Diderot, whom the French consider a great man, is of no interest whatsoever to the modern mind, at least to the mind which is not French. He is almost as dull as Rousseau. La Religieuse is an utterly false little book. Some years ago I loaned a copy to a young lady who had just come from a convent. "I have never seen anything like this," she said to me. "It is a fantasy with no relation to the truth." That was my idea. Jacques, le fataliste is tiresome; Le Neveu de Rameau gives at first the impression that it is going to amount to something, to something powerful such as the Satiricon of Petronius, or El Buscón of Quevedo; but at the end, it is nothing.
The only writer of the pre-revolutionary period who can be read today with any pleasure—and this, perhaps, is because he does not attempt anything—is Chamfort. His characters and anecdotes are sufficiently highly flavoured to defy the action of time.
THE ROMANTICISTS
Goethe
If a militia of genius should be formed on Parnassus, Goethe would be the drum-major. He is so great, so majestic, so serene, so full of talent, so abounding in virtue, and yet, so antipathetic!
Chateaubriand
A skin of Lacrymae Christi that has turned sour. At times the good Viscount drops molasses into the skin to take away the taste of vinegar; at other times, he drops in more vinegar to take away the sweet taste of the molasses. He is both moth-eaten and sublime.
Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo, the most talented of rhetoricians! Victor Hugo, the most exquisite of vulgarians! Victor Hugo—mere common sense dressed up as art.
Stendhal