A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL

MACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITED

LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGODALLAS SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. LTD. TORONTO

A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL

(TO THE CLOSE OF THE 19TH CENTURY)

BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY

M. A. AND HON. D. LITT. OXON. ; HON. LL. D. ABERD. ; HON. D. LITT. DURH. ;FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY; HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD;LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OFEDINBURGH

VOL. I

FROM THE BEGINNING TO 1800

MACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1917

COPYRIGHT

PREFACE

In beginning what, if it ever gets finished, must in all probability bethe last of some already perhaps too numerous studies of literaryhistory, I should like to point out that the plan of it is somewhatdifferent from that of most, if not all, of its predecessors. I haveusually gone on the principle (which I still think a sound one) that, instudying the literature of a country, or in dealing with such generalcharacteristics of parts of literature as prosody, or such coefficientsof all literature as criticism, minorities are, sometimes at least, ofas much importance as majorities, and that to omit them altogether is torisk, or rather to assure, an imperfect--and dangerouslyimperfect--product. 

In the present instance, however, I am attempting something that I havenever, at such length, attempted before--the history of a Kind, and aKind which has distinguished itself, as few others have done, bycommunicating to readers the _pleasure_ of literature. I might almostsay that it is the history of that pleasure, quite as much as thehistory of the kind itself, that I wish to trace. In doing so it isobviously superfluous to include inferiorities and failures, unless theyhave some very special lesson or interest, or have been (as in the caseof the minorities on the bridge of the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies) for the most part, and unduly, neglected, though they areimportant as experiments and links. [1] We really do want here--what thereprehensible hedonism of Mr. Matthew Arnold, and his submission to whatsome one has called "the eternal enemy, Caprice, " wanted in allcases--"only the chief and principal things. " I wish to give a fullhistory of how what is commonly called the French Novel came into beingand kept itself in being; but I do not wish to give an exhaustive, though I hope to give a pretty full, account of its practitioners. 

In another point, however, I have kept to my old ways, and that is theway of beginning at the beginning. I disagree utterly with any Balbuswho would build an absolute wall between romance and novel, or a wallhardly less absolute between verse- and prose-fiction. I think theFrench have (what is not common in their language) an advantage over usin possessing the general term _Roman_, and I have perhaps taken acertain liberty with my own title in order to keep the noun-part of itto a single word. I shall extend the meaning of "novel"--that of _roman_would need no extension--to include, not only the prose books, old andnew, which are more generally called "romance, " but the verse romancesof the earlier period. 

The subject is one with which I can at least plead almost lifelongfamiliarity. I became a subscriber to "Rolandi's, " I think, during myholidays as a senior schoolboy, and continued the subscriptions duringmy vacations when I was at Oxford. In the very considerable leisurewhich I enjoyed during the six years when I was Classical Master atElizabeth College, Guernsey, I read more French than any otherliterature, and more novels than anything else in French. In the late'seventies and early 'eighties, as well as more recently, I had to roundoff and fill in my knowledge of the older matter, for an elaborateaccount of French literature in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, for along series of articles on French novelists in the _Fortnightly Review_, and for the _Primer_ and _Short History_ of the subject which I wrotefor the Clarendon Press; while from 1880 to 1894, as a _SaturdayReview_er, I received, every month, almost everything notable (and agreat deal hardly worth noting) that had appeared in France. 

Since then, the cutting off of this supply, and the extreme and constanturgency of quite different demands on my time, have made my cultivationof the once familiar field "_parc_ and infrequent. " But I doubt whetherany really good judge would say that this was a serious drawback initself; and it ceases to be one, even relatively, by the restriction ofthe subject to the close of the last century. It will be time to writeof the twentieth-century novel when the twentieth century itself hasgone more than a little farther. 

For the abundance of translation, in the earlier part especially, Ineed, I think, make no apology. I shall hardly, by any one worthhearing, be accused of laziness or scamping in consequence of it, fortranslation is much more troublesome, and takes a great deal more time, than comment or history. The advantage, from all other points of view, should need no exposition: nor, I think, should that of pretty fullstory-abstract now and then. 

There is one point on which, at the risk of being thought to "talk toomuch of my matters, " I should like to say a further word. All my books, before the present volume, have been composed with the aid of alibrary, not very large, but constantly growing, and always reinforcedwith special reference to the work in hand; while I was able also, onall necessary occasions, to visit Oxford or London (after I left thelatter as a residence), and for twenty years the numerous public orsemi-public libraries of Edinburgh were also open to me. This present_History_ has been outlined in expectation for a very long time; and hasbeen actually laid down for two or three years. But I had not been ableto put much of it on paper when circumstances, while they gave megreater, indeed almost entire, leisure for writing, obliged me to partwith my own library (save a few books with a reserve _pretiumaffectionis_ on them), and, though they brought me nearer both to Oxfordand to London, made it less easy for me to visit either. The LondonLibrary, that Providence of unbooked authors, came indeed to my aid, forwithout it I should have had to leave the book alone altogether; and Ihave been "munitioned" sometimes, by kindness or good luck, in otherways. But I have had to rely much more on memory, and of course in somecases on previous writing of my own, than ever before, though, except inone special case, [2] there will be found, I think, not a single page ofmere "rehashing. " I mention this without the slightest desire to begoff, in one sense, from any omissions or mistakes which may be foundhere, but merely to assure my readers that such mistakes and omissionsare not due to idle and careless bookmaking. That "books have fates" isan accepted proposition. In respect to one of these--possession ofmaterials and authorities--mine have been exceptionally fortunatehitherto, and if they had any merit it was no doubt largely due to this. I have, in the present, endeavoured to make the best of what was notquite such good fortune. And if anybody still says, "Why did you notwait till you could supply deficiencies?" I can only reply that, afterseventy, [Greek: nyx gar erchetai] is a more insistent warrant, andwarning, than ever. [3]

 GEORGE SAINTSBURY. 

 [_Edinburgh, 1914-15; Southampton, 1915-16_] 1 ROYAL CRESCENT, BATH, _May 31, 1917_. 

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

P. 3, _note_. --This note was originally left vague, because, in thefirst place, to perform public and personal fantasias with one's spearon the shield of a champion, with whom one does not intend to fight outthe quarrel, seems to me bad chivalry, and secondly, because thosereaders who were likely to be interested could hardly mistake thereference. The regretted death, a short time after the page was sent topress, of Mr. W. J. Courthope may give occasion to an acknowledgment, coupled with a sincere _ave atque vale_. Mr. Courthope was never anintimate friend of mine, and our agreement was greater in political thanin literary matters: but for more than thirty years we were on the bestterms of acquaintance, and I had a thorough respect for hisaccomplishments. 

P. 20, l. 5. --_Fuerres de Gadres. _ I wonder how many people thought ofthis when Englishmen "forayed Gaza" just before Easter, 1917?

P. 46, mid-page. --It so happened that, some time after having passedthis sheet for press, I was re-reading Dante (as is my custom every yearor two), and came upon that other passage (in the _Paradiso_, andtherefore not known to more than a few of the thousands who know theFrancesca one) in which the poet refers to the explanation betweenLancelot and the Queen. It had escaped my memory (though I think I maysay honestly that I knew it well enough) when I passed the sheet: but itseemed to me that perhaps some readers, who do not care much for"parallel passages" in the pedantic sense, might, like myself, feelpleasure in having the great things of literature, in different places, brought together. Moreover, the _Paradiso_ allusion seems to havepuzzled or misled most of the commentators, including the late Mr. A. J. Butler, who, by his translation and edition of the _Purgatorio_ in 1880, was my Virgil to lead me through the _Commedia_, after I had sinfullyneglected it for exactly half a life-time. He did not know, and mighteasily not have known, the Vulgate _Lancelot_: but some of those whom hecites, and who evidently _did_ know it, do not seem to have recognisedthe full significance of the passage in Dante. The text will give theoriginal: the _Paradiso_ (xvi. 13-15) reference tells how Beatrice(after Cacciaguida's biographical and historical recital, and whenDante, in a confessed outburst of family pride, addresses his ancestorwith the stately _Voi_), "smiling, appeared like her who coughed at thefirst fault which is written of Guinevere. " This, of course (see textonce more), is the Lady of Malahault, though Dante does not name her ashe does Prince Galahault in the other _locus_. The older commentators(who, as has been said, _did_ know the original) do not seem to haveseen in the reference much more than that both ladies noticed, andperhaps approved, what was happening. But I think there is more in it. The Lady of Malahault (see note in text) had previously been aware thatLancelot was deeply in love, though he would not tell her with whom. Hercough therefore meant: "Ah! I have found you out. " Now Beatrice, well asshe knew Dante's propensity to love, knew as well that _pride_ was evenmore of a besetting weakness of his. This was quite a harmless instanceof it: but still it _was_ an instance--and the "smile" which is _not_recorded of the Arthurian lady meant: "Ah! I have _caught_ you out. "Even if this be excessive "reading into" the texts, the juxtaposition ofthem may not be unsatisfactory to some who are not least worthsatisfying. (Since writing this, I have been reminded that Mr. PagetToynbee did make the "juxtaposition" in his Clarendon Press _Specimensof Old French_ (October, 1892), printing there the "Lady of Malahault"passage from MSS. Copied by Professor Ker. But there can be no harm induplicating it. )

P. 121, ll. 8-10. Perhaps instead of, or at least beside, ArchdeaconGrantly I should have mentioned a more real dignitary (as some countreality) of the Church, Charles Kingsley. The Archdeacon and the Canonwould have fought on many ecclesiastical and some political grounds, butthey might have got on as being, in Dr. Grantly's own words at amemorable moment "both gentlemen. " At any rate, Kingsley was soaked inRabelais, and one of the real curiosities of literature is the way inwhich the strength of _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ helped to beget thesweetness of _The Water Babies_. 

Chap. Viii. Pp. 163-175. --After I had "made my" own "siege" of the_Astrée_ on the basis of notes recording a study of it at the B. M. , Dr. Hagbert Wright of the London Library was good enough to let me know thathis many years' quest of the book had been at last successful, and togive me the first reading of it. (It was Southey's copy, with his ownunmistakable autograph and an inserted note, while it also contained acover of a letter addressed to him, which had evidently been used as abook-mark. ) Although not more than four months had passed since theprevious reading, I found it quite as appetising as (in the text itself)I had expressed my conviction that it would be: and things not noticedbefore cropped up most agreeably. There is no space to notice all ormany of them here. But one of the earliest, due to Hylas, cannot beomitted, for it is the completest and most sententious vindication ofpolyerotism ever phrased: "Ce n'était pas que je n'aimasse les autres:mais j'avais encore, outre leur place, celle-ci vide dans mon âme. " Andthe soul of Hylas, like Nature herself, abhorred a vacuum! (Thisapproximation is not intended as "new and original": but it was sometime after making it that I recovered, in _Notre Dame de Paris_, aforgotten anticipation of it by Victor Hugo. )

Another early point of interest was that the frontispiece portrait ofAstrée (the edition, see _Bibliography_, appears to be the latest of theoriginal and ungarbled ones, _imprimée à Rouen, et se vend à Paris_(1647, 10 vols. )) is evidently a portrait, though not an identical one, of the same face given in the Abbé Reure's engraving of Diane deChâteaumorand herself. The nose, especially, is hardly mistakable, butthe eyes have rather less expression, and the mouth less character, though the whole face (naturally) looks younger. 

On the other hand, the portrait here--not of Céladon, but admittedly ofHonoré d'Urfé himself--is much less flattering than that in the Abbé'sbook. 

Things specially noted in the second reading would (it has been said)overflow all bounds here possible: but we may perhaps find room forthree lines from about the best of the very numerous but not verypoetical verses, at the beginning of the sixth (_i. E. _ the middle of theoriginal _third_) volume:

 _Le prix d'Amour c'est l'Amour même. _ Change d'humeur qui s'y plaira, Jamais Hylas ne changera, the two last being the continuous refrain of a "villanelle" in whichthis bad man boasts his constancy in inconstancy. 

P. 265, _note_ 1. --It ought perhaps to be mentioned that Mlle. DeLussan's paternity is also, and somewhat more probably, attributed toEugene's elder brother, Thomas of Savoy, Comte de Soissons. The lady issaid to have been born in 1682, when Eugene (b. 1663) was barelynineteen; but of course this is not decisive. His brother Thomas_Amédée_ (b. 1656) was twenty-six at the time. The attribution abovementioned gave no second name, and did not specify the relationship toEugene: so I had some difficulty in identifying the person, as therewere, in the century, three Princes Thomas of Savoy, and I had few booksof reference. But my old friend and constant helper in mattershistorical, the Rev. William Hunt, D. Litt. , cleared the point up for me. Of the other two--Thomas _François_, who was by marriage Comte deSoissons and was grandfather of Eugene and Thomas Amédée, died in thesame year in which Thomas Amédée was born, therefore twenty-six beforeMlle. De Lussan's birth: while the third, Thomas _Joseph_, Eugene'scousin, was not born till 1796, fourteen years after the lady. Thematter is, of course, of no literary importance: but as I had passed thesheet for press before noticing the diversity of statements, I thoughtit better to settle it. 

P. 267. Pajon. I ought not to have forgotten to mention that he bearsthe medal of Sir Walter Scott (Introduction to _The Abbot_) as "apleasing writer of French Fairy Tales. "

Page 453. --Choderlos de Laclos. Some surprise has been expressed by afriend of great competence at my leaving out _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_. I am, of course, aware that "persons of distinction" have taken aninterest in it; and I understand that, not many years ago, theunfortunate author of the beautiful lines _To Cynara_ wasted his timeand talent on translating the thing. To make sure that my formerrejection was not unjustified, I have accordingly read it with caresince the greater part of this book was passed for press; and it shallhave a judgment here, if not in the text. I am unable to find anyredeeming point in it, except that some ingenuity is shown in bringingabout the _dénouement_ by a rupture between the villain-hero and thevillainess-heroine, M. Le Vicomte de Valmont and Mme. La Marquise deMerteuil. Even this, though fairly craftsmanlike in treatment, is banalenough in idea--that idea being merely that jealousy, in both sexes, survives love, shame, and everything else, even community inscoundrelism--in other words, that the green-eyed monster (like "Vernon"and unlike "Ver") _semper viret_. But it is scarcely worth one's whileto read six hundred pages of very small print in order to learn this. Ofamusement, as apart from this very elementary instruction, I at leastcan find nothing. The pair above mentioned, on whom practically hangsthe whole appeal, are merely disgusting. Their very voluptuousness isaccidental: the sum and substance, the property and business of theirlives and natures, are compact of mischief, malice, treachery, and thedesire of "getting the better of somebody. " Nor has this diabolismanything grand or impressive about it--anything that "intends greatly"and glows, as has been said, with a black splendour, in Marlowesque orWebsterian fashion. Nor, again, is it a "Fleur du Mal" of theBaudelairian kind, but only an ugly as well as noxious weed. It isprosaic and suburban. There is neither tragedy nor comedy, neitherpassion nor humour, nor even wit, except a little horse-play. Congreveand Crébillon are as far off as Marlowe and Webster; in fact, thedescent from Crébillon's M. De Clérval to Laclos' M. De Valmont isalmost inexpressible. And, once more, there is nothing to console onebut the dull and obvious moral that to adopt love-making as an"occupation" (_vide_ text, p. 367) is only too likely to result in the[Greek: technê] becoming, in vulgar hands, very [Greek: banausos]indeed. 

The victims and _comparses_ of the story do nothing to atone for theprincipals. The lacrimose stoop-to-folly-and-wring-his-bosom Mme. DeTourvel is merely a bore; the _ingénue_ Cécile de Volanges is, as Mme. De Merteuil says, a _petite imbécile_ throughout, and becomes no betterthan she should be with the facility of a predestined strumpet; herlover, Valmont's rival, and Mme. De Merteuil's plaything, M. LeChevalier Danceny, is not so very much better than _he_ should be, andnearly as much an imbecile in the masculine way as Cécile in thefeminine; her respectable mother and Valmont's respectable aunt are notmerely as blind as owls are, but as stupid as owls are not. Finally, thebook, which in many particular points, as well as in the generalletter-scheme, follows Richardson closely (adding clumsy notes toexplain the letters, apologise for their style, etc. ), exhibits most ofthe faults of its original with hardly any of that original's merits. Valmont, for instance, is that intolerable creature, a pattern BadMan--a Grandison-Lovelace--a prig of vice. Indeed, I cannot see how anyinterest can be taken in the book, except that derived from itsbackground of _tacenda_; and though no one, I think, who has read thepresent volume will accuse me of squeamishness, _I_ can find in it nointerest at all. The final situations referred to above, if artisticallyled up to and crisply told in a story of twenty to fifty pages, mighthave some; but ditchwatered out as they are, I have no use for them. Theletter-form is particularly unfortunate, because, at least as used, itexcludes the ironic presentation which permits one almost to fall inlove with Becky Sharp, and quite to enjoy _Jonathan Wild_. Of course, ifanybody says (and apologists _do_ say that Laclos was, as a man, properin morals and mild in manners) that to hold up the wicked to meredetestation is a worthy work, I am not disposed to argue the point. Only, for myself, I prefer to take moral diatribes from the clergy andaesthetic delectation from the artist. The avenging duel betweenLovelace and Colonel Morden is finely done; that between Valmont andDanceny is an obvious copy of it, and not finely done at all. Some, again, of the riskiest passages in subject are made simply dull by aRichardsonian particularity which has no seasoning either of humour orof excitement. Now, a Richardson _de mauvais lieu_ is more than abore--it is a nuisance, not pure and simple, but impure and complex. 

I have in old days given to a few novels (though, of course, only whenthey richly deserved it) what is called a "slating"--an_éreintement_--as I once had the honour of translating that word inconversation, at the request of a distinguished English novelist, forthe benefit of a distinguished French one. Perhaps an example of theprocess is not utterly out of place in a _History_ of the novel itself. But I have long given up reviewing fiction, and I do not remember anybook of which I shall have to speak as I have just spoken. So _hiccaestus_, etc. --though I am not such a coxcomb as to include _victor_ inthe quotation. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For the opposite or corresponding reasons, it has seemed unnecessaryto dwell on such persons, a hundred and more years later, as Voisenonand La Morlière, who are merely "corrupt followers" of Crébillon _fils_;or, between the two groups, on the numerous failures of thequasi-historical kind which derived partly from Mlle. De Scudéry andpartly from Mme. De la Fayette. 

[2] That of the minor "Sensibility" novelists in the last chapter. 

[3] I have once more to thank Professors Ker, Elton, and Gregory Smithfor their kindness in reading my proofs and making most valuablesuggestions; as well as Professor Fitzmaurice-Kelly and the Rev. WilliamHunt for information on particular points. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I PAGE

INTRODUCTORY 1

The early history of prose fiction--The late classicalstage--A _nexus_ of Greek and French romance?--the factsabout the matter--The power and influence of the "Saint'sLife"--The Legend of St. Eulalia--The _St. Alexis_. 

CHAPTER II

THE MATTERS OF FRANCE, ROME, AND BRITAIN 9

The _Chanson de Geste_--The proportions of history andfiction in them--The part played by language, prosody, andmanners--Some drawbacks--But a fair balance of actual storymerit--Some instances of this--The classical borrowings:Troy and Alexander--_Troilus_--_Alexander_--The ArthurianLegend--Chrestien de Troyes and the theories about him--Hisunquestioned work--Comparison of the _Chevalier à laCharette_ and the prose _Lancelot_--The constitution of theArthuriad--Its approximation to the novel proper--Especiallyin the characters and relations of Lancelot andGuinevere--Lancelot--Guinevere--Some minorpoints--Illustrative extracts translated from the "Vulgate":the youth of Lancelot--The first meeting of Lancelot andGuinevere--The scene of the kiss--Some further remarks onthe novel-character of the story--And the personages--Books. 

CHAPTER III

ROMANS D'AVENTURES 55

Variety of the present group--Different views held ofit--_Partenopeus of Blois_ selected for analysis andtranslation. 

CHAPTER IV

THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSE FICTION 73

Prose novelettes of the thirteenth century: _Aucassin etNicolette_ not quite typical--_L'Empereur Constant_ moreso--_Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane_--_La Comtesse dePonthieu_--Those of the fourteenth:_Asseneth_--_Troilus_--_Foulques Fitzwarin_--Something onthese--And on the short story generally. 

CHAPTER V

ALLEGORY, FABLIAU, AND PROSE STORY OF COMMON LIFE 89

The connection with prose fiction of allegory--And of the_fabliaux_--The rise of the _nouvelle_ itself--_Les CentNouvelles Nouvelles_--Analysis of "La DemoiselleCavalière"--The interest of _namea_ personages--_Petit Jehande Saintré_--_Jehan de Paris. _

CHAPTER VI

RABELAIS 105

The anonymity, or at least impersonality, of authorship upto this point--Rabelais unquestionably the first very greatknown writer--But the first great novelist?--Some objectionsconsidered--And dismissed as affecting the generalattraction of the book--Which lies, largely if not wholly, in its story-interest--Contrast of the _Moyen deParvenir_--A general theme possible--A reference, to betaken up later, to the last Book--Running survey of thewhole--_Gargantua_--The birth and education--The war--TheCounsel to Picrochole--The peace and the Abbey ofThelema--_Pantagruel_ I. The contrastedyouth--Panurge--Short view of the sequels in BookII. --_Pantagruel_ II. (Book III. ) The marriage of Panurgeand the consultations on it--_Pantagruel_ III. (Book IV. )The first part of the voyage--_Pantagruel_ IV. (Book V. ) Thesecond part of the voyage: the "Isle Sonnante"--"LaQuinte"--The conclusion and The Bottle. 

CHAPTER VII

THE SUCCESSORS OF RABELAIS AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE"AMADIS" ROMANCES 134

Subsidiary importance of Brantôme and othercharacter-mongers--The _Heptameron_--Note onMontaigne--Character and "problems"--Parlamente on human anddivine love--Despériers--_Contes et Joyeux Devis_--Othertale-collections--The "provincial" character of these--The_Amadis_ romances--Their characteristics--Extravagance inincident, nomenclature, etc. --The "cruel" heroine--Note onHélisenne de Crenne. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--I. 152

_The Pastoral and Heroic Romance, and the Fairy Story. _

Immense importance of the seventeenth century in oursubject--The divisions of its contribution--Note on markedinfluence of Greek Romance--The Pastoral in general--Itsbeginnings in France--Minor romances preceding the_Astrée_--Their general character--Examples of theirstyle--Montreux and the _Bergeries de Juliette_--DesEscuteaux and his _Amours Diverses_--François de Molière:_Polyxéne_--Du Périer: _Arnoult et Clarimonde_--Du Croset:_Philocalie_--Corbin: _Philocaste_--Jean de Lannoi and his_Roman Satirique_--Béroalde de Verville outside the _Moyende Parvenir_--The _Astrée_: its author--The book--Itslikeness to the _Arcadia_--Its philosophy and its generaltemper--Its appearance and its author's other work--Itscharacter and appeals--Hylas and Stella and theirConvention--Narrative skill frequent--The Fountain of theTruth of Love--Some drawbacks: awkward history--Butattractive on the whole--The general importance andinfluence--The _Grand Cyrus_--Its preface to Madame deLongueville--The "Address to the Reader"--The opening of the"business"--The ups and downs of the general conduct of thestory--Extracts: the introduction of Cyrus to Mandane--Hissoliloquy in the pavilion--The Fight of the FourHundred--The abstract resumed--The oracle toPhilidaspes--The advent of Araminta--Her correspondence withSpithridates--Some interposed comments--Analysisresumed--The statue in the gallery at Sardis--The judgmentof Cyrus in a court of love--Thomyris on thewarpath--General remarks on the book and its class--Theother Scudéry romances:_Ibrahim_--_Almahide_--_Clélie_--Perhaps the liveliest ofthe set--Rough outline of it--La Calprenède: hiscomparative cheerfulness--_Cléopatre_: the Cypassis andArminius episode--The bookgenerally--_Cassandre_--_Faramond_--Gomberville: _LaCaritée_--_Polexandre_--Camus: _Palombe_, etc. --Hédelind'Aubignac: _Macarise_--Gombauld: _Endimion_--Mme. DeVilledieu--_Le Grand Alcandre Frustré_--The collectedlove-stories--Their historic liberties--_Carmente_, etc. --Her value on the whole--The fairy tale--Its _general_characteristics: the happy ending--Perrault and Mme. D'Aulnoy--Commented examples: _Gracieuse etPercinet_--_L'Adroite Princesse_--The danger of the"moral"--Yet often redeemed--The main _Cabinet des Fées_:more on Mme. D'Aulnoy--Warning against disappointment--Mlle. De la Force and others--The large proportion of EasternTales--_Les Voyages de Zulma_--Fénelon--Caylus--_PrinceCourtebotte et Princesse Zibeline_--_Rosanie_--_PrinceMuguet et Princesse Zaza_--Note on _Le Diable Amoureux_. 

CHAPTER IX

THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--II. 274

_From "Francion" to "La Princesse de Clèves"--Anthony Hamilton. _

The material of the chapter--Sorel and _Francion_--The_Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_--Scarron and the _RomanComique_--The opening scene of this--Furetière and the_Roman Bourgeois_--Nicodème takes Javotte home fromchurch--Cyrano de Bergerac and his _Voyages_--Mme. De laFayette and _La Princesse de Clèves_--Its centralscene--Hamilton and the Nymph--The opening of _Fleurd'Épine_--_Les Quatre Facardins_. 

CHAPTER X

LESAGE, MARIVAUX, PRÉVOST, CRÉBILLON 325

The subjects of the chapter--Lesage: his Spanishconnections--Peculiarity of his work generally--And itsvariety--_Le Diable Boiteux_--Lesage and Boileau--_GilBlas_: its peculiar cosmopolitanism--And its adoption of the_homme sensuel moyen_ fashion--Its inequality, in the Secondand Fourth Books especially--Lesage's quality: not requiringmany words, but indisputable--Marivaux: _Les Effets de laSympathie_ (?)--His work in general--_Le PaysanParvenu_--_Marianne_: outline of the story--Importance ofMarianne herself--Marivaux and Richardson:"Marivaudage"--Examples: Marianne on the _physique_ and_moral_ of Prioresses and Nuns--She returns thegift-clothes--Prévost--His minor novels: the opinions onthem of Sainte-Beuve--And of Planche--The books themselves:_Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_--_Cléveland_--_Le Doyen deKillérine_--_The Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité_--Itsmiscellaneous curiosities--_Manon Lescaut_--Itsuniqueness--The character of its heroine--And that of thehero--The inevitableness of both and the inestimableness oftheir history--Crébillon _fils_--The case against him--Forthe defendant: the veracity of his artificiality and hisconsummate cleverness--The Crébillonesque atmosphere andmethod--Inequality of his general work; a survey of it. 

CHAPTER XI

THE _PHILOSOPHE_ NOVEL 377

The use of the novel for "purpose"; Voltaire--Generalcharacteristics of his tales--_Candide_--_Zadig_ and itssatellites--_Micromégas_--_L'Ingénu_--_La Princesse deBabylone_--Some minors--Voltaire, the Kehl edition, andPlato--An attempt at different evaluation ofhimself--Rousseau: the novel character of the_Confessions_--The ambiguous position of _Émile_--_LaNouvelle Héloïse_--Its numerous and grave faults--The minorcharacters--The delinquencies of Saint-Preux--And the lesscharming points of Julie; her redemption--And the betterside of the book generally--But little probability of moregood work in novel from its author--The different case ofDiderot--His gifts and the waste of them--The variousdisplay of them--_Le Neveu de Rameau_--_Jacques leFataliste_--Its "Arcis-Pommeraye" episode--_LaReligieuse_--Its story--A hardly missed, if missed, masterpiece--The successors--Marmontel--His "Telemachic"imitations worth little--The best of his _Contes Moraux_worth a good deal--_Alcibiade ou le Moi_--_Soliman theSecond_--_The Four Flasks_--_Heureusement_--_Le PhilosopheSoi-disant_--A real advance in these--Bernardin deSaint-Pierre. 

CHAPTER XII

"SENSIBILITY. " MINOR AND LATER NOVELISTS. THE FRENCHNOVEL, _c. _ 1800 428

"Sensibility"--A glance at Miss Austen--The thingessentially French--Its history--Mme. De Tencin and _LeComte de Comminge_--Mme. Riccoboni and _Le Marquis deCressy_--Her other work: _Milady Catesby_--Mme. De Beaumont:_Lettres du Marquis de Roselle_--Mme. De Souza--Xavier deMaistre--His illustrations of the lighter side ofSensibility--A sign of decadence--Benjamin Constant:_Adolphe_--Mme. De Duras's "postscript"--_Sensibilité_ and_engouement_--Some final words on the matter--Its importancehere--Restif de la Bretonne--Pigault-Lebrun: the differenceof his positive and relative importance--His life and thereasons for giving it--His generalcharacteristics--_L'Enfant du Carnaval_ and _Les Barons deFelsheim_--_Angélique et Jeanneton_--_Mon OncleThomas_--_Jérôme_--The redeeming points of these--Others:_Adélaïde de Méran and Tableaux deSociété_--_L'Officieux_--Further examples--Last words onhim--The French novel in 1800. 

CHRONOLOGICAL CONSPECTUS OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRENCHFICTION NOTICED IN THIS VOLUME 475

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 479

INDEX 483

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

[Sidenote: The early history of prose fiction. ]

Although I have already, in two places, [4] given a somewhat preciseaccount of the manner in which fiction in the modern sense of the term, and especially prose fiction, came to occupy a province in modernliterature which had been so scantily and infrequently cultivated inancient, it would hardly be proper to enter upon the present subjectwith a mere reference to these other treatments. It is matter ofpractically no controversy (or at least of none in which it is worthwhile to take a part) that the history of prose fiction, before theChristian era, is very nearly a blank, and that, in the fortunatelystill fairly abundant remains of poetic fiction, "the story is the leastpart" (as Dryden says in another sense), or at least the _telling_ ofthe story, in our modern sense, is so. Homer (in the _Odyssey_ at anyrate), Herodotus (in what was certainly not intentional fiction at all), and Xenophon[5] are about the only Greek writers who can tell a story, for the magnificent narrative of Thucydides in such cases as those ofthe Plague and the Syracusan cataclysm shows all the "headstrong"_ethos_ of the author in its positive refusal to assume a "story"character. In Latin there is nothing before Livy and Ovid;[6] of whomthe one falls into the same category with Herodotus and Xenophon, andthe other, admirable _raconteur_ as he is, thinks first of his poetry. Scattered tales we have: "mimes" and other things there are some, andmay have been more. But on the whole the schedule is not filled: thereare no entries for the competition. 

[Sidenote: The late classical stage. ]

In later classical literature, both Greek and Latin, the state of thingsalters considerably, though even then it cannot be said that fictionproper--that is to say, either prose or verse in which theaccomplishment of the form is distinctly subordinate to the interestingtreatment of the subject--constitutes a very large department, or evenany regular department at all. If Lucius of Patrae was a real person, and much before Lucian, he may dispute with Petronius--thatfirst-century Maupassant or Meredith, or both combined--the actualfoundation of the novel as we have it; but Lucian himself and Apuleius(strangely enough handling the same subject in the two languages) givesecurer and more solid starting-places. Yet nothing follows Apuleius;though some time after Lucian the Greek romance, of which we have stilla fair number of examples (spread, however, over a still larger numberof centuries), establishes itself in a fashion. It does one thing, indeed, which in a way refounds or even founds the whole conception--itestablishes the heroine. There are certainly feminine persons, sometimesnot disagreeable, who play conspicuous and by no means mute orunpractical parts in both Greek and Latin versions of the Ass-Legend;but one can hardly call them heroines. There need be no chicane aboutthe application of that title to Chloe or to Chariclea, to Leucippe orto her very remarkable rival, to Anthia or to Hysmine. Without theheroine you can hardly have romance: the novel without her (though herindividuality may be put in commission) is an absolute impossibility. 

[Sidenote: A _nexus_ of Greek and French romance? The facts about thematter. ]

The connection between these curious performances (with the much largernumber of things like them which we know to have existed) on the oneside, and the Western mediaeval romance on the other, has been atvarious times matter of considerable controversy; but it need nottrouble us much here. The Greek romance was to have very great influenceon the French novel later: on the earlier composition, generally calledby the same name as itself, it would seem[7] to have had next to none. Until we come to _Floire et Blanchefleur_ and perhaps _Parthenopex_, things of a comparatively late stage, obviously post-Crusade, and sonecessarily exposed to, and pretty clearly patient of, Greek-Easterninfluence, there is nothing in Old French which shows even the samekinship to the Greek stories as the Old English _Apollonius of Tyre_, which was probably or rather certainly in the original Greek itself. Thesources of French "romance"--I must take leave to request a "truce ofGod" as to the application of that term and of "epic" for presentpurposes--appear to have been two--the Saint's Life and the patriotic orfamily _saga_, the latter in the first place indelibly affected by theMahometan incursions of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. Thestory-telling instinct--kindled by, or at first devoted to, thesesubjects--subsequently fastened on numerous others. In fact almost allwas fish that came to the magic net of Romance; and though two greatsubjects of ours, the "Matter of Britain" (the Arthurian Legend) and the"Matter of Rome" (classical story generally, including the Tale ofTroy), came traditionally to rank themselves with the "Matter of France"and with the great range of hagiology which it might have been dangerousto proclaim a fourth "matter" (even if anybody had been likely to takethe view that it was so), these classifications are, like most of theirkind, more specious than satisfactory. 

[Sidenote: The power and influence of the "Saint's Life. "]

Any person--though indeed it is to be feared that the number of suchpersons is not very large--who has some knowledge of hagiology _and_some of literature will admit at once that the popular notion of aSaint's Life being necessarily a dull and "goody" thing is one of thefoolishest pieces of presumptuous ignorance, and one of the mostignorant pieces of foolish presumption. Not only have modern novelistssometimes been better informed and better inspired--as in the case ofmore than one version of the Legends of St. Mary of Egypt, of St. Julian, of Saint Christopher, and others--but there remain scores if nothundreds of beautiful things that have been wholly or all but whollyneglected. It is impossible to imagine a better romance, either in verseor in prose, than might have been made by William Morris if he had kepthis earliest loves and faiths and had taken the _variorum_ Legend of St. Mary Magdalene, as we have it in divers forms from quite early Frenchand English to the fifteenth-century English Miracle Play on thesubject. That of St. Eustace ("Sir Isumbras"), though old letters andmodern art have made something of it, has also never been fullydeveloped in the directions which it opens up; and one could name manyothers. But it has to be admitted that the French (whether, as somewould say, naturally enough or not) never gave the Saint's Life pure andsimple the development which it received in English. It started them--Iat least believe this--in the story-telling way; but cross-roads, tothem more attractive, soon presented themselves. 

[Sidenote: The Legend of St. Eulalia. ]

Still, it started them. I hope it is neither intolerably fanciful northe mere device of a compiler anxious to make his arrows of all wood, tosuggest that there is something noteworthy in the nature of the veryfirst piece of actual French which we possess. The Legend of St. Eulaliacan be tried pretty high; for we have[8] the third hymn of the_Peristephanon_ of Prudentius to compare it with. The metre of this

 Germine nobilis Eulalia

is not one of the best, and contrasts ill with the statelydecasyllables--perhaps the very earliest examples of that mighty metrethat we have--which the infant daughter-tongue somehow devised foritself some centuries later. But Prudentius is almost always a poet, ifa poet of the decadence, and he had as instruments a language and aprosody which were like a match rifle to a bow and arrows--_not_ of yewand _not_ cloth-yard shafts--when contrasted with the dialect andspeech-craft of the unknown tenth-century Frenchman. Yet from somepoints of view, and especially from ours, the Anonymus of the Dark Ageswins. Prudentius spins out the story into two hundred and fifteen lines, with endless rhetorical and poetical amplification. He wants to say thatEulalia was twelve years old; but he actually informs us that

 Curriculis tribus atque novem, Tres hyemes quater attigerat, and the whole history of the martyrdom is attitudinised and bedizened inthe same fashion. 

Now listen to the noble simplicity of the first French poet andtale-teller:

 A good maiden was Eulalia: fair had she the body, but the soul fairer. The enemies of God would fain conquer her--would fain make her serve the fiend. She listened not to the evil counsellors, that she should deny God, who abideth in Heaven aloft--neither for gold, nor for silver, nor for garments; for the royal threatenings, nor for entreaties. Nothing could ever bend the damsel so that she should not love the service of God. And for that reason she was brought before Maximian, who was the King in those days over the pagans. And he exhorted her--whereof she took no care--that she should flee from the name of Christian. But she assembled all her strength that she might rather sustain the torments than lose her virginity: for which reason she died in great honour. They cast her in the fire when it burnt fiercely: but she had no fault in her, and so it pained her [_or_ she burnt[9]] not. 

 To this would not trust the pagan king: but with a sword he bade them take off her head. The damsel did not gainsay this thing: she would fain let go this worldly life if Christ gave command. And in shape of a dove she flew to heaven. Let us all pray that she may deign to intercede for us; that Christ may upon us have mercy after death, and of His clemency may allow us to come to Him. 

[Sidenote: The _St. Alexis_. ]

Of course this is story-telling in its simplest form and on its smallestscale: but the essentials are there, and the non-essentials can beeasily supplied--as indeed they are to some extent in the _Life of St. Leger_ and to a greater in the _Life of St. Alexis_, which almost followthe _Sainte-Eulalie_ in the making of French literature. The _St. Alexis_ indeed provides something like a complete scheme of romanceinterest, and should be, though not translated (for it runs to between600 and 700 lines), in some degree analysed and discussed. It had, ofcourse, a Latin original, and was rehandled more than once or twice. Butwe have the (apparently) first French form, probably of the eleventhcentury. The theme is one of the commonest and one of the leastsympathetic in hagiology. Alexis is forced by his father, a rich Roman"count, " to marry; and after (not before) the marriage, though of coursebefore its consummation, he deserts his wife, flies to Syria, andbecomes a beggar at Edessa. After a time, long enough to preventrecognition, he goes back to Rome, and obtains from his own family almsenough to live on, though these alms are dispensed to him by theservants with every mark of contempt. At last he dies, and is recognisedforthwith as a saint. This hackneyed and somewhat repulsive _donnée_(there is nothing repulsive to the present writer, let it be observed, either in Stylites or in Galahad) the French poet takes and makes arather surprising best of it. He is not despicable even as a poet, allthings considered; but he is something very different indeed fromdespicable as a tale-teller. To begin, or, strictly speaking, to endwith (R. L. Stevenson never said a wiser thing than that the end must bethe necessary result of, and as it were foretold in, the beginning), hehas lessened if not wholly destroyed the jar of the situation by (mostunusually and considering the mad chastity-worship of the time ratheraudaciously) associating the deserted wife directly with the Saint's"gustation of God" above:

 Without doubt is St. Alexis in Heaven, With him has he God in the company of the Angels, _With him the maiden to whom he made himself strange, _ _Now he has her close to him--together are their souls, _ _I know not how to tell you how great their joy is. _[10]

But there are earlier touches of that life which makes all literature, and tale-telling most of all. An opening on Degeneracy is scarcely oneof these, for this was, of course, a commonplace millenniums earlier, and it had the recent belief about the approaching end of the world atthe actual A. D. 1000 to prompt it. The maiden is "bought" for Alexisfrom her father or mother. Instead of the not unusual and ratherdistasteful sermons on virginity which later versions have, the futuresaint has at least the grace to accompany the return of the ring[11]with only a few words of renunciation of his spouse to Christ, and ofdeclaration that in this world "love is imperfect, life frail, and joymutable. " A far more vivid touch is given by the mother who, when searchfor the fugitive has proved futile, ruins the nuptial chamber, destroysits decorations, and hangs it with rags and sackcloth, [12] and who, whenthe final discovery is made, reproaches the dead saint in a fashionwhich is not easy to reply to: "My son, why hadst thou no pity of _us_?Why hast thou not spoken to me _once_?" The bride has neither forgottennor resented: she only weeps her deserter's former beauty, and swears tohave no other spouse but God. The poem ends--or all but ends--in ahurly-burly of popular enthusiasm, which will hardly resign its newsaint to Pope or Emperor, till at last, after the usual miracles ofhealing, the body is allowed to rest, splendidly entombed, in the Churchof St. Boniface. 

Now the man who could thus, and by many other touches not mentioned, runblood into the veins of mummies, [13] could, with larger range of subjectand wider choice of treatment, have done no small things in fiction. 

But enough talk of might-have-beens: let us come to the things that weredone. 

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The article "Romance" in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th ed. ;and the volume on _The English Novel_ in Messrs. Dent's series "Channelsof English Literature, " London, 1913. 

[5] Plato (or Socrates?) does it only on a small scale and partially, though there are the makings of a great novelist in the _Dialogues_. Apollonius Rhodius is the next verse-tale teller to Homer among theprae-Christian Greeks. 

[6] Virgil, in the only parts of the _Aeneid_ that make a good story, isfollowing either Homer or Apollonius. 

[7] To me at least the seeming seems to approach demonstration; and Ican only speak as I find, with all due apologies to those who finddifferently. 

[8] There is, of course, a Latin "sequence" on the Saint which is nearerto the French poem; but that does not affect our present point. 

[9] The literal "cooked, " with no burlesque intention, was used ofpunitory burning quite early; but it is not certain that the transferredsense of _cuire_, "to _pain_, " is not nearly or quite as old. 

[10] Not the least interesting part of this is that it is almostsufficient by itself to establish the connection between Saint's Lifeand Romance. 

[11] By a very curious touch he gives her also "les renges de s'espide, "_i. E. _ either the other ring by which the sword is attached to thesword-belt, or the belt itself. The meaning is, of course, that with herhe renounces knighthood and all worldly rank. 

[12] She addresses the room itself, dramatically enough: "Chamber! nevermore shalt thou bear ornament: never shall any joy in thee be enjoyed. "

[13] Let me repeat that I mean no despite to the "Communion of Saints"or to their records--much the reverse. But the hand of any _purpose_, Religious, Scientific, Political, what not, is apt to mummify story. 

CHAPTER II

THE MATTERS OF FRANCE, ROME, AND BRITAIN

It has been said already that the Saint's Life, as it seems mostprobable to the present writer, started the romance in France; but ofcourse we must allow considerable reinforcement of one kind or anotherfrom local, traditional, and literary sources. The time-honoureddistribution, also given already, of the "matter" of this romance doesnot concern us so much here as it would in a history of Frenchliterature, but it concerns us. We shall indeed probably find that thehome-grown or home-fed _Chanson de Geste_ did least for the novel in thewide sense--that the "Matter of Rome" chiefly gave it variety, change ofatmosphere to some extent, and an invaluable connection with olderliteratures, but that the central division or "Matter of Britain, " withthe immense fringes of miscellaneous _romans d'aventures_--which aresometimes more or less directly connected with it, and are alwaysmoulded more or less on its patterns--gave most of all. 

[Sidenote: The _Chanson de Geste_. ]

Of these, however, what has been called the family or patriotic part wasundoubtedly the earliest and for a long time the most influential. Thereis, fortunately, not the least need here to fight out the old battle ofthe _cantilenae_ or supposed _ballad_-originals. I see no reason toalter the doubt with which I have always regarded their existence; butit really does not matter, _to us_, whether they existed or not, especially since we have not got them now. What we have got is a vastmass of narrative poetry, which latterly took actual prose form, andwhich--as early certainly as the eleventh century and perhapsearlier--turns the French faculty for narrative (whether it was actuallyor entirely fictitious narrative or not does not again matter) intochannels of a very promising kind. 

The novel-reader who has his wits and his memory about him may perhapssay, "Promising perhaps; but paying?" The answer must be that thepromise may have taken some time to be fully liquidated, but that theimmediate or short-dated payment was great. The fault of the _Chansonsde Geste_--a fault which in some degree is to be found in Frenchliterature as a whole, and to a greater extent in all mediaevalliterature--is that the class and the type are rather too prominent. Thecentral conception of Charlemagne as a generally dignified but toofrequently irascible and rather petulant monarch, surrounded by valiantand in a way faithful but exceedingly touchy or ticklish paladins, is nodoubt true enough to the early stages of feudalism--in fact, to adaptthe tag, there is too much human nature in it for it to be false. But itcommunicates a certain sameness to the chansons which stick closest tothe model. 

[Sidenote: The proportions of history and fiction in them. ]

The exact relation of the _Chansons de Geste_ to the subsequent historyof French fiction is thus an extremely important one, and one thatrequires, not only a good deal of reading on which to base any opinionthat shall not be worthless, but a considerable exercise of criticaldiscretion in order to form that opinion competently. The present writercan at least plead no small acquaintance with the subject, and a full ifpossibly over-generous acknowledgment of his dealings with it on thepart of some French authorities, living and dead, of the highestcompetence. But the attractions of the vast and strangely long ignoredbody of _chanson_ literature are curiously various in kind, and theycannot be indiscriminately drawn upon as evidence of an early mastery oftale-telling proper on the part of the French as a nation. 

There is indeed one solid fact, the importance of which can hardly beexaggerated in some ways, though it may be wrongly estimated in others. Here is not merely the largest part proportionately, but a very largebulk positively, of the very earliest part of a literature, devoted to akind of narrative which, though some of it may be historic originally, is pretty certainly worked up into its concrete and extant state byfiction. The comparison with the two literatures which on the whole bearsuch comparison with French best--English and Greek--is here verystriking. People say that there "must have been" many _Beowulfs_: it canhardly be said that we have so much as a positive assertion of theexistence of even one other, though we have allusions and glances whichhave been amplified in the usual fashion. We have positive and notreasonably doubtful assertion of the existence of a very large body ofmore or less early Greek epic; but we have nothing existing except the_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. 

[Sidenote: The part played by language, prosody, and manners. ]

On this fact, be it repeated, if we observe the canons of soundcriticism in the process, too much stress in general cannot be laid. There must have been some more than ordinary _nisus_ towardsstory-telling in a people and a language which produced, and for threeor four centuries cherished, something like a hundred legends, sometimesof great length, on the single general[14] subject of the exploits, sufferings, and what not of the great half-historical, half-legendaryemperor _à la barbe florie_, of his son, and of the more legendary thanhistorical peers, rebels, subjects, descendants, and "those about both"generally. And though the assertion requires a little more justificationand allowance, there must have been some extraordinary gifts for more orless fictitious composition when such a vast body of spiritedfictitious, or even half-fictitious, narrative is turned out. 

But in this justification as to the last part of the contention a gooddeal of care has to be observed. It will not necessarily follow, becausethe metal is attractive, that its attractiveness is always of the kindpurely belonging to fiction; and, as a matter of fact, a large part ofit is not. Much is due to the singular sonority and splendour of thelanguage, which is much more like Spanish than modern French, and whichonly a few poets of exceptional power have been able to reproduce inmodern French itself. Much more is imparted by the equally peculiarcharacter of the metre--the long _tirades_ or _laisses_, assonanced ormono-rhymed paragraphs in decasyllables or alexandrines, which, to thosewho have once caught their harmony, have an indescribable andunparalleled charm. Yet further, these attractions come from the strangeunfamiliar world of life and character described and displayed; from thebrilliant stock epithets and phrases that stud the style as if with astiff but glittering embroidery; and from other sources too many tomention here. 

[Sidenote: Some drawbacks. ]

Yet one must draw attention to the fact that all the named sources ofthe attraction, and may perhaps ask the reader to take it on trust thatmost of the unnamed, are not essentially or exclusively attractions offiction--that they are attractions of poetry. And, on the other hand, while the weaving of so vast a web of actual fiction remains "tocredit, " there are not a few things to be set on the other side of theaccount. The sameness of the _chanson_ story, the almost invariablerecurrence of the stock motives and frameworks--of rebellion, treason, paynim invasion, petulance of a King's son, somewhat too "coming"affection of a King's daughter, tyrannical and Lear-like _impotentia_ ofthe King himself, etc. --may be exaggerated, but cannot be denied. In thegreatest of all by general acknowledgment, the far-famed _Roland_, theeconomy of pure story interest is pushed to a point which in a lessunsophisticated age--say the twentieth instead of the twelfth oreleventh century--might be put down to deliberate theory or crotchet. The very incidents, stirring as they are, are put as it were inskeleton argument or summary rather than amplified into full story-fleshand blood; we see such heroine as there is only to see her die; even thegreat moment of the horn is given as if it had been "censored" bysomebody. People, I believe, have called this brevity Homeric; but thatis not how I read Homer. 

In fact, so jealous are some of those who well and wisely love the_chansons_, that I have known objections taken to ranking as pureexamples, despite their undoubted age and merit, such pieces as _Amis etAmiles_ (for passion and pathos and that just averted tragedy which isso difficult to manage, one of the finest of all) and the _Voyage àConstantinoble_, the single early specimen of mainly or purely comicdonnée. [15] This seems to me, I confess, mere prudery or else mistakenlogic, starting from the quite unjustifiable proposition that nothingthat is not found in the _Chanson de Roland_ ought to be found in any_chanson_. But we may admit that the "bones"--the simplest terms of the_chanson_-formula--hardly include varied interests, though they allowsuch interests to be clothed upon and added to them. 

