one. They all do something to get it out of the rough; to +discard--if sometimes also they add--irrelevances; to modernise this one +kind which is perhaps the predestined and acceptable literary product of +modernity. Voltaire originates little, but puts his immense power and +_diable au corps_ into the body of fiction. Rousseau enchains passion in +its service, as Madame de la Fayette, as even Prevost, had not been able +to do before. Diderot indicates, in whatever questionable material, the +vast possibilities of psychological analysis. Marmontel--doing, like +other second-rate talents, almost more _useful_ work than his +betters--rescues the _conte_ from the "demi-rep" condition into which it +had fallen, and, owing to the multifariousness of his examples, does not +entirely subjugate it even to honest purpose; while Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre carries the suggestions of Rousseau still further in the +invaluable department of description. No one, except on the small +scale, is great in plot; no one produces a really individual +character;[402] and it can hardly be said that any one provides +thoroughly achieved novel dialogue. But they have inspired and enlivened +the whole thing as a whole; and if, against this, is to be set the crime +of purpose, that is one not difficult to discard.[403] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[351] His _verse_ tales, even if stories in verse had not by this time +fallen out of our proper range, require little notice. The faculty of +"telling" did not remain with him here, perhaps because it was +prejudicially affected by the "dryness" and unpoetical quality of his +poetry, and of the French poetry of the time generally, perhaps for +other reasons. At any rate, as compared with La Fontaine or Prior, he +hardly counts. _Le Mondain_, _Le Pauvre Diable_, etc., are skits or +squibs in verse, not tales. The opening one of the usual collection, _Ce +qui plait aux Dames_,--in itself a flat rehandling of Chaucer and +Dryden,--is saved by its charming last line-- + + Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son merite, + +a rede which he himself might well have recked. + +[352] In justice to Voltaire it ought to be remembered that no less +great, virtuous, and religious a person than Milton ranked as one of the +two objects to which "all mortals most aspire," "to offend your +enemies." + +[353] It has been noted above (see p. 266, _note_), how some have +directly traced _Zadig_ to the work of a person so much inferior to +Hamilton as Gueulette. + +[354] _Micromegas_ and one or two other things avowed--in fact, +Voltaire, if not "great," was "big" enough to make as a rule little +secret of his levies on others; and he had, if not adequate, a +considerable, respect for the English Titan. + +[355] Cacambo was not a savage, but he had savage or, at least, +non-European blood in him. + +[356] Not in the Grandisonian sense, thank heaven! But as has been +hinted, he is a _little_ of a prig. + +[357] He has been allowed a great deal of credit for the Calas and some +other similar businesses. It is unlucky that the injustices he combated +were somehow always _clerical_, in this or that fashion. + +[358] It was said of them at their appearance "[cet] ouvrage est sans +gout, sans finesse, sans invention, un rabachage de toutes les vieilles +polissonneries que l'auteur a debitees sur Moise, et Jesus-Christ, les +prophetes et les apotres, l'Eglise, les papes, les cardinaux, les +pretres et les moines; nul interet, nulle chaleur, nulle vraisemblance, +force ordures, une grosse gaiete.... Je n'aime pas la religion: mais je +ne la hais pas assez pour trouver cela bon." The authorship, added to +the justice of it, makes this one of the most crushing censures ever +committed to paper; for the writer was Diderot (_Oeuvres_, Ed. Assezat, +vi. 36). + +[359] It is a singular coincidence that this was exactly the sum which +Johnson mentioned to Boswell as capable of affording decent subsistence +in London during the early middle eighteenth century. + +[360] _Songe de Platon_, _Bababec et les Fakirs_, _Aventure de la +Memoire_, _Les Aveugles Juges des Conteurs_, _Aventure Indienne_, and +_Voyage de la Raison_. + +[361] It is only fair to mention in this place, and in justice to a much +abused institution, that this Babylonian story is said to be the only +thing of its kind and its author that escaped the Roman censorship. If +this is true, the unfeathered _perroquets_ were not so spiteful as the +feathered ones too often are. Or perhaps each chuckled at the satire on +his brethren. + +[362] As with other controverted points, not strictly relevant, it is +permissible for us to neglect protests about _la legende des +philosophes_ and the like. Of course Rousseau was not only, at one time +or another, the personal enemy of Voltaire and Diderot--he was, at one +time or another, the personal enemy of everybody, including (not at any +one but at all times) himself--but held principles very different from +theirs. Yet their names will always be found together: and for our +object the junction is real. + +[363] Not the Abbe, who had been dead for some years, but a Genevese +professor who saw a good deal of Jean-Jacques in his later days. + +[364] "For short" _La Nouvelle Heloise_ has been usually adopted. I +prefer _Julie_ as actually the first title, and for other reasons with +which it is unnecessary to trouble the reader. + +[365] She dies after slipping into the lake in a successful attempt to +rescue one of her children; but neither is drowned, and she does not +succumb rapidly enough for "shock" to account for it, or slowly enough +for any other intelligible malady to hold its course. + +[366] There is another curious anticipation of Dickens here: for Julie, +as Dora does with Agnes, entreats Claire to "fill her vacant +place"--though, by the way, not with her husband. And a third parallel, +between Saint-Preux and Bradley Headstone, need not be quite farcical. + +[367] You _may_ tear out Introductions, if you do it neatly; and this I +say, having written many. + +[368] Also Rousseau, without meaning it, has made him by no means a +fool. When, on learning from his wife and daughter that Saint-Preux had +been officiating as "coach," he asked if this genius was a gentleman, +and on hearing that he was not, replied, "What have you paid him, then?" +it was not, as the novelist and his hero took it, in their vanity, to +be, mere insolence of caste. M. d'Etange knew perfectly well that though +he could not trust a French gentleman with his wife, there was not +nearly so much danger with his daughter--while a _roturier_ was not only +entitled to be paid, and might accept pay without derogation, but was +not unlikely, as the old North Country saying goes, to take it in malt +if he did not receive it in meal. + +[369] I observe that I have not yet fulfilled the promise of saying +something of Wolmar, but the less said of him the better. He belongs +wholly to that latter portion which has been wished away; he is a +respectable Deist--than which it is essentially impossible, one would +suppose, for orthodoxy and unorthodoxy alike to imagine anything more +uninteresting; and his behaviour to Saint-Preux appears to me to be +simply nauseous. He cannot, like Rowena, "forgive as a Christian," +because he is not one, and any other form of forgiveness or even of +tolerance is, in the circumstances, disgusting. But it was Rousseau's +way to be disgusting sometimes. + +[370] We have spoken of his attempt at the fairy tale; _qui_ Gomersal +_non odit_ in English verse, _amet Le Levite d'Ephraim_ in French prose, +etc. etc. + +[371] He did not even, as Rousseau did with his human offspring, +habitually take them to the Foundling Hospital--that is to say, in the +case of literature, the anonymous press. He left them in MS., gave them +away, and in some cases behaved to them in such an incomprehensible +fashion that one wonders how they ever came to light. + +[372] Carlyle's _Essay_ and Lord Morley of Blackburn's book are +excepted. But Carlyle had not the whole before him, and Lord Morley was +principally dealing with the _Encyclopedie_. + +[373] Especially as Genin, like Carlyle, did not know all. There is, I +believe, a later selection, but I have not seen it. + +[374] Even the long, odd, and sometimes tedious _Reve de D'Alembert_, +which Carlyle thought "we could have done without," but which others +have extolled, has vivid narrative touches, though one is not much +surprised at Mlle. de Lespinasse having been by no means grateful for +the part assigned to her. + +[375] The cleansing effect of war is an old _cliche_. It has been +curiously illustrated in this case: for the first proof of the present +passage reached me on the very same day with the news of the expulsion +of the Germans from the village of Puisieux. So the name got +"_red_-washed" from its old reproach. + +[376] There really are touches of resemblance in it to Browning, +especially in things like _Mr. Sludge the Medium_. + +[377] The corporal's wound in the knee. + +[378] Of course, there _are_ exceptions, and with one of the chief of +them, Xavier de Maistre, we may have, before long, to deal. + +[379] His longest, most avowed, and most famous, the _Paradoxe sur le +Comedien_, has been worthily Englished by Mr. Walter H. Pollock. + +[380] Its heroine, Suzanne Simonin, was, as far as the attempt to +relieve herself of her vows went, a real person; and a benevolent +nobleman, the Marquis de Croixmare, actually interested himself in this +attempt--which failed. But Diderot and his evil angel Grimm got up sham +letters between themselves and her patron, which are usually printed +with the book. + +[381] _Mon pere, je suis damnee_ ... the opening words, and the only +ones given, of the confession of the half-mad abbess. + +[382] Evangelical Protestantism has more than once adopted the principle +that the Devil should not be allowed to have all the best tunes: and I +remember in my youth an English religious novel of ultra-anti-Roman +purpose, which, though, of course, dropping the "scabrousness," had, as +I long afterwards recognised when I came to read _La Religieuse_, almost +certainly borrowed a good deal from our most unsaintly Denis of Langres. + +[383] She seems to have been, in many ways, far too good for her +society, and altogether a lady.--The opinions of the late M. Brunetiere +and mine on French literature were often very different--though he was +good enough not to disapprove of some of my work on it. But with the +terms of his expression of mere opinion one had seldom to quarrel. I +must, however, take exception to his attribution of _grossierete_ to _La +Religieuse_. Diderot, as has been fully admitted, _was_ too often +_grossier_: sometimes when it was almost irrelevant to the subject. But +here, "scabrous" as the subject might be, the treatment is scrupulously +_not_ coarse. Nor do I think, after intimate and long familiarity with +the whole of his work, that he was ever a _faux bonhomme_. + +[384] They have hardly had a fair opportunity of comparison with +Voltaire's _Dictionnaire Philosophique_; but they can stand it. + +[385] Unless Dulaurens' not quite stupid, but formless and +discreditable, _Compere Mathieu_ be excepted. + +[386] In consequence of which Mr. Ruskin's favourite publisher, the late +Mr. George Allen, asked the present writer, some twenty years ago, to +revise and "introduce" the old translation of his _Contes Moraux_. The +volume had, at least, the advantage of very charming illustrations by +Miss Chris. Hammond. + +[387] They were even worse than Leigh Hunt's in the strictly English +counterpart torture-house for the victims of tyranny--consisting, for +instance, in the supply of so good a dinner, at His Most Christian +Majesty's expense, for the prisoner's servant, that the prisoner ate it +himself, and had afterwards, on the principles of rigid virtue and +distributive justice, to resign, to the minion who accompanied him, his +own still better one which came later, also supplied by the tyrant. + +[388] One expects something of value from the part-contemporary, +part-successor of the novelists from Lesage to Rousseau. But where it is +not mere blether about virtue and vice, and _le coeur humain_ and so on, +it has some of the worst faults of eighteenth-century criticism. He +thinks it would have been more "moral" if Mme. de Cleves had actually +succumbed as a punishment for her self-reliance (certainly one of the +most remarkable topsyturvifications of morality ever crotcheted); is, of +course, infinitely shocked at being asked and induced to "interest +himself in a prostitute and a card-sharper" by _Manon Lescaut_; and, +equally of course, extols Richardson, though it is fair to say that he +speaks well of _Tom Jones_. + +[389] See next chapter. + +[390] I wonder whether any one else has noticed that Thackeray, in the +very agreeable illustration to one of not quite his greatest +"letterpress" things, _A New Naval Drama_ (Oxford Ed. vol. viii. p. +421), makes the press-gang weep ostentatiously in the picture, though +not in the text, where they only wave their cutlasses. It may be merely +a coincidence: but it may not. + +[391] There are reasons for thinking that Marmontel was deliberately +"antidoting the _fanfreluches_" of the older tale-teller. + +[392] In the original, suiting the rest of the setting, it is _rideaux_. + +[393] "Explanations" is quite admirable, and, I think, neither borrowed +from, nor, which is more surprising, by others. + +[394] She declares that she has never actually "stooped to folly"; but +admits that on more than one occasion it was only an accidental +interruption which "luckily" (_heureusement_) saved her. + +[395] It is necessary to retain the French here: for our "likes" is +ambiguous. + +[396] Cf. the stories, contradictory of each other, as to _our_ +brown-coated philosopher's appearance in France. (Boswell, p. 322, Globe +ed.) + +[397] Cf. again the bestowal of this title by Horace Walpole, in his +later days, on Edward Jerningham, playwright, poetaster, and _petit +maitre_, who, unluckily for himself, lived into the more roughly +satirical times of the Revolutionary War. + +[398] "The _sylph_ishness of _Le Mari Sylphe_ is only an ingenious and +defensible fraud; and the philtre-flasks of _Alcidonis_ are little more +than "properties."" + +[399] Here is a specimen of his largest and most ambitious production, +the _Etudes de la Nature_. "La femelle du tigre, exhalant l'odeur du +carnage, fait retentir les solitudes de l'Afrique de ses miaulements +affreux, et parait remplie d'attraits a ses cruels amants." By an odd +chance, I once saw a real scene contrasting remarkably with +Saint-Pierre's sentimental melodrama. It was in the Clifton Zoological +Gardens, which, as possibly some readers may know, were at one time +regarded as particularly home-like by the larger carnivora. It was a +very fine day, and an equally fine young tigress was endeavouring to +attract the attention of her cruel lover. She rolled delicately about, +like a very large, very pretty, and exceptionally graceful cat; she made +fantastic gestures with her paws and tail; and she purred literally "as +gently as any sucking dove"--_roucoulement_ was the only word for it. +But her "lover," though he certainly looked "cruel" and as if he would +very much like to eat _me_, appeared totally indifferent to her +attractions. + +[400] So, also, when one is told that he called his son Paul and his +daughter Virginie, it is cheerful to remember, with a pleasant sense of +contrast, Scott's good-humoured contempt for the tourists who wanted to +know whether Abbotsford was to be called Tullyveolan or Tillietudlem. + +[401] As the story is not now, I believe, the universal school-book it +once was, something more than mere allusion may be desirable. The ship +in which Virginie is returning to the Isle of France gets into shallows +during a hurricane, and is being beaten to pieces close to land. One +stalwart sailor, stripped to swim for his life, approaches Virginie, +imploring her to strip likewise and let him try to pilot her through the +surf. But she (like the lady in the coach, at an early part of _Joseph +Andrews_) won't so much as look at a naked man, clasps her arms round +her own garments, and is very deservedly drowned. The sailor, to one's +great relief, is not. + +[402] Julie herself is an intense type rather than individual. + +[403] I have not thought it necessary, except in regard to those of them +who have been touched in treating of the _Cabinet des Fees_, to speak at +any length of the minor tale-tellers of the century. They are sometimes +not bad reading; but as a whole minor in almost all senses. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"SENSIBILITY." MINOR AND LATER NOVELISTS. + +THE FRENCH NOVEL, _C._ 1800 + + +[Sidenote: "Sensibility."] + +Frequent reference has been made, in the last two chapters, to the +curious phenomenon called in French _sensibilite_ (with a derivative of +contempt, _sensiblerie_), the exact English form of which supplies part +of the title, and the meaning an even greater part of the subject, of +one of Miss Austen's novels. The thing itself appears first +definitely[404] in Madame de la Fayette, largely, though not unmixedly, +in Marivaux, and to some extent in Prevost and Marmontel, while it is, +as it were, sublimed in Rousseau, and present very strongly in +Saint-Pierre. There are, however, some minor writers and books +displaying it in some cases even more extensively and intensively; and +in this final chapter of the present volume they may appropriately find +a place, not merely because some of them are late, but because +Sensibility is not confined to any part of the century, but, beginning +before its birth, continued till after its end. We may thus have to +encroach on the nineteenth a little, but more in appearance than in +reality. In quintessence, and as a reigning fashion, Sensibility was the +property of the eighteenth century.[405] + +[Sidenote: A glance at Miss Austen.] + +To recur for a moment to Miss Austen and _Sense and Sensibility_, +everybody has laughed, let us hope not unkindly, over Marianne +Dashwood's woes. But she herself was only an example, exaggerated in the +genial fashion of her creatress, of the proper and recognised standard +of feminine feeling in and long before her time. The "man of feeling" +was admitted as something out of the way--on which side of the way +opinions might differ. But the woman of feeling was emphatically the +accepted type--a type which lasted far into the next century, though it +was obsolete at least by the Mid-Victorian period, of which some do so +vainly talk. The extraordinary development of emotion which was expected +from women need not be illustrated merely from love-stories. The +wonderful transports of Miss Ferrier's heroines at sight of their +long-lost mothers; even those of sober Fanny Price in _Mansfield Park_, +at the recovery of her estimable but not particularly interesting +brother William, give the keynote much better than any more questionable +ecstasies. "Sensibility, so charming," was the pet affectation of the +period--an affectation carried on till it became quite natural, and was +only cured by the half-caricature, half-reaction of Byronism. + +[Sidenote: The thing essentially French.] + +The thing, however, was not English in origin, and never was thoroughly +English at all. The main current of the Sensibility novelists, who +impressed their curious morals or manners on all men and women in +civilised Europe, was French in unbroken succession, from the day when +Madame de la Fayette first broke ground against the ponderous romances +of Madeleine de Scudery, to the day when Benjamin Constant forged, in +_Adolphe_, the link between eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century +romance, between the novel of sentiment and the novel of analysis. + +[Sidenote: Its history.] + +Of the relations to it of the greater novelists of the main century we +have already spoken: and as for the two greatest of the extreme close, +Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael, they mix too many secondary purposes +with their philandering, and moreover do not form part of the plan of +the present volume. For the true Sensibility, the odd quintessence of +conventional feeling, played at steadily till it is half real, if not +wholly so, which ends in the peculiarities of two such wholesome young +Britonesses as Marianne Dashwood and Fanny Price, we must look +elsewhere. After Madame de la Fayette, and excluding with her other +names already treated, we come to Madame de Fontaines, Madame de Tencin +(most heartless and therefore naturally not least sentimental of women), +Madame Riccoboni, the group of lady-novelists of whom Mesdames de Souza +and de Duras are the chief, and, finally, the two really remarkable +names of Xavier de Maistre and Benjamin Constant. These are our +"documents." Even the minor subjects of this inquiry are pleasant pieces +of literary _bric-a-brac_; perhaps they are something a little more than +that. For Sensibility was actually once a great power in the world. +Transformed a little, it did wonderful things in the hands of Rousseau +and Goethe and Chateaubriand and Byron. It lingers in odd nooks and +corners even at the present day, when it is usually and irreverently +called "gush," and Heaven only knows whether it may not be resuscitated +in full force before some of us are dead.