The result of this revolution is naturally most remarkable in the belles-lettres and the kindred department of history. Poetry, not dramatic, has been revived; prose romance and literary criticism have been brought to a perfection previously unknown; and history has produced works more various, if not more remarkable, than at any previous stage of the language. Of all these branches we shall therefore endeavour to give some detailed account. But the services done to the language were not limited to the strictly literary branches of literature. Modern French, if it lacks, as it probably does lack, the statuesque precision and elegance of prose style to which between 1650 and 1800 all else was sacrificed, has become a much more suitable instrument for the accurate and copious treatment of positive and concrete subjects. These subjects have accordingly been treated in an abundance corresponding to that manifested in other countries, though the literary importance of the treatment has perhaps proportionately declined. We cannot even attempt to indicate the innumerable directions of scientific study which this copious industry has taken, and must confine ourselves to those which come more immediately under the headings previously adopted. In philosophy proper France, like other nations, has been more remarkable for attention to the historical side of the matter than for the production of new systems; and the principal exception among her philosophical writers, Auguste Comte (1793-1857), besides inclining, as far as his matter went to the political and scientific rather than to the purely philosophical side (which indeed he regarded as antiquated), was not very remarkable merely as a man of letters. Victor Cousin (1792-1867), on the other hand, almost a brilliant man of letters and for a time regarded as something of a philosophical apostle preaching “eclecticism,” betook himself latterly to biographical and other miscellaneous writing, especially on the famous French ladies of the 17th century, and is likely to be remembered chiefly in this department, though not to be forgotten in that of philosophical history and criticism. The same curious declension was observable in the much younger Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893), who, beginning with philosophical studies, and always maintaining a strong tincture of philosophical determinism, applied himself later, first to literary history and criticism in his famous Histoire de la littérature anglaise (1864), and then to history proper in his still more famous and far more solidly based Origines de la France contemporaine (1876). To him, however, we must recur under the head of literary criticism. And not dissimilar phenomena, not so much of inconstancy to philosophy as of a tendency towards the applied rather than the pure branches of the subject, are noticeable in Edgar Quinet (1803-1875), in Charles de Rémusat (1797-1875), and in Ernest Renan (1823-1892), the first of whom began by translating Herder while the second and third devoted themselves early to scholastic philosophy, de Rémusat dealing with Abelard (1845) and Anselm (1856), Renan with Averroes (1852). More single-minded devotion to at least the historical side was shown by Jean Philibert Damiron (1794-1862), who published in 1842 a Cours de philosophie and many minor works at different times; but the inconstancy recurs in Jules Simon (1814-1896), who, in the earlier part of his life a professor of philosophy and a writer of authority on the Greek philosophers (especially in Histoire de l’école d’Alexandrie, 1844-1845), began before long to take an active and, towards the close of his life-work, all but a foremost part in politics. In theology the chief name of great literary eminence in the earlier part of the century is that of Lamennais, of whom more presently, in the later, that of Renan again. But Charles Forbes de Montalembert (1810-1870), an historian with a strong theological tendency, deserves notice; and among ecclesiastics who have been orators and writers the père Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire (1802-1861), a pupil of Lamennais who returned to orthodoxy but always kept to the Liberal side; the père Célestin Joseph Félix (1810-1891), a Jesuit teacher and preacher of eminence; and the père Didon (1840-1900), a very popular preacher and writer who, though thoroughly orthodox, did not escape collision with his superiors. On the Protestant side Athanase Coquerel (1820-1875) is the most remarkable name. Recently Paul Sabatier (b. 1858) has displayed, especially in dealing with Saint Francis of Assisi, much power of literary and religious sympathy and a style somewhat modelled on that of Renan, but less unctuous and effeminate. There are strong philosophical tendencies, and at least a revolt against the religious as well as philosophical ideas of the Encyclopédists, in the Pensées of Joubert, while the hybrid position characteristic of the 19th century is particularly noticeable in Étienne Pivert de Sénancour (1770-1846), whose principal work, Obermann (1804), had an extraordinary influence on its own and the next generation in the direction of melancholy moralizing. This tone was notably taken up towards the other end of the century by Amiel (q.v.), who, however, does not strictly belong to French literature: while in Ximénès Doudon (1800-1872), author of Mélanges et lettres posthumously published, we find more of a return to the attitude of Joubert—literary criticism occupying a very large part of his reflections. Political philosophy and its kindred sciences have naturally received a large share of attention. Towards the middle of the century there was a great development of socialist and fanciful theorizing on politics, with which the names of Claude Henri, comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Charles Fourier (1772-1837), Étienne Cabet (1788-1856), and others are connected. As political economists Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850), L. G. L. Guilhaud de Lavergne (1809-1880), Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881), and Michel Chevalier (1806-1879) may be noticed. In Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) France produced a political observer of a remarkably acute, moderate and reflective character, and Armand Carrel (1800-1836), whose life was cut short in a duel, was a real man of letters, as well as a brilliant journalist and an honest if rather violent party politician. The name of Jean Louis Eugène Lerminier (1803-1857) is of wide repute for legal and constitutional writings, and that of Henri, baron de Jomini (1779-1869) is still more celebrated as a military historian; while that of François Lenormant (1837-1883) holds a not dissimilar position in archaeology. With the publications devoted to physical science proper we do not attempt to meddle. Philology, however, demands a brief notice. In classical studies France has till recently hardly maintained the position which might be expected of the country of Scaliger and