[Sidenote: But a fair balance of actual story merit. ]

Despite this admission, however, and despite the further one that it isto the "romances" proper--Arthurian, classical, and adventurous--ratherthan to the _chansons_ that one must look for the first satisfactoryexamples of such clothing and addition, it is not to be denied that the_chansons_ themselves provide a great deal of it--whether because ofadulteration with strictly "romance" matter is a question for debate inanother place and not here. But it would be a singularly ungratefulmemory which should, in this place, leave the reader with the idea thatthe _Chanson de Geste_ as such is merely monotonous and dull. Theintensity of the appeal of _Roland_ is no doubt helped by that approachto bareness--even by a certain tautology--which has been mentioned. _Aliscans_, which few could reject as faithless to the type, contains, even without the family of dependent poems which cluster round it, avivid picture of the valiant insubordinate warrior in William of Orange, with touches of comedy or at least horse-play. 

[Sidenote: Some instances of this. ]

The striking, and to all but unusually dull or hopelessly "modern"imaginations as unusually beautiful, centre-point of _Amis etAmiles_, --where one of the heroes, who has sworn a "white" perjury tosave his friend and is punished for it by the terror, "white" in theother sense, of leprosy, is abandoned by his wife, and only healed bythe blood of the friend's children, is the crowning instance of anotherset of appeals. The catholicity of a man's literary taste, and his morespecial capacity of appreciating things mediaeval, may perhaps be betterestimated by his opinion of _Amis et Amiles_ than by any othertouchstone; for it has more appeals than this almost tragic one--a muchgreater development of the love-motive than either _Roland_ or_Aliscans_, and a more varied interest generally. Its continuation, _Jourdains de Blaivies_, takes the hero abroad, as do many other_chansons_, especially two of the most famous, _Huon de Bordeaux_ and_Ogier de Danemarche_. These two are also good--perhaps thebest--examples of a process very much practised in the Middle Ages andleaving its mark on future fiction--that of expansion and continuation. In the case of Ogier, indeed, this process was carried so far thatenquiring students have been known to be sadly disappointed in thealmost total disconnection between William Morris's beautiful section of_The Earthly Paradise_ and the original French, as edited by Barrois inthe first attempt to collect the _chansons_ seventy or eighty years ago. The great "Orange" subcycle, of which _Aliscans_ is the most famous, extends in many directions, but is apt in all its branches to cling moreto "war and politics. " William of Orange is in this respect partlymatched by Garin of Lorraine. No _chanson_ retained its popularity, inevery sense of that word, better than the _Quatre Fils d'Aymon_--thehistory of Renaut de Montauban and his brothers and cousin, the famousenchanter-knight Maugis. As a "boy's book" there is perhaps none better, and the present writer remembers an extensive and apparently modernEnglish translation which was a favourite "sixty years since. " _Berteaux grands Piés_, the earliest form of a well-known legend, has theextrinsic charm of being mentioned by Villon; while there is no moreagreeable love-story, on a small scale and in a simple tone, than thatof Doon and Nicolette[16] in _Doon de Mayence_. And not to make a merecatalogue which, if supported by full abstracts of all the pieces, wouldbe inordinately bulky and would otherwise convey little idea to readers, it may be said that the general _chanson_ practice of grouping togetheror branching out the poems (whichever metaphor be preferred) after thefashion of a family-tree involves of itself no inconsiderable call onthe tale-telling faculties. That the writers pay little or no attentionto chronological and other possibilities is hardly much to say againstthem; if this be an unforgivable sin it is not clear how either Dickensor Thackeray is to escape damnation, with Sir Walter to greet them intheir uncomfortable sojourn. 

But it is undoubtedly true that the almost exclusive concentration ofthe attention on war prevents the attainment of much detailednovel-interest. Love affairs--some glanced at above--do indeed make, insome of the _chansons_, a fuller appearance than the flashlight view oflost tragedy which we have in _Roland_. But until the reflex influenceof the Arthurian romance begins to work, they are, though not alwaysdisagreeable or ungraceful, of a very simple and primitive kind, asindeed are the delineations of manners generally. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The classical borrowings--Troy and Alexander. ]

The "matter of Rome the Great, " as the original text has it (though, infact, Rome proper has little to do with the most important examples ofthe class), adds very importantly to the development of romance, andthrough that, of novel. Its bulk is considerable, and its examples haveinterest of various kinds. But for us this interest is concentratedupon, if not exclusively confined to, the two great groups (undertakenby, and illustrated in, the three great literary languages of theearlier Middle Ages, and, as usual, most remarkably and originally inFrench) of the Siege of Troy and the life of Alexander. It should bealmost enough to say of the former that it introduced, [17] withpractically nothing but the faintest suggestion from really classicalsources, the great romance-novel of the loves of Troilus and Cressida tothe world's literature; and of the second, that it gives us the firstinstance of the infusion of Oriental mystery and marvel that we candiscern in the literature of the West. For details about the books whichcontain these things, their authors and their probable sources anddevelopment, the reader must, as in other cases, look elsewhere. [18] Itis only our business here to say something about the general nature ofthe things themselves and about the additions that they made to thecapital, and in some cases almost to the "plant, " of fiction. 

[Sidenote: _Troilus. _]

That the Troilus and Cressida romance, with its large provision and itsmore large suggestion of the accomplished love-story, evolved from oldertale-tellers by Boccaccio and Chaucer and Henryson and Shakespeare, isnot a pure creation of the earlier Middle Ages, few people who patientlyattend to evidence can now believe. Even in the wretched summaries ofthe Tale of Troy by Dictys and Dares (which again no such person as theone just described can put very early), the real novel-interest--eventhe most slender romance-interest--is hardly present at all. Benoît deSainte-More in the twelfth century may not have actually invented this;it is one of the principles of this book, as of all that its writer haswritten, that the quest of the inventor of a story is itself the vainestof inventions. But it is certain that nobody hitherto has been able to"get behind him, " and it is still more certain that he has given enoughbase for the greater men who followed to build upon. If he cannot becredited with the position of the pseudo-Callisthenes (see below) inreference to the Alexander story, he may fairly share that of hiscontemporary Geoffrey of Monmouth, if not even of Nennius, as regardsthat of Arthur. The situation, or rather the group of situations, is ofthe most promising and suggestive kind, negatively and positively. Inthe first place the hero and heroine are persons about whom the greatold poets of the subject have said little or nothing; and what animmense advantage this is all students of the historical novel of thelast hundred years know. In the second, the way in which they are put inaction (or ready for action) is equally satisfactory, or let us saystimulating. In a great war a prince loves a noble lady, who by birthand connections belongs to the enemy, and after vicissitudes, which canbe elaborated according to the taste and powers of the romancer, gainsher love. But the course of this love is interrupted by her surrender orexchange to the enemy themselves; her beauty attracts, nay has alreadyattracted, the fancy of one of the enemy's leaders, and being not merelya coquette but a light-o'-love[19] she admits his addresses. Herpunishment follows or does not follow, is accomplished during the lifeof her true lover or not, according again to the taste and fancy of theperson who handles the story. But the scheme, even at its simplest, isnovel-soil: marked out, matured, manured, and ready for cultivation, andthe crops which can be grown on it depend entirely upon the skill of thecultivator. 

For all this some would, as has been said above, see sufficientsuggestion in the Greek Romance. I have myself known the examples ofthat Romance for a very long time and have always had a high opinion ofit; but except what has been already noticed--the prominence of theheroine--I can see little or nothing that the Mediaeval romance couldpossibly owe to it, and as a matter of fact hardly anything else incommon between the two. In the last, and to some extent the mostremarkable (though very far from the best if not nearly the worst), ofthe Greek Romances, the _Hysminias and Hysmine_ of Eustathius, we haveindeed got to a point in advance, taking that word in a peculiar sense, even of Troilus at its most accomplished, that is to say, the Marinismor Marivaudage, if not even the Meredithese, of language and sentiment. But _Hysminias and Hysmine_ is probably not older than Benoît deSainte-More's story, and as has just been said, Renaissance, naypost-Renaissance, not Mediaeval in character. We must, of course, abstain from "reading back" Chaucer or even Boccaccio into Benoît orinto his probable plagiarist Guido de Columnis; but there is nothinguncritical or wrong in "reading forward" from these to the laterwriters. The hedge-rose is there, which will develop into, and serve asa support for, the hybrid perpetual--a term which could itself bedeveloped in application, after the fashion of a mediaeval _moralitas_. And when we have actually come to Pandaro and Deiphobus, to the "verseof society, " as it may be called in a new sense, of the happier part ofChaucer and to the intense tragedy of the later part of Henryson, thenwe are in the workshop, if not in the actual show-room, of the completednovel. It would be easy, as it was not in the case of the _chansons_, to illustrate directly by a translation, either here from Benoît orlater from the shortened prose version of the fourteenth century, whichwe also possess; but it is not perhaps necessary, and would require muchspace. 

[Sidenote: _Alexander. _]

The influence of the Alexander story, though scarcely less, is of awidely different kind. In _Troilus_, as has been said, the Middle Age isworking on scarcely more than the barest hints of antiquity, which itamplifies and supplements out of its own head and its own heart--a headwhich can dream dream-webs of subtlest texture unknown to the ancients, and a heart which can throb and bleed in a fashion hardly shown by anyancient except Sappho. With the Alexander group we find it much morepassively recipient, though here also exercising its talent for varyingand amplification. The controversies over the pseudo-Callisthenes, "Julius Valerius, " the _Historia de Praeliis_, etc. , are once more notfor us; but results of them, which have almost or quite emerged from thestate of controversy, are. It is certain that the appearance, in theclassical languages, of the wilder legends about Alexander was as earlyat least as the third century after Christ--that is to say, long beforeeven "Dark" let alone "Middle" Ages were thought of--and perhapsearlier. There seems to be very little doubt that these legends were ofEgyptian or Asiatic origin, and so what we vaguely call "Oriental. " Theylong anticipated the importing afresh of such influences by theCrusades, and they must, with all except Christians and Jews (that is tosay, with the majority), have actually forestalled the Orientalinfluence of the Scriptures. Furthermore, when Mediaeval France began tocreate a new body of European literature, the Crusades had taken place;the appetite for things Oriental and perhaps we should say thehalf-imaginative power of appreciating them, had become active; and aconsiderable amount of literature in the vernacular had already beencomposed. It was not wonderful, therefore, that the _trouvères_ shouldfly upon this spoil. By not the least notable of the curiosities ofliterature in its own class, they picked out a historical but not veryimportant episode--the siege of Gaza and Alexander's disgraceful crueltyto its brave defender--and made of this a regular _Chanson de Geste_ (inall but "Family" connection), the _Fuerres de Gadres_, a poem of severalthousand lines. But the most generally popular (though sometimessquabbled over) parts of the story, were the supposed perversion ofOlympias, not by the God Ammon but by the magician-king Nectanabuspersonating the God and becoming thereby father of the Hero; the Indianand some other real campaigns (the actual conquest of Persia was veryslightly treated), and, far above all, the pure Oriental wonder-tales ofthe descent into the sea, the march to the Fountain of Youth, and othermyths of the kind. 

Few things can be more different than the story-means used in these twolegends; yet it must be personal taste rather than strict criticalevaluation which pronounces one more important to the development of thenovel than the other. There is a little love interest in the Alexanderpoems--the heroine of this part being Queen Candace--but it is slight, episodic, and rudimentary beside the complex and all-absorbing passionswhich, when genius took the matter in hand, were wrought out of thetruth of Troilus and the faithlessness of Cressid. The joys of fightingor roaming, of adventure and quest, and above all those of marvel, arethe attractions which the Alexander legend offers, and who shall saythat they are insufficient? At any rate no one can deny that they havebeen made the seasoning, if not the stuff and substance, of an enormousslice of the romance interest, and of a very large part of that of thenovel. 

[Sidenote: The Arthurian Legend. ]

It is scarcely necessary to speak of other classical romances, and it isof course very desirable to keep in mind that the Alexander story, in noform in which we have it, attempts any _strictly_ novel interest; whilethough that interest is rife in some forms of "Troilus, " those forms arenot exactly of the period, and are in no case of the language, withwhich we are dealing. It was an Italian, an Englishman, and a Scot whoeach in his own speech--one in the admirable vulgar tongue, of which atthat time and as a finished thing, Italian was alone in Europe aspossessor; the others in the very best of Middle English, and, as somethink, almost the best of Middle Scots verse--displayed the fullpossibilities of Benoît's story. But the third "matter, " the matter ofBritain or (in words better understanded of most people) the ArthurianLegend, after starting in Latin, was, as far as language went, for sometime almost wholly French, though it is exceedingly possible that atleast one, if not more, of its main authors was no Frenchman. And inthis "matter" the exhibition of the powers of fiction--prose as well asverse--was carried to a point almost out of sight of that reached by the_Chansons_, and very far ahead of any contemporary treatment even of theTroilus story. 

[Sidenote: Chrestien de Troyes and the theories about him. ]

Before, however, dealing with this great Arthurian story as a stage inthe history of the Novel-Romance in and by itself, we must come to afigure which, though we have very little substantial knowledge of it, there is some reason for admitting as one of the first named and "coted"figures in French literature, at least as regards fiction in verse. Itis well known that the action of modern criticism is in some respectsstrikingly like that of the sea in one of the most famous and vividpassages[20] of Spenser's unequalled scene-painting in words withmusical accompaniment of them. It delights in nothing so much as instripping one part of the shore of its belongings, and hurrying them offto heap upon another part. Chrestien de Troyes is one of the luckypersonages who have benefited, not least and most recently, by thisfancy. It is true that the actual works attributed to him have remainedthe same--his part of the shore has not been actually extended like partof that of the Humber. But it has had new riches, honours, anddecorations heaped upon it till it has become, in the actual Spenserianlanguage of another but somewhat similar passage (111. Iv. 20), a "richstrond" indeed. Until a comparatively recent period, the opinionentertained of Chrestien, by most if not all competent students of him, was pretty uniform, and, though quite favourable, not extraordinarilyhigh. He was recognised as a past-master of the verse _romand'aventures_ in octosyllabic couplet, who probably took hisheterogeneous materials wherever he found them; "did not invent much"(as Thackeray says of Smollett), but treated whatever he did treat in asingularly light and pleasant manner, not indeed free from the somewhatundistinguished fluency to which this "light and lewed" couplet, asChaucer calls it, is liable, and showing no strong grasp either ofcharacter or of plot, but on the whole a very agreeable writer, and aquite capital example of the better class of _trouvère_, far above the_improvisatore_ on the one hand and the dull compiler on the other; butbelow, if not quite so far below, the definitely poetic poet. 

To an opinion something like this the present writer, who formed it longago, not at second hand but from independent study of originals, and whohas kept up and extended his acquaintance with Chrestien, still adheres. 

Of late, however, as above suggested, "Chrestiens" have gone up in themarket to a surprising extent. Some twenty years ago the late M. GastonParis[21] announced and, with all his distinguished ability and hisgreat knowledge elaborately supported, his conclusions, that the greatFrench prose Arthurian romances (which had hitherto been considered bythe best authorities, including his own no less admirable father, M. Paulin Paris, slightly anterior to the poet of Troyes, and in allprobability the source of part at least of his work) were posterior andprobably derivative. Now this, of itself, would of course to some extentput up Chrestien's value. But it, and the necessary corollaries fromit, as originality and so forth, by no means exhaust the additionalhonours and achievements which have been heaped upon Chrestien by M. Paris and by others who have followed, more or less accepted, and insome cases bettered his ascriptions. In the first and principal place, there has been a tendency, almost general, to dethrone Walter Map fromhis old position as the real begetter of the completed Arthurianromance, and to substitute the Troyan. Then, partly in support, but alsoto some extent, I think, independently of this immense ennoblement, discoveries have been made of gifts and graces in Chrestien himself, which had entirely escaped the eyes of so excellent a critic, so eruditea scholar, and so passionate a lover of Old French literature as theelder M. Paris, and which continue to be invisible to the far inferiorgifts and knowledge, but if I may dare to say so, the equal good willand the not inconsiderable critical experience, of the presenthistorian. 

Now with large parts of this matter we have, fortunately enough, nothingto do, and the actual authorship of the great Arthurian conception, namely, the interweaving of the Graal story on the one hand and theloves of Lancelot and Guinevere on the other, with the Geoffrey ofMonmouth matter, concerns us hardly at all. But some have gone evenfurther than has been yet hinted in the exaltation of Chrestien. Theyhave discovered in him--"him-by-himself-him"--as the author of hisactual extant works and not as putative author of the real Arthuriad, not merely a pattern example of the court _trouvère_--as much as this, or nearly as much, has been admitted here--but almost the inventor ofromance and even of something very like novel, a kind of mediaevalScott-Bulwer-Meredith, equally great at adventure, fashion, andcharacter-analysis; subject only, and that not much, to the limitationsof the time. In fact, if I do not do some of these panegyristsinjustice, we ought to have a fancy bust of Chrestien, with the titlesof his works gracefully inscribed on the pedestal, as a frontispiece tothis book, if not even a full-length statue, robed like a small St. Ursula, and like her in Memling's presentation at Bruges, sheltering inits ample folds the child-like figures of future French novelists andromancers, from the author of _Aucassin et Nicolette_ to M. AnatoleFrance. 

Again, some fifty years of more or less critical reading of novels ofall ages and more than one or two languages, combined with nearly fortyyears reading of Chrestien himself and a passion for Old French, leavethe present writer quite unable to rise to this beatific vision. But letus, before saying any more what Chrestien could or could not do, see, inthe usual cold-blooded way, what he _did_. 

[Sidenote: His unquestioned work. ]

The works attributed to this very differently, though neverunfavourably, estimated tale-teller--at least those which concernus--are _Percevale le Gallois_, _Le Chevalier à[22] la Charette_, _LeChevalier au Lyon_, _Erec et Enide_, _Cligès_, and a much shorter_Guillaume d'Angleterre_. This last has nothing to do with the Conqueror(though the title has naturally deceived some), and is a semi-mysticalromance of the group derived from the above-mentioned legend of St. Eustace, and represented in English by the beautiful story of _SirIsumbras_. It is very doubtfully Chrestien's, and in any case veryunlike his other work; but those who think him the Arthurian magicianmight make something of it, as being nearer the tone of the older Graalstories than the rest of his compositions, even _Percevale_ itself. Ofthese, all, except the _Charette_, deal with what may be called outliersof the Arthurian story. _Percevale_ is the longest, but its immenselength required, by common confession, several continuators;[23] theothers have a rather uniform allowance of some six or seven thousandlines. _Cligès_ is one of the most "outside" of all, for the hero, though knighted by Arthur, is the disinherited heir of Constantinople, and the story is that of the recovery of his kingdom. _Erec_, as thesecond part of the title will truly suggest, though the first maydisguise it, gives us the story of the first of Tennyson's original_Idylls_. The _Chevalier au Lyon_ is a delightful romance of the Gawaingroup, better represented by its English adaptation, _Ywain_, than anyother French example. _Percevale_ and the _Charette_ touch closest onthe central Arthurian story, and the latter has been the chiefbattlefield as to Chrestien's connection therewith, some even beggingthe question to the extent of adopting for it the title _Lancelot_. 

[Sidenote: Comparison of the _Chevalier à la Charette_ and the prose_Lancelot_. ]

The subject is the episode, well known to English readers from Malory, of the abduction of Guinevere by Meleagraunce, the son of KingBagdemagus; of the inability of all knights but Lancelot (who has beenabsent from Court in one of the lovers' quarrels) to rescue her; and ofhis undertaking the task, though hampered in various ways, one of theearliest of which compelled him to ride in a cart--a thing regarded, byone of the odd[24] conventions of chivalry, as disgraceful to a knight. Meleagraunce, though no coward, is treacherous and "felon, " and allsorts of mishaps befall Lancelot before he is able for the second timeto conquer his antagonist, and finally to take his over and over againforfeited life. But long before this he has arrived at the castle whereGuinevere is imprisoned; and has been enabled to arrange a meeting withher at night, which is accomplished by wrenching out the bars of herwindow. The ill chances and _quiproquos_ which result from his havingcut his hands in the proceeding (though the actual visit is notdiscovered), and the arts by which Meleagraunce ensnares the destinedavenger for a time, lengthen out the story till, by the final contest, Meleagraunce goes to his own place and the Queen is restored to hers. 

Unfortunately the blots of constant tautology and verbiage, with notinfrequent flatness, are on all this gracious story as told byChrestien. [25] Among the traps and temptations which are thrown inLancelot's way to the Queen is one of a highly "sensational" nature. Inthe night Lancelot hears a damsel, who is his hostess, though he hasrefused her most thorough hospitality, shrieking for assistance; and oncoming to the spot finds her in a situation demanding instant help, which she begs, if the irreparable is not to happen. But the poet notonly gives us a heavily figured description of the men-at-arms who barthe way to rescue, but puts into the mouth of the intending rescuer aspeech (let us be exact) of twenty-eight lines and a quarter, duringwhich the just mentioned irreparable, if it had been seriously meant, might have happened with plenty of time to spare. So, in the crowningscene (excellently told in Malory), where the lover forces his waythrough iron bars to his love, reckless of the tell-tale witness of hisbleeding hands, the circumlocutions are _plusquam_ Richardsonian--and donot fall far short of a serious anticipation of Shakespeare's burlesquein _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. The mainly gracious description isspoilt by terrible bathetics from time to time. Guinevere in her whitenightdress and mantle of scarlet and _camus_[26] on one side of thebars, Lancelot outside, exchanging sweet salutes, "for much was he fainof her and she of him, " are excellent. The next couplet, or quatrain, almost approaches the best poetry. "Of villainy or annoy make they noparley or complaint; but draw near each other so much at least that theyhold each other hand by hand. " But what follows? That they cannot cometogether vexes them so immeasurably that--what? They blame the iron workfor it. This certainly shows an acute understanding[27] and a verycreditable sense of the facts of the situation on the part of bothlovers; but it might surely have been taken for granted. Also, it takesLancelot forty lines to convince his lady that when bars are in your waythere is nothing like pulling them out of it. So in the actualpulling-out there is the idlest exaggeration and surplusage; the firstbar splits one of Lancelot's fingers to the sinews and cuts off the topjoint of the next. The actual embraces are prettily and gracefully told(though again with otiose observations about silence), and the whole, from the knight's coming to the window to his leaving it, takes 150lines. Now hear the prose of the so-called "Vulgate _Lancelot_. "

 "And he came to the window: and the Queen, who waited for him, slept not, but came thither. And the one threw to the other their arms, and they felt each other as much as they could reach. "Lady, " said Lancelot, "if I could enter yonder, would it please you?" "Enter, " said she, "fair sweet friend? How could this happen?" "Lady, " said he, "if it please you, it could happen lightly. " "Certainly, " said she, "I should wish it willingly above everything. " "Then, in God's name, " said he, "that shall well happen. For the iron will never hold. " "Wait, then, " said she, "till I have gone to bed. " Then he drew the irons from their sockets so softly that no noise was made and no bar broke. "

In this simple prose, sensuous and passionate for all its simplicity, istold the rest of the story. There are eighteen lines of it altogether inDr. Sommer's reprint, but as these are long quarto lines, let usmultiply them by some three to get the equivalent of the "skippingoctosyllables. " There will remain fifty to a hundred and fifty, with, inthe prose, some extra matter not in the verse. But the acme of thecontrast is reached in these words of the prose, which answer to someforty lines of the poet's watering-out. "Great was the joy that theymade each other that night, for long had each suffered for the other. And when the day came, they parted. " Beat that who can!

Many years ago, and not a few before M. Gaston Paris had published hisviews, I read these two forms of the story in the valuable jointedition, verse and prose, of M. Jonckbloet, which some ruffian (mayHeaven _not_ assoil him!) has since stolen or hidden from me. And I saidthen to myself, "There is no doubt which of these is the original. "Thirty years later, with an unbroken critical experience of imaginativework in prose and verse during the interval, I read them again in Dr. Forster's edition of the verse and Dr. Sommer's of the prose, and said, "There is less doubt than ever. " That the prose should have beenprettified and platitudinised, decorated and diluted into the verse is apossibility which we know to be not only possible but likely, from athousand more unfortunate examples. That the contrary process shouldhave taken place is practically unexampled and, especially at that time, largely unthinkable. At any rate, whosoever did it had a much greatergenius than Chrestien's. 

This is no place to argue out the whole question, but a singleparticular may be dealt with. The curiously silly passage about the barsabove given is a characteristic example of unlucky and superfluousamplification of the perfectly natural question and answer of the prose, "May I come to you?" "Yes, but how?" an example to be paralleled bythousands of others at the time and by many more later. Taken the otherway it would be a miracle. Prose abridgers of poetry did not go to worklike that in the twelfth-thirteenth century--nor, even in the case ofCharles Lamb, have they often done so since. 

It is, however, very disagreeable to have to speak disrespectfully of awriter so agreeable in himself and so really important in our story asChrestien. His own gifts and performances are, as it seems to me, clearenough. He took from this or that source--his selection of the _Erec_and _Percivale_ matters, if not also that of _Yvain_, suggests othersbesides the, by that time as I think, concentrated Arthurian story--andfrom the Arthuriad itself the substance of the _Chevalier à laCharette_. He varied and dressed them up with pleasant etceteras, andin especial, sometimes, though not always, embroidered the alreadyintroduced love-motive with courtly fantasies and with a great deal ofdetail. I should not be at all disposed to object if somebody says thathe, before any one else, set the type of the regular verse _Romand'aventures_. It seems likely, again, from the pieces referred to above, that he may have had originals more definitely connected with Celticsources, if not actually Celtic themselves, than those which have givenus the mighty architectonic of the "Vulgate" _Arthur_. In his own wayand place he is a great and an attractive figure--not least in thehistory of the novel. But I can see nothing in him that makes me thinkhim likely, and much that makes me think him utterly unlikely, to be theauthor of what I conceive to be the greatest, the most epoch-making, andalmost the originating conception of the novel-romance itself. Who itwas that did conceive this great thing I do not positively know. Allexternal evidence points to Walter Map; no internal evidence, that Ihave seen, seems to me really to point away from him. But if any onelikes let us leave him a mere Eidolon, an earlier "Great Unknown. " Ourbusiness is, once more, with what he, whoever he was, did. 

[Sidenote: The constitution of the Arthuriad. ]

The multiplicity of things done, whether by "him" or "them, " isastonishing; and it is quite possible, indeed likely, that they were notall done by the same person. Mediaeval continuators (as has been seen inthe case of Chrestien) worked after and into the work of each other in arather uncanny fashion; and the present writer frankly confesses that heno more knows where Godfrey de Lagny took up the _Charette_, or thevarious other sequelists the _Percevale_, from Chrestien than he wouldhave known, without confession, the books of the _Odyssey_ done by Mr. Broome and Mr. Fenton from those done by Mr. Pope. The _grand-oeuvre_is the combination of Lancelot as (1) lover of the Queen; (2) descendantof the Graalwards; (3) author, in consequence of his sin, of thegeneral failure of the Round Table Graal-Quest; (4) father of its onesuccessful but half-unearthly Seeker; (5) bringer-about (in more waysthan one[28]) of the intestine dissension which facilitates the invasionof Mordred and the foreigners and so the Passing of Arthur, of his ownrejection by the repentant Queen, and of his death. As regards minordetails of plot and incident there have to be added the bringing in ofthe pre-Round Table part of the story by Lancelot's descent from KingBan and his connections with King Bors, both Arthur's old allies, andboth, as we may call them, "Graal-heirs"; the further connection withthe Merlin legend by Lancelot's fostering under the Lady of theLake;[29] the exaltation, inspiring, and, as it were, unification ofthe scattered knight-adventures through Lancelot's constant presence aspartaker, rescuer, and avenger;[30] the human interest given to theGraal-Quest (the earlier histories being strikingly lacking in this) byhis failure, and a good many more. But above all there are the generalcharacters of the knight and the Queen to make flesh and blood of thewhole. 

Not merely the exact author or authors, but even the exact source orsources of this complicated, fateful, and exquisite imagination are, once more, not known. Years ago it was laid down finally by the mostcompetent of possible authorities (the late Sir John Rhys) that "thelove of Lancelot and Guinevere is unknown to Welsh literature. "Originals for the "greatest knight" have been sought by guesswork, byidle play on words and names, if not also by positive forgery, in thatBreton literature which does not exist. There do exist versions of thestory in which Lancelot plays no very prominent part, and there is evenone singular version--certainly late and probably devised by a propermoral man afraid of scandal--which makes Lancelot outlive the Queen, quite comfortably continuing his adventurous career (this is perhaps the"furthest" of the Unthinkable in literature), and (not, it may be owned, quite inconsistently) hints that the connection was merely Platonicthroughout. These things are explicable, but better negligible. For myown part I have always thought that the loves of Tristram and Iseult(which, as has been said, were originally un-Arthurian) suggested themain idea to the author of it, being taken together with Guinevere'sfalseness with Mordred in the old quasi-chronicle, and perhaps the storyof the abduction by Melvas (Meleagraunce), which seems to be possibly agenuine Welsh legend. There are in the Tristram-Iseult-Mark trio quitesufficient suggestions of Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur; while the farhigher plane on which the novice-novelist sets his lovers, and even thevery interesting subsequent exaltation of Tristram and Iseult themselvesto familiarity and to some extent equality with the other pair, hasnothing critically difficult in it. 

But this idea, great and promising as it was, required furtherfertilisation, and got it from another. The Graal story is (once more, according to authority of the greatest competence, and likely ifanything to be biassed the other way) pretty certainly not Welsh inorigin, and there is no reason to think that it originally had anythingto do with Arthur. Even after it obeyed the strange "suck" of legendstowards this centre whirlpool, or Loadstone Rock, of romance, it yieldednothing intimately connected with the Arthurian Legend itself at first, and such connection as succeeded seems pretty certainly[31] to be thatof which Percevale is the hero, and an outlier, not an integral part. But either the same genius (as one would fain hope) as that whichdevised the profane romance of Lancelot and Guinevere, or another, further grafted or inarched the sacred romance of the Graal and itsQuest with the already combined love-and-chivalry story. Lancelot, thegreatest of knights, and of the true blood of the Graal-guardians, oughtto accomplish the mysteries; but he cannot through sin, and that sin isthis very love for Guinevere. The Quest, in which (despite warning andindeed previous experience) he takes part, not merely gives occasion foradventures, half-mystical, half-chivalrous, which far exceed ininterest the earlier ones, but directly leads to the dispersion andweakening of the Round Table. And so the whole draws together to an endidentical in part with that of the Chronicle story, but quite infinitelyimproved upon it. 

[Sidenote: Its approximation to the novel proper. ]

Now not only is there in this the creation of the novel _in posse_, ofthe romance _in esse_, but it is brought about in a curiously noteworthyfashion. A hundred years and more later the greatest known writer of theMiddle Ages, and one of the three or four greatest of the world, definedthe subjects of poetry as Love, War, and Religion, or in words which wemay not unfairly translate by these. The earlier master recognised(practically for the first time) that the romance--that allotropic form(as the chemists might say) of poetry--must deal with the same. Now inthese forms of the Arthurian legend, which are certainly anterior to thelatter part of the twelfth century, there is a great deal of war and agood deal of religion, but these motives are mostly separated from eachother, the earlier forms of the Arthur story having nothing to do withthe Graal, and the earlier forms of the Graal story--so far as we cansee--nothing, or extremely little, to do with Arthur. Nor had Love, inany proper and passionate sense of the word, anything to do with either. Women and marriage and breaches of marriage appear indeed; but theearlier Graal stories are dominated by the most asceticvirginity-worship, and the earlier Arthur-stories show absolutelynothing of the passion which is the subject of the magnificent overtureof Mr. Swinburne's _Tristram_. Even this story of Tristram himself, afterwards fired and coloured by passion, seems at first to have shownnothing but the mixture of animalism, cruelty, and magic which ischaracteristic of the Celts. [32] Our magician of a very differentgramarye, were he Walter or Chrestien or some third--Norman, Champenois, Breton, [33] or Englishman (Welshman or Irishman he pretty certainly was_not_)--had therefore before him, if not exactly dry bones, yet thehalf-vivified material of a chronicle of events on the one hand and amystical dream-sermon on the other. He, or a French or English Pallasfor him, had to "think of another thing. "

And so he called in Love to reinforce War and Religion and to do itsproper office of uniting, inspiring, and producing Humanity. Heeffected, by the union of the three motives, the transformation of amere dull record of confused fighting into a brilliant pageant ofknightly adventure. He made the long-winded homilies and genealogies ofthe earlier Graal-legend at once take colour from the amorous andwar-like adventures, raise these to a higher and more spiritual plane, and provide the due punishment for the sins of his erring characters. The whole story--at least all of it that he chose to touch and all thathe chose to add--became alive. The bones were clothed with flesh andblood, the "wastable country verament" (as the dullest of the Graalchroniclers says in a phrase that applies capitally to his own work)blossomed with flower and fruit. Wars of Arthur with unwilling subjectsor Saxons and Romans; treachery of his wife and nephew and his owndeath; miracle-history of the Holy Vessel and pedigree of itscustodians; Round Table; these and many other things had lain as merescraps and orts, united by no real plot, yielding no real characters, satisfying no real interest that could not have been equally satisfiedby an actual chronicle or an actual religious-mystical discourse. Andthen the whole was suddenly knit into a seamless and shimmering web ofromance, from the fancy of Uther for Igerne to the "departing of themall" in Lyonnesse and at Amesbury and at Joyous Gard. A romanceundoubtedly, but also incidentally providing the first real novel-heroand the first real novel-heroine in the persons of the lovers who, as inthe passage above translated, sometimes "made great joy of each otherfor that they had long caused each other much sorrow, " and finallyexpiated in sorrow what was unlawful in their joy. 

Let us pass to these persons themselves. 

[Sidenote: Especially in the characters and relations of Lancelot andGuinevere. ]

The first point to note about Lancelot is the singular fashion in whichhe escapes one of the dangers of the hero. Aristotle had never said thata hero must be faultless; indeed, he had definitely said exactly thecontrary, of at least the tragic hero. But one of the worst of the manymisunderstandings of his dicta brought the wrong notion about, andVirgil--that exquisite craftsman in verse and phrase, but otherwise, perhaps, not great poet and very dangerous pattern--had confirmed thisnotion by his deplorable figurehead. It is also fair to confess that allexcept morbid tastes do like to see the hero win. But if he is to be ahero of Rymer, not merely

 Like Paris handsome[34] and like Hector brave, but as pious as Aeneas; "a rich fellow enough, " with blood hopelesslyblue and morals spotlessly copy-bookish--in other words, a Sir CharlesGrandison--he will duly meet with the detestation and "conspuing" of theelect. Almost the only just one of the numerous and generally sillycharges latterly brought against Tennyson's Arthurian handling is thathis conception of the blameless king does a little smack of this falseidea, does something grow to it. It is one of the chief points in whichhe departed, not merely from the older stories (which he probably didnot know), but from Malory's astonishing redaction of them (which hecertainly did). 

[Sidenote: Lancelot. ]

But Lancelot escapes this worst of fates in the _Idylls_ themselves, andmuch more does he escape it in the originals. In the first place, thoughhe invariably (or always till the Graal Quest) "wins through, " heconstantly does not do so without intermediate hairbreadth escapes, andeven not a few adventures which are at first not escapes at all. Andjust as his perpetual bafflement in the Quest salts and seasons histriumphs in the saddle, so does the ruling passion of his sin save, fromanything approaching mawkishness, [35] his innumerable and yetinoffensive virtues; his chastity, save in this instance, which chastityitself, by a further stroke of art, is saved from _niaiserie_ by theplotted adventures with Elaine; his courtesy, his mercifulness, hiswonderfully early notion of a gentleman (_v. Inf. _), his invariabledisregard of self, and yet his equally invariable naturalness. PiousAeneas had not the least objection to bringing about the death of Dido, as he might have known he was doing (unless he was as great a fool as heis a prig); and he is probably never more disgusting or Pecksniffianthan when he looks back on the flames of Dido's pyre and is reallyafraid that something unpleasant must have happened, though he can'tthink what the matter can be. But _he_, one feels sure, would never havelifted up his hand against a woman, unless she had richly deserved it onthe strictest patriotic scores, as in the case of Helen, when his mammafortunately interfered. On the other hand, Lancelot was "of the Asra whodie when they love" and love till they die--nay, who would die if theydid not love. But it is certain (for there is a very nice miniature ofit reproduced from the MS. In M. Paulin Paris's abstract) that, for amoment, he drew his sword on Elaine to punish the deceit which made himunwittingly false to Guinevere. It is very shocking, no doubt, butexceedingly natural; and of course he did not kill or even (likePhilaster) wound her, though nobody interfered to prevent him. Many ofthe incidents which bring out his character are well known to moderns bypoem and picture, though others, as well worth knowing, are not. But thehuman contrasts of success and failure, of merit and sin, have never, Ithink, been quite brought out, and to bring them out completely herewould take too much room. We may perhaps leave this other--quiteother--"_First_ Gentleman in Europe" with the remark that Chrestien deTroyes gives only one side of him, and therefore does not give him atall. The Lancelot of board and bower, of travel and tournament, he doesvery fairly. But of the Lancelot of the woods and the hermitage, of thedream at the foot of the cross, of the mystic voyage and the justfailing (if failing) effort of Carbonek, he gives, because he knows, nothing. 

[Sidenote: Guinevere. ]

Completed as he was, no matter for the moment by whom, he is thus thefirst hero of romance and nearly the greatest; but his lady is worthy ofhim, and she is almost more original as an individual. It is true thatshe is not the first heroine, as he is, if not altogether, almost thefirst hero. Helen was that, though very imperfectly revealed andgingerly handled. Calypso (hardly Circe) _might_ have been. Medea isperhaps nearer still, especially in Apollonius. But the Greek romancerswere the first who had really busied themselves with the heroine: theytook her up seriously and gave her a considerable position. But they didnot succeed in giving her much character. The naughty _not_-heroine ofAchilles Tatius, though she has less than none in Mr. Pope's supposedinnuendo sense, alone has an approach to some in the other. As for theaccomplished Guinevere's probable contemporary, the Ismene or Hysmine ofEustathius Macrembolites (_v. Sup. _ p. 18), she is a sort ofGreek-mediaeval Henrietta Temple, with Mr. Meredith and Mr. Disraeli byturns holding the pen, though with neither of them supplying the brains. But Guinevere is a very different person; or rather, she _is_ a person, and the first. To appreciate her she must be compared with herself inearlier presentations, and then considered fully as she appears in theVulgate--for Malory, though he has given much, has not given the wholeof her, and Tennyson has painted only the last panel of the polyptychwholly, and has rather over-coloured that. [36]

In what we may call the earliest representations of her, she has hardlyany colour at all. She is a noble Roman lady, and very beautiful. For atime she is apparently very happy with her husband, and he with her; andif she seems to make not the slightest scruple about "taking up with"her nephew, co-regent and fellow rebel, why, noble Roman ladies thoughtnothing of divorce and not much of adultery. The only old Welsh story(the famous Melvas one so often referred to) that we have about her inmuch detail merely establishes the fact, pleasantly formulated by M. Paulin Paris, that she was "très sujette à être enlevée, " but in itself(unless we admit the Peacockian triad of the "Three Fatal Slaps of theIsle of Britain" as evidence) again says nothing about her character. If, as seems probable if not certain, the _Launfal_ legend, with itslibel on her, is of Breton origin, it makes her an ordinary Celticprincess, a spiritual sister of Iseult when she tried to kill Brengwain, and a cross between Potiphar's wife and Catherine of Russia, without anyof the good nature and "gentlemanliness" of the last named. The realGuinevere, the Guinevere of the Vulgate and partly of Malory, is freedfrom the colourlessness and the discreditable end of Geoffrey's queen, transforms the promiscuous and rather _louche_ Melvas incident into animportant episode of her epic or romantic existence, and gives the lie, even in her least creditable or least charming moments, to the _Launfal_libel. As before in Lancelot's case, details of her presentation had insome cases best be either translated in full or omitted, but I cannotrefuse myself the pleasure of attempting, with however clumsy a hand, aportrait of our, as I believe, English Helen, who gave in Frenchlanguage to French, and not only French literature, the pattern of aheroine. 

There is not, I think, any ancient authority for the rather commonplacesuggestion, unwisely adopted by Tennyson, that Guinevere fell in lovewith Lancelot when he was sent as an ambassador to fetch her; thusmerely repeating Iseult and Tristram, and anticipating Suffolk andMargaret. In fact, according to the best evidence, Lancelot could nothave been old enough, if he was even born. On the contrary, nothingcould be better than the presentation of her introduction to Arthur andthe course of the wooing in the Vulgate--the other "blessed original. "She first sees Arthur as a foe from the walls of besieged Carmelide, andadmires his valour; she has further occasion to admire it when, as afriend, he rescues her father, showing himself, as what he really was inhis youth, his own best knight. The pair are genuinely in love with eachother, and the betrothal and parting for fresh fight are the mostgracious passages of the _Merlin_ book, except the better version (_v. Sup. _) of the love of Merlin himself and the afterwards libelledViviane. Anyhow, she was married because she fell in love with him, andthere is no evidence to show that she and Arthur lived otherwise thanhappily together. But, if all tales were true, she had no reason toregard him as a very faithful husband or a blameless man. She may nothave known (for nobody but Merlin apparently did know) the early andunwitting incest of the King and his half-sister Margause; but theextreme ease with which he adopted her own treacherous foster-sister, the "false Guinevere, " and his proceedings with the Saxon enchantressCamilla, were very strong "sets off" to her own conduct. Also she had amost disagreeable[37] sister-in-law in Morgane-la-Fée. These are not inthe least offered as excuses, but merely as "lights. " Indeed Guineverenever seems to have hated or disliked her husband, though he often gaveher cause; and if, until the great repentance, she thought more lightlyof "spouse-breach" than Lancelot did, that is not uncharacteristic ofwomen. [38] In fact, she is a very perfect (not of course in the moralsense) gentlewoman. She is at once popular with the knights, and losesthat popularity rather by Lancelot's fault than by her own, whileGawain, who remains faithful to her to the bitter end, or at least tillthe luckless slaughter of his brethren, declares at the beginning thatshe is the fairest and most gracious, and will be the wisest and best ofqueens. She shows something very like humour in the famous and fatefulremark (uttered, it would seem, without the slightest ill or doublemeaning at the time) as to Gawain's estimate of Lancelot. [39] She seemsto have had an agreeable petulance (notice, for instance, the rebuke ofKay at the opening of the _Ywain_ story and elsewhere), which sometimes, as it naturally would, rises to passionate injustice, as Lancelotfrequently discovered. She is, in fact, always passionate in one orother sense of that great and terrible and infinite[40] word, but nevertragedy-queenish or vixenish. She falls in love with Lancelot because hefalls in love with her, and because she cannot help it. False as she isto husband and to lover, to her court and her country, [41] it can hardlybe said that any act of hers, except the love itself and itsirresistible consequences, is faulty. She is not capricious, extravagant, or tyrannical; in her very jealousy she is not cruel orrevengeful (the original Iseult would certainly have had Elaine poisonedor poniarded, for which there was ample opportunity). If she tormentsher lover, that is because she loves him. If she is unjust to him, thatis because she is a woman. Her last speech to Lancelot after thecatastrophe--Tennyson should have, as has been said, paraphrased this ashe paraphrased the passing of her husband, and from the same texts, andwe should then have had another of the greatest things of Englishpoetry--shows a noble nature with the [Greek: hamartia] present, butrepented in a strange and great mixture of classical and Christiantragedy. There is little told in a trustworthy fashion about herpersonal appearance. But if Glastonbury traditions about her bones betrue, she was certainly (again like Helen) "divinely tall. " And if thesuggestions of Hawker's "Queen Gwennyvar's Round"[42] in the sea roundTintagel be worked out a little, it will follow that her eyes weredivinely blue. 

[Sidenote: Some minor points. ]

When such very high praise is given to the position of the (further)accomplished Arthur-story, it is of course not intended to bestow thatpraise on any particular MS. Or printed version that exists. It is inthe highest degree improbable that, whether the original magician wasMap, or Chrestien, or anybody else (to repeat a useful formula), wepossess an exact and exclusive copy of the form into which he himself threwthe story. Independently of the fact that no MS. , verse or prose, of anythinglike the complete story seems old enough, independently of the enormous andalmost innumerable separable accretions, the so-called Vulgate cycle of"_Graal-Merlin-Arthur-Lancelot-Graal-Quest-Arthur's-Death_" hasconsiderable variants--the most important and remarkable of which by faris the large alteration or sequel of the "Vulgate" _Merlin_ which Malorypreferred. In the "Vulgate" itself, too, there are things which werecertainly written either by the great contriver in nodding moods, or bysomebody else, --in fact no one can hope to understand mediaevalliterature who forgets that no mediaeval writer could ever "let a thingalone": he simply _must_ add or shorten, paraphrase or alter. I ratherdoubt whether the Great Unknown himself meant _both_ the amours ofArthur with Camilla and the complete episode of the false Guinevere tostand side by side. The first is (as such justifications go) asufficient justification of Guinevere by itself; and the conduct ofArthur in the second is such a combination of folly, cruelty, and allsorts of despicable behaviour that it overdoes the thing. So, too, Lancelot's "abscondences, " with or without madness, are too many and tooprolonged. [43] The long and totally uninteresting campaign againstClaudas, during the greater part of which Lancelot (who is most of allconcerned) is absent, and in which he takes no part or interest whenpresent, is another great blot. Some of these things, but not all, Malory remedied by omission. 

To sum up, and even repeat a little, in speaking so highly of thisdevelopment--French beyond all doubt as a part of literature, whateverthe nationality, domicile, and temper of the person or persons whobrought it about--I do not desire more to emphasise what I believe to bea great and not too well appreciated truth than to guard against thatexaggeration which dogs and discredits literary criticism. Of course nosingle redaction of the legend in the late twelfth or earliestthirteenth century contains the story, the whole story, and nothing butthe story as I have just outlined it. Of course the words used do notapply fully to Malory's English redaction of three centuries later--workof genius as this appears to me to be. Yet further, I should be fullydisposed to allow that it is only by reading the _posse_ into the_esse_, under the guidance of later developments of the novel itself, that the estimate which I have given can be entirely justified. But thisprocess seems to me to be perfectly legitimate, and to be, in fact, theonly process capable of giving us literary-historical criticism that isworth having. The writer or writers, known or unknown, whose work wehave been discussing, have got the plot, have got the characters, havegot the narrative faculty required for a complete novel-romance. If theydo not quite know what to do with these things it is only because thetime is not yet. But how much they did, and of how much more theyforeshadowed the doing, the extracts following should show better thanany "talk about it. "

 [_Lancelot, still under the tutelage of the Lady of the Lake and ignorant of his own parentage, has met his cousins, Lionel and Bors, and has been greatly drawn to them. _]

 [Sidenote: Illustrative extracts translated from the "Vulgate. " The youth of Lancelot. ]

 Now turns herself the Lady back to the Lake, and takes the children with her. And when she had gone[44] a good way, she called Lancelot a little way off the road and said to him very kindly, "King's son, [45] how wast thou so bold as to call Lionel thy cousin? for he _is_ a king's son, and of not a little more worth and gentry than men think. " "Lady, " said he, who was right ashamed, "so came the word into my mouth by adventure that I never took any heed of it. " "Now tell me, " said she, "by the faith thou owest me, which thinkest thou to be the greater gentleman, thyself or him?" "Lady, " said he, "you have adjured me strongly, for I owe no one such faith as I owe you, my lady and my mother: nor know I how much of a gentleman I am by lineage. But, by the faith I owe you, I would not myself deign to be abashed at that for which I saw him weep. [46] And they have told me that all men have sprung from one man and one woman: nor know I for what reason one has more gentry than another, unless he win it by prowess, even as lands and other honours. But know you for very truth that if greatness of heart made a gentleman I would think yet to be one of the greatest. " "Verily, fair son, " said the Lady, "it shall appear. And I say to you that you lose nothing of being one of the best gentlemen in the world, if your heart fail you not. " "How, Lady!" said he, "say you this truly, _as_ my lady?" And she said, "Yes, without fail. " "Lady, " said he, "blessed be you of God, that you said it to me so soon [_or_ as soon as you have said it]. For to that will you make me come which I never thought to attain. Nor had I so much desire of anything as of possessing gentry. "

 [_The first meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere. The Lady of the Lake has prevailed upon the King to dub Lancelot on St. John's Day (Midsummer, not Christmas). His protectress departing, he is committed to the care of Ywain, and a conversation arises about him. The Queen asks to see him. _]

 [Sidenote: The first meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere. ]

 Then bid he [the King] Monseigneur[47] Ywain that he should go and look for Lancelot. "And let him be equipped as handsomely as you know is proper: for well know I that he has plenty. " Then the King himself told the Queen how the Lady of the Lake had requested that he would not make Lancelot knight save in his own arms and dress. And the Queen marvelled much at this, and thought long till she saw him. So Messire Ywain went to the Childe [_vallet_] and had him clothed and equipped in the best way he could: and when he saw that nothing could be bettered, he led him to Court on his own horse, which was right fair. But he brought him not quietly. For there was so much people about that the whole street was full: and the news was spread through all the town that the fair Childe who came yester eve should be a knight to-morrow, and was now coming to Court in knightly garb. Then sprang to the windows they of the town, both men and women. And when they saw him pass they said that never had they seen so fair a Childe-knight. So he came to the Court and alighted from his horse: and the news of him spread through hall and chamber; and knights and dames and damsels hurried forth. And even the King and the Queen went to the windows. So when the Childe had dismounted, Messire Ywain took him by the hand, and led him by it up to the Hall. 