[406] For it has exactly the +peculiarities which characterise all recurrent fashions--the appeal to +something which is genuine connected with the suggestion of a great deal +that is not. + +[Sidenote: Mme. de Tencin and _Le Comte de Comminge_.] + +In the followers of Madame de la Fayette[407] we find that a good many +years have passed by. The jargon appropriated to the subject has grown +still more official; and instead of using it to express genuine +sentiments, which in another language might deserve expression well +enough, the characters are constantly suspected by the callous modern +reader or elaborately, though perhaps unconsciously, feigning the +sentiments which the jargon seems to imply that they ought to have. This +is somewhat less noticeable in the work of Madame de Tencin than +elsewhere, because d'Alembert's mother was so very much cleverer a +person than the generality of the novel-writers of her day that she +could hardly fail to hide defects more cunningly. But it is evident +enough in the _Comte de Comminge_ and in the _Malheurs de l'Amour_. +Having as questionable morals as any lady of the time (the time of the +Regency), Madame de Tencin of course always had a moral purpose in her +writings, and this again gives her books a certain difference. But, like +the former, this difference only exposes, all the more clearly, the +defects of the style, and the drawbacks from which it was almost +impossible that those who practised it should escape. + +Madame de Tencin tried to escape by several gates. Besides her moral +purposes and her _esprit_, she indulged in a good deal of rather +complicated and sometimes extravagant incident. _M. de Comminge_, which +is very short, contains, not to mention other things, the rather +startling detail of a son who, out of chivalrous affection for his +lady-love, burns certain of his father's title-deeds which he has been +charged to recover, and the still more startling incident of the heroine +living for some years in disguise as a monk. The following epistle, +however, from the heroine to the hero, will show better than anything +else the topsy-turvy condition which sensibility had already reached. +All that need be said in explanation of it is that the father (who is +furious with his son, and not unreasonably so) has shut him up in a +dungeon, in order to force him to give up his beloved Adelaide.[408] + + Your father's fury has told me all I owe you: I know what + your generosity had concealed from me. I know, too, the + terrible situation in which you are, and I have no means of + extracting you therefrom save one. This will perhaps make + you more unhappy still. But I shall be as unhappy as + yourself, _and this gives me the courage to do what I am + required to do_. They would have me, by engaging myself to + another, give a pledge never to be yours: 'tis at this price + that M. de Comminge sets your liberty. It will cost me + perhaps my life, certainly my peace. But I am resolved. I + shall in a few days be married to the Marquis de Benavides. + What I know of his character forewarns me of what I shall + have to suffer; _but I owe you at least so much constancy as + to make only misery for myself in the engagement I am + contracting_. + +The extremity of calculated absurdity indicated by the italicised +passages was reached, let it be remembered, by one of the cleverest +women of the century: and the chief excuse for it is that the +restrictions of the La Fayette novel, confined as it was to the upper +classes and to a limited number of elaborately distressing situations, +were very embarrassing. + +[Sidenote: Mme. Riccoboni and _Le Marquis de Cressy_.] + +Madame Riccoboni, mentioned earlier as continuing _Marianne_, shows the +completed product very fairly. Her _Histoire du Marquis de Cressy_ is a +capital example of the kind. The Marquis is beloved by a charming girl +of sixteen and by a charming widow of six-and-twenty. An envious rival +betrays his attentions to Adelaide de Bugei, and her father makes her +write an epistle which pretty clearly gives him the option of a +declaration in form or a rupture. For a Sensible man, it must be +confessed, the Marquis does not get out of the difficulty too well. She +has slipped into her father's formal note the highly Sensible +postscript, "Vous dire de m'oublier? Ah! Jamais. On m'a force de +l'ecrire; rien ne peut m'obliger a le penser ni le desirer." Apparently +it was not leap-year, for the Marquis replied in a letter nearly as bad +as Willoughby's celebrated epistle in _Sense and Sensibility_. + + MADEMOISELLE,--Nothing can console me for having been the + innocent cause of fault being found with the conduct of a + person so worthy of respect as you. I shall approve whatever + you may think proper to do, without considering myself + entitled to ask the reason of your behaviour. How happy + should I be, mademoiselle, if my fortune, and the + arrangements which it forces me to make, did not deprive me + of the sweet hope of an honour of which my respect and my + sentiments would perhaps make me worthy, but which my + present circumstances permit me not to seek. + +Sensibility does not seem to have seen anything very unhandsome in this +broad refusal to throw the handkerchief; but though not unhandsome, it +could not be considered satisfactory to the heart. So M. de Cressy +despatches this private note to Adelaide by "Machiavel the +waiting-maid"-- + + Is it permitted to a wretch who has deprived himself of the + greatest of blessings, to dare to ask your pardon and your + pity? Never did love kindle a flame purer and more ardent + than that with which my heart burns for the amiable + Adelaide. Why have I not been able to give her those proofs + of it which she had the right to expect? Ah! mademoiselle, + how could I bind you to the lot of a wretch all whose wishes + even you perhaps would not fulfil? who, when he possessed + you, though master of so dear, so precious a blessing, might + regret others less estimable, but which have been the object + of his hope and desire, etc. etc. + +This means that M. de Cressy is ambitious, and wants a wife who will +assist his views. The compliment is doubtful, and Adelaide receives it +in approved fashion. She opens it "with a violent emotion," and her +"trouble was so great in reading it through, that she had to begin it +again many times before she understood it." The exceedingly dubious +nature of the compliment, however, strikes her, and "tears of regret and +indignation rise to her eyes"--tears which indeed are excusable even +from a different point of view than that of Sensibility. She is far, +however, from blaming that sacred emotion. "Ce n'est pas," she says; "de +notre sensibilite, mais de l'objet qui l'a fait naitre, que nous devons +nous plaindre." This point seems arguable if it were proper to argue +with a lady. + +The next letter to be cited is from Adelaide's unconscious rival, whose +conduct is--translated into the language of Sensibility, and adjusted +to the manners of the time and class--a ludicrous anticipation of the +Pickwickian widow. She buys a handsome scarf, and sends it anonymously +to the victorious Marquis just before a Court ball, with this letter-- + + A sentiment, tender, timid, and shy of making itself known, + gives me an interest in penetrating the secrets of your + heart. You are thought indifferent; you seem to me + insensible. Perhaps you are happy, and discreet in your + happiness. Deign to tell me the secret of your soul, and be + sure that I am not unworthy of your confidence. If you have + no love for any one, wear this scarf at the ball. Your + compliance may lead you to a fate which others envy. She who + feels inclined to prefer you is worthy of your attentions, + and the step she takes to let you know it is the first + weakness which she has to confess. + +The modesty of this perhaps leaves something to desire, but its +Sensibility is irreproachable. There is no need to analyse the story of +the _Marquis de Cressy_, which is a very little book[409] and not +extremely edifying. But it supplies us with another _locus classicus_ on +sentimental manners. M. de Cressy has behaved very badly to Adelaide, +and has married the widow with the scarf. He receives a letter from +Adelaide on the day on which she takes the black veil-- + + 'Tis from the depths of an asylum, where I fear no more the + perfidy of your sex, that I bid you an eternal adieu. Birth, + wealth, honours, all vanish from my sight. My youth withered + by grief, my power of enjoyment destroyed, love past, memory + present, and regret still too deeply felt, all combine to + bury me in this retreat. + +And so forth, all of which, if a little high-flown, is not specially +unnatural; but the oddity of the passage is to come. Most men would be a +little embarrassed at receiving such a letter as this in presence of +their wives (it is to be observed that the unhappy Adelaide is profuse +of pardons to Madame as well as to Monsieur de Cressy), and most wives +would not be pleased when they read it. But Madame de Cressy has the +finest Sensibility of the amiable kind. She reads it, and then-- + + The Marquise, having finished this letter, cast herself into + the arms of her husband, and clasping him with an + inexpressible tenderness, "Weep, sir, weep," she cried, + bathing him with her own tears; "you cannot show too much + sensibility for a heart so noble, so constant in its love. + Amiable and dear Adelaide! 'Tis done, then, and we have lost + you for ever. Ah! why must I reproach myself with having + deprived you of the only possession which excited your + desires? Can I not enjoy this sweet boon without telling + myself that my happiness has destroyed yours?" + +[Sidenote: Her other work--_Milady Catesby_.] + +All Madame Riccoboni's work is, with a little good-will, more or less +interesting. Much of it is full of italics, which never were used so +freely in France as in England, but which seem to suit the queer, +exaggerated, topsy-turvyfied sentiments and expressions very well. The +_Histoire d'Ernestine_ in particular is a charming little novelette. But +if it were possible to give an abstract of any of her work here, _Milady +Catesby_, which does us the honour to take its scene and personages from +England, would be the one to choose. _Milady Catesby_ is well worth +comparing with _Evelina_, which is some twenty years its junior, and the +sentimental parts of which are quite in the same tone with it. Lord +Ossery is indeed even more "sensible" than Lord Orville, but then he is +described in French. Lady Catesby herself is, however, a model of the +style, as when she writes-- + + Oh! my dear Henrietta! What agitation in my senses! what + trouble in my soul!... I have seen him.... He has spoken to + me.... Himself.... He was at the ball.... Yes! he. Lord + Ossery.... Ah! tell me not again to see him.... Bid me not + hear him once more. + +That will do for Lady Catesby, who really had no particular occasion or +excuse for all this excitement except Sensibility. But Sensibility was +getting more and more exacting. The hero of a novel must always be in +the heroics, the heroine in a continual state of palpitation. We are +already a long way from Madame de la Fayette's stately passions, from +Marianne's whimsical _minauderies_. All the resources of +typography--exclamations, points, dashes--have to be called in to +express the generally disturbed state of things. Now unfortunately this +sort of perpetual tempest in a teacup (for it generally is in a teacup) +requires unusual genius to make it anything but ludicrous. I myself have +not the least desire to laugh when I read such a book as _La Nouvelle +Heloise_, and I venture to think that any one who does laugh must have +something of the fool and something of the brute in his composition. But +then Rousseau is Rousseau, and there are not many like him. At the +Madame Riccobonis of this world, however clever they may be, it is +difficult not to laugh, when they have to dance on such extraordinary +tight ropes as those which Sensibility prescribed. + +[Sidenote: Mme. de Beaumont--_Lettres du Marquis de Roselle_.] + +The writers who were contemporary with Madame Riccoboni's later days, +and who followed her, pushed the thing, if it were possible, even +farther. In Madame de Genlis's tiny novelette of _Mademoiselle de +Clermont_, the amount of tears shed, the way in which the knees of the +characters knock together, their palenesses, blushes, tears, sighs, and +other performances of the same kind, are surprising. In the _Lettres du +Marquis de Roselle_ of Madame Elie de Beaumont (wife of the young +advocate who defended the Calas family), a long scene between a brother +and sister, in which the sister seeks to deter the brother from what she +regards as a misalliance, ends (or at least almost ends, for the usual +flood of tears is the actual conclusion) in this remarkable passage. + + "And I," cried he suddenly with a kind of fury, "I suppose + that a sister who loves her brother, pities and does not + insult him; that the Marquis de Roselle knows better what + can make him happy than the Countess of St. Sever; and that + he is free, independent, able to dispose of himself, in + spite of all opposition." With these words he turned to + leave the room brusquely. I run to him, I stop him, he + resists. "My brother!" "I have no sister." He makes a + movement to free himself: he was about to escape me. "Oh, my + father!" I cried. "Oh, my mother! come to my help." At these + sacred names he started, stopped, and _allowed himself to be + conducted to a sofa_. + +[Sidenote: Mme. de Souza.] + +This unlucky termination might be paralleled from many other places, +even from the agreeable writings of Madame de Souza. This writer, by the +way, when the father of one of her heroes refuses to consent to his +son's marriage, makes the stern parent yield to a representation that by +not doing so he will "authorise by anticipation a want of filial +attachment and respect" in the grandchildren who do not as yet exist. +These excursions into the preposterous in search of something new in the +way of noble sentiment or affecting emotion--these whippings and +spurrings of the feelings and the fancy--characterise all the later work +of the school. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Xavier de Maistre.] + +Two names of great literary value and interest close the list of the +novelists of Sensibility in France, and show at once its Nemesis and its +caricature. They were almost contemporaries, and by a curious +coincidence neither was a Frenchman by birth. It would be impossible to +imagine a greater contrast than existed personally between Xavier de +Maistre and Henri Benjamin de Constant-Rebecque, commonly called +Benjamin Constant. But their personalities, interesting as both are, are +not the matter of principal concern here. The _Voyage autour de ma +Chambre_, its sequel the _Expedition Nocturne_, and the _Lepreux de la +Cite d'Aoste_, exhibit one branch of the river of Sensibility (if one +may be permitted to draw up a new Carte de Tendre), losing itself in +agreeable trifling with the surface of life, and in generous, but +fleeting, and slightly, though not consciously, insincere indulgence of +the emotions. In _Adolphe_ the river rushes violently down a steep +place, and _in nigras lethargi mergitur undas_. It is to be hoped that +most people who will read these pages know Xavier de Maistre's charming +little books; it is probable that at least some of them do not know +_Adolphe_. Constant is the more strictly original of the two authors, +for Xavier de Maistre owes a heavy debt to Sterne, though he employs the +borrowed capital so well that he makes it his own, while _Adolphe_ can +only be said to come after _Werther_ and _Rene_ in time, not in the +least to follow them in nature. + +The _Voyage autour de ma Chambre_ (readers may be informed or reminded) +is a whimsical description of the author's meditations and experiences +when confined to barracks for some military peccadillo. After a fashion +which has found endless imitators since, the prisoner contemplates the +various objects in his room, spins little romances to himself about them +and about his beloved Madame de Hautcastel, moralises on the +faithfulness of his servant Joannetti, and so forth. The _Expedition +Nocturne_, a less popular sequel, is not very different in plan. The +_Lepreux de la Cite d'Aoste_ is a very short story, telling how the +narrator finds a sufferer from the most terrible of all diseases lodged +in a garden-house, and of their dialogue. The chief merit of these +works, as of the less mannerised and more direct _Prisonnier du Caucase_ +and _Jeune Siberienne_, resides in their dainty style, in their singular +narrative power (Sainte-Beuve says justly enough that the _Prisonnier du +Caucase_ has been equalled by no other writer except Merimee), and in +the remarkable charm of the personality of the author, which escapes at +every moment from the work. The pleasant picture of the Chevalier de +B---- in the _Soirees de St. Petersbourg_, which Joseph de Maistre is +said to have drawn from his less formidable brother, often suggests +itself as one follows the whimsicalities of the _Voyage_ and the +_Expedition_. The affectation is so natural, the mannerism so simple, +that it is some time before one realises how great in degree both are. + +[Sidenote: His illustrations on the lighter side of Sensibility.] + +Looked at from a certain point of view, Xavier de Maistre illustrates +the effect of the Sensibility theory on a thoroughly good-natured, +cultivated, and well-bred man of no particular force or character or +strength of emotion. He has not the least intention of taking +Sensibility seriously, but it is the proper thing to take it somehow or +other. So he sets himself to work to be a man of feeling and a humorist +at the same time. His encounter with the leper is so freshly and simply +told, there is such an air of genuineness about it, that it seems at +first sight not merely harsh, but unappreciative, to compare it to +Sterne's account of his proceedings with his monks and donkeys, his +imaginary prisoners, and his fictitious ensigns. Yet there is a real +contact between them. Both have the chief note of Sensibility, the +taking an emotion as a thing to be savoured and degusted +deliberately--to be dealt with on scientific principles and strictly +according to the rules of the game. One result of this proceeding, when +pursued for a considerable time, is unavoidably a certain amount of +frivolity, especially in dealing with emotions directly affecting the +player. Sympathy such as that displayed with the leper may be strong and +genuine, because there is no danger about it; there is the _suave mari +magno_ preservative from the risk of a too deep emotion. But in matters +which directly affect the interest of the individual it does not do to +be too serious. The tear of Sensibility must not be dropped in a manner +giving real pain to the dropper. Hence the humoristic attitude. When +Xavier de Maistre informs us that "le grand art de l'homme de genie est +de savoir bien elever sa bete," he means a great deal more than he +supposes himself to mean. The great art of an easy-going person, who +believes it to be his duty to be "sensible," is to arrange for a series +of emotions which can be taken gently. + +The author of the _Voyage_ takes his without any extravagance. He takes +good care not to burn his fingers metaphorically in this matter, though +he tells us that in a fit of absence he did so literally. His affection +for Madame de Hautcastel is certainly not a very passionate kind of +affection, for all his elaborately counted and described heartbeats as +he is dusting her portrait. Indeed, with his usual candour, he leaves us +in no doubt about the matter. "La froide raison," he says, "reprit +bientot son empire." Of course it did; the intelligent, and in the other +sense sensible, person who wishes to preserve his repose must take care +of that. We do not even believe that he really dropped a tear of +repentance on his left shoe when he had unreasonably rated his servant; +it is out of keeping with his own part. He borrowed that tear, either +ironically or by oversight, from Sterne, just as he did "Ma chere +Jenny." He is much more in his element when he proves that a lover is to +his mistress, when she is about to go to a ball, only a "decimal of a +lover," a kind of amatory tailor or ninth part of man; or when, in the +_Expedition_, he meditates on a lady's slipper in the balcony fathoms +below his garret. + +[Sidenote: A sign of decadence.] + +All this illustrates what may be called the attempt to get rid of +Sensibility by the humorist gate of escape. Supposing no such attempt +consciously to exist, it is, at any rate, the sign of an approaching +downfall of Sensibility, of a feeling, on the part of those who have to +do with it, that it is an edged tool, and an awkward one to handle. In +comparing Xavier de Maistre with his master Sterne, it is very +noticeable that while the one in disposition is thoroughly insincere, +and the other thoroughly sincere, yet the insincere man is a true +believer in Sensibility, and the sincere one evidently a semi-heretic. +How far Sterne consciously simulated his droppings of warm tears, and +how far he really meant them, may be a matter of dispute. But he was +quite sincere in believing that they were very creditable things, and +very admirable ones. Xavier de Maistre does not seem by any means so +well convinced of this. He is, at times, not merely evidently pretending +and making believe, but laughing at himself for pretending and making +believe. He still thinks Sensibility a _gratissimus error_, a very +pretty game for persons of refinement to play at, and he plays at it +with a great deal of industry and with a most exquisite skill. But the +spirit of Voltaire, who himself did his _sensibilite_ (in real life, if +not in literature) as sincerely as Sterne, has affected Xavier de +Maistre "with a difference." The Savoyard gentleman is entirely and +unexceptionably orthodox in religion; it may be doubted whether a severe +inquisition in matters of Sensibility would let him off scatheless. It +is not merely that he jests--as, for instance, that when he is imagining +the scene at the Rape of the Sabines, he suddenly fancies that he hears +a cry of despair from one of the visitors. "Dieux immortels! Pourquoi +n'ai-je amene ma femme a la fete?" That is quite proper and allowable. +It is the general tone of levity in the most sentimental moments, the +undercurrent of mockery at his own feelings in this man of feeling, +which is so shocking to Sensibility, and yet it was precisely this that +was inevitable. + +Sensibility, to carry it out properly, required, like other elaborate +games, a very peculiar and elaborate arrangement of conditions. The +parties must be in earnest so far as not to have the slightest suspicion +that they were making themselves ridiculous, and yet not in earnest +enough to make themselves really miserable. They must have plenty of +time to spare, and not be distracted by business, serious study, +political excitement, or other disturbing causes. On the other hand, to +get too much absorbed, and arrive at Werther's end, was destructive not +only to the individual player, but to the spirit of the game. As the +century grew older, and this danger of absorption grew stronger, that +game became more and more difficult to play seriously enough, and yet +not too seriously. When the players did not blow their brains out, they +often fell into the mere libertinism from which Sensibility, properly so +called, is separated by a clear enough line. Two such examples in real +life as Rousseau and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, one such demonstration +of the same moral in fiction as _Werther_, were enough to discourage the +man of feeling. Therefore, when he still exists, he takes to motley, +the only wear for the human race in troublesome circumstances which +beset it with unpleasant recurrence. When you cannot exactly believe +anything in religion, in politics, in literature, in art, and yet +neither wish nor know how to do without it, the safe way is to make a +not too grotesque joke of it. This is a text on which a long sermon +might be hung were it worth while. But as it is, it is sufficient to +point out that Xavier de Maistre is an extremely remarkable illustration +of the fact in the particular region of sentimental fiction. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Benjamin Constant--_Adolphe_.] + +Benjamin Constant's masterpiece, which (the sequel to it never having +appeared, though it was in existence in manuscript less than a century +ago) is also his only purely literary work, is a very small book, but it +calls here for something more than a very small mention. The books which +make an end are almost fewer in literature than those which make a +beginning, and this is one of them. Like most such books, it made a +beginning also, showing the way to Beyle, and through Beyle to all the +analytic school of the nineteenth century. Space would not here suffice +to discuss the singular character of its author, to whom Sainte-Beuve +certainly did some injustice, as the letters to Madame Recamier show, +but whose political and personal experiences as certainly call for a +large allowance of charity. The theory of _Adolphe's_ best editor, M. de +Lescure (which also was the accepted theory long before M. de Lescure's +time), that the heroine of the novel was Madame de Stael, will not, I +think, hold water. In every characteristic, personal and mental, +Ellenore and Madame de Stael are at opposite poles. Ellenore was +beautiful, Madame de Stael was very nearly hideous; Ellenore was +careless of her social position, Corinne was as great a slave to society +as any one who ever lived; Ellenore was somewhat uncultivated, had +little _esprit_, was indifferent to flattery, took not much upon herself +in any way except in exacting affection where no affection existed; the +good Corinne was one of the cleverest women of her time, and thought +herself one of the cleverest of all times, could not endure that any one +in company should be of a different opinion on this point, and insisted +on general admiration and homage. + +However, this is a very minor matter, and anybody is at liberty to +regard the differences as deliberate attempts to disguise the truth. +What is important is that Madame de Stael was almost the last genuine +devotee of Sensibility, and that _Adolphe_ was certainly written by a +lover of Madame de Stael, who had, from his youth up, been a Man of +Feeling of a singularly unfeeling kind. When Constant wrote the book he +had run through the whole gamut of Sensibility. He had been instructed +as a youth[410] by ancient women of letters; he had married and got rid +of his wife _a la mode Germanorum_; he had frequently taken a hint from +_Werther_, and threatened suicide with the best possible results; he had +given, perhaps, the most atrocious example of the atrocious want of +taste which accompanied the decadence of Sensibility, by marrying +Charlotte von Hardenburg out of pique, because Madame de Stael would not +marry him, then going to live with his bride near Coppet, and finally +deserting her, newly married as she was, for her very uncomely but +intellectually interesting rival. In short, according to the theory of a +certain ethical school, that the philosopher who discusses virtue should +be thoroughly conversant with vice, Benjamin Constant was a past master +in Sensibility. It was at a late period in his career, and when he had +only one trial to go through (the trial of, as it seems to me, a sincere +and hopeless affection for Madame Recamier), that he wrote _Adolphe_. +But the book has nothing whatever to do with 1815, the date which it +bears. It is, as has been said, the history of the Nemesis of +Sensibility, the prose commentary by anticipation on Mr. Swinburne's +admirable "Stage Love"-- + + Time was chorus, gave them cues to laugh and cry, + They would kill, befool, amuse him, let him die; + Set him webs to weave to-day and break to-morrow, + Till he died for good in play and rose in sorrow. + +That is a history, in one stanza, of Sensibility, and no better account +than _Adolphe_ exists of the rising in sorrow. + +The story of the book opens in full eighteenth century. A young man, +fresh from the University of Goettingen, goes to finish his education at +the _residenz_ of D----. Here he finds much society, courtly and other. +His chief resort is the house of a certain Count de P----, who lives, +unmarried, with a Polish lady named Ellenore. In the easy-going days of +Sensibility the _menage_ holds a certain place in society, though it is +looked upon a little askance. But Ellenore is, on her own theory, +thoroughly respectable, and the Count de P----, though in danger of his +fortune, is a man of position and rank. As for Adolphe, he is the result +of the struggle between Sensibility, an unquiet and ironic nature, and +the teaching of a father who, though not unquiet, is more ironically +given than himself. His main character is all that a young man's should +be from the point of view of Sensibility. "Je ne demandais alors qu'a me +livrer a ces impressions primitives et fougueuses," etc. But his father +snubs the primitive and fiery impressions, and the son, feeling that +they are a mistake, is only more determined to experience them. +Alternately expanding himself as Sensibility demands, and making ironic +jests as his own nature and his father's teaching suggest, he acquires +the character of "un homme immoral, un homme peu sur," the last of which +expressions may be paralleled from the British repertory by "an +ill-regulated young man," or "a young man on whom you can never depend." + +All this time Adolphe is not in love, and as the dominant teaching of +Sensibility lays it down that he ought to be, he feels that he is wrong. +"'Je veux etre aime,' me dis-je, et je regardai autour de moi. Je ne +voyais personne qui m'inspirait de l'amour; personne qui me parut +susceptible d'en prendre." In parallel case the ordinary man would +resign himself as easily as if he were in face of the two conditions of +having no appetite and no dinner ready. But this will not do for the +pupil of Sensibility. He must make what he does not find, and so Adolphe +pitches on the luckless Ellenore, who "me parut une conquete digne de +moi." To do Sensibility justice, it would not, at an earlier time, have +used language so crude as this, but it had come to it now. Here is the +portrait of the victim, drawn by her ten years younger lover. + + Ellenore's wits were not above the ordinary, but her + thoughts were just, and her expression, simple as it was, + was sometimes striking by reason of the nobility and + elevation of the thought. She was full of prejudices, but + she was always prejudiced against her own interest. There + was nothing she set more value on than regularity of + conduct, precisely because her own conduct was + conventionally irregular.[411] She was very religious, + because religion rigidly condemned her mode of life. In + conversation she frowned on pleasantries which would have + seemed quite innocent to other women, because she feared + that her circumstances might encourage the use of such as + were not innocent. She would have liked to admit to her + society none but men of the highest rank and most + irreproachable reputation, because those women with whom she + shuddered at the thought of being classed usually tolerate + mixed society, and, giving up the hope of respect, seek only + amusement. In short, Ellenore and her destiny were at + daggers drawn; every word, every action of hers was a kind + of protest against her social position. And as she felt that + facts were too strong for her, and that the situation could + be changed by no efforts of hers, she was exceedingly + miserable.... The struggle between her feelings and her + circumstances had affected her temper. She was often silent + and dreamy: sometimes, however, she spoke with impetuosity. + Beset as she was by a constant preoccupation, she was never + quite calm in the midst of the most miscellaneous + conversation, and for this very reason her manner had an + unrest and an air of surprise about it which made her more + piquant than she was by nature. Her strange position, in + short, took the place of new and original ideas in her. + +The difference of note from the earlier eighteenth century will strike +everybody here. If we are still some way from Emma Bovary, it is only +in point of language: we are poles asunder from Marianne. But the hero +is still, in his own belief, acting under the influence of Sensibility. +He is not in the least impassioned, he is not a mere libertine, but he +has a "besoin d'amour." He wants a "conquete." He is still actuated by +the odd mixture of vanity, convention, sensuality, which goes by the +name of our subject. But his love is a "dessin de lui plaire"; he has +taken an "engagement envers son amour propre." In other words, he is +playing the game from the lower point of view--the mere point of view of +winning. It does not take him very long to win. Ellenore at first +behaves unexceptionably, refuses to receive him after his first +declaration, and retires to the country. But she returns, and the +exemplary Adolphe has recourse to the threat which, if his creator's +biographers may be believed, Constant himself was very fond of employing +in similar cases, and which the great popularity of _Werther_ made +terrible to the compassionate and foolish feminine mind. He will kill +himself. She hesitates, and very soon she does not hesitate any longer. +The reader feels that Adolphe is quite worthless, that nothing but the +fact of his having been brought up in a time when Sensibility was +dominant saves him. But the following passage, from the point of view +alike of nature and of expression, again pacifies the critic:[412] + + I passed several hours at her feet, declaring myself the + happiest of men, lavishing on her assurances of eternal + affection, devotion, and respect. She told me what she had + suffered in trying to keep me at a distance, how often she + had hoped that I should detect her notwithstanding her + efforts, how at every sound that fell on her ears she had + hoped for my arrival; what trouble, joy, and fear she had + felt on seeing me again; how she had distrusted herself, and + how, to unite prudence and inclination, she had sought once + more the distractions of society and the crowds which she + formerly avoided. I made her repeat the smallest details, + and this history of a few weeks seemed to us the history of + a whole life. Love makes up, as it were by magic, for the + absence of far-reaching memory. All other affections have + need of the past: love, as by enchantment, makes its own + past and throws it round us. It gives us the feeling of + having lived for years with one who yesterday was all but a + stranger. Itself a mere point of light, it dominates and + illuminates all time. A little while and it was not: a + little while and it will be no more: but, as long as it + exists, its light is reflected alike on the past and on the + future. + +This calm, he goes on to say, lasted but a short time; and, indeed, no +one who has read the book so far is likely to suppose that it did. +Adolphe has entered into the _liaison_ to play the game, Ellenore +(unluckily for herself) to be loved. The difference soon brings discord. +In the earlier Sensibility days men and women were nearly on equal +terms. It was only in the most strictly metaphorical way that the +unhappy lover was bound to expire, and his beloved rarely took the +method of wringing his bosom recommended by Goldsmith, when anybody else +of proper Sensibility was there to console her. But the game had become +unequal between the Charlottes and the Werthers, the Adolphes and the +Ellenores. The Count de P---- naturally perceives the state of affairs +before long, and as naturally does not like it. Adolphe, having played +his game and won it, does not care to go on playing for love merely. +"Ellenore etait sans doute un vif plaisir dans mon existence, mais elle +n'etait pas plus un but--elle etait devenue un lien." But Ellenore does +not see this accurate distinction. After many vicissitudes and a few +scenes ("Nous vecumes ainsi quatre mois dans des rapports forces, +quelque fois doux, jamais completement libres, y rencontrant encore du +plaisir mais n'y trouvant plus de charme") a crisis comes. The Count +forbids Ellenore to receive Adolphe any more: and she thereupon breaks +the ten years old union, and leaves her children and home. + +Her young lover receives this riveting of his chains with consternation, +but he does his best. He defends her in public, he fights with a man who +speaks lightly of her, but this is not what she wants. + + Of course I ought to have consoled her. I ought to have + pressed her to my heart and said, "Let us live for each + other; let us forget the misjudgments of men; let us be + happy in our mutual regard and our mutual love." I tried to + do so, but what can a resolution made out of duty do to + revive a sentiment that is extinct? Ellenore and I each + concealed something from the other. She dared not tell me + her troubles, arising from a sacrifice which she knew I had + not asked of her. I had accepted that sacrifice; I dared not + complain of ills which I had foreseen, and which I had not + had courage enough to forestall. We were therefore silent on + the very subject which occupied us both incessantly. We were + prodigal of caresses, we babbled of love, but when we spoke + of it we spoke for fear of speaking of something else. + +Here is the full Nemesis of the sentiment that, to use Constant's own +words, is "neither passion nor duty," and has the strength of neither, +when it finds itself in presence of a stronger than itself. There were +none of these unpleasant meetings in Sensibility proper. There sentiment +met sentiment, and "exchanged itself," in Chamfort's famous phrase. When +the rate of exchange became unsatisfactory it sought some other +customer--a facile and agreeable process, which was quite consistent in +practice with all the sighs and flames. Adolphe is not to be quit so +easily of his conquest. He is recalled by his father, and his +correspondence with Ellenore is described in one of the astonishingly +true passages which make the book so remarkable. + + During my absence I wrote regularly to Ellenore. I was + divided between the desire of not hurting her feelings and + the desire of truthfully representing my own. I should have + liked her to guess what I felt, but to guess it without + being hurt by it. I felt a certain satisfaction when I had + substituted the words "affection," "friendship," "devotion," + for the word "love." Then suddenly I saw poor Ellenore + sitting sad and solitary, with nothing but my letters for + consolation: and at the end of two cold and artificial pages + I added in a hurry a few phrases of ardour or of tenderness + suited to deceive her afresh. In this way, never saying + enough to satisfy her, I always said enough to mislead her, + a species of double-dealing the very success of which was + against my wishes and prolonged my misery. + +This situation, however, does not last. Unable to bear his absence, and +half puzzled, half pained by his letters, Ellenore follows him, and his +father for the first time expresses displeasure at this compromising +step. Ellenore being threatened with police measures, Adolphe is once +more perforce thrown on her side, and elopes with her to neutral +territory. Then events march quickly. Her father's Polish property, long +confiscated, is restored to him and left to her. She takes Adolphe +(still struggling between his obligations to her and his desire to be +free) to Warsaw, rejects an offer of semi-reconciliation from the Count +de P----, grows fonder and more exacting the more weary of her yoke her +lover becomes; and at last, discovering his real sentiments from a +correspondence of his with an artful old diplomatic friend of his +father's, falls desperately ill and dies in his arms. A prologue and +epilogue, which hint that Adolphe, far from taking his place in the +world (from which he had thought his _liaison_ debarred him), wandered +about in aimless remorse, might perhaps be cut away with advantage, +though they are defensible, not merely on the old theory of political +justice, but on sound critical grounds. + +[Sidenote: Mme. de Duras's "postscript."] + +[Sidenote: _Sensibilite_ and _engouement_.] + +This was the end of sensibility in more senses than one. It is true +that, five years later than _Adolphe_, appeared Madame de Duras's +agreeable novelettes of _Ourika_ and _Edouard_, in which something of +the old tone revives. But they were written late in their author's life, +and avowedly as a reminiscence of a past state of sentiment and of +society. "Le ton de cette societe," says Madame de Duras herself, "etait +l'engouement." As happy a sentence, perhaps, as can be anywhere found to +describe what has been much written about, and, perhaps it may be said +without presumption, much miswritten about. _Engouement_ itself is a +nearly untranslatable word.[413] It may be clumsily but not inaccurately +defined as a state of fanciful interest in persons and things which is +rather more serious than mere caprice, and a good deal less serious +than genuine enthusiasm. The word expresses exactly the attitude of +French polite society in the eighteenth century to a vast number of +subjects, and, what is more, it helps to explain the _sensibilite_ which +dominated that society. The two terms mutually involve each other, and +_sensibilite_ stands to mere flirtation on the one hand, and genuine +passion on the other, exactly as _engouement_ does to caprice and +enthusiasm. People flirted admirably in the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries, and the art was, I fancy, recovered in the nineteenth with +some success, but I do not think they flirted, properly speaking, in the +eighteenth.[414] Sensibility (and its companion "sensuality") prevented +that. Yet, on the other hand, they did not, till the society itself and +its sentiments with it were breaking up, indulge in anything that can be +called real passion. Sensibility prevented that also. The kind of +love-making which was popular may be compared without much fancifulness +to the favourite card-game of the period, quadrille. You changed +partners pretty often, and the stakes were not very serious; but the +rules of the game were elaborate and precise, and it did not admit of +being treated with levity. + +[Sidenote: Some final words on the matter.] + +Only a small part, though the most original and not the least remarkable +part, of the representation of this curious phenomenon in literature has +been attempted in this discussion. The English and German developments +of it are interesting and famous, and, merely as literature, contain +perhaps better work than the French, but they are not so original, and +they are out of our province. Marivaux[415] served directly as model to +both English and German novelists, though the peculiarity of the +national temperament quickly made itself felt in both cases. In England +the great and healthy genius of Fielding applied the humour cure to +Sensibility at a very early period; in Germany the literature of +Sensibility rapidly became the literature of suicide--a consummation +than which nothing could be more alien from the original conception. It +is true that there is a good deal of dying in the works of Madame de la +Fayette and her imitators. But it is quite transparent stage-dying, and +the virtuous Prince of Cleves and the penitent Adelaide in the _Comte de +Comminge_ do not disturb the mind at all. We know that, as soon as the +curtain has dropped, they will get up again and go home to supper quite +comfortably. It is otherwise with Werther and Adolphe. With all the +first-named young man's extravagance, four generations have known +perfectly well that there is something besides absurdity in him, while +in Adolphe there is no extravagance at all. The wind of Sensibility had +been sown, in literature and in life, for many a long year, and the +whirlwind had begun to be reaped.