Subscribing entirely, and it is an easy thing for us, to the judgment of the author of the "Course upon Christian Poetry," let us guard ourselves from going too far by extending the conclusion beyond the premises. Where does M. Douhaire find these poetical beauties which he offers for our admiration? In the trilogy of the "Mystery of the Passion." Now this vast dramatic composition is nothing more, in fact, than an agglomeration of the "mysteries" which preceded the work of the two Jehan Michels. These charming scenes, these grand pictures, which are met with here and there, are only the fragments of a more ancient poetry, that have been gathered up anew. When the dramatists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries enter upon original composition, the decline of poetry is seen everywhere, in the detail as well as in the whole, in the style as in the conception. We know of but one merit which truly belongs to them—it is the happy development they have given to stage effect by a simultaneous presentation of heaven, hell, and the earth—shadowing forth by this triple theatrical action the incessant intervention of the supernatural powers in the destinies of humanity. But while this conception is majestic, its literary execution is wretched. We have a proof in the "Triumphant Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles," written from beginning to end without verve, or coloring, or nobleness, by the two most celebrated dramatic poets of their age, whom Marot calls—
"The two Grebans of high-resounding line."
Having noticed the literary poverty of the dramatic poetry of this epoch, we will now point out the principal sources of its faults. They are two. The first is a misconception of the dramatists respecting the nature of the types proposed for the imitation of art. The second is a consequence of the popularity and the indefinite length of their spectacles.
It is impossible to compare the meagreness, the languor, and the stupidity of the two brothers Greban with the bright and graceful vivacity of the writer who praises them, without being amazed at the eulogies he bestows, and demanding what can be the reason of this misjudgment on the part of a poet, the most spiritual and the most delicate of the reign of Francis I. It comes from the false idea which the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries formed of the dramatic style, or, to speak more [{592}] exactly, of the entire dramatic art. In place of seeking the ideal, they sought reality, and, what is worse, it was in the commonest realities that the dramatists of that time searched after the type of their language and the morals of their heroes. We have already remarked the same aberration of public taste in the far too materialistic imitations of the spectacle.
"Under a literary and dramatic point of view," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "that which is the essential characteristic of the mysteries of the sixteenth century is its low vulgarity and its too minute triviality. The authors had but one aim. They sought to portray in the men and events of other times the scenes of the common life which went on under their eyes. With them the whole art was reduced to this imitation, or rather to this faithful facsimile. If they exhibited a populace, it was recognizable at once as that of the market-places or of the city. Every tribunal was a copy of the Châtelet or of the Parliament. The headsmen of Nero, of Domitian, Daru, Pesart, Torneau, Mollestin, seemed taken from the Place du Palais de Justice or from Montfaucon. … What the public above all admired, was the perfect conformity of the dialogue, and of the other features of the play, with everyday realities. The good townsmen could not cease gazing at and listening to so natural an imitation of their daily customs and their domestic bickerings. All contemporary praise bears upon this exact resemblance. It is in this way that common and uncultured minds—strangers to the intimate and profound joys of art—readily accept false coin, and content themselves with pleasures at a low price."
This habitual imitation of the common life and of everything trivial is found even in scenes of a wholly ideal nature in heaven and in hell. The language of God and of paradise is vulgar; that of the devils is grotesque, sometimes even indecent. At the commencement of the mysteries of the brothers Greban, while the apostles have assembled together in an upper chamber to elect St. Matthias, Lucifer orders the demons to wander over the earth, and before going the evil spirits request his benediction. He replies to them:
"Devils damned, in malediction
O'er you each, with power blighted,
My paw I stretch, of God accursed,
From sins and misdeeds all absolving,
Up! Set forth!" etc.
When Satan and Astaroth bring the souls of Ananias and Saphira to hell, Lucifer is so transported with joy that he bids the demon hosts exult:
"Let the crowd of the damned,
Here, before my tribunal,
Sing an anthem infernal!"
Belial and Burgibus, he adds, will lead the treble: Berits, Cerberus, and some others, the tenor; Astaroth and Leviathan, the bass. At once they all begin to chant in chorus: