His hymns must have circulated in manuscript before their publication, for we find De Rance in 1683 praising those in commemoration of St. Bernard, while noticing that the old hymns, if less excellent as literature, had a more reverential spirit. In 1685, a year in advance of the new Breviary, Santeul published them in the first collection he made of them.[21] Their merits made a much deeper impression than their defects. Scholars and Churchmen alike were struck by their rhetorical vigor, the frequent boldness of their conception, the beautiful succession of sentiments and images, the exquisite clearness of the sense, and not by the factitious character of their enthusiasm, as Sainte-Beuve puts it, or the frequent monotony in the treatment of cognate themes. The Breviary, in fact, had ceased to be the voice of the Christian congregation. The supersession of Latin by the national languages of Western Europe had made it the prayer-book of a class educated to relish only the classic forms of Latin verse, and to regard the simplicity of the early hymn-writers as barbarous. Santeul wrote for priests whose tastes had been formed on Horace and Virgil, and he brought into these rigid forms as much of genuine Christian feeling and doctrine as the age required. He was all the happier in these respects, as Le Tourneux, who himself contributed to the new Breviary, was of that Jansenist school in which religion, belittled by the pettiness and the casuistry of the Jesuits, once more presented itself in its grandeur and its severity.
The excellence of Santeul’s hymns at once created a demand for their introduction in other churches and dioceses, and for his services as a hymn-writer. Several of the best were introduced by Archbishop Harlay into the later editions of his revised Paris Breviary, which had appeared in 1680. So the bishops of many other French dioceses—Rouen, Sens, Narbonne, Massillon of Clermont, and others—adopted his hymns into their breviaries after his death. And as he gallantly said, he had the pleasure while still living of hearing them “sung by the angels at Port Royal.” Other orders begged him to commemorate their founders and their especial saints; dioceses and churches in other parts of France invoked his good offices. Hence it is that of his two hundred and twenty-eight hymns not one in five is occupied with the great festivals of the Church year, but are specific or general hymns to the honor of the saints, martyrs, and doctors of the Church of France especially.
The rush of popularity—not unaccompanied by solid rewards, for the good fathers of the Cluny Order gave him a pension—seems to have turned Santeul’s not very well-balanced head. Le Tourneux’s admonitions were forgotten. He ran from church to church to hear his hymns sung, and scandalized congregations by his demonstrations of delight or disgust as the music was appropriate or otherwise; he declaimed them in all sorts of places, suitable and unsuitable, to extort the admiration he loved so dearly. He did not forget to tell that even the severe De Rance had written from La Trappe to thank him for his hymn on St. Bernard, but that for his own part he valued the general hymn on the Doctors of the Church above any other. Naturally he had little good to say of the hymns his were to displace. If anything could make a pagan of him, it would be the bad grammar of those old monkish poets, who sacrificed sense and grammar alike to their stupid rhymes. And so he would run on by the hour to anybody who would listen, with an egotism whose very childishness and frankness made it inoffensive.
Of course he claimed the distinction of being the best Latin poet in France. French poetry he despised, as being written in a language incapable of the terse elegance of Latin. But in Latin verse he would hear of no rival. Du Périer, who had quite as much vanity, with only a fraction of his genius, challenged his pretensions. The two poets wrote verses on the same theme, and then set out to find an arbiter. The first friend to whom they appealed was Ménage, who evaded the responsibility by declaring them equally excellent. The next they met was Racine. He first got possession of the stakes and deposited them in the poor’s box at the door of a church near by, and then gave the poets a round scolding for their absurd rivalry!
The hymns of Santeul are best known to English readers through Hymns Ancient and Modern, which contain some very fine versions, original and selected. Not included there is that which Sainte Beuve pronounces his finest hymn, and for whose retention in the Breviary he pleads against the crusaders, who in the name of antiquity insist on replacing Santeul and Coffin by Strada and Galucci. Out of respect for the greatest of modern critics, we reprint it, with a translation from the pen of Dr. A. R. Thompson. It commemorates the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple.
Stupete gentes, fit Deus hostia:
Se sponte legi Legifer obligat:
Orbis Redemptor nunc redemptus:
Seque piat sine labe mater.
De more matrum, Virgo puerpera