[416] + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Its importance here.] + +This, however, is the moral side of the matter, with which we have not +much to do. As a division of literature these sentimental novels, +artificial as they are, have a good deal of interest; and in a _History_ +such as the present they have very great importance. They are so +entirely different in atmosphere from the work of later times, that +reading them has all the refreshing effect of a visit to a strange +country; and yet one feels that they themselves have opened that +country for coming writers as well as readers. They are often +extraordinarily ingenious, and the books to which in form they set the +example, though the power of the writers made them something very +different in matter--_Julie_, _La Religieuse_, _Paul et Virginie_,[417] +_Corinne_, _Rene_--give their progenitors not a little importance, or at +least not a little interest of curiosity. Besides, it was in the school +of Sensibility that the author of _Manon Lescaut_ somehow or other +developed that wonderful little book. I do not know that it would be +prudent to recommend modern readers to study Sensibility for themselves +in the original documents just surveyed. Disappointment and possibly +maledictions would probably be the result of any such attempt, except in +the case of Xavier de Maistre and Constant. But these others are just +the cases in which the office of historical critic justifies itself. It +is often said (and nobody knows the truth of it better than critics +themselves) that a diligent perusal of all the studies and _causeries_ +that have ever been written, on any one of the really great writers, +will not give as much knowledge of them as half an hour's reading of +their own work. But then in that case the metal is virgin, and to be had +on the surface and for the picking up. The case is different where tons +of ore have to be crushed and smelted, in order to produce a few +pennyweights of metal. + + * * * * * + +Whatever fault may be found with the "Sensibility" novel, it is, as a +rule, "written by gentlemen [and ladies] for [ladies and] gentlemen." Of +the work of two curious writers, who may furnish the last detailed +notices of this volume, as much cannot, unfortunately, be said. + +[Sidenote: Restif de la Bretonne.] + +It may, from different points of view, surprise different classes of +readers to find Restif de la Bretonne (or as some would call him, Retif) +mentioned here at all--at any rate to find him taken seriously, and not +entirely without a certain respect. One of these classes, consisting of +those who know nothing about him save at second-hand, may ground their +surprise on the notion that his work is not only matter for the _Index +Expurgatorius_, but also vulgar and unliterary, such as a French Ned +Ward, without even Ned's gutter-wit, might have written. And these might +derive some support from the stock ticket-jingle _Rousseau du ruisseau_, +which, though not without some real pertinency, is directly misleading. +Another class, consisting of some at least, if not most, of those who +have read him to some extent, may urge that Decency--taking her revenge +for the axiom of the boatswain in _Mr. Midshipman Easy_--forbids Duty to +let him in. And yet others, less under the control of any Mrs. Grundy, +literary or moral, may ask why he is let in, and Choderlos de +Laclos[418] and Louvet de Courray, with some more, kept out, as they +most assuredly will be. + +In the first place, there is no vulgarity in Restif. If he had had a +more regular education and society, literary or other, and could have +kept his mind, which was to a certainty slightly unhinged, off the +continual obsession of morbid subjects, he might have been a very +considerable man of letters, and he is no mean one, so far as style +goes,[419] as it is. He avails himself duly of the obscurity of a +learned language when he has to use (which is regrettably often) words +that do not appear in the dictionary of the Academy: and there is not +the slightest evidence of his having taken to pornography for money, as +Louvet and Laclos--as, one must regretfully add, Diderot, if not even +Crebillon--certainly did. When a certain subject, or group of subjects, +gets hold of a man--especially one of those whom a rather celebrated +French lady called _les cerebraux_--he can think of nothing else: and +though this is not absolutely true of Restif (for he had several minor +crazes), it is very nearly true of him, and perhaps more true than of +any one else who can be called a man of letters. + +Probably no one has read all he wrote;[420] even the late M. Assezat, +who knew more about him than anybody else, does not, I think, pretend to +have done so. He was himself a printer, and therefore found exceptional +means of getting the mischief, which his by no means idle hands found to +do, into publicity of a kind, though even their subject does not seem to +have made his books popular.[421] His largest work, _Les +Contemporaines_, is in forty-two volumes, and contains some three +hundred different sections, reminding one vaguely, though the +differences in detail are very great, of Amory's plan, at least, for the +_Memoirs of Several Ladies_. His most remarkable by far, the +quasi-autobiographical _Monsieur Nicolas_,[422] in fourteen. He could +write with positive moral purpose, as in the protest against _Le Paysan +Parvenu_, above referred to; in _La Vie de Mon Pere_ (a book agreeably +free from any variety of that sin of Ham which some biographical +writings of sons about their fathers display); and in the unpleasantly +titled _Pornographe_, which is also morally intended, and dull enough to +be as moral as Mrs. Trimmer or Dr. Forsyth. + +Indeed, this moral intention, so often idly and offensively put forward +by those who are themselves mere pornographers, pervades Restif +throughout, and, while it certainly sometimes does carry dulness with +it, undoubtedly contributes at others a kind of piquancy, because of its +evident sincerity, and the quaint contrast with the subjects the author +is handling. These subjects make explicit dealing with himself +difficult, if not impossible: but his _differentia_ as regards them may, +with the aid of a little dexterity, be put without offence. In the first +place, as regards the comparison with Rousseau, Restif is almost a +gentleman: and he could not possibly have been guilty of Rousseau's +blackguard tale-telling in the cases of Madame de Warens (or, as I +believe, we are now told to spell it "Vuarrens") or Madame de Larnage. +The way in which he speaks of his one idealised mistress, Madame +"Parangon," is almost romantic. He is, indeed, savage in respect to his +wife--whom he seems to have married in a sort of _clairvoyant_ mixture +of knowledge of her evil nature and fascination by her personal charms +and allurements, though he had had no difficulty in enjoying these +without marriage. But into none other of his scores and hundreds of +actual loves in some cases and at least passing intimacies in +others,[423] does he ever appear to have taken either the Restoration +and Regency tone on the one hand, or that of "sickly sentimentality" on +the other. Against commerce for money he lifts up his testimony +unceasingly; he has, as his one editor has put it, a _manie de +paternite_, and denounces any vice disconnected with it. With the +privileges of Solomon or Haroun al Raschid, Restif would have been +perfectly contented: and he never would have availed himself of that of +Schahriar before the two divine sisters put a stop to it. + +All this, however, strictly speaking, is outside our present subject, +and is merely intended as a sort of excuse for the introduction of a +writer who has been unfairly ostracised, not as a passport for Restif to +the young person. But his actual qualities as tale-teller are very +remarkable. The second title of _Monsieur Nicolas_--_Le Coeur Humain +Devoile_--ambitious as it is, is not fatuous. It is a human heart in a +singularly morbid condition which is unveiled: but as, if I remember +rightly, either Goethe or Schiller, or both, saw and said near the time, +there is no charlatanery about the unveiling, and no bungling about the +autopsy. Restif has been compared, and not unfairly, to Defoe, as well +as to Rousseau; in a certain way he may be likened to Pepys; and all +four share an intense and unaffected reality, combined, however, in the +Frenchman's case with a sort of exaggeration of a dreamy kind, and with +other dream-character, which reminds one of Borrow, and even of De +Quincey. His absolute shamelessness is less unconnected with this +dream-quality than may at first appear, and, as in all such cases, is +made much less offensive by it. Could he ever have taken holiday from +his day-long and night-long devotion to + + Cotytto or Venus + Astarte or Ashtoreth, + +he might have been a most remarkable novelist, and as it is his _mere_ +narrative faculty is such as by no means every novelist possesses. +Moreover, he counts, once more, in the advance towards real things in +fiction. "A pretty kind of reality!" cries Mrs. Grundy. But the real is +not always the pretty, and the pretty is not always the real. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: Pigault-Lebrun--the difference of his positive and relative +importance.] + +There is also a good deal that is curious, as well as many things that +are disgusting, for the student of the novel in Pigault-Lebrun.[424] In +the first place, one is constantly reminded of that redeeming point +which the benevolent Joe Gargery found in Mr. Pumblechook-- + + And, wotsume'er the failings on his part, + He were a corn-and-seedsman in his hart. + +If Pigault cannot exactly be said to have been a good novelist, he +"were" a novelist "in his hart." Beside his _polissonneries_, his +frequent dulness, his singular gropings and failures at anything like +good novelist _faire_, one constantly finds what might be pedantically +and barbarously called a "novelistic velleity." His much too ambitiously +titled _Melanges Litteraires_ turn to stories, though stories touched +with the _polisson_ brush. His _Nouvelles_ testify at least to his +ambition and his industry in the craft of fiction. "Je ne suis pas +Voltaire," he says somewhere, in reference, I think, to his plays, not +his tales. He most certainly is not; neither is he Marmontel, as far as +the tale is concerned. But as for the longer novel, in a blind and +blundering way, constantly trapped and hindered by his want of genius +and his want of taste, by his literary ill-breeding and other faults, he +seems to have more of a "glimmering" of the real business than they +have, or than any other Frenchman had before him. + +[Sidenote: His general characteristics.] + +Pigault-Lebrun[425] spent nearly half of his long life in the nineteenth +century, and did not die till Scott was dead in England, and the great +series of novel-romances had begun, with Hugo and others, in France. But +he was a man of nearly fifty in 1800, and the character of his work, +except in one all-important point, or group of points, is thoroughly of +the eighteenth, while even the excepted characteristics are of a more +really transitional kind than anything in Chateaubriand and Madame de +Stael, whom we have postponed, as well as in Constant and Xavier de +Maistre, whom we have admitted. He has no high reputation in literature, +and, except from our own special point of view, he does not deserve even +a demi-reputation. Although he is not deliberately pornographic, he is +exceedingly coarse, with a great deal of the nastiness which is not even +naughty, but nastiness pure and simple. There is, in fact, and in more +ways than one, something in him of an extremely inferior Smollett. +Comparing him with his elder contemporary, Restif de la Bretonne, he is +vulgar, which Restif never is. Passing to more purely literary matters, +it would be difficult, from the side of literature as an art--I do not +say as a craft--to say anything for him whatever. His style[426] is, I +should suppose (for I think no foreigner has any business to do more +than "suppose" in that matter), simply wretched; he has sentences as +long as Milton's or Clarendon's or Mr. Ruskin's, not merely without the +grandeur of the first, the beauty of the last, and the weighty sense of +the second, but lacking any flash of graceful, pithy, or witty phrase; +character of the model-theatre and cut-out paper kind; a mere +accumulation of incidents instead of a plot; hardly an attempt at +dialogue, and, where description is attempted at all, utter +ineffectiveness or sheer rhyparography.[427] + +It is a fair _riposte_ to the last paragraph to ask, "Then why do you +drag him in here at all?" But the counter-parry is easy. The excepted +points above supply it. With all his faults--admitting, too, that every +generation since his time has supplied some, and most much better, +examples of his kind--the fact remains that he was the first +considerable representative, in his own country, of that variety of +professional novelist who can spin yarns, of the sort that his audience +or public[428] wants, with unwearied industry, in great volume, and of a +quality which, such as it is, does not vary very much. He is, in short, +the first notable French novelist-tradesman--the first who gives us +notice that novel-production is established as a business. There is even +a little more than this to be said for him. He has really made +considerable progress, if we compare him with his predecessors and +contemporaries, in the direction of the novel of ordinary life, as that +life was in his own day. There are extravagances of course, but they are +scarcely flagrant. His atmosphere is what the cooks, housemaids, +footmen, what the grocers and small- or middle-class persons who, I +suppose, chiefly read him, were, or would have liked to be, accustomed +to. His scene is not a paradise in either the common or the Greek sense; +it is a sort of cabbage-garden, with a cabbage-garden's lack of beauty, +of exquisiteness in any form, with its presence of untidiness, and +sometimes of evil odour, but with its own usefulness, and with a +cultivator of the most sedulous. Pigault-Lebrun, for France, may be said +to be the first author-in-chief of the circulating library. It may not +be a position of exceeding honour; but it is certainly one which gives +him a place in the story of the novel, and which justifies not merely +these general remarks on him, but some analysis (not too abundant) of +his particular works. As for translating him, a Frenchman might as well +spend his time in translating the English newspaper _feuilletons_ of +"family" papers in the earlier and middle nineteenth century. Indeed +that _Minnigrey_, which I remember reading as a boy, and which long +afterwards my friend, the late Mr. Henley, used to extol as one of the +masterpieces of literature, is worth all Pigault put together and a +great deal more. + +[Sidenote: _L'Enfant du Carnaval and Les Barons de Felsheim._] + +The worst of it is, that to be amused by him--to be, except as a +student, even interested in a large part of his work--you must be almost +as ill-bred in literature as he himself is. He is like a person who has +had before him no models for imitation or avoidance in behaviour: and +this is where his successor, Paul de Kock, by the mere fact of being his +successor, had a great advantage over him. But to the student he _is_ +interesting, and the interest has nothing factitious in it, and nothing +to be ashamed of. There is something almost pathetic in his struggles to +master his art: and his frequent remonstrances with critics and readers +appear to show a genuine consciousness of his state, which is not always +the case with such things. + +The book which stands first in his Works, _L'Enfant du Carnaval_, starts +with an ultra-Smollettian[429] passage of coarseness, and relapses now +and then. The body of it--occupied with the history of a base-born +child, who tumbles into the good graces of a Milord and his little +daughter, is named by them "Happy," and becomes first the girl's lover +and then her husband--is a heap of extravagances, which, nevertheless, +bring the picaresque pattern, from which they are in part evidently +traced, to a point, not of course anywhere approaching in genius _Don +Quixote_ or _Gil Blas_, but somehow or other a good deal nearer general +modern life. _Les Barons de Felsheim_, which succeeds it, seems to have +taken its origin from a suggestion of the opening of _Candide_, and +continues with a still wilder series of adventures, satirising German +ways, but to some extent perhaps inspired by German literature. Very +commonly Pigault falls into a sort of burlesque melodramatic style, with +frequent interludes of horse-play, resembling that of the ineffably +dreary persons who knock each others' hats off on the music-hall stage. +There is even something dreamlike about him, though of a very low order +of dream; he has at any rate the dream-habit of constantly attempting +something and finding that he cannot bring it off. + +At the close of one of his most extravagant, most indecent, and +stupidest novels, _La Folie Espagnole_--a supposed tale of chivalry, +which of course shows utter ignorance of time, place, and circumstance, +and is, in fact, only a sort of travestied _Gil Blas_, with a rank +infusion of further vulgarised Voltairianism[430]--the author has a +rather curious note to the reader, whom he imagines (with considerable +probability) to be throwing the book away with a suggested cry of +"Quelles miseres! quel fatras!" He had, he says, previously offered +_Angelique et Jeanneton_, a little work of a very different kind, and +the public would neither buy nor read it. His publisher complained, and +he must try to please. As for _La Folie_, everybody, including his cook, +can understand _this_. One remembers similar expostulations from more +respectable authors; but it is quite certain that Pigault-Lebrun--a +Lebrun so different from his contemporary "Pindare" of that +name--thoroughly meant what he said. He was drawing a bow, always at a +venture, with no higher aim than to hit his public, and he did hit it +oftener than he missed. So much the worse, perhaps, both for him and for +his public; but the fact is a fact, and it is in the observation and +correlation of facts that history consists. + +[Sidenote: _Angelique et Jeanneton._] + +_Angelique et Jeanneton_ itself, as might be expected from the above +reference, is, among its author's works, something like _Le Reve_ among +Zola's; it is his endeavour to be strictly proper. But, as it is also +one of his most Sternian exercises, the propriety is chequered. It +begins in sufficiently startling fashion; a single gentleman of easy +fortune and amiable disposition, putting his latchkey in the door of his +chambers one night, is touched and accosted by an interesting young +person with an "argentine" voice. This may look _louche_; but the +silvery accents appeal only for relief of needs, which, as it shortly +appears, are those most properly to be supplied by a maternity hospital. +It is to be understood that the suppliant is an entire stranger to the +hero. He behaves in the most amiable and, indeed, noble fashion, instals +her in his rooms, turns himself and his servant out to the nearest +hotel, fetches the proper ministress, and, not content with this Good +Samaritanism, effects a legitimate union between Jeanneton and her +lover, half gives and half procures them a comfortable maintenance, +resists temptation of repayment (_not_ in coin) on more than one +occasion, and sets out, on foot, to Caudebec, to see about a heritage +which has come to Jeanneton's husband. On the way he falls in with +Angelique (a lady this time), falls also in love with her, and marries +her. The later part of the story, as is rather the way with Pigault, +becomes more "accidented." There are violent scenes, jealousies, not +surprising, between the two heroines, etc. But the motto-title of +Marmontel's _Heureusement_ governs all, and the end is peace, though not +without some spots in its sun. That the public of 1799 did not like the +book and did like _La Folie Espagnole_ is not surprising; but the +bearing of this double attempt on the growth of novel-writing as a +regular craft is important. + +[Sidenote: _Mon Oncle Thomas._] + +Perhaps on the whole _Mon Oncle Thomas_, which seems to have been one of +the most popular, is also one of the most representative, if not the +best, of Pigault-Lebrun's novels. Its opening, and not its opening only, +is indeed full of that mere nastiness which we, with Smollett and others +to our _dis_credit, cannot disclaim for our own parallel period, and +which was much worse among the French, who have a choice selection of +epithets for it. But the fortunes of the youthful Thomas--child of a +prostitute of the lowest class, though a very good mother, who +afterwards marries a miserly and ruffianly corporal of police--are told +with a good deal of spirit--one even thinks of _Colonel Jack_--and the +author shows his curious vulgar common sense, and his knowledge of +human nature of a certain kind, pretty frequently, at least in the +earlier part of the book. + +[Sidenote: _Jerome._] + +_Jerome_ is another of Pigault's favourite studies of boys--distinctly +blackguard boys as a rule--from their mischievous, or, as the early +English eighteenth century would have put it, "unlucky" childhood, to +their most undeserved reward with a good and pretty wife (whom one +sincerely pities), and more or less of a fortune. There is, however, +more vigour in _Jerome_ than in most, and, if one has the knack of +"combing out" the silly and stale Voltairianism, and paying little +attention to the far from exciting sculduddery, the book may be read. It +contains, in particular, one of the most finished of its author's +sketches, of a type which he really did something to introduce into his +country's literature--that of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic _routier_ +or professional soldier--brave as you like, and--at least at some times +when neither drunk nor under the influence of the garden god--not +ungenerous; with a certain simplicity too: but as braggart as he is +brave; a mere brute beast as regards the other sex; utterly ignorant, +save of military matters, and in fact a kind of caricature of the older +type, which the innocent Rymer was so wrath with Shakespeare for +neglecting in Iago. + +[Sidenote: The redeeming points of these.] + +It may seem that too much space is being given to a reprobate and often +dull author; but something has been said already to rebut the complaint, +and something more may be added now and again. French literature, from +the death of Chenier to the appearance of Lamartine, has generally been +held to contain hardly more than two names--those of Chateaubriand and +Madame de Stael--which can even "seem to be" those of "pillars"; and it +may appear fantastic and almost insulting to mention one, who in long +stretches of his work might almost be called a mere muckheap-raker, in +company with them. Yet, in respect to the progress of his own +department, it may be doubted whether he is not even more than their +equal. _Rene_ and _Corinne_ contain great suggestions, but they are +suggestions rather for literature generally than for the novel proper. +Pigault used the improperest materials; he lacked not merely taste, but +that humour which sometimes excuses taste's absence; power of creating +real character, decency almost always, sense very often.[431] But all +the same, he made the novel _march_, as it had not marched, save in +isolated instances of genius, before. + +[Sidenote: Others--_Adelaide de Meran_ and _Tableaux de Societe_.] + +[Sidenote: _L'Officieux._] + +Yet Pigault could hardly have deserved even the very modified praise +which has been given to him, if he had been constant to the muckheap. He +could never quite help approaching it now and then; but as time went on +and the Empire substituted a sort of modified decency for the Feasts of +Republican Reason and ribaldry, he tried things less uncomely. _Adelaide +de Meran_ (his longest single book), _Tableaux de Societe_, +_L'Officieux_, and others, are of this class; and without presenting a +single masterpiece in their own kind, they all, more or less, give +evidence of that advance in the kind generally with which their author +has been credited. _Adelaide_ is very strongly reminiscent of +Richardson, and more than reminiscent of "Sensibility"; it is written in +letters--though all by and to the same persons, except a few +extracts--and there is no individuality of character. Pigault, it has +been said, never has any, though he has some of type. But by exercising +the most violent constraint upon himself, he indulges only in one rape +(though there have been narrow escapes before), in not more than two or +three questionable incidents, and in practically no "improper" +details--conduct almost deserving the description of magnanimity and +self-denial. Moreover, the thing really is a modern novel, though a bad +and rickety one; the indefinable _naturaleza_ is present in it after a +strange fashion. There is less perhaps in the very inappropriately named +_Tableaux de Societe_--the autobiography of a certain Fanchette de +Francheville, who, somewhat originally for a French heroine, starts by +being in the most frantic state of mutual passion with her husband, +though this is soon to be succeeded by an infatuation (for some time +virtuously resisted) on her side for a handsome young naval officer, and +by several others (not at all virtuously resisted) for divers ladies on +the husband's. With his usual unskilfulness in managing character, +Pigault makes very little of the opportunities given by his heroine's +almost unconscious transference of her affections to Sainte-Luce; while +he turns the uxorious husband, not out of jealousy merely, into a +faithless one, and something like a general ruffian, after a very clumsy +and "unconvincing" fashion. As for his throwing in, at the end, another +fatal passion on part of their daughter for her mother's lover, it is, +though managed with what is for the author, perfect cleanliness, +entirely robbed of its always doubtful effect by the actual marriage of +Fanchette and her sailor, and that immediately after the poor girl's +death. If he had had the pluck to make this break off the whole thing, +the book might have been a striking novel, as it is actually an attempt +at one; but Pigault, like his friends of the gallery, was almost +inviolably constant to happy endings.[432] _L'Officieux_, if he had only +had a little humour, might have been as good comically as the Tableaux +might have been tragically; for it is the history, sometimes not +ill-sketched as far as action goes, of a _parvenu_ rich, but brave and +extremely well-intentioned marquis, who is perpetually getting into +fearful scrapes from his incorrigible habit of meddling with other +people's affairs to do them good. The situations--as where the marquis, +having, through an extravagance of officiousness, got himself put under +arrest by his commanding officer, and at the same time insulted by a +comrade, insists on fighting the necessary duel in his own drawing-room, +and thereby reconciling duty and honour, to the great terror of a lady +with whom he has been having a tender interview in the adjoining +apartment--are sometimes good farce, and almost good comedy; but +Pigault, like Shadwell, has neither the pen nor the wits to make the +most of them. + +_La Famille Luceval_--something of an expanded and considerably +Pigaultified story _a la_ Marmontel--is duller than any of these, and +the opening is marred by an exaggerated study of a classical mania on +the part of the hero; but still the novel quality is not quite absent +from it. + +[Sidenote: Further examples.] + +Of the rest, _M. Botte_, which seems to have been a favourite, is a +rather conventional extravaganza with a rich, testy, but occasionally +generous uncle; a nephew who falls in love with the charming but +penniless daughter of an _emigre_; a noble rustic, who manages to keep +some of his exiled landlord's property together, etc. _M. de Roberval_, +though in its original issue not so long as _Adelaide de Meran_, becomes +longer by a _suite_ of another full volume, and is a rather tedious +chronicle of ups and downs. There may be silence about the remainder. + +[Sidenote: Last words on him.] + +The stock and, as it may be called, "semi-official" ticket for +Pigault-Lebrun in such French literary history as takes notice of him, +appears to be _verve_: and the recognised dictionary-sense of _verve_ is +"heat of imagination, which animates the artist in his composition." In +the higher sense in which the word imagination is used with us, it could +never be applied here; but he certainly has a good deal of "go," which +is perhaps not wholly improper as a colloquial Anglicising of the label. +These semi-official descriptions, which have always pleased the Latin +races, are of more authority in France than in England, though as long +as we go on calling Chaucer "the father of English poetry" and Wyclif +"the father of English prose" we need not boast ourselves too much. But +Pigault has this "go"--never perhaps for a whole book, but sometimes for +passages of considerable length, which possess "carrying" power. It +undoubtedly gave him his original popularity, and we need not despise it +now, inasmuch as it makes less tedious the task of ascertaining and +justifying his true place in the further "domestication"--if only in +domesticities too often mean and grimy--of the French novel. + + * * * * * + +[Sidenote: The French novel in 1800.] + +There are more reasons than the convenience of furnishing a separately +published first volume with an interim conclusion, for making, at the +close of this, a few remarks on the general state of the French novel at +the end of the eighteenth century. No thoroughly similar point is +reached in the literary history of France, or of any country known to +me, in regard to a particular department of literature. In England--the +only place, which can, in this same department, be even considered in +comparison, although at this very time two novelists, vastly superior to +any of whom France has to boast, were just writing, or just about to +write, and were a little later to revolutionise the novel itself--the +general state and history of the kind had, for nearly two generations, +reached a stage far beyond anything that France could claim. She had +made earlier "running"; on the whole period of some seven hundred years +she had always, till very recently, been in front. But in the novel, as +distinguished from the romance, she had absolutely nothing to show like +our great quartette of the mid-eighteenth century, and hardly anything +to match the later developments of Miss Burney and others in domestic, +of Mrs. Radcliffe and others still in revived romantic fiction. Very +great Frenchmen or French writers had written novels; but, with the +exceptions of Lesage in _Gil Blas_, Prevost in that everlastingly +wonderful "single-speech" of his, and Rousseau in _La Nouvelle Heloise_, +none had written a great novel. No single writer of any greatness had +been a novelist pure and simple. No species[433] of fiction, except the +short tale, in which, through varying forms, France held an age-long +mastery, had been thoroughly developed in her literature. + +The main point, where England went right and France went wrong--to be +only in the most equivocal way corrected by such a writer as +Pigault-Lebrun--was the recognition of the connection--the intimate and +all but necessary connection--of the completed novel with ordinary life. +Look over the long history of fiction which we have surveyed in the last +three or four or five chapters. There is much and sometimes great +literary talent; sometimes, again, even genius; there are episodes of +reality; there are most artful adjustments of type and convention and +the like, of fashion in morals (or immorals) and sentiments. But a real +objective novel of ordinary life, such as _Tom Jones_, or even _Humphry +Clinker_, nay, such inferior approaches to it as exist elsewhere in +English, you will not find. Of the Scudery romances we need not speak +again; for all their key-references to persons, and their abstention +from the supernatural, etc., they are, as wholes, hardly more real than +_Amadis_ and its family themselves. Scarron has some and Furetiere more +objectivity that may be argued for, but the Spanish picaresque has +become a convention, and they, especially Scarron, are aiming more at +the pattern than at the life-model. Madame de la Fayette has much, and +some of her followers a little, real passion; but her manners, +descriptions, etc., are all conventional, though of another kind. The +fairy tales are of course not "real." Marivaux is aiming directly at +Sensibility, preciousness, "psychology," if you like, but not at holding +up the glass to any ordinary nature as such.[434] And though Crebillon +might plead that his convention was actually the convention of hundreds +and almost thousands of accomplished ladies and gentlemen, no one can +deny that it was almost as much a convention as the historical or +legendary acting of the _Comedie Humaine_ by living persons a hundred +years later at Venice. + +No writer perhaps illustrates what is being said better than Prevost. No +one of his books, voluminous as they are, has the very slightest +reality, except _Manon Lescaut_; and that, like _La Princesse de +Cleves_, though with much more intensity and fortunately with no alloy +of convention whatever, is simply a study of passion, not of life at +large at all. With the greater men the case alters to some extent in +proportion to their greatness, but, again with one exception, not to +such an extent as to affect the general rule. Voltaire avowedly never +attempts ordinary representation of ordinary life--save as the merest +by-work, it is all "purpose," satire, fancy. Rousseau may not, in one +sense, go beyond that life in _Julie_, but in touching it he is almost +as limited and exclusive as Prevost in his masterpiece. Diderot has to +get hold of the abnormal, if not the unreal, before he can give you +something like a true novel. Marmontel is half-fanciful, and though he +does touch reality, subordinates it constantly to half-allegorical and +wholly moral purpose. All the minor "Sensibility" folk follow their +leaders, and so do all the minor _conteurs_. + +The people (believed to be a numerous folk) who are uncomfortable with a +fact unless some explanation of it is given, may be humoured here. The +failure of a very literary nation--applying the most disciplined +literary language in Europe to a department, in the earlier stages of +which they had led Europe itself--to get out of the trammels which we +had easily discarded, is almost demonstrably connected with the very +nature of their own literary character. Until the most recent years, if +not up to the very present day, few Frenchmen have ever been happy +without a type, a "kind," a set of type-and kind-rules, a classification +and specification, as it were, which has to be filled up and worked +over. Of all this the novel had nothing in ancient times, while in +modern it had only been wrestling and struggling towards something of +the sort, and had only in one country discovered, and not quite +consciously there, that the beauty of the novel lies in having no type, +no kind, no rules, no limitations, no general precept or motto for the +craftsman except "Here is the whole of human life before you. Copy it, +or, better, recreate it--with variation and decoration _ad libitum_--as +faithfully, but as freely, as you can." Of this great fact even +Fielding, the creator of the modern novel, was perhaps not wholly aware +as a matter of theory, though he made no error about it in practice. +Indeed the "comic prose epic" notion _might_ reduce to rules like those +of the verse. Both Scott and Miss Austen abstained likewise from +formalising it. But every really great novel has illustrated it; and +attempts, such as have been recently made, to contest it and draw up a +novelists' code, have certainly not yet justified themselves according +to the Covenant of Works, and have at least not disposed some of us to +welcome them as a Covenant of Faith. It is because Pigault-Lebrun, +though a low kind of creature from every point of view, except that of +mere craftsmanship, did, like his betters, recognise the fact in +practice, that he has been allowed here a place of greater consideration +than perhaps has ever fallen to his lot before in literary history. + +Still, even putting out of sight the new developments which had shown +the irrepressible vitality of the French _conte_, the seven hundred +years had not been wasted. The product of the first half of them +remained, indeed, at this time sealed up in the "gazophile" of the older +age, or was popularised only by well-meaning misinterpreters like the +Comte de Tressan;[435] but the treasure-house was very soon to be broken +open and utilised. It is open to any one to contend--it is, indeed, +pretty much the opinion of the present writer--that it was this very +neglect which had made the progress of the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries themselves so slow and so imperfect in its total results. For +those who like to look for literary causes outside literature, there may +be other explanations. But any intelligent reader can do something for +himself if he has the facts before him. It is these facts that it has +been and will be our business to give and to summarise here. + +They have been given; let us attempt to summarise them in the briefest +possible way. France possibly did not invent Romance; no man or men +could do that; it was a sort of deferred heritage which Humankind, like +the Heir of Lynne, discovered when it was ready to hang itself (speaking +in terms of literature) during the Dark Ages. But she certainly grew the +seed for all other countries, and dispersed the growth to the ends of +the earth. Very much the same was the case with the short tale in the +"Middle" period. From the fifteenth century to the eighteenth (both +included) she entered upon a curious kind of wilderness, studded with +oases of a more curious character still. In one of them Rabelais was +born, and found Quintessence, and of that finding--more fortunate than +the result of True Thomas finding the Elf Queen--was born Pantagruelism. +In another came Lesage, and though his work was scarcely original, it +was consummate. None of these happy sojourns produced a _Don Quixote_ or +a _Tom Jones_, but divers smaller things resulted. And again and again, +as had happened in the Middle Ages themselves, but on a smaller scale, +what France did found development and improvement in other lands; while +her own miniature masterpieces, from the best of the _Cent Nouvelles +Nouvelles_ and the _Heptameron_, through all others that we noticed down +to _Adolphe_, showed the enormous power which was working half blindly. +How the strength got eyes, and the eyes found the right objects to fix +upon, must be left, if fortune favour, for the next volume to tell.[436] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[404] We have seen above how things were "shaping for" it, in the +Pastoral and Heroic romances. But the shape was not definitely taken in +them. + +[405] In the following pages, and here only in this volume, the author +has utilised, though with very considerable alterations, some previously +published work, _A Study of Sensibility_, which appeared originally in +the _Fortnightly Review_ for September 1882, and was republished in a +volume (_Essays on French Novelists_, London, 1891) which has been for +some years out of print. Much of the original essay, dealing with +Marivaux and others already treated here, has been removed, and the +whole has been cut down, revised, and adjusted to its new contexts. But +it seemed unnecessary to waste time in an endeavour to say the same +thing differently about matters which, though as a whole indispensable, +are, with perhaps one exception, individually not of the first +importance. + +[406] These words were originally written more than thirty years ago. I +am not sure that there was not something prophetic in them. + +[407] Madame de Fontaines in _La Comtesse de Savoie_ and _Amenophis_ +"follows her leader" in more senses than one--including a sort of +pseudo-historical setting or insetting which became almost a habit. But +she is hardly important. + +[408] Readers of Thackeray may remember in _The Paris Sketch Book_ ("On +the French School of Painting," p. 52, Oxford ed.) some remarks on +Jacquand's picture, "The Death of Adelaide de Comminge," which he +thought "neither more nor less than beautiful." But from his "it +appears," in reference to the circumstances, it would seem that he did +not know the book, save perhaps from a catalogue-extract or summary. + +[409] The extreme shortness of all these books may be just worth +noticing. Reaction from the enormous romances of the preceding century +may have had something to do with it; and the popularity of the "tale" +something more. But the _causa verissima_ was probably the impossibility +of keeping up sentiment at high pressure for any length of time, +incident, or talk. + +[410] _Vide_ on the process Crebillon's _Les Egarements du Coeur et de +l'Esprit_, as above, pp. 371, 372. + +[411] The parallel with "George Eliot" will strike most people. + +[412] But for uniformity's sake I should not have translated this, for +fear of doing it injustice. "Not presume to dictate," in Mr. Jingle's +constantly useful phrase, but it seems to me one of the finest in French +prose. + +[413] "Craze" has been suggested; but is, I think, hardly an exact +synonym. + +[414] This may seem to contradict, or at any rate to be inconsistent +with, a passage above (p. 367) on the "flirtations" of Crebillon's +personages. It is, however, only a more strictly accurate use of the +word. + +[415] Two remarkable and short passages of his, not quoted in the +special notice of him, may be given--one in English, because of its +remarkable anticipation of the state of mind of Catherine Morland in +_Northanger Abbey_; the other in French, as a curious "conclusion of the +whole matter." They are both from _Marianne_. + +"I had resolved not to sleep another night in the house. I cannot indeed +tell you what was the exact object of my fear, or why it was so lively. +All that I know is that I constantly