4. FRENCH LITERATURE UNDER THE EMPIRE.—Napoleon, on the establishment of the empire, gave great encouragement to the arts, but none to literature. Books were in little request; old editions were sold for a fraction of their original price; but new works were dear, because the demand for them was so limited. When literature again lifted its head, it appeared that in the chaos of events a new order of thought had been generated. The feelings of the people were for the freer forms of modern literature, introduced by Madame de Staël and Châteaubriand, rather than the ancient classics and the French models of the seventeenth century.
Madame de Staël (1766-1817) has been pronounced by the general voice to be among the greatest of all female authors. She was early introduced to the society of the cleverest men in Paris, with whom her father's house was a favorite resort; and before she was twelve years of age, such men as Raynal, Marmontel, and Grimm used to converse with her as though she were twenty, calling out her ready eloquence, inquiring into her studies, and recommending new books. She thus imbibed a taste for society and distinction, and for bearing her part in the brilliant conversation of the salon. At the age of twenty she became the wife of the Baron de Staël, the Swedish minister at Paris. On her return, after the Reign of Terror, Madame de Staël became the centre of a political society, and her drawing- rooms were the resort of distinguished foreigners, ambassadors, and authors. On the accession of Napoleon, a mutual hostility arose between him and this celebrated woman, which ended in her banishment and the suppression of her works.
"The Six Years of Exile" is the most simple and interesting of her productions. Her "Considerations on the French Revolution" is the most valuable of her political articles. Among her works of fiction, "Corinne" and "Delphine" have had the highest popularity. But of all her writings, that on "Germany" is considered worthy of the highest rank, and it was calculated to influence most beneficially the literature of her country, by opening to the rising generation of France unknown treasures of literature and philosophy. Writers like Delavigne, Lamartine, Béranger, De Vigny, and Victor Hugo, though in no respect imitators of Madame de Staël, are probably much indebted to her for the stimulus to originality which her writings afforded.
Another female author, who lived, like Madame de Staël through the
Revolution, and exercised an influence on public events, was Madame de
Genlis (1746-1830). Her works, which extend to at least eighty volumes,
are chiefly educational treatises, moral tales, and historical romances.
Her political power depended rather on her private influence in the
Orleans family than upon her pen.
Châteaubriand (1769-1848) must be placed side by side with Madame de Staël, as another of those brilliant and versatile geniuses who have dazzled the eyes of their countrymen, and exerted a permanent influence on French literature. While the eighteenth century had used against religion all the weapons of ridicule, he defended it by poetry and romance. Christianity he considered the most poetical of all religions, the most attractive, the most fertile in literary, social, and artistic results, and he develops his theme with every advantage of language and style in the "Genius of Christianity" and the "Martyrs." Some of the characteristics of Châteaubriand, however, have produced a seriously injurious effect on French literature, and of these the most contagious and corrupting is his passion for the glitter of words and the pageantry of high-sounding phrases.
The salutary reaction against skepticism, produced in literature by Madame de Staël and Châteaubriand was carried into philosophy by Maine de Biran (1766-1824), and more particularly by Royer-Collard (1763-1846) who took a decided stand against the school of Condillac and the materialists of the eighteenth century. Royer-Collard restored its spiritual character to the science of the human mind, by introducing into it the psychological discoveries of the Scotch school. Benjamin Constant (1767-1830) infused into political science a spirit of freedom before quite unknown. In his works he attempted to limit the authority of the government, to build up society on personal freedom, and on the guaranties of individual right. His writings combine extraordinary power of logic with great variety and beauty of style.
Proceeding in another direction, Bonald (1753-1846) opposed the spirit of the French Revolution, by establishing the authority of the church as the only criterion of truth and morality. As Rousseau had placed sovereign power in the will of the people, Bonald placed it in that of God, as it is manifested to man through language and revelation, and of this revelation he regarded the Catholic church as the interpreter. He develops his doctrines in numerous works, especially in his "Primitive Legislation," which is characterized by boldness, dogmatism, sophistry in argument, and by severity and purity of style.
The peculiarities of Bonald were carried still farther by De Maistre (1755-1852), whose hatred of the Revolution led him into the system of an absolute theocracy, such as was dreamed of by Gregory VII. and Innocent III.
5. FRENCH LITERATURE FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE PRESENT TIME.—The influences already spoken of, in connection with the literary progress which began in Germany and England towards the close of the eighteenth century, produced in the beginning of the nineteenth century a revival in French literature; but the conflict of opinions, the immense number of authors, and their extraordinary fecundity, render it difficult to examine or classify them. We first notice the great advances in history and biography. Among the earlier specimens may be mentioned the voluminous works of Sismondi and the "Biographie Universelle," in fifty-two closely printed volumes, the most valuable body of biography that any modern literature can boast. Since 1830, historians and literary critics have occupied the foreground in French literature. The historians have divided themselves into two schools, the descriptive and the philosophical. With the one class history consists of a narration of facts in connection with a picture of manners, bringing scenes of the past vividly before the mind of the reader, leaving him to deduce general truths from the particular ones brought before him. The style of these writers is simple and manly, and no opinions of their own shine through their statements. The chief representatives of this class, who regard Sir Walter Scott as their master, are Thierry, Villemain, Barante, and in historical sketches and novels, Dumas and De Vigny.
The philosophical school, on the other hand, consider this scenic narrative more suitable to romance than to history; they seek in the events of the past the chain of causes and effects in order to arrive at general conclusions which may direct the conduct of men in the future. At the head of this school is Guizot (1787-1876), who has developed his historical views in his essays on the "History of France," and more particularly in his "History of European Civilization," in which he points out the origin of modern civilization, and follows the progress of the human mind from the fall of the Roman Empire. The philosophical historians have been again divided according to their different theories, but the most eminent of them are those whom Châteaubriand calls fatalists; men who, having surveyed the course of public events, have come to the conclusion that individual character has had little influence on the political destinies of mankind, that there is a general and inevitable series of events which regularly succeed each other with the certainty of cause and effect, and that it is as easy to trace it as it is impossible to resist or divert it from its course. A tendency to these views is visible in almost every French historian and philosopher of the present time. The philosophy of history thus grounded has, in their hands, assumed the aspect of a science.