 The King and the Queen came to meet him: and both took him by his two hands and went to seat themselves on a couch: while the Childe seated himself before them on the fresh green grass with which the Hall was spread. And the King gazed on him right willingly: for if he had seemed fair at his first coming, it was nothing to the beauty that he now had. And the King thought he had mightily grown in stature and thews. [48] So the Queen prayed that God might make him a man of worth, "for right plenty of beauty has He given him, " and she looked at the Childe very sweetly: and so did he at her as often as he could covertly direct his eyes towards her. Also marvelled he much how such great beauty as he saw appear in her could come: for neither that of his lady, the Lady of the Lake, nor of any woman that he had ever seen, did he prize aught as compared with hers. And no wrong had he if he valued no other lady against the Queen: for she was the Lady of Ladies and the Fountain of Beauty. But if he had known the great worthiness that was in her he would have been still more fain to gaze on her. For none, neither poor nor rich, was her equal. 

 So she asked Monseigneur Ywain what was the Childe's name, and he answered that he knew not. "And know you, " said she, "whose son he is and of what birth?" "Lady, " said he, "nay, except I know so much as that he is of the land of Gaul. For his speech bewrayeth him. "[49] Then the Queen took him by the hand and asked him of whom he came. And when he felt it [the touch] he shuddered as though roused from sleep, and thought of her so hard that he knew not what she said to him. And she perceived that he was much abashed, and so asked him a second time, "Tell me whence you come. " So he looked at her very sheepishly and said, with a sigh, that he knew not. And she asked him what was his name; and he answered that he knew not that. So now the Queen saw well that he was abashed and _overthought_. [50] But she dared not think that it was for her: and nevertheless she had some suspicion of it, and so dropped the talk. But that she might not make the disorder of his mind worse, she rose from her seat and, in order that no one might think any evil or perceive what she suspected, said that the Childe seemed to her not very wise, and whether wise or not had been ill brought up. "Lady, " said Messire Ywain, "between you and me, we know nothing about him: and perchance he is forbidden[51] to tell his name or who he is. " And she said, "It may well be so, " but she said it so low that the Childe heard her not. 

 [_Here follows (with a very little surplusage removed perhaps) the scene which Dante has made world-famous, but which Malory (I think for reasons) has "cut. " I trust it is neither Philistinism nor perversity which makes me think of it a little, though only a little, less highly than some have done. There is (and after all this makes it all the more interesting for us historians) the least little bit of anticipation of_ Marivaudage _about it, and less of the adorable simplicity such as that (a little subsequent to the last extract given) where Lancelot, having forgotten to take leave of the Queen on going to his first adventure, and having returned to do so, kneels to her, receives her hand to raise him from the ground, "and much was his joy to feel it bare in his. " But the beauty of what follows is incontestable, and that Guinevere was "exceeding wise in love" is certain. _]

 [Sidenote: The scene of the kiss. ]

 "Ha!" said she then, "I know who you are--Lancelot of the Lake is your name. " And he was silent. "They know it at court, " said she, "this sometime. Messire Gawain was the first to bring your name there.... " Then she asked him why he had allowed the worst man in the world to lead him by the bridle. "Lady, " said he, "as one who had command neither of his heart nor of his body. " "Now tell me, " said she, "were you at last year's assembly?" "Yes, Lady, " said he. "And what arms did you bear?" "Lady, they were all of vermilion. " "By my head, " said she, "you say true. And why did you do such deeds at the meeting the day before yesterday?" Then he began to sigh very very deeply. And the Queen cut him short as well, knowing how it was with him. 

 "Tell me, " she said, "plainly, how it is. I will never betray you. But I know that you did it for some lady. Now, tell me, by the faith you owe me, who she is. " "Ah, Lady, " said he, "I see well that it behoves me to speak. Lady, it is you. " "I!" said she. "It was not for me you took the spears that my maiden brought you. For I took care to put myself out of the commission. " "Lady, " said he, "I did for others what I ought, and for you what I could. " "Tell me, then, for whom have you done all the things that you _have_ done?" "Lady, " said he, "for you. " "How, " said she, "do you love me so much?" "So much, Lady, as I love neither myself nor any other. " "And since when have you loved me thus?" "Since the hour when I was called knight and yet was not one. "[52] "Then, by the faith you owe me, whence came this love that you have set upon me?" Now as the Queen said these words it happened that the Lady of the Puy of Malahault[53] coughed on purpose, and lifted her head, which she had held down. And he understood her now, having oft heard her before: and looked at her and knew her, and felt in his heart such fear and anguish that he could not answer the Queen. Then began he to sigh right deeply, and the tears fell from his eyes so thick, that the garment he wore was wet to the knees. And the more he looked at the Lady of Malahault the more ill at ease was his heart. Now the Queen noticed this and saw that he looked sadly towards the place where her ladies were, and she reasoned with him. "Tell me, " she said, "whence comes this love that I am asking you about?" and he tried as hard as he could to speak, and said, "Lady, from the time I have said. " "How?" "Lady, you did it, when you made me your friend, if your mouth lied not. " "My friend?" she said; "and how?" "I came before you when I had taken leave of my Lord the King all armed except my head and my hands. And then I commended you to God, and said that, wherever I was, I was your knight: and you said that you would have me to be your knight and your friend. And then I said, 'Adieu, Lady, ' and you said, 'Adieu, fair sweet friend. ' And never has that word left my heart, and it is that word that has made me a good knight and valiant--if I be so: nor ever have I been so ill-bested as not to remember that word. That word comforts me in all my annoys. That word has kept me from all harm, and freed me from all peril, and fills me whenever I hunger. Never have I been so poor but that word has made me rich. " "By my faith, " said the Queen, "that word was spoken in a good hour, and God be praised when He made me speak it. Still, I did not set it as high as you did: and to many a knight have I said it, when I gave no more thought to the saying. But _your_ thought was no base one, but gentle and debonair; wherefore joy has come to you of it, and it has made you a good knight. Yet, nevertheless, this way is not that of knights who make great matter to many a lady of many a thing which they have little at heart. And your seeming shows me that you love one or other of these ladies better than you love me. For you wept for fear and dared not look straight at them: so that I well see that your thought is not so much of me as you pretend. So, by the faith you owe the thing you love best in the world, tell me which one of the three you love so much?" "Ah! Lady, " said he, "for the mercy of God, as God shall keep me, never had one of them my heart in her keeping. " "This will not do, " said the Queen, "you cannot dissemble. For many another such thing have I seen, and I know that your heart is there as surely as your body is here. " And this she said that she might well see how she might put him ill at ease. For she thought surely enough that he meant no love save to her, or ill would it have gone on the day of the Black Arms. [54] And she took a keen delight in seeing and considering his discomfort. But he was in such anguish that he wanted little of swooning, save that fear of the ladies before him kept him back. And the Queen herself perceived it at the sight of his changes of colour, and caught him by the shoulder that he might not fall, and called to Galahault. Then the prince sprang forward and ran to his friend, and saw that he was disturbed thus, and had great pain in his own heart for it, and said, "Ah, Lady! tell me, for God's sake, what has happened. " And the Queen told him the conversation. "Ah, Lady!" said Galahault, "mercy, for God's sake, or you may lose me him by such wrath, and it would be too great pity. " "Certes, " said she, "that is true. But know you why he has done such feats of arms?" "Nay, surely, Lady, " said he. "Sir, " said she, "if what he tells me is true, it was for me. " "Lady, " said he, "as God shall keep me, I can believe it. For just as he is more valiant than other men, so is his heart truer than all theirs. " "Verily, " said she, "you would say well that he is valiant if you knew what deeds he has done since he was made knight, " and then she told him all the chivalry of Lancelot ... And how he had done it all for a single word of hers [_Galahault tells her more, and begs mercy for L. _]. "He could ask me nothing, " sighed she, "that I could fairly refuse him, but he will ask me nothing at all. "... "Lady, " said Galahault, "certainly he has no power to do so. For one loves nothing that one does not fear. " [_And then comes the immortal kiss, asked by the Prince, delayed a moment by the Queen's demur as to time and place, brought on by the "Galeotto"-speech. _ "Let us three corner close together as if we were talking secrets, " _vouchsafed by Guinevere in the words_, "Why should I make me longer prayer for what I wish more than you or he?" _Lancelot still hangs back, but the Queen_ "takes him by the chin and kisses him before Galahault with a kiss long enough" so that the Lady of Malahault knows it. ] And then said the Queen, who was a right wise and gracious lady, "Fair sweet friend, so much have you done that I am yours, and right great joy have I thereof. Now see to it that the thing be kept secret, as it should be. For I am one of the ladies of the world who have the fairest fame, and if my praise grew worse through you, then it would be a foul and shameful thing. "

[Sidenote: Some further remarks on the novel character of the story. ]

A little more comment on this cento, and especially on the centralpassage of it, can hardly be, and ought certainly not to be, avoided insuch a work as this, even if, like most summaries, it be something of arepetition. It must surely be obvious to any careful reader that here issomething much more than--unless his reading has been as wide elsewhereas it is careful here--he expected from Romance in the commoner andhalf-contemptuous acceptation of that word. Lancelot he may, though heshould not, still class as a mere _amoureux transi_--a nobler andpluckier Silvius in an earlier _As Yon Like It_, and with a greater thanPhoebe for idol. Malory ought to be enough to set him right there: heneed even not go much beyond Tennyson, who has comprehended Lancelotpretty correctly, if not indeed pretty adequately. But Malory has leftout a great deal of the information which would have enabled hisreaders to comprehend Guinevere; and Tennyson, only presenting her inparts, has allowed those parts, especially the final and only fullpresentation, great as it is, to be too much influenced by his certainlyunfortunate other presentation of Arthur as a blameless king. 

I do not say that the actual creator of the Vulgate Guinevere, whoeverhe was, has wrought her into a novel-character of the first class. Itwould have been not merely a miracle (for miracles often happen), butsomething more, if he had. If you could take Beatrix Esmond at a bettertime, Argemone Lavington raised to a higher power, and the spirit of allthat is best and strongest and least purely paradoxical in Meredith'sheroines, and work these three graces into one woman, adding the passionof Tennyson's own Fatima and the queenliness of Helen herself, it mightbe something like the achieved Guinevere who is still left to thereader's imagination to achieve. But the Unknown has given the hints ofall this; and curiously enough it is only of _English_ novel-heroinesthat I can think in comparison and continuation of her. This book, if itis ever finished, will show, I hope, some knowledge of French ones: Ican remember none possessing any touch of Guineveresque quality. Dante, if his poetic nature had taken a different bent, and Shakespeare, if hehad only chosen, could have been her portrayers singly; no others that Ican think of, and certainly no Frenchman. 

[Sidenote: And the personages. ]

But here Guinevere's creator or expounder has done more for her thanmerely indicate her charm. Her "fear for name and fame" is not exactly"crescent"--it is there from the first, and seems to have nothing eithercowardly or merely selfish in it, but only that really "last infirmityof noble minds, " the shame of shame even in doing things shameful orshameless. I have seldom seen justice done to her magnificentfearlessness in all her dangers. Her graciousness as a Queen has beenmore generally admitted, but, once again, the composition and complexityof her fits of jealousy have never, I think, been fully rationalised. Here, once more, we must take into account that difference of age whichis so important. _He_ thinks nothing of it; _she_ never forgets it. Andin almost all the circumstances where this rankling kindles intowrath--whether with no cause at all, as in most cases, or with causemore apparent than real, as in the Elaine business--study of particularswill show how easily they might be wrought out into the great characterscenes of which they already contain the suggestion. _This_ Guineverewould never have "taken up" (to use purposely a vulgar phrase for whatwould have been a vulgar thing) with Mordred, [55] either for himself orfor the kingdom that he was trying to steal. And I am bound to say againthat much as I have read of purely French romance--that is to say, French not merely in language but in certain origin--I know nothing andnobody like her in it. 

That Guinevere, like Charlotte, was "a married lady, " that, unlikeCharlotte, she forgot the fact, and that Lancelot, though somewhatWertheresque in some of his features, was not quite so "moral" as thatvery dull young man, are facts which I wish neither to suppress nor todwell upon. We may cry "Agreed" here to the indictment, and all itsconsequences. They are not the question. 

The question is the suggesting of novel-romance elements which forms theaesthetic solace of this ethical sin. It should be seen at once that theGuinevere of the Vulgate, and her fault or fate, provide a character andcareer of no small complexity. It has been already said that torepresent her as after a fashion intercepted by love for Lancelot on herway to Arthur, like Iseult of Ireland or Margaret of Anjou, is, so tospeak, as unhistorical as it is insufficiently artistic. We cannot, indeed, borrow Diderot's speech to Rousseau and say, "C'est le pont auxânes, " but it certainly would not have been the way of the Walter whom Ifavour, though I think it might have been the way of the Chrestien thatI know. Guinevere, when she meets her lover, rescuer, and doomsman, isno longer a girl, and Lancelot is almost a boy. It is not, in the commonand cheap misuse of the term, the most "romantic" arrangement, but somenot imperfect in love-lore have held that a woman's love is never sostrong as when she is past girlhood and well approaching age, and thatman's is never stronger than when he is just not a boy. Lancelot himselfhas loved no woman (except his quasi-mother, the Lady of the Lake), andwill love none after he has fulfilled the Dead Shepherd's "saw ofmight. " She _has_ loved; dispute this and you not only cancel graciousscenes of the text, but spoil the story; but she has, though probablyshe does not yet know it, ceased to love, [56] and not without somereason. To say no more about Arthur's technical "blamelessness, " he has, by the coming of Lancelot, ceased to be altogether heroic. Though nevera mere petulant and ferocious dotard as the _Chansons_ too oftenrepresent Charlemagne, he is very far from being a wise ruler or evenbaron. He makes rash promises and vows, accepts charges on very slightevidence, and seems to have his knights by no means "in hand. " So, too, though never a coward or weakling, he seems pretty nearly to have lostthe pluck and prowess which had won Guinevere's love under the walls ofCarmelide, and of which the last display is in the great fight with hissister's lover, Sir Accolon. All this may not excuse Guinevere's conductto the moralist; it certainly makes that conduct artistically probableand legitimate to the critic, as a foundation for novel-character. 

Her lover may look less promising, at least at the moment ofpresentation; and indeed it is true that while "la donna è _im_mobile, "in essentials and possibilities alike, forms of man, though never losingreality and possibility, pass at times out of possible or at least easyrecognition. Anybody who sees in the Lancelot of the foregoing sceneonly a hobbledehoy and milksop who happens to have a big chest, strongarms, and plenty of mere fighting spirit, will never grasp him. Hardlybetter off will be he who takes him--as the story _does_ give somehandles for taking him--to be merely one of the too common examples ofhumanity who sin and repent, repent and sin, with a sort ofAmericanesque notion of spending dollars in this world and laying themup in another. Malory has on the whole done more justice to thepossibilities of the Vulgate Lancelot than he has to Guinevere, andTennyson has here improved on Malory. He has, indeed, very nearly "got"Lancelot, but not quite. To get him wholly would have required Tennysonfor form and Browning for analysis of character; while even this_mistura mirabilis_ would have been improved for the purpose by touchesnot merely of Morris and Swinburne, but of lesser men like Kingsley andeven George Macdonald. To understand Lancelot you must previouslyunderstand, or by some kind of intuition divine, the mystical elementwhich his descent from the Graal-Wardens confers; the essential orquintessential chivalric quality which his successive creators agreed inimparting to him; the all-conquering gift so strangely tempered by anentire freedom from the boasting and the rudeness of the _chanson_ hero;the actual checks and disasters which his cross stars bring on him; hisutter loyalty in all things save one to the king; and last and mightiestof all, his unquenchable and unchangeable passion for the Queen. 

Hence what they said to him in one of his early adventures, with nogreat ill following, "Fair Knight, thou art unhappy, " was always true ina higher sense. He may have been Lord of Joyous Gard, in title and fact;but his own heart was always a Garde Douloureuse--a _corluctificabile_--pillowed on idle triumphs and fearful hopes andpoisoned satisfactions, and bafflements where he would most fain havesucceeded. He has almost had to have the first kiss forced on him; he isrefused the last on grounds of which he himself cannot deny thevalidity. Guinevere is a tragic figure in the truest and deepest senseof the term, and, as we have tried to show, she is amply complex incharacter and temperament. But it is questionable whether Lancelot isnot more tragic and more complex still. 

[Sidenote: Books. ]

It may perhaps without impropriety be repeated that these are not merefancies of the writer, but things reasonably suggested by and solidlybased upon "the French books, " when these later are collated and, so tospeak, "checked" by Malory and the romances of adventure branching offfrom them. But Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot by no means exhaust thematerial for advanced and complicated novel-work--in character as wellas incident--provided by the older forms of the Legend. There is Gawain, who has to be put together from the sort of first draft of Lancelotwhich he shows in the earlier versions, and the light-o'-love oppositewhich he becomes in the later, a contrast continued in the Amadis andGalaor figures of the Spanish romances and their descendants. There isthe already glanced at group of Arthur's sisters or half-sisters, leftmere sketches and hints, but most interesting. Not to be tedious, weneed not dwell on Palomides, a very promising Lancelot unloved; onLamoracke, left provokingly obscure, but shadowing a most importantpossibility in the unwritten romance of one of those very sisters; Bors, of whom Tennyson has made something, but not enough, in the later_Idylls_; and others. But it is probably unnecessary to carry thediscussion of this matter further. It has been discussed and illustratedat some length, because it shows how early the elements, not merely ofromance but of the novel in the fullest sense, existed in Frenchliterature. 

 [_Here follows the noble passage above referred to between Lancelot and King Bagdemagus after the death of Meleagraunce, whose cousin Lancelot has just slain in single combat for charging him with treason. He has kept his helm on, but doffs it at the King's request. _]

And when the King saw him he ran to kiss him, and began to make such joyof him as none could overgo. But Lancelot said, "Ah, Sir! for God'ssake, make no joy or feast for me. Certainly you should make none, forif you knew the evil I have done you, you would hate me above all men inthe world. " "Oh! Lancelot, " said he, "tell it me not, for Iunderstand[57] too well what you would say; but I will know[57] nothingof it, because it might be such a thing" as would part them for ever. 

FOOTNOTES:

[14] The subdivision of the _gestes_ does not matter: they were allconnected closely or loosely--except the Crusading section, and eventhat falls under the Christian _v. _ Saracen grouping if not under theCarlovingian. The real "outside" members are few, late, and in almostevery case unimportant. 

[15] There are comic _episodes_ elsewhere; but almost the whole of thispoem turns on the _gabz_ or burlesque boasts of the paladins. --It may bewise here to anticipate an objection which may be taken to these remarkson the _chansons_. I have been asked whether I know M. Bédier's handlingof them; and, by an odd coincidence, within a few hours of the questionI saw an American statement that this excellent scholar's researches"have revised our conceptions" of the matter. No one can exceed me inrespect for perhaps the foremost of recent scholars in Old French. Butmy "conception" of the _chansons_ was formed long before he wrote, notfrom that of any of his predecessors, but from the _chansons_themselves. It is therefore not subject to "revisal" except from my ownre-reading, and such re-reading has only confirmed it. 

[16] It is not of course intended to be preferred to the far more widelyknown tale in which the heroine bears the same name, and which will bementioned below. But if it is less beautiful such beauty as it has isfree from the slightest _morbidezza_. 

[17] And to this introduction our dealings with it here may be confined. The accounts of the siege itself are of much less interest, especiallyin connection with our special subject. 

[18] A sort of companion handbook to the first part of this volume willbe found in the present writer's sketch of twelfth and thirteenthcentury European literature, under the title of _The Flourishing ofRomance and the Rise of Allegory_, in Messrs. Blackwood's _Periods ofEuropean Literature_ (Edinburgh and London, 1897), and another in his_Short History of French Literature_ (Oxford, 7th ed. At press). 

[19] It is scarcely rash to say that Cressid is the first representativeof this dread and delightful entity, and the ancestress of all itsembodiments since in fiction, as Cleopatra seems to have been inhistory. No doubt "it" was of the beginning, but it lacked its _vates_. Helen was different. 

[20] _Faerie Queene_, v. Iv. 1-20. 

[21] I hope I may be allowed to emphasise the disclaimer, which I havealready made more than once elsewhere, of the very slightest disrespectto this admirable scholar. The presumption and folly of such disrespectwould be only inferior to its ingratitude, for the indulgence with whichM. Paris consistently treated my own somewhat rash adventures in OldFrench was extraordinary. But as one's word is one's word so one'sopinion is one's opinion. 

[22] Sometimes _de_, but _à_ seems more analogical. 

[23] Chrestien was rather like Chaucer in being apt not to finish. Eventhe _Charette_ owes its completion (in an extent not exactlydeterminable) to a certain Godfrey de Lagny (Laigny, etc. ). 

[24] Of course it is easy enough to assign explanations of it, from thevehicle of criminals to the scaffold downwards; but it remains aconvention--very much of the same kind as that which ordains (or used toordain) that a gentleman may not carry a parcel done up in newspaper, though no other form of wrapping really stains his honour. 

[25] Neither he nor Malory gives one of the most gracious parts ofit--the interview between Lancelot and King Bagdemagus, _v. Inf. _ p. 54. 

[26] Material (chamois skin)? or garment? Not common in O. F. , I think, for _camisia_; but Spenser (_Faerie Queene_, II. Iii. Xxvi. ) has (asProf. Gregory Smith reminds me) "a silken _camus_ lilly whight. "

[27] As does Pyramus's--or Bottom's--objection to the wall. 

[28] This part of the matter has received too little attention in modernstudies of the subject: partly because it was clumsily handled by someof the probably innumerable and certainly undiscoverable meddlers withthe Vulgate. The unpopularity of Lancelot and his kin is not due merelyto his invincibility and their not always discreet partisanship. Theolder "Queen's knights" must have naturally felt her devotion to him;his "undependableness"--in consequence not merely of his fits of madnessbut of his chivalrously permissible but very inconvenient habit ofdisguising himself and taking the other side--must have annoyed thewhole Table. Yet these very things, properly managed, help to create andcomplicate the "novel" character. For one of the most commonly and notthe least justly charged faults of the average romance is its deficiencyin combined plot and character-interest--the presence in it, at most, ofa not too well-jointed series of episodes, possibly leading to a deathor a marriage, but of little more than chronicle type. This fault hasbeen exaggerated, but it exists. Now it will be one main purpose of thepages which follow to show that there is, in the completed Arthuriad, something quite different from and far beyond this--something perhapsimperfectly realised by any one writer, and overlaid and disarranged bythe interpolations or misinterpretations of others, but still a "mind"at work that keeps the "mass" alive, and may, or rather surely will, quicken it yet further and into higher forms hereafter. (Those who knowwill not, I hope, be insulted if I mention for the benefit of those whodo not, that the term "Vulgate" is applied to those forms of the partsof the story which, with slighter or more important variations, arecommon to many MSS. The term itself is most specially applied to the_Lancelot_ which, in consequence of this popularity throughout the laterMiddle Ages, actually got itself printed early in the FrenchRenaissance. The whole has been (or is being) at last most fortunatelyreprinted by Dr. Sommer. See Bibliography. )

[29] This is another point which, not, I suppose, having been clearlyand completely evolved by the first handler, got messed and muddled bysuccessive copyists and continuators. In what seems to be the oldest, and is certainly the most consistent and satisfactory, story there ispractically nothing evil about Viviane--Nimiane--Nimue, who is alsoindisputably identical with the foster-mother of Lancelot, theoccasional Egeria (always for good) of Arthur himself, and thebenefactress (this is probably a later addition though in the right key)of Sir Pelleas. For anybody who possesses the Power of the Sieve sheremains as Milton saw her, and not as Tennyson mis-saw part of her. Thebewitching of Merlin (who, let it be remembered, was an ambiguous personin several ways, and whose magic, if never exactly black, was sometimesa rather greyish or magpied white) was not an unmixed loss to the world;she seems to have really loved him, and to have faithfully kept her wordby being with him often. He "could not get out" certainly, but are theremany more desirable things in the outside world than lying with yourhead in the lap of the Lady of the Lake while she caresses and talks toyou? "J'en connais des plus malheureux" as the French poet observed ofsome one in less delectable case. The author of the _Suite de Merlin_seems to have been her first maligner. Tennyson, seduced by contrast, followed and exaggerated the worst view. But I am not sure that the most"irreligious" thing (as Coleridge would have said) was not thetransformation of her into a mere married lady (with a château inBrittany, and an ordinary knight for her husband) which astounds us inone of the dullest parts of the Vulgate about Lancelot--the wars withClaudas. 

[30] I have always thought that Spenser (whose dealings with Arthurianaare very curious, and have never, I think, been fully studied) took thisfunction of Lancelot to suggest the presentation of his Arthur. ButLancelot has no--at least no continuous--fairy aid; he is not invariablyvictorious, and he is thoroughly human. Spenser's Prince began the"blamelessness" which grew more trying still in Tennyson's King. (In thefew remarks of this kind made here I am not, I need hardly say, "goingback upon" my lifelong estimate of Tennyson as an almost impeccablepoet. But an impeccable poet is not necessarily an impeccable plot- andcharacter-monger either in tale-telling or in drama. )

[31] Of this we have unusually strong evidence in the shape of MS. Interlineations, where the name "Percevale" is actually struck out andthat of "Gala[h]ad" substituted above it. 

[32] I do not say that this is their _only_ character. 

[33] Brittany had much earlier and much more tradition of chivalry thanWales. 

[34] The only fault alleged against Lancelot's person by carpers wasthat he was something "pigeon"--or "guardsman"--chested. But Guinevereshowed her love and her wit, and her "valiancy" (for so at least on thisoccasion we may translate _vaillant_) by retorting that such a chest wasonly big enough--and hardly big enough--for such a heart. 

[35] Some of the later "redactors" of the Vulgate may perhaps haveunduly multiplied his madnesses, and have exaggerated his early shynessa little. But I am not sure of the latter point. It is not only "beasts"that, as in the great Theocritean place, "go timidly because they fearCythera"; and a love charged with such dread consequences was not to belightly embarked upon. 

[36] The early _Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere_, though only external, is perfect. Many touches in the _Idylls_ other than the title-one aresuitable and even subtle; but the convertite in that one is (as they saynow) "unconvincing. " The simpler attitude of the rejection of Lancelotin the verse _Morte_ and in Malory is infinitely better. As for Morris'stwo pieces, they could hardly be better in themselves as poems--but theyare scarcely great on the novel side. 

[37] Disagreeable, that is to say, as a sister and sister-in-law. Theremust have been something attractive about her in other relations. 

[38] Compare one of the not so very many real examples of Ibsen'svaunted psychology, the placid indifference to her own past of Gina inthe _Wild Duck_. 

[39] He had said that if he were a woman he would give Lancelot anythinghe asked; and the Queen, following, observes that Gawain had leftnothing for a woman to say. 

[40] _Nos passions ont quelque chose d'infini_, says Bossuet. 

[41] [Greek: helandros, heleptolis]. She had no opportunity of being[Greek: helenaus]. 

[42] Hawker's security as to Cornish men and things is, I admit, alittle Bardolphian. But did he not write about the Quest? (This sort ofargument simply swarms in Arthurian controversy; so I may surely use itonce. ) Besides there is no doubt about the blueness of the sea inquestion; though Anthony Trollope, in _Malachi's Cove_, has most falselyand incomprehensibly denied it. 

[43] That this is a real sign of decadence and unoriginality, thefurther exaggeration of it in the case of the knights of the _Amadis_cycle proves almost to demonstration. 

[44] After the opening sentence I have dropped the historic present, which, for a continuance, is very irritating in English. 

[45] Lancelot himself has told us earlier (_op. Cit. _ i. 38) that, though he neither knew nor thought himself to be a king's son, he wascommonly addressed as such. 

[46] Lionel (very young at the time) had wept because some one mentionedthe loss of his inheritance, and Lancelot (young as he too was) hadbidden him not cry for fear of landlessness. "There would be plenty forhim, if he had heart to gain it. "

[47] This technical title is usually if not invariably given to Ywainand Gawain as eldest sons of recognised kings. "Prince" is not used inthis sense by the older Romancers, but only for distinguished knightslike Galahault, who is really a king. 

[48] There is one admirable word here, _enbarnis_, which has so longbeen lost to French that it is not even in Littré. But Dryden's"_burnish_ into man" probably preserves it in English; for this iscertainly not the other "burnish" from _brunir_. 

[49] "Car moult en parole diroit la parole. "

[50] Puzzled by the number of new thoughts and emotions. 

[51] Ywain suggests one of the commonest things in Romance. 

[52] Arthur had, by a set of chances, not actually girded on Lancelot'ssword. 

[53] Whose prisoner Lancelot had been, who had been ready to fall inlove with him, and to whom he had expressly refused to tell his ownlove. Hence his confusion. 

[54] The day when Lancelot, at her request, had turned against the sideof his friend Galahault and brought victory to Arthur's. 

[55] By the way, the Vulgate Mordred is a more subtle conception thanthe early stories gave, or than Malory transfers. He is no mere traitoror felon knight, much less a coward, from the first; but at that firstshows a mixture of good and bad qualities in which the "dram of eale"does its usual office. Here once more is a subject made to the hand of anovelist of the first class. 

[56] Some poet or pundit, whether of East or West, or of what place, from Santiago to Samarcand, I know not, has laid it down, that men canlove many, but without ceasing to love any; that women love only one atonce, but can (to borrow, at fifty years' memory, a phrase of GeorgeLawrence's in _Sans Merci_) "drop their lovers down _oubliettes_" withcomparative ease. 

[57] It is excusable to use two words for the single verb _savoir_ tobring out the meaning. King Bagdemagus does not "know" as a fact thatLancelot has slain his son, though he fears it and feels almost sure ofit. 

CHAPTER III

ROMANS D'AVENTURES

[Sidenote: Variety of the present groups. ]

On the whole, however, the most important influence in the developmentof the novel originally--that of the _nouvelle_ or _novella_ in French, and Italian taking the second place in order of time--must be assignedto the very numerous and very delightful body of compositions (not verylong as a rule, [58] but also never exactly short) to which the name_Romans d'aventures_ has been given with a limited connotation. Theyexist in all languages; our own English Romances, though sometimesderived from the _chansons_ and the Arthurian Legend, are practicallyall of this class, and in every case but one it is true that they haveactual French originals. These _Romans d'aventures_ have a habit, notuniversal but prevailing, of "keying themselves on" to the Arthurianstory itself; but they rarely, if ever, have much to do with theprincipal parts of it. It is as if their public wanted the connection asa sort of guarantee; but a considerable proportion keep independence. They are so numerous, so various, and with rare exceptions sointeresting, that it is difficult to know which to select for elaborateanalysis and translated selection; but almost the entire _corpus_ givesus the important fact of the increased _freedom_ of fiction. Even theconnection with the Arthurian matter is, as has been said, generally ofthe loosest kind; that with the Charlemagne cycle hardly exists. TheGraal (or things connected with its legends) may appear: Gawain is afrequent hero; other, as one might call them, sociable features asregards the older stories present themselves. But as a rule the man hasgot his own story which he wants to tell; his own special hero andheroine whom he wants to present. Furthermore, the old community ofhandling, which is so noticeable in the _chansons_ more particularly, disappears almost entirely. Nothing has yet been discovered in French, though it may be any day, to serve as the origin of our _Gawain and theGreen Knight_, and some special features of this are almost certainlythe work of an Englishman. Our English _Ywain and Gawain_ is, as hasbeen said, rather better than Chrestien's original. But, as a rule, theform, which is French form in language (by no means always certainly orprobably French in nationality of author), is not only the original, butbetter; and besides, it is with it that we are busied here, though innot a few cases English readers can obtain an idea, fairly sufficient, of these originals from the English versions. As these, however, withthe exception of one or two remarkable individuals or even groups, wereseldom written by men of genius, it is best to go to the sources to seethe power and the variety of fictitious handling which have beenmentioned. 

[Sidenote: Different views held of it. ]

The richness, indeed, of these _Romans d'aventures_ is surprising, andthey very seldom display the flatness and triviality which mar by nomeans all but too many of their English imitations. Some of the faultswhich are part cause of these others they indeed have--the apparentlyirrational catalogues of birds and beasts, stuffs and vegetables; thelong moralisings; the religious passages sometimes (as it may seem tomere moderns) interposed in very odd contexts; the endless descriptionsof battles and single combats; the absence of striking characterisationand varied incident. Their interest is a peculiar interest, yet one canhardly call the taste for it "an acquired taste, " because the verylarge majority of healthy and intelligent children delight in thesestories under whatever form they are presented to them, and at least aconsiderable number of grown-up persons never lose the enjoyment. Thedisapproval which rested on "romances of chivalry" for a long time wasadmittedly ignorant and absurd; and the reasons why this disapproval, atleast in its somewhat milder form of neglect, has never been whollyremoved, are not very difficult to discover. It is to be feared that_Don Quixote_, great as it is, has done not a little mischief, and byvirtue of its greatness is likely to do not a little more, though the_Amadis_ group, which it specially satirises, has faults not found inthe older tales. The texts, though in most cases easily enoughaccessible now, are not what may be called obviously and yetunobtrusively so. They are to a very large extent issued by learnedsocieties: and the public, not too unreasonably, is rather suspicious, and not at all avid, of the products of learned societies. They areaccompanied by introductions and notes and glossaries--things thepublic (again not wholly to be blamed) regards without cordiality. Latterly they have been used for educational purposes, and anythingused for educational purposes acquires an evil--or at least anunappetising--reputation. In some cases they have been messed andmeddled in _usum vulgi_. But their worst enemy recently has been, it maybe feared, the irreconcilable opposition of their spirit to what iscalled the modern spirit--though this latter sometimes takes them up andplays with them in a fashion of maudlin mysticism. 

[Sidenote: _Partenopeus of Blois_ selected for analysis andtranslation. ]

To treat them at large here as Ellis treated some of the Englishimitations would be impossible in point of scale and dangerous as acompetition; for Ellis, though a little too prone to Voltairianise or atleast Hamiltonise things sometimes too good for that kind of treatment, was a very clever man indeed. For somewhat full abstract and translationwe may take one of the most famous, but perhaps not one of the mostgenerally and thoroughly known, _Partenopeus_ (or -_pex_[59]) _ofBlois_, which, though it exists in English, and though the French wasvery probably written by an Englishman, is not now one of the mostwidely read and is in parts very charming. That it is one of theromances on which, from the fact of the resemblance of its centralincident to the story of Cupid and Psyche, the good defenders of the badtheory of the classical origin of romance generally have based one oftheir few plausible arguments, need not occupy us. For the question isnot whether Denis Pyramus or any one else (modernity would not bemodernity if his claims were not challenged) told it, but _how_ he toldit. Still less need we treat the other question before indicated. Hereis one of the central stories of the world--one of those which Eve toldto her children in virtue of the knowledge communicated by the apple, one with which the sons of God courted the daughters of men, or, atlatest, one of those which were yarned in the Ark. It is the story ofthe unwise lover--in this case the man, not as in Psyche's thewoman--who will not be content to enjoy an unseen, but by every othersense enjoyable and adorable love, even though (in this case) the singledeprivation is expressly to be terminated. We have it, of course, in allsorts of forms, languages, and differing conditions. But we are onlyconcerned with it here as with a gracious example of that kind ofromance which, though not exactly a "fairy tale" in the Western sense, is pretty obviously influenced by the Eastern fairy tale itself, andstill more obviously influences the modern kind in which "thesupernatural" is definitely prominent. 

It was perhaps excusable in the good M. Robert, who wrote theIntroduction to Crapelet's edition of this poem eighty years ago, to"protest too much" in favour of the author whom he was now presentingpractically for the first time--to a changed audience; but it wasunnecessary and a little unfortunate. Except in one point or group ofpoints, it is vain to try to put _Partenopeus_ above _Cupid andPsyche_: but it can perfectly well stand by itself in its own place, andthat no low one. Except in _Floire et Blanchefleur_ and of course in_Aucassin et Nicolette_, the peculiar grace and delicacy of romance arenowhere so well shown; and _Partenopeus_, besides the advantage oflength, has that of personages interesting, besides the absolute heroand heroine. The Count of Blois himself is, no doubt, despite hisbeauty, and his bravery, and his good nature, rather of a feeble folk. Psyche has the excuse of her sex, besides the evil counsel of hersisters, for her curiosity. But Partenopeus has not the former; nor hashe even that weaker but still not quite invalid one which lost Agib, theson of Cassib, his many-Houried Paradise on Earth. He is supposed to bea Frenchman--the somewhat excessive fashion in which Frenchmen makeobedience to the second clause[60] of the Fifth Commandment atone forsome neglect of other parts of the decalogue is well known, or at leasttraditionally believed. But most certainly a man is not justified inobeying his mother to the extent of disobeying--and that in theshabbiest of ways--his lady and mistress, who is, in fact, according tomediaeval ideas, virtually, if not virtuously, his wife. But Meliorherself, the heroine, is an absolutely delightful person from her firstappearance (or rather _non_-appearance) as a sweet dream come true, toher last in the more orthodox and public spousals. The grace of herDian-like surrender of herself to her love; the constancy with which sheholds to the betrothal theory of the time; the unselfishness with whichshe not only permits but actually advises the lover, whom she would sofain, but cannot yet, make her acknowledged husband, to leave her; herfrank forgiveness of his only-just-in-time repented and prevented, butintended, infidelity; her sorrow at and after the separation enforced byhis breach of pact; her interviews with her sister, naturally chequeredby conflicting feelings of love and pride and the rest--are allcharming. But she is not the only charming figure. 

The "second heroine, " a sister or cousin who plays a sort of superiorconfidante's part, is by no means uncommon in Romance. Alexandrine, forinstance, who plays this in _William of Palerne_, is a very nice girl. But Urraque or Urraca, [61] the sister of Melior--whether full andlegitimate, or "half" illegitimate, versions differ--is much moreelaborately dealt with, and is, in fact, the chief _character_ of thepiece, and a character rather unusually strong for Romance. She playsthe part of reconciler after Partenopeus' fatal folly has estranged himfrom her sister, and plays it at great length, but with much less tediumthan might be expected. But the author is an "incurable feminist, " assome one else was once described with a mixture of pity and admiration:and he is not contented with two heroines. There is a third, Persewis, maid of honour to Urraque, and also a fervent admirer of theincomparable Partenopeus, on whose actual beauty great stress islaid, and who in romance, other than his own, is quoted as a modernparagon thereof, worthy to rank with ancient patterns, sacred andprofane. Persewis, however, is very young--a "flapper" or a"[bread-and-]buttercup, " as successive generations have irreverentlycalled the immature but agreeable creature. The poet lays much emphasison this youth. She did not "kiss and embrace, " he says, just because shewas too young, and not because of any foolish prudery or propriety, things which he does not hesitate to pronounce appropriate only to uglygirls. His own attitude to "the fair" is unflinchingly put in one of themost notable and best known passages of the poem (l. 7095 _sq. _):

 When God made all creation, and devised their forms for his creatures, He distributed beauties and good qualities to each in proportion as He loved it. He loved ladies above all things, and therefore made for them the best qualities and beauties. Of mere earth made He everything [else] under Heaven: but the hearts of ladies He made of honey, and gave to them more courtesy than to any other living creature. And as God loves them, therefore I love them: hunger and thirst are nothing to me as regards them: and I cry "Quits" to Him for His Paradise if the bright faces of ladies enter not therein. 

It will be observed, of course, how like this is to the most famouspassage of _Aucassin et Nicolette_. It is less dreamily beautiful, butthere is a certain spirit and downrightness about it which is agreeable;nor do I know anywhere a more forcible statement of the doctrine, oftenheld by no bad people, that beauty is a personal testimonial of theDivinity--a scarcely parabolic command to love and admire itspossessors. [62]

If, however, our poet has something of that Romantic morality to whichAscham--in a conjoined fit[63] of pedantry, prudery, andProtestantism--gave such an ugly name, he may excuse it to lessstrait-laced judges by other traits. Even the "retainer" of an editorought not to have induced M. Robert to say that Melior's originalsurrender was "against her will, " though she certainly did make aprotest of a kind. [64] But the enchanted and enchanting Empress'sconstancy is inviolable. Even after she has been obliged to banish herfoolish lover, or rather after he has banished himself, she avowsherself his only. She will die, she says, before she takes another lord;and for this reason objects for some time to the proposed tourney forher hand, in which the already proven invincibility of the Count ofBlois makes him almost a certain victor, because it involves aconditional consent to admit another mate. To her scrupulousness, a kindof blunt common-sense, tempering the amiability of Urraca, is a pleasantset-off, and the freshness of Persewis completes the effect. 

Moreover, there are little bits of almost Chaucerian vividness andterseness here and there, contrasting oddly with the _chevilles_--thestock phrases and epithets--elsewhere. When the tourney actually comesoff and Partenopeus is supposed to be prisoner of a felon knight afaroff, the two sisters and Persewis take their places at the entrance ofthe tower crossing the bridge at Melior's capital, "Chef d'Oire. "[65]Melior is labelled only "whom all the world loves and prizes, " butUrraca and her damsel "have their faces pale and discoloured--for theyhave lost much of their beauty--so sorely have they wept Partenopeus. "On the contrary, when, at the close of the first day's tourney, theusual "unknown knights" (in this case the Count of Blois himself and hisfriend Gaudins) ride off triumphant, they "go joyfully to their hostelwith lifted lances, helmets on head, hauberks on back, and shields heldproudly as if to begin jousting. "

 Bel i vinrent et bel s'en vont, says King Corsols, one of the judges of the tourney, but not in theleast aware of their identity. This may occur elsewhere, but it is by nomeans one of the commonplaces of Romance, and a well hit-off picture ismotived by a sharply cut phrase. [66]

It is this sudden enlivening of the commonplaces of Romance with vividpicture and phrase which puts _Partenopeus_ high among its fellows. Thestory is very simple, and the variation and multiplication of episodicadventure unusually scanty; while the too common genealogical preface israther exceptionally superfluous. That the Count of Blois is the nephewof Clovis can interest--outside of a peculiar class of antiquariancommentator--no mortal; and the identification of "Chef-d'Oire, "Melior's enchanted capital, with Constantinople, though likely enough, is not much more important. Clovis and Byzantium (of which theenchantress is Empress) were well-known names and suited the _abonné_ ofthose times. The actual "argument" is of the slightest. One of Spenser'scurious doggerel common measures--say:

 A fairy queen grants bliss and troth On terms, unto the knight: His mother makes him break his oath, Her sister puts it right--

would almost do; the following prose abstract is practically exhaustive. 

Partenopeus, Count of Blois, nephew of King Clovis of France, anddescendant of famous heroes of antiquity, including Hector, the mostbeautiful and one of the most valiant of men, after displaying hisprowess in a war with the Saracen Sornagur, loses his way while huntingin the Ardennes. He at last comes to the seashore, and finds a shipwhich in fifteen days takes him to a strange country, where all isbeautiful but entirely solitary. He finds a magnificent palace, where heis splendidly guested by unseen hands, and at last conducted to agorgeous bedchamber. In the dark he, not unnaturally, lies awakespeculating on the marvel; and after a time light footsteps approach thebed, and a form, invisible but tangible, lies down beside him. Hetouches it, and finds it warm and soft and smooth, and though itprotests a little, the natural consequences follow. Then the ladyconfesses that she had heard of him, had (incognita) seen him at theCourt of France, and had, being a white witch as well as an Empress, brought him to "Chef d'Oire, " her capital, though she denies havingintentionally or knowingly arranged the shepherd's hour itself. [67] Sheis, however, as frank as Juliet and Miranda combined. She will be hiswife (she makes a most interesting and accurate profession of Christianorthodoxy) if he will marry her; but it is impossible for the remainderof a period of which two and a half years have still to run, and at theend of which, and not till then, she has promised her vassals to choosea husband. Meanwhile, Partenopeus must submit to an ordeal not quite sopainful as hot ploughshares. He must never see her or attempt to seeher, and he must not, during his stay at Chef d'Oire, see or speak toany other human being. At the same time, hunting, exploring the palaceand the city and the country, and all other pastimes independent ofvisible human companionship, are freely at his disposal by day. 

 Et moi aurès cascune nuit

says Melior, with the exquisite simplicity which is the charm of thewhole piece. 

One must be very inquisitive, exceedingly virtuous (the mediaeval valueof consummated betrothal being reckoned), superfluously fond of thecompany of one's miscellaneous fellow-creatures, and a person of verybad taste[68] to boot, in order to decline the bargain. Partenopeus doesnot dream of doing so, and for a whole year thinks of nothing but hisfairy love and her bounties to him. Then he remembers his uncle-king andhis country, and asks leave to visit them, but not with the faintestintention of running away. Melior gives it with the same frankness andkindness with which she has given herself--informing him, in fact, thathe _ought_ to go, for his uncle is dead and his country in danger. Only, she reminds him of his pledges, and warns him of the misfortunes whichawait his breach of them. He is then magically wafted back on ship-boardas he came. 

He has, once more, no intention of playing the truant or traitor, anddoes his duty bravely and successfully. But the new King has a niece andthe Count himself has a mother, who, motherlike, is convinced that herson's mysterious love is a very bad person, if not an actual _maufès_ ordevil, and is very anxious that he shall marry the niece. She hasclerical and chemical resources to help her, and Partenopeus hasactually consented, in a fit of aberration, when, with one of the oddWemmick-like flashes of reflection, [69] not uncommon with knights, heremembers Melior, and unceremoniously makes off to her. He confesses(for he is a good creature though foolish) and is forgiven, Meliorbeing, though not in the least insipid or of a put-up-with-anythingdisposition, full of "loving _mercy_" in every sense. But the situationis bound to recur, and now, though the time of probation (probation verymuch tempered!) is nearly over, the mother wins her way. Partenopeus isdeluded into accepting an enchanted lantern, which he tries on hisunsuspecting mistress at the first possible moment. What he sees, ofcourse, is only a very lovely woman--a woman in the condition bestfitted to show her loveliness--whom he has offended irreparably, andlost. 

Melior is no scold, but she is also no milksop. She will have nothingmore to do with him, for he has shamed her with her people (who nowappear), broken her magic power, and, above all, been false to her wishand his word. The entreaties of her sister Urraca (whose gracious figureis now elaborately introduced) are for the time useless, and Partenopeusis only saved from the vengeance of the courtiers and the household byUrraca's protection. [70]

To halt for a moment, the scene of the treason and discovery is anotherof those singular vividnesses which distinguish this poem and story. Thelong darkness suddenly flashing into light, and the startled Melior'sbeauty framed in the splendour of the couch and the bedchamber--theoffender at once realising his folly and his crime, and dashing theinstrument of his treachery (useless, for all is daylight now, the charmbeing counter-charmed) against the wall--the half-frightened, half-curious Court ladies and Court servants thronging in--theapparition of Urraca, --all this gives a picture of extraordinarilydramatic power. It reminds one a little of Spenser's famous portrayal ofBritomart disturbed at night, and the comparison of the two brings outall sorts of "excellent differences. "

But to return to the story itself. Although the invariablecut-and-driedness of romance incidents has been grossly exaggerated, there is one situation which is almost always treated in the same way. The knight who has, with or without his own fault, incurred thedispleasure of his mistress, "doth [_always_] to the green wood go, " andthere, whether in complete sanity or not, lives for a time a half orwholly savage life, discarding knightly and sometimes any other dress, eating very little, and in considerable danger of being eaten himself. Everybody, from Lancelot to Amadis, does it; and Partenopeus does ittoo, but in his own way. Reaching Blois and utterly rejecting hismother's attempts to excuse herself and console him, he drags out amiserable time in continual penance and self-neglect, till at last, availing himself of (and rather shabbily if piously tricking) a Saracenpage, [71] he succeeds in getting off incognito to the vague "Ardennes, "where his sadly ended adventure had begun. These particular Ardennesappear to be reachable by sea (on which they have a coast), and tocontain not only ordinary beasts of chase, not only wolves and bears, but lions, tigers, wyverns, dragons, etc. A single unarmed man haspractically no chance there, and the Count determines to condemn himselfto the fate of the Roman arena. As a preliminary, he dismounts and turnsloose his horse, who is presently attacked by a lion and wounded, butluckily gets a fair blow with his hoof between his enemy's eyes, andkills him. Then comes another of the flashes (and something more) of thepiece. Stung by the pain of his wound and dripping with blood, theanimal dashes at full speed, and whinnying at the top of his powers, tothe seashore and along it. The passage is worth translating:

 He [_the horse after he has killed the lion_] lifts his tail, and takes to flight down a valley towards nightfall. Much he looks about him and much he whinnies. By night-time he has got out of the wood and has fled to the sea: but he will not stop there. He makes the pebbles fly as he gallops and never stops whinnying. Now the moon has mounted high in the heavens, all clear and bright and shining: there is not a dark cloud in all the sky, nor any movement on the sea: sweet and serene is the weather, and fair and clear and lightened up. And the palfrey whinnies so loudly that he can be heard far off at sea. 