Casaubon. She has, however, produced some considerable Orientalists, such as Champollion the younger, Burnouf, Silvestre de Sacy and Stanislas Julien. The foundation of Romance philology was due, indeed, to the foreigners Wolf and Diez. But early in the century the curiosity as to the older literature of France created by Barbazan, Tressan and others continued to extend. Dominique Martin Méon (1748-1829) published many unprinted fabliaux, gave the whole of the French Renart cycle, with the exception of Renart le contrefait, and edited the Roman de la rose. Charles Claude Fauriel (1772-1844) and François Raynouard (1761-1836) dealt elaborately with Provençal poetry as well as partially with that of the trouvères; and the latter produced his comprehensive Lexique romane. These examples were followed by many other writers, who edited manuscript works and commented on them, always with zeal and sometimes with discretion. Foremost among these must be mentioned Paulin Paris (1800-1881) who for fifty years served the cause of old French literature with untiring energy, great literary taste, and a pleasant and facile pen. His selections from manuscripts, his Romancero français, his editions of Garin le Loherain and Berte aus grans piés, and his Romans de la table ronde may especially be mentioned. Soon, too, the Benedictine Histoire littéraire, so long interrupted, was resumed under M. Paris’s general management, and has proceeded nearly to the end of the 14th century. Among its contents M. Paris’s dissertations on the later chansons de gestes and the early song writers, M. Victor le Clerc’s on the fabliaux, and M. Littré’s on the romans d’aventures may be specially noticed. For some time indeed the work of French editors was chargeable with a certain lack of critical and philological accuracy. This reproach, however, was wiped off by the efforts of a band of younger scholars, chiefly pupils of the École des Chartes, with MM. Gaston Paris (1839-1903) and Paul Meyer at their head. Of M. Paris in particular it may be said that no scholar in the subject has ever combined literary and linguistic competence more admirably. The Société des Anciens Textes Français was formed for the purpose of publishing scholarly editions of inedited works, and a lexicon of the older tongue by M. Godefroy at last supplemented, though not quite with equal accomplishment, the admirable dictionary in which Émile Littré (1801-1881), at the cost of a life’s labour, embodied the whole vocabulary of the classical French language. Meanwhile the period between the middle ages proper and the 17th century has not lacked its share of this revival of attention. To the literature between Villon and Regnier especial attention was paid by the early Romantics, and Sainte-Beuve’s Tableau historique et critique de la poésie et du théâtre au seizième siècle was one of the manifestoes of the school. Since the appearance of that work in 1828 editions with critical comments of the literature of this period have constantly multiplied, aided by the great fancy for tastefully produced works which exists among the richer classes in France; and there are probably now few countries in which works of old authors, whether in cheap reprints or in éditions de luxe can be more readily procured.
The Romantic Movement.—It is time, however, to return to the literary revolution itself, and its more purely literary results. At the accession of Charles X. France possessed three writers, and perhaps only three, of already remarkable Béranger. eminence, if we except Chateaubriand, who was already of a past generation. These three were Pierre Jean de Béranger (1780-1857), Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), and Hugues Félicité Robert Lamennais (1782-1854). The first belongs definitely in manner, despite his striking originality of nuance, to the past. He has remnants of the old periphrases, the cumbrous mythological allusions, the poetical “properties” of French verse. He has also the older and somewhat narrow limitations of a French poet; foreigners are for him mere barbarians. At the same time his extraordinary lyrical faculty, his excellent wit, which makes him a descendant of Rabelais and La Fontaine, and his occasional touches of pathos made him deserve and obtain something more than successes of occasion. Béranger, moreover, was very far from being the mere improvisatore which those who cling to the inspirationist theory of poetry would fain see in him. His studies in style and composition were persistent, and it was long before he attained the firm and brilliant manner which distinguishes him. Béranger’s talent, however, was still too much a matter of individual genius to have great literary influence, and he formed no school. It was different Lamartine. with Lamartine, who was, nevertheless, like Béranger, a typical Frenchman. The Méditations and the Harmonies exhibit a remarkable transition between the old school and the new. In going direct to nature, in borrowing from her striking outlines, vivid and contrasted tints, harmony and variety of sound, the new poet showed himself an innovator of the best class. In using romantic and religious associations, and expressing them in affecting language, he was the Chateaubriand of verse. But with all this he retained some of the vices of the classical school. His versification, harmonious as it is, is monotonous, and he does not venture into the bold lyrical forms which true poetry loves. He has still the horror of the mot propre; he is always spiritualizing and idealizing, and his style and thought have a double portion of the feminine and almost flaccid softness which had come to pass for grace in French. The last of the trio, Lamennais, represents an altogether Lamennais. bolder and rougher genius. Strongly influenced by the Catholic reaction, Lamennais also shows the strongest possible influence of the revolutionary spirit. His earliest work, the Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion (1817 and 1818) was a defence of the church on curiously unecclesiastical lines. It was written in an ardent style, full of illustrations, and extremely ambitious in character. The plan was partly critical and partly constructive. The first part disposed of the 18th century; the second, adopting the theory of papal absolutism which Joseph de Maistre had already advocated, proceeded to base it on a supposed universal consent. The after history of Lamennais was perhaps not an unnatural recoil from this; but it is sufficient here to point out that in his prose, especially as afterwards developed in the apocalyptic Paroles d’un croyant (1839) are to be discerned many of the tendencies of the Romantic school, particularly its hardy and picturesque choice of language, and the disdain of established and accepted methods which it professed. The signs of the revolution itself were, as was natural, first given in periodical literature. The feudalist affectations of Chateaubriand and the legitimists excited a sort of aesthetic affection for Gothicism, and Walter Scott