Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

9. FABLE, SATIRE, MOCK-HEROIC, AND OTHER POETRY.—La Fontaine (1621-1695) was the prince of fabulists; his fables appeared successively in three collections, and although the subjects of some of these are borrowed, the dress is entirely new. His versification constitutes one of the greatest charms of his poetry, and seems to have been the result of an instinctive sense of harmony, a delicate taste, and rapidity of invention. There are few authors in France more popular, none so much the familiar genius of every fireside. La Fontaine himself was a mere child of nature, indolent, and led by the whim of the moment, rather than by any fixed principle. He was desired by his father to take charge of the domain of which he was the keeper, and to unite himself in marriage with a family relative. With unthinking docility he consented to both, but neglected alike his official duties and domestic obligations with an innocent unconsciousness of wrong. He was taken to Paris by the Duchess of Bouillon and passed his days in her coteries, and those of Racine and Boileau, utterly forgetful of his home and family, except when his pecuniary necessities obliged him to return to sell portions of his property to supply his wants. When this was exhausted, he became dependent on the kindness of female discerners of merit. Henrietta of England attached him to her suite; and after her death, Madame de la Sablière gave him apartments at her house, supplied his wants, and indulged his humors for twenty years. When she retired to a convent, Madame d'Hervart, the wife of a rich financier, offered him a similar retreat. While on her way to make the proposal, she met him in the street, and said, "La Fontaine, will you come and live in my house?" "I was just going, madame," he replied, as if his doing so had been the simplest and most natural thing in the world. And here he remained the rest of his days. France has produced numerous writers of fables since the time of La Fontaine, but none worthy of comparison with him.

The writings of Descartes and Pascal, with the precepts of the Academy and Port Royal, had established the art of prose composition, but the destiny of poetry continued doubtful. Corneille's masterpieces afforded models only in one department; there was no specific doctrine on the idea of what poetry ought to be. To supply this was the mission of Boileau (1636-1711); and he fulfilled it, first by satirizing the existing style, and then by composing an "Art of Poetry," after the manner of Horace. In the midst of men who made verses for the sake of making them, and composed languishing love-songs upon the perfections of mistresses who never existed except in their own imaginations, Boileau determined to write nothing but what interested his feelings, to break with this affected gallantry, and draw poetry only from the depths of his own heart. His début was made in unmerciful satires on the works of the poetasters, and he continued to plead the cause of reason against rhyme, of true poetry against false. Despite the anger of the poets and their friends, his satires enjoyed immense favor, and he consolidated his victory by writing the "Art of Poetry," in which he attempted to restore it to its true dignity. This work obtained for him the title of Legislator of Parnassus. The mock- heroic poem of the "Lutrin" is considered as the happiest effort of his muse, though inferior to the "Rape of the Lock," a composition of a similar kind. The occasion of this poem was a frivolous dispute between the treasurer and the chapter of a cathedral concerning the placing of a reading-desk (lutrin). A friend playfully challenged Boileau to write a heroic poem on the subject, to verify his own theory that the excellence of a heroic poem depended upon the power of the inventor to sustain and enlarge upon a slender groundwork. Boileau was the last of the great poets of the golden age.

The horizon of the poets was at this time somewhat circumscribed. Confined to the conventional life of the court and the city, they enjoyed little opportunity for the contemplation of nature. The policy of Louis XIV. proscribed national recollections, so that the social life of the day was alone open to them. Poetry thus became abstract and ideal, or limited to the delineation of those passions which belong to a highly artificial state of society. Madame Deshoulières (1634-1694) indeed wrote some graceful idyls, but she by no means entered into the spirit of rural life and manners, like La Fontaine.

10. ELOQUENCE OF THE PULPIT AND OF THE BAR.—Louis XIV. afforded to religious eloquence the most efficacious kind of encouragement, that of personal attendance. The court preachers had no more attentive auditor than their royal master, who was singularly gifted with that tenderness of conscience which leads a man to condemn himself for his sins, yet indulge in their commission; to feel a certain pleasure in self-accusation, and to enjoy that reaction of mind which consists in occasionally holding his passions in abeyance. This attention on the part of a great monarch, the liberty of saying everything, the refined taste of the audience, who could on the same day attend a sermon of Bourdaloue and a tragedy of Racine, all tended to lead pulpit eloquence to a high degree of perfection; and, accordingly, we find the function of court preacher exercised successively by Bossuet (1627-1704), Bourdaloue (1632-1704), and Massillon (1663-1742), the greatest names that the Roman Catholic Church has boasted in any age or country. Bossuet addressed the conscience through the imagination, Bourdaloue through the judgment, and Massillon through the feelings. Fléchier (1632-1710), another court preacher, renowned chiefly as a rhetorician, was not free from the affectation of Les Précieuses; but Bossuet was perhaps the most distinguished type of the age of Louis XIV., in all save its vices. For the instruction of the Dauphin, to whom he had been appointed preceptor, he wrote his "Discourse upon Universal History," by which he is chiefly known to us. The Protestant controversy elicited his famous "Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine." A still more celebrated work is the "History of the Variations," the leading principle of which is, that to forsake the authority of the church leads one knows not whither, that there can be no new religious views except false ones, and that there can be no escape from the faith transmitted from age to age, save in the wastes of skepticism. In his controversy with Fénelon, in relation to the mystical doctrines of Madame Guyon, Bossuet showed himself irritated, and at last furious, at the moderate and submissive tone of his opponent. He procured the banishment of Fénelon from court, and the disgrace of his friends; and through his influence the pope condemned the "Maxims of the Saints," in which Fénelon endeavored to show that the views of Madame Guyon were those of others whom the church had canonized. The sermons of Bossuet were paternal and familiar exhortations; he seldom prepared them, but, abandoning himself to the inspiration of the moment, was now simple and touching, now energetic and sublime, His familiarity with the language of inspiration imparted to his discourses a tone of almost prophetic authority; his eloquence appeared as a native instinct, a gift direct from heaven, neither marred nor improved by the study of human rules. France does not acknowledge the Protestant Saurin (1677-1730), as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes expatriated him in childhood; but his sermons occupy a distinguished place in the theological literature of the French language.

Political or parliamentary oratory was as yet unknown, for the parliament no sooner touched on matters of state and government, than Louis XIV entered, booted and spurred, with whip in hand, and not figuratively, but literally, lashed the refractory assembly into silence and obedience. But the eloquence of the bar enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom in this age. Law and reason, however, were too often overlaid by worthless conceits and a fantastic abuse of classic and scriptural citations. Le Maitre (1608-1658), Patru (1604-1681), Pellisson (1624-1693), Cochin (1687-1749), and D'Aguesseau (1668-1751), successively purified and elevated the language of the tribunals.

11. MORAL PHILOSOPHY.—The most celebrated moralist of the age was the Duke de Rochefoucauld (1613-1680). He was early drawn into those conflicts known as the wars of the Fronde, though he seems to have had little motive for fighting or intriguing, except his restlessness of spirit and his attachment to the Duchess de Longueville. He soon quarreled with the duchess, dissolved his alliance with Condé, and being afterwards included in the amnesty, he took up his residence at Paris, where he was one of the brightest ornaments of the court of Louis XIV. His chosen friends, in his declining years, were Madame de Sévigné, one of the most accomplished women of the age, and Madame de Lafayette, who said of him, "He gave me intellect, and I reformed his heart." But if the taint was removed from his heart, it continued in the understanding. His famous "Maxims," published in 1665, gained for the author a lasting reputation, not less for the perfection of his style, than for the boldness of his paradoxes. The leading peculiarity of this work is the principle that self-interest is the ruling motive in human nature, placing every virtue, as well as every vice, under contribution to itself. It is generally agreed that Rochefoucauld's views of human nature were perverted by the specimens of it which he had known in the wars of the Fronde, which were stimulated by vice, folly, and a restless desire of power. His "Memoirs of the Reign of Anne of Austria" embody the story of the Fronde, and his "Maxims" the moral philosophy he deduced from it.

While Pascal, in proving all human remedies unworthy of confidence, had sought to drive men upon faith by pursuing them with despair, and Rochefoucauld, by his pitiless analysis of the disguises of the human heart, led his readers to suspect their most natural emotions, and well- nigh took away the desire of virtue by proving its impossibility, La Bruyère (1639-1696) endeavored to make the most of our nature, such as it is, to render men better, even with their imperfections, to assist them by a moral code suited to their strength, or rather to their weakness. His "Characters of our Age" is distinguished for the exactness and variety of the portraits, as well as for the excellence of its style. The philosophy of La Bruyère is unquestionably based on reason, and not on revelation.

In the moral works of Nicole, the Port Royalist (1611-1645), we find a system of truly Christian ethics, derived from the precepts of revelation; they are elegant in style, though they display little originality.

The only speculative philosopher of this age, worthy of mention, is Malebranche (1631-1715), a disciple of Descartes; but, unlike his master, instead of admitting innate ideas, he held that we see all in Deity, and that it is only by our spiritual union with the Being who knows all things that we know anything. He professed optimism, and explained the existence of evil by saying that the Deity acts only as a universal cause. His object was to reconcile philosophy with revelation; his works, though models of style, are now little read.

12. HISTORY AND MEMOIRS.—History attained no degree of excellence during this period. Bossuet's "Discourse on Universal History" was a sermon, with general history as the text. At a somewhat earlier date, Mézeray (1610- 1683) compiled a history of France. The style is clear and nervous, and the spirit which pervades it is bold and independent, but the facts are not always to be relied on. The "History of Christianity," by the Abbé Fleury (1640-1723), was pronounced by Voltaire to be the best work of the kind that had ever appeared. Rollin (1661-1741) devoted his declining years to the composition of historical works for the instruction of young people. His "Ancient History" is more remarkable for the excellence of his intentions than for the display of historical talent. Indeed, the historical writers of this period may be said to have marked, rather than filled a void.