He _is_ heard at sea, for a ship is waiting there in the calm, and onboard that ship is Urraca, with a wise captain named Maruc and a stoutcrew. The singularity of the event induces them to land (Maruc knows thedangers of the region, but Urraca has no fears; the captain also knowshow to enchant the beasts), and the horse's bloodmarks guide them up thevalley. At last they come upon a miserable creature, in rags, dishevelled, half-starved, and altogether unrecognisable. After a littletime, however, Urraca does recognise him, and, despite his forlorn andrepulsive condition, takes him in her arms. 

 Si le descouvre un poi le vis. 

Yet another of the uncommon "flashlight" sketches, where in two shortlines one sees the damsel as she has been described not so long before, "tall and graceful, her fair hair (which, untressed, reached her feet[now, no doubt, more suitably arranged]), with forehead broad and high, and smooth; grey eyes, large and _seignorous_" (an admirable word foreyes), "all her face one kiss"; one sees her with one arm round thetottering wretch, and with the "long fingers" of her other white handclearing the matted hair from his visage till she can recognise him. 

They take him on board, of course, though to induce him to go thisdelightful creature has to give an account of her sister's feelings(which, to put it mildly, anticipates the truth very considerably), andalso to cry over him a little. [72] She takes him to Saleuces, [73] anisland principality of her own, and there she and her maid-of-honour, Persewis (see above), proceed to cocker and cosset him up exactly as oneimagines two such girls would do to "a dear, silly, nice, handsomething, " as a favourite modern actress used to bring down the house bysaying, with a sort of shake, half of tears and half of laughter, in hervoice. Indeed the phrase fits Partenopeus precisely. We are told thatUrraca would have been formally in love with him if it had not beenunsportsgirl-like towards her sister; and as for Persewis, there is oncemore a windfall in the description of the "butter-cup's" delight whenUrraca, going to see Melior, has to leave her alone with the Count. ThePrincess is of course very sorry to go. "But Persewis would not haveminded if she had stayed forty days, or till August, " and she "gloriesgreatly" when her rival departs. No mischief, however, comes of it; forthe child is "too young, " as we are earnestly assured, and Partenopeus, to do him justice, is both too much of a gentleman, and too dolefully inearnest about recovering Melior, to dream of any. 

Meanwhile, Urraca is most unselfishly doing her very best to reconcilethe lovers, not neglecting the employment of white fibs as before, andoccasionally indulging, not merely in satiric observation on poorMelior's irresolution and conflict of feeling, but in decidedly sisterlyplainness of speech, reminding the Empress that after all she hadentrapped Partenopeus into loving her, and that he had, for two wholeyears, devoted himself entirely to her love and its conditions. At lasta rather complicated and not always quite consistently told provisionalsettlement is arrived at, carrying out, in a manner, the undertakingsreferred to by Melior in her first interview with her lover. An immensetourney for the hand of Melior is to be held, with a jury of kings tojudge it: and everybody, Christian or pagan, from emperor to vavasour isinvited to compete. But in case of no single victor, a kind of"election" by what may be called the States of Byzantium--kings, dukes, counts, and simple fief-holders--is to decide, and it seems sometimesas if Melior retained something of a personal veto at last. Of theincidents and episodes before this actually comes off, the mostnoteworthy are a curious instance of the punctilio of chivalry (theCount having once promised Melior that no one but herself shall gird onhis sword, makes a difficulty when Urraca and Persewis arm him), and amisfortune by which he, rowing carelessly by himself, falls into thepower of a felon knight, Armans of Thenodon. This last incident, however, though it alarms his two benefactresses, is not really unlucky. For, in the first place, Armans is not at home, and his wife, falling avictim, like every woman, to Partenopeus' extraordinary beauty, allowshim his parole; while the accident enables him to appear at thetournament incognito--a practice always affected, if possible, by theknights of romance, and in this case possessing some obvious and specialadvantages. 

On his way he meets another knight, Gaudin le Blond, with whom he gladlystrikes up brotherhood-in-arms. The three days of the mellay are not_very_ different from the innumerable similar scenes elsewhere, nor canthe author be said to be specially happy at this kind of business. Butany possible tedium is fairly relieved by the shrewd and sometimesjovial remarks made by one of the judging kings, the before-quotedCorsols--met by grumbles from another, Clarin, and by the fears andinterest of the three ladies, of whom the ever-faithful and shrewdUrraca is the first to discover Partenopeus. He and Gaudin perform theusual exploits and suffer the usual inconveniences, but at the end it isstill undecided whether the Count of Blois or the Soldan of Persia--agood knight, though a pagan, and something of a braggart--deserves thepriceless prize of Melior's hand with the empire of Byzantium to boot. The "election" follows, and after some doubt goes right, while Meliornow offers no objection. But the Soldan, in his _outrecuidance_, demandssingle combat. He has, of course, no right to do this, and the Counciland the Empress object strongly. But Partenopeus will have no stain onhis honour; consents to the fight; deliberately refuses to takeadvantage of the Soldan when he is unhorsed and pinned down by theanimal; assists him to get free; and only after an outrageous menacefrom the Persian justifies his own claim to belong to the class ofchampions

 Who _always_ cleave their foe To the waist

--indeed excels them, by entirely bisecting the Soldan. 

An episodic restoration of parole to the widow of Armans (who hasactually taken part in the tourney and been killed) should be noticed, and the piece ends, or rather comes close to an end, with the marriageswhich appropriately follow these well-deserved murders. Marriages--not amarriage only--for King "Lohier" of France most sensibly insists onespousing the delightful Urraca: and Persewis is consoled for the lossof Partenopeus by the suit--refused at first and then granted, with theobviously intense enjoyment of both processes likely in a novice--of hisbrother-in-arms, to whom the "Emperor of Byzantium" abandons his own twocounties in France, adding a third in his new empire, and winning bythis generosity almost more popularity than by his prowess. 

But, as was hinted, the story does not actually end. There is a greatdeal about the festivities, and though the author says encouraginglythat he "will not devise much of breeches, " he _does_--and of many othergarments. Indeed the last of his liveliest patches is a mischievouspicture of the Court ladies at their toilette: "Let me see that mirror;make my head-dress higher; let me show my mouth more; drop the pleatover the eyes;[74] alter my eyebrows, " etc. Etc. But beyond the washingof hands before the feast, this French book that Crapelet printedfourscore years ago goeth not. Perhaps it was a mere accident; perhapsthe writer had a shrewd notion that whatever he wrote would seem butstale in its reminder of the night when Partenopeus lay awake, andseemingly alone, in the enchanted palace--now merely an ordinary placeof splendour and festivity--and when something came to the bed, "step bystep, little by little, " and laid itself beside him. 

Such are the contents and such some of the special traits and featuresof one of the most famous of those romances of chivalry, the reading ofwhich with anything like the same interest as that taken in Homer, seemed to the Reverend Professor Hugh Blair to be the most suitableinstance he could hit upon of a total lack of taste. This is a point, ofcourse, on which each age, and each reader in each age, must judge foritself and himself. I think the author of the _Odyssey_ (the _Iliad_comes rather in competition with the chansons than with these romances)was a better poet than the author of _Partenopeus_, and I also thinkthat he was a better story-teller; but I do not think that the latterwas a bad story-teller; and I can read him with plenty of interest. So Ican most of his fellows, no one of whom, I think, ever quite approachesthe insipidity of their worst English imitators. The knights do notweary me with their exploits, and I confess that I am hyperbolicalenough to like reading and thinking as well as talking of the ladiesvery much. They are of various sorts; but they are generally lovable. There is no better for affection and faithfulness and pluck than theJosiane of _Bevis_, whose husband and her at one time faithful guardian, but at another would-be ravisher, Ascapart, guard a certain gate notmore than a furlong or two from where I am writing. It is good to thinkof the (to some extent justified) indignation of l'Orgueilleuse d'Amourswhen Sir Blancandin rides up and audaciously kisses her in the midst ofher train; and the companion picture of the tomb where Idoine apparentlysleeps in death (while her true knight Amadas fights with a ghostly foeabove) makes a fitting pendant. If her near namesake with an L prefixed, the Lidoine of _Méraugis de Portlesguez_, interests me less, it isbecause its author, Raoul de Houdenc, was one of the first to mix loveand moral allegory--a "wanity" which is not my favourite "wanity. " Tothe Alexandrine of _Guillaume de Palerne_ reference has already beenmade. Blanchefleur--known all over Europe with her lover Floire (Floris, etc. )--the Saracen slave who charms a Christian prince, and is rescuedby him from the Emir of Babylon, to whom she has been sold in hopes ofweaning Floris from his attachment, more than deserved her vogue. But, as in the case of the _chansons_, mere cataloguing would be dull andunprofitable, and analysis on the scale accorded to _Partenopeus_impossible. One must only take up once more the note of this whole earlypart of our history, and impress again on the reader the evident_desire_ for the accomplished novel which these numerous romances show;the inevitable _practice_, in tale-telling of a kind, which theproduction of them might have given; and, above all, the openings, germs, suggestions of new devices in fiction which are observable inthem, and which remained for others to develop if the first finders leftthem unimproved. 

FOOTNOTES:

[58] That is, of nothing like the length of the latest forms of the_Chansons de Geste_ or the Arthurian Romances proper. Some of the latefourteenth- and fifteenth-century Adventure stories, before they droppedinto prose, are indeed long enough, and a great deal too long; but theyshow degeneracy. 

[59] The _h_ (Part_h_-) does occur in both forms, and there are othervariation, as "Part_o_nopeus, " etc. But these are trifles. 

[60] Taking honour to the mother as separate from that to the father. 

[61] The Spanish-English form is perhaps the prettier. I am sorry to saythat the poet, to get a rhyme, sometimes spells it "Urra_cle_, " which is_not_ pretty. Southey's "Queen _O_rraca" seems to me to have changed hervowel to disadvantage. 

[62] The original author of the _Court of Love_, whether Chaucer oranother, pretty certainly knew it; and Spenser spiritualised thedoctrine itself in the _Four Hymns_. 

[63] I think the medical people (borrowing, as Science so often does, the language which she would fain banish from human knowledge) call thissort of thing _a syndrome_. 

[64] See below on Urraca's plain speaking. 

[65] Not too commentatorially identified with Constantinople. 

[66] It may be worth noting that in this context appears the originalform of an English word quite common recently, but almost unknown a veryshort time ago--"grouse" in the sense of "complain, " "grumble": "Ce distCorsols et nul n'en _grouce_. "

[67] No one will be rude enough to disbelieve her, and, as will be seen, her supernatural powers had limits; but it was odd, though fortunate, that they should have broken down exactly at this important juncture. Who made those rebellious candles take him to that chamber and couch, unknown to her?

[68] For Melior, though of invisible beauty, is represented asdelightful in every other way, as wise and witty and gracious in speechas becomes a white witch. And when her lover on one occasion thanks herfor her _sermon_, there is no satire; he only means _sermo_. 

[69] Like Guy of Warwick; still more like Mr. Jaggers's clerk, thoughthe circumstances are reversed. _He_ almost says in so many words, "Hullo! here's an engagement ring on my finger. We _can't_ have amarriage. "

[70] The author, _more suo_, intimates that the Court _ladies_ by nomeans shared these hostile feelings, and would have willingly been inMelior's place. 

[71] He induces him to turn Christian on the supposition of being hiscompanion; and then gives him the slip. The neophyte's expressions onthe occasion are not wholly edifying. 

[72] The good palfrey is found and in a state to carry his master, whois quite unable to walk. One hopes they did not leave the beast to thelions, tigers, wyverns, etc. , for he could hardly hope for such aliteral "stroke of luck" again. 

[73] The name will suggest, to those who have some wine-lore, no less avintage than Château Yquem. Nothing could be better for a person in theCount's condition as a restorative. 

[74] These two directions obviously refer to the common mediaeval"wimple" arrangement. 

CHAPTER IV

THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSE FICTION

[Sidenote: Prose novelettes of the thirteenth century. _Aucassin etNicolette_ not quite typical. ]

The title of this chapter may seem an oversight or an impertinence, considering that large parts of an earlier one have been occupied withdiscussions and translations of the prose Arthurian Romances. It was, however, expressly pointed out that the priority of these is a matter ofopinion, not of judgment; and it may be here quite frankly admitted thatone of the most serious arguments against that priority is the extremelateness of Old French Prose in any finished literary form. The excuse, however, if excuse be needed, does not turn on any such hinge as this. It was desired to treat, in the last two chapters, romance matter properof the larger kind, whether that matter took the form of prose or ofverse. Here, on the other hand, the object is to deal with the smallerbut more miscellaneous body of fictitious matter (part, no doubt, of alarger) which presents it tolerably early, and in character foretellsthe immense development of the kind which French was to see later. [75] Aportion of this body, sufficient for us, is contained in two littlevolumes of the _Bibliothèque Elzévirienne_, published rather less thansixty years ago (1856 and 1858) by MM. L. Moland and Ch. D'Héricault, the first devoted to thirteenth-, the second to fourteenth-century work. One of these, the now world-famous _Aucassin et Nicolette_, has been somuch written about and so often translated already that it cannot benecessary to say a great deal about it here. It is, moreover, of a mixedkind, a _cante-fable_ or blend of prose and verse, with a considerabletouch of the dramatic in it. Its extraordinary charm is a thing long agosettled; but it is, on the whole, more of a dramatic and lyricalromance--to recouple or releash kinds which Mr. Browning had perhapsbest never have put asunder--than of a pure prose tale. 

[Sidenote: _L'Empereur Constant_ more so. ]

Its companions in the thirteenth-century volume are four in number, andif none of them has the peculiar charm, so none has the technicaldisqualification (if that be not too strong a word) of _Aucassin etNicolette_. The first, shortest, and, save for one or two points, leastremarkable, _L'Empereur Constant_, is a very much abbreviated and inmore than one sense prosaic version of the story out of which Mr. William Morris made his delightful _The Man Born to be King_. Probablyof Greek or Greek-Eastern origin, it begins with an astrological passagein which the Emperor, childless except for a girl, becomes informed ofthe imminent birth of a man-child, who shall marry his daughter andsucceed him. He discovers the, as it seems, luckless baby; has itbrought to him, and with his own hand attempts to disembowel it, butallows himself, most improbably, [76] to be dissuaded from finishing theoperation. The benevolent knight who has prevented the completion of thecrime takes the infant to a monastery, where (after a quaint scene ofhaggling about fees with the surgeon) the victim is patched up, grows tobe a fine youth, and comes across the Emperor, to whom the abbotguilelessly, but in this case naturally enough, [77] betrays the secret. The Emperor's murderous thoughts as naturally revive, and thefrustration of them by means of the Princess's falling in love with theyouth, the changing of "the letters of Bellerophon, " and the Emperor'sresignation to the inevitable, follow the same course as in the Englishpoem. The latter part is better than the earlier; and the writer isevidently (as how should he not be?) a novice; but his work is the kindof experiment from which better things will come. 

[Sidenote: _Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane. _]

These marks of the novice are even more noticeable in a much longerstory, _Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane_, which is found not only in thesame printed volume, but in the same original MS. The fault of this iscurious, and--if not to a mere reader for pastime, to a student offiction--extremely interesting. It is one not at all unknown at thepresent day, and capable of being used as an argument in favour of thedoctrine of the Unities: that is to say, the mixture, by arbitrary andviolent process, of two stories which have nothing whatever to do witheach other, except that they are, wilfully and with no reason, buckledtogether at the end. The first, thin and uninteresting enough, is of acertain King Florus, who has a wife, dearly beloved, but barren. Aftersome years and some very unmanly shilly-shallyings, he puts her away, and marries another, with whom (one is feebly glad to find) he is nomore lucky, but who has herself the luck to die after some years. Meanwhile, King Florus being left "in a cool barge for future use, " thesecond item, a really interesting story, is, with some intervals, carried on. A Count of high rank and great possessions has an onlydaughter, whom, after experience of the valour and general worthiness ofone of his vassals of no great "having, " he bestows on this knight, Robert, the pair being really in love with each other. But anothervassal knight of greater wealth, Raoul, plots with one of the wicked oldwomen who abound in these stories, and engages Robert in a rash wager ofall his possessions, that during one of those pilgrimages to "St. James, " which come in so handy, and are generally so unreasonable, hewill dishonour the lady. He fails, but, in a manner not distantlyrelated to the Imogen-Iachimo scene, acquires what seems to be damningacquaintance with the young Countess's person-marks. Robert and Jehaneare actually married; but the felon knight immediately afterwards bringshis charge, and Robert pays his debt, and flies, a ruined man, from, ashe thinks, his faithless wife, though he takes no vengeance on her. Jehane disguises herself as a man, joins him on his journey, supportshim with her own means for a time, and enters into partnership with himin merchandise at Marseilles, he remaining ignorant of her sex andrelation to him. At last things come right: the felon knight is forcedin single combat (a long and good one) to acknowledge his lie and giveup his plunder, and the excellent but somewhat obtuse Robert recovershis wife as well. A good end if ever there was one, and not a badly toldtale in parts. But, from some utterly mistaken idea of craftsmanship, the teller must needs kill Robert for no earthly reason, except in orderthat Jehane may become the third wife of Florus and bear him children. Amore disastrous "sixth act" has seldom been imagined; for most readerswill have forgotten all about Florus, who has had neither art nor partin the main story; few can care whether the King has children or not;and still fewer can be other than disgusted at the notion of Jehane, brave, loving, and clever, being, as a widow, made a mere child-bearingmachine to an oldish and rather contemptible second husband. But, oncemore, the mistake is interesting, and is probably the first example ofthat fatal error of not knowing when to leave off, which is even worsethan the commoner one (to be found in some great artists) of "huddlingup the story. " The only thing to be said in excuse is that you could cuthis majesty Florus out of the title and tale at once without even theslightest difficulty, and with no need to mend or meddle in any otherway. 

The remaining stories of the thirteenth-century volume are curiouslycontrasted. One is a short prose version of that exquisite _chanson degeste_, _Amis et Amiles_, of which it has been said above that any onewho cannot "taste" it need never hope to understand mediaevalliterature. The full beauty of the verse story does not appear in theprose; but some does. 

[Sidenote: _Le Comtesse de Ponthieu. _]

Of the other, the so-called "Comtesse de Ponthieu" (though she is notreally this, being only the Count's daughter and the wife of a vassal), I thought rather badly when I first read it thirty or forty years ago, and till the present occasion I have never read it since. Now I thinkbetter of it, especially as a story suggestive in story-telling art. Theoriginal stumbling-block, which I still see, though I can get over orround it better now, was, I think, the character of the heroine, whoinherits not merely the tendency to play fast and loose with successivehusbands, which is observable in both _chanson_ and _roman_ heroines, but something of the very unlovely savagery which is also sometimescharacteristic of them; while the hero also is put in "unpleasant"circumstances. He is a gentleman and a good knight, and though only avassal of the Count of Ponthieu, he, as has been said, marries theCount's daughter, entirely to her and her father's satisfaction. Butthey are childless, and the inevitable "monseigneur Saint _Jakeme_" (St. James of Compostella) suggests himself for pilgrimage. Thiebault, theknight, obtains leave from his lady to go, and she, by a device notunprettily told, gets from him leave to go too. Unfortunately andunwisely they send their suite on one morning, and ride alone through aforest, where they are set upon by eight banditti. Thiebault fightsthese odds without flinching, and actually kills three, but isoverpowered by sheer numbers. They do not kill him, but bind and tosshim into a thicket, after which they take vengeance of outrage on thelady and depart, fearing the return of the meyney. Thiebault feels thathis unhappy wife is guiltless, but unluckily does not assure her ofthis, merely asking her to deliver him. So she, seeing a sword of oneof the slain robbers, picks it up, and, "full of great ire and evilwill, " cries, "I will deliver you, sir, " and, instead of cutting hisbonds, tries to run him through. But she only grazes him, and actuallycuts the thongs, so that he shakes himself free, starts up, and wreststhe sword from her with the simple words, "Lady, it is not to-day thatyou will kill me. " To which she replies, "And right sorry I amtherefor. "[78] Their followers come up; the pair are clothed and set outagain on their journey. But Thiebault, though treating his wife with thegreatest attention, leaves her at a monastery, accomplishes hispilgrimage alone, and on his return escorts her to Ponthieu as ifnothing had happened. Still--though no one knows this or indeed anythingabout her actual misfortune and intended crime--he does not live withher as his wife. After a time the Count, who is, as another story hasit, a "_h_arbitrary" Count, insists that Thiebault shall tell him someincident of his voyage, and the husband (here is the weak point of thewhole) recounts the actual adventure, though not as of himself and hislady. The Count will not stand ambiguity, and at last extorts the truth, which the lady confirms, repeating her sorrow that she had _not_ slainher husband. Now the Count is, as has been said, an arbitrary Count, andone day, his county having, as our Harold knew to his cost, a sea-coastto it, somewhat less disputable than those of Bohemia and the Ardennes, embarks, with only his daughter, son-in-law, son, and a few retainers, taking with him a nice new cask. Into this, despite the prayers of herhusband and brother, he puts the lady, and flings it overboard. She ispicked up half-suffocated by mariners, who carry her to "Aymarie" andsell her to the Sultan. She is very beautiful, and the Sultan promptlyproposes conversion and marriage. She makes no difficulty, bears him twochildren, and is apparently quite happy. But meanwhile the Count ofPonthieu begins--his son and son-in-law have never ceased--to feel thathe has exercised the paternal rights rather harshly; the Archbishop ofRheims very properly confirms his ideas on this point, and all three go_outremer_ on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They are captured by theSaracens of Aymarie, imprisoned, starved, and finally in immediatedanger of being shot to death as an amusement for the Sultan'sbodyguard. But the Sultaness has found out who they are, visits them inprison, and "reconciliations and forgivenesses of injuries" follow. 

After this, things go in an easily guessable manner. TheCountess-Sultana beguiles her easy-going lord into granting her thelives of the prisoners one after another, for which she rewards him bycarrying them off, with her son by the second marriage, to Italy, wherethe boy is baptized. "The Apostle" (as the Pope is usually called inRomance), by a rather extensive exercise of his Apostleship, giveseverybody absolution, confirms the original marriage of Thiebault andthe lady who had been so obstinately sorry that she had not killed him, and who had suffered the paynim spousals so easily; and all goesmerrily. There is a postscript which tells how the daughter of theSultan and the Countess, who is termed _La Bele Caitive_, captivates andmarries a Turk of great rank, and becomes the mother of no less a personthan the great Saladin himself--a consummation no doubt verysatisfactory to the Miss Martha Buskbodies of the mediaeval world. 

Now this story might seem to one who read it hastily, carelessly, or as"not in the vein, " to be partly extravagant, partly disagreeable, and, despite its generous allowance of incident, rather dull, especially ifcontrasted with its next neighbour in the printed volume, _Aucassin etNicolette_ itself. I am afraid there may have been some of theseuncritical conditions about my own first reading. But a little studyshows some remarkable points in it, though the original writer has notknown how to manage them. The central and most startling one--theattempt of the Countess to murder her husband--is, when you think of it, not at all unnatural. The lady is half mad with her shame; the witness, victim, and, as she thinks, probable avenger of that shame is helplessbefore her, and in his first words at any rate seems to think merely ofhimself and not of her. Whether this violent outburst of feeling was notlikely to result in as violent a revulsion of tenderness is rather apsychological probability than artistically certain. And Thiebault, though an excellent fellow, is a clumsy one. His actual behaviour issomewhat of that "killing-with-kindness" order which exasperates when itdoes not itself kill or actually reconcile; and, whether out of delicacyor not, he does not give his wife the only proof that he acknowledgesthe involuntariness of her actual misfortune, and forgives thevoluntariness of her intended crime. His telling the story isinexcusable: and neither his preference of his allegiance as a vassal tohis duty as knight, lover, and husband in the case of the Count'scruelty, nor his final acceptance of so many and such peculiar bygonescan be called very pretty. But there are possibilities in the story, ifthey are not exactly made into good gifts. 

[Sidenote: Those of the fourteenth. _Asseneth. _]

The contents of the fourteenth-century volume are, with one exception, much less interesting in themselves; but from the point of view of thepresent enquiry they hardly yield to their predecessors. They are threein number: _Asseneth_, _Foulques Fitzwarin_, and _Troilus_. The first, which is very short, is an account of Joseph's courtship of his futurewife, in which entirely guiltless proceeding he behaves at first verymuch as if the daughter of Potipherah were fruit as much forbidden asthe wife of Potiphar. For on her being proposed to him (he has come toher father, splendidly dressed and brilliantly handsome, on a missionfrom Pharaoh) he at first replies that he will love her as his sister. This, considering the Jewish habit of exchanging the names, might not beominous. But when the damsel, at her father's bidding, offers to kisshim, Joseph puts his hand on her chest and pushes her back, accompanyingthe action with words (even more insulting in detail than in substance)to the effect that it is not for God-fearing man to kiss an idolatress. (At this point one would rather like to kick Joseph. ) However, when, naturally enough, she cries with vexation, the irreproachable but mostunlikable patriarch condescends to pat her on the head and bless her. This she takes humbly and thankfully; deplores his absence, for he iscompelled to return to his master; renounces her gods; is consoled by anangel, who feeds her with a miraculous honeycomb possessing a sort ofsacramental force, and announces her marriage to Joseph, which takesplace almost immediately. 

It will be at once seen, by those who know something of the matter, thatthis is entirely in the style of large portions of the Graal romances;and so it gives us a fresh and interesting division of the new shortprose tale, allying itself to some extent with the allegory which was tobe so fruitful both in verse and in prose. It is not particularlyattractive in substance; but is not badly told, and would have made(what it was very likely used as) a good sermon-story. 

[Sidenote: _Troilus. _]

As _Asseneth_, the first of the three, is by far the shortest, so_Troilus_, the last, is by far the longest. It is, in fact, nearlytwenty times the length of the history of Joseph's pious impoliteness, and makes up something like two-thirds of the whole collection. But, except as a variant of one of the famous stories of the world (_v. Sup. _Chap. IV. ), it has little interest, and is not even directly taken fromBenoît de Sainte-Maure, but from Guido delle Colonne and Boccaccio, ofwhose _Filostrato_ it is, in fact, a mere translation, made apparentlyby a known person of high station, Pierre de Beauvau, one of the chiefnobles of Anjou, at the close of the fourteenth and the beginning of thefifteenth century. It thus brings itself into direct connection withChaucer's poem, and has some small importance for literary historygenerally. But it has not much for us. It was not Boccaccio's verse buthis prose that was really to influence the French Novel. 

[Sidenote: _Foulques Fitzwarin. _]

With the middle piece of the volume, _Foulques Fitzwarin_, it is verydifferent. It is true that the present writer was once "smittenfriendly" by a disciple of the modern severe historical school, whodeclared that the adventures of Fitzwarin, though of course adulterated, were an important historical document, and nothing so frivolous as anovel. One has, however, a reed-like faculty of getting up again fromsuch smitings: and for my part I do not hesitate once more to call_Foulques Fitzwarin_ the first historical prose novel in modernliterature. French in language, as we have it, it is thoroughly Englishin subject, and, beyond all doubt, in the original place of composition, while there is no reason to doubt the assertion that there were olderverse-renderings of the story both in English and French. In fact, theymay turn up yet. But the thing as it stands is a very desirable and evendelectable thing, and well deserved its actual publication, not merelyin the French collection, of which we are speaking, but in the papers ofthe too short-lived English Warton Club. 

For it is not only our first historical novel, but also the first, asfar as England is concerned, of those outlaw stories which have alwaysdelighted worthy English youth from _Robin Hood_ to _The Black Arrow_. The Fitzwarins, as concerns their personalities and genealogies, may besurrendered without a pang to the historian, though he shall not havethe marrow of the story. They never seem to have been quite happy exceptwhen they were in a state of "utlagation, " and it was not only Johnagainst whom they rebelled, for one of them died on the Barons' side atLewes. 

The compiler, whoever he was--it has been said already and cannot besaid too often, that every recompiler in the Middle Ages felt it (likethe man in that "foolish" writer, as some call him, Plato) a sacred dutyto add something to the common stock, --was not exactly a master of hiscraft, but certainly showed admirable zeal. There never was a morecurious _macédoine_ than this story. Part of it is, beyond all doubt, traditional history, with place-names all right, though distorted bythat curious inability to transpronounce or trans-spell which made theFrench of the thirteenth century call Lincoln "Nicole, " and theirdescendants of the seventeenth call Kensington "Stintinton. " Part ismere stock or common-form Romance, as when Foulques goes to sea and hasadventures with the usual dragons and their usual captive princesses. Part, though not quite dependent on the general stock, is indebted tothat of a particular kind, as in the repeated catching of the King bythe outlaws. But it is all more or less good reading; and there are twoepisodes in the earlier part which (one of them especially) merit moredetailed account. 

The first still has something of a general character about it. It is thestory of a certain Payn Peveril (for we meet many familiar names), whoseems to have been a real person though wrongly dated here, and has oneof those nocturnal combats with demon knights, the best known examplesof which are those recounted in _Marmion_ and its notes. Peveril'santagonist, however--or rather the mask which the antagonisttakes, --connects with the oldest legendary history of the island, for hereanimates the body of Gogmagog, the famous Cornish giant, whom Corineusslew. The diabolic Gogmagog, however, seems neither to have stayed inCornwall nor gone to Cambridgeshire, though (oddly enough the Frencheditors do not seem to have noticed this) Payn Peveril actually heldfiefs in the neighbourhood of those exalted mountains called now by thename of his foe. He had a hard fight; but luckily his arms were _or_with a cross _édentée azure_, and this cross constantly turned thegiant-devil's mace-strokes, while it also weakened him, and he hadbesides to bear the strokes of Peveril's sword. So he gave in, remarkingwith as much truth as King Padella in similar circumstances, that it wasno good fighting under these conditions. Then he tells a story of somelength about the original Gogmagog and his treasure. The secret of thishe will not reveal, but tells Peveril that he will be lord ofBlanche-lande in Shropshire, and vanishes with the usual unpleasantaccompaniment--_tiel pueur dont Payn quida devier_. He left his mace, which the knight kept as a testimony to anybody who did not believe thestory. 

This is not bad; but the other, which is either true or extraordinarilywell invented, is far finer, and, with some omissions, must be analysedand partly translated. Those who know the singular beauty of Ludlow Townand Castle will be able to "stage" it to advantage, but this is notabsolutely necessary to its appreciation as a story. 

The Peverils have died out by this time, and the honour and lands havegone by marriage to Guarin of Metz, whose son, Foulques Fitzguarin orWarin, starts the subjects of the general story. When the first Foulkesis eighteen, there is war between Sir Joce of Dinan (the name then givento Ludlow) and the Lacies. In one of their skirmishes Sir Walter de Lacyis wounded and captured, with a young knight of his party, Sir Ernaultde Lyls. They have courteous treatment in Ludlow Castle, and Ernaultmakes love to Marion de la Brière, a most gentle damsel, who is thechief maid of the lady of the castle, and as such, of course, herself alady. He promises her marriage, and she provides him and his chief withmeans of escape. Whether Lisle (as his name probably was) had at thistime any treacherous intentions is not said or hinted. But Lacy, naturally enough, resents his defeat, and watches for an opportunity of_revanche_; while Sir Joce[lyn], on the other hand, takes his prisoners'escape philosophically, and does not seem to make any enquiry into itscause. At first Lacy thinks of bringing over his Irish vassals to aidhim; but his English neighbours not unnaturally regard this step withdislike, and a sort of peace is made between the enemies. A match isarranged between Sir Joce's daughter Hawyse and Foulques Fitzwarin. Jocethen quits Ludlow for a time, leaving, however, a strong garrison there. Marion, who feigns illness, is also left. And now begins the tragic andstriking part of the story. 

 The next day after Joce had gone, Marion sent a message to Sir Ernault de Lyls, begging him, for the great love that there was between them, not to forget the pledges they had exchanged, but to come quickly to speak with her at the castle of Dinan, because the lord and the lady and the bulk of the servants had gone to Hertilande--also to come to the same place by which he had left the castle. [_He replies asking her to send him the exact height of the wall (which she unsuspiciously does by the usual means of a silk thread) and also the number of the household left. Then he seeks his chief, and tells him, with a mixture of some truth, that the object of the Hertilande journey is to gather strength against Lacy, capture his castle of Ewyas, and kill himself--intelligence which he falsely attributes to Marion. He has, of course, little difficulty in persuading Lacy to take the initiative. Sir Ernault is entrusted with a considerable mixed force, and comes by night to the castle. _] The night was very dark, so that no sentinel saw them. Sir Ernault took a squire to carry the ladder of hide, and they went to the window where Marion was waiting for them. And when she saw them, never was any so joyful: so she dropped a cord right down and drew up the hide ladder and fastened it to a battlement. Then Ernault lightly scaled the tower, and took his love in his arms and kissed her: and they made great joy of each other and went into another room and supped, and then went to their couch, and left the ladder hanging. 

 But the squire who had carried it went to the forces hidden in the garden and elsewhere, and took them to the ladder. And one hundred men, well armed, mounted by it and descended by the Pendover tower and went by the wall behind the chapel, and found the sentinel too heavy with sleep to defend himself: and the knights and the sergeants were cut to pieces crying for mercy in their beds. But Sir Ernault's companions were pitiless, and many a white sheet was dyed red with blood. And at last they tossed the watchman into the deep fosse and broke his neck. 

 Now Marion de la Brière lay by her lover Sir Ernault and knew nothing of the treason he had done. But she heard a great noise in the castle and rose from her bed, and looked out and heard more clearly the cry of the massacred, and saw knights in white armour. Wherefore she understood that Sir Ernault had deceived and betrayed her, and began to weep bitterly and said, "Ah! that I was ever of mother born: for that by my crime I have lost my lord Sir Joce, who bred me so gently, his castle, and his good folk. Had I not been, nothing had been lost. Alas! that I ever believed this knight! for by his lies he has ruined me, and what is worse, my lord too. " Then, all weeping, she drew Sir Ernault's sword and said, "Sir knight! awake, for you have brought strange company into my lord's castle without his leave. I brought in only you and your squire. And since you have deceived me you cannot rightly blame me if I give you your deserts--at least you shall never boast to any other mistress that by deceiving me you conquered the castle and the land of Dinan!" The knight started up, but Marion, with the sword she held drawn, ran him straight through the body, and he died at once. She herself, knowing that if she were taken, ill were the death she should die, and knowing not what to do, let herself fall from a window and broke her neck. 

Now this, I venture to think, is not an ordinary story. Tales oftreachery, onslaught, massacre, are not rare in the Middle Ages, norneed we go as far as the Middle Ages for them. But the almost heroicinsouciance with which the traitor knight forgets everything except hisimmediate enjoyment, and, provided he has his mistress at his will, concerns himself not in the slightest degree as to what becomes of hiscompanions, is not an every-day touch. Nor is the strong contrast of thechambers of feast and dalliance--undisturbed, voluptuous, terrestrial-paradisaic--with "the horror and the hell" in the courtsbelow. Nor, last of all, the picture of the more than half innocentMarion, night-garbed or ungarbed, but with sword drawn, first hangingover her slumbering betrayer, then dealing the stroke of vengeance, andthen falling--white against the dark towers and the darker ravines attheir base--to her self-doomed judgment. 

[Sidenote: Something on these, ]

Even more, however, than in individual points of interest or excitement, the general survey of these two volumes gives matter for thought on oursubject. Here are some half-dozen stories or a little more. It is notmuch, some one may say, for the produce of two hundred years. But whatit lacks in volume (and that will be soon made up in French, while it isto be remembered that we have practically nothing to match it inEnglish) it makes up in variety. The peculiarity, some would say thedefect, of mediaeval literature--its sheep-like tendency to go inflocks--is quite absent. Not more than two of the eight, _Le Roi Flore_and _La Comtesse de Ponthieu_, can be said to be of the same class, even giving the word class a fairly elastic sense. They are short prose_Romans d'aventures_. But _Asseneth_ is a mystical allegory; _Aucassinet Nicolette_ is a sort of idyll, almost a lyric, in which the adventureis entirely subordinated to the emotional and poetical interest;_L'Empereur Constant_, though with something of the _Roman d'aventures_in it, has a tendency towards a _moralitas_ ("there is no armour againstfate") which never appears in the pure adventurous kind; _Troilus_ is anabridgment of a classical romance; and _Foulques Fitzwarin_ is, as hasbeen said, an embryonic historical novel. Most, if not all, moreover, give openings for, and one or two even proceed into, character- and even"problem"-writing of the most advanced novel kind. In one or two also, no doubt, that aggression and encroachment of allegory (which is one ofthe chief notes of these two centuries) makes itself felt, though not tothe extent which we shall notice in the next chapter. But almosteverywhere a strong _nisus_ towards actual tale-telling and the rapidacquisition of proper "plant" for such telling, become evident. Inparticular, conversation--a thing difficult to bring anyhow intoverse-narrative, and impossible there to keep up satisfactorily invarious moods--begins to find its way. We may turn, in the next chapter, to matter mostly or wholly in verse forms. But prose fiction is startedall the same. 

[Sidenote: And on the short story generally. ]

Before we do so, however, it may not be improper to point out that theshort story undoubtedly holds--of itself--a peculiar and almostprerogative place in the history and morphology or the novel. After along and rather unintelligible unpopularity in English--it neversuffered in this way in French--it has been, according to the way of theworld, a little over-exalted of late perhaps. It is undoubtedly a verydifficult thing to do well, and it would be absurd to pretend that anyof the foregoing examples is done thoroughly well. The Italian _novella_had to come and show the way. [79] But the short story, even of therudimentary sort which we have been considering, cannot help being apowerful schoolmaster to bring folk to good practice in the larger kind. The faults and the merits of that kind, as such, appear in it after afashion which can hardly fail to be instructive and suggestive. Thefaults so frequently charged against that "dear defunct" in our owntongue, the three-volume novel--the faults of long-windedness, of otiosepadding, of unnecessary episodes, etc. , are almost mechanically ormathematically impossible in the _nouvelle_. The long book providespastime in its literal sense, and if it is not obvious in the other theaccustomed reader, unless outraged by some extraordinary dulness orsilences, goes on, partly like the Pickwickian horse because he can'twell help it, and partly because he hopes that something _may_ turn up. In the case of the short he sees almost at once whether it is going tohave any interest, and if there is none such apparent he throws itaside. 

Moreover, as in almost every other case, the shortness is appropriate to_exercise_; while the prose form does not encourage those terrible_chevilles_--repetitions of stock adjective and substantive and verb andphrase generally--which are so common in verse, and especially inoctosyllabic verse. It is therefore in many ways healthy, and the spaceallotted to these early examples of it will not, it is hoped, seem toany impartial reader excessive. 

FOOTNOTES:

[75] The position of "origin" assigned already to the sacred matter ofthe Saint's Life may perhaps be continued here as regards the Sermon. Itwas, as ought to be pretty generally known, the not ungenial habit ofthe mediaeval preacher to tell stories freely. We have them in Ælfric'sand other English homilies long before there was any regular Frenchprose; and we have, later, large and numerous collections ofthem--compiled more or less expressly for the use of the clergy--inLatin, English, and French. The Latin story is, in fact, verywide-ranging and sometimes quite of the novel (at least _nouvelle_)kind, as any one may see in Wright's _Latin Stories_, Percy Society, 1842. 

[76] This is one, and one of the most glaring, of the _bêtises_ which atsome times have been urged against Romance at large. They are not, as amatter of fact, very frequent; but their occurrence certainly does showthe essentially uncritical character of the time. 

[77] For of course the knight did not tell the _whole_ story. 

[78] _I. E. _ not sorry for having tried to kill him, but sorry that shehad not done so. 

[79] In _prose_. For the very important part played by the home verse_fabliaux_ see next chapter. 

CHAPTER V

ALLEGORY, FABLIAU, AND PROSE STORY OF COMMON LIFE

[Sidenote: The connection with prose fiction of allegory. ]

It was shown in the last chapter that fiction, and even prose fiction, of very varied character began to develop itself in French during thethirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By the fifteenth the developmentwas very much greater, and the "disrhyming" of romances, the beginningsof which were very early, came to be a regular, not an occasional, process; while, by its latter part, verse had become not the usual, butthe exceptional vehicle of romance, and prose romances of enormouslength were popular. But earlier there had still been some obstacles inthe way of the prose novel proper. It was the period of the rise andreign of Allegory, and France, preceptress of almost all Europe in mostliterary kinds, proved herself such in this with the unparalleledexample of the _Roman de la Rose_. But the _Roman de la Rose_ was itselfin verse--the earlier part of it at least in real poetry--and most ofits innumerable imitations were in verse likewise. Moreover, thoughFrance again had been the first to receive and to turn to use the richesof Eastern apologue, the most famous example of which is _The Seven WiseMasters_, these rather serious matters do not seem to have especiallycommended themselves to the French people. The place of composition ofthe most famous of all, the _Gesta Romanorum_, has been fairly settledto be England, though the original language of composition is not likelyto have been other than Latin. At any rate, the style of seriousallegory, in prose which should also be literature, never really caughthold of the French taste. 

Comic tale-telling, on the other hand, was germane to the very soul ofthe race, and had shown itself in _chanson_ and _roman_ episodes at avery early date. But it had been so abundantly, and in so popular amanner, associated with verse as a vehicle in those pieces, in the greatbeast-epic of _Renart_, and above all in the _fabliaux_ and in theearliest farces, that the connection was hard to separate. None of thestories discussed in the last chapter has, it may be noticed, the leastcomic touch or turn. 

[Sidenote: And of the _fabliaux_. ]

As we go on we must disengage ourselves more and more (though withoccasional returns to it) from attention to verse; and the two greatcompositions in that form, the _Romance of the Rose_ and the _Story ofthe Fox_, especially the former, hardly require much writing about toany educated person. They are indeed most strongly contrasted examplesof two modes of tale-telling, both in a manner allegoric, but in otherrespects utterly different. The mere story of the _Rose_, apart from thedreamy or satiric digressions and developments of its two parts and theelaborate descriptions of the first, can be told in a page or two. Anabstract of the various _Renart_ books, to give any idea of their realcharacter, would, on the other hand, have to be nearly as long as theless spun-out versions themselves. But the verse _fabliaux_ can hardlybe passed over so lightly. Many of them formed the actual bases of theprose _nouvelles_ that succeeded them; not a few have found repeatedpresentation in literature; and, above all, they deserve the immensepraise of having deliberately introduced ordinary life, and notconventionalised manners, into literary treatment. We have taken somepains to point out touches of that life which are observable in Saint'sLife and Romance, in _chanson_ and early prose tale. But here the caseis altered. Almost everything is real; a good deal is what is called, inone of the senses of a rather misused word, downright "realism. "

Few people who have ever heard of the _fabliaux_ can need to be toldthat this realism in their case implies extreme freedom of treatment, extending very commonly to the undoubtedly coarse and not seldom to themerely dirty. There are some--most of them well known by modernimitations such as Leigh Hunt's "Palfrey"--which are quite guiltless inthis respect; but the great majority deal with the usual comic farragoof satire on women, husbands, monks, and other stock subjects ofraillery, all of which at the time invited "sculduddery. " To translatesome of the more amusing, one would require not merely Chaucerianlicence of treatment but Chaucerian peculiarities of dialect in order toavoid mere vulgarity. Even Prior, who is our only modern English_fabliau_-writer of real literary merit--the work of people like HanburyWilliams and Hall Stevenson being mostly mere pornography--could hardlyhave managed such a piece as "Le Sot Chevalier"--a riotously "improper"but excessively funny example--without running the risk of losing thatrecommendation of being "a lady's book" with which Johnson rathercapriciously tempered his more general undervaluation. Sometimes, on theother hand, the joke is trivial enough, as in the English-Frenchword-play of _anel_ for _agnel_ (or _-neau_), which substitutes "donkey"for "lamb"; or, in the other, on the comparison of a proper name, "Estula, " with its component syllables "es tu là?" But the importantpoint on the whole is that, proper or improper, romantic or trivial, they all exhibit a constant improvement in the mere art of telling; indiscarding of the stock phrases, the long-winded speeches, and thegeneral _paraphernalia_ of verse; in sticking and leading up smartly tothe point; in coining sharp, lively phrase; in the co-ordination ofincident and the excision of superfluities. Often they passed withoutdifficulty into direct dramatic presentation in short farces. But on thewhole their obvious destiny was to be "unrhymed" and to make theirappearance in the famous form of the _nouvelle_ or _novella_, in regardto which it is hard to say whether Italy was most indebted to Francefor substance, or France to Italy for form. 

[Sidenote: The rise of the _nouvelle_ itself. ]

It was not, however, merely the intense conservatism of the Middle Agesas to literary form which kept back the prose _nouvelle_ to such anextent that, as we have seen, only a few examples survive from the twowhole centuries between 1200 and 1400, while not one of these is of thekind most characteristic ever since, or at least until quite recentdays, of French tale-telling. The French octosyllabic couplet, in whichthe _fabliaux_ were without exception or with hardly an exceptioncomposed, can, in a long story, become very tiresome because of its wantof weight and grasp, and the temptations it offers to a weak rhymesterto stuff it with endless tags. But for a short tale in deft hands it canapply its lightness in the best fashion, and put its points with no lackof sting. The _fabliau_-writer or reciter was not required--one imaginesthat he would have found scant audiences if he had tried it--to spin along yarn; he had got to come to his jokes and his business prettyrapidly; and, as La Fontaine has shown to thousands who have neverknown--perhaps have never heard of--his early masters, he had aninstrument which would answer to his desires perfectly if only he knewhow to finger it. 

At the same time, both the lover of poetry and the lover of tale mustacknowledge that, though alliance between them is not in the least anunholy one, and has produced great and charming children, the best ofthe poetry is always a sort of extra bonus or solace to the tale, andthe tale not unfrequently seems as if it could get on better without thepoetry. The one can only aspire somewhat irrelevantly; the other cannever attain quite its full development. So it was no ill day when theprose _nouvelle_ came to its own in France. 

[Sidenote: _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. _]

The first remarkable collection was the famous _Cent NouvellesNouvelles_, traditionally attributed to Louis XI. When Dauphin and anexile in Brabant, with the assistance of friends and courtiers, butmore recently selected by critics that way minded as part of the baggagethey have "commandeered" for Antoine de la Salle. The question ofauthorship is of scarcely the slightest importance to us; though thepoint last mentioned is worth mentioning, because we shall have tonotice the favoured candidate in this history again. There are certainlysome of the hundred that he might have written. 

In the careless way in which literary history used to be dealt with, the_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ were held to be mere imitation of the_Decameron_ and other Italian things. It is, of course, much more thanprobable that the Italian _novella_ had not a little to do with theprecipitation of the French _nouvelle_ from its state of solution in the_fabliau_. But the person or persons who, in imitating the _Decameron_, produced the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ had a great deal more to do--anddid a great deal less--than this mere imitation of their original. Asfor a group of included tales, the already-mentioned _Seven WiseMasters_[80] was known in France much before Boccaccio's time. The titlewas indeed admittedly Italian, but such an obvious one as to require nopositive borrowing, and there is in the French book no story-frameworklike that of the plague and the country-house visit; no cheerfulpersonalities like Fiammetta or Dioneo make not merely the intervals butthe stories themselves alive with a special interest. Above all, thereis nothing like the extraordinary mixture of unity and variety--a puregift of genius--which succeeds in making the _Decameron_ a real book aswell as a bundle of narratives. Nor is there anything like the literarybrilliancy of the actual style and handling. 

Nevertheless, _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ is a book of great interestand value, despite serious defects due to its time generally and to itsplace in the history of fiction in particular. Its obscenity, on whicheven Sir Walter Scott, the least censorious or prudish-prurient of men, and with Southey, the great witness against false squeamishness, hasbeen severe, [81] is unfortunately undeniable. But it is to be doubtedwhether Sir Walter knew much of the _fabliaux_; if he had he would haveseen first, that this sort of thing had become an almost indispensablefashion in the short story, and secondly, that there is hereconsiderable improvement on the _fabliaux_ themselves, there being muchless mere schoolboy crudity of dirty detail and phrase, though thesituations may remain the same. It suffers occasionally from the heavyand rhetorical style which beset all European literature (exceptItalian, which itself did not wholly escape) in the fifteenth century. But still one can see in it that improvement of narrative method anddiction which has been referred to: and occasionally, amid the crowd oftricky wives, tricked husbands, too obliging and too hardly treatedchambermaids, ribald priests and monks, and the like, one comes acrossquite different things and persons, which are, as the phrase goes, almost startlingly modern, with a mixture of the _un_modern heighteningthe appeal. One of the most striking of these--not very likely to bedetected or suspected by a careless reader under its sub-title of "LaDemoiselle Cavalière, " and by no means fully summarised in the quaintshort argument which is in all cases subjoined--may be briefly analysed. 

[Sidenote: Analysis of "La Demoiselle Cavalière". ]

In one of the great baronial households of Brabant there lived, afterthe usual condition of gentle servitude, a youth named Gerard, who fellin love, after quite honourable and seemly fashion, with Katherine, thedaughter of the house--a fact which, naturally, they thought known onlyto themselves, when, as naturally, everybody in the Court had becomeaware of it. "For the better prevention of scandal, " an immediatemarriage being apparently out of the question because of Gerard'sinferiority in rank to his mistress, it is decided by the interventionof friends that Gerard shall take his leave of the Brabantine "family. "There is a parting of the most laudable kind, in which Katherinebestows on her lover a ring, and a pledge that she will never marry anyone else, and he responds suitably. Then he sets out, and on arriving atBar has no difficulty in establishing himself in another greathousehold. Katherine meanwhile is beset with suitors of the best rankand fortune; but will have nothing to say to any of them, till one daycomes the formidable moment when a mediaeval father determines that hisdaughter shall marry a certain person, will she nill she. But ifmediaeval fatherhood was arbitrary, mediaeval religion was supreme, anda demand to go on pilgrimage before an important change of life couldhardly be refused. In fact, the parents, taking the proposal as a merepreliminary of obedience, consent joyfully, and offer a splendid suiteof knights and damsels, "Nous lui baillerons ung tel gentilhomme et unetelle demoiselle, Ysabeau et Marguerite et Jehanneton. " But "no, " saysMistress Katherine sagely. The road to St. Nicolas of Warengeville isnot too safe for people travelling with a costly outfit and a train ofwomen. Let her, dressed as a man, and a bastard uncle of hers (who isevidently the "Will Wimble" of the house) go quietly on little horses, and it will save time, trouble, money, and danger. This the innocentparents consider to show "great sense and good will, " and the pair startin German dress--Katherine as master, the uncle as man, --comfortably, too, as one may imagine (for uncles and nieces generally get on welltogether, and the bend sinister need do no harm). They accomplish theirpilgrimage (a touch worth noticing in Katherine's character), and thenonly does she reveal her plan to her companion. She tells him, notwithout a little bribery, that she wants to go and see Gerard _enBarrois_, and to stay there for a short time; but he is to have no doubtof her keeping her honour safe. He consents, partly with an eye to thefuture main chance (for she is her father's sole heir), and partlybecause _elle est si bonne qu'il n'y fault guère guet sur elle_. Katherine, taking the name of Conrad, finds the place, presents herselfto the _maître_ _d'ostel_, an ancient squire, as desirous ofentertainment or _re_tainment, and is very handsomely received. Afterdinner and due service done to the master, the old squire having heardthat Katherine--Conrad--is of Brabant, naturally introduces hercountryman Gerard to her. He does not in the least recognise her, andwhat strikes her as stranger, neither during their own dinner nor aftersays a word about Brabant itself. Conrad is regularly admitted toMonseigneur's service, and, as a countryman, is to share Gerard's room. They are perfectly good friends, go to see their horses together, etc. , but still the formerly passionate lover says not a word of Brabant orhis Brabançonian love, and poor Katherine concludes that she has been"put with forgotten sins"--not a bad phrase, though it might bemisconstrued. Being, however, as has been already seen, both a pluckygirl and a clever one, she determines to carry her part through. Atlast, when they go to their respective couches in the same chamber, sheherself faces the subject, and asks him if he knows any persons inBrabant. "Oh yes. " "Does he know" her own father, his former master?"Yes. " "They say, " said she, "that there are pretty girls there: did younot know any?" "Precious few, " quoth he, "and I cared nothing aboutthem. Do let me go to sleep! I am dead tired. " "What!" said she, "canyou sleep when there is talk of pretty girls? _You_ are not much of alover. " But he slept "like a pig. "

Nevertheless, Katherine does not give up hope, though the next daythings are much the same, Gerard talking of nothing but hounds andhawks, Conrad of pretty girls. At last the visitor declares that he[she] does not care for the Barrois, and will go back to Brabant. "Why?"says Gerard, "what better hunting, etc. , can you get there than here?""It has nothing, " says Conrad, "like the women of Brabant, " adding, inreply to a jest of his, an ambiguous declaration that she is actually inlove. "Then why did you leave her?" says Gerard--about the firstsensible word he has uttered. She makes a fiery answer as to Lovesometimes banishing from his servants all sense and reason. But for thetime the subject again drops. It is, however, reopened at night, andsome small pity comes on one for the recreant Gerard, inasmuch as shekeeps him awake by wailing about her love. At last she "draws" thesluggard to some extent. "Has not _he_ been in love, and does not heknow all about it? But he was never such a fool as Conrad, and he issure that Conrad's lady is not such either. " Another try, and she getsthe acknowledgment of treason out of him. He tells her (what she knowstoo well) how he loved a noble damsel in Brabant and had to leave her, and it really annoyed him for a few days (it is good to imagineKatherine's face, even in the dark, at this), though of course he neverlost his appetite or committed any folly of that sort. But he knew hisOvid (he tells her), and as soon as he came to Bar he made love to apretty girl there who was quite amiable to him, and now he never thinksof the other. There is more talk, and Katherine insists that he shallintroduce her to his new lady, that she may try this remedy ofcounter-love. He consents with perfect nonchalance, and is at lastallowed to go to sleep. No details are given of the conversation withthe rival, [82] except the bitterness of Katherine's heart at the fact, and at seeing the ring she had given to Gerard on his hand. This sheactually has the pluck to play with, and, securing it, to slip on herown. But the man being obviously past praying or caring for, shearranges with her uncle to depart early in the morning, writes a lettertelling Gerard of the whole thing and renouncing him, passes the nightsilently, leaves the letter, rises quietly and early, and departs, yet"weeping tenderly, " not for the man, but for her own lost love. The pairreach home safely, and says the tale-teller, with an agreeable drynessoften found here, [83] "There were some who asked them the adventures oftheir journey, but whatever they answered they did not boast of thechief one. " The conclusion is so spirited and at the very end so scenicand even modern (or, much better, universal), that it must be given indirect translation, with a few _chevilles_ (or pieces of padding) leftout. 

 As for Gerard, when he woke and found his companion gone, he thought it must be late, jumped up in haste, and seized his jerkin: but, as he thrust his hand in one of the sleeves, there dropped out a letter which surprised him, for he certainly did not remember having put any there. He picked it up and saw it subscribed "To the disloyal Gerard. " If he was startled before he was more so now: but he opened it at last, and saw the signature "Katherine, surnamed Conrad. " Even yet he knew not what to think of it: but as he read the blood rose to his face and his heart fluttered, and his whole manner was changed. Still, he read it through, and learnt how his disloyalty had come to the knowledge of her who had wished him so well; and that not at second hand, but from himself to herself; what trouble she had taken to find him; and how (which stung him most) he had slept three nights in her company after all. [_After thinking some time he decides to follow her, and arrives in Brabant on the very day of her marriage: for she has, in the circumstances, kept her word to her parents. _] Then he tried to go up to her and salute her, and make some wretched excuse for his fault. But he was not allowed, for she turned her shoulder on him, and he could never manage to speak to her all through the day. He even stepped forward once to lead her out to dance, but she refused him flatly before all the company, many of whom heard her. And immediately afterwards another gentleman came, who bade the minstrels strike up, and she stepped down from her dais in full view of Gerard and went to dance with him. And so did the disloyal lover lose his lady. 

Now whether this, as the book asserts and as is not at all improbable, is a true story or not, cannot matter to any sensible person onefarthing. What does matter is that it is a by no means badly told story, that it resorts to no illegitimate sources or seasonings of interest, and that it offers opportunities for amplification and "diversity ofadministration" to almost any extent. One can fancy it told, at muchgreater length and with more or less adjustment to different times, bygreat novelists of the most widely varying classes--by Scott and byDumas, by Charles Reade and by George Meredith, to mention no livingwriter, as might easily be done. Both hero and heroine have morecharacter between them than you could extract out of fifty of the usual_nouvelles_, and each lends him or herself to endless furtherdevelopment. Not a few of the separate scenes--the good parents fussingover their daughter's intended cavalcade and her thrifty and ingeniousobjections; the journey of the uncle and niece (any of the first threeof the great novelists mentioned above would have made chapters ofthis); the dramatic and risky passages at the castle _en Barrois_; thecontrast of Katherine's passion and Gerard's sluggishness; and thefashion in which this latter at once brings on the lout's defeat andsaves the lady from danger at his hands--all this is novel-matter ofalmost the first class as regards incident, with no lack ofcharacter-openings to boot. Nor could anybody want a better "curtain"than the falling back of the scorned and baffled false lover, theconcert of the minstrels, and Katherine's stately stepping down the daisto complete the insult by dancing with another. 

[Sidenote: The interest of _named_ personages. ]

One more general point may be noticed in connection with the superiorityof this story, and that is the accession of interest, at first sighttrivial but really important, which comes from the _naming_ of thepersonages. Both in the earlier _fabliaux_ and in these _Nouvelles_themselves, by far the larger number of the actors are simply called byclass-names--a "knight, " a "damsel, " a "merchant and his wife, " a"priest, " a "varlet. " It may seem childish to allow the mere addition ofa couple of names like Gerard and Katherine to make this difference ofinterest, but the fact is that there is a good deal of childishness inhuman nature, and especially in the enjoyment of story. [84] Only byvery slow degrees were writers of fiction to learn the great differencethat small matters of this kind make, and how the mere "anecdote, " thedry argument or abstract of incident, can be amplified, varied, transformed from a remainder biscuit to an abundant and almostinexhaustible feast, by touches of individual character, setting ofinteriors, details of conversation, description, nomenclature, and whatnot. Quite early, as we saw in the case of the _St. Alexis_, persons ofnarrative gift stumbled upon things of the kind; but it was only afterlong delays, and hints of many half-conscious kinds, that they becamepart of recognised craft. Even with such a master of that craft asBoccaccio before them, not all the Italian novelists could catch thepattern; and the French, perhaps naturally enough, were slower still. 

It must be remembered, in judging the fifteenth-century French tale, that just as it was to some extent hampered by the long continuingpopularity of the verse _fabliau_ on the one hand, so it was, as we maysay, "bled" on the other by the growing popularity of the farce, whichconsists of exactly the same material as the _fabliaux_ and the_nouvelles_ themselves, with the additional liveliness of voice andaction. These later additions imposed not the smallest restraint on thelicense which had characterised and was to characterise the plain verseand prose forms, [85] and no doubt the result was all the more welcome tothe taste of the time. But for that very reason the appetites andtastes, which could glut themselves with the full dramaticrepresentation, might care less for the mere narrative, on the famousprinciple of _segnius irritant_. Nor was the political state of Franceduring the time very favourable to letters. There are, however, twoseparate fifteenth-century stories which deserve notice. One of them isthe rather famous, though probably not widely read, _Petit Jehan deSaintré_ of the already mentioned Antoine de la Salle, a certain workof his this time. The other is the pleasant, though to Englishmenintentionally uncomplimentary, _Jehan de Paris_ of an unknown writer. LaSalle's book must belong to the later middle of the century, though, ifhe died in or about 1461, not to a very late middle. _Jehan de Paris_has been put by M. De Montaiglon nearer the close. 

[Sidenote: _Petit Jehan de Saintré. _]

The history of "little John of Saintré and the Lady of the BeautifulCousins"[86] has not struck all judges, even all English judges, [87] inthe same way. Some have thought it mawkish, rhetorical, clumsilyimitative of the manners of dead chivalry, and the like. Others, admitting it to be a late and "literary" presentation of the statelysociety it describes, rank it much higher as such. Its author was abitter enough satirist if he wrote, as he most probably did, the famous_Quinze Joyes de Mariage_, one of the most unmitigated pieces ofunsweetened irony--next to _A Tale of a Tub_ and _Jonathan Wild_--to befound in literature; but not couched in narrative form. The same qualityappears of course in the still more famous farce of _Pathelin_, whichfew good judges deny very stoutly to him, though there is littlepositive evidence. In the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ again, as has beensaid, he certainly had a hand, and possibly a great hand, as well asperhaps elsewhere. The satiric touch appears even in _Petit Jehan_itself; for, after all the gracious courtship of the earlier part, the_dame des belles Cousines_, during an absence of her lover on service, falls a by no means, as it would seem, very reluctant victim to thevulgar viciousness of a rich churchman, just like the innominatas of the_nouvelles_ themselves. But the earlier part _is_ gracious--a wordspecifically and intensively applicable to it. It may be a littleunreal; does not the secondary form and sense which has been fastenedupon reality--"realism"--show that, in the opinion of many people atleast, reality is _not_ gracious? The Foozles of this world who "despiseall your kickshaws, " the Dry-as-dusts who point out--not in the leastseeing the real drift of their argument--that the fifteenth century was, in the greater part of Europe if not the whole, at a new point of moralsand manners, may urge these things. But the best part of _Petit Jehan_remains a gracious sort of dream for gracious dreamers--a picture of akind of Utopia of Feminism, when Feminism did not mean votes or anythingfoolish, but only adoration of the adorable. 

[Sidenote: _Jehan de Paris. _]

It would be impossible to find or even to imagine anything moredifferent than the not much later _Jehan de Paris_, an evidentfolk-tale[88] of uncertain origin, which very quickly became a popularchapbook and lasted long in that condition. Although we Englishmenprovide the fun, he is certainly no Englishman who resents the fact orfails to enjoy the result, not to mention that we "could tell them taleswith other endings. " It is, for instance, not quite historicallydemonstrable that in crossing a river many English horsemen would belikely to be drowned, while all the French cavaliers got safe through;nor that, in scouring a country, the Frenchmen would score all the gameand all the best beasts and poultry, while the English bag would consistof starvelings and offal. But no matter for that. The actual tale tells(with the agreeable introductory "How, " which has not yet lost its zestfor the right palates in chapter-headings) the story of a King and Queenof Spain who have, in recompense for help given them against turbulentbarons, contracted their daughter to the King of France for his son; howthey forgot this later, and betrothed her to the King of England, andhow that King set out with his train, through France itself, to fetchhis bride. As soon as the Dauphin (now king, for his father is dead)hears of their coming, he disguises himself under the name of John ofParis, with a splendid train of followers, much more gorgeous than theEnglish (the "foggy islander" of course cannot make this out), and setsof _quiproquos_ follow, in each of which the Englishman is outdone andbaffled generally, till at last "John of Paris" enters Burgos in state, reveals himself, and carries off the Englishman's bride, with thenatural effect of making him _bien marry et courroucé_, though no fightcomes off. 

The tale is smartly and succinctly told (there are not many more than ahundred of the small-sized and large-printed pages of the _CollectionJannet-Picard_), and there is a zest and _verve_ about it which ought toplease any mood that is for the time in harmony with the much talked ofComic Spirit. But it certainly does not lose attraction, and it ascertainly does not fail to lend some, when it is considered side by sidewith the other "John, " especially if both are again compared with thecertainly not earlier and probably later "Prose Romances" in English, towhich that rather ambitious title was given by Mr. Thoms. There isnothing in these in the very remotest degree resembling _Jehan deSaintré_: you must get on to the _Arcadia_ or at least to _Euphues_before you come anywhere near that. There is, on the other hand, in ourstuff, a sort of distant community of spirit with _Jehan de Paris_; butit works in an altogether lower and less imaginative sphere and fashion;no sense of art being present, and very little of craft. It isastonishing that a language which had had, if only in verse, such anunsurpassable tale-teller as Chaucer, should have been so backward. Butthen the whole conditions of the fifteenth century, especially inEngland, become only the more puzzling the longer one studies them. Evenin France, it will be observed, the output of Tale is by no meanslarge. [89] Nor shall we find it very greatly increased even in the nextage, though there is one masterpiece in quantity as well as quality. But, for our purpose, the _Cent Nouvelles_ and the two separate piecesjust discussed continue, and in more and more striking manner, to showthe vast possibilities when the way shall have been clearly found andthe feet of the wayfarers firmly set in it. 

FOOTNOTES:

[80] Prose as well as verse. 

[81] In the very delightful imaginative introduction to _QuentinDurward_. 

[82] This is one of the points which a modern novelist would certainlyhave seized; but whether to advantage or not is another question. 

[83] And of course recognised by the "Antonians" as peculiar to LaSalle. 

[84] Only contrast "_Tom, Tom_, the piper's son, " with "_There was once_a piper's son, " or think how comparatively uninteresting the enormitiesof another hero or not-hero would have been if he had been anonymousinstead of being called "Georgy-Porgy Pudding-and-Pie!" ["Puddenum" is, or used to be, the preferred if corrupt nursery form. ] In more elaborateand adorned narrative the influence, not merely of the name but of thebeautiful name, comes in, and that of the name itself remains. In thattragic story of Ludlow Castle which was given above (Chap. Iv. Pp. 84-6), something, for the present writer at least, would have been lostif the traitor had been merely "a knight" instead of Sir Ernault Lisleand the victim merely "a damsel" instead of Marion de la Brière. Andwould the _bocca bacciata_ of Alaciel itself be as gracious if it wasmerely anybody's?

[85] The amazing farce-insets of Lyndsay's _Satire of the Three Estates_could be paralleled, and were no doubt suggested, by French farces ofolder date. 

[86] Nobody seems to be entirely certain what this odd title means:though there have been some obvious and some far-fetched guesses. But ithas, like other _rhétoriqueur_ names of 1450-1550, such as "Traverser ofPerilous Ways" and the like, a kind of fantastic attraction for somepeople. 

[87] If I remember rightly, my friend the late R. L. Stevenson was wontto abuse it. 

[88] As such, the substance is found in other languages. But the Frenchitself has been traced by some to an earlier _roman d'aventure_, _Blonded'Oxford_, in which an English heiress is carried off by a Frenchsquire. 

[89] Perhaps one should guard against a possible repetition of a notuncommon critical mistake--that of inferring ignorance from absence ofmention. I am quite aware that no exhaustive catalogue of known Frenchstories in prose has been given; and the failure to supplement a formerglance at the late prose versions of romance is intentional. They havenothing new in romance-, still less in novel-_character_ for us. The_Bibliothèque Elzévirienne_ volumes have been dwelt upon, not as a_corpus_, but because they appear to represent, without any unfairmanipulation or "window-dressing, " the kind at the time with aremarkable combination of interest both individual and contrasted. 

CHAPTER VI

RABELAIS

[Sidenote: The anonymity, or at least impersonality, of authorship up tothis point. ]

Although--as it is hoped the foregoing chapters may have shown--theamount of energy and of talent, thrown into the department of Frenchfiction, had from almost the earliest times been remarkably great;although French, if not France, had been the mother of almost allliteratures in things fictitious, it can hardly be said that any writerof undeniable genius, entitling him to the first class in the Art ofLetters, had shown himself therein. A hundred _chansons de geste_ and asmany romances _d'aventures_ had displayed dispersed talent of a veryhigh kind, and in the best of them, as the present writer has tried topoint out, a very "extensive assortment" of the various attractions ofthe novel had from time to time made its appearance. But this again hadbeen done "dispersedly, " as the Shakespearean stage-direction has it. The story is sometimes well told, but the telling is constantlyinterrupted; the great art of novel-conversation is, as yet, almostunborn; the descriptions, though sometimes very striking, as in the caseof those given from _Partenopeus_--the fatal revelation of Melior'scharms and the galloping of the maddened palfrey along the seashore, with the dark monster-haunted wood behind and the bright moonlit sea andgalley in front--are more often stock and lifeless; while, above all, the characters are rarely more than sketched, if even that. The oneexception--the great Arthurian history, as liberated from itsGraal-legend swaddling clothes, and its kite-and-crow battles withSaxons and rival knights, but retaining the mystical motive of theGraal-search itself and the adventures of Lancelot and other knights;combining all this into a single story, and storing it with incident fora time, and bringing it to a full and final tragic close by the loves ofLancelot himself and Guinevere--this great achievement, it has beenfrankly confessed, is so much muddled and distracted with episode whichbecomes positive digression, that some have even dismissed itspretensions to be a whole. Even those who reject this dismissal are notat one as to any single author of the conception, still less of theexecution. The present writer has stated his humble, but ever more andmore firm conviction that Chrestien did not do it and could not havedone it; others of more note, perhaps of closer acquaintance with MS. Sources, but also perhaps not uniting knowledge of the subject with moreexperience in general literary criticism and in special study of theNovel, will not allow Mapes to have done it. 

The _Roman de la Rose_, beautiful as is its earlier part and ingeniousas is (sometimes) its later, is, as a _story_, of the thinnest kind. The_Roman de Renart_ is a vast collection of small stories of a specialclass, and the _Fabliaux_ are almost a vaster collection (if you do notexclude the "waterings out" of _Renart_) of kinds more general. There isabundance of amusement and some charm; but nowhere are we much beyondvery simple forms of fiction itself. None of the writers of _nouvelles_, except Antoine de la Salle, can be said to be a known personality. 

[Sidenote: Rabelais unquestionably the first very great known writer. ]

There has always been a good deal of controversy about Rabelais, not allof which perhaps can we escape, though it certainly will not be invited, and we have no very extensive knowledge of his life. But we have some:and that, as a man of genius, he is superior to any single person namedand known in earlier French literature, can hardly be contested by anyone who is neither a silly paradoxer nor a mere dullard, nor affected bysome extra-literary prejudice--religious, moral, or whatever it may be. But perhaps not every one who would admit the greatness of MasterFrancis as a man of letters, his possession not merely of consummatewit, but of that precious thing, so much rarer in French, actual humour;his wonderful influence on the future word-book and phrase-book of hisown language, nay, not every one who would go almost the whole length ofthe most uncompromising Pantagruelist, and would allow him profoundwisdom, high aspirations for humanity, something of a completeworld-philosophy--would at once admit him as a very great novelist. Formy own part I have no hesitation in doing so, and to make the admissiongood must be the object of this chapter. 

[Sidenote: But the first great novelist?]

It may almost be said that his very excellence in this way has "stood inits own light. " The readableness of Rabelais is extraordinary. Thepresent writer, after for years making of him almost an Addisonaccording to Johnson's prescription, fell, by mere accident andoccupation with other matters, into a way of _not_ reading him, exceptfor purposes of mere literary reference, during a long time. On threedifferent occasions more recently, one ten or a dozen years ago, one sixor seven, and the third for the purposes of this very book, he puthimself again under the Master, and read him right through. It isdifficult to imagine a severer test, and I am bound to confess (though Iam not bound to specify) that in some, though not many, instances I havefound famous and once favourite classics fail to stand it. Not so MasterFrancis. I do not think that I ever read him with greater interest thanat this last time. Indeed I doubt whether I have ever felt the_catholicon_--the pervading virtue of his book--quite so strongly as Ihave in the days preceding that on which I write these words. 

[Sidenote: Some objections considered. ]

Of course Momus may find handles--he generally can. "You are sufferingfrom morbid senile relapse into puerile enjoyment of indecency, " he orMrs. Momus (whom later ages have called Grundy) may be kind enough tosay. "You were a member of the Rabelais Club of pleasant memory, andthink it necessary to live up to your earlier profession. " "You havesaid this in print before [I have not exactly done so] and are bound tostick to it, " etc. Etc. Etc. , down to that final, "You are a bad critic, and it doesn't matter what you say, " which certainly, in a sense, doesleave nothing to be replied. But whether this is because the accused isguilty, or because the Court does not call upon him, is a question whichone may leave to others. 

Laying it down, then, as a point of fact that Rabelais _has_ thiscurious "holding" quality, whence does he get it? As everybody ought toknow, many good people, admitting the fact, have, as he would himselfhave said, gone about with lanterns to seek for out-of-the-way reasonsand qualities; while some people, not so good, but also accepting thefact in a way, have grasped at the above-mentioned indecency itself foran explanation. This trick requires little effort to kick it into itsnative gutter. The greater proportion of the "_Indexable_" part ofRabelais is mere nastiness, which is only attractive to a very smallminority of persons at any age, while to expert readers it is but atime-deodorised dunghill by the roadside, not beautiful, but negligible. Of the other part of this kind--the "naughty" part which is not nastyand may be somewhat nice--there is, when you come to consider itdispassionately, not really so very much, and it is seldom used in aseductive fashion. It may tickle, but it does not excite; may createlaughter, but never passion or even desire. Therefore it cannot be thiswhich "holds" any reader but a mere novice or a glutton for garbage. 

Less easily dismissible, but, it will seem, not less inadequate is thealleged "key"-interest of the book. Of course there are some people, andmore than a person who wishes to think nobly of humanity might desire tofind, who seem never to be tired of identifying Grandgousier, Gargantua, and Pantagruel himself with French kings to whom they bear not theslightest resemblance; of obliging us English by supposing us to be theMacréons (who seem to have been very respectable people, but who inhabitan island singularly unlike England in or anywhere near the time ofRabelais), and so on. But to a much larger number of persons--and onedares say to all true Pantagruelists--these interpretations are eitherthings that the Master himself would have delighted to satirise, andwould have satirised unsurpassably, or, at best, mere superfluities andsupererogations. At any rate there is no possibility of finding in themthe magic spell--the "Fastrada's ring, " which binds youth and age aliketo the unique "Alcofribas Nasier. "

One must, it is supposed, increase the dose of respect (thoughsome people, in some cases, find it hard) when considering a furtherquality or property--the Riddle-attraction of Rabelais. Thisriddle-attraction--or attractions, for it might be better spoken of in avery large plural--is of course quite undeniable in itself. There are asmany second intentions in the ordinary sense, apparently obvious in_Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_, as there can have been in the scholasticamong the dietary of La Quinte, or of any possible Chimaera buzzing atgreatest intensity in the extremest vacuum. On the other hand, some ofus are haunted by the consideration, "Was there ever any human beingmore likely than François Rabelais to echo (with the slightest change)the words ascribed to Divinity in that famous piece which is taken, ongood external and ultra-internal evidence, to be Swift's?

 _I_ to such block-heads set my wit! _I_ [_pose_] such fools! Go, go--you're bit. "

And there is not wanting, amongst us sceptics, a further section who arequite certain that a not inconsiderable proportion of the book is notallegory at all, but sheer "bamming, " while others again would transferthe hackneyed death-bed saying from author to book, and say that thewhole Chronicle is "a great perhaps. "

[Sidenote: And dismissed as affecting the general attraction of thebook. ]

These things--or at least elaborate discussions of them--lie somewhat, though not so far as may at first seem, outside our proper business. Itmust, however, once more be evident, from the facts and very nature ofthe case, that the puzzles, the riddles, the allegories cannotconstitute the main and, so to speak, "universal" part of the attractionof the book. They may be a seasoning to some, a solid cut-and-come-againto others, but certainly not to the majority. Even in _Gulliver_--theGreat Book's almost, perhaps quite, as great descendant--theseattractions, though more universal in appeal and less evasivelypresented, certainly do not hold any such position. The fact is thatboth Rabelais and Swift were consummate tellers of a story, and(especially if you take the _Polite Conversation_ into Swift's claim)consummate originators of the Novel or larger story, with more than"incidental" attraction itself. But we are not now busied with Swift. 

[Sidenote: Which lies, largely if not wholly, in its story-interest. ]

Not much serious objection will probably be taken to the place allottedto Master Francis as a tale-teller pure and simple, although it cannotbe said that all his innumerable critics and commentators have laidsufficient stress on this. From the uncomfortable birth of Gargantua tothe triumphant recessional scene from the Oracle of the Bottle, proofsare to be found in every book, every chapter almost, and indeed almostevery page; and a little more detail may be given on this head later. But the presentation of Rabelais as a novelist-before-novels may causemore demur, and even suggest the presence of the now hopelesslydiscredited thing--paradox itself. Of course, if anybody requiresregular plot as a necessary constituent, only paradox could contend forthat. It _has_ been contended--and rightly enough--that in the generalscheme and the two (or if you take in Grandgousier, three) generationsof histories of the good giants, Rabelais is doing nothing more thanparody--is, indeed, doing little more than simply follow the traditionsof Romance--Amiles and Jourdains, Guy and Rembrun, and many others. Butsome of us regard plot as at best a full-dress garment, at the absenceof which the good-natured God or Muse of fiction is quite willing towink. Character, if seldom elaborately presented, except in the case ofPanurge, is showered, in scraps and sketches, all over the book, anddescription and dialogue abound. 

[Sidenote: Contrast of the _Moyen de Parvenir_. ]

But it is not on such beggarly special pleading as this that the claimshall be founded. It must rest on the unceasing, or practicallyunceasing, impetus of story-interest which carries the reader through. Aremarkably useful contrast-parallel in this respect, may be found inthat strange book, the _Moyen de Parvenir_. I am of those who think thatit had something to do with Rabelais, that there is some of his stuff init, even that he may have actually planned something like it. But the"make-up" is not more inferior in merit to that of _Gargantua_ and_Pantagruel_ than it is different in kind. The _Moyen de Parvenir_ isfull of separate stories of the _fabliau_ kind, often amusing and welltold, though exceedingly gross as a rule. These stories are "set" in aframework of promiscuous conversation, in which a large number of greatreal persons, ancient and modern, and a smaller one of inventedcharacters, or rather names, take part. Most of this, though not quiteall, is mere _fatrasie_, if not even mere jargon: and though there areglimmerings of something more than sense, they are, with evidentdeliberation, enveloped in clouds of nonsense. The thing is not a wholeat all, and the stories have as little to do with each other or with anygeneral drift as if they were professedly--what they are practically--abundle of _fabliaux_ or _nouvelles_. As always happens in suchcases--and as the author, whether he was Béroalde or another, whether ornot he worked on a canvas greater than he could fill, or tried to patchtogether things too good for him, no doubt intended--attempts have beenmade to interpret the puzzle here also; but they are quite obviouslyvain. 

[Sidenote: A general theme possible. ]

[Sidenote: A reference--to be taken up later--to the last Book. ]

Such a sentence, however, cannot be pronounced in any such degree ormeasure on the similar attempts in the case of _Gargantua_ and_Pantagruel_; for a reason which some readers may find unexpected. Theunbroken vigour--unbroken even by the obstacles which it throws in itsown way, like the Catalogue of the Library of Saint-Victor and theburlesque lists of adjectives, etc. , which fill up whole chapters--withwhich the story or string of stories is carried on, may naturallysuggest that there _is_ a story or at least a theme. It is a sort ofquaint alteration or catachresis of _Possunt quia posse videntur_. Theremust be a general theme, because the writer is so obviously able tohandle any theme he chooses. It may be wiser--it certainly seems so tothe present writer--to disbelieve in anything but occasionalsallies--episodes, as it were, or even digressions--of political, religious, moral, social and other satire. It is, on the other hand, amost important thing to admit the undoubted presence--now and then, andnot unfrequently--of a deliberate dropping of the satiric and burlesquemask. This supplies the presentation of the serious, kindly, and humanpersonality of the three princes (Grandgousier, Gargantua, andPantagruel); this the schemes of education (giving so large a proportionof the small bulk of _not_-nonsense written on that matter). Above all, this permits, to one taste at least, the exquisite last Book, presentation of La Quinte and the fresh roses in her hand, theoriginality of which, not only in the whole book in one sense, but inthe particular Book in the other, is, to that taste, and suchargumentative powers as accompany it, an almost absolute proof of thatBook's genuineness. For if it had been by another who, _un_likeRabelais, had a special tendency towards such graceful imagination, hecould hardly have refrained from showing this elsewhere in this longbook. [90]

[Sidenote: Running survey of the whole. ]

But however this may be, it is certain that a critical reader, especially when he has reason to be startled by the external, if notactually extrinsic, oddities of and excesses of the book, will bejustified in allowing--it may almost be said that he is likely toallow--the extraordinary volume of concatenated fictitious interest inthe whole book or books. The usual and obvious "catenations" are indeedalmost ostentatiously wanting. The absence of any real plot has beensufficiently commented on, with the temptations conferred by it tosubstitute a fancied unity of purpose. The birth, and what we may callthe two educations, of Gargantua; the repetition, with sufficientdifferences, of the same plan in the opening of _Pantagruel_; theappearance of Panurge and the campaign against the Dipsodes; the greatmarriage debate; and the voyage to the Oracle of the Bottle, areconnected merely in "chronicle" fashion. The character-links are hardlystronger, for though Friar John does play a more or less important partfrom almost the beginning to quite the end, Panurge, the most importantand remarkable single figure, does not appear for a considerable time, and the rest are shadows. The scene is only in one or two chaptersnominally placed in Nowhere; but as a whole it is Nowhere Else, orrather a bewildering mixture of topical assignments in a very small partof France, and allegorical or fantastic descriptions of a multitude ofUtopias. And yet, once more, it _is_ a whole story. As you read it youalmost forget what lies behind, you quite forget the breaches ofcontinuity, and press on to what is before, almost as eagerly, if notquite in the same fashion, as if the incidents and the figures were notless exciting than those of _Vingt Ans Après_. Let us hope it may not beexcessive to expend a few pages on a sketch of this strange story thatis no story, with, it may be, some fragments of translation orparaphrase (for, as even his greatest translator, Urquhart, found, acertain amount of his own _Fay ce que voudras_ is necessary withRabelais) here and there. 

[Sidenote: _Gargantua. _]

Master Francis does not exactly plunge into the middle of things; but hespends comparatively little time on the preliminaries of the ironicalPrologue to the "very illustrious drinkers, " on the traditionallynecessary but equally ironical genealogy of the hero, on the elaborateverse _amphigouri_ of the _Fanfreluches Antidotées_, and on the mockscientific discussion of extraordinarily prolonged periods of pregnancy. Without these, however, he will not come to the stupendous banquet oftripe (properly washed down, and followed by pleasant revel on the"echoing green") which determined the advent of Gargantua into theworld, which enabled Grandgousier, more fortunate than his son on afuture occasion, to display his amiability as a husband and a fatherunchecked by any great sorrow, and which was, as it were, crowned andsealed by that son's first utterance--no miserable and ordinary infant'swail, but the stentorian barytone "_A boire!_" which rings through thebook till it passes in the sharper, but not less delectable treble of"_Trinq!_" And then comes a brief piece, not narrative, but ascharacteristic perhaps of what we may call the ironical _moral_ of thenarrative as any--a grave remonstrance with those who will not believein _ceste estrange nativité_. 

[Sidenote: The birth and education. ]

 I doubt me ye believe not this strange birth assuredly. If ye disbelieve, I care not; but a respectable man--a man of good sense--_always_ believes what people tell him and what he finds written. Does not Solomon say (Prov. Xiv. ), "The innocent [simple] believeth every word" etc. ? And St. Paul (1 Cor. Xiii. ), "Charity believeth all things"? Why should you _not_ believe it? "Because, " says you, "there is no probability[91] in it. " I tell you that for this very and only reason you ought to believe with a perfect faith. For the Sorbonists say that faith is the evidence of things of no probability. [92] Is it against our law or our faith? against reason? against the Sacred Scriptures?[93] For my part I can find nothing written in the Holy Bible which is contrary thereto. But if the Will of God had been so, would you say that He could not have done it? Oh for grace' sake do not make a mess of your wits in such vain thoughts. For I tell you that nothing is impossible with God. 

And Divinity being done with, the Classics and pure fantasy are drawnupon; the incredulous being finally knocked down by a citation fromPliny, and a polite request not to bother any more. 

This is, of course, the kind of passage which has been brought againstRabelais, as similar ones have been brought against Swift, to justifycharges of impiety. But, again, it is not necessary to bother(_tabuster_) about that. Any one who cannot see that it is the foolishuse of reverend things and not the things themselves that the satirehits, is hardly worth argument. But there is no doubt that this sort ofmortar, framework, menstruum, canvas, or whatever way it may be bestmetaphored, helps the apparent continuity of the work marvellously, leaving, as it were, no rough edges or ill-mended joints. It is, to usean admirable phrase of Mr. Balfour's about a greater matter, "thelogical glue which holds together and makes intelligible themultiplicity" of the narrative units, or perhaps instead of"intelligible" one should here say "appreciable. "

Sometimes the "glue" of ironic comment rather saturates these units ofnarrative than surrounds or interjoins them, and this is the case withwhat follows. The infantine peculiarities of Gargantua; his dress andthe mystery of its blue and white colours (the blue of heaven and thewhite of the joy of earth); how his governesses and he played together;what smart answers he made; how he became early both a poet and anexperimental philosopher--all this is recounted with a marvellousmixture of wisdom and burlesque, though sometimes, no doubt, with rathertoo much of _haut goût_ seasoning. Then comes the, in Renaissance books, inevitable "Education" section, and it has been already noted brieflyhow different this is from most of its group (the corresponding part of_Euphues_ may be suggested for comparison). Even Rabelais does notescape the main danger--he neglects a little to listen to the wisestvoice, "Can't you let him alone?" But the contrasts in the case ofGargantua, the general tenor (that good prince profiting by his ownexperience for his son's benefit) in that of Pantagruel, are not too"improving, " and are made by their historian's "own sauce" exceedinglypiquant. Much as has been written on the subject, it is not easy to bequite certain how far the "Old" Learning was fairly treated by the"New. " Rabelais and Erasmus and the authors of the _Epistolae ObscurorumVirorum_ are such a tremendous overmatch for any one on the other side, that the most judicial as well as judicious of critics must be ratherpuzzled as to the real merits of the case. But luckily there is no needto decide. Enjoyment, not decision, is the point, and there is nodifficulty in _that_. How Gargantua was transferred from the learned butsomewhat, as the vulgar would say, "stick-in-the-mud" tutorship ofMaster Thubal Holofernes, who spent eighteen years in reading _De ModisSignificandi_ with his pupil, and Master Jobelin Bridé, who has "becomea name"--not exactly of honour; how he was transferred to the lessantiquated guidance of Ponocrates, and set out for Paris on the famousdappled mare, whose exploits in field and town were so alarming, andwho had the bells of Notre Dame hung round her neck, till they werereplaced rather after than because of the remonstrance of Master Janotusde Bragmardo; how for a time, and under Sorbonic direction, he wastedthat time in short and useless study, with long intervals ofcard-playing, sleeping, etc. Etc. , and of course a great deal of eatingand drinking, "not as he ought and as he ought not"--all this leads upto the moment when the sage Ponocrates takes him again in hand, andinstitutes a strenuous drill in manners, studies, manly exercises, andthe like, ending with one of those extraordinary flashes of perfectstyle and noble meaning which it pleases Rabelais to emit from what somecall his "dunghill" and others his "marine-store. "

 Also they prayed to God the Creator, adoring Him, and solemnly repledging to Him their faith, and glorifying Him for His boundless goodness; while, giving Him thanks for all time past, they commended themselves to His divine mercy for all the future. This done, they turned to their rest. 

[Sidenote: The war. ]

It is only after this serious training that the first important divisionof what may be called the action begins--the "War of the Cakes, " inwhich certain outrageous bakers, subjects of King Picrochole of Lerné, first refuse the custom of the good Grandgousier's shepherds, and thenviolently assault them, the incident being turned by the cholericmonarch into a _casus belli_ against the peaceful one. Invasion, theearly triumph of the aggressor, the triumphant appearance of theinvincible Friar John, and the complete turning of the tables by theadvent of Gargantua and his terrible mare, follow each other in rapidand brilliant telling, and perhaps no parts of the book are betterknown. The extraordinary felicity with which Rabelaisian irony--herekept in quieter but intenser activity than almost anywhere else--seizesand renders the common causes, excuses, manners, etc. , of war can neverhave escaped competent readers; but it must have struck more persons oflate than perhaps at any former time. It would be impertinent toparticularise largely; but if the famous adaptation and amplification ofthe old Pyrrhus story in the counsel of Spadassin and Merdaille toPicrochole were printed in small type as the centre of a fathom-squaresheet, the whole margin could be more than filled with extracts, fromGerman books and newspapers, of advice to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Nor isthere anything, in literature touching history, where irony has bittenmore deeply and lastingly into Life and Time than the brief record ofPicrochole's latter days after his downfall. 

 He was informed by an old hag that his kingdom would be restored to him at the coming of the Cocqsigrues: since then it is not certainly known what has become of him. However, I have been told that he now works for his poor living at Lyons, and is as choleric as ever. And always he bemoans himself to strangers about the Cocqsigrues--yet with a certain hope, according to the old woman's prophecy, that at their coming he will be reinstated in his kingdom. 

Edward FitzGerald would have called this "terrible"; and perhaps it is. 

But there is much more humour than terror in the rest, and sometimesthere are qualities different from either. The rescue of the sacredprecincts of the Abbey of Seuillé from the invaders by that gloriousmonk (a personage at no great remove from our own Friar Tuck, to thelater portraits of whom he has lent some of his own traits) pleases thesoul well, as do the feats of Gymnast against Tripet, and the fate ofthe unlucky Touquedillon, and the escalade of La Roche Clermande, and (alittle less perhaps) the pure burlesque of the eating of the pilgrims, and the combing out of the cannon balls, and the contrasted sweetreasonableness of the amiable though not at all cowardly Grandgousier. But the advice of the Evil Counsellors to Picrochole is still perhapsthe pearl:

[Sidenote: The Counsel to Picrochole. ]

 Then there appeared before Picrochole the Duke of Mennail, Count Spadassin, and Captain Merdaille, and said to him, "Sire, this day we make you the most happy and chivalrous prince that ever has been since the death of Alexander of Macedon. " "Be covered, be covered, " said Picrochole. "Gramercy, sire", said they, "but we know our duty. The means are as follows. You will leave here in garrison some captain with a small band of men to hold the place, which seems to us pretty strong, both by nature and by the fortifications you have contrived. You will, as you know well, divide your army in half. One half will fall upon this fellow Grandgousier and his people, and easily discomfit him at the first assault. There we shall gain money in heaps, for the rascal has plenty. (Rascal we call him, because a really noble prince never has a penny. To hoard is the mark of a rascal. )

 "The other part will meanwhile draw towards Aunis, Saintonge, Angoumois, and Gascony, as well as Perigord, Medoc, and Elanes. Without any resistance they will take towns, castles, and fortresses. At Bayonne, at St. Jean de Luz, and at Fontarabia you will seize all the ships, and coasting towards Galicia and Portugal, will plunder all the seaside places as far as Lisbon, where you will be reinforced with all the supplies necessary to a conqueror: _Corbleu!_ Spain will surrender, for they are all poltroons. You will pass the Straits of Seville, [94] and will there erect two columns more magnificent than those of Hercules for the perpetual memory of your name. And that Strait shall thenceforward be named the Sea of Picrochole. 

 "When that sea has been passed, lo! comes Barbarossa[95] to surrender as your slave. " "I, " said Picrochole, "will extend mercy to him. " "Very well, " said they, "on condition that he is baptized. And then you will assault the kingdoms of Tunis, of Hippo, [96] of Argier, of Bona, of Corona--to cut it short, all Barbary. Going further, [97] you will keep in your hands Majorca, Minorca, Sardinia, Corsica, and the other islands of the Ligurian and Balearic sea. Coasting to the left[98] you will dominate all Narbonese Gaul, Provence, the Allobroges, Genoa, Florence, Lucca, and, begad! Rome. Poor master Pope is already dying for fear of you. " "I will never kiss his slipper, " said Picrochole. 

 "Italy being taken, behold Naples, Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily all at your mercy, and Malta into the bargain. I should like to see those funny knights, formerly of Rhodes, resist you! if it were only to examine their water. " "I should like, " said Picrochole, "to go to Loretto. " "No, no, " said they, "that will be on the way back. Thence we shall take Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades, and make a set at Morea. We shall get it at once. By St. Treignan, God keep Jerusalem! for the soldan is nothing in power to you. " "Shall I, " said he, "then rebuild the Temple of Solomon?" "Not yet, " said they, "wait a little. Be not so hasty in your enterprises. "

And so with the most meticulous exactness (Rabelais' geography isirreproachable, and he carefully avoids the cheap expedient of makingSpadassin and Merdaille blunder) and the sagest citations of _Festinalente_, they take him through Asia Minor to the Euphrates and Arabia, while the other army (that which has annihilated Grandgousier) comesround by the northern route, sweeping all Europe from Brittany and theBritish Isles to Constantinople, where the great rendezvous is made andthe universal empire established, Picrochole graciously giving hisadvisers Syria and Palestine as their fiefs. 

"Pretty much like our own days, " said Mr. Rigmarole. Have we not heardsomething very like this lately, as "Berlin to Baghdad, " if not "Calaisto Calcutta"? And even if we had not, would not the sense and the satireof it be delectable? A great deal has been left out: the chapter is, forRabelais, rather a long one. The momentary doubt of the usuallyundoubting Picrochole as to what they shall drink in the desert, allayedat once by a beautiful scheme of commissariat camels and elephants, [99]which would have done credit to the most modern A. S. C. , is very capital. There is, indeed, an unpleasant Echephron[100] who points the old moralof Cineas to Pyrrhus himself. But Picrochole rebuffs him with theinvaluable _Passons oultre_, and closes the discussion by anticipatingHenri Quatre (who, no doubt, learnt the phrase from him), crying, "_Quim'aime, si me suive!_" and ordering all haste in the war. 

It is possible that, here or earlier, thenot-quite-so-gentle-as-he-is-traditionally-called reader may ejaculate, "This is all true enough; but it is all very well known, and does notneed recapitulation. " Is this quite so certain? No doubt at one timeEnglishmen did know their Rabelais well. Southey did, for instance, andso, according to the historian of Barsetshire, did, in the nextgeneration, Archdeacon Grantly. More recently my late friend Sir WalterBesant spent a great deal of pains on Master Francis, and mainly owingto his efforts there existed for some years a Rabelais Club (alreadyreferred to), which left some pleasant memories. But _is_ it quite socertain that the average educated Englishman can at once distinguishEudemon from Epistemon, give a correct list of the various answers toPanurge's enquiries as to the probable results of his marriage, relatewhat happened when (as glanced at above and returned to later) _nouspassasmes oultre_, and say what the adorable Quintessence admitted toher dainty lips besides second intentions? I doubt it very much. Evenspecial students of the Great Book, as in other cases, have too oftenallowed themselves to be distracted from the pure enjoyment of it byidle questions of the kinds above mentioned and others--questions ofdates and names and places, of origins and borrowings andimitations--questions the sole justification of which, from the genuinePantagruelian point of view, is that their utter dryness inevitablysuggests the cries--the Morning Hymn and the Evening Voluntary of thebook itself--_À boire!_ and _Trinq_. 

But, even were this not so, a person who has undertaken, wisely orunwisely, to write the history of the French Novel is surely entitled tolay some stress on what seems to him the importance of this its firsteminent example. At any rate he proposes _not_ to _passer oultre_, butto stick to the line struck out, and exhibit, in reasonable detail, thevarieties of novel-matter and manner contained in the book. 

[Sidenote: The peace and the Abbey of Thelema. ]

The conclusion of _Gargantua_--after the victor has addressed a _concio_to the vanquished, has mildly punished the originators of the trouble orthose he could catch (Spadassin and Merdaille having run away "six hoursbefore the battle") by setting them to work at his newly establishedprinting-press, and has distributed gifts and estates to hisfollowers--may be one of the best known parts of the whole book, but isnot of the most strictly novel character, though it has suggested atleast one whole novel and parts or passages of others. The "Abbey ofThelema"--the home of the order of _Fay ce que vouldras_--is, if not adevout, a grandiose imagination, and it gives occasion for someadmirable writing. But it is one of the purest exercises of "purpose, "and one of the least furnished with incident or character, to be foundin Rabelais. In order to introduce it, he may even be thought guilty ofwhat is extremely rare with him, a fault of "keeping. " He avoids thisfault surprisingly in the contrasted burlesque and serious chronicles ofGrandgousier and Gargantua himself, as well as in the expanded contrastof Pantagruel and Panurge. Yet the heartiest admirer of "Friar John ofthe Funnels" (or "Collops, " for there is a schism on this point) mayfail to see in him a suitable or even a possible Head for an assemblageof gallant gentlemen and stately ladies (both groups being alsoaccomplished scholars) like the Thelemites. But Rabelais, likeShakespeare, had small care for small objections. He wanted to sketch aParadise of Anti-Monkery, and for this he wanted an Anti-Abbot. FriarJohn was the handiest person, and he took him. But it is worth notingthat the Abbot of Thelema never afterwards appears as such, or in theslightest relation to this miniature but most curious and interestingexample of the Renaissance fancy for imaginary countries, cities, institutions, with its splendours of architecture and decoration, itsluxurious but not loose living, its gallantry and its learning, itsgorgeous dress, its polished manners (the Abbot must have had sometrouble to learn them), and its "inscriptions and enigmas" in versewhich is not quite so happy as the prose. One would not cut it out ofthe book for anything, and parallels to it (not merely of the kind abovereferred to) have found and may find place in other books of fiction. But it is only a sort of chantry, in the Court of the Gentiles too, ofthe mighty Temple of the Novel. 

[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ I. The contrasted youth. ]

What it was exactly that made Rabelais "double, " as it were, on_Gargantua_ in the early books of _Pantagruel_[101] it would probably beidle to enquire. His deliberate mention in the Prologue of some of themost famous romances (with certain others vainly to be sought now or atany time) might of course most easily be a mere red herring. It may be, that as _Gargantua_ was not entirely of his own creation, he determinedto "begin at the beginning" in his original composition. But it matterslittle or nothing. We have, once more, a burlesque genealogy with knownpersons--Nimrod, Goliath, Polyphemus, etc. Etc. --entangled in a chain ofimaginaries, one of the latter, Hurtaly, forming the subject of a solemndiscussion of the question why he is not received among the crew of theArk. The unfortunate concomitants of the birth of Pantagruel--which isfatal to his mother Badebec--contrast with the less chequered history ofGargantua and Gargamelle, while the mixed sorrow and joy of Gargantua athis wife's death and his son's birth completes this contrast. Pantagruel, though quite as amiable as his father, if not more so, hasin infancy the natural awkwardnesses of a giant, and a hairy gianttoo--devouring cows whole instead of merely milking them, and tearing topieces an unfortunate bear who only licked his infant chops. As was saidabove, he has no wild-oats period of education like his father's, buthis company is less carefully chosen than that of Gargantua in the daysof his reformation, and gives his biographer opportunities for hissharpest satire. 

First we have (taken, as everybody is supposed now to know, fromGeoffrey Tory, but improved) the episode of the Limousin scholar withhis "pedantesque"[102] deformation of French and Latin at once, till thegiant takes him by the throat and he cries for mercy in the strongestmeridional brogue. [103] Then comes the famous catalogue of the Libraryof Saint Victor, a fresh attack on scholastic and monastic degeneracy, and a kind of joining hands (Ortuinus figures) with the German guerrillaagainst the _Obscuri_, and then a long and admirable letter fromGargantua, whence we learn that Grandgousier is dead, and that his sonis now the sagest of monarchs, who has taken to read Greek, and shows nomemory of his governesses or his earlier student days. And then againcomes Panurge. 

[Sidenote: Panurge. ]

Many doubtful things have been said about this most remarkablepersonage. He has been fathered upon the Cingar of Folengo, which is toomuch of a compliment to that creation of the great Macaronic, andFalstaff has been fathered upon him, which is distinctly unfair toFalstaff. Sir John has absolutely nothing of the ill-nature whichcharacterises both Cingar and Panurge; and Panurge is an actual andcontemptible coward, while many good wits have doubted whether Falstaffis, in the true sense, a coward at all. But Panurge is certainly onething--the first distinct and striking _character_ in prose fiction. Morally, of course, there is little to be said for him, except that, when he has no temptations to the contrary, he is a "good fellow"enough. As a human example of _mimesis_ in the true Greek sense, not of"imitation" but of "fictitious creation, " he is, once more, the firstreal character in prose fiction--the ancestor, in the literary sense, ofthe mighty company in which he has been followed by the similarcreations of the masters from Cervantes to Thackeray. The fantasticcolouring, and more than colouring, of the whole book affects him, ofcourse, more than superficially. One could probably give some not quiteabsurd guesses why Rabelais shaped him as he did--presented him as avery naughty but intensely clever child, with the monkey element inhumanity thrown into utmost prominence. But it is better not to do so. Panurge has some Yahooish characteristics, but he is not a Yahoo--infact, there is no misanthropy in Rabelais. [104] He is not merely impish(as in his vengeance on the lady of Paris), but something worse thanimpish (as in that on Dindenault); and yet one cannot call him diabolic, because he is so intensely human. It is customary, and fairly correct, to describe his ethos as that of understanding and wit wholly divorcedfrom morality, chivalry, or religion; yet he is never Mephistophelian. If one of the hundred touches which make him a masterpiece is to besingled out, it might perhaps be the series of rapturous invitations tohis wedding which he gives to his advisers while he thinks their advicefavourable, and the limitations of enforced politeness which he appendswhen the unpleasant side of their opinions turns up. And it may perhapsbe added that one of the chief reasons for believing heartily in thelast Book is the delectable and unimprovable contrast which La Quinteand her court of intellectual fantastry present to this picture ofintellectual materialism. 

[Sidenote: Short view of the sequels in Book II. ]

It was impossible that such a figure should not to a certain extentdwarf others; but Rabelais, unlike some modern character-mongers, neverlets his psychology interfere with his story. After a few episodes, thechief of which is the great sign-duel of Thaumast and Panurge himself, the campaign against the Dipsodes at once enables Pantagruel to displayhimself as a war-like hero of romance, permits him fantastic exploitsparallel to his father's, and, by installing Panurge in a lordship ofthe conquered country and determining him, after "eating his corn inthe blade, " to "marry and settle, " introduces the larger and mostoriginal part of the whole work--the debates and counsellings on themarriage in the Third Book, and, after the failure of this, the voyageto settle the matter at the Oracle of the Bottle in the Fourth andFifth. This "plot, " if it may be called so, is fairly central andcontinuous throughout, but it gives occasion for the most surprising"alarums and excursions, " variations and divagations, of the author'sinexhaustible humour, learning, inventive fertility, and never-failingfaculty of telling a tale. If the book does sometimes in a fashion "hopforty paces in the public street, " and at others gambade in a lessdecorous fashion even than hopping, it is also Cleopatresque in itsabsolute freedom from staleness and from tedium. 

[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ II. (Book III. )

The marriage of Panurge and the consultations on it. ]

The Third Book has less of apparent variety in it, and less of whatmight be called striking incident, than any of the others, being all butwholly occupied by the enquiries respecting the marriage of Panurge. Butthis gives it a "unity" which is of itself attractive to some tastes, while the delightful sonnet to the spirit Of Marguerite, Esprit abstraict, ravy et ecstatique, (perhaps the best example of _rhétoriqueur_ poetry), at the beginning, and the last sight (except in letters) of Gargantua at the end, with thecurious _coda_ on the "herb Pantagruelion" (the ancestor of Joseph deMaistre's famous eulogy of the Executioner), give, as it were, handleand top to it in unique fashion. But the body of it is the thing. Thepreliminary outrunning of the constable--had there been constables inSalmigondin, but they probably knew the story of the Seigneur of Baschétoo well--and the remarkable difference between the feudatory and hissuperior on the subject of debt, serve but as a whet to the project ofmatrimony which the debtor conceives. Of course, Panurge is the verylast man whom a superficial observer of humanity--the very first whom asomewhat profounder student thereof--would take as a marrying one. He is"a little failed"; he thinks to rest himself while not foregoing hisformer delights, and he shuts eyes and ears to the proverb, as old asGreek in words and as old as the world in fact, that "the doer shallsuffer. " That he should consult Pantagruel is in the circumstancesalmost a necessity, and Pantagruel's conduct is exactly what one wouldexpect from that good-natured, learned, admirable, but rather enigmaticpersonage. Merely "aleatory" decision--by actual use of dice--he rejectsas illicit, though towards the close of the book one of its mostdelectable episodes ends in his excusing Mr. Justice Bridoye forsettling law cases in that way. But he recommends the _sortesVirgilianae_, and he, others, and Panurge himself add the experiment ofdreams, and the successive consultation of the Sibyl of Panzoust, thedumb Nazdecabre, the poet Raminagrobis, Epistemon, "Her Trippa, " FriarJohn himself, the theologian Hippothadée, the doctor Rondibilis, thephilosopher Trouillogan, and the professional fool Triboulet. No readerof the most moderate intelligence can need to be told that thecounsellors opine all in the same sense (unfavourable), though with moreor less ambiguity, and that Panurge, with equal obstinacy and ingenuity, invariably twists the oracles according to his own wishes. But what noreader, who came fresh to Rabelais and fasting from criticism on him, could anticipate, is the astonishing spontaneity of the various dealingswith the same problem, the zest and vividness of the whole thing, andthe unceasing shower of satire on everything human--general, professional, and individual--which is kept up throughout. There is lesspure extravagance, less mere farce, and (despite the subject) even less"sculduddery" than in any other Book; but also in no other does Rabelais"keep up with humanity" (somewhat, indeed, in the fashion in which acarter keeps up with his animal, running and lashing at the same time)so triumphantly. 

In no book, moreover, are the curious intervals--or, as it were, prosechoric odes--of interruption more remarkable. Pantagruel's own seriouswisdom supplies not a few of them, and the long and very characteristicepisode of Judge Bridoye and his decision by throw of dice is veryloosely connected with the main subject. But the most noteworthy ofthese excursions comes, as has been said, at the end--the last personalappearance of the good Gargantua, and the famous discourse, severalchapters long, on the Herb Pantagruelion, otherwise Hemp. 

[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ III. (IV. ) The first part of the voyage. ]

The Fourth Book (Third of _Pantagruel_) starts the voyage, and begins tolead the commentator who insists on fixing and interpreting theinnumerable real or apparent double, treble, and almost centuplemeanings, into a series of dances almost illimitable. As has beensuggested more than once, the most reasonable way is probably to regardthe whole as an intentional mixture of covert satire, pure fooling, nota little deliberate leading astray, and (serving as vehicle andimpelling force at once) the irresistible narrative impulse animatingthe writer and carrying the reader on to the end--any end, if it be onlythe Other End of Nowhere. The "curios, " living and other, of Medamothi(Nowhere to begin with!), and the mysterious appearance of a shipful oftravellers coming back from the Land of Lanterns, whither thePantagruelian party is itself bound; the rather too severely punishedill-manners of the sheep-dealer Dindenault; the strange isles of variousnature--such, especially, as the abode of the bailiffs andprocess-servers, which gives occasion to the admirably told story ofFrançois Villon and the Seigneur of Basché; the great storm--another ofthe most famous passages of the book--with the cowardice of Panurge andthe safe landing in the curious country of the Macréons (long-livers);the evil island where reigns Quaresmeprenant, and the elaborate analysisof that personage by the learned Xenomanes; the alarming Physeter(blowing whale) and his defeat by Pantagruel; the land of theChitterlings, the battle with them, and the interview and peace-makingwith their Queen Niphleseth (a passage at which the sculduddery-huntershave worked their hardest), and then the islands of the Papefigues andthe Papimanes, where Rabelais begins his most obvious and boldestmeddling with the great ecclesiastical-political questions of theday--all these things and others flit past the reader as if in an actualvoyage. Even here, however, he rather skirts than actually invades themost dangerous ground. It is the Decretals, not the doctrines, that aresatirised, and Homenas, bishop of Papimania, despite his adoration ofthese forgeries, and the slightly suspicious number and prettiness ofthe damsels who wait upon him, is a very good fellow and an excellenthost. There is something very soothing in his metaphorical way ofdemanding wine from his Hebes, "_Clerice_, esclaire icy, " the necessaryillumination being provided by a charming girl with a hanap of"extravagant" wine. These agreeable if satiric experiences--for theDecretals do no harm beyond exciting the bile of Master Epistemon (who, it is to be feared, was a little of a pedant)--are followed by the oncemore almost universally known passage of the "Frozen Words" and thevisit to "Messer Gaster, the world's first Master of Arts"; by theislands (once more mysterious) of Chaneph (hypocrisy) and Ganabin(thieves); the book concluding abruptly with an ultra-farcical_cochonnerie_ of the lower kind, relieved partially by a libellous butimpossible story about our Edward the _Fifth_ and the poet Villon again, as well as by the appearance of an interesting but not previouslymentioned member of the crew of the _Thalamége_ (Pantagruel's flagship), the great cat Rodilardus. 

[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ IV. (Book V. ) The second part of the voyage. The"Isle Sonnante. "]

[Sidenote: The "Chats Fourrés. "]

One of the peculiarities of the Fifth Book, and perhaps one of thosewhich have aroused that suspicion about it which, after what has beensaid above, it is not necessary further to discuss, is that it is more"in blocks" than the others. [105] The eight chapters of the _IsleSonnante_ take up the satire of the Fourth Book on Papimania and on the"Papegaut, " who is here introduced in a much fiercer tone--a tone which, if one cared for hypothetical criticism, might be attributed with aboutequal probability to a genuine deepening of hostile feeling, to absenceof revision, and to possible sophistication by some one into whose handsit fell between the author's death and its publication. But a perfectlyimpartial critic, who, on the one hand, does not, in Carlyle's admirablephrase, "regard the Universe as a hunting-field from which it were goodand pleasant to drive the Pope, " and, on the other, is content to regardthe extremer Protestants as singularly unpleasant persons withoutpronouncing Ernulphus-curses on them, may perhaps fail to find in iteither the cleverest or the most amusing part of the voyage. The episodeof the next Isle--that _des Ferrements_--is obscure, whether it is or isnot (as the commentators were sure to suggest) something else beginningwith "obsc-, " and the succeeding one, with its rocks fashioned likegigantic dice, is not very amusing. But the terrible country of the_Chats Fourrés_ and their chief Grippeminaud--an attack on the Law asunsparing as, and much more vivid than that on the Church in theoverture--may rank with the best things in Rabelais. The tyrant'sferocious and double-meaning catchword of _Or çà!_ and the power at hisback, which even Pantagruel thinks it better rather to run away fromthan to fight openly, which Panurge frankly bribes, and over which eventhe reckless and invincible Friar John obtains not much triumph, exceptthat of cutting up, after buying it, an old woman's bed--these and therest have a grim humour not quite like anything else. 

[Sidenote: "La Quinte. "]

The next section--that of the Apedeftes or Uneducated Ones[106]--hasbeen a special object of suspicion; it is certainly a little difficult, and perhaps a little dull. One is not sorry when the explorers, in theambiguous way already noted, "_passent_ _Oultre_, " and, afterdifficulties with the wind, come to "the kingdom of Quintessence, namedEntelechy. " Something has been said more than once of this already, andit is perhaps unnecessary to say more, or indeed anything, except tothose who themselves "hold of La Quinte, " and who for that very reasonrequire no talking about her. "We" (if one may enrol oneself in theircompany) would almost rather give up Rabelais altogether than sacrificethis delightful episode, and abandon the idea of having the ladies ofthe Queen for our partners in Emmelie, and Calabrisme, and the thousandother dances, of watching the wonderful cures by music, and theinteresting process of throwing, not the house out of the window, butthe window out of the house, and the miraculous and satisfactorytransformation of old ladies into young girls, with very slightalteration of their former youthful selves, and all the charmingtopsyturvifications of Entelechy. Not to mention the gracious ifslightly unintelligible speeches of the exquisite princess, when clearHesperus shone once more, and her supper of pure nectar and ambrosia(not grudging more solid viands to her visitors), and the greatafter-supper chess-tournament with living pieces, and the "invisibledisparition" of the lady, and the departure of the fortunate visitorsthemselves, duly inscribed and registered as Abstractors ofQuintessence. The whole is like a good dream, and is told so as almostto be one. 

Between this and the final goal of the Country of Lanterns the interestfalls a little. The island of "Odes" (not "poems" but "ways"), where the"walks walk" (_les chemins cheminent_); that of "Esclots" ("clogs"), where dwell the Frères Fredonnants, and where the attack on monkery isrenewed in a rather unsavoury and rather puerile fashion; and that ofSatin, which is a sort of Medamothi rehandled, are not first-rate--theywould have been done better, or cut out, had the book ever been issuedby Master Francis. But the arrival at and the sojourn in Lanterniaitself recovers the full powers of Rabelais at his best, though one mayonce more think that some of the treatment might have been altered inthe case just mentioned. 

[Sidenote: The conclusion and The Bottle. ]

Apart from the usual mixture of serious and purely jocular satire, oflearning and licence, of jargonic catalogues, of local references toWestern France and the general topography of Utopia, this conclusionconsists of two main parts--first, a most elaborate description of theTemple, containing underground the Oracle of the Bottle, to which thepilgrims are conducted by a select "Lantern, " and of its priestessBacbuc, its _adytum_ with a fountain, and, in the depth and centre ofall, the sacred Bottle itself; and secondly, the ceremonies of thedelivery of the Oracle; the divine utterance, _Trinq!_ itsinterpretation by Bacbuc; the very much _ad libitum_ reinterpretationsof the interpretation by Panurge and Friar John, and the dismissal ofthe pilgrims by the priestess, _Or allez de par Dieu, qui vousconduise!_[107]

 * * * * *

What, it may be asked, is the object of this cumbrous analysis ofcertainly one of the most famous and (as it at least should be) one ofthe best known books of the world? That object has been partly indicatedalready; but it may be permissible to set it forth more particularlybefore ending this chapter. Of the importance, on the one hand, of theacquisition by the novel of the greatest known and individual writer ofFrench up to his date, and of the enormous popularity of this example ofit, enough may have been said. But the abstract has been given, and thefurther comment is now added, with the purpose of showing, in a littledetail, how immensely the resources and inspirations of futurepractitioners were enriched and strengthened, varied and multiplied, by_Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_. The book as a whole is to be classed, nodoubt, as "Eccentric" fiction. But if you compare with Rabelais that oneof his followers[108] who possessed most genius and who worked at hisfollowing with most deliberation, you will find an immense falling offin richness and variety as well as in strength. The inferiority ofSterne to Master Francis in his serious pieces, whether he is whimperingover dead donkeys and dying lieutenants, or simulating honestindignation against critics, is too obvious to need insistence. Nor canone imagine any one--unless, like Mackenzie and other misguidedcontemporaries or juniors, he himself wanted to whimper, or unless healso aimed at the _fatrasie_--going to Sterne for pattern orinspiration. Now Rabelais is a perpetual fount of inspiration, aninexhaustible magazine of patterns to the most "serious" novelist whoseseriousness is not of the kind designated by that term in dissentingslang. That abounding narrative faculty which has been so much dwelt ontouches so many subjects, and manages to carry along with it so manymoods, thoughts, and even feelings, that it could not but suggest to anysubsequent writer who had in him the germ of the novelist's art, how todevelop and work out such schemes as might occur to him. While, for hisown countrymen at least, the vast improvement which he made in Frenchprose, and which, with the accomplishment of his younger contemporariesAmyot and Montaigne, established the greatness of that prose itself, wasa gain, the extent of which cannot be exaggerated. Therefore it hasseemed not improper to give him a chapter to himself, and to treat hisbook with a minuteness not often to be paralleled in this_History_. [109]

FOOTNOTES:

[90] A complete argument on this much vexed subject can hardly be wishedfor here: but it may be permitted to say that nearly fifty years'consideration of the matter has left less and less doubt in my mind asto the genuineness of the "_Quart_" or "_Quint_" _Livre_ as it isvariously called--according as _Gargantua_ is numbered separately ornot. One of the apparently strongest arguments against itsgenuineness--the constant presence of "_Je_" in the narrative--reallyfalls, with the others--the fiercer and more outspoken character of thesatire, the somewhat lessened prominence of Pantagruel, etc. Etc. --before one simple consideration. We know from the dates ofpublication of the other books that Rabelais was by no means a rapidwriter, or at any rate that, if he wrote rapidly, he "held up" what hedid write long, and pretty certainly rewrote a good deal. Now theprevious Book had appeared only a short time before what must have beenthe date of his death; and this could not, according to analogy andprecedent, have been ready, or anything like ready, when he died. On theother hand, time enough passed between his death and the publication(even of the _Ile Sonnante_ fragment) for the MS. To have passed throughother hands and to have been adulterated, even if it was not, when theMaster's hands left it, in various, as well as not finally finishedform. I can see nothing in it really inconsistent with the earlierBooks; nothing unworthy of them (especially if on the one hand possiblemeddling, and on the other imperfect revision be allowed for); and much, especially the _Chats Fourrés_, the Quintessence part, and theConclusion, without which the whole book would be not only incompletebut terribly impoverished. I may add that, having a tolerably fullknowledge of sixteenth-century French literature, and a great admirationof it, I know no single other writer or group of other writers whocould, in my critical judgment, by any reasonable possibility havewritten this Book. François Rabelais could have done it, and I have nodoubt that he did it; though whether we have it as he left it no man cansay. 

[91] It is perhaps hardly necessary, but may not be quite idle, toobserve that our Abstractor of Quintessence takes good care not to quotethe other half of the parallelism, "but the prudent looketh well to hisgoing. "

[92] It is possible, but not certain, that he is playing on the twosenses of the word _apparence_, the ambiguity of which is not so greatin English. The A. V. , "evidence of things _not seen_, " would not havesuited his turn. 

[93] In which, it will be remembered, the "liquor called punch, " whichone notes with sorrow that Rabelais knew not, but which he certainlywould have approved, is also "nowhere spoken against. "

[94] Original "Sibyle. " I owe to Prof. Ker an important reminder (whichI ought not to have needed) of Dante's "Sibilia" in the famous "Ulysses"passage, _Inf. _ xxvi. 110. 

[95] The Turkish corsair, not the German Emperor. 

[96] Probably erected into a kingdom in honour of St. Augustine. 

[97] _Passant oultre_--one of Rabelais' favourite and most _polymorphic_expressions. It has nearly always an ironical touch in it; and it enjoysa chapter all to itself in that mood--V. Xvii. 

[98] Perhaps this _à gauche_ might make as good a short test as any of areader's sense of humour. But here also a possible Dantean reminiscence(not suggested to me this time) comes in; for in the lines alreadyquoted "dalla man _destra_" occurs. 

[99] The King is, however, more difficult to satisfy on this point thanon others; and objects with a delightful _preterite_, "Yes: but we _didnot get_ our wine fresh and cool"; whereat they rebuke him with arespectful reminder that great conquerors cannot be always entirelycomfortable. 

[100] "Suspender of judgment. "

[101] Of course the first book of the son _preceded_ the reconstructedhistory of the father; but this is immaterial. 

[102] The correct opposition of this term (Latin or Greek wordsvernacularised) to "Macaronic" (vernacular words turned into Latin orGreek form) is not always observed. 

[103] It is very seldom, after his infantine and innocent excesses, thatPantagruel behaves thus. He is for the most part a quiet and somewhatreserved prince, very generous, very wise, very devout, and, thoughtolerating the eccentricities of Panurge and Friar John, never takingpart in them. 

[104] If Swift had drunk more wine and had not put water in what he diddrink, possibly this quality might have been lessened in _him_. 

[105] The first of these, the _Isle Sonnante_, as is well enough knownto all students, appeared separately and before the rest. 

[106] A sort of dependency or province of the _Chats Fourrés_. 

[107] A MS. "addition" unknown to the old printed forms, appears in somemodern ones. It is a mere disfigurement: and is hardly likely even tohave been a rejected draft. 

[108] Not Swift here, but Sterne. There is far higher genius in_Gulliver_ than in _Shandy_; but the former is not _fatrasie_, thelatter is. 

[109] That the not quite unknown device of setting up a man of straw inorder to knock him down has not been followed in this chapter, a singlepiece of evidence out of many may be cited. H. Körting in his justlywell reputed _Geschichte des Franz. Romans im XVII. Jahrh. _ (Oppeln u. Leipzig, 1891, i. 133 _note_) would rule Rabelais out of the history ofthe novel altogether. This book, which will be quoted again withgratitude later, displays a painstaking erudition not necessitating anymake-weight of sympathy for its author's early death after greatsuffering. It is extremely useful; but it does not escape, in this andother places, the censure which, ten years before the war of 1914, thepresent writer felt it his duty to express on modern German critics andliterary historians generally (_History of Criticism_, London, 1904, vol. Iii. Bks. Viii. And ix. ), that on points of literary appreciation, as distinguished from mere philology, "enumeration, " bibliographicalresearch, and the like, they are "sadly to seek. " It may not beimpertinent to add that Herr Körting's history happened never to havebeen read by me till after the above chapter of the present book waswritten. 

CHAPTER VII

THE SUCCESSORS OF RABELAIS AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE "AMADIS" ROMANCES

In the present chapter we shall endeavour to treat two divisions ofactual novel- or at least fiction-writing--strikingly opposed to eachother in character; and a third subject, to include which in the titlewould have made that title too long, and which is not strictly a branchof novel-_writing_, but which had perhaps as important an influence onthe progress of the novel itself as anything mentioned or to bementioned in all this _History_. The first division is composed of thefollowers--sometimes in the full, always in the chronological sense--ofRabelais, a not very strong folk as a rule, but including one brilliantexample of co-operative work, and two interesting, if in some degreeproblematical, persons. The second, strikingly contrasting with thegeneral if not the universal tendency of the first, is the greattranslated group of _Amadis_ romances, which at once revived romance ofthe older kind itself, and exercised a most powerful, if not an actuallygenerative, influence on newer forms which were themselves to pass intothe novel proper. The third is the increasing body of memoir- andanecdote-writers who, with Brantôme at their head, make actualpersonages and actual events the subjects of a kind of story-telling, not perhaps invariably of unexceptionable historic accuracy, butfurnishing remarkable situations of plot and suggestions of character, together with abundant new examples of the "telling" faculty itself. 

[Sidenote: Subsidiary importance of Brantôme and othercharacter-mongers. ]

The last point, as an apparent digression but really a most importantcontribution to the History, may perhaps be discussed and dismissedfirst. All persons who have even a slight knowledge of French literaturemust be aware how early and how remarkable are its possessions in whatis vaguely called the "Memoir" department. There is nothing at the time, in any modern literature known to the present writer, similar toVillehardouin, or a little later to Joinville, --one might almost saythat there is nothing in any literature at any time superior, if therebe anything equal, in its kind to Froissart. In the first two casesthere is pure personal experience; in the third there is, of course, acertain amount of precedent writing on the subject for guidance, and alarge gathering of information by word of mouth. But in all these, andto a less extent in others up to the close of the fifteenth century, there is the indefinable gift of treatment--of "telling a story. " InVillehardouin this gift may be almost wholly, and in principle verymainly, limited to the two great subjects which made the mediaeval endas far as profane matters were concerned--fighting and counselling; butthis is by no means the case in Froissart, whom one is sometimes temptedto regard as a Sir Walter Scott thrown away upon base reality. 

With the sixteenth century this gift once more burgeoned and spreaditself out--dealing, indeed, very mainly with the somewhat ungratefulsubject of the religious disputes and wars, but flowering or fruitinginto the unsurpassable gossip--though gossip is too undignified aword--of Pierre de Bourdeilles, Abbé de Brantôme, that Froissart andPepys in one, with the noble delight in noble things of the first, inextricably united to the almost innocent shamelessness of the second, and a narrative gift equal to that of either in idiosyncrasy, andranging beyond the subjects of both. Himself a soldier and a courtier(his abbacy, like many others, was purely titular and profitable--notprofessional in the least), his favourite subjects in literature, andobviously his idols in life, were great soldiers and fair ladies, "Bayard and the two Marguerites, " as some one has put it. And his vividirregular fashion of writing adapts itself with equal ease to a gallantfeat of arms and a ferocious, half-cut-throat duel, to an exquisitepiece of sentimental passion like that which tells us the story how theelder Queen of Navarre rebuked the lover carelessly stepping over thegrave of his dead mistress, and to an unquotable anecdote to parallelthe details of which, in literature of high rank, one must go toRabelais himself, to Martial, or to Aristophanes. But, whatever thesubject, the faculty of lively communication remains unaltered, and thesuggestion of its transference from fact (possibly a little coloured) topure fiction becomes more and more possible and powerful. [110]

[Sidenote: The _Heptameron_. ]

No book has been more subject to the "insupportable advances" of the"key"-monger than the _Heptameron_, and the rage for identifying hasgone so far that the pretty old name of "Emarsuite" for one of thecharacters has been discarded for an alleged and much uglier"Ennasuite, " which is indeed said to have MS. Authority, but which isavowedly preferred because it can be twisted into "_Anne_ à Suite"("Anne in Waiting"), and so can be fastened to an actual Maid of Honourof Marguerite's. It is only fair, however, to admit that something ofthe kind is at least suggested by the book itself. Even by those who donot trouble themselves in the least about the personages who may or maynot have been disguised under the names of Nomerfide (the Neifile ofthis group) and Longarine, Saffredent and Dagoucin and Gebron (Geb_u_ronthey call him now), admit the extreme probability of the Queen havinginvited identification of herself with Parlamente, the younger matron ofthe party, and of Hircan her husband with the King of Navarre. [111] Butsome (among whom is the present writer) think that this delightful andnot too well-fated type of Renaissance amorousness, letteredness, andpiety combined made a sort of dichotomy of herself here, and intendedthe personage of Oisille, the elder duenna (though by no means a verystern one) of the party, to stand for her as well as Parlamente--to whomone really must give the Italian pronunciation to get her out of theabominable suggestion of our "talking-machine. "

[Sidenote: Character and "problems. "]

A much more genuinely literary question has been raised and discussed asto the exact authorship of the book. That it is entirely Marguerite's, not the most jealous admirers of the Queen need for a moment contend. She is known to have had a sort of literary court from Marot andRabelais downwards, some of the members of which were actually residentwith her, and not a few of whom--such as Boaistuau and Le Maçon, thetranslators of Bandello and Boccaccio, and Bonaventure Despériers (_v. Inf. _)--were positive experts in the short story. Moreover, the customof distributing these collections among different speakers positivelyinvited collaboration in writing. The present critic and his friend, Mr. Arthur Tilley of King's College, Cambridge, who has long been our chiefspecialist in the literature of the French Renaissance, are in anamicable difference as to the part which Despériers in particular mayhave played in the _Heptameron_; but this is of no great importancehere, and though Marguerite's other literary work is distinctly inferiorin style, it is not impossible that the peculiar tone of the best partsof it, especially as regards the religious-amorous flavour, was infusedby her or under her direct influence. The enthusiasm of Rabelais andMarot; the striking anecdote already mentioned which Brantôme, whosemother had been one of Marguerite's maids of honour, tells us, and oneor two other things, suggest this; for Despériers was more of a satiristthan of an amorist, and though the charges of atheism brought againsthim are (_v. Inf. _ again) scarcely supported by his work, he wascertainly no pietist. I should imagine that he revised a good deal andsometimes imparted his nervous and manly, but, in his own _Contes_, sometimes too much summarised style. But some striking phrases, such as"_l'impossibilité_ de nostre chair, "[112] may be hers, and the followingremarkable speech of Parlamente probably expresses her own sentimentspretty exactly. It is very noteworthy that Hircan, who is generallyrepresented as "taking up" his wife's utterances with a certain sarcasm, is quite silent here. 

 [Sidenote: Parlamente on human and divine love. ]

 "Also, " said Parlamente, "I have an opinion that never will a man love God perfectly if he has not perfectly loved some of God's creatures in this world. " "But what do you call 'perfect loving'?" said Saffredent. "Do you reckon as perfect lovers those who are _transis_, [113] and who adore ladies at a distance, without daring to make their wishes known?" "I call perfect lovers, " answered Parlamente, "those who seek in what they love some perfection--be it beauty, kindness, or good grace, --always striving towards virtue; and such as have so high and honourable a heart, that they would not, were they to die for it, take for their object the base things which honour and conscience disapprove: for the soul, which is only created that it may return to its Sovereign Good, does naught while it is in the body but long for the attainment of this. But because the senses by which alone it can acquire information are darkened and made carnal by the sin of our first father, they can only show her the visible things which approach closest to perfection--and after these the soul runs, thinking to find in outward beauty, in visible grace, and in moral virtue, grace, beauty, and virtue in sovereign degree. But when she has sought them and tried them, and finds not in them Him whom she loves, she leaves them alone, [114] just as a child, according to his age, likes dolls and other trivialities, the prettiest he sees, and thinks a collection of pebbles actual riches, but as he grows up prefers his dolls alive, and gets together the goods necessary for human life. Yet when he knows, by still wider experience, that in earthly things there is neither perfection nor felicity, he desires to seek the Creator and the Source of these. Nevertheless, if God open not the eye of faith in him he would be in danger of becoming, instead of a merely ignorant man, an infidel philosopher. [115] For Faith alone can demonstrate and make receivable the good that the carnal and animal man cannot understand. "

This gives the better Renaissance temper perhaps as well as anything tobe found, and may, or should in fairness, be set against the worser toneof mere libertinage in which some even of the ladies indulge here, andstill more against that savagery which has been noticed above. Thisundoubtedly was in Milton's mind when he talked of "Lust hard by Hate, "and it makes Hircan coolly observe, after a story has been told in whichan old woman successfully interferes to save a girl's chastity, that inthe place of the hero he should certainly have killed the hag andenjoyed the girl. This is obviously said in no bravado, and not in theleast humorously: and the spirit of it is exemplified in divers not inthe least incredible anecdotes of Brantôme's in the generationimmediately following, and of Tallemant des Réaux in the next. Thereligiosity displayed is of a high temper of Christian Platonism, and wecannot, as we can elsewhere, say what the song says of something else, that "it certainly looks very queer. " The knights and ladies do go tomass and vespers; but to say that they go punctually would be altogethererroneous, for Hircan makes wicked jokes on his and Parlamente's beinglate for the morning office, and, on one occasion at least, they keepthe unhappy monks of the convent where they are staying (who do not seemto dare to begin vespers without them) waiting a whole hour while theyare finishing not particularly edifying stories. The less complaisantcasuists, even of the Roman Church, would certainly look askance at thepiety of the distinguished person (said by tradition to have been KingFrancis himself) who always paid his respects to Our Lady on his way toillegitimate assignations, and found himself the better therefor on oneoccasion of danger. But the tone of our extract is invariably that ofOisille and Parlamente. The purer love part of the matter is a little, as the French themselves say, "alembicated. " But still the whole isgraceful and fascinating, except for a few pieces of mere passionlesscoarseness, which Oisille generally reproves. And it is scarcelynecessary to say what large opportunities these tones and colours offashion and "quality, " of passion and manners, give to the futurenovelist, whose treatment shall stand to them very much as they stand tothe shorter and sometimes almost shorthand written tales of Despériershimself. 

[Sidenote: Despériers. ]

With the _Cymbalum Mundi_ of this rather mysterious person we need havelittle to do. It is, down to the dialogue-form, an obvious imitation ofLucian--a story about the ancient divinities (especially Mercury) and acertain "Book of Destiny" and talking animals, and a good deal of oftenrather too transparent allegory. It has had, both in its own day andsince, a very bad reputation as being atheistical or at leastanti-Christian, and seems really to have had something to do with theauthor's death, by suicide or otherwise. There need, however, be verylittle harm in it; and there is not very much good as a story, nor, therefore, much for us. It does not carry the art of its particular kindof fiction any further than Lucian himself, who is, being much more of agenius, on the whole a much better model, even taking him at that ratherinferior rate. The _Contes et Joyeux Devis_, on the other hand, thoughthe extreme brevity of some has perhaps sometimes prejudiced readersagainst them, have always seemed to the present writer to form the mostremarkable book, as literature, of all the department at the time except_Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ and the _Heptameron_, and to supply astrong presumption that their author had more than a minor hand in the_Heptameron_ itself. It must, of course, be admitted that the fashion inwhich they are delivered may not only offend in one direction, but maypossibly mislead in another. One may read too much into the brevity, andso fall into the error of that other Englishman who was beguiled by themysterious signs of Despériers' greatest contemporary's most originalcreation. But a very large and long experience of literary weighing andmeasuring ought to be some safeguard against the mistake of Thaumast. 

[Sidenote: _Contes et Joyeux Devis. _]

One remarkable difference which may seem, at first sight, to be againstthe theory of Despériers having had a large share in the _Heptameron_ isthe contrasted and, as it may seem again at first sight, antagonistictone of the two. There are purely comic and even farcical passages inMarguerite's book, but the general colour, as has been said, isreligious-sentimental or courtly-amatory, with by no means infrequentexcursions into the purely tragical. The _Contes et Joyeux Devis_, onthe other hand, in the main continue the wholly jocular tone of the old_fabliaux_. But Despériers must have been, not only _not_ the great manof letters which the somewhat exaggerated zeal of his editor, M. LouisLacour, ranked him as being, but a very weak and feeble writer, if hecould not in this way write comedy in one book and tragedy in another. In fact Rabelais gives us (as the greatest writers so often do) what isin more senses than one a master-key to the contrast. Despériers has inthe _Contes_ constant ironic qualifications and asides which may evenhave been directly imitated from his elder and greater contemporary;Marguerite has others which pair off in the same way with the mostserious Rabelaisian "intervals, " to which attention has been drawn inthe last chapter. One point, however, does seem, at least to me, toemerge from the critical consideration of these two books with the otherworks of the Queen on the one hand and the other works ofDespériers[116] on the other. It is that the latter had a much crisperand stronger style than Marguerite's own, and that he had a faculty ofgrave ironic satire, going deeper and ranging wider than her"sensibility" would allow. There is one on the fatal and irremediableeffects of disappointing ladies in their expectations, wherein there issomething more than the mere _grivoiserie_, which in other hands itmight easily have remained. The very curious Novel XIII. --on KingSolomon and the philosopher's stone and the reason of the failure ofalchemy--is of quite a different type from most things in thesestory-collections, and makes one regret that there is not more of it, and others of the same kind. For sheer amusement, which need not beshocking to any but the straitest-laced of persons, the story (XXXIV. )of a curate completely "scoring off" his bishop (who did not observe thecaution given by Ophelia to Laertes) has not many superiors in itsparticular kind. 

[Sidenote: Other tale-collections. ]

The fancy for these collections of tales spread widely in the sixteenthcentury, and a respectable number of them have found a home in historiesof literature. Sometimes they present themselves honestly as what theyare, and sometimes under a variety of disguises, the most extravagant ofwhich is the title of the rather famous work of Henri Estienne, _Apologie pour Hérodote_. Others, more or less fantastic, are the_Propos Rustiques_ and _Baliverneries_ of Noël Du Fail, a Breton squire(as we should say), and his later _Contes d'Eutrapel_; the _EscraignesDijonnaises_ and other books of Tabourot des Accords; the _Matinées_ and_Après Dinées_ of Cholières, and, the largest collection of all, the_Sérees_ [Soirées] of the Angevin Guillaume Bouchet, [117] while afterthe close of the actual century, but probably representing earlier work, appeared the above-mentioned _Moyen de Parvenir_, by turns attributedand denied to Béroalde de Verville. In all these, without exception, theimitation of Rabelais, in different but unmistakable ways, is to befound; and in not a few, that of the _Heptameron_ and of Despériers;while not unfrequently the same tales are found in more than onecollection. The _fatrasie_ character--that is to say, the stuffingtogether of all sorts of incongruous matter in more or less burlesquestyle--is common to all of them; the licence of subject and language tomost; and there are hardly any, except a few mere modernisings of old_fabliaux_, in which you will not find the famous farrago of theRenaissance--learning, religious partisanship, war, law, love, almosteverything. All the writers are far below their great master, [118] andnone of them has the appeal of the _Heptameron_. But the spirit oftale-telling pervades the whole shelf-ful, and there is one more specialpoint of importance "for us. "

[Sidenote: The "provincial" character of these. ]

It will be observed that some of them actually display in their titles(such as that of Tabouret's book as quoted) the fact that they have adefinite provinciality in no bad sense: while Bouchet is as clearlyAngevin and Du Fail as distinctly Breton as Des Accords is Burgundianand as the greatest of all had been Tourangeau. It can scarcely benecessary to point out at great length what a reinforcement of vigourand variety must have been brought by this plantation in the differentsoils of those provinces which have counted for so much--and nearlyalways for so much good[119]--in French literature and French thingsgenerally. The great danger and defect of mediaeval writing had been itstendency to fall into schools and ruts, and the "printed book"(especially such a printed book as Rabelais) was, at least in one way, by no means unlikely to exercise this bad influence afresh. To this theprovincial differences opposed a salutary variety of manners, speech, local colour, almost everything. Moreover, manners themselvesgenerally--one of the fairest and most fertile fields of thenovel-kingdom--became thus more fully and freely the object and subjectof the tale-teller. Character, in the best and most extensive andintensive sense of the word, still lagged behind; and as the dramanecessarily took that up, it was for more reasons than one encouraged, as we may say, in its lagging. But meanwhile Amyot and Calvin[120] andMontaigne were getting the language more fully ready for theprose-writer's use, and the constant "sophistication" of literature withreligion, politics, knowledge of the physical world in all ways, commerce, familiarity with foreign nations--everything almost thattouched on life--helped to bring on the slow but inevitable appearanceof the novel itself. But it had more influences to assimilate and moresteps to go through before it could take full form. 

[Sidenote: The _Amadis_ romances. ]

No more curious contrast (except, perhaps, the not very dissimilar onewhich will meet us in the next chapter) is to be found in the present_History_, or perhaps in any other, than that of the matter justdiscussed with the great body of _Amadis_ romance which, at this sametime, was introduced into French literature by the translation oradaptation of Nicolas Herberay des Essarts and his continuators. ThatHerberay[121] deserves, according to the best and most catholic studentsof French, a place with the just-mentioned writers among the formers orreformers of the French tongue, is a point of some importance, but, forus, minor. Of the controversial part of the _Amadis_ subject it must, asin other cases, be once more unnecessary for us to say much. It may belaid down as certain, on every principle of critical logic and research, that the old idea of the Peninsular cycle being borrowed direct from anyFrench original is hopelessly absurd. There is, notoriously, no externalevidence of any such original ever having existed, and there is animmense improbability against any such original ever having existed. Further, the internal characteristics of the Spanish romances, though, undoubtedly, they might never have come into existence at all but forthe French, and though there is a very slight "catch-on" of _Amadis_itself to the universally popular Arthurian legend, are not in the leastlike those of French or English. How the actual texts came into thatexistence; whether, as used to be thought at first, after some expertcriticism was turned on them, the actual original was Portuguese, andthe refashioned and prolific form Spanish, is again a question utterlybeyond bounds for us. The quality of the romances themselves--their hugevogue being a matter of fact--and the influence which they exercised onthe future development of the novel, --these are the things that concernus, and they are quite interesting and important enough to deserve alittle attention. 

[Sidenote: Their characteristics. ]

What is certain is that these Spanish romances themselves--which, assome readers at any rate may be presumed to know, branch out intoendless genealogies in the _Amadis_ and _Palmerin_ lines, besides themore or less outside developments which fared so hardly with the censorsof Don Quixote's library--as well as the later French examples of a notdissimilar type, the capital instance of which, for literature, is LordBerners's translation of _Arthur of Little Britain_--do show the moststriking differences, not merely from the original twelfth- andthirteenth-century Charlemagne and Arthur productions, but also fromintermediate variants and expansions of these. The most obvious of thesediscrepancies is the singular amplification of the supernaturalelements. Of course these were not absent in the older romanceliterature, especially in the Arthurian cycle. But there they hadcertain characteristics which might almost deserve the adjective"critical"--little criticism proper as there was in the Middle Ages. They were very generally religious, and they almost always had what maybe called a poetic restraint about them. The whole Graal-story isdeliberately modelled on Scriptural suggestions; the miracle ofreconciliation and restoration which concludes _Amis and Amiles_ is thework of a duly commissioned angel. There are giants, but they areintroduced moderately and equipped in consonance. The Saint's Life, which, as it has been contended, exercised so large an influence on theearlier romance, carried the nature, the poetry, the charm of itssupernatural elements into the romance itself. 

[Sidenote: Extravagance in incident, nomenclature, etc. ]

In the _Amadis_ cycle and in romances like _Arthur of Little Britain_all this undergoes a change--not by any means for the better. What hasbeen unkindly, but not perhaps unjustly, called the "conjuror'ssupernatural" takes the place of the poet's variety. One of thepersonages of the _Knight of the Sun_ is a "Bedevilled Faun, " and it isreally too much not to say that most of such personages are bedevilled. In _Arthur of_ (so much the Lesser) _Britain_ there is, if I rememberrightly, a giant whose formidability partly consists in his spinninground on a sort of bedevilled music-stool: and his class can seldom bemet with without three or seven heads, a similarly large number of legsand hands, and the like. This sort of thing has been put down, notwithout probability, to the Oriental suggestion which would come soreadily into Spain. It may be so or it may not. But it certainly importsan element of puerility into romance, which is regrettable, and itdiminishes the dignity and the poetry of the things rather lamentably. Whether it diminishes, and still more whether it originally diminishedthe _readability_ of these same things, is quite another question. 

Closely connected with it is the fancy for barbaric names of greatlength and formidable sound, such as Famongomadan, Pintiquinestra, andthe like--a trait which, if anybody pleases, may be put down to thedistorted echo of more musical[122] appellations in Arabic and otherEastern tongues, or to a certain childishness, for there is no doubtthat the youthful mind delights, and always has delighted, in suchthings. The immense length of these romances even in themselves, andstill more with continuations from father to son and grandson, andtrains of descendants sometimes alternately named, can be less chargedas an innovation, though there is no doubt that it established a rulewhich had only been an exception before. But, as will have been seenearlier, the continuation of romance genealogically had been notuncommon, and there had been a constant tendency to lengthen from thepositively terse _Roland_ to the prolix fifteenth-century forms. In factthis went on till the extravagant length of the Scudéry group madeitself impossible, and even afterwards, as all readers of Richardsonknow, there was reluctance to shorten. 

[Sidenote: The "cruel" heroine. ]

We have, however, still to notice another peculiarity, and the mostimportant by far as concerns the history of the novel: this is theever-increasing tendency to exaggerate the "cruelty" of the heroine andthe sufferings of the lovers. This peculiarity is not speciallynoticeable in the earliest and best of the group itself. Amadis suffersplentifully; yet Oriana can hardly be called "cruel. " But of the twoheroines of _Palmerin_, Polisarda does play the part to some extent, andMiraguarda (whose name it is not perhaps fantastic to interpret as"Admire her but beware of her") is positively ill-natured. Of course thething was no more a novelty in literature than it was in life. Thelines--

 And cruel in the New As in the Old one, may certainly be transferred from the geographical world to thehistorical. But in classical literature "cruelty" is attributed ratherindiscriminately to both sexes. The cliff of Leucas knew no distinctionof sex, and Sappho can be set against Anaxarete. Indeed, it was saferfor men to be cruel than for women, inasmuch as Aphrodite, among herinnumerable good qualities, was very severe upon unkind girls, while oneregrets to have to admit that no particular male deity was regularly"affected" to the business of punishing light o' love men, thoughEros-Cupid may sometimes have done so. The Eastern mistress, for obviousreasons, had not much chance of playing the Miraguarda part as a rule, though there seems to me more chance of the convention coming from Araband Hebrew poetry than from any other source. But in the _ArabianNights_ at least, though there are lustful murderesses--easternMargarets of Burgundy, like Queen Labé of the Magicians, --there isseldom any "cruelty, " or even any tantalising, on the part of theheroines. 

A hasty rememberer of the sufferings of Lancelot and one or two otherheroes of the early and genuine romance might say, "Why go further thanthis?" But on a little examination the cases will be found verydifferent. Neither Iseult nor Guinevere is cruel to her lover;Orgueilleuse has a fair excuse in difference of rank and slightacquaintance; persons like Tennyson's Ettarre, still more his Vivien, are "sophisticated"--as we have pointed out already. Besides, Vivien andEttarre are frankly bad women, which is by no means the case with thePolisardas and Miraguardas. They, if they did not introduce thething--which is, after all, as the old waterman in _Jacob Faithful_says, "Human natur', "--established and conventionalised the Silvius andPhoebe relation of lover and mistress. If Lancelot is banished more thanonce or twice, it is because of Guinevere's real though unfoundedjealousy, not of any coquettish "cruelty" on her part; if Partenopeusnearly perishes in his one similar banishment, it is because of his ownfault--his fault great and inexcusable. But the Amadisian heroes, as arule--unless they belong to the light o' love Galaor type, which wouldnot mind cruelty if it were exercised, but would simply laugh and rideaway--are almost painfully faithful and deserving; and their sojourns inTenebrous Isles, their encounters with Bedevilled Fauns, and the like, are either pure misfortunes or the deliberate results of capricioustyranny on the part of their mistresses. 

Now of course this is the sort of thing which may be (and as a matter offact it no doubt was) tediously abused; but it is equally evident thatin the hands of a novelist of genius, or even of fair talent andcraftsmanship, it gives opportunity for extensive and ingeniouscharacter-drawing, and for not a little "polite conversation. " If _ladonna è mobile_ generally, she has very special opportunities ofexhibiting her mobility in the exercise of her caprice: and if it is thebusiness of the lover (as it is of minorities, according to a RightHonourable politician) to suffer, the _amoureux transi_ who has somewits and some power of expression can suffer to the genteelest of tuneswith the most ingenious fugues and variations. A great deal of theactual charm of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poetry in alllanguages comes from the rendering in verse of this very relation ofwoman and man. We owe to the "dear Lady Disdain" idea not merelyBeatrice, but Beatrix long after her, and many another good thing bothin verse and in prose between Shakespeare and Thackeray. 