became one of the most favourite authors in France. Soon was started the periodical La Muse française, in which the names of Hugo, Vigny, Deschamps and Madame de Girardin appear. Almost all the writers in this periodical were eager royalists, and for some time the battle was still fought on political grounds. There could, however, be no special connexion between classical drama and liberalism; and the liberal journal, the Globe, with no less a person than Sainte-Beuve among its contributors, declared definite war against classicism in the drama. The chief “classical” organs were the Constitutionnel, the Journal des débats, and after a time and not exclusively, the Revue des deux mondes. Soon the question became purely literary, and the Romantic school proper was born in the famous cénacle or clique in which Hugo was chief poet, Sainte-Beuve chief critic, and Gautier, Gérard de Nerval, the brothers Émile (1791-1871) and Antony (1800-1869), Deschamps, Petrus Borel (1809-1859) and others were officers. Alfred de Vigny and Alfred de Musset stand somewhat apart, and so does Charles Nodier (1780-1844), a versatile and voluminous writer, the very variety and number of whose works have somewhat prevented the individual excellence of any of them from having justice done to it. The objects of the school, which was at first violently opposed, so much so that certain academicians actually petitioned the king to forbid the admission of any Romantic piece at the Théâtre Français, were, briefly stated, the burning of everything which had been adored, and the adoring of everything which had been burnt. They would have no unities, no arbitrary selection of subjects, no restraints on variety of versification, no academically limited vocabulary, no considerations of artificial beauty, and, above all, no periphrastic expression. The mot propre, the calling of a spade a spade, was the great commandment of Romanticism; but it must be allowed that what was taken away in periphrase was made up in adjectives. Musset, who was very much of a free-lance in the contest, maintained indeed that the differentia of the Romantic was the copious use of this part of speech. All sorts of epithets were invented to distinguish the two parties, of which flamboyant and grisâtre are perhaps the most accurate and expressive pair—the former serving to denote the gorgeous tints and bold attempts of the new school, the latter the grey colour and monotonous outlines of the old. The representation of Hernani in 1830 was the culmination of the struggle, and during great part of the reign of Louis Philippe almost all the younger men of letters in France were Romantics. The representation of the Lucrèce of François Ponsard (1814-1867) in 1846 is often quoted as the herald or sign of a classical reaction. But this was only apparent, and signified, if it signified anything, merely that the more juvenile excesses of the Romantics were out of date. All the greatest men of letters of France since 1830 have been on the innovating side, and all without exception, whether intentionally or not, have had their work coloured by the results of the movement, and of those which have succeeded it as developments rather than reactions.
Drama and Poetry since 1830.—Although the immediate subject on which the battles of Classics and Romantics arose was dramatic poetry, the dramatic results of the movement have not been those of greatest value or most permanent character. The principal effect in the long run has been the introduction of a species of play called drame, as opposed to regular comedy and tragedy, admitting of much freer treatment than either of these two as previously understood in French, and lending itself in some measure to the lengthy and disjointed action, the multiplicity of personages, and the absence of stock characters which characterized the English stage in its palmy days. All Victor Hugo’s dramatic works are of this class, and each, as it was produced or published (Cromwell, Hernani, Marion de l’Orme, Le Roi s’amuse, Lucrèce Borgia, Marie Tudor, Ruy Blas and Les Burgraves), was a literary event, and excited the most violent discussion—the author’s usual plan being to prefix a prose preface of a very militant character to his work. A still more melodramatic variety of drame was that chiefly represented by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), whose Henri III and Antony, to which may be added later La Tour de Nesle and Mademoiselle de Belleisle, were almost as much rallying points for the early Romantics as the dramas of Hugo, despite their inferior literary value. At the same time Alexandre Soumet (1788-1845), in Norma, Une Fête de Néron, &c., and Casimir Delavigne in Marino Faliero, Louis XI, &c., maintained a somewhat closer adherence to the older models. The classical or semi-classical reaction of the last years of Louis Philippe was represented in tragedy by Ponsard (Lucrèce, Agnes de Méranie, Charlotte Corday, Ulysse, and several comedies), and on the comic side, to a certain extent, by Émile Augier (1820-1889) in L’Aventurière, Le Gendre de M. Poirier, Le Fils de Giboyer, &c. During almost the whole period Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) poured forth innumerable comedies of the vaudeville order, which, without possessing much literary value, attained immense popularity. For the last half-century the realist development of Romanticism has had the upper hand in dramatic composition, its principal representatives being on the one side Victorien Sardou (1831-1909), who in Nos Intimes, La Famille Benoîton, Rabagas, Dora, &c., chiefly devoted himself to the satirical treatment of manners, and Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895), author in 1852 of the famous Dame aux camélias, who in such pieces as Les Idées de Madame Aubray and L’Étrangère rather busied himself with morals and “problems,” while his Dame aux camélias (1852) is sometimes ranked as the first of such things in “modern” style. Certain isolated authors also deserve notice, such as Joseph Autran (1813-1877), a poet and academician having some resemblance to Lamartine, whose Fille d’Æschyle created for him a dramatic reputation which he did not attempt to follow up, and Gabriel Legouvé (b. 1807), whose Adrienne Lecouvreur was assisted to popularity by the admirable talent of Rachel. A special variety of drama of the first literary importance has also been cultivated in this century under the title of scènes or proverbes, slight dramatic sketches in which the dialogue and style are of even more importance than the action. The best of all of these are those of Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), whose Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, On ne badine pas avec l’amour, &c., are models of grace and wit. Among his followers may be mentioned especially Octave Feuillet (1821-1890). Few social dramas of the kind in modern times have attained a greater success than Le Monde où l’on s’ennuie (1868) of Édouard Pailleron (1834-1899). (See also [Drama].)
In poetry proper, as in drama, Victor Hugo showed the way. In him all the Romantic characteristics were expressed and embodied—disregard of arbitrary critical rules, free choice of subject, variety and vigour of metre, splendour Victor Hugo. and sonorousness of diction, abundant “local colour,” and that irrepressible individualism which is one of the chief, though not perhaps the chief, of the symptoms. If the careful attention to form which is also characteristic of the movement is less apparent in him than in some of his followers, it is not because it is absent, but because the enthusiastic conviction with which he attacked every subject somewhat diverts attention from it. As with the merits so with the defects. A deficient sense of the ludicrous which characterized many of the Romantics was strongly apparent in their leader, as was also an equally representative grandiosity, and a fondness for the introduction of foreign and unfamiliar words, especially proper names, which occasionally produces an effect of burlesque. Victor Hugo’s earliest poetical works, his chiefly royalist and political Odes, were cast in the older and accepted forms, but already displayed astonishing poetical qualities. But it was in the Ballades (for instance, the splendid Pas d’armes du roi Jean, written in verses of three syllables) and the Orientales (of which may be taken for a sample the sixth section of Navarin, a perfect torrent of outlandish terms poured forth in the most admirable verse, or Les Djinns, where some of the stanzas have lines of two syllables each) that the grand provocation was thrown to the believers in alexandrines, careful caesuras and strictly separated couplets. Les Feuilles d’automne, Les Chants du crépuscule, Les Voix intérieures, Les Rayons et les ombres, the productions of the next twenty years, were quieter in style and tone, but no less full of poetical spirit. The Revolution of 1848, the establishment of the empire and the poet’s exile brought about a fresh determination of his genius to lyrical subjects. Les Châtiments and La Légende des siècles, the one political, the other historical, reach perhaps the high-water mark of French verse; and they were followed by the philosophical Contemplations, the lighter Chansons des rues et des bois, the Année terrible, the second Légende des siècles, and the later work to be found noticed sub nom. We have been thus particular here because the literary productiveness of Victor Hugo himself has been the measure and sample of the whole literary productiveness of France on the poetical side. At five-and-twenty he was acknowledged as a master, at seventy-five he was a master still. His poetical influence has been represented in three different schools, from which very few of the poetical writers of the century can be excluded. These few we may notice first. Alfred Musset. de Musset, a writer of great genius, felt part of the Romantic inspiration very strongly, but was on the whole unfortunately influenced by Byron, and partly out of wilfulness, partly from a natural want of persevering industry and vigour, allowed himself to be careless and even slovenly in composition. Notwithstanding this, many of his lyrics are among the finest poems in the language, and his verse, careless as it is, has extraordinary natural grace. Auguste Barbier (1805-1882) whose Iambes shows an extraordinary command of nervous and masculine versification, also comes in here; and the Breton poet, Auguste Brizeux (1803-1858), much admired by some, together with Hégésippe Moreau, an unequal writer possessing some talent, Pierre Dupont (1821-1870), one of much greater gifts, and Gustave Nadaud (1820-1893), a follower of Béranger, also deserve mention. Of the school of Lamartine rather than of Hugo are Alfred de Vigny (1799-1865) and Victor de Laprade (1812-1887), the former a writer of little bulk and somewhat over-fastidious, but possessing one of the most correct and elegant styles to be found in French, with a curious restrained passion and a complicated originality, the latter a meditative and philosophical poet, like Vigny an admirable writer, but somewhat deficient in pith and substance, as well as in warmth and colour. Madame Ackermann (1813-1890) is the chief philosophical poetess of France, and this style has recently been very popular; but for actual poetical powers, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786-1859) perhaps excelled her, though in a looser and more sentimental fashion. The poetical schools which more directly derive from the Romantic movement as represented by Hugo are three in number, corresponding in point of time with the first outburst of the movement, with the period of reaction already alluded to, and with the closing years of the second empire. Of the first by far the most distinguished member was Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), the most perfect Gautier. poet in point of form that France has produced. When quite a boy he devoted himself to the study of 16th-century masters, and though he acknowledged the supremacy of Hugo, his own talent was of an individual order, and developed itself more or less independently. Albertus alone of his poems has much of the extravagant and grotesque character which distinguished early romantic literature. The Comédie de la mort, the Poésies diverses, and still more the Émaux et camées, display a distinctly classical tendency—classical, that is to say, not in the party and perverted sense, but in its true acceptation. The tendency to the fantastic and horrible may be taken as best shown by Petrus Borel (1809-1859), a writer of singular power almost entirely wasted. Gerard Labrunie or de Nerval (1808-1855) adopted a manner also fantastic but more idealistic than Borel’s, and distinguished himself by his Oriental travels and studies, and by his attention to popular ballads and traditions, while his style has an exquisite but unaffected strangeness hardly inferior to Gautier’s. This peculiar and somewhat quintessenced style is also remarkable in the Gaspard de la nuit of Louis Bertrand (1807-1841), a work of rhythmical prose almost unique in its character. One famous sonnet preserves the name of Félix Arvers (1806-1850). The two Deschamps were chiefly remarkable as translators. The next generation produced three remarkable poets, to whom may perhaps be added a fourth. Théodore de Banville (1823-1891), adopting the principles of Gautier, and combining with them a considerable satiric faculty, composed a large amount of verse, faultless in form, delicate and exquisite in shades and colours, but so entirely neutral in moral and political tone that it has found fewer admirers than it deserved. Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894), carrying out the principle of ransacking foreign literature for subjects, went to Celtic, classical or even Oriental sources for his inspiration, and despite a science in verse not much inferior to Banville’s, and a far wider range and choice of subject, diffused an air of erudition, not to say pedantry, over his work which disgusted some readers, and a pessimism which displeased others, but has left poetry only inferior to that of the greatest of his countrymen. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), by his choice of unpopular subjects and the terrible truth of his analysis, revolted not a few of those who, in the words of an English critic, cannot take pleasure in the representation if they do not take pleasure in the thing represented, and who thus miss his extraordinary command of the poetical appeal in sound, in imagery and in suggestion generally. Thus, by a strange coincidence, each of the three representatives of the second Romantic generation was for a time disappointed of his due fame. A fourth poet of this time, Joséphin Soulary (1815-1891), produced sonnets of rare beauty and excellence. A fifth, Louis Bouilhet (1822-1869), an intimate friend of Flaubert, pushed even farther the fancy for strange subjects, but showed powers in Melænis and other things. In 1866 a collection of poems, entitled after an old French fashion Le Parnasse contemporain, appeared. It included contributions by many of the poets just mentioned, but the mass of the contributors were hitherto unknown to fame. A similar collection appeared in 1869, and was interrupted by the German war, but continued after it, and a third in 1876.
The first Parnasse had been projected by MM. Xavier de Ricard (b. 1843) and Catulle Mendès (1841-1909) as a sort of manifesto of a school of young poets: but its contents were largely coloured by the inclusion among them of work by representatives of older generations—Gautier, Laprade, Leconte de Lisle, Banville, Baudelaire and others. The continuation, however, of the title in the later issues, rather than anything else, led to the formation and promulgation of the idea of a “Parnassien” or an “Impassible” school which was supposed to adopt as its watchword the motto of “Art for Art’s sake,” to pay especial attention to form, and also to aim at a certain objectivity. As a matter of fact the greater poets and the greater poems of the Parnasse admit of no such restrictive labelling, which can only be regarded as mischievous, though (or very mainly because) it has been continued. Another school, arising mainly in the later ’eighties and calling itself that of “Symbolism,” has been supposed to indicate a reaction against Parnassianism and even against the main or Hugonic Romantic tradition generally; with a throwing back to Lamartine and perhaps Chénier. This idea of successive schools (“Decadents,” “Naturists,” “Simplists,” &c.) has even been reduced to such an absurdum as the statement that “France sees a new school of poetry every fifteen years.” Those who have studied literature sufficiently widely, and from a sufficient elevation, know that these systematisings are always more or less delusive. Parnassianism, symbolism and the other things are merely phases of the Romantic movement itself—as may be proved to demonstration by the simple process of taking, say, Hugo and Verlaine on the one hand, Delille or Escouchard Lebrun on the other, and comparing the two first mentioned with each other and with the older poet. The differences in the first case will be found to be differences at most of individuality: in the other of kind. We shall not, therefore, further refer to these dubious classifications: but specify briefly the most remarkable poets whom they concern, and all the older of whom, it may be observed, were represented in the Parnasse itself. Of these the most remarkable were Sully Prudhomme (1839-1907), François Coppée (1842-1908) and Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). The first (Stances et poèmes, 1865, Vaines Tendresses, 1875, Bonheur, 1888, &c.) is a philosophical and rather pessimistic poet who has very strongly rallied the suffrages of the rather large present public who care for the embodiment of these tendencies in verse; the second (La Grève des forgerons, 1869, Les Humbles, 1872, Contes et vers, 1881-1887, &c.) a dealer with more generally popular subjects in a more sentimental manner; and the third (Sagesse, 1881, Parallèlement, 1889, Poèmes saturniens, including early work, 1867-1890), by far the most original and remarkable poet of the three, starting with Baudelaire and pushing farther the fancy for forbidden subjects, but treating both these and others with wonderful command of sound and image-suggestion. Verlaine in fact (he was actually well acquainted with English) endeavoured, and to a small extent succeeded in the endeavour, to communicate to French the vague suggestion of visual and audible appeal which has characterized English poetry from Blake through Coleridge. Others of the original Parnassiens who deserve mention are Albert Glatigny (1839-1873), a Bohemian poet of great talent who died young; Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), afterwards chief of the Symbolists, also a true poet in his way, but somewhat barren, and the victim of pose and trick; José Maria de Heredia (1842-1905), a very exquisite practitioner of the sonnet but with perhaps more art than matter in him; Henri Cazalis (1840-1909), who long afterwards, under his name of Jean Lahor, appeared as a Symbolist pessimist; A. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, another eccentric but with a spark of genius; Emmanuel des Essarts; Auguste de Châtillon (1810-1882); Léon Dierx (b. 1838) who, after producing even less than Mallarmé, succeeded him as Symbolist chief; Jean Aicard (b. 1848), a southern bard of merit; and lastly Catulle Mendès himself, who has been a brilliant writer in verse and prose ever since, and whose Mouvement poétique français de 1867 à 1900 (1903), an official report largely amplified so that it is in fact a history and dictionary of French poetry during the century, forms an almost unique work of reference on the subject. Among the later recruits the most specially noticeable was Armand Silvestre (1837-1901), whose verse (La Chanson des heures, 1878, Ailes d’or, 1880, La Chanson des étoiles, 1885), of an ethereal beauty, was contrasted with prose admirably written and sometimes most amusing, but “Pantagruelist,” and more, in manners and morals. This declension from poetry to prose fiction was also noticeable in Guy de Maupassant, André Theuriet, Anatole France and even Alphonse Daudet.
Yet another flight of poets may be grouped as those specially representing the last quarter of the century and (whether Parnassian, Symbolist or what not) the latest development of French poetry. Verlaine and Mallarmé already mentioned were in a manner the leaders of these. Perhaps something of the influence of Whitman may be detected in the irregular verses of Gustave Kahn (b. 1859), Francis Viélé Griffin, actually an American by birth (b. 1864), Stuart Merrill, of like origin, and Paul Fort (b. 1872). But the whole tendency of the period has been to relax the stringency of French prosody. Albert Samain (1859-1900), a musical versifier enough; Jean Moréas (1856-1910) who began with a volume called Les Syrtes in 1884; Laurent Tailhade (b. 1854) and others are more or less Symbolist, and contributed to the Symbolist periodical (one of many such since the beginning of the Romantic movement which would almost require an article to themselves), the Mercure de France. An older man than many of these, M. Jean Richepin (b. 1849), made for a time considerable noise with poetical work of a colour older even than his age, and harking back somewhat to the Jeune-France and “Bousingot” type of early Romanticism—La Chanson des gueux, Les Blasphèmes, &c. Other writers of note are M. Paul Déroulède (b. 1846), a violently nationalist poet; M. Maurice Bouchor (b. 1864), who started his serious and respectable work with Les Symboles in 1888; while M. Henri de Regnier, born in the same year, has received very high praise for work from Lendemains in 1886 and other volumes up to Les Jeux rustiques et divins (1897) and Les Médailles d’argile (1900). The truth, however, perhaps is that this extraordinary abundance of verse (for we have not mentioned a quarter of the names which present themselves, or a twentieth part of those who figure in M. Mendès’s catalogue for the last half-century) reminds the literary historian somewhat too much of similar phenomena in other times. There is undoubtedly a great diffusion of poetical dexterity, and not perhaps a small one of poetical spirit, but it requires the settling, clarifying and distinguishing effects of time to separate the poet from the minor poet. Still more perhaps must we look to time to decide whether the vers libre as it is called—that is to say, the verse freed from the minute traditions of the elder prosody, admitting hiatus, neglecting to a greater or less extent caesura, and sometimes relying upon mere rhythm to the neglect of strict metre altogether—can hold its ground. It has as yet been practised by no poet at all approaching the first class, except Verlaine, and not by him in its extremer forms. And the whole history of prosody and poetry teaches us that though similar changes often come in as it were unperceived, they scarcely ever take root in the language unless a great poet adopts them. Or rather it should perhaps be said that when they are going to take root in the language a great poet always does adopt them before very long.
Prose Fiction since 1830.—Even more remarkable, because more absolutely novel, was the outburst of prose fiction which followed 1830. Madame de Lafayette, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire, the Abbé Prévost, Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Fiévée had all of them produced work excellent in its way, and comprising in a more or less rudimentary condition most varieties of the novel. But none of them had, in the French phrase, made a school, and at no time had prose fiction been composed in any considerable quantities. The immense influence which Walter Scott exercised was perhaps the direct cause of the attention paid to prose fiction; the facility, too, with which all the fancies, tastes and beliefs of the time could be embodied in such work may have had considerable importance. But it is difficult on any theory of cause and effect to account for the appearance in less than ten years of such a group of novelists as Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Mérimée, Balzac, George Sand, Jules Sandeau and Charles de Bernard, names to which might be added others scarcely inferior. There is hardly anything else resembling it in literature, except the great cluster of English dramatists in the beginning of the 17th century, and of English poets at the beginning of the 19th; and it is remarkable that the excellence of the first group was maintained by a fresh generation—Murger, About, Feuillet, Flaubert, Erckmann-Chatrian, Droz, Daudet, Cherbuliez and Gaboriau, forming a company of diadochi not far inferior to their predecessors, and being themselves not unworthily succeeded almost up to the present day. The romance-writing of France during the period has taken two different directions—the first that of the novel of incident, the second that of analysis and character. The first, now mainly deserted, was that which, as was natural when Scott was the model, was formerly most trodden; the second required the genius of George Sand and of Balzac and the more problematical talent of Beyle to attract students to it. The novels of Victor Hugo are novels of incident, with a strong infusion of purpose, and considerable but rather ideal character drawing. They are in fact lengthy prose drames rather than romances proper, and they have found no imitators. They display, however, the powers of the master at their fullest. Dumas. On the other hand, Alexandre Dumas originally composed his novels in close imitation of Scott, and they are much less dramatic than narrative in character, so that they lend themselves to almost indefinite continuation, and there is often no particular reason why they should terminate even at the end of the score or so of volumes to which they sometimes actually extend. Of this purely narrative kind, which hardly even attempts anything but the boldest character drawing, the best of them, such as Les Trois Mousquetaires, Vingt ans après, La Reine Margot, are probably the best specimens extant. Dumas possesses, almost alone among novelists, the secret of writing interminable dialogue without being tedious, and of telling the story by it. Of something the same kind, but of a far lower stamp, are the novels of Eugène Sue (1804-1857). Dumas and Sue were accompanied and followed by a vast crowd of companions, independent or imitative. Alfred de Vigny had already attempted the historical novel in Cinq-Mars. Henri de La Touche (1785-1851) (Fragoletta), an excellent critic who formed George Sand, but a mediocre novelist, may be mentioned: and perhaps also Roger de Beauvoir, whose real name was Eugène Auguste Roger de Bully (1806-1866) (Le Chronique de Saint Georges), and Frédéric Soulié (Les Mémoires du diable) (1800-1847). Paul Féval (La Fée des grèves) (1817-1877) and Amédée Achard (Belle-Rose) (1814-1875) are of the same school, and some of the attempts of Jules Janin (1804-1874), more celebrated as a critic, may also be connected with it. By degrees, however, the taste for the novel of incident, at least of an historical kind, died out till it was revived in another form, and with an admixture of domestic interest, by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. The last and one of the most splendid instances of the old style was Le Capitaine Fracasse, which Théophile Gautier began early and finished late as a kind of tour de force. The last-named writer in his earlier days had modified the incident novel in many short tales, a kind of writing for which French has always been famous, and in which Gautier’s sketches are masterpieces. His only other long novel, Mademoiselle de Maupin, belongs rather to the class of analysis. With Gautier, as a writer whose literary characteristics even excel his purely tale-telling powers, may be classed Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870), one of the most exquisite 19th-century masters of the language. Already, however, in 1830 the tide was setting strongly in favour of novels of contemporary life and manners. These were of course susceptible of extremely various treatment. For many years Paul de Kock (1793-1871), a writer who did not trouble himself about Classics or Romantics or any such matter, continued the tradition of Marivaux, Crébillon fils, and Pigault Lebrun (1753-1835) in a series of not very moral or polished but lively and amusing sketches of life, principally of the bourgeois type. Later Charles de Bernard (1804-1850) (Gerfaut) with infinitely greater wit, elegance, propriety and literary skill, did the same thing for the higher classes of French society. But the two great masters of the novel of character and manners as opposed to that of history and incident are Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) and Aurore Dudevant, commonly called George Sand (1804-1876). Their influence affected the entire body of novelists who succeeded them, with very few exceptions. At the head of these exceptions may be placed Jules Sandeau (1811-1883), who, after writing a certain number of novels in a less individual style, at last made for himself a special subject in a certain kind of domestic novel, where the passions set in motion are less boisterous than those usually preferred by the French novelist, and reliance is mainly placed on minute character drawing and shades of colour sober in hue but very carefully adjusted (Catherine, Mademoiselle de Penarvan, Mademoiselle de la Seiglière). In the same class of the more quiet and purely domestic novelists may be placed X. B. Saintine (1798-1865) (Picciola), Madame C. Reybaud (1802-1871) (Clémentine, Le Cadet de Colobrières), J. T. de Saint-Germain (Pour en épingle, La Feuille de coudrier), Madame Craven (1808-1891) (Récit d’une sœur, Fleurange). Henri Beyle (1798-1865), who wrote under the nom de plume of Stendhal and belongs to an older generation than most of these, also stands by himself. His chief book in the line of fiction is La Chartreuse de Parme, an exceedingly powerful novel of the analytical kind, and he also composed a considerable number of critical and miscellaneous works. Of little influence at first (though he had great power over Mérimée) and never master of a perfect style, he has exercised ever increasing authority as a master of pessimist analysis. Indeed much of his work was never published till towards the close of the century. Last among the independents must be mentioned Henry Murger (1822-1861), the painter of what is called Bohemian life, that is to say, the struggles, difficulties and amusements of students, youthful artists, and men of letters. In this peculiar style, which may perhaps be regarded as an irregular descendant of the picaroon romance, Murger has no rival; and he is also, though on no extensive scale, a poet of great pathos. But with these exceptions, the influences of the two writers we have mentioned, sometimes combined, more often separate, may be traced throughout the whole of later novel literature. George Sand began with books strongly tinged with the spirit of revolt against moral and social arrangements, and she sometimes diverged into very curious paths of pseudo-philosophy, such as was popular in the second quarter of the century. At times, too, as in Lucrezia Floriani and some other works, she did not hesitate to draw largely on her own personal adventures and experiences. But latterly she devoted herself rather to sketches of country life and manners, and to novels involving bold if not very careful sketches of character and more or less dramatic situations. She was one of the most fertile of novelists, continuing to the end of her long life to pour forth fiction at the rate of many volumes a year. Of her different styles may be mentioned as fairly characteristic, Lélia, Lucrezia Floriani, Consuelo, La Mare au diable, La Petite Fadette, François le champi, Mademoiselle de la Quintinie. Considering the shorter Balzac the younger. length of his life the productiveness of Balzac was almost more astonishing, especially if we consider that some of his early work was never reprinted, and that he left great stores of fragments and unfinished sketches. He is, moreover, the most remarkable example in literature of untiring work and determination to achieve success despite the greatest discouragements. His early work was worse than unsuccessful, it was positively bad. After more than a score of unsuccessful attempts, Les Chouans at last made its mark, and for twenty years from that time the astonishing productions composing the so-called Comédie humaine were poured forth successively. The sub-titles which Balzac imposed upon the different batches, Scènes de la vie parisienne, de la vie de province, de la vie intime, &c., show, like the general title, a deliberate intention on the author’s part to cover the whole ground of human, at least of French life. Such an attempt could not succeed wholly; yet the amount of success attained is astonishing. Balzac has, however, with some justice been accused of creating the world which he described, and his personages, wonderful as is the accuracy and force with which many of the characteristics of humanity are exemplified in them, are somehow not altogether human. Since these two great novelists, many others have arisen, partly to tread in their steps, partly to strike out independent paths. Octave Feuillet (1821-1890), beginning his career by apprenticeship to Alexandre Dumas and the historical novel, soon found his way in a very different style of composition, the roman intime of fashionable life, in which, notwithstanding some grave defects, he attained much popularity and showed remarkable skill in keeping abreast of his time. The so-called realist side of Balzac was developed (but, as he himself acknowledged, with a double dose of intermixed if somewhat transformed Romanticism) by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), who showed culture, scholarship and a literary power over the language inferior to that of no writer of the century. No novelist of his generation has attained a higher literary rank than Flaubert. Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale are studies of contemporary life; in Salammbô and La Tentation de Saint Antoine erudition and antiquarian knowledge furnish the subjects for the display of the highest literary skill. Of about the same date Edmond About (1828-1885), before he abandoned novel-writing, devoted himself chiefly to sketches of abundant but not always refined wit (L’Homme à l’oreille cassée, Le Nez d’un notaire), and sometimes to foreign scenes (Tolla, Le Roi des montagnes). Champfleury (Henri Husson, 1829-1889), a prolific critic, deserves notice for stories of the extravaganza kind. During the whole of the Second Empire one of the most popular writers was Ernest Feydeau (1821-1873), a writer of great ability, but morbid and affected in the choice and treatment of his subjects (Fanny, Sylvie, Catherine d’Overmeire). Émile Gaboriau (1833-1873), taking up that side of Balzac’s talent which devoted itself to inextricable mysteries, criminal trials, and the like, produced M. Le Coq, Le Crime d’Orcival, La Dégringolade, &c.; and Adolphe Belot (b. 1829) for a time endeavoured to out-Feydeau Feydeau in La Femme de feu and other works. Eugène Fromentin (1820-1876), best known as a painter, wrote a novel, Dominique, which was highly appreciated by good judges.