beheld before me the countenance of +my landlord, to which I had hitherto paid no particular attention, and +then I began to find terrible things in this countenance His wife's +face, too, seemed to be gloomy and dark; the servants looked like +scoundrels; all their faces made me in a state of unbearable alarm. I +saw before me swords, daggers, murders, thefts, insults. My blood grew +cold at the perils I imagined." + + * * * * * + +"Enfin ces agitations, tant agreables que penibles, s'affaiblirent et se +passerent. L'ame s'accoutume a tout; sa sensibilite s'use: et je me +familiarisais avec mes esperances et mes inquietudes." + +[416] Since, long ago, I formed the opinion of _Adolphe_ embodied above, +I have, I think, seen French criticisms which took it rather +differently--as a personal confession of the "confusions of a wasted +youth," misled by passion. The reader must judge which is the juster +view. + +[417] By a little allowance for influence, if not for intrinsic value. + +[418] On representations from persons of distinction I have given Laclos +a place in an outhouse (see "Add. and Corr."). But I have made this +place as much of a penitentiary as I could. + +[419] I must apologise by anticipation to the _official_ French critic. +To him, I know, even if he is no mere minor Malherbe, Restif's style is +very faulty; but I should not presume to take his point of view, either +for praise or blame. + +[420] There is a separate bibliography by Cubieres-Palmezeaux (1875). +The useful _Dictionnaire des Litteratures_ of Vapereau contains a list +of between thirty and forty separate works of Restif's, divided into +nearer two than one hundred volumes. He followed Prevost in _Nouveaux +Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_ as he had followed Marivaux in the +_Paysan Perverti_. He completed this work of his own with _La Paysanne +Pervertie_; he wrote, besides the _Pornographe_, numerous books of +social, general, and would-be philosophical reform--_Le Mimographe_, +dealing with the stage; _Les Gynographes_, with a general plan for +rearranging the status of women; _L'Andrographe_, a "whole duty of man" +of a very novel kind; _Le Thesmographe_, etc.,--besides, close upon the +end and after the autobiography above described, a _Philosophie de M. +Nicolas_. His more or less directly narrative pieces, _Le Pied de +Fanchette_, _Lucile_, _Adele_, _La Femme Infidele_, _Ingenue Saxancour_, +are nearly always more or less tinged with biography of himself and of +persons closely connected with him, as _La Vie de Mon Pere_, his most +respectable book, is wholly. It may be added, perhaps, that the notice +in Vapereau, while not bearing very hard on Restif on the whole, repeats +the words _cynisme_ and _cynique_ in regard to him. Unless the term is +in part limited and in part extended, so as to mean nothing but +"exposure of things generally kept secret without apparent shame," it is +entirely misplaced. Not merely outside of, but actually in his +erotomania, Restif was a sentimental philanthropist of the all but most +genuine kind, tainted indeed with the vanity and self-centredness which +had reached their acme in Rousseau, but very much more certainly +sincere, and of a temperament as different as possible from what is +commonly called cynicism. + +[421] There are, however, contradictory statements on this point. + +[422] Nicolas [Edme] Restif being apparently his baptismal name, and "de +la Bretonne" merely one of the self-bestowed agnominal nourishes so +common in the French eighteenth century. He chose to consider the +surname evidence of descent from the Emperor Pertinax; and as for his +Christian name he seems to have varied it freely. Rose Lambelin, one of +his harem, and a _soubrette_ of some literature, used to address him as +"Anne-Augustin," Anne being, as no doubt most readers know, a masculine +as well as a feminine _prenom_ in French. + +[423] Some, and perhaps not a few of their objects, may have been +imaginary "dream-mistresses," created by Morpheus in an impurer mood +than when he created Lamb's "dream-children." But some, I believe, have +been identified; and others of the singular "Calendar" affixed to +_Monsieur Nicolas_ have probably escaped identification. + +[Sidenote: His life and the reasons for giving it.] + +[424] +It has not been necessary (and this is fortunate, for even if it had +been necessary, it would have been scarcely possible) to give +biographies of the various authors mentioned in this book, except in +special cases. Something was generally known of most of them in the days +before education received a large E, with laws and rates to suit: and +something is still in a way, supposed to be known since. But of the life +of Pigault, who called himself Lebrun, it may be desirable to say +something, for more reasons than one. In the first place, this life had +rather more to do with his work than is always the case; in the second, +very little will be found about him in most histories of French +literature; in the third, there will be found assigned to him, in the +text--not out of crotchet, or contumacy, or desire to innovate, but as a +result of rather painful reading--a considerably higher place in the +history of the novel than he has usually occupied. His correct +name--till, by one of the extremest eccentricities of the French +_Chats-Fourres_, he was formally unbegot by his Roman father, and the +unbegetting (plus declaration of death) confirmed by the Parlement of +Paris--was the imposing one of Charles Antoine Guillaume Pigault de +L'Epinoy. The paternal Pigault, as may be guessed from his proceedings, +was himself a lawyer, but of an old Calais family tracing itself to +Queen Philippa's _protege_, Eustache de Saint-Pierre; and, besides the +mysterious life-in-death or death-in-life, Charles Antoine Guillaume had +to suffer from him, while such things existed, several _lettres de +cachet_. The son certainly did his best to deserve them. Having been +settled, on leaving school as a clerk in an English commercial house, he +seduced his master's daughter, ran away with her, and would no doubt +have married her--for Pigault was never a really bad fellow--if she had +not been drowned in the vessel which carried the pair back to France. He +escaped--one hopes not without trying to save her. After another +scandal--not the second only--of the same kind, he did marry the victim, +and the marriage was the occasion of the singular exertion of _patria +potestas_ referred to above. At least two _lettres de cachet_ had +preceded it, and it is said that only the taking of the Bastille +prevented the issue, or at least the effect, of a third. Meanwhile, he +had been a gentleman-trooper in the _gendarmerie d'elite de la petite +maison du roi_, which, seeing that the _roi_ was Louis Quinze, probably +did not conduct itself after the fashion of the Thundering Legion, or of +Cromwell's Ironsides, or even of Captain Steele's "Christian Hero." The +life of this establishment, though as probably merry, was not long, and +Pigault became an actor--a very bad but rather popular actor, it was +said. Like other bad actors he wrote plays, which, if not good (they are +certainly not very cheerful to read), were far from unsuccessful. But it +was not till after the Revolution, and till he was near forty, that he +undertook prose fiction; his first book being _L'Enfant du Carnaval_ in +1792 (noticed in text). The revolutionary fury, however, of which there +are so many traces in his writings, caught him; he went back to +soldiering and fought at Valmy. He did not stay long in the army, but +went on novel-writing, his success having the rather unexpected, and +certainly very unusual, effect of reconciling his father. Indeed, this +arbitrary parent wished not only to recall him to life, which was +perhaps superfluous, but to "make an eldest son of him." This, Pigault, +who was a loose fish and a vulgar fellow, but, as was said above, not a +scoundrel, could not suffer; and he shared and shared alike with his +brothers and sisters. Under the Empire he obtained a place in the +customs, and held it under succeeding reigns till 1824, dying eleven +years later at over eighty, and having written novels continuously till +a short time before his death, and till the very eve of 1830. This odd +career was crowned by an odd accident, for his daughter's son was Emile +Augier. I never knew this fact till after the death of my friend, the +late Mr. H. D. Traill. If I had, I should certainly have asked him to +write an Imaginary Conversation between grandfather and grandson. Some +years (1822-1824) before his last novel, a complete edition of novels, +plays, and very valueless miscellanies had been issued in twenty octavo +volumes. The reader, like the river Iser in Campbell's great poem, will +be justified for the most part in "rolling rapidly" through them. But he +will find his course rather unexpectedly delayed sometimes, and it is +the fact and the reasons of these delays which must form the subject of +the text.--There is no doubt that Pigault was very largely read abroad +as well as at home. We know that Miss Matilda Crawley read him before +Waterloo. She must have inherited from her father, Sir Walpole, a strong +stomach: and must have been less affected by the change of times than +was the case with her contemporary, Scott's old friend, who having +enjoyed "your bonny Mrs. Behn" in her youth, could not read her in age. +For our poor maligned Afra (in her prose stories at any rate, and most +of her verse, if not in her plays) is an anticipated model of Victorian +prudery and nicety compared with Pigault. I cannot help thinking that +Marryat knew him too. Chapter and verse may not be forthcoming, and the +resemblance may be accounted for by common likeness to Smollett: but +not, to my thinking, quite sufficiently. + +[425] He had a younger brother, in a small way also a novelist, and, +apparently, in the Radcliffian style, who extra-named himself rather in +the manner of 1830--Pigault-_Maubaillarck_. I have not yet come across +this junior's work.--For remarks of Hugo himself on Pigault and Restif, +see note at end of chapter. + +[426] At least in his early books; it improves a little later. But see +note on p. 453. + +[427] For a defence of this word, _v. sup._ p. 280, _note_. + +[428] It may be objected, "Did not the Scuderys and others do this?" The +answer is that their public was not, strictly speaking, a "public" at +all--it was a larger or smaller coterie. + +[429] It has been said that Pigault spent some time in England, and he +shows more knowledge of English things and books than was common with +Frenchmen before, and for a long time after, his day. Nor does he, even +during the Great War, exhibit any signs of acute Anglophobia. + +[430] Pigault's adoration for Voltaire reaches the ludicrous, though we +can seldom laugh _with_ him. It led him once to compose one of the very +dullest books in literature, _Le Citateur_, a string of anti-Christian +gibes and arguments from his idol and others. + +[431] Yet sometimes--when, for instance, one thinks of the +rottenness-to-the-core of Dean Farrar's _Eric_, or the _spiritus +vulgaritatis fortissimus_ of Mark Twain's _A Yankee at the Court of King +Arthur_--one feels a little ashamed of abusing Pigault. + +[432] There was, of course, a milder and perhaps more effective +possibility--to make the young turn to the young, and leave Madame de +Francheville no solace for her sin. But for this also Pigault would have +lacked audacity. + +[433] For the story "species" of _Gil Blas_ was not new, was of foreign +origin, and was open to some objection; while the other two books just +named derived their attraction, in the one case to a very small extent, +in the other to hardly any at all, from the story itself. + +[434] Not that Jacob and Marianne are unnatural--quite the contrary--but +that their situations are conventionalised. + +[435] _Corps d'Extraits de Romans de Chevalerie._ 4 vols. Paris, 1782. + +[436] The link between the two suggested at p. 458, _note_, is as +follows. That Victor Hugo should, as he does in the Preface to _Han +d'Islande_ and elsewhere, sneer at Pigault, is not very wonderful: for, +besides the difference between _canaille_ and _caballeria_, the author +of _M. Botte_ was the most popular novelist of Hugo's youth. But why he +has, in Part IV. Book VII. of _Les Miserables_ selected Restif as +"undermining the masses in the most unwholesome way of all" is not +nearly so clear, especially as he opposes this way to the +"wholesomeness" of, among others--Diderot! + + + + +APPENDICES + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL CONSPECTUS OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRENCH FICTION +NOTICED IN THIS VOLUME + + +11TH CENTURY + +_Vie de Saint Alexis_ (probably). + +_Roland_ and one or two other _Chansons_ (possibly). + + +12TH CENTURY + +Most of the older _Chansons_. + +_Arthurian Legend_ (in some of its forms). + +_Roman de Troie_, _Romans d'Alexandre_ (older forms). + + +13TH CENTURY + +Rest of the more genuine _Chansons_. + +Rest of ditto Arthuriad and "Matter of Rome." + +_Romans d'Aventures_ (many). + +Early Fabliaux (probably). + +_Roman de la Rose_ and _Roman de Renart_ (older parts). + +Prose Stories (_Aucassin et Nicolette_), etc. + + +14TH CENTURY + +Rehandlings, and younger examples, of all kinds above mentioned. + + +15TH CENTURY + +Ditto, but only latest forms of all but Prose Stories, and many of the +others rendered into prose. + +_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles._ First _edition_, 1480, but written much +earlier. + +_Petit Jehan de Saintre_, about 1459, or earlier. + +_Jehan de Paris._ Uncertain, but before 1500. + + +16TH CENTURY + +Rabelais. First Book of _Pantagruel_ Second of the whole, 1533; +_Gargantua_, 1535; rest of _Pantagruel_ at intervals, to the +(posthumous) Fifth Book in 1564. + +Marguerite de Navarre. _Heptameron._ Written before (probably some time +before) Marguerite's death in 1549. Imperfectly published as _Les Amants +Fortunes_, etc., in 1558; completely, under its permanent title, next +year. + +Bonaventure Desperiers. _Cymbalum Mundi_, 1537; _Contes et Joyeux +Devis_, 1558, but written at least fourteen years earlier, as the author +died in 1544. + +Helisenne de Crenne. _Les Angoisses_, etc., 1538. + +_Amadis_ Romances. Date of Spanish or Portuguese originals uncertain. +Herberay published the first part of his French translation of _Amadis_ +itself in 1540. + +Many of the small pastoral and adventurous stories noticed at the +beginning of Chapter VIII. appeared in the last fifteen years of the +sixteenth century, the remainder in the first quarter of the +seventeenth. But of the Greek and Spanish compositions, which had so +great an influence on them and on the subsequent "Heroic" School, the +work of Heliodorus had been translated as early as 1546, and the _Diana_ +of Montemayor in 1578. + + +17TH CENTURY + +Honore d'Urfe. _L'Astree_, 1607-19. (First three parts in Urfe's +lifetime, fourth and fifth after his death in 1625.) + +"Heroic" Romance, 1622-60, as regards its principal examples, the exact +dates of which are given in a note to p. 176. Madame de Villedieu wrote +almost up to her death in 1683. + +Fairy Tales, etc. The common idea that Perrault not only produced the +masterpieces but set the fashion of the kind is inexact. Madame +d'Aulnoy's _Contes des Fees_ appeared in 1682, whereas Perrault's +_Contes de ma Mere L'Oye_ did not come till fifteen years later, in +1697. The precise dates of the writing of Hamilton's Tales are not, I +think, known. They must, for the most part, have been between the +appearance of Galland's _Arabian Nights_, 1704, and the author's death +in 1720. As for the _Cabinet_ and its later constituents, see below on +the eighteenth century. + +Sorel, Ch. _Francion_, 1622; _Le Berger Extravagant_, 1627. + +Scarron, P. _Le Roman Comique_, 1651. + +Cyrano de Bergerac. _Histoire Comique_, etc., 1655. + +Furetiere, A. _Le Roman Bourgeois_, 1666. + +La Fayette, Madame de. _La Princesse de Cleves_, 1678. Her first book, +_La Princesse de Montpensier_ (much slighter but well written), had +appeared eighteen years earlier, and _Zaide_ or _Zayde_ in 1670, +fathered by Segrais. + +Fenelon. _Telemaque_, 1699. + + +18TH CENTURY + +_Cabinet des Fees_, containing not only the authors or translators +mentioned under the head of the preceding century, but a series of later +writings down to the eve of the Revolution. Gueulette's adaptations and +imitations ranged from the _Soirees Bretonnes_, published in 1712 during +Hamilton's lifetime, to the _Thousand and One Hours_, 1733, the other +collections mentioned in the text coming between. It may be worth +mentioning that, being an industrious editor as well as tale-teller and +playwright, he reprinted _Le Petit Jehan de Saintre_ in 1724 and +Rabelais in 1732. Caylus's tales seem to have been scattered over the +middle third of the century from about 1730 to his death in 1765. +Cazotte's _Diable Amoureux_ (not in the _Cabinet_) is of 1772--he had +written very inferior things of the tale kind full thirty years earlier. +Mme. Le Prince de Beaumont (who was long an actual governess in England) +wrote her numerous "books for the young" for the most part between 1757 +(_Le Magazin des Enfants_) and 1774 (_Contes Moraux_). + +Lesage. _Le Diable Boiteux_, 1707; _Gil Blas de Santillane_, 1715-35. + +Marivaux. _Les Effets Surprenants_, 1713-14; _Marianne_, 1731-36; _Le +Paysan Parvenu_, 1735. + +Prevost. _Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_, 1728-32, followed by _Manon +Lescaut_, 1733; _Cleveland_, 1732-39; _Le Doyen de Killerine_, 1735; +_Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_, 1741. + +(It may not be impertinent to draw attention to the fact that Prevost, +like Defoe--though not quite to the same extent, and in the middle, not +towards the end of his career--concentrated the novel-part of an +enormous polygraphic production upon a few years.) + +Crebillon _fils_. _Lettres de la Marquise_, 1732; _Tanzai et Neadarne_, +1734; _Les Egarements_, 1736; _Le Sopha_, 1745; _La Nuit et le Moment_, +1755; _Le Hasard au Coin du Feu_, 1763; _Ah! Quel Conte!_ 1764. + +Voltaire's _Tales_ were distributed over a large part of his long and +insatiably busy life; but none of his best are very early. _Zadig_ is of +1747; _Micromegas_ of 1752; _Candide_ of 1759; _L'Ingenu_ and _La +Princesse de Babylone_ of 1767 and 1768 respectively. + +Rousseau. _La Nouvelle Heloise_, 1760; _Emile_, 1762. + +Diderot. _Les Bijoux Indiscrets_, 1748. _Jacques le Fataliste_ and _La +Religieuse_ were posthumously published, but must have been written much +earlier than their author's death in 1784. + +Marmontel. _Contes Moraux_ appeared in the official or semi-official +_Mercure de France_, with which the author was connected from 1753-60, +being its manager or editor for the last two of these years. _Belisaire_ +came out in 1767. + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. _Paul et Virginie_, 1787; _La Chaumiere +Indienne_, 1790. + +"Sensibility" Novels:-- + +Madame de Tencin. _Le Comte de Comminge_, 1735; _Les Malheurs de +l'Amour_, 1747. + +Madame Riccoboni. _Le Marquis de Cressy_, 1758; _Lettres de Julie +Catesby_, 1759; _Ernestine_, 1762. + +Madame Elie de Beaumont. _Le Marquis de Roselle_, 1764. + +Madame de Souza. _Adele de Senanges_, 1794. + +Madame de Genlis. _Mlle. de Clermont_, 1802. + +Madame de Duras. _Ourika_, 1823; _Edouard_, 1825. + +Xavier de Maistre. _Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, 1794; _Le Lepreux de +la Cite d'Aoste_, 1812; _Les Prisonniers du Caucase, La Jeune +Siberienne_, 1825. + +Benjamin Constant. _Adolphe_, 1815. + +Restif de la Bretonne. _Le Pied de Fanchette_, 1769; _Adele_, 1772; _Le +Paysan Perverti_, 1775-76; _Les Contemporaines_, 1780-85; _Ingenue +Saxancour_, 1789; _Monsieur Nicolas_, 1794-97. + +Pigault-Lebrun. _L'Enfant du Carnaval_, 1792; _Les Barons de Felsheim_, +1798; _Angelique et Jeanneton_, _Mon Oncle Thomas_, _La Folie +Espagnole_, 1799; _M. Botte_, 1802; _Jerome_, 1804; _Tableaux de +Societe_, 1813; _Adelaide de Meran_, 1815; M. de Roberval, +_L'Officieux_, 1818. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES + + +(Although it is probably idle to attempt to satisfy or placate the +contemporary _helluo_ of bibliography, it may be respectful to other +readers to observe that this is not intended to deal with the whole +subject, but only as a companion, or chrestomathic guide, to this book +itself.) + + +CHAPTER I + +_Apollonius of Tyre._ Ed. Thorpe. London, 1834. + +_English Novel, The._ By the present writer. London (Dent), 1913. + +_French Literature, A Short History of._ By the present writer. Oxford, +1882, and often reprinted. + +_Greek Romances, The._ Most convenient editions of originals--Didot's +_Erotici Graeci_, Paris, 1856, or Teubner's, ed. Herscher, Leipzig, +1858. English translations in Bohn's Library. For those who prefer books +about things to the things themselves, there is a very good English +monograph by Wolff (Columbia University Series, New York). + +_Hymn of St. Eulalia._ Quoted in most histories of French literature, +_e.g._ that entered above, pp. 4, 5. + +_Life of St. Alexis._ Ed. G. Paris and L. Pannier. Paris, 1872-87. + + +CHAPTER II + +_Alexander Legends_ ("Matter of Rome"). The most important editions of +romances concerning Alexander are Michelant's of the great poem from +which, according to the most general theory, the "Alexandrine" or +twelve-syllabled verse takes its name (Stuttgart, 1846), and M. Paul +Meyer's _Alexandre le Grand dans la Litterature Francaise au moyen age_ +(2 vols., Paris, 1886), a monograph of the very first order, with +plentiful reproduction of texts. + +_Arthurian Legend, The._ No complete bibliography of this is possible +here--a note of some fulness will be found in the writer's _Short +History_ (see above on Chapter I.). The most important books for an +English reader who wishes to supplement Malory are M. Paulin Paris's +abstract of the whole, _Les Romans de la Table Ronde_ (5 vols., Paris, +1869-77), a very charming set of handy volumes, beautifully printed and +illustrated; and, now at last, Dr. Sommer's stately edition of the +"Vulgate" texts, completed recently, I believe (Carnegie Institution, +Washington, U.S.A.). + +_Chansons de Gestes._ The first sentence of the last entry applies here +with greater fulness. The editions of _Roland_ are very numerous; and +those of other _chansons_, though there are not often two or more of the +same, run to scores of volumes. The most important books about them are +M. Leon Gautier's _Les Epopees Francaises_ (4 vols., Paris, 1892) and M. +Bedier's _Les Legendes Epiques_ (4 vols., Paris, 1908-13). + +Sainte-More, B. de. _Roman de Troie._ Ed. Joly. Rouen, 1870. Edited a +second time in the series of the Societe des Anciens Textes Francais. + + +CHAPTER III + +The bibliography of the _Romans d'Aventures_ generally is again too +complicated and voluminous to be attempted here. A fair amount of +information will be found, as regards the two sides, French and English, +of the matter, in the writer's _Short Histories_ of the two +literatures--_French_ as above, _English_ (Macmillan, 9th ed., London, +1914), and in his _Romance and Allegory_, referred to in the text. Short +of the texts themselves, but for fuller information than general +histories contain, Dunlop's well-known book, reprinted in Bohn's Library +with valuable additions, and Ellis's _Early English Romances_, +especially the latter, will be found of greatest value. + +_Partenopeus de Blois._ 2 vols. Paris, 1834. + + +CHAPTER IV + +_Nouvelles du 13'e et du 14'me Siecle._ Ed. L. Moland et Ch. +d'Hericault. Bibliotheque Elzevirienne. 2 vols. Paris, 1856. + + +CHAPTER V + +_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Les._ Numerous editions in the cheap +collections of French classics. + +_Fabliaux._ Ed. A. de Montaiglon et G. Raynaud. 6 vols. Paris, 1872-88. + +_Jehan de Paris._ Ed. Montaiglon. Paris, 1874. + +_Petit Jehan de Saintre._ Ed. Guichard. Paris, 1843. + +_Roman de la Rose._ Ed. F. Michel. Paris, 1864. + +_Roman de Renart._ The completest (but not a complete) edition of the +different parts is that of Meon and Chabaille (5 vols., Paris, 1826-35). +The main or "Ancien" Renart was re-edited by E. Martin (3 vols., Paris +and Strasbourg, 1882-87). + + +CHAPTER VI + +Rabelais. Editions of the original very numerous: and of Urquhart's +famous English translation more than one or two recently. The cheapest +and handiest of the former, _without_ commentary, is that in the +Collection Garnier. Of commentaries and books _on_ Rabelais there is no +end. + + +CHAPTER VII + +_Amadis_ Romances. No modern reprints of Herberay and his followers. +Southey's English versions of _Amadis_ and _Palmerin_ are not difficult +to obtain. + +Desperiers, B. _Contes et Joyeuse Devis_, etc. Ed. Lacour. 2 vols. +Paris, 1866. + +Marguerite de Navarre, The _Heptameron_. Editions again numerous, +including cheap ones in the collections. + +_Moyen de Parvenir, Le._ Ed. Jacob. Paris, 1860. (For Helisenne de +Crenne see text, and Reynier--_v. inf._ on next chapter.) + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The general histories and bibliographies of M. Reynier and Herr Koerting, +as well as the monographs of MM. Chatenay, Magne, and Reure, will be +found registered in the notes to text, and references to them in the +index. The original editions are also given in text or note. Modern +reprints--except of the fairy stories and one or two others--are almost +entirely wanting. For the Greek Romances see above under Chapter I. The +_Astree_, after its first issues, appeared as a whole in 1637 and 1647, +the latter being the edition referred to in "Add. and Corr." But the +later eighteenth-century (1733) version of the Abbe Souchay is said to +be "doctored." I have not thought it worth while to look up either this +or the earlier abridgment (_La Nouvelle Astree_ of 1713), though this +latter is not ill spoken of. For the _Cabinet des Fees_ (41 vols., +Geneva, 1785-89) see text. + + +CHAPTER IX + +Sorel. _Francion_ is in the Collection Garnier, _Le Berger Extravagant_ +and _Polyandre_ only in the originals. + +Scarron. _Le Roman Comique._ The 1752 edition (3 vols.) is useful, but +there are reprints. + +Furetiere. _Le Roman Bourgeois._ Collection Jannet et Picard, 1854. + +Cyrano de Bergerac. _Voyages_, etc. Ed. Jacob. Paris, 1858. + +Mme. de la Fayette. _La Princesse de Cleves._ Paris, 1881. + + +CHAPTER X + +For those who wish to study Lesage and Prevost at large, the combined +Dutch _Oeuvres Choisies_, in 54 vols. (Amsterdam, 1783), will offer a +convenient, if not exactly handy, opportunity. Separate editions of the +_Diable Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_ are very, and of _Manon Lescaut_ fairly, +numerous. + +Marivaux. _Oeuvres._ 12 vols. Paris, 1781. + +Crebillon _fils_. _Oeuvres Completes._ 7 vols. Londres, 1772. + + +CHAPTER XI + +The work, in novel, of Voltaire and Rousseau is in all the cheap +collections of Didot, Garnier, etc. Of that of Diderot there have +recently been several partial collections, but I think no complete one. +It is better to take the _Oeuvres_, by Assezat and Tourneux, mentioned +in the text (20 vols., Paris, 1875-77). + +Marmontel's _Oeuvres_ appeared in 19 vols. (Paris, 1818), and I have +used, and once possessed, a more modern and compacter issue in 7 vols. +(Paris, 1820?). The _Contes Moraux_ appeared together in 1770 and later. + +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. _Oeuvres_. 12 vols. 1834. Very numerous +separate editions (or sometimes with _La Chaumiere Indienne_) of _Paul +et Virginie_. + + +CHAPTER XII + +Minor "Sensibility" novels. Most of them in a handsome 7-vol. edition +(Paris, _n.d._) in Garnier's _Bibliotheque Amusante_. This also includes +Marivaux. + +X. de Maistre. Editions numerous. + +B. Constant. _Adolphe._ Paris, 1842; and with Introduction by M. Anatole +France (1889); besides M. de Lescure's noticed in text. + +Restif de la Bretonne. Selection of _Les Contemporaines_, by Assezat. 3 +vols. Paris, 1875-76. + +Pigault-Lebrun. Edition mentioned in text. + + + + +INDEX + + +(The dates given in this Index are confined to _persons_ directly dealt +with in this volume. Those of the more important _books_ noticed will be +found in the Chronological Conspectus. In other respects I have made it +as full as possible, in an _Index nominum_, as regards both authors and +titles.) + +_Abbot, The_, xiii + +_Abdalla, Les Aventures d'_, 258, 259 + +_Acajou et Zirphile_, 267 + +Achilles Tatius, 37, 157 _note_, 220 _note_, 350 + +Addison, 107, 232, 339 + +_Adelaide de Meran_, 465 + +_Adolphe_, 372 _note_, 429, 437, 438, 442-451, 472 + +AElfric, 73 _note_ + +_Aeneid, The_, 2 _note_ + +_Ah! Quel Conte!_ 371 _sq._ + +Aime-Martin, 425 + +Aisse, Mlle., 355 _note_ + +_Alcandre Frustre_, 243 + +_Alcibiade ou le moi_, 415, 416 + +_Alcidamie_, 242 + +_Alcidiane_, 236 + +"Alcidonis of Megara," 419, 424 _note_ + +_Alciphron_, 389 + +Alexander, Romances of, 19, 20, 473 + +_Alexis, Vie de Saint_, 6-8, 475, 479 + +_Aliscans_, 14 + +Allen, Mr. George, 412 _note_ + +_Almahide_, 176 _note_, 225, 226 + +_Amadas et Idoine_, 71 + +_Amadis of Gaul_, 42 _note_, 57, 134, 145-150, 171, 175, 197, 201, +220, 221, 236, 287 _note_, 353, 409, 476, 481 + +_Amenophis_, 430 _note_ + +_Amis et Amiles_, 13, 14, 77, 146 + +Amory (author of _John Buncle_), 277, 454 + +_Amours Galantes_, 243-245 + +Amyot, Jacques (1513-1593), 133, 144 + +Anacharsis, 212 _sq._ + +_Anastasius_, 290 + +_Anatomy_ (Burton's), 206 _note_ + +_Angelique et Jeanneton_, 462, 463 + +_Angoisses, Les._ _See_ H. de Crenne + +_Annette et Lubin_, 415 + +_Apollonius of Tyre_, 3, 479 + +_Apollonius Rhodius_, 1 _note_, 2 _note_, 37, 274 + +_Apologie pour Herodote_, 143 + +_Apology_, the Platonic, 388 + +Apuleius, 2, 251 _note_ + +_Arabian Nights, The_, 246 _sq._, 258 _sq._, 305, 313 _sq._, 318, 371 _sq._, 476 + +_Arcadia_, the, 103, 165, 166, 174 + +_Argenis_, 152 _note_ + +Aristaenetus, _Letters_ of, 327 + +Aristides (of Smyrna), 350 _note_ + +Aristophanes, 136 + +Aristotle, 331 + +_Arnalte and Lucenda_, 145 _note_ + +Arnold, Mr. Matthew, vi, 156, 364, 385 + +_Arnoult et Clarimonde_, 161, 162 + +_Artamene._ See _Grand Cyrus, Le_ + +Arthurian Legend, The, 3, 20-54, 73, 104, 105 + +_Arthur of Little Britain_, 146, 147 + +Ascham, 26 _note_, 61 + +_Asseneth_, 80, 81, 87 + +Assezat, M., 454 + +_Astree_, the, xii, xiii, 152-157, 162, 167-175, 197, 212 _note_, +218 _note_, 220, 226 _note_, 229, 234, 277 _note_, 476, 481 + +_As You Like It_, 48, 174 + +Aubignac (F. Hedelin, Abbe d', 1604-1676), 238, 239 + +_Aucassin et Nicolette_, 24, 59, 61, 74, 79, 87, 475 + +Augier, E., 458 _note_ + +Aulnoy (Marie Catherine le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d', 1650?-1705), 154, +246 _sq._, 273, 476 + +Auneuil, Mme. d', 258 + +Austen, Miss, 287, 428-434, 471 + +Avellaneda, 327 + +_Aventures de Floride, Les_, 162 + + +_Babouc_, 383 + +Bacon, 298 + +Bailey, Mr. P. J., 384 + +Balfour, Mr. A. J., 115 + +Balzac, H. de, 288, 353 + +Barclay (author of _Argenis_), 152 _note_ + +_Barons de Felsheim, Les_, 461 + +_Bassa, L'Illustre_, 223-225, 281 + +Baudelaire, xiv + +Beaconsfield, Lord, 306 + +Beauchamps, P. F. G. de (1689-1761), 265 _note_, 266 + +Beauvau, P. de, 81 + +Beckford, 306 + +Bedier, M., 13 _note_, 480 + +Behn, Afra, 242, 458 _note_ + +_Belier, Le_, 308 _sq._ + +_Belisaire_, 413 + +Bellaston, Lady, 343 + +_Belle et la Bete, La_, 253 + +Bentley, 194 + +_Beowulf_, 11 + +_Berger Extravagant, Le_, 277, 278, 476, 482 + +Bergerac. _See_ Cyrano de B. + +_Bergeries de Juliette, Les_, 157, 159, 160 + +Berkeley, 389 + +Berners, Lord, 146 + +Beroalde de Verville (Francois, 1558-1612), 111, 162, 163 + +_Berte aux grands Pies_, 15 + +Besant, Sir W., 121 + +_Bevis of Hampton_, 71 + +Beyle, 442 + +_Bibliotheque Universelle des Romans_, 206 _note_ + +_Biche au Bois, La_, 254 + +_Bijoux Indiscrets, Les_, 403, 405, 411 + +_Black Arrow, The_, 82 + +Blair, H., 71 + +_Blancandin et l'Orgueilleuse d'Amours_, 71 + +_Blonde d'Oxford_, 102 _note_ + +Boccaccio, 16, 18, 81, 93 + +Boileau-Despreaux (Nicolas, 1636-1711), 175, 240, 295, 330, 331 + +Bonhomme, M. H., 257 _note_ + +Borrow, 456 + +Bors, Sir, 53 + +Bossuet, 40 _note_ + +Boswell, 386 _note_, 422 _note_ + +_Botte, M._, 467, 472 _note_ + +Bouchet, G. (1526-1606), 143 + +Bouchet, J. (1475-1550), 143 _note_ + +_Bovary, Madame_, 446 + +Brantome (Pierre de Bourdeilles, 1540?-1614), 135, 136, 140 + +Brown, Tom, 281 + +Browne, W., 236 + +Browning, R., 52, 74, 234, 404 _note_ + +Brunetiere, M., 161 _note_, 274 _note_, 410 _note_ + +_Buncle, John_, 277 + +Burney, Miss, 347, 468 + +Burton (of the _Anatomy_), 206 _note_ + +Bussy-Rabutin, Roger, Comte de (1618-1693), 243 + +Butler, Mr. A. J., xi + +Butler, S., 139 _note_ + +Byron, 393 + + +_Cabinet de Minerve, Le_, 163 + +_Cabinet des Fees, Le_, 246-272, 419, 427 _note_, 476, 477, 481 + +_Cabinet d'un Philosophe, Le_, 339 + +_Cafe de Surate, Le_, 426 + +Callisthenes, the pseudo-, 17 + +Campanella, 298 + +Camus (de Pontcarre), Jean (1584-1653), 153, 237, 238 + +_Candide_, 379 _sq._, 461, 477 + +_Capitaine Fracasse, Le_, 279-280 + +_Caritee, La_, 176 _note_, 235, 236 + +Carlyle, 130, 139 _note_, 243, 402 _notes_, 403 and _note_, 414 + +_Carmente_, 244, 245 + +"Carte de Tendre," the, 226 + +_Cassandre_, 176 _note_, 233-234 + +Catullus, 176 _note_, 220 + +Caylus, Anne Claude Philippe de Tubieres de Grimoard de Pestels de Levi, Comte +de (1692-1765), 262-264, 477 + +Cazotte, Jacques (1720-1792), 270 _note_, 477 + +_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, 92-100, 472, 475, 480 + +_Ce qui plait aux Dames_, 377 _note_ + +Cervantes, 124, 284 _note_ + +_Chanson de Geste, The_, 9-16 + +Chapelain, 178 + +_Chat Botte, Le_, 254 + +Chateaubriand, 234 _note_, 430, 459, 464 + +_Chateau de la Misere, Le_, 280 + +Chatenet, M. H. E., 243 _note_ + +Chaucer, 16, 18, 22, 61 _note_, 81, 91, 103, 220, 319, 351 _note_, +377 _note_, 467 + +_Chaumiere Indienne, La_, 426 + +_Cheminees de Madrid, Les_, 328 + +Chenier, A., 464 + +_Chevalier a la Charette_, 24-28 + +_Chevalier au Lyon_, 24, 25 + +Cholieres, 143 + +Chrestien de Troyes (12th cent.), 21-29, 37, 106 + +_Citateur, Le_, 462 _note_ + +_Citheree_, 176 _note_ + +Clarendon, 459 + +_Clelie_, 176 _note_, 226-229 + +_Cleopatre_, 176 _note_, 230-232 + +_Cleveland_, 353-357 + +_Clidamant et Marilinde_, 160, 161 + +_Cliges_, 24 + +Coleridge, 31 _note_ + +Collins, Wilkie, 294 _note_ + +_Colonel Jack_, 463 + +Colvin, Sir Sidney, 239 _note_ + +_Comedie Humaine_, the, 469, 470 + +_Compere Mathieu, Le_, 412 _note_ + +_Comte de Comminge, Le_, 431, 451 + +"Comte de Gabalis," the, 257 _note_ + +_Comtesse de Savoie, La_, 430 _note_ + +_Confessions_, Rousseau's, 391 _sq._ + +Congreve, xiv, 376 _note_ + +_Conquest of Granada, The_, 225 + +Conrart, 201 + +Constant-Rebecque, Henri Benjamin de (1767-1830), 429, 430, 437, 438, +442-452,482 + +_Contemporaines, Les_, 454 + +_Contes et Joyeux Devis_, 141, 142, 476, 481 + +_Contes Moraux_ (Marmontel's), 414-424 + +_Conversation du marechal d'Hocquincourt avec le Pere Canaye_, 307 _note_ + +Corbin, J., 162 + +_Corinne_, 452, 465 + +Corneille, 219, 278 _note_, 296, 318 _note_ + +_Cosi-Sancta_, 387 + +_Courtebotte, Le Prince_, 262, 263 + +Courthope, Mr. W. J., xi + +Courtils de Sandras, 153 + +Cousin, V., 177 and _note_ + +Crawley, Miss Matilda, 458 _note_ + +Crebillon _fils_, Claude Prosper Jolyot de (1707-1777), xiv, 325, 350 +_note_, 353, 354, 364, 376, 403, 406, 415, 419, 450 _note_, 453, +459, 469, 477, 482 + +Crebillon _pere_, Prosper Jolyot de, 365 + +Crenne, H. de (16th cent.), 150 _note_, 476 + +_Cressy, Le Marquis de._ See _Histoire du Marquis de Cressy_ + +_Crispin Rival de son Maitre_, 329 + +_Crocheteur Borgne, Le_, 387 + +Croxall, 244 + +Ctesias, 179 + +_Cupid and Psyche_, 58, 59 + +_Cymbalum Mundi_, 140, 141, 476 + +Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien (1609-1655), 275, 286 _note_, 295-298, +476, 482 + +_Cyropaedia_, 187 _note_, 197 _note_ + +_Cyrus_. See _Grand Cyrus_ + + +Dante, xi, xii, 45, 49, 119 _notes_, 150 _note_, 179, 274 _note_ + +_Daphnis and Chloe_, 155, 159 + +Davenant, 393 + +_Decameron_, the, 93 + +Defoe, 292, 329, 358, 456 + +Dekker, 275 + +De Launay, Mlle. _See_ Staal-Delaunay, Mme. + +De Quincey, 399, 456 + +Desperiers, Bonaventure (?-1544?), 137, 140-142, 380, 476, 481 + +_Deux Amis de Bourbonne, Les_, 403 + +_Diable Amoureux, Le_, 270, 271 _notes_, 477 + +_Diable Boiteux, Le_, 326 _sq._, 477 + +_Diablo Cojuelo, El_, 329 + +_Diana_ (Montemayor's), 157, 165, 476 + +Dickens, 15, 245, 262 and _note_, 285, 326, 348 _note_, 364, 394, +395 _note_ + +_Dictionnaire Philosophique_ (Voltaire's), 411 _note_ + +Diderot, Denis (1713-1784), 225, 375, 386 _note_, 391 _note_, +400-411, 425, 426, 453, 470, 472 _note_, 482 + +Disraeli, Mr., 37 + +Dobson, Mr. A., 246, 317 _note_, 417 + +Donne, 150 _note_, 206 _note_, 220 + +_Don Quixote_, 57, 277, 333, 461, 472 + +_Don Silvia de Rosalva_, 269 + +_Doon de Mayence_, 15 + +_Doyen de Killerine, Le_, 353-357 + +Dryden, 44 _note_, 200, 203, 215, 226, 230, 377 _note_, 393 + +Duclos, Charles Pinot (1704-1772), 267 + +Du Croset (_c._ 1600), 162 + +Du Fail, Noel (16th cent.), 143 + +Dulaurens, H. J. (1719-1797), 412 _note_ + +Dumas, 98, 181, 245, 279, 286 + +Dunlop, 165 + +Du Perier (_c._ 1600), 161 + +Duras, Mme. de (Claire de Kersaint, 1778-1844), 430, 449, 450 + +Du Souhait (_c._ 1600), 160 _note_ + + +_Earthly Paradise, The_, 14 + +Edgeworth, Miss, 237, 386, 412 + +_Edouard_, 449 + +_Effets de la Sympathie, Les_, 338, 340 + +_Egarements du Coeur et de l'Esprit, Les_, 371 _sq._, 443 _note_ + +Elie de Beaumont, Mme. (Marie Louise Morin Dumesnil, ?-1783), 436 + +Ellis, G., 57, 480 + +Elton, Prof., ix _note_ + +_Emile_, 392, 393, 478 + +_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, vii + +_Encyclopedie, The_, 411 + +_Endimion_, Gombauld's, 229 + +_Endymion_, Keats's, 239 + +"_Engouement_," 449, 450 + +_Epistle to the Pisos_, 219 + +_Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, 116, 124 + +_Erec et Enide_, 24, 25 + +_Eric_ (Dean Farrar's), 465 _note_ + +_Ernestine_, 435 + +Escuteaux, Sieur des (_c._ 1600), 157 _note_, 160, 161 + +Esmond, Beatrix, 49 + +_Essai sur les Romans_ (Marmontel's), 413 + +_Essay on Criticism_ (Pope's), 327 + +_Estevanille Gonzales_, 328 + +_Etudes de la Nature_, 424 _note_ + +Eulalia, Legend of St., 4, 5, 479 + +_Euphues_, 103, 116 + +Eustathius (Macrembolites or -ta, sometimes called Eu_m_athius, 12th +cent.), 18, 350 + +_Evelina_, 435 + +_Evenemens Singuliers_, 237, 238 + +_Expedition Nocturne_, 437 _sq._ + + +_Fabliaux_, The, 91, 92 + +_Facardins, Les Quatre_, 262, 308, 313, 316-320 + +_Famille Luceval, La_, 467 + +_Faramond_, 176 _note_, 234, 235 + +Farrar, Dean, 465 _note_ + +_Fausses Confidences, Les_, 339 + +Fenelon, Francois de Salignac de la Mothe, (1651-1715), 153, 237, 260, +323, 324, 477 + +Ferrier, Miss, 429 + +_Festus_, 384 + +Fielding, 285, 326, 349, 375, 451, 471 + +_Finette_, 251, 252 + +FitzGerald, E., 118, 176 _note_ + +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Prof., ix _note_ + +_Fleur d'Epine_, 308 _sq._ + +_Floire et Blanchefleur_, 3, 59, 71 + +Folengo, 124 + +_Folie Espagnole, La_, 462, 463 + +Fontaines, Mme. de (Marie Louise Charlotte de Pelard de Givry, ?-1730), +430 _note_ + +Fontenelle, 350 _note_, 384 + +Forsyth, Dr., 455 + +_Fortnightly Review_, vii, 306 _note_, 428 _note_ + +_Fortunes of Nigel, The_, 361 + +_Foulques Fitzwarin_, 81-87 + +_Four Flasks, The_, 419 + +France, M. A., 328 + +_Francion_, 275-277, 476 + +Froissart, 135 + +_Fuerres de Gadres_, xi, 20 + +Fuller, 320 + +_Funestine_, 265, 266 + +Furetiere, Antoine (1620-1688), 154, 275, 277, 286-295, 469, 482 + + +Galland, Antoine (1646-1715), 246 _sq._, 476 + +_Gargantua_ (and _Pantagruel_), Chap. VI., _passim_ + +Gautier, M. Leon, 279, 280, 286, 296, 480 + +_Gawain and the Green Knight_, 56 + +Genin, F., 402 and _note_ + +Genlis, Mme. de (Stephanie Felicite du Crest de St. Aubin, 1746-1830), +436 + +Geoffrey of Monmouth, 17 + +George Eliot, 445 _note_ + +_Gesta Romanorum_, 89 + +Gilbert, Sir W., 172 _note_, 181, 329, 393 + +_Gil Blas_, 325 _sq._, 374, 461, 462, 468, 457 + +Gladstone, Mr., 176 _note_ + +Godfrey de Lagny (12th cent.), 24 _note_, 29 + +Goethe, 456 + +Gombauld, J. Ogier de (1570-1666), 229, 239-241 + +Gomberville, Marin le Roy de (1600-1674), 176 _note_, 177 _note_, +229, 235-237 + +Gomersal, 399 _note_ + +Gongora, 159 _note_ + +_Gracieuse et Percinet_, 250, 251 + +_Grand Cyrus, The_, 154 _note_, 170, 176-223, 280, 281, 284, 318 + +Grantley, Archdeacon, xii, 121 + +Graves, 277, 333 + +Gray, 276, 365, 375 + +_Grecque moderne, Histoire d'une_, 353-358 + +Greek Romances. _See_ Romances, Greek + +Greg, Mr., 155 _note_ + +Grimm, F. M., 408 _note_, 410 + +_Grotesques, Les_, 296 + +Gueulette, Thomas Simon (1683-1766), 258-266, 379, 477 + +Guevara, 329, 372 + +Guido de Columnis, or delle Colonne, 18, 87 + +_Guillaume d'Angleterre_, 24 + +Guinevere, Queen (character of), xi, xii, 25-54 _passim_, 182 _note_ + +_Gulliver's Travels_, 110, 384 + +_Guzman d'Alfarache_, 328 + + +Hamilton, Anthony (1646?-1720), 153, 154, 248, 264, 266 _note_, 275 and +_note_, 305-325, 369 _note_, 371 _note_, 378, 379 _note_, +380, 385, 476 + +Hamilton, Gerard, 275 _note_ + +_Hamlet_, 331 + +Hammond, Miss Chris., 412 _note_ + +Hardy, Mr. Thomas, 272, 348 + +_Hasard au Coin du Feu, Le_, 366 _sq._ + +Hawker, 41 and _note_ + +Hegel, 139 _note_ + +Heliodorus, 179, 476 + +_Heloise, La Nouvelle_, see _Julie_ + +Henley, Mr. W. E., 259 _note_, 460 + +Henryson, 18, 156 _note_ + +_Heptameron, The_, 136-143, 472, 476, 481 + +Herberay des Essarts, Nicolas (?-1552?), 145 _sq._, 476, 481 + +Herodotus, 1, 2, 178 + +_Heureusement_, 419, 463 + +_Heureux Orphelins, Les_, 373 + +Heywood, J., 192 _note_ + +_Histoire de Jenni_, 386 + +_Histoire du Marquis de Cressy_, 432, 433 + +_Histoire Veritable_ (B. de Verville's), 163 + +Holbach, Mme. d', 408, 410 and _note_ + +Homer, 1, 71, 274, 275 + +Hope, T., 290 + +Hudgiadge, Sultan, 260 _note_, 262 + +Hugo, Victor, xiii, 228, 458, 472 _note_ + +Hume, 207 _note_ + +_Humphrey Clinker_, 469 + +Hunt, Leigh, 91, 413 _note_ + +Hunt, Rev. W., ix _note_, xiii + +_Huon de Bordeaux_, 14 + +_Hysminias and Hyasmine_, 18, 37, 157 _note_, 220 _note_, 265 _note_ + + +_Ibrahim_, 176 _note_, 223-225 + +Ibsen, 39 _note_, 362 + +_Idylls of the King_, Chap. II. _passim_ + +_Iliad, The_, 11, 71 + +_Illustres Fees, Les_, 257 + +_Incas, Les_, 413 + +_Interlude of Love_, 192 _note_ + + +_Jacques le Fataliste_, 404-407 + +James, G. P. R., 233 + +_Jeannot et Colin_, 386 + +_Jehan de Paris_, 101-103, 475, 480 + +Jerningham, E., 423 _note_ + +_Jerome_, 464 + +_Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, Le_, 339 + +Johnson, Dr., 107, 139 _note_, 155, 178, 218 _note_, 265 and +_note_, 276, 377, 381, 386 _note_ + +Joinville, 135 + +_Jonathan Wild_, xv, 101 + +_Joseph Andrews_, 375, 415, 426 _note_ + +Joubert, 412 + +_Jourdains de Blaivies_, 14 + +_Journee des Parques, La_, 328 + +_Julie_, 393-400, 436, 452, 468, 470, 477 + + +"Katherine and Gerard," story of, 94-99 + +Ker, Mr. W. P., ix _note_, xii, 119 _note_ + +Kinglake, 306 _note_ + +Kingsley, Charles, xii, 52, 244 + +Kipling, Mr., 195, 208, 380 + +_Knight of the Sun, The_, 147 + +Knollys, 417 + +Kock, Paul de, 461 + +Koerting, H., 133 _note_, 165 _sq._, 236 _notes_, 274 _note_ + + +La Calprenede, Gauthier de Costes de (1610?-1633), 176 _note_, 197 +_note_, 227, 230-235 + +Laclos (Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderlos de, 1741-1803), xiv, xv, 453 + +_La Comtesse de Ponthieu_, 77-80, 86 + +La Croix, Petro de, 259 _note_ + +"Lady of the Lake," The, 30 _note_ + +La Fayette, Mme. de (Marie Madeleine Pioche de Lavergne, 1634-1693), 154, +273, 298-300, 318, 325, 376, 426, 428, 429, 436, 451, 469, 477, 482 + +La Fontaine, 92, 175 + +La Force, Mlle. de (Charlotte Rose de Caumont de, 1654?-1724), 257 + +La Harpe, 240 + +_La Jeune Siberienne_, 437 _sq._ + +Lamartine, 464 + +Lamb, Charles, 28, 320, 455 _note_ + +Lamoracke, Sir, 53 + +La Morliere (Charles Louis Auguste de La Rochette Chevalier de, 1719-1785), +vi _note_ + +Lancelot, Sir (character of), xi, xii, 25-54 _passim_, 182 _note_ + +Landor, 331 + +Lang, Mr. A., 246 + +Lannoi, J. de, 162 + +_La Princesse de Cleves_, 223, 244, 298-300, 470 + +La Rochefoucauld, 299 and _note_ + +Larroumet, M. G., 339 _note_ + +La Salle, Antoine de (1398-1462?), 93, 101, 102, 106 + +_Latin Stories_ (Wright's), 73 _note_ + +Lavington, Argemone, 49 + +Lawrence, G., 51 _note_ + +_Le Blanc et le Noir_, 385, 386 + +Le Breton, M., 274 _note_ + +Le Brun "Pindare," 462 + +_L'Ecumoire_, 371 _sq._ + +_Legend of the Rhine, A_, 339 _note_ + +Leigh Hunt, 413 _note_ + +_L'Empereur Constant_, 74, 75, 86 + +_L'Enchanteur Faustus_, 308 _sq._ + +_L'Enfant du Carnaval_, 457 _note_, 461 + +_Lepreux de la Cite d'Aoste, Le_, 437 _sq._ + +Le Prince de Beaumont, Marie, Mme. (1711-1780), 268, 477 + +_Le Prisonnier de Caucase_, 437 _sq._ + +_Le Roi Flore et La Belle Jehane_, 75, 76, 86 + +Lesage, Alain Rene (1668-1747), 259 and _note_, 325-337, 374, 375, 468, +472, 477, 482 + +Lescure, M. de, 442 + +_Le Sot Chevalier_, 91 + +Lespinasse, Mlle. de, 257, 403 _note_, 441 + +_Lettres d'Amabed_, 386 + +_Lettres Atheniennes_, 373, 374 + +_Lettres de la Marquise de M----_, 372 + +_Lettres du Marquis de Roselle_, 437 + +Levis, Pierre Marc Gaston Duc de (1755-1830), 313 _note_ + +_Levite d'Ephraim, Le_, 399 _note_ + +Lewis, "Monk," 271 _note_ + +_L'Homme aux Quarante Ecus_, 385 + +_Liaisons Dangereuses, Les_, xiv, xv + +_L'Ingenu_, 385, 475 + +Livy, 2 + +_L'Officieux_, 465-467 + +Longinus, 328 + +Longus, 172 _note_ + +Louis XI., 92 + +Louvet de Coudray, 453 + +Lubert, Mlle. de. (1710-1779), 266 + +Lucian, 2, 141, 142, 298, 328, 380 + +Lucius of Patrae, 2 + +Lussan, Mlle. de (1682-1758), xiii, 265 + +_Lycidas_, 156 + +Lyndsay, Sir D., 100 _note_ + +Lyonne, the Abbe de, 328 + + +_Macarise_, 238 + +Macaulay, 265 and _note_, 311 _note_ + +Macdonald, G., 52 + +Mackenzie, H., 414 + +_M. de Beauchesne_, 329 + +_Mlle. de Clermont_, 436 + +Magne, M. E., 241 + +Maintenon, Mme. de, 279, 342 _note_ + +Mairet, 167 + +Maistre, Joseph de, 126, 438 + +Maistre, Xavier de (1763-1852), 405 _note_, 430, 437-441, 452, 459 + +_Malachi's Cove_, 41 _note_ + +Malory, 26 _sq._ + +_Man Born to be King, The_, 74 + +_Manon Lescaut_, 304, 325, 352-364, 372 _note_, 374, 389, 413 +_note_, 470, 477, 482 + +_Mansfield Park_, 429 + +Map or Mapes, Walter, 23 _sq._, 29, 106, 226 _note_ + +Marguerite de Valois (the eldest) (1491-1549), 126, 136-143, 475, 481 + +---- (the middle), 299 + +---- (the youngest) (1553-1615), 158, 159 + +Maria del Occidente, 416 + +_Marianne_, 340, 342 _note_, 345-352, 374, 436, 446, 450 _note_, 477 + +Marini, 159 _note_ + +"Marion de la Briere and Sir Ernault de Lyls," story of, 84-86 + +_Mari Sylphe, Le_, 419, 424 _note_ + +Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de (1688-1763), 318, 325, 326, +337-352, 365 _note_, 366, 374, 375, 428, 450, 454 _note_, 469, 477, 482 + +Marlowe, xiv + +_Marmion_, 83 + +Marmontel, Jean Francois (1723-1799), 375, 377, 412-424, 428, 458, 463, +470, 482 + +Marot, 137, 138, 155 + +_Marquis des Arcis, Le_, 403, 406, 407 + +_Marriage a la Mode_ (Dryden's), 200 + +_Marriage of Kitty, The_, 191 _note_ + +Marryat, 336 + +Martial, 136 + +"Matter of Britain, France, and Rome," the, 3, Chap. II. _passim_ + +Maupassant, 2 + +_Melanges Litteraires_ (Pigault-Lebrun's), 458 + +_Memnon_, 384 + +_Memoires de Grammont_, 306 + +_Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_, 353-358 + +_Memoirs_ (Marmontel's), 413 + +_Memoirs of Several Ladies_, 454 + +_Meraugis de Portlesguez_, 71 + +Meredith, Mr. George, 2, 37, 49, 91, 350 _note_ + +Merimee, 438 + +Meyer, M. Paul, 479 + +_Micromegas_, 380 _note_, 384, 477 + +Middleton, 275 + +_Midsummer Night's Dream, A_, 26 + +_Milady Catesby_, 435 + +Mill, J. S., 400 + +Milton, 30 _note_, 139, 155, 274, 275, 378 _note_, 459 + +_Minnigrey_, 460 + +Moliere, F. de (?-1623?), 161 + +_Moliere, Henriette de_, 242, 243 + +Moliere, J. B. P. de, 219, 282, 296, 330, 368 + +_Mon Oncle Thomas_, 463, 464 + +_Monsieur Nicolas_, 454, 456 + +Montaigne, 133, 136 _note_, 184 + +Montemayor, 157, 165, 476 + +Montreux, N. de (c. 1600), 157-160 + +Moore, T., 241 + +Mordred, Sir, 50 _note_ + +More, M. F., 298 + +Morgane-la-Fee, 39 + +Morley of Blackburn, Lord, 402 _note_ + +Morris, Mr. Mowbray, 265 _note_, 385 + +Morris, Mr. W., 14, 38 _note_, 52, 74 + +_Mort d'Agrippine, La_, 296 + +_Moyen de Parvenir_, 111, 162, 276, 481 + +_Mr. Midshipman Easy_, 453 + +_Mr. Sludge the Medium_, 404 _note_ + +_Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy_, 180 _note_ + +_Muguet, Le Prince_, 264 + +Murat, Mme. de (Henriette Julie de Castelnau, 1670-1716), 257 _note_ + + +Naigeon, 412 + +Nennius, 17 + +Nerval, G. de, 271 _note_ + +Nerveze, A. de (c. 1600), 157 _note_, 160 + +_Neveu de Rameau, Le_, 403, 404 + +_Newton Forster_, 189 + +Nonnus, 274 + +_Northanger Abbey_, 450 _note_ + +_Nouveaux Contes Orientaux_, 260 _note_, 261 + +_Nouvelle Heloise, La._ See _Julie_. + +_Nuit et le Moment, La_, 366 _sq._, 477 + + +_Odyssey, The_, 1, 11, 71 + +_Ogier de Danemarche_, 14 + +_Old Mortality_, 176 + +"Ollenix du Mont Sacre." _See_ Montreux, N. de + +_Oreilles du Comte de Chesterfield, Les_, 386 + +_Othello_, 364 + +_Ourika_, 449 + +Ovid, 2 + + +Pajon, xiii, 267 + +_Palerne, Guillaume de (William of)_, 60 + +_Palmerin of England_, 146-150 + +_Palombe_, 237 + +Palomides, Sir, 53 + +_Pantagruel_, Chap. VI. _passim_ + +_Paradoxe sur le Comedien_, 408 _note_ + +Paris, M. Gaston, 22, 23 + +Paris, M. Paulin, 22, 23, 38, 480 + +_Partenopeus (-pex) de Blois_, 3, 57-71, 480 + +Pasquier, 150 _note_ + +_Pathelin_, 101 + +_Paul et Virginie_, 425, 426-452 + +_Paysan Parvenu, Le_, 340-345, 454 + +_Paysan Perverti, Le_, 340, 454 + +_Peau d'Ane_, 252 + +_Pedant Joue, Le_, 296 + +_Pensees_ (Joubert's), 412 + +Pepys, 135, 317 _note_, 456 + +_Percevale le Gallois_, 24 + +Perrault, Charles (1628-1703), 154, 246 _sq._, 273 + +_Petit Jehan de Saintre_, 100-102, 475, 480 + +Petronius, 2 + +_Phedre_, 331 + +_Philocalie_, 162 + +_Philocaste_, 162 + +_Philosophe Soi-distant, Le_, 419-423 + +Pigault-Lebrun, Charles Antoine Guillaume P. de L'Epinoy (1753-1835), +456-471, 472 _note_, 482 + +Pigault-_Maubaillarck_, 458 _note_ + +Planche, G., 353, 360 + +Plato, 1 _note_, 82, 165, 166, 387, 388 + +Plutarch, 234 + +_Polexandre_, 176 _note_, 236, 237 + +_Polite Conversation_, 110 + +Pollock, Mr. W. H., 408 _note_ + +_Polyandre_, 277, 278, 482 + +_Polyxene_, 161 + +Pope, 29, 37, 194, 327 + +_Pornographe, Le_, 454 _note_, 455 + +_Pour et Contre, Le_, 352 + +Praed, 187 _note_ + +_Precieuses Ridicules, Les_, 220 + +Preschac, Sieur de (early 18th cent.), 258 + +Prevost (Antoine Francois P. d'Exilles, 1697-1763), 325, 352-364, 366, +373, 375, 426, 428, 468, 470, 477 + +Prevost, Pierre, 394 + +_Pride and Prejudice_, 287 + +_Prince Cheri, Le_, 253 + +_Princesse de Babylone, La_, 385, 389, 390, 478 + +_Princesse de Cleves, La_, 275, 298-305, 308, 364, 413 _note_, 482 + +Prior, 91 + +Prudentius, 5 + +Puisieux, Mme. de, 403 + +Pyramus, Denis (early 13th cent.), 58 + + +_Quatre Facardins, Les._ See _Facardins_ + +_Quatre Fils d'Aymon, Les_, 15 + +_Queenhoo Hall_, 291 _note_ + +_Quentin Durward_, 94 _note_ + +_Quinze Joies de Mariage, Les_, 101 + + +Rabelais, Francois (1495?-1553?), xii, Chap. VI., 134-144 _passim_, 276, +298, 307, 321, 425, 372, 476, 481 + +Racine, 219, 272, 288, 296 + +Radcliffe, Mrs., 468 + +_Rasselas_, 377, 381 + +Reade, Charles, 98 + +_Rebecca and Rowena_, 339 _note_ + +Recamier, Mme., 442, 443 + +Regnard, 330 _note_ + +_Regrets sur ma Vieille Robe de Chambre_, 403 + +_Reine Fantasque, La_, 265 + +_Relations_ (A. Hamilton's), 306 _note_ + +_Religieuse, Histoire d'une_ (Marivaux's), 347 + +_Religieuse, La_ (Diderot's), 407-411, 452 + +_Rene_, 452, 464 + +Restif de la Bretonne (Nicolas Edme, 1734-1806), 340, 452-456, 459, 472 +_note_, 482 + +Reure, the Abbe, 163 _sq._ + +_Reve de D'Alembert_, 403 _note_ + +_Reve, Le_ (Zola's), 462 + +Reynier, M. G., 145 _note_, 150, 150 _note_, 157-163 + +_Rhodanthe and Dosicles_, 265 _note_ + +Rhys, Sir John, 31 + +Riccoboni, Mme. (Marie Jeanne Laboras de Mezieres, 1714-1792), 340, 430, +432-436 + +Richardson, xvi, 26, 208, 225, 349, 356 _note_, 375, 395, 398, 404, 465 + +_Robene and Makyne_, 156 _note_ + +_Roberval, M. de_, 467 + +_Robin Hood_, 82 + +Rochechouart, Isabel de (c. 1600), 162, 163 and _note_ + +_Roland, Chanson de_, 12 _sq._, 147 + +_Roman Bourgeois_, 275, 277, 286-295, 476, 482 + +_Roman Comique_, 275, 279-287, 476, 482 + +_Roman de la Rose_, 89, 90, 106, 475, 481 + +_Roman de Renart_, 90, 106, 475 + +_Roman de Troie_, 17, 475 + +_Roman Satirique_, 162 + +_Roman Sentimental avant l'Astree, Le._ _See_ Reynier + +Romances, Greek, 2, 3, 18, 153, 154 _note_, 204, 476, 479 + +_Romans de la Table Ronde, Les_, 480 + +_Rosanie_, 263 + +Ross, Alexander, 139 _note_ + +Rostand, M., 297 + +Rousseau, J. J. (1712-1778), 160, 175, 265, 375, 382, 390-400, 401 +_note_, 412, 426, 428, 436, 441, 455, 456, 457, 468, 470, 482 + +Ruskin, Mr., 405, 412 _note_, 459, 481 + +Rymer, 464 + + +Saint-Evremond, 296 _note_, 317 and _note_, 321, 378 + +Saint-Foix, M. de, story of, 270 _note_ + +Saint-Marc-Girardin, 175 + +Saint-Pierre (Jacques Henri Bernardin de, 1737-1814), 377, 412, 424-427, +428, 478 + +Saint-Simon, 222 + +Sainte-Beuve, 154 _note_, 353 _sq._, 438, 442 + +_Sainte-Eulalie_, the, 4-6 + +Sainte-More (or Maure), Benoit de (12th cent.), 17, 87, 480 + +"Saint's Life," the, 3-8 + +_Sandford and Merton_, 392 + +San Pedro, Diego de, 145 _note_ + +_Sans Merci_, 51 _note_ + +_Sappho_, 176 _note_, 195 _note_, 215 + +_Saturday Review_, vii + +_Savoisiade_ (Urfe's), 167 + +Scarron, Paul (1610-1660), 275, 278-287, 292, 325, 469, 476, 482 + +Schiller, 456 + +Scott, Sir W., xiii, 15, 93, 94, 98, 135, 176, 181, 186 _note_, 225, +287, 291 _note_, 326, 471 + +Scudery, Georges (1601-1667) and Madeleine de (1607-1701) de, 154, +176-229, 287, 309, 318, 429, 460 _note_, 469 + +Selis, Nicolas Joseph (1737-1802), 268, 269 + +Sens, the Archbishop of, 337, 338 + +_Sense and Sensibility_, 429, 432 + +"Sensibility," 428-452 + +_Serpentin Vert_, 251 _note_ + +_Seven Wise Masters, The_, 89, 93 + +Sevigne, Mme. de, 153, 173, 175, 230, 298 + +Shakespeare, 26, 122, 150, 150 _note_, 218, 220, 274, 275, 364, 464 + +Sharp, Becky, xv + +Shelley, 150 _note_, 156, 218, 274, 275 + +Sidney, Sir Philip, 165 + +_Silvanire_ (Urfe's), 167 + +_Sireine_ (Urfe's), 167 + +_Sir Isumbras_, 4, 24 + +Smith, Prof. Gregory, ix _note_, 26 _note_ + +Smith, Sydney, 321 + +Smollett, 458 _note_, 459, 463 + +Socrates, 1 _note_ + +_Soirees Bretonnes, Les_, 266 + +_Soirees de St. Petersbourg, Les_, 438 + +_Soliman the Second_, 417-419 + +Sommer, Dr., 27, 30 _note_, 480 + +_Songe de Platon_, 387, 388 + +_Sopha, Le_, 366 _sq._ + +Sorel, Charles (1597-1674), 273, 275-278, 288 _note_, 476, 482 + +Southey, xii, 60 _note_, 93, 121, 150, 273, 481 + +Souza, Mme. de (Adelaide-Marie Emilie-Filleul, 1761-1836), 430, 437 + +_Spectateur, Le_ (Marivaux's), 339 + +Spenser, 21, 26 _note_, 31 _note_, 61 _note_, 65, 155, 220 + +_Spiritual Quixote, The_, 277 + +_St. Alexis, The_, 6-8, 100 + +_St. Leger, The_, 6 + +Staal-Delaunay, Mme. de, 355 _note_ + +Stael, Mme. de, 430, 442, 443, 459, 464 + +_Stage Love_ (Mr. Swinburne's), 443, 444 + +Sterne, 132 _note_, 133, 276, 321, 369, 375, 401, 404, 438-441 + +Stevenson, J. H., 91 + +---- R. L., 6, 101 _note_ + +Straparola, 258 _note_ + +Strutt, 291 _note_ + +Suckling, Sir J., 241 + +_Sultanes de Gujerate, Les_, 261 + +Swift, 109, 110, 115, 125 _note_, 132, 321, 369, 378, 380, 390 + +Swinburne, Mr., 33, 52, 254, 443 + +_Systeme de la Nature_, 411 + + +_Tableaux de Societe_ (Pigault-Lebrun's), 465, 466 + +Tabourot des Accords (1549-1590), 143 + +_Tales of the Genii_, 258 _note_ + +Tallemant des Reaux, Gedeon (1619-1692), 136 _note_, 140, 230, 296 +_note_, 330 _note_ + +Talleyrand, 341 _note_ + +_Tanzai et Neadarne_, 371 _sq._, 477 + +_Taureau Blanc, Le_, 387 + +_Telemaque_, 318, 323, 324, 477 + +_Tempest, The_, 393 + +Temple, Henrietta, 37 + +Tencin, Mme. de (Claudine Alexandrine Guerin, 1681-1749), 430-432 + +Tennyson, 30 _note_ and _sq._, 54 + +Thackeray, 15, 125, 150, 153, 218, 241, 257, 278, 279, 314, 321, 349, +358, 414 _note_, 431 _note_ + +_Theagenes and Chariclea_, 157 _note_ + +_Theatre de la Foire_ (Lesage's), 329 + +Theocritus, 36 _note_ + +Theodorus Prodromus, 266 _note_ + +_Thierry and Theodoret_, 234 + +Thoms, Mr., 103 + +_Thousand and One Days_, 259 + +_Thousand and One Nights_, 259 + +_Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour_, 259 + +_Three Clerks, The_, 373 + +Thucydides, 1 + +Tilley, Mr. A., 138 + +_Titi, Le Prince_, 265 and _note_ + +_Tom Jones_, 413 _note_, 469, 472 + +Toplady, 176 _note_ + +Tory, G. (1480?-1533), 124 + +Toyabee, Mr. Paget, xii + +Traill, Mr. H. D., 164, 385, 458 _note_ + +Tressan (Louis Elisabeth de Lavergne, Comte de, 1705-1783), 471 + +Trimmer, Mrs., 455 + +_Troilus_ (B. de Sainte-More's). See _Roman de Troie_ + +_Troilus_ (1st cent. prose), 81, 87 + +Trollope, A., 41 _note_, 373 + +_Turcaret_, 329, 330 + +Twain, Mark, 465 _note_ + + +Urfe, Honore d' (1568-1625), 152-154, 157, 162-175, 179, 206 _note_, 476 + +Urquhart, Sir T., 114 + + +_Valise Trouvee, La_, 328 + +_Vathek_, 262, 306 _note_ + +_Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 353 + +Vida, 232 + +_Vie de Mon Pere, La_, 454 + +Villedieu, Mme. de (Marie Catherine Hortense des Jardins, 1631-1683), +241-245, 472 + +Villehardouin, 135 + +Villeneuve, Mme. de, 265 + +Villon, F., 128, 129 + +_Vingt Ans Apres_, 114, 279 + +Virgil, 2 _note_, 155 + +Voisenon, Claude Henri de Fusee de (1708-1775), vi _note_ + +Voltaire (Francis Marie Arouet de, 1694-1778), 153, 307, 321, 369, 375, +377-390, 391 _note_, 393, 400, 401, 412, 414, 426, 441, 458, 462 _note_, +470, 477, 482 + +_Volupte, La_ (A. Hamilton's), 322 _note_ + +_Voyage a Constantinoble_, 13 + +_Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, 438 _sq._ + +_Voyages a la Lune et au Soleil_, 275, 295-298, 482 + +_Voyages de Scarmentado, Les_, 384 + + +Wall, Professor, 331 + +Walpole, H., 401 _note_, 423 _note_ + +Walton, I., 286 + +Ward, Ned, 453 + +_Water Babies, The_, xii + +_Waverley_, 287 + +Webster, xiv, 275 + +_Werther_, 441, 443, 446, 451 + +Wieland, 269, 270 + +_Wild Duck, The_, 39 _note_, 362 + +Williams, Sir C. H., 91 + +Winchelsea, Lady, 245 + +_Woman Killed with Kindness, A_, 364 + +Wright, Dr. Hagbert, xii + +---- T., 73 _note_ + +Wycherley, 288 + +Wyclif, 467 + + +Xenophon, 1, 2, 178 + + +_Yankee at the Court of King Arthur, A_, 465 _note_ + +_Yellow Dwarf, The_, 248 + +_Ywain and Gawain_, 56 + + +_Zadig_, 379 _note_, 382, 383, 477 + +_Zaide_, 299, 318 + +_Zaza, La Princesse_, 264 + +_Zeneyde_, 308 _sq._ + +_Zibeline, La Princesse_, 262, 263 + +Zola, 462 + +_Zulma, Les Voyages de_, 259, 260 + + +THE END + +PRINTED BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + + + +A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY + +FROM THE TWELFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY + +By DR. GEORGE SAINTSBURY + +Three Vols. 8vo. + + VOL. I. FROM THE ORIGINS TO SPENSER. 10s. net. + VOL. II. FROM SHAKESPEARE TO CRABBE. 15s. net. + VOL. III. FROM BLAKE TO SWINBURNE. 15s. net. + +SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF VOLUME I. + +_THE ATHENAEUM._--"A thing complete and convincing beyond any former work +from the same hand. 'Hardly any one who takes a sufficient interest in +prosody to induce him to read this book' will fail to find it absorbing, +and even entertaining, as only one other book on the subject of +versification is: the _Petit Traite de poesie francaise_ of Theodore de +Banville.... We await the second and third volumes of this admirable +undertaking with impatience. To stop reading it at the end of the first +volume leaves one in just such a state of suspense as if it had been a +novel of adventure, and not the story of the adventures of prosody. 'I +am myself quite sure,' says Prof. Saintsbury, 'that English prosody is, +and has been, a living thing for seven hundred years at least.' That he +sees it living is his supreme praise, and such praise belongs to him +only among historians of English verse." + +_THE TIMES._--"To Professor Saintsbury English prosody is a living +thing, and not an abstraction. He has read poetry for pleasure long +before he began to read it with a scientific purpose, and so he has +learnt what poetry is before making up his mind what it ought to be. It +is a common fault of writers upon prosody that they set out to discover +the laws of music without ever training their ears to apprehend music. +They theorise very plausibly at large, but they betray their incapacity +so soon as they proceed to scan a difficult line. Professor Saintsbury +never fails in this way. He knows a good line from a bad one, and he +knows how a good line ought to be read, even though he may sometimes be +doubtful how it ought to be scanned. He has, therefore, the knowledge +most essential to a writer upon prosody.... His object, as he constantly +insists, is to write a history, to tell us what has happened to our +prosody from the time when it began to be English and ceased to be +Anglo-Saxon; not to tell us whether it has happened rightly or wrongly, +nor even to be too ready to tell us why or how it has happened." + +Professor W. P. KER in the _SCOTTISH HISTORICAL REVIEW_.--"The history +of verse, as Mr. Saintsbury takes it, is one aspect of the history of +poetry; that is to say, the minute examination of structure does not +leave out of account the nature of the living thing; we are not kept all +the time at the microscope. This is the great beauty of his book; it is +a history of English poetry in one particular form or mode.... The +author perceives that the form of verse is not separable from the soul +of poetry; poetry 'has neither kernel nor husk, but is all one,' to +adapt the phrase of another critic." + + +A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY + +By DR. GEORGE SAINTSBURY + +SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF VOLUME II. + +_THE ATHENAEUM._--"We have read this volume with as eager an impatience +as that with which we read the first, for the author is in love with his +subject; he sees 'that English prosody is and has been a living thing +for seven hundred years at least,' and, knowing that metre, verse pure +and simple, is a means of expressing emotion, he here sets out to show +us its development and variety during the most splendid years of our +national consciousness." + +_THE STANDARD._--"The second volume of Professor Saintsbury's elaborate +work on English prosody is even more interesting than his former volume. +Extending as it does from Shakespeare to Crabbe, it covers the great +period of English poetry and deals with the final development of the +prosodic system. It reveals the encyclopaedic knowledge of English +literature and the minute scholarship which render the Edinburgh +professor so eminently suited to this inquiry, which is, we think, the +most important literary adventure he has undertaken.... It is certainly +the best book on the subject of which it treats, and it will be long +indeed before it is likely to be superseded." + +_THE CAMBRIDGE REVIEW._--"It is the capacity of being able to depart +from traditional opinion, the evidence shown on every page of +independent thought based upon a first-hand study of documents, which +make the present volume one of the most stimulating that even Professor +Saintsbury has written. The work, as a whole, is a fine testimony to his +lack of pedantry, to his catholicity of taste, to his sturdy common +sense, and it exhibits a virtue rare among prosodists (dare we say among +scholars generally?)--courtesy to opponents." + +_THE PALL MALL GAZETTE._--"This volume is even more fascinating than was +the first. For here there are even greater names concerned--Shakespeare +and Milton.... It appears to us that Professor Saintsbury hardly writes +a page in which he does not advance by some degree his view of the right +laws of verse. We cannot imagine any one seriously defending, after this +majestical work, the old syllabic notion of scansion.... The book is +written with all the liveliness of style, richness of argument, and +wealth of material that we expect. Not only is it a history of prosody; +but it is full of acute judgments on poetry and poets." + + + + +OTHER WORKS + +BY + +DR. GEORGE SAINTSBURY + + +A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSE RHYTHM. 8vo. 14s. net + +A HISTORY OF ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. + +A HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE (1780-1900). Crown 8vo. 7s. +6d. + +A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. Also in five +parts. 2s. each. + +HISTORICAL MANUAL OF ENGLISH PROSODY. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. + +A FIRST BOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Globe 8vo. 1s. 6d. + +DRYDEN. Library Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. net. Popular Edition, Crown 8vo, +1s. 6d. Sewed, 1s. Pocket Edition, Fcap. 8vo, 1s. net. 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