CHAPTER III
FRENCH LITERATURE
The French literature of Columbus' Century is but little, if at all, below that of Italy in world influence and interest. It was ushered in by that alluring character, the vagabond poet, Villon. He was twenty the first year of our century, and having, providentially for the world of literature, escaped hanging, wrote poetry that has always attracted the attention of poets of every land, and besides has had a popular vogue whenever men have looked beyond their own time and country for literary interests. Few poets of modern times have had among the educated of all countries so many ardent admirers--devotees they might well be called--as Villon. The power of expression of the Renaissance that was just opening was incarnate in him, and no one has ever said better what he sang, though his message was limited enough. His "Ladies of the Olden Time," probably addressed in its epilogue to Prince Charles of Orleans, his poetic contemporary, to whom it is said that he owed his being saved from hanging, is the best known, and is a typical example of his work which reveals the reason for its enduring qualities:
"Say where--in what region be
Flora that fair Roman dame,
Hipparchia where, and Thais, she
Who doth kindred beauty claim?
Echo where? who back the same
Voice from lake and river throws,
Lovely beyond human frame:
But--where are the last year's snows?
* * * * * *
Queen Blanche, white as lily is,
Who used to sing with siren strain; [{463}] Bertha, Alice, Beatrice,
Ermengarde who held the Maine,
Joan, blessed maiden of Lorraine,
At Rouen burnt by English foes.
Where are they, O Virgin Queen?
But--where are the last year's snows?
Prince, nor in a week or year
Bid me where they be disclose.
Lest you still this burden hear.
But--where are the last year's snows?"
With Villon came Prince Charles of Orleans, of whom we would probably know very little except for the fact that twenty years of imprisonment in an English prison gave him the opportunity for devotion to poetry. His beautiful lines on the death of his wife are a chef-d'oeuvre of mourning poetry and one of the gems of literature. The Prince's appeal to Death as to what has made Fate so bold as to take the noble Princess, who was his comfort, his life, his good, his pleasure, his richness, demanding why it had not rather taken himself, has been often translated. There is another of his little poems addressed to her which has often been quoted and yet cannot be quoted too often:
"How God has made her good to see!
So holy, full of grace, and fair;
For the great gifts that in her be.
All haste her praises to declare.
Of her, what soul could weary be?
Each day her beauty doth repair.
How God has made her good to see!
So holy, full of grace, and fair.
So hither, nor beyond the sea.
No damsel nor dame I know.
Who can like her all graces show;
Only in dreams such thought can be--
How God has made her good to see!"
One of Clement Marot's shorter poems contains his formula for what constitutes happiness in life. It is the same formula that has been in the mouths of all the poets at all times who have cared to express themselves on the subject, though some critics have been unkind enough to say that it was not always in their hearts--"Happy the man whose mind and care a few paternal acres share." Marot goes somewhat more into detail. His poem is an anticipation of the sonnet of the great master printer of Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, at the end of this century. Because of its many associations it deserves a place here:
"This, Clement Marot! (if you wish to know)
Can upon man a happy life bestow.
Goods you don't earn, but by bequest acquire,
A pleasant wholesome house and constant fire.
Hated by none, yourself devoid of hate.
And little meddling with affairs of state:
A wise and simple life, true friends, and like
A good plain fare, with nought the eyes to strike,
With all in easy converse to combine:
Pass careless nights, not careless made by wine;
A wife to have--kind, joyous, chaste and bright;
And well to sleep, which shorter makes the night:
Contented with your rank, nor wish for higher;
And neither death to fear, nor death desire
This, Clement Marot! (if you wish to know)
Can upon man a happy life bestow."
Francis I was himself a poet, and his poems and letters were collected and published in the first half of the nineteenth century. "In default of a great talent, he had a real passion for poetry," says Imbert de Saint-Amand, and like the Trouvères he liked to make use of the lyre and sword by turns. Sainte-Beuve in his "Portraits Littéraires" declared that "Francis I, from the day he ascended the throne, gave the signal for this puissant labor which was to aid in expanding and definitely polishing the French language. Thanks to the impulse given by him from above, there was soon a universal [{465}] clearing of the ground all around him." The verses in which he formulated one of the most melancholy and most striking judgments that ever monarch pronounced on the nothingness of the grandeurs of this lower world, deserve to be quoted: