[1021] Id. 153.
[1022] Bibliothèque Universelle, xv., 351. Perrault makes a similar remark on Patru.
Bouhours’ Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène. 13. The genius of the French language, as it was estimated in this age, by those who aspired to the character of good critics, may be learned from one of the dialogues in a work of Bouhours, Les Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène. Bouhours was a Jesuit, who affected a polite and lively tone, according to the fashion of his time, so as to warrant some degree of ridicule; but a man of taste and judgment, whom, though La Harpe speaks of him with some disdain, his contemporaries quoted with respect. The first and the most interesting, at present, of these conversations, which are feigned to take place between two gentlemen of literary taste, turns on the French language.[1023] This he presumes to be the best of all modern; deriding the Spanish for its pomp, the Italian for its finical effeminacy.[1024] The French has the secret of uniting brevity with clearness, and with purity, and politeness. The Greek and Latin are obscure where they are concise. The Spanish is always diffuse. The Spanish is a turbid torrent, often over-spreading the country with great noise; the Italian a gentle rivulet, occasionally given to inundate its meadows; the French, a noble river, enriching the adjacent lands, but with an equal, majestic course of waters that never quits its level.[1025] Spanish, again, he compares to an insolent beauty, that holds her head high, and takes pleasure in splendid dress; Italian, to a painted coquette, always attired to please; French, to a modest and agreeable lady, who, if you may call her a prude, has nothing uncivil or repulsive in her prudery. Latin is the common mother; but while Italian has the sort of likeness to Latin which an ape bears to a man, in French we have the dignity, politeness, purity, and good sense of the Augustan age. The French have rejected almost all the diminutives once in use, and do not, like the Italians, admit the right of framing others. This language does not tolerate rhyming sounds in prose, nor even any kind of assonance, as amertume and fortune, near together. It rejects very bold metaphors, as the zenith of virtue, the apogée of glory; and it is remarkable that its poetry is almost as hostile to metaphor as its prose.[1026] “We have very few words merely poetical, and the language of our poets is not very different from that of the world. Whatever be the cause, it is certain that a figurative style is neither good among us in verse nor in prose.” This is evidently much exaggerated, and, in contradiction to the known examples, at least, of dramatic poetry. All affectation and labour, he proceeds to say, are equally repugnant to a good French style. “If we would speak the language well, we should not try to speak it too well. It detests excess of ornament; it would almost desire that words should be as it were naked; their dress must be no more than necessity and decency require. Its simplicity is averse to compound words; those adjectives which are formed by such a juncture of two, have long been exiled both from prose and verse. Our own pronunciation,” he affirms, “is the most natural and pleasing of any. The Chinese and other Asiatics sing; the Germans rattle (rallent); the Spaniards spout; the Italians sigh; the English whistle; the French alone can properly be said to speak; which arises, in fact, from our not accenting any syllable before the penultimate. The French language is best adapted to express the tenderest sentiments of the heart; for which reason our songs are so impassioned and pathetic, while those of Italy and Spain are full of nonsense. Other languages may address the imagination, but ours alone speaks to the heart, which never understands what is said in them.”[1027] This is literally amusing; and with equal patriotism, Bouhours in another place has proposed the question, whether a German can, by the nature of things, possess any wit.
[1023] Bouhours points out several innovations which had lately come into use. He dislikes avoir des ménagemens, or avoir de la considération, and thinks these phrases would not last; in which he was mistaken. Tour de visage and tour d’esprit were new: the words fonds, mésures, amitiés, compte, and many more were used in new senses. Thus also assez and trop; as the phrase, je ne suis pas trop de votre avis. It seems, on reflection, that some of the expressions he animadverts upon, must have been affected while they were new, being in opposition to the correct meaning of words; and it is always curious, in other languages as well as our own, to observe the comparatively recent nobility of many things quite established by present usage. Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène p. 95.
[1024] P. 52 (edit. 1671).
[1025] P. 77.
[1026] P. 60.
[1027] P. 68.
Attacked by Barbier d’Aucour. 14. Bouhours, not deficient, as we may perceive, in self-confidence and proneness to censure, presumed to turn into ridicule the writers of Port-Royal, at that time of such distinguished reputation as threatened to eclipse the credit which the Jesuits had always preserved in polite letters. He alludes to their long periods and the exaggerated phrases of invective which they poured forth in controversy.[1028] But the Jansenist party was well able to defend itself. Barbier d’Aucour retaliated on the vain Jesuit by his Sentimens de Cleanthe sur les Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène. It seems to be the general opinion of French critics that he has well exposed the weak parts of his adversary, his affected air of the world, the occasional frivolity and feebleness of his observations; yet there seems something morose in the censures of the supposed Cleanthe, which renders this book less agreeable than that on which it animadverts.
[1028] P. 150. Vigneul-Marville observes that the Port-Royal writers formed their style originally on that of Balzac (vol. i., p. 107); and that M. d’Andilly, brother of Antony Arnauld, affected at one time a grand and copious manner like the Spaniards, as being more serious and imposing, especially in devotional writings; but afterwards finding the French were impatient of this style, that party abandoned it for one more concise, which it is by no means less difficult to write well, p. 139. Baillet seems to refer their love of long periods to the famous advocate Le Maistre, who had employed them in his pleadings, not only as giving more dignity, but also because the public taste at that time favoured them. Jugemens des Sçavans, n. 953.