During the last decade of the Second Empire there arose, continuing for varying lengths of time till nearly the end of the century, another remarkable group of novelists, most of whom are dealt with under separate headings, but who must receive combined treatment here; with the warning that even more danger than in the case of the poets is incurred by classing them in “schools.” Undoubtedly, however, the “Naturalist” tendency, starting from Balzac and continued through Flaubert, but taking quite a new direction under some of those to be mentioned, is in a manner dominant. Flaubert himself and Feuillet (an exact observer of manners but an anti-Naturalist) have already been mentioned. Victor Cherbuliez (1829-1899), a constant writer in the Revue des deux mondes on politics and other subjects, also accomplished a long series of novels from Le Comte Kostia (1863) onwards, of which the most remarkable are that just named, Le Roman d’une honnête femme (1866), and Meta Holdenis (1873). With something of Balzac and more of Feuillet, Cherbuliez mixed with his observation of society a dose of sentimental and popular romance which offended the younger critics of his day, but he had solid merits. Gustave Droz (b. 1832) devoted himself chiefly to short stories sufficiently “free” in subject (Monsieur, madame et bébé, Entre nous, &c.) but full of fancy, excellently written, and of a delicate wit in one sense if not in all. André Theuriet (1833-1907) began with poetry but diverged to novels, in which the scenery of France and especially of its great forests is used with much skill; Le Fils Maugars (1879) may be mentioned out of many as a specimen. Léon Cladel (1835-1892), whose most remarkable work was Les Va-nu-pieds (1874), had, as this title of itself shows, Naturalist leanings; but with a quaint Romantic tendency in prose and verse.
The Naturalists proper chiefly developed or seemed to develop one side of Balzac, but almost entirely abandoned his Romantic element. They aimed first at exact and almost photographic delineation of the accidents of modern life, and secondly at still more uncompromising non-suppression of the essential features and functions of that life which are usually suppressed. This school may be represented in chief by four novelists (really three, as two of them were brothers who wrote together till the rather early death of one of them), Émile Zola (1840-1903), Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897), and Edmond (1822-1897) and Jules (1830-1870) de Goncourt. The first, of Italian extraction and Marseillais birth, began by work of undecided kinds and was always a critic as well as a novelist. Of this first stage Contes à Ninon (1864) and Thérèse Raquin (1867) deserve to be specified. But after 1870 Zola entered upon a huge scheme (suggested no doubt by the Comédie humaine) of tracing the fortunes in every branch, legitimate and illegitimate, and in every rank of society of a family, Les Rougon-Macquart, and carried it out in a full score of novels during more than as many years. He followed this with a shorter series on places, Paris, Rome, Lourdes, and lastly by another of strangely apocalyptic tone, Fécondité, Travail, Vérité, the last a story of the Dreyfus case, retrospective and, as it proved, prophetic. The extreme repulsiveness of much of his work, and the overdone detail of almost the whole of it, caused great prejudice against him, and will probably always prevent his being ranked among the greatest novelists; but his power is indubitable, and in passages, if not in whole books, does itself justice.
MM. de Goncourt, besides their work in Naturalist (they would have preferred to call it “Impressionist”) fiction, devoted themselves especially to study and collection in the fine arts, and produced many volumes on the historical side of these, volumes distinguished by accurate and careful research. This quality they carried, and the elder of them after his brother’s death continued to carry, into novel-writing (Renée Mauperin, Germinie Lacerteux, Chérie, &c.) with the addition of an extraordinary care for peculiar and, as they called it, “personal” diction. On the other hand, Alphonse Daudet (who with the other three, Flaubert to some extent, and the Russian novelist Turgenieff, formed a sort of cénacle or literary club) mixed with some Naturalism a far greater amount of fancy and wit than his companions allowed themselves or could perhaps attain; and in the Tartarin series (dealing with the extravagances of his fellow-Provençaux) added not a little to the gaiety of Europe. His other novels (Fromont jeune et Risler aîné, Jack, Le Nabab, &c.), also very popular, have been variously judged, there being something strangely like plagiarism in some of them, and in others, in fact in most, an excessive use of that privilege of the novelist which consists in introducing real persons under more or less disguise. It should be observed in speaking of this group that the Goncourts, or rather the survivor of them, left an elaborate Journal disfigured by spite and bad taste, but of much importance for the appreciation of the personal side of French literature during the last half of the century.