In the _Amadis_ group (as in its slightly modernised successor, that ofthe _Grand Cyrus_), the handling is so preposterously long and thereliefs of dialogue and other things frequently managed with so littleskill, that, except for sheer passing of time, the books have been founddifficult to read. The present writer's knowledge of Spanish is toosketchy to enable him to read them in the original with full comfort. _Amadis_ and _Palmerin_ are legible enough in Southey's translations, made, as one would expect from him, with all due effort to preserve thelanguage of the old English versions where possible. But Herberay'ssixteenth-century French is a very attractive and perfectly easylanguage, thoroughly well suited to the matter. And if anything that hasbeen said is read as despite to these romances, the reading is wrong. They have grave faults, but also real delights, and they have no small"place i' the story. "[123]

FOOTNOTES:

[110]

[Sidenote: Note on Montaigne. ]

This suggestive influence may be found almost as strongly, though shownwith less literary craftsmanship, in Brantôme's successor and to someextent overlapper, Tallemant des Réaux. And it is almost needless to saythat in both _subjects_ for novel treatment "foison, " as both French andEnglish would have said in their time. Nor may it be improper to addthat Montaigne himself, though more indirectly, assisted in speeding thenovel. The actual telling of a story is indeed not his strongest point:the dulness of the _Travels_, if they were really his (on which pointthe present writer cannot help entertaining a possibly unorthodoxdoubt), would sufficiently show this. But the great effect which heproduced on French prose could not, as in the somewhat similar case ofDryden in English a century later, but prove of immense aid to thenovelist. Except in the deliberately eccentric style, as in Rabelais'own case, or in periods such as the Elizabethan and our own, where thereis a coterie ready to admire jargon, you cannot write novels, tointerest and satisfy readers, without a style, or a group of styles, providing easy and clear narrative media. We shall see how, in the nextcentury, writers in forms apparently still more alien from the novelhelped it in the same way. 

[111] The character of this Bourbon prince seems to have been veryfaithfully though not maliciously drawn by Margaret (for the name, _Gallicé pulchrum_, is _Anglicé pulchrius_, and our form may bepermitted in a note) as not ungenial, not exactly ungentlemanly, and byno means hating his wife or being at all unkind to her, but constantly"hard" on her in speech, openly regarding infidelity to her as a matterof course, and not a little tinged by the savagery which (one is afraid)the English wars had helped to introduce among the French nobility;which the religious wars were deepening, and which, in the times of theFronde, came almost to its very worst, and, though somewhat tamed later, lasted, and was no mean cause, if not so great a one as some think, ofthe French Revolution. Margaret's love for her brother was ill rewardedin many ways--among others by brutal scandal--and her later days wereembittered by failure to protect the new learning and the new faith shehad patronised earlier. But one never forgets Rabelais' address to her, or the different but still delightful piece in which Marot is supposedto have commemorated her Platonic graciousness; while her portrait, though drawn in the hard, dry manner of the time, and with the tendencyof that time to "make a girl's nose a proboscis, " is by no meansunsuggestive of actual physical charm. 

[112] This phrase, though Biblical, of course, in spirit, is not, so faras I remember, anywhere found textually in Holy Writ. It may bepatristic; in which case I shall be glad of learned information. Itsounds rather like St. Augustine. But I do not think it occurs earlierin French, and the word _impossibilité_ is not banal in the connection. 

[113] The famous phrase "amoureux _transi_" is simply untranslatable byany single word in English for the adjective, or rather participle. Itsunmetaphorical use is, of course, commonest in the combination _transide froid_, "frozen, " and so suggests in the other a lover shiveringactually under his mistress's shut window, or, metaphorically, under herdisdain. 

[114] The expression (_passe oultre_) commented on in speaking ofRabelais, and again one which has no English equivalent. 

[115] A very early example of the special sense given to this word inFrench increasingly during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenthcenturies, of "freethinker" deepening to "atheist. " Johnson's friend, itwill be remembered, regarded Philosophy as something to which theirruption of Cheerfulness was fatal; Butler, as something acquirable byreading Alexander Ross; a famous ancient saying, as the remembrancer ofdeath; and a modern usage, as something which has brass and glass"instruments. " But it was Hegel, was it not? or Carlyle? who summarisedthe French view and its time of prevalence in the phrase, "When everyone was a philosopher who did not believe in the Devil. "

[116] His translations of the _Andria_ and of Plato's _Lysis_; and hisverses, the chief charm of which is to be found in his adoption of the"cut and broken" stanzas which the French Renaissance loved. 

[117] Not to be confused with _Jehan_ Bouchet the poet, a much olderman, indeed some twenty years older than Rabelais, and as dull asRaminagrobis Crétin himself, but the inventor or discoverer of thatagreeable _agnomen_ "Traverseur des Voies Périlleuses" which has beennoted above. 

[118] Cholières, I think, deserves the prize for sinking lowest. 

[119] From all the endless welter of abuse of God's great gift of speech[and writing] about the French Revolution, perhaps nothing has emergedmore clearly than that its evils were mainly due to the sterilisation ofthe regular Provincial assemblies under the later monarchy. 

[120] A person not bad of blood will always be glad to mention one ofthe few good sides of a generally detestable character; and a person ofhumour must always chuckle at some of the ways in which Calvin'sservices to French prose were utilised. 

[121] He did not confine his good offices to romances of _caballería_. In 1539 he turned into French the _Arnalte and Lucenda_ of Diego de SanPedro (author of the more widely known _Carcel de Amor_), a very curiousif also rather tedious-brief love-story which had great influence inFrance (see Reynier, _op. Cit. Inf. _ pp. 66-73). This (though M. Reynierdid not know it) was afterwards versified in English by one of our minorCarolines, and will appear in the third volume of the collected editionof them now in course of publication by the Clarendon Press. 

[122] Not always. Nouzhatoul-aouadat is certainly not as musical asPintiquinestra, though Nouronnihar as certainly is. 

[123]

[Sidenote: Note on Hélisenne de Crenne. ]

There should be added here a very curious, and now, if not in its owntime, very rare book, my first knowledge of which I owed to a workalready mentioned, M. Gustave Reynier's _Le Roman Sentimental avantl'Astrée_ (Paris, 1908), though I was able, after this chapter wascomposed, to find and read the original in the British Museum. It wasfirst printed in 1538, and bears, like other books of its time, adisproportionately long title, which may, however, be easily shortened, "_Les Angoisses douloureuses qui procèdent d'Amour_ ... Composées pardame Hélisenne de Crenne. " This Hélisenne or Hélisaine seems to havebeen a real person: and not the least of the remarkable group of womenauthors who illustrate her time in France, though M. Reynier himselfadmits that "it is difficult to know exactly _who_ she was. " She appearsto have been of Picardy, and other extant and non-extant works areattributed to her. Like almost everybody of her time she wrote in theextreme _rhétoriqueur_ style--so much so indeed as to lead even Pasquierinto the blunder of supposing that Rabelais hit at her in the dialect ofthe "Limousin scholar. " The _Angoisses_, which M. Reynier's acuteexamination shows to have been written by some one who must have knownBoccaccio's _Fiammetta_ (more than once Frenched about this time), is, or gives itself out to be, the autobiography of a girl of noble birthwho, married at eleven years old and at first very fond of her husband, becomes at thirteen the object of much courtship from many gallants. Ofthese she selects, entirely on the love-at-first-sight principle, a veryhandsome young man who passes in the street. She is well read and triesto keep herself in order by stock examples, classical and romantic, ofill-placed and ill-fated affection. Her husband (who seems to have beena very good fellow for his time) gives her unconsciously what shouldhave been the best help of all, by praising her self-selected lover'sgood looks and laughing at the young man's habit of staring at her. Butshe has already spoken frankly of her own _appétit sensuel_, and sheproceeds to show this in the fashion which makes the fifteenth centuryand the early sixteenth a sort of trough of animalism between thealtitudes of Mediaeval and Renaissance passion. Her lover turns out tobe an utter cad, boastful, blabbing, and almost cowardly (he tells herin the usual stolen church interview, _Je crains merveilleusementmonsieur votre mari_). But it makes not the slightest difference; nordoes the at last awakened wrath of an at last not merely threatened butwideawake husband. Apparently she never has the chance of being actuallyguilty, for her husband finally, and very properly, shuts her up in acountry house under strong duennaship. This finishes the first part, butthere are two more, which return to more ancient ways. The loverGuenélic goes off to seek adventures, which he himself recounts, andacquires considerable improvement in them. He comes back, endeavours tofree his mistress from her captivity, and does actually fly with her;but they are pursued; and though the lover and a friend of his with therather Amadisian name of "Quezinstra" do their best, the heroine dies ofweariness and shock, to be followed by her lover. 

This latter part is comparatively commonplace. M. Reynier thinks veryhighly of the first. It is possible to go with him a certain part of theway, but not, I think, the whole, except from a purely "naturalist" andnot at all "sentimental" point of view. Some bold bad men have, ofcourse, maintained that when the other sex is possessed by an _appétitsensuel_ this overcomes everything else, and seems, if not actually toexclude, at any rate by no means always or often to excite, thataccompanying transcendentalism which is not uncommon with men, andwhich, comprised with the appetite, makes the love of the great lovers, whether they are represented by Dante or by Donne, by Shakespeare or byShelley. Whether this be truth or libel _non nostrum est_. But it iscertain that Hélisenne, as she represents herself, does not make thesmallest attempt to spiritualise (even in the lowest sense) or inspiritthe animality of her affection. She wants her lover as she might want apork chop instead of a mutton one; and if she is sometimes satisfiedwith seeing him, it is as if she were looking at that pork chop througha restaurateur's window and finding it better than not seeing it at alland contenting herself with the mutton. Still this result is probablythe result at least as much of want of art as of original _mis_feeling;and the book certainly does deserve notice here. 

The original _Oeuvres_ of Hélisenne form a rather appetising littlevolume, fat, and close and small printed, as indeed is the case withmost, but not quite all, of the books now under notice. Thecomplementary pieces are mainly moralities, as indeed are, in intention, the _Angoisses_ themselves. These latter seem to me better worthreprinting than most other things as yet not reprinted, from the_Heptameron_ (Hélisenne, be it remembered, preceded Marguerite) fornearly a hundred years. The later parts, though (or perhaps evenbecause) they contrast curiously with the first, are by no meansdestitute of interest; and M. Reynier, I think, is a little hard on themif he has perhaps been a little kind to their predecessor. The lingo isindeed almost always stupendous and occasionally terrible. The printeraids sometimes; for it was not at once that I could emend thedescription of the B. V. M. As "Mère et Fille de _l'aliltonât_ [ant]plasmateur" into "_altitonant_" ("loud-thundering"), while _plasmateur_itself, though perfectly intelligible and legitimate, a favourite withthe _rhétoriqueurs_, and borrowed from them even in Middle Scots, is notexactly everybody's word. But from her very exordium she may be fairlyjudged. "Au temps que la Déesse Cibélé despouilla son glacial et gélidehabit, et vestit sa verdoyante robe, tapissée de diverses couleurs, jefus procréé, de noblesse. " And, after all, there _is_ a certain nobilityin this fashion of speech and of literary presentation. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--I

_The Pastoral and Heroic Romance, and the Fairy Story_

[Sidenote: Immense importance of the seventeenth century in oursubject. ]

The seventeenth century, almost if not quite from its beginning, ranksin French literature as the eighteenth does with us, that is to say, asthe time of origin of novels or romances which can be called, in anysense, modern. In its first decade appeared the epoch-makingpastoral-heroic _Astrée_ of Honoré d'Urfé;[124] its middle period, from1620 to 1670, was the principal birth-time of the famous "Heroic"variety, pure and simple; while, from that division into the last third, the curiously contrasted kind of the fairy tale came to add its quota ofinfluence. At various periods, too, individuals of more or less note(and sometimes of much more than almost any of the "school-writers" justmentioned) helped mightily in strengthening and diversifying thesubjects and manners of tales. To this period also belongs thecontinuance and prominence of that element of actual "lived" anecdoteand personal history which has been mentioned more than once before. The_Historiettes_ of Tallemant contain short suggestions for a hundrednovels and romances; the memoirs, genuine or forged, of public andprivate persons have not seldom, in more modern times, formed the actualbasis of some of the greatest fiction. Everybody ought long to haveknown Thackeray's perhaps rather whimsical declaration that hepositively preferred the forged D'Artagnan memoirs of Courtils deSandras (as far at least as the Gascon himself was concerned) to thework of that Alexander, the truly Great, of which he was neverthelesssuch a generous admirer: and recently mere English readers have had theopportunity of seeing whether they agree with him. In fact, as thecentury went on, almost all kinds of literature began to be more or lesspervaded with the novel appeal and quality. 

[Sidenote: The divisions of its contribution. ]

The letters of "Notre Dame des Rochers" constantly read like parts orscenes of a novel, and so do various compositions of her ill-conditionedbut not unintelligent cousin Bussy-Rabutin. Camus de Pontcarré in theearlier and Fénelon in the later century determined that the Devilshould not have this good prose to himself, and our own Anthony Hamiltonshowed the way to Voltaire in a kind, of which, though the Devil hadnothing immediately to do with it, he might perhaps make use later. Infact, the whole century teems with the spirit of tale-telling, _plus_character-analysis; and in the eighteenth itself, with a few notableexceptions, there was rather a falling-off from, than a further advancetowards, the full blossoming of the aloe in the nineteenth. 

It will probably, therefore, not be excessive to give two chapters (andtwo not short ones) to this period. In the first of them we may take thetwo apparently opposite, but by no means irreconcilable schools ofPastoral and Heroic Romance[125] and of Fairy Tale, including perhapsonly four persons, if so many, of first-rate literary rank--Urfé, [126]Madeleine de Scudéry, Madame d'Aulnoy, and Perrault; in the second, themore isolated but in some cases not unimportant names and works ofSorel, Scarron, Furetière, and the capital ones of Madame de la Fayetteand Hamilton. According to the plan previously pursued, less attemptwill be made to give exhaustive or even full lists of practitioners thanto illustrate their practice thoroughly by example, translated orabstracted, and by criticism; and it is necessary that this lattercourse should be used without mercy to readers or to the historianhimself in this first chapter. For there is hardly any department ofliterature which has been more left to the rather treacherous care oftraditional and second- or seventh-hand judgment than the Heroicromance. [127]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The Pastoral in general. ]

The Pastoral, as being of the most ancient and in a literary sense ofthe highest formal rank, may occupy us first, but by no means longest. Agreat deal of attention (perhaps a great deal more than was at allnecessary) has been paid to the pastoral element in various kinds ofliterature. The thing is certainly curious, and inevitably invitedcomment; but unfortunately it has peculiar temptations to a kind ofcomment which, though very fashionable for some time past, is rarelyprofitable. Pastorals of the most interesting kind actually exist inliterature: "pastoralism" in the abstract, unless treated in the purehistorical manner, is apt, like all similar criticism and discussion of"kinds" in general, to tend to [Greek: phlyaria]. [128] For a history ina nutshell there is perhaps room even here, because the relations of thething to fiction cannot be well understood without it. That theassociation of shepherds, [129] with songs, and with the telling of"tales" in both senses, is immensely old, is a fact which the HebrewScriptures establish, and almost the earliest Greek mythology and poetryconfirm; but the wiser mind, here as elsewhere, will probably be contentwith the fact, and not enquire too busybodily into the reason. Theconnection between Sicily--apparently a land of actual pastorallife--and Alexandria--the home of the first professional man-of-lettersschool, as it may be called--perhaps supplies something more; the actualbeauty of the Sicilian-Alexandrian poems, more still; the adoption ofthe form by Virgil, who was revered at Rome, renowned somewhatheterodoxically in the Middle Ages, and simply adored by theRenaissance, most of all. So, in English, Spenser and Milton, in French, Marot and others niched it solidly in the nation's poetry; and thecertainly charming _Daphnis and Chloe_, when vernacularised, transferredits influence from verse to prose in almost all the countries of Europe. 

To what may be called "common-sense" criticism, there is, of course, noform of literature, in either prose or verse, which is more utterlyabhorrent and more helplessly exposed. Unsympathetic, and in some pointsunfair and even unintelligent, as Johnson's criticism of _Lycidas_ mayseem, to the censure of its actual "pastorality" there is no answer, except that "these things are an allegory" as well as a convention. Togo further out of mere common-sense objections, and yet stick to theDevil's-Advocate line, there is no form which lends itself to--which, indeed, insists upon--conventions of the most glaring unreality morethan the pastoral, and none in which the decorations, unless managedwith extraordinary genius, have such a tendency to be tawdry at best, draggled and withered at worst. Nevertheless, the fact remains that atalmost all times, both in ancient literature and since the revival ofletters, as well as in some probably more spontaneous forms during theMiddle Ages themselves, [130] pastorals have been popular with thevulgar, and practised by the elect; while within the very last hundredyears such a towering genius as Shelley's, and such a manifold andeffectual talent as Mr. Arnold's, have selected it for some of theirvery best work. 

Such adoption, moreover, had, for the writer of prose fiction, somepeculiar and pretty obvious inducements. It has been noticed by allcareful students of fiction that one of the initial difficulties in itsway, and one of those which do not seem to get out of that way veryquickly, is diffidence on the writer's part "how to begin. " It may besaid that this is not peculiar to fiction; but extends from the poet whonever can get beyond the first lines of his epic to the journalist whosits for an hour gazing at the blank paper for his article, and returnshome at midnight, if not like Miss Bolo "in a flood of tears and a sedanchair, " at any rate in a tornado of swearing at himself and (while therewere such things) a hansom cab. Pastoral gives both easy beginning andsupporting framework. 

[Sidenote: Its beginnings in France. ]

[Sidenote: Minor romances preceding the _Astrée_. ]

The transformation of the older pastoral form into the newer began, doubtless, with the rendering into French of _Daphnis and Chloe_, [131]which appeared in the same year with the complete _Heptameron_ (1559). Twelve years later, in 1571, Belleforest's _La Pyrénee et PastoraleAmoureuse_ rather took the title than exemplified the kind; but in 1578the translation of Montemayor's _Diana_ definitely turned the currentinto the new-old channel. It was not, however, till seven years laterstill that "_Les Bergeries de Juliette_, de l'invention d'Ollenix duMont Sacré" (a rather exceptionally foolish anagram of Nicolas deMontreux) essayed something original in the style. Montreux issued hiswork, of which more presently, again and again in five instalments, thelast of which appeared thirteen years later than the first. And it hasbeen proved with immense bibliographical labour by M. Reynier, [132] thatthough the last decade of the sixteenth century in France was almost asfertile in short love-romances[133] as ours was in sonnet-cycles, thepastoral form was, whether deliberately or not, for the most parteschewed, though there were one or two exceptions of little if anyconsequence. It is indeed noteworthy that (only four years before thefirst part of the _Astrée_) a second translation or the _Diana_ cameout. But it was not till 1607 that this first part actually appeared, and in the opinion of its own time generally, and our own time for themost part, though not in that of the interval, made a new epoch in thehistory of French fiction. 

[Sidenote: Their general character. ]

The general characteristics of this curious and numerous, but almostforgotten, body of work--which must, be it remembered, have exercisedinfluence, more or less, on the progress of the novel by the ways ofsupply, demand, and reaction alike--have been carefully analysed by M. Reynier, with whom, in regard to one or two points of opinion, one maydiffer, but whose statements of fact are certainly trustworthy. Short asthey usually are, and small as is the literary power displayed in mostof them, it is clear that they, long before Rambouillet and the_précieuses_, indicate a distinct reaction against merely brutal andferocious manners, with a standard of "courtiership" in both senses. Ourdear Reine Margot herself in one case prescribes, what one hopes shefound not merely in La Mole, but in others of those transitorily happyones whose desiccated hearts did or did not distend the pockets of herfarthingale as live Persian kittens do those of their merchants. To be alover you must have "a stocking void of holes, a ruff, a sword, a plume, _and a knowledge how to talk_. " This last point is illustrated in theseminiature romances after a fashion on which one of the differences ofopinion above hinted at may arise. It is not, as in the later "Heroics, "shown merely in lengthy harangues, but in short and almost dramatiseddialogue. No doubt this is often clumsy, but it may seem to have beennot a whole mistake in itself--only an abortive attempt at somethingwhich, much later again, had to come before real novel-writing could beachieved, and which the harangues of the Scudéry type could never haveprovided. There is a little actual history in them--not thekey-cryptograms of the "Heroics" or their adoption of ancient anddistant historic frames. In a very large proportion, forced marriages, proposed and escaped from, supply the plot; in not a few, forced"vocations" to the conventual life. Elopements are as common asabductions in the next stage, and are generally conducted with as muchpropriety. Courtships of married women, and lapses by them, are veryrare. 

[Sidenote: Examples of their style. ]

No one will be surprised to hear that the "Phébus" or systematisedconceit, for which the period is famous, and which the belovedMarguerite herself did not a little favour, is abundant in them. From alarge selection of M. Reynier's, I cull, as perhaps the most delightfulof all these, if not also of all known to me in any language, thefollowing:

 During this task, Love, who had ambushed himself, plunged his wings in the tears of the lover, and dried them in the burning breast of the maiden. 

"A squadron of sighs" is unambitious, but neat, terse, and very temptingto the imagination. More complicated is a lady "floating on the sea ofthe persecution of her Prince, who would fain give her up to theshipwreck of his own concupiscence. "

And I like this:

 The grafts of our desires being inarched long since in the tree of our loves, the branches thereof bore the lovely bouquets of our hopes. 

And this is fine:

 Paper! that the rest of your white surface may not blush at my shame, suffer me to blacken it with my sorrow!

It has always been a sad mystery to me why rude and dull intelligencesshould sneer at, or denounce, these delightful fantastries, the verystuff of which dreams and love and poetry--the three best things oflife--are made. [134]

[Sidenote: Montreux and the _Bergeries de Juliette_. ]

The British Museum possesses not very many of the, I believe, numerousworks of Nicolas de Montreux, _alias_, as has been said, Ollenix du MontSacré, a "gentleman of Maine, " as he scrupulously designates himself. But it does possess two parts (the first two) of the _Bergeries deJuliette_, and I am not in the least surprised that no reader of themshould have worried any librarian into completing the set. Each of theseparts is a stout volume of some five hundred pages, [135] not very small, of close small print, filled with stuff of the most deadly dulness. Forinstance, Ollenix is desirous to illustrate the magnificence and thedanger of those professional persons of the other sex at Venice who havefilled no small place in literature from Coryat to Rousseau. So he tellsus, without a gleam or suspicion of humour, that one customer was soastonied at the decorations of the bedroom, the bed, etc. , that heremained for two whole hours considering them, and forgetting to pay anyattention to the lady. It is satisfactory to know that she revengedherself by raising the fee to an inordinate amount, and insisting on herabsurd client's lackey being sent to fetch it before the actualconference took place. But the silliness of the story itself is a fairsample of Montreux' wits, and these wits manage to make anything theydeal with duller by their way of telling it. 

[Sidenote: Des Escuteaux and his _Amours Diverses_. ]

It is still more unfortunate that our national collection has none ofthe numerous fictions[136] of A(ntoine?) de Nervèze. His _AmoursDiverses_ (1606), in which he collected no less than seven love-stories, published separately earlier, would be useful. But it luckily doesprovide the similarly titled book of Des Escuteaux, who is perhaps themost representative and prolific writer, next to Montreux and Nervèze, of the whole, and who seems to me, from what I have read of the firstand what others say of the second, to be their superior. The collectionsconsist of (_Amours de_ in every case) _Filiris et Isolia_, dedicated toIsabel (not "-bel_le_") de Rochechouart; _Clarimond et Antoinette_ (toLucresse [_sic_] de Bouillé); _Clidamant et Marilinde_ (to _Jane_ de laBrunetière), and _Ipsilis et Alixée_ (to Renée de Cossé, Amirale deFrance!). [137]

Some readers may be a little "put off" by a habit which Des Escuteauxhas, especially in the first story of the volume, of prefixing, as indrama, the names of the speakers--_Le Prince_, _La Princesse_, etc. --tothe first paragraphs of the harangues and _histoires_ of which thesebooks so largely consist. [138] But it is not universal. The mostinteresting of the four is, I think, _Clidamant et Marilinde_, for itintroduces the religious wars, a sojourn of the lovers on a desertisland, which M. Reynier[139] not unjustly calls Crusoe-like, and other"varieties. "

[Sidenote: François de Molière--_Polyxène. _]

I have not seen the other--quite other, and François--Molière's _SemaineAmoureuse_, which belongs to this class, though later than most; but hisstill later _Polyxène_, a sort of half-way house between these shorternovels and the ever-enlarged "Heroics, " is a very fat duodecimo of 1100pages. The heroine has two lovers--one with the singular name ofCloryman, --but love does not run smooth with either, and she ends bytaking the (pagan) veil. The bathos of the thought and style may bejudged from the heroine's affecting mention of an entertainment as "thelast _ballet_ my unhappy father ever saw. "

[Sidenote: Du Périer--_Arnoult et Clarimonde. _]

Not one of the worst of these four or five score minors, though scarcelyin itself a positively good thing, is the Sieur du Périer's _La Haine etl'Amour d'Arnoult et de Clarimonde_. It begins with a singularly banalexordium, gravely announcing that Hate and Love _are_ among the mostimportant passions, with other statements of a similar kind couched incommonplace language. But it does something to bring the novel from anuninteresting cloudland to earth by dealing with the recent and stillvividly felt League wars: and there is some ingenuity shown in plottingthe conversion of the pair from more than "a little aversion" at thebeginning to nuptial union--_not_ at the end. For it is one of thepoints about the book which are not commonplace, though it may be asurvival or atavism from mediaeval practice--that the latter part of itis occupied mainly, not with Arnoult and Clarimonde, but with the loves, fortunes, and misfortunes of their daughter Claride. 

[Sidenote: Du Croset--_Philocalie. _ Corbin--_Philocaste. _]

The _Philocalie_ of Du Croset (1593) derives its principal interest fromits being not merely a _Bergerie_ before the _Astrée_, but, like it, thework of a Forézian gentleman who proudly asserts his territoriality, anddedicates his book to the "Chevalier D'Urfé. " And its part name-fellow, the _Philocaste_ of Jean Corbin--a very tiny book, the heroine of whichis (one would hardly have thought it from her name) a Princess ofEngland--is almost entirely composed of letters, discourse on them, anda few interspersed verses. It belongs to the division ofbackward-looking novels, semi-chivalrous in type, and its hero is asoften called "The Black Knight" as by his name. 

[Sidenote: Jean de Lannoi and his _Roman Satirique_. ]

The _Roman Satirique_ (1624) of Jean de Lannoi is another example of thecurious inability to "hit it off" which has been mentioned so often ascharacterising the period. Its 1100 pages are far too many, though it isfair to say that the print is exceptionally large and loose. Much of itis not in any sense "satiric, " and it seems to have derived whatpopularity it had almost wholly from the "key" interest. 

[Sidenote: Béroalde de Verville outside the _Moyen de Parvenir_. ]

The minor works--if the term may be used when the attribution of themajor is by no means certain--of Béroalde de Verville have, as is usual, been used both ways as arguments for and against his authorship of the_Moyen de Parvenir_. _Les Aventures de Floride_ is simply an attempt, and a big one in size, to _amadigauliser_, as the literary slang of thetime went. The _Histoire Véritable_, owing nothing but its title andpart of its idea to Lucian, and sub-titled _Les Princes Fortunés_, isless conventional. It has a large fancy map for a frontispiece; thereare fairies in it, and a sort of _pot-pourri_ of queernesses which mightnot impossibly have come from the author or editor of the _Moyen_ in hisless inconveniently ultra-Pantagruelist moments. _Le Cabinet de Minerve_is actually a glorification of "honest" love. In fact, Béroalde is oneof the oddest of "polygraphers, " and there is nobody quite like him inEnglish, though some of his fellows may be matched, after a fashion, with our Elizabethan pamphleteers. I have long wished to read the wholeof him, but I suppose I never shall. 

And it is time to leave these very minor stars and come to the full andgracious moon of the _Astrée_ itself. 

[Sidenote: The _Astrée_--its author. ]

Honoré D'Urfé, who was three years younger than Shakespeare, and died inthe year in which Charles I. Came to the throne, was a cadet of a veryancient family in the district or minor province of Forez, where his ownfamous Lignon runs into the Loire. He was a pupil of the Jesuits andearly _fort en thème_, was a strenuous _ligueur_, and, though (orperhaps also because) he was very good friends with Henri's estrangedwife, Margot, for some time decidedly suspect to Henri IV. For thisreason, and others of property, etc. , he became almost a naturalisedSavoyard, but died in the service of his own country at the beginning ofRichelieu's Valtelline war. The most noteworthy thing in his rathereventful life was, however, his marriage. This also has a directliterary interest, at least in tradition, which will have his wife, Diane de Châteaumorand, to be Astrée herself, and so the heroine of "thefirst [great] sentimental romance. " The circumstances of the union, however, were scarcely sentimental, much less romantic. They were even, as people used to say yesterday, "not quite nice, " and the Abbé Reure, adevotee of both parties to it, admits that they "_heurte[nt] violemmentnos idées_. " In fact Diane was not only eight years older than Honoréand thirty-eight years of age, but she had been for a quarter of acentury the wife of his elder brother, Anne, while he himself was aknight of Malta, and vowed to celibacy. Of course (as the Canon pointsout with irrefragably literal accuracy in logic and law) the marriagebeing declared null _ab initio_ (for the cause most likely to suggestitself, though alleged after extraordinary delay), Diane and Honoré werenot sister- and brother-in-law at all, and no "divorce" or even"dispensation" was needed. In the same way, Honoré, having beenintroduced into the Order of St. John irregularly in various ways, neverwas a knight of it at all, and could not be bound by its rules. Q. E. D. Wicked people, of course, on the other hand, said that it was a deviceto retain Diane's great wealth (for Honoré was quite poor in comparison)in the family; sentimental ones that it was a fortunate and blamelesscrowning of a long and pure attachment. As a matter of fact, no"permanent children" (to adopt an excellent phrase of the late Mr. Traill's) resulted; Diane outlived her husband, though but for a shorttime, and left all her property to her relations of the Lévis family. The pair are also said not to have been the most united of couples. Inconnection with the _Astrée_ their portraits are interesting. Honoréd'Urfé, though he had the benefit of Van Dyck's marvellous art ofcavalier creation, must have been a very handsome man. Diane's portrait, by a much harder and dryer hand, purports to have been taken at the ageof sixty-four. At first sight there is no beauty in it; but onreinspection one admits possibilities--a high forehead, rather"enigmatic" eyes, not at all "extinguished, " a nose prominent and ratherlarge, but straight and with well, but not too much, developed "wings, "and, above all, a full and rather voluptuous mouth. Such may have beenthe first identified novel-heroine. It is a popular error to think thatsixty-four and beauty are incompatibles, but one certainly would haveliked to see her at sixteen, or better still and perhaps best of all, atsix and twenty. 

[Sidenote: The book. ]

The _Astrée_ itself is not the easiest of subjects to deal with. It isindeed not so huge as the _Grand Cyrus_, but it is much more difficultto get at--a very rare flower except in the "grey old gardens" ofsecular libraries. It and its author have indeed for a few years pasthad the benefit (as a result partly of another doubtful thing, an_x_-centenary) of one[140] of the rather-to-seek good specimens amongthe endless number of modern literary monographs. But it has never beenreprinted--even extracts of it, with the exception of a few stockpassages, are not common or extensive; and though a not small libraryhas been written about it in successive waves of eulogy, reaction, mostly ignorant contempt, rehabilitation, and mere bookmaking; thoughthere have been (as noted) recent anniversaries and celebrations, and soforth; though it is one of the not numerous books which have given aname-type--Celadon, --and a place--"les bords du Lignon, "--to their own, if not to universal literature, it seems to be "as a book" very littleknown. The faithful monographer above cited admits merit in Dunlop; butDunlop does not say very much about it. Herr Körting (_v. Sup. _)analyses it. Possibly there may be, also in German, a comparison, tempting to those who like such things, between it and its twenty years'predecessor, Sidney's _Arcadia_, the first French translation of which, in 1625, just after Urfé's death, was actually dedicated to his widow. But I suspect that few English writers about Sidney have known much ofthe _Astrée_, and I feel sure that still fewer French writers[141] onthis have known anything of Sidney save perhaps his name. Of course theindebtedness of both books to Montemayor's _Diana_ is a commonplace. 

[Sidenote: Its likeness to the _Arcadia_. ]

[Sidenote: Its philosophy and its general temper. ]

One of the numerous resemblances between the two, and one which, considering their respective positions in the history of the French andEnglish novel, is most interesting, is the strong philosophical andspecially Platonic influence which the Renaissance exercised onboth. [142] Sidney, however full of it elsewhere, put less of it in hisactual novel; while, on the other hand, nothing did so much to createand spread the rather rococo notion of pseudo-platonic love in France, and from France throughout Europe, as the _Astrée_ itself. The furtherunion of the philosophic mind with an eminently cavaliertemperament--the united _ethos_ of scholar, soldier, lover, andcourtier--fills out the comparison: and dwarfs such merely mechanicalthings as the mixed use of prose and verse (which both may have taken, nay pretty certainly did take, from Montemayor) and the pastoralities, for which they in the same way owed royalty to the Spaniard, to Tasso, to Sannazar, and to the Greek romances, let alone Theocritus and Virgil. And, to confine ourselves henceforward to our own special subject, it isthis double infusion of idealism--of spiritual and intellectualenthusiasm on the one hand and practical fire of life and act on theother--which makes the great difference, not merely between the _Astrée_and its predecessors of the _Amadis_ class, but between it and itssuccessors the strictly "Heroic" romances, though these owe it so much. The first--except in some points of passion--hardly touch reality atall; the last are perpetually endeavouring to simulate and insinuate asort of reality under cover of adventures and conventions which, thoughfictitious, are hardly at all fantastic. But the _Astrée_ might almostbe called a French prose _Faerie Queene_, allowing for the difference ofthe two nations, languages, vehicles, and _milieux_ generally, in itsrepresentation of the above-mentioned cavalier-philosophic _ethos_--athing never so well realised in France as in England or in Spain, but ofwhich Honoré d'Urfé, from many traits in life and book, seems to havebeen a real example, and which certainly vindicates its place in historyand literature. 

[Sidenote: Its appearance and its author's other work. ]

The _Astrée_ appeared in five instalments, 1607-10-12-19 andposthumously, the several parts being frequently printed: and it is saidto be almost impossible to find a copy, all the parts of which are ofthe first issue in each case. The two later parts probably, the lastcertainly, were collaborated in, if not wholly written by, the author'ssecretary Baro. But it was by no means Honoré's only work; indeed theUrfés up to his time were an unusually literary family; and, while hisgrandfather Claude collected a remarkable library (whence, at itsdispersion in the evil days of the house[143] during the eighteenthcentury, came some of not the least precious possessions of Frenchpublic and private collections), his unfortunate brother Anne was apoet. Honoré himself, besides school exercises, wrote _Epistres Morales_which were rather popular, and display qualities useful in appreciatingthe novel itself; a poem in octosyllables, usually and perhaps naturallycalled "_La_ Sireine, " but really entitled in the masculine, and havingnothing to do with a mermaid; a curious thing, semi-dramatic in form andin irregular blank verse, entitled _Silvanire ou La Morte Vive_, whichwas rehandled soon after his death by Corneille's most dangerous rivalMairet; and an epic called _La Savoisiade_, which seems to have nomerit, and all but a very small portion of which is still unprinted. 

[Sidenote: Its character and appeals. ]

He remains, therefore, the author of the _Astrée_, and, taking things onthe whole (a mighty whole, beyond contest, as far as bulk goes), thereare not so many authors of the second rank (for one of the first he canhardly be called) who would lose very much by an exchange with him. One's estimates of the book are apt to vary in different places, evenas, though not in the same degree as, the estimates of others havevaried at different times; but I myself have found that the more I readof it the more I liked and esteemed it; and I believe that, if I had acopy of my own and could turn it over in the proper diurnal andnocturnal fashion, not as duty- but as pleasure-reading, I should likeit better still. Certain points that have appealed to me have beennoticed already--its combination of sensuous and ideal passion isperhaps the most important of them; but there are not a few others, themselves by no means void of importance. One is the union, not commonin French books between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century, ofsentiment and seriousness with something very like humour. Hylas, thenot exactly "comic man, " but light-o'-love and inconstant shepherd, wasrather a bone of contention among critics of the book's own century. Buthe certainly seasons it well; and there is one almost Shakespeareanscene in which he is concerned--a scene which Benedick and Beatrice, whomay have read it not so very many years after their own marriage, musthave enjoyed considerably. Hylas and the shepherdess Stella (who issomething of a girl-counterpart of his, as in the case just cited) drawup a convention of love[144] between them. The tables, though they arenot actually numbered in the original, are twelve, and, shortened alittle, run as follows:

[Sidenote: Hylas and Stella and their Convention. ]

 1. Neither is to be sovereign over the other. 

 2. Both are to be at once Lover and Beloved. [They knew something about the matter, these two, for all their jesting. ]

 3. There is to be no constraint of any kind. 

 4. They are to love for as long or as short a time as they please. 

 5. No charge of infidelity is ever to be brought on either side. 

 6. It is quite permitted to either or both to love somebody else, and yet to continue loving each other. 

 7. There is to be no jealousy, no complaints, no sulks. 

 8. They are to do and say exactly what they please. 

 9. Words like "faithfulness, " etc. , are taboo. 

 10. They may leave off playing whenever they like. 

 11. And begin again ditto. 

 12. They are to forget both the favours they receive from each other and the offences they may commit against each other. 

Now, of course, any one may say of the Land where such a code might berealised, in the very words of one of the most charming of songs, set toone of the happiest of tunes:

 Cette rive, ma chère, On ne la connaît guère Au pays des amours!

But that is not the question, and if it _were_ possible it undoubtedlywould be a very agreeable Utopia, combining the transcendental charms ofthe country of Quintessence with the material ones of the Pays deCocagne. From its own point of view there seems to be no fault to findwith it, except, perhaps, with the first part of the TwelfthCommandment; for the remembrance of former favours heightens theenjoyment of later ones, and the danger of _nessun maggior dolore_ isexcluded by the hypothesis of indifference after breach. But a sort ofumpire, or at any rate thirdsman, the shepherd Silvandre, [145] whenasked his opinion, makes an ingenious objection. To carry out ArticleThree, he says, there ought to be a Thirteenth:

 13. That they may break any of these rules just as they please. 

For what comes of this further the reader may go to the book, but enoughof it should have been given to show that there is no want of salt, though there is no (or very little) _gros sel_[146] in the _Astrée_. 

[Sidenote: Narrative skill frequent. ]

Yet again there is very considerable narrative power. Abstracts may befound, not merely in older books mentioned or to be mentioned, but inthe recent publications of Körting and the Abbé Reure, and there isneither room nor need for a fresh one here. As some one (or more thanone) has said, the book is really a sort of half-allegorical tableau ofhonourable Love worked out in a crowd of couples (some I believe, havecounted as many as sixty), from Celadon and Astrée themselves downwards. The course of these loves is necessarily "accidented, " and the accidentsare well enough managed from the first, and naturally enough best known, where Celadon flings himself into the river and is rescued, insensiblebut alive, by nymphs, who all admire him very much, though none of themcan affect his passion for Astrée. But one cares--at least I have foundmyself caring--less for the story than for the way in which it istold--a state of things exactly contrary, as will be seen, to thatproduced with or in me by the _Grand Cyrus_. There we have a reallywell, if too intricately, engineered plot, in the telling of which it isdifficult to take much interest. Here it is just the reverse. And one ofthe consequences is that you can dip in the _Astrée_ much morerefreshingly than in its famous follower, where, if you do so, youconstantly "don't know where you are. "

[Sidenote: The Fountain of the Truth of Love. ]

One of the most famous things in the book, and one of the most importantto its conduct, is the "Fountain of the Truth of Love, " a few words onwhich will illustrate the general handling very fairly. This Fountain(presided over by a Druid, a very important personage otherwise, who isa sort of high priest thereof) has nothing in common with the more usualwaters which are philtres or anti-philtres, etc. Its function is to begazed in rather than to be drunk, and if you look into it, lovingsomebody, you see your mistress. If she loves you, you see yourself aswell, beside her, and (which is not so nice) if she loves some one elseyou see _him_; while if she is fancy-free you see her only. Clidaman, one of the numerous lovers above mentioned, tries the water; and hislove, Silvie, presents herself again and again as he looks, "almostsetting on fire with her lovely eyes the wave which seemed to laugharound her. " But she is quite alone. 

The presiding Druid interprets, not merely in the sense already given, but with one of the philosophic commentaries, which, as has been said, are distinctive of the book. The nature of the fountain is to reflectnot body but spirit. Spirit includes Will, Memory, and Judgment, andwhen a man loves, his spirit transforms itself through all these waysinto the thing loved. Therefore when he looks into the fountain he seesHer. In the same way She is changed into Him or some one else whom sheloves, and He sees that image also; but if she loves no one He sees herimage alone. 

"This is very satisfactory" (as Lady Kew would say) to the inquiringmind, but not so much so to the lover. He wants to have the fountainshut up, I suppose (for my notes and memory do not cover this pointexactly), that no rival may have the chance denied to himself. He wouldeven destroy it, but that--the Druid tells and shows him--is quiteimpossible. What can be done shall be. And here comes in another of theagreeable things (to me) in the book--its curious fairy-tale character, which is shown by numerous supernaturalities, much more _humanised_ thanthose of the _Amadis_ group, and probably by no means without effect onthe fairy-tale proper which was to follow. Clidaman himself happens, inthe most natural way in the world, to "keep"--as an ordinary man keepscats and dogs--a couple of extraordinary big and savage lions andanother couple of unicorns to fight, not with each other, but withmiscellaneous animals. The lions and the unicorns are forthwithextra-enchanted, so as to guard the fountain--an excellent arrangement, but subject to some awkwardnesses in the sequel. For the lions taketurns to seek their meat in the ordinary way, and though they can hurtnobody who does not meddle with the fountain, and have no wish to beman-eaters, complications naturally supervene. And sometimes, besidesfighting, [147] and love-making, and love casuistry, and fairy-tales, andoracles, and the finer comedy above mentioned, "Messire d'Urfé" (for hedid not live too late to have that most gracious of all designations ofa gentleman used in regard to him) did not disdain, and could not illmanage, sheer farce. The scene with Cryseide and Arimant and Clorine andthe nurse and the ointment in Part III. Book VII. , though it containslittle or nothing to _effaroucher la pudeur_, is like one of the broaderbut not broadest tales of the Fabliaux and their descendants. 

[Sidenote: Some drawbacks--awkward history. ]

The book, therefore, has not merely a variety, but a certain liveliness, neither of which is commonplace; but it would of course be uncritical tosuppress its drawbacks. It is far too long: and while bowing to those tothe manner born who say that Baro carried out his master's plan well inpoint of style, and acknowledging that I have paid less attention toParts IV. And V. Than to the others, it seems to me that we could sparea good deal of them. One error, common to almost the whole century infiction, is sometimes flagrant. Nobody except a pedant need object tothe establishment, in the time of the early fifth century and the placeof Gaul, of a non-historical kinglet- or queenletdom of Forez or"Séguse" under Amasis (here a feminine name[148]), etc. ; nor, though (asmay perhaps be remarked again later) things Merovingian bring littleluck in literature, need we absolutely bar Chilperics and Alarics, or areference to "all the beauties of Neustria. " But why, in the midst ofthe generally gracious _macédoine_ of serious and comic loves, andjokes, and adventures, should we have thrust in the entirelyunnecessary, however historical, crime whereby Valentinian the Thirdlost his worthless life and his decaying Empire? It has, however, beenremarked, perhaps often enough, by those who have busied themselves withthe history of the novel, how curious it is that the historical variety, though it never succeeded in being born for two thousand years afterthe _Cyropaedia_ and more, constantly strove to be so. At no time werethe throes more frequent than during the seventeenth century in France;at no time, there or anywhere else, were they more abortive. [149]

[Sidenote: But attractive on the whole. ]

But it remains on the whole an attractive book, and the secret of atleast part of this attractiveness is no doubt to be found stated in asentence of Madame de Sévigné's, which has startled some people, that"everything in it is natural and true. " To the startled persons this mayseem either a deliberate paradox, or a mere extravagance of affection, or even downright bad taste and folly. But the Lady of all BeautifulLetter-writers was almost of the family of Neverout in literarycriticism. If she had been a professional critic (which is perhapsimpossible), she might have safeguarded her dictum by the addition, "according to its own scheme and division. " It is the neglect of thisimplication which has caused the demurs. "'Natural!'" and "'true!'" theysay, "why, the Pastoral is the most frankly and in fact outrageouslyunnatural and false of all literary kinds. Does not Urfé himself warn usthat we are not to expect ordinary shepherds and shepherdesses at all?"Or perhaps they go more to detail. "The whole book is unabashedlyoccupied with love-making; and love is not the whole, it is even a verysmall part, of life, that is to say, of truth and nature. " Or, to comestill closer to particulars, "Where, for instance, did Celadon, who isrepresented as having been reduced to utter destitution when, _moreheroum_, he started a quasi-hermit life in the wood, get thedecorations, etc. , of the Temple he erected to Love and Astrée?" Onealmost blushes at having to explain, in a popular style, themistakenness, to use the mildest word, of these objections. The presentwriter, in a book less ambitious than the present on the sister subjectof the English novel, once ventured to point out that if you ask "whereSir Guyon got that particularly convenient padlock with which hefastened Occasion's tongue, and still more the hundred iron chains withwhich he bound Furor?" that is to say, if you ask such a questionseriously, you have no business to read romance at all. As to the Lovematter, of that it is still less use to talk. There are some who wouldgo so far as to deny the major; even short of that hardiness it may besafely urged that in poetry and romance Love _is_ the chief andprincipal thing, and that the poet and the romancer are only acting upto their commission in representing it as such. But the source of allthese errors is best reached, and if it may be, stopped, by dealing withthe first article of the indictment in the same way. What if Pastoral_is_ artificial? That may be an argument against the kind as a whole, but it cannot lie against a particular example of it, because thatexample is bound to act up to its kind's law. And I think it notextravagant to contend that the _Astrée_ acts up to its law in the mostinoffensive fashion possible--in such a fashion, in fact, as is hardlyever elsewhere found in the larger specimens, and by no means very oftenin the smaller. Hardly even in _As You Like It_, certainly not in the_Arcadia_, do the crook and the pipe get less in the way than they dohere. A minor cavil has been urged--that the "shepherds" and the"knights, " the "shepherdesses" and the "nymphs" are very littledistinguishable from each other; but why should they be? Urfé hadsufficient art to throw over all these things an air of glamour which, to those who can themselves take the benefit of the spell, banishes allinconsistencies, all improbabilities, all specks and knots and the like. It has been said that the _Astrée_ has in it something of the genuinefairy-tale element. And the objections taken to it are really not muchmore reasonable than would be the poser whether even the cleverest ofwolves, with or without a whole human grandmother inside it, would findit easy to wrap itself up in bedclothes, or whether, seeing that evenwalnut shells subject cats to such extreme discomfort, top-boots wouldnot be even more intolerable to the most faithful of feline retainers. 

[Sidenote: The general importance and influence. ]

The literary influence and importance of the book have never been deniedby any competent criticism which had taken the trouble to inform itselfof the facts. It can be pointed out that while the "Heroics, " great aswas their popularity for a time, did not keep it very long, and lost itby sharp and long continued--indeed never reversed--reaction, theinfluence of the _Astrée_ on this later school itself was great, was noteffaced by that of its pupils, and worked in directions different, aswell as conjoint. It begat or helped to beget the _Précieuses_; it did agreat deal, if not exactly to set, to continue that historical characterwhich, though we have not been able to speak very favourably of itsimmediate exercise, was at last to be so important. Above all, itreformed and reinforced the "sentimental" novel, as it is called. Wehave tried to show that there was much more of this in the mediaevalromance proper than it has been the fashion in recent times to allow. There was a great deal in the _Amadis_ class, but extravaganzaed out ofreason as well as out of rhyme. To us, or some of us, the _Astrée_ typemay still seem extravagant, but in comparison it brings things back tothat truth and nature which were granted it by Madame de Sévigné. Itscharms actually soothed the savage breast of Boileau, and it is notsurprising that La Fontaine loved it. Few things of the kind are morecreditable to the better side of Jean Jacques a full century later, thanthat he was not indifferent to its beauty; and there were few greateromissions on the part of _mil-huit-cent-trente_ (which, however, had somuch to do!) than its comparative neglect to stray on to the graciousbanks of the Lignon. All honour to Saint-Marc Girardin (not exactly theman from whom one would have expected it) for having been, as it seems, though in a kind of _palinodic_ fashion, the first to render seriousattention, and to do fair justice, to this vast and curious wildernessof delights. [150]

[Sidenote: The _Grand Cyrus_. ]

[Sidenote: Its preface to Madame de Longueville. ]

To turn from the Pastoral to the Heroic, the actual readers, English orother, of _Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus_[151] in late years, have probablybeen reckonable rather as single spies (a phrase in this connection ofsome rather special appropriateness) than in battalions. And it is to befeared that many or most, if not nearly all of them, have opened it withlittle expectation of pleasure. The traditional estimates are deadagainst it as a rule; it has constantly served as an example--producedby wiseacres for wiseacres--of the _un_wisdom of our ancestors; and, generous as were Sir Walter's estimates of all literature, andespecially of his fellow-craftsmen's and craftswomen's work, the livelypassage in _Old Mortality_ where Edith Bellenden's reference to the bookexcites the (in the circumstances justifiable) wrath of theMajor--perhaps the only _locus_ of ordinary reading that touches_Artamène_ with anything but vagueness--is not entirely calculated tomake readers read eagerly. But on turning honestly to the book itself, it is possible that considerable relief and even a little astonishmentmay result. Whether this satisfaction will arise at the very dedicationby that vainglorious and yet redoubtable cavalier, Georges de Scudéry, in which he characteristically takes to himself the credit due mainly, if not wholly, to his plain little sister Madeleine, will depend upontaste. It is addressed to Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, Duchess ofLongueville, sister of Condé, and adored mistress of many noteworthypersons--the most noteworthy perhaps being the Prince de Marcillac, better known, as from his later title, as Duc de la Rochefoucauld, anda certain Aramis--not so good a man as three friends of his, but a veryaccomplished, valiant, and ingenious gentleman. The blue eyes of Madamede Longueville (M. De Scudéry takes the liberty to mention speciallytheir charm, if not their colour) were among the most victorious in thattime of the "raining" and reigning influence of such things: and somehowone succumbs a little even now to her as the Queen of that bevy of fair, frail, and occasionally rather ferocious ladies of the Fronde feminine. (The femininity was perhaps most evident in Madame de Chevreuse, and theferocity in Madame de Montbazon. ) Did not Madame de Longueville--did notthey all--figuratively speaking, draw that great philosopher VictorCousin[152] up in a basket two centuries after her death, even as hadbeen done, literally if mythically, to that greater philosopher, Aristotle, ages before? But the governor of Our Lady of the Guard[153]says to her many of these things which that very Aramis delighted tohear (though not perhaps from the lips of rivals) and described, rebuking the callousness of Porthos to them, as fine and worthy of beingsaid by gentlemen. The Great Cyrus himself "comes to lay at herHighness's feet his palms and his trophies. " His historian, achieving atonce advertisement and epigram, is sure that as she listened kindly tothe _Death of Caesar_ (his own play), she will do the same to the Lifeof Cyrus. Anne Geneviève herself will become the example of allPrincesses (the Reverend Abraham Adams might have groaned a littlehere), just as Cyrus was the pattern of all Princes. She is not themoon, but the sun[154] of the Court. The mingled blood of Bourbon andMontmorency gives her such an _éclat_ that it is almost unapproachable. He then digresses a little to glorify her brother, her husband, andChapelain, the famous author of _La Pucelle_, who had the good fortuneto be a friend of the Scudérys, as well as, like them, a strong "Heroic"theorist. After which he comes to that personal inventory which has beenreferred to, decides that her beauty is of a celestial splendour, and, in fact, a ray of Divinity itself; goes into raptures, not merely overher eyes, but over her hair (which simply effaces sunbeams); thebrightness and whiteness of her complexion; the just proportion of herfeatures; and, above all, her singularly blended air of modesty andgallantry; her intellectual and spiritual match; her bodily graces; andhe is finally sure that though somebody's misplaced acuteness maydiscover faults which nobody else will perceive (Georges would like tosee them, no doubt), her extreme kindness will pardon them. Acommonplace example of flattery this? Well, perhaps not. One somehowsees, across the rhetoric, the blue eyes of Anne Geneviève and thebristling mustachios and "swashing outside" and mighty rapier ofGeorges; and the thing becomes alive with the life of a not ungraciouspast, the ills of which were, after all, more or less common to alltimes, and its charms (like the charms of all things and personscharming) its own. 

[Sidenote: The "Address to the Reader. "]

But the Address to the Reader, though it discards those "temptations ofyoung ladies" (Madame de Longueville can never have been old) which Dr. Johnson recognised, and also the companion attractions of Cape andSword, is of perhaps directly greater importance for our special andlegitimate purpose. Here the brother and sister (probably the sisterchiefly) develop some of the principles of their bold adventure, andthey are of no small interest. It is allowed that the varying accountsof Cyrus (in which, as almost every one with the slightest tincture ofeducation[155] must be aware, doctors differ remarkably), at least thoseof Herodotus and Xenophon (they do not, or she does not, seem to haveknown Ctesias), are confounded, and selected _ad libitum_ and _secundumartem_ only. Further "lights" are given by the selection of the"Immortal Heliodorus" and "the great Urfé" as patterns and patrons ofthe work. In fact, to any expert in the reading and criticism of novelsit is clear that a great principle has been--imperfectly butsomehow--laid hold of. 

[Sidenote: The opening of the "business. "]

Perhaps, however, "laid hold of" is too strong; we should do better byborrowing from Dante and saying that the author or authors have"glimpsed the Panther, "--have seen that a novel ought not to be a merechronicle, unselected and miscellaneous, but a work which, whether ithas actual unity of plot or not, has unity of interest, and will dealwith its facts so as to secure that interest. At first, indeed, theyplunge us into the middle of matters quite excitingly, though perhapsnot without more definite suggestion, both to them and to us, of the"immortal" Heliodorus. The hero, who still bears his false name ofArtamène, [156] appears at the head of a small army, the troops ofCyaxares of Media; and, at the mouth of a twisting valley, suddenly seesbefore him the town of Sinope in flames, the shipping in the harbourblazing likewise, all but one bark, which seems to be flying from morethan the conflagration. A fine comic-opera situation follows; for whileArtamène is trying to subdue the fire he is attacked by the traitorAribée, general under the King of Assyria, who is himself shut up in atower and seems to be hopelessly cut off from rescue by the fire. Theinvincible hero, however, subdues at once the rebel and the destroyingelement; captures the Assyrian, who is not only his enemy and that ofhis master Cyaxares, but his Rival (the word has immense importance inthese romances, and is always honoured with a capital there), and learnsthat the escaping galley carried with it his beloved Mandane, daughterof Cyaxares, of whom he is in quest, and who has been abducted from herabductor and lover by another, Prince Mazare of Sacia. 

[Sidenote: The ups and downs of the general conduct of the story. ]

All this is lively and business-like enough, and one feels rather abrute in making the observation (necessary, however) that Artamène talkstoo much and not in the right way. When things in general are "on theedge of a razor" and one is a tried and skilful soldier, one does not, except on the stage, pause to address the unjust Gods, and inquirewhether they have consented to the destruction of the most beautifulprincess in the world; discuss with one's friends the reduction intocinders[157] of the adorable Mandane, and further enquire, without theslightest chance of answer, "Alas! unjust Rival! hast thou not thoughtrather of thine own preservation than of hers?" However, for a time, theincidents do carry off the verbiage, and for nearly a hundred smallpages there is no great cause for complaint. It is the style of thebook; and if you do not like it you must "seek another inn. " But whatsucceeds, for the major part of the first of the twenty volumes, [158] isopen to severer criticisms. We fall into interminable discussions, _récits_, and the like, on the subject of the identity of Artamène andCyrus, and we see at once the imperfect fashion in which the nature ofthe novel is conceived. That elaborate explanation--necessary inhistory, philosophy, and other "serious" works--cannot be cut down toomuch in fiction, is one truth that has not been learnt. [159] That thestuffing of the story with large patches of solid history orpseudo-history is wrong and disenchanting has not been learnt either;and this is the less surprising and the more pardonable in that veryfew, if indeed any, of the masters and mistresses of the novel, laterand greater than Georges and Madeleine de Scudéry, have not refused tolearn it or have not carelessly forgotten the learning. Even Scottcommitted the fault sometimes, though never in his very best work. Dumas--when he went out and left the "young men" to fill in, and stayedtoo long, and made them fill in too much--did it constantly. Yet again, that mixture of excess and defect in talking, which has been notedalready, becomes more and more trying in connection with the previouslymentioned faults and others. Of _mere_ talk there is enough andimmensely to spare; but it is practically never real dialogue, stillless real conversation. It is harangue, narrative, soliloquy, what youwill, in the less lively theatrical forms of speech watered out inprose, with "passing of compliments" in the most gentlefolkly manner, and a spice of "Phébus" or Euphuism now and then. But it is never realpersonal talk, [160] while as for conveying the action _by_ the talk asthe two great masters above mentioned and nearly all others of theirkind do, there is no vestige of even an attempt at the feat, or aglimpse of its desirableness. 

Again, one sees before long that of one priceless quality--a sense ofhumour--we shall find, though there is a little mild wit, especially inthe words of the ladies named in the note, no trace in the book, but a"terrible _minus_ quantity. " I do not know that the late Sir WilliamGilbert was a great student of literature--of classical literature, tojudge from the nomenclature of _Pygmalion and Galatea_ mentioned above, he certainly was not. But his eyes would surely have glistened at theunconscious and serious anticipation of his own methods at their mostGilbertian, had he ever read pp. 308 _sqq. _ of this first volume. Herenot only do Cyrus and a famous pirate, by boarding with irresistiblevalour on each side, "exchange ships, " and so find themselves at once tohave gained the enemy's and lost their own, but this remarkablemanoeuvre is repeated more than twenty times without advantage oneither side--or without apparently any sensible losses on either side. From which it would appear that both contented themselves with displaysof agility in climbing from vessel to vessel, and did nothing soimpolite as to use their "javelins, arrows, and cutlasses" (of which, nevertheless, we hear) against the persons of their competitors in suchagility on the other side. It did come to an end somehow after sometime; but one is quite certain that if Mr. Crummles had had the means ofpresenting such an admirable spectacle on any boards, he never wouldhave contented himself without several encores of the whole twentyoperations. 

An experienced reader, therefore, will not need to spend many hoursbefore he appreciates pretty thoroughly what he has to expect--of good, of bad, and of indifferent--from this famous book. It is, though in adifferent sense from Montaigne's, a _livre de bonne foi_. And we mustremember that the readers whom it directly addressed expected from booksof this kind "pastime" in the most literal and generous, if alsohumdrum, sense of the word; noble sentiments, perhaps a little learning, possibly a few hidden glances at great people not of antiquity only. Allthese they got here, most faithfully supplied according to their demand. 

[Sidenote: Extracts--the introduction of Cyrus to Mandane. ]

Probably nothing will give the reader, who does not thus read forhimself, a better idea of the book than some extract translations, beginning with Artamène's first interview with Mandane, [161] going on tohis reflections thereon, and adding a perhaps slightly shortened versionof the great fight recounted later, in which again some evidence of thedamaging absence of humour, and some suggestions as to the originals ofdivers well-known parodies, will be found. (It must be remembered thatthese are all parts of an enormous _récit_ by Chrisante, one ofArtamène's confidants and captains, to the King of Hircania, a monarchdoubtless inured to hardships in the chase of his native tigers, orrequiring some sedative as a change from it. )

 No sooner had the Princess seen my Master than she rose, and prepared to receive him with much kindness and much joy, having already heard, by Arbaces, the service he had done to the King, her father. Artamène then made her two deep bows, and coming closer to her, but with all the respect due to a person of her condition, he kissed [_no doubt the hem of_] her robe, and presented to her the King's letter, which she read that very instant. When she had done, he was going to begin the conversation with a compliment, after telling her what had brought him; but the Princess anticipated him in the most obliging manner. "What Divinity, generous stranger, " said she, "has brought you among us to save all Cappadocia by saving its King? and to render him a service which the whole of his servants could not have rendered?" "Madam, " answered Artamène, "you are right in thinking that some Divinity has led me hither; and it must have been some one of those beneficent Divinities who do only good to men, since it has procured me the honour of being known to you, and the happiness of being chosen by Fortune to render to the King a slight service, which might, no doubt, have been better done him by any other man. " "Modesty, " said the Princess (smiling and turning towards the ladies who were nearest her), "is a virtue which belongs so essentially to our own sex, that I do not know whether I ought to allow this generous stranger so unjustly to rob us of it, or--not content with possessing eminently that valour to which we must make no pretension--to try to be as modest when he is spoken to of the fineness of his actions as reasonable women ought to be when they are praised for their beauty. For my part, " she added, looking at Artamène, "I confess I find your proceeding a little unfair. And I do not think that I ought to allow it, or to deprive myself of the power of praising you infinitely, although you cannot endure it. " "Persons like you, " retorted Artamène, but with profound respect, "ought to receive praise from all the earth, and not to give it lightly. 'Tis a thing, Madam, of which it is not pleasant to have to repeat; for which reason I beg you not to expose yourself to such a danger. Wait, Madam, till I have the honour of being a little better known to you. "

There are several pages more of this _carte_ and _tierce_ of compliment;but perhaps a degenerate and impatient age may desire that we shouldpass to the next subject. Whether it is right or not in so desiring mayperhaps be discussed when the three samples have been given. 

Artamène has been dismissed with every mark of favour, and lodged in apavilion overlooking the garden. When he is alone--

 [Sidenote: His soliloquy in the pavilion. ]

 After having passed and re-passed all these things over again in his imagination, "Ye gods!" said he, "if, when she is so lovable, it should chance that I cannot make her love me, what would become of the wretched Artamène? But, " and he caught himself up suddenly, "since she seems capable of appreciating glory and services, let us continue to act as we have begun! and let us do such great deeds that, even if her inclination resisted, esteem may introduce us, against her will, into her heart! For, after all, whatever men may say, and whatever I may myself have said, one may give a little esteem to what one will never in the least love; but I do not think one can give much esteem to what will never earn a little love. Let us hope, then; let us hope! let us make ourselves worthy to be pitied if we are not worthy to be loved. "

After which somewhat philosophical meditation it is not surprising thathe should be informed by one of his aides-de-camp that the Princess wasin the garden. For what were Princesses made? and for what gardens?

The third is a longer passage, but it shall be subjected to that kind of_cento_ing which has been found convenient earlier in this volume. 

 [Sidenote: The Fight of the Four Hundred. ]

 [_The dispute between the kings of Cappadocia on the one hand and of Pontus on the other has been referred to a select combat of two hundred men a side. Artamène, of course, obtains the command of the Cappadocians, to the despair of his explosive but not ungenerous rival, "Philip Dastus. " After a very beautiful interview with Mandane (where, once more, the most elegant compliments pass between these gentlefolkliest of all heroes and heroines) and divers preliminaries, the fight comes off. _][162] They began to advance with heads lowered, without cries or noise of any kind, but in a silence which struck terror. As soon as they were near enough to use their javelins, they launched them with such violence that [_a slight bathos_] these flying weapons had a pretty great effect on both sides, but much greater on that of the Cappadocians than on the other. Then, sword in hand and covered by their shields, they came to blows, and Artamène, as we were informed, immolated the first victim [_but how about the javelin "effect"?_] in this bloody sacrifice. For, having got in front of all his companions by some paces, he killed, with a mighty sword-stroke, the first who offered resistance. [_Despite this, the general struggle continues to go against the Cappadocians, though Artamène's exploits alarm one of the enemy, named Artane, so much that he skulks away to a neighbouring knoll. At last_] things came to such a point that Artamène found himself with fourteen others against forty; so I leave you to judge, Sir [_Chrisante parle toujours_], whether the party of the King of Pontus did not believe they had conquered, and whether the Cappadocians had not reason to think themselves beaten. But as, in this fight, it was not allowed either to ask or to give quarter, and was necessary either to win or to die, the most despairing became the most valiant. [_The next stage is, that in consequence of enormous efforts on his part, the hero finds himself and his party ten to ten, which "equality" naturally cheers them up. But the wounds of the Cappadocians are the severer; the ten on their side become seven, with no further loss to the enemy, and at last Artamène finds himself, after three hours' fighting, alone against three, though only slightly wounded. He wisely uses his great agility in retiring and dodging; separates one enemy from the other two, and kills him; attacks the two survivors, and, one luckily stumbling over a buckler, kills a second, so that at last the combat is single. During this time the coward Artane abstains from intervening, all the more because the one surviving champion of Pontus is a personal rival of his, and because, by a very ingenious piece of casuistry, he persuades himself that the two combatants are sure to kill each other, and he, Artane, surviving, will obtain the victory for self and country!_]

He is nearly right; but not quite. For after Artamène has wounded thePontic Pharnaces in six places, and Pharnaces Artamène in four (for wewound "by the card" here), the hero runs Pharnaces through the heart, receiving only a thigh-wound in return. He flourishes both swords, cries"I have conquered!" and falls in a faint from loss of blood. Artanethinks him dead, and without caring to come close and "mak sicker, " goesoff to claim the victory. But Artamène revives, finds himself alone, and, with what strength he has left, piles the arms of the deadtogether, writes with his own blood on a silver shield--

 TO JUPITER GUARDIAN OF TROPHIES, and lies beside it as well as he can. The false news deceives for ashort time, but when the stipulated advance to the field takes place onboth sides, the discovery of the surviving victor introduces a newcomplication, from which we may for the moment abstain. 

The singlestick rattle of compliment in the interview first given, andthe rather obvious and superfluous meditations of the second, may seem, if not exactly disgusting, tedious and jejune. But the "Fight of theFour Hundred" is not frigid; and it is only fair to say that, after therather absurd passage of _chassé croisé_ on ship-board quoted or atleast summarised earlier, the capture of Artamène by numbers and hissurrender to the generous corsair Thrasybulus are not ill told, whilethere are several other good fights before you come to the end of thisvery first volume. There is, moreover, an elaborate portrait of thePrincess, evidently intended to "pick up" that vaguer one of Madame deLongueville in the Preface, but with the blue of the eyes herefearlessly specified. Here also does the celebrated Philidaspes (mostimproperly, if it had not been for the justification to be given later, transmogrified in the above-mentioned passage by Major Bellenden into"Philip Dastus? Philip Devil") make his appearance. The worst of it isthat most, if not the whole, is done by the _récit_ delivered, as notedabove, by Chrisante, one of those representatives of the no lessfaithful than strong Gyas and Cloanthus, whom imitation of the ancientshas imposed on Scudéry and his sister, and inflicted on their readers. 

[Sidenote: The abstract resumed. ]

The story of the Cappadocian-Pontic fight[163] is continued in thesecond volume of the First Part by the expected delivery of haranguesfrom the two claimants, and the obligatory, but to Artane veryunwelcome, single combat. He is, of course, vanquished and pardoned byhis foe, [164] making, if not full, sufficient confession; and it is notsurprising to hear that the King of Pontus requests to see no more ofhim. The rest--for it must never be forgotten that all this is "throwingback"--then turns to the rivalry of Artamène and Philidaspes for thelove of Mandane, while she (again, of course) has not the faintest ideathat either is in love with her. Philidaspes, who (still, of course) isnot Philidaspes at all, is a rough customer--(in fact the Major hardlydid him injustice in calling him "Philip Devil"--betraying also perhapssome knowledge of the text), and it comes to a tussle. This ratherresembles what the contemptuous French early Romantics called _uneboxade_ than a formal duel, and Artamène stuns his man with a blow ofthe flat. Cyaxares[165] is very angry, and imprisons them both, not yetrealising their actual fault. It does not matter much to Artamène, whoin prison can think, aloud and in the most beautiful "Phébus, " ofMandane. It matters perhaps a little more to the reader; for a courteousjailer, Aglatidas, takes the occasion to relate his own woes in a"History of Aglatidas and Amestris, " which completes the second volumeof the First Part in three hundred and fifty mortal pages to itself. 

The first volume of the Second Part returns to the main story, or ratherthe main series of _récits_; for, Chrisante being not unnaturallyexhausted after talking for a thousand pages or so, Feraulas, another ofArtamène's men, takes up the running. The prisoners are let out, andMandane reconciles them, after which--as another but later contemporaryremarks (again of other things, but probably with some reminiscence ofthis)--they become much more mortal enemies than before. Thereflections and soliloquies of Artamène recur; but a not unimportant, although subordinate, new character appears--not as the first example, but as the foremost representative, in the novel, of the great figure ofthe "confidante"--in Martésie, Mandane's chief maid of honour. Nobody, it is to be hoped, wants an elaborate account of the part she plays, butit should be said that she plays it with much more spirit andindividuality than her mistress is allowed to show. Then, according tothe general plan of all these books, in which fierce wars and faithfulloves alternate, there is more fighting, and though Artamène isvictorious (as how should he not be, save now and then to preventmonotony?) he disappears and is thought dead. Of course Mandane cries, and confesses to the confidante, being entirely "finished" by a veryexquisite letter which Artamène has written before going into thedoubtful battle. However, he is (yet once more, of course) not dead atall. What (as that most sagacious of men, the elder Mr. Weller, wouldhave said)'d have become of the other seventeen volumes if he had been?There is one of the _quiproquos_ or misunderstandings which are asnecessary to this kind of novel as the flirtations and the fisticuffs, brought about by the persistence of an enemy princess in taking Artamènefor her son Spithridates;[166] but all comes right for the time, and thehero returns to his friends. The plot, however, thickens. An accidentinforms Artamène that Philidaspes is really Prince of Assyria, sure tobecome King when his mother, Nitocris, dies or abdicates, and that, being as he is, and as Artamène knows already, desperately in love withMandane, he has formed a plot for carrying her off. The difficulties inthe way of preventing this are great, because, though the hero isalready aware that he is Cyrus, it is for many reasons undesirable toinform Cyaxares of the fact; and at last Philidaspes, helped by thetraitor Aribée (_v. Sup. _), succeeds in the abduction, after aninterlude in which a fresh Rival, with a still larger R, the King ofPontus himself, turns up; and an immense episode, in which Thomyris, Queen of Scythia, appears, not yet in her more or less historical partof victress of Cyrus. She is here only a young sovereign, widowed in herearliest youth, extremely beautiful (see a portrait of her _inf. _), whohas never yet loved, but who falls instantly in love with Cyrus himself(when he is sent to her court), and is rather a formidable person todeal with, inasmuch as, besides having great wealth and power, she hasestablished a diplomatic system of intrigue in other countries, whichthe newest German or other empire might envy. By the end of this volume, however, the Artamène-Cyrus confusion is partly cleared up (thoughCyaxares is not yet made aware of the facts), and the hero is sent afterMandane, to be disappointed at Sinope, in the fashion recounted somethousand or two pages before. 

[Sidenote: The oracle to Philidaspes. ]

With the beginning of vol. Iv. (that is to say, part ii. Vol. Ii. ) wereturn, though still in retrospect, to the direct fate of Mandane. Nitocris is dead, Philidaspes has succeeded to the crown of Assyria, andhas carried Mandane off to his own dominions. The situation with sorobustious a person as this prince may seem awkward, and indeed, as isobserved in a later part of the book, the heroine's repeated sojourns(there are three if not four of them in all[167]) in the complete powerof one of the Rivals, with a large R, are very trying to Cyrus. However, such a shocking thing as violence is hardly hinted at, and the Princessalways succeeds, as the Creole lady in _Newton Forster_ said she didwith the pirates, in "temporising, " while her abductors confinethemselves for the most part to the finest "Phébus. " Even the fieryPhilidaspes, though he breaks out sometimes, conveys his wish thatMandane should accompany him to Babylon by pointing out that "theEuphrates is jealous of the Tigris for having first had the honour ofher presence, " and that "the First City of the World ought clearly topossess the most illustrious princess of the Earth. " Of course, if thereis any base person who cannot derive an Aramisian satisfaction (_v. Sup. _) from such things as this, he had better abstain from the _Cyrus_. But happier souls they please--not exquisitely, perhaps, ortumultuously, but still well--with a mild tickle which is notunvoluptuous. One is even a very little sorry for Philip Dastus when hebegs his cruel idol to write to him the single word ESPEREZ, andmeanwhile kindly puts it in capitals and a line to itself. Almostimmediately afterwards an oracle juggles with him in fashion delightfulto himself, and puzzling to everybody except the intelligent reader, who, it is hoped, will see the double meaning at once. 

 Il t'est permis d'espérer De la faire soupirer, Malgré sa haine: Car un jour entre ses bras, Tu rencontreras La fin de ta peine. 

Alas! without going further (upon honour and according to fact), onesees the _other_ explanation--that Mandane will have to perform theuncomfortable duty--often assigned to heroines--of having Philidaspesdie in her lap. 

For the present, however, only discomfiture, not death, awaits him. TheMedes blockade Babylon to recover their princess; it suffers fromhunger, and Philidaspes, with Mandane and the chivalrous Sacian PrinceMazare, whom we have heard of before, escapes to Sinope. Then the eventsrecorded in the very beginning happen, and Mandane, after escaping theflames of Sinope through Mazare's abduction of her by sea, and sufferingshipwreck, falls into the power of the King of Pontus. This calls a haltin the main story; and, as before, a "Troisième Livre" consists ofanother huge inset--the hugest yet--of seven hundred pages this time, describing an unusually, if not entirely, independent subject--theloves and fates of a certain Philosipe and a certain Polisante. Thisvolume contains a rather forcible boating-scene, which supplies thetheme for the old frontispiece. 

Refreshed as usual by this excursion, [168] the author returns (in vol. V. , bk. I. , chap. Iii. ) to Cyrus, who is once more in peril, and in aworse one than ever. Cyaxares, arriving at Sinope, does not find hisdaughter, but does discover that Artamène, whom he does not yet know tobe Cyrus and heir to Persia, is in love with her. Owing chiefly to thewiles of a villain, Métrobate, he arrests the Prince, and is on thepoint of having him executed, despite the protests of the allied kings. But the whole army, with the Persian contingent at its head, assaultsthe castle, and rescues Cyrus, after the traitor Métrobate has tried todouble his treachery and get Cyaxares assassinated. Nobody who remembersthe _Letter of Advice_ already quoted will doubt what the conduct ofCyrus is. He only accepts the rescue in order that he may post himselfat the castle gate, and threaten to kill anybody who attacks Cyaxares. 

After this burst, which is really exciting in a way, we must expectsomething more soporific. Martésie takes the place of her absentmistress to some extent, and a good deal of what might be mistaken for"Passerelle"[169] flirtation takes place, or would do so, if it were notthat Cyrus would, of course, die rather than pay attention to anybodybut Mandane herself, and that Feraulas, already mentioned as one of theFaithful Companions, is detailed as Martésie's lover. She is, however, installed as a sort of Vice-Queen of a wordy tourney between fourunhappy lovers, who fill up the rest of the volume with their stories of"Amants _In_fortunés" (cf. The original title of the _Heptameron_), dealing respectively with and told by--

(1) A lover who is loved, but separated from his mistress. 

(2) One who is unloved. 

(3) A jealous one. 

(4) One whose love is dead. [170]

They do it moderately, in rather less than five hundred pages, andMartésie sums up in a manner worthy of any Mistress of the Rolls, contrasting their fates, and deciding very cleverly against the jealousman. 

The first twenty pages or so of the sixth volume (nominally iii. 2)afford a good example of the fashion in which, as may be observed morefully below, even an analysis of the _Grand Cyrus_, though a greatadvance on mere general description of it, must be still (unless it beitself intolerably voluminous) insufficient. Not very much actually"happens"; but if you simply skip, you miss a fresh illustration ofmagnanimity not only in Cyrus, but in a formerly mentioned character, Aglatidas, with reference to the heroine Amestris earlier inset in thetale (_v. Sup. _). And this is an example of the new and sometimes veryingenious fashion in which these apparent excursions are turned intosomething like real episodes, or at any rate supply connecting threadsof the whole, in a manner not entirely unlike that which some criticshave so hastily and unjustly overlooked in Spenser. Then we have animbroglio about forged letters, and a clearing-up of a former chargeagainst the hero, and (still within the twenty pages) a very curiousscene--the last for the time--of that flirtation-without-flirtationbetween Cyrus and Martésie. She wants to have back a picture of Mandane, which she has lent him to worship; and he replies, looking at her"attentively" (one wonders whether Mandane, if present, would have beenentirely satisfied with his "attention"), addresses her as "CruelPerson, " and asks her (he is just setting out for the Armenian war) howshe thinks he can conquer when she takes away what should make himinvincible. To which replies Miss Martésie, "You have gained so manyvictories [_ahem!_] without this help, that it would seem you have noneed of it. " This is very nice, and Martésie, who is herself, aspreviously observed, quite nice throughout, lets him have the pictureafter all. But Cyrus, for once rather ungraciously, will not allow herlover, and his henchman, Feraulas to escort her home; first, because hewants Feraulas's services himself, and secondly, because it is unjustthat Feraulas should be happy with Martésie when Cyrus is miserablewithout Mandane--an argument which, whether slightly selfish or not, isat any rate in complete keeping with the whole atmosphere of the book. 

[Sidenote: The advent of Araminta. ]

Now, as this is by no means a very exceptional, certainly not a unique, score of pages, and as it has taken almost a whole one of ours to give arather imperfect notion of its contents, it follows that it would takeabout six hundred, if not more, to do justice to the ten or twelvethousand of the original. Which (in one of the most immortal offormulas) "is impossible. " We must fall back, therefore, on the systemalready pursued for the rest of this volume, and perhaps even contractits application in some cases. A rash promise of the now entirely, ifnot also rather insanely, [171] generous Prince not to marry Mandanewithout fighting Philidaspes, or rather the King of Assyria, beforehand, is important; and an at last minute description of Cyrus's person andequipment as he sets out (on one of the proudest and finest horses thatever was, with a war-dress the superbest that can be imagined, and withMandane's magnificent scarf put on for the first time) is not quiteomissible. But then things become intricate. Our old friend Spithridatescomes back, and has first love affairs and afterwards an enormous_récit_-episode with a certain Princess of Pontus, whom Cyrus, reminding one slightly of Bentley on Mr. Pope's _Homer_ and Tommy Mertonon Cider, pronounces to be _belle, blonde, blanche et bien faite_, butnot Mandane; and who has the further charm of possessing, for the firsttime in literature if one mistakes not, the renowned name of Araminta. Apair of letters between these two will be useful as specimens, and tosome, it may be hoped, agreeable in themselves. 

 SPITHRIDATES TO THE PRINCESS ARAMINTA

 [Sidenote: Her correspondence with Spithridates. ]

 I depart, Madam, because you wish it: but, in departing, I am the most unhappy of all men. I know not whither I go; nor when I shall return; nor even if you wish that I _should_ return; and yet they tell me I must live and hope. But I should not know how to do either the one or the other, unless you order me to do both by two lines in your own hand. Therefore I beg them of you, divine Princess--in the name of an illustrious person, now no more, [_her brother Sinnesis, who had been a great friend of his_], but who will live for ever in the memory of

 SPITHRIDATES. 

 [_He can hardly have hoped for anything better than the following answer, which is much more "downright Dunstable" than is usual here. _]

 ARAMINTA TO SPITHRIDATES

 Live as long as it shall please the Gods to allow you. Hope as long as Araminta lives--she begs you: and even if you yourself wish to live, she orders you to do so. 

 [_In other words he says, "My own Araminta, say 'Yes'!" and she does. This attitude necessarily involves the despair of a Rival, who writes thus:_]

 PHARNACES TO THE PRINCESS ARAMINTA

 If Fortune seconds my designs, I go to a place where I shall conquer _and_ die--where I shall make known, by my generous despair, that if I could not deserve your affection by my services, I shall have at least not made myself unworthy of your compassion by my death. 

 [_And, to do him justice, he "goes and does it. "_]

This episode, however, did not induce Mademoiselle Madeleine to breakher queer custom of having something of the same kind in the Third Bookof every Part. For though there is some "business, " it slips intoanother regular "History, " this time of Prince Thrasybulus, a navalhero, of whom we have often heard, and his Alcionide, not a bad name fora sailor's mistress. [172] Finally, we come back to more events of arather troublesome kind: for the _ci-devant_ Philidaspes mostinconveniently insists in taking part in the rescuing expedition, which--saving scandal of great ones--is very much as if Mr. WilliamSikes should insist in helping to extract booty from Mr. Tobias Crackit. And we finally leave Cyrus in a decidedly awkward situation morally, andthe middle of a dark wood physically. 

[Sidenote: Some interposed comments. ]

Here, according to that paulo-post-future precedent which she did somuch to create, the authoress was quite justified in leaving him at theend of a volume; and perhaps the present historian is, to compare smallthings with great, equally justified in heaving-to (to borrow from Mr. Kipling) and addressing a small critical sermon to such crew as he mayhave attracted. We have surveyed not quite a third of the book; but thisought in any case--_teste_ the loved and lost "three-decker" which theallusion just made concerns--to give us a notion of the author's qualityand of his or her _faire_. It should not be very difficult for anybody, unless the foregoing analysis has been very clumsily done, to discernconsiderable method in Madeleine's mild madness, and, what is more, nota little originality. The method has, no doubt, as it was certain tohave in the circumstances, a regular irregularity, which is, or would bein anybody but a novice, a little clumsy: and the originality may wantsome precedent study to discover it. But both are there. The skeleton ofthis vast work may perhaps be fairly constructed from what has alreadybeen dissected of the body; and the method of clothing the skeletonreveals itself without much difficulty. You have the central idea in theloves of Cyrus and Mandane, which are to be made as true as possible, but also running as roughly as may be. Moreover, whether they run roughor smooth, you are to keep them in suspense as long as you possibly can. The means of doing this are laboriously varied and multiplied. Theclumsiest of them--the perpetual intercalation or interpolation of"side-shows" in the way of _Histoires_--annoys modern readersparticularly, and has, as a rule, since been itself beautifully andbeneficently lessened, in some cases altogether discarded, orchanged--in emancipation from the influence of the "Unities"--to theform of second plots, not ostentatiously severed from the main one. But, as has been pointed out, a great deal of trouble is at any rate taken toknit them to the main plot itself, if not actually and invariably toincorporate them therewith; and the means of this are again notaltogether uncraftsmanlike. Sometimes, as in the case of Spithridates, the person, or one of the persons, is introduced first in the mainhistory; his own particular concerns are dealt with later, and, for goodor for evil, he returns to the central scheme. Sometimes, as in that ofAmestris, you have the _Histoire_ before the personage enters the mainstory. Then there is the other device of varying direct narrative, as tothis main story itself, with _Récit_; and always you have a carefulpeppering in of new characters, by _histoire_, by _récit_, or by themain story, to create fresh interests. Again, there is the contrast of"business, " as we have called it--fighting and politics--withlove-making and miscellaneous fine talk. And, lastly, there are--what, if they were not whelmed in such an ocean of other things, would attractmore notice--the not unfrequent individual phrases and situations whichhave interest in themselves. It must surely be obvious that in thesethings are great possibilities for future use, even if the actualinventor has not made the most of them. 

Their originality may perhaps deserve a little more comment. [173] Themixture of secondary plots might, by a person more given to theorisethan the present historian--who pays his readers the compliment ofsupposing that that excessively easy and therefore somewhat negligiblebusiness can be done by themselves if they wish--be traced to anaccidental feature of the later mediaeval romances. In these thecongeries of earlier texts, which the compiler had not the wits, or atleast the desire, to systematise, provided something like it; butrequired the genius of a Spenser, or the considerable craft of aScudéry, to throw it into shape and add the connecting links. Many ofthe other things are to be found in the Scudéry romance practically forthe first time. And the suffusion of the whole with a new tone andcolour of at least courtly manners is something more to be counted, aswell as the constant exclusion of the clumsy "conjuror's supernatural"of the _Amadis_ group. That the fairy story sprung up, to supply thealways graceful supernatural element in a better form, is a matter whichwill be dealt with later in this chapter. The oracles, etc. , of the_Cyrus_ belong, of course, to the historical, not the imaginative sideof the presentation; but may be partly due to the _Astrée_, theinfluence of which was, we saw, admitted. 

[Sidenote: Analysis resumed. ]

It may seem unjust that the more this complication of interestsincreases, the less complete should be the survey of them; and yet amoment's thought will show that this is almost a necessity. Moreover, the methods do not vary much; it is only that they are applied to alarger and larger mass of accumulating material. The first volume of theFourth Part, the seventh of the twenty, follows--though with thatabsence of slavish repetition which has been allowed as one of thegraces of the book--the general scheme. Cyrus gets out of the woodliterally, but not figuratively; for when he and the King of Assyriahave joined forces, to pursue that rather paradoxical alliance which isto run in couple with rivalry for love and to end in a personal combat, they see on the other side of a river a chariot, in which Mandaneprobably or certainly is. But the river is unbridged and unfordable, andno boats can be had; so that, after trying to swim it and nearly gettingdrowned, they have to relinquish the game that had been actually insight. Next, two things happen. First, Martésie appears (as usually toour satisfaction), and in consequence of a series of accidents, sharesand solaces Mandane's captivity. Then, on the other side, Panthea, Queenof Susiana, and wife of one of the enemy princes, falls into Cyrus'shands, and with Araminta (who is, it should have, if it has not been, said earlier, sister of the King of Pontus) furnishes valuable hostagefor good treatment of Mandane and other Medo-Persian-Phrygian-Hircanianprisoners. 

Things having thus been fairly bustled up for a time, a _Histoire_ is, of course, imminent, and we have it, of about usual length, concerningthe Lydian Princess Palmis and a certain Cléandre; while, even when thisis done, we fall back, not on the main story, but once more on that ofAglatidas and Amestris, which is in a sad plight, for Amestris (who hasbeen married against her will and is _maumariée_ too) thinks she is awidow, and finds she is not. 

It has just been mentioned that Palmis is a Lydian Princess; and beforethe end of this Part Croesus comes personally into the story, being thehead of a formidable combination to supplant the King of Pontus, detainMandane, and, if possible (as the well-known oracle, in the usualambiguity (_v. Inf. _), encourages him to hope), conquer the Medo-Persianempire and make it his own. But the _Histoire_ mania--now furtherexcited by consistence in working the personages so obtained ingenerally--is in great evidence, and "Lygdamis and Cléonice" supply alarge proportion of the early and all the middle of the eighth volume, the second of the Fourth Part. There is, however, much more businessthan usual at the end to make up for any slackness at the beginning. Ina side-action with the Lydians both Cyrus and the King of Assyria arecaptured by force of numbers, though the former is at once released bythe Princess Palmis, as well as Artames, son of Cyrus's Phrygian ally, whom Croesus chooses to consider as a rebel, and intends to put todeath. Here, however, the captive Queen and Princess, Panthea andAraminta, come into good play, and exercise strong and successfulinfluence through the husband of the one and the brother of the other. But at the end of book, volume, and part we leave Cyrus once more in thedismals. For though he has actually seen Mandane he cannot get at her, and he has heard three apparently most unfavourable oracles; theBabylonian one, which was quoted above, and which he, like everybodyelse, takes as a promise of success to Philidaspes; the ambiguousDelphic forecast of "the fall of _an_ Empire" to Croesus; and that ofhis own death at the hands of a hostile queen, the only one which, historically, was to be fulfilled in its apparent sense, while theothers were not. He cares, indeed, not much about the two last, butinfinitely about the first. 

At the opening of the Fifth Part (ninth volume) there is a short butcurious "Address to the Reader, " announcing the fulfilment of the firsthalf of the promised production, and bidding him not be downhearted, forthe first of the second half (the Sixth Part or eleventh volume of thewhole) is actually at Press. It may be noticed that there is a swaggerabout these _avis_ and such like things, which probably _is_attributable to Georges, and not to Madeleine. [174]

The inevitable _Histoire_ comes earlier than usual in this division, andis of unusual importance; for it deals with two persons of greatdistinction, and already introduced in the story, Queen Panthea and herhusband Abradates. It is also one of the longer batch, running to somefour hundred pages; and a notable part in it and in the future mainstory is played by one Doralise--a pretty name, which Dryden, making itprettier still by substituting a _c_ for the _s_, borrowed for his mostoriginal and (with that earlier Florimel of _The Maiden Queen_, who issaid to have been studied directly off Nell Gwyn) perhaps his mostattractive heroine, the Doralice of _Marriage à la Mode_. Anotherimportant character, the villain of the sub-plot, is one Mexaris. [175]At the end of the first instalment we leave Cyrus preparing elaboratemachines of war to crush the Lydians. 

Early in Book II. We hear of a mysterious warrior on the enemy side whomnobody knows, who calls himself Telephanes, and whom Cyrus is veryanxious to meet in battle, but for the time cannot. He is alsofrustrated in his challenge of the King of Pontus to fight forMandane--a challenge of which Croesus will not hear. At last Telephanesturns out to be no less a person than Mazare, Prince of Sacia, whom weknow already as one of the ever-multiplying lovers and abductors of theheroine; while, after a good deal of confused fighting, another inset_Histoire_ of him closes the tenth volume (V. Ii. ). It is, however, onlytwo hundred pages long--a mere parenthesis compared to others, and itleads up to his giving Cyrus a letter from Mandane--an act of generositywhich Philidaspes, otherwise King of Assyria, frankly confesses that he, as another Rival, could never have done. After yet another _Histoire_(now a "four-some") of Belesis, Hermogenes, Cléodare, and Léonice, Abradates changes sides, carrying us on to an "intricate impeach" ofold and new characters, especially Araminta and Spithridates, and to thedeath in battle of the generous King of Susiana himself, and the griefof Panthea. There is, at the close of this volume, a rather interesting_Privilège du Roi_, signed by Conrart ("_le silencieux Conrart_"), sealed with "the great seal of yellow wax in a simple tail" (one ribbonor piece of ferret only?), and bestowing its rights "nonobstant Clameurde Haro, Charte Normande, et autres lettres contraires. "

The first volume of the Sixth Part (the eleventh of the whole and thefirst of what, as so many words of the kind are required, we may callthe Second Division) has plenty of business--showing that the author orher adviser was also a business-like person--to commence the newventure. Cyrus, after being victorious in the field and just about tobesiege Sardis in form, receives a "bolt from the blue" in the shape ofa letter "From the unhappy Mandane to the faithless"--himself! She haslearnt, she tells him, that his feelings towards her are changed, requests that she may no longer serve as a pretext for his ambition, and--rather straining the prerogatives assumed even by her nearestancestresses in literature, the Polisardas and Miraguardas of the_Amadis_ group, but scarcely dreamt of by the heroines of ancient GreekRomance--desires that he will send back to her father Cyaxares all thetroops that he is, as she implies, commanding on false pretences. 

Now one half expects that Cyrus, in a transport ofAmadisian-Euphuist-heroism, will comply with this very modest request. In fact it is open to any one to contend that, according to thestrictest rules of the game, he ought to have done so and gone mad, orat least marooned himself in some desert island, in consequence. Thesophistication, however, of the stage appears here. After a very naturalsort of "Well, I never!" translated into proper heroic language, he setsto work to identify the person whom Mandane suspects to be herrival--for she has carefully abstained from naming anybody. And heasks--with an ingenious touch of self-confession which does the authorgreat credit, if it was consciously laid on--whether it can be Pantheaor Araminta, with both of whom he has, in fact, been, if not exactlyflirting, carrying on (as the time itself would have said) a "commerceof respectful and obliging admiration. " He has a long talk with hisconfidant Feraulas (whose beloved and really lovable Martésie is, unluckily, not at hand to illuminate the mystery), and then he writes as"The Unfortunate Cyrus to the Unjust Mandane, " tells her pretty roundly, though, of course, still respectfully, that if she knew how thingsreally were "she would think herself the cruellest and most unjustperson in the world. " [I should have added, "just as she is, in fact, the most beautiful. "] She is, he says, his first and last passion, andhe has never been more than polite to any one else. But she will kindlyexcuse his not complying with her request to send back his army until hehas vanquished all his Rivals--where, no doubt, in the original, thecapital was bigger and more menacing than ever, and was written with anappropriate gnashing of teeth. 

The traditional balance of luck and love, however, holds; and the armiesof Croesus and the King of Pontus begin to melt away; so that, after ashort but curious pastoral episode, they have to shut themselves up inthe capital. The dead body of Abradates is now found, and his widowPanthea stabs herself upon it. This removes one of Mandane's possiblecauses of jealousy, but Araminta remains; and, as a matter of fact, it_is_ this Princess on whom her suspicion has been cast, arising partly, though helped by makebates, from the often utilised personal resemblancebetween her actual lover, Prince Spithridates, and Cyrus. Thetreacherous King of Pontus has, in fact, shown her a letter fromAraminta (his sister, be it remembered) which seems to encourage theidea. 

All this, however, and more fills but a hundred pages or so, and then weare as usual whelmed in a _Histoire de Timarète et de Parthénie_, whichtakes up four times the space, and finishes the First Book. The Secondopens smartly enough with the actual siege of Sardis; but we cannot getrid of Araminta (it is sad to have to wish that she was not "our ownAraminta" quite so often) and Spithridates. Conversations between thestill prejudiced Mandane and the Lydian Princess Palmis--a sensible andagreeable girl--are better; but from them we are hurled into a _Histoirede Sésostre_ (the Egyptian prince, son of Amasis, who is now an ally ofCyrus) _et de Timarète_, which not only fills the whole of the rest ofthe volume, but swells over into the next, being much occupied with thevillainies of a certain Heracleon, who is at the time a wounded prisonerin Cyrus's Camp. The siege is kept up briskly, but Cyrus's courteousrelease of certain captives adds fuel to Mandane's wrath as having beenprocured by Araminta. He will do anything for Araminta! The releasesthemselves give rise to fresh "alarums and excursions, " among which weagain meet a pretty name (Candiope), borrowed by Dryden. Doralise isalso much to the fore; and we have a regular _Histoire_, though ashorter one than usual, of _Arpalice and Thrasimède_, which will, assome say, "bulk largely" later. The length of this part is, indeed, enormous, the double volume running to over fourteen hundred pages, instead of the usual ten or twelve. But its close is spirited andsufficiently interim-catastrophic. Cyrus discovers in the _enceinte_ ofSardis the usual weak point--an apparently impregnable scarped rock, which has been weakly fortified and garrisoned--takes it by escalade inperson with his best paladins, and after it the city. 

But of course he cannot expect to have it all his own way when not quitetwelve-twentieths of the book are gone, and he finds that Mandane isgone likewise; the King of Pontus, who has practically usurped theauthority of Croesus, having once more carried her off--perhaps not soentirely unwilling as before. Cyrus pursues, and while he is absent theKing of Assyria (Philidaspes) shows himself even more of a "PhilipDevil" than usual by putting the captive Lydian prince on a pyre, threatening to burn him if he will not reveal the place of thePrincess's flight, and actually having the torch applied. Of courseCyrus turns up at the nick of time, has the fire put out, rates the Kingof Assyria soundly for his violence, and apologises handsomely toCroesus. The notion of an apology for nearly roasting a man may appearto have its ludicrous side, but the way in which the historic pyre andthe mention of Solon are brought in without discrediting the hero iscertainly ingenious. The Mandane-hunt is renewed, but fruitlessly. 

At the beginning of Part VII. There are--according to the habit noticed, and in rather extra measure as regards "us" if not "them"--someinteresting things. The first is an example--perhaps the best in thebook--of the elaborate description (called in Greek rhetorical technique_ecphrasis_) which is so common in the Greek Romances. The subject is anextraordinarily beautiful statue of a woman which Cyrus sees inCroesus's gallery, and which will have sequels later. It, or part of it, may be given:

 [Sidenote: The statue in the gallery at Sardis. ]

 But, among all these figures of gold, there was to be seen one of marble, so wonderful, that it obliged Cyrus to stay longer in admiring it than in contemplating any of the others, though it was not of such precious material. It is true that it was executed with such art, and represented such a beautiful person, as to prevent any strangeness in its charming a Prince whose eyes were so delicate and so capable of judging all beautiful objects. This statue was of life-size, placed upon a pedestal of gold, on the four sides of which were bas-reliefs of an admirable beauty. On each were seen captives, chained in all sorts of fashions, but chained only by little Loves, unsurpassably executed. As for the figure itself, it represented a girl about eighteen years old, but one of surprising and perfect beauty. Every feature of the face was marvellously fine;[176] her figure was at once so noble and so graceful that nothing more elegant[177] could be seen; and her dress was at once so handsome and so unusual, that it had something of each of the usual garbs of Tyrian ladies, of nymphs, and of goddesses; but more particularly that of the Wingless Victory, as represented by the Athenians, with a simple laurel crown on her head. This statue was so well set on its base, and had such lively action, that it seemed actually animated; the face, the throat, the arms, and the hands were of white marble, as were the legs and feet, which were partly visible between the laces of the buskins she wore, and which were to be seen because, with her left hand, she lifted her gown a little, as if to walk more easily. With her right she held back a veil, fastened behind her head under the crown of laurel, as though to prevent its being carried away by the breeze, which seemed to agitate it. The whole of the drapery of the figure was made of divers-coloured marbles and jaspers; and, in particular, the gown of this fair Phoenician, falling in a thousand graceful folds, which still did not hide the exact proportion of her body, was of jasper, of a colour so deep that it almost rivalled Tyrian purple itself. A scarf, which passed negligently round her neck, and was fastened on the shoulder, was of a kind of marble, streaked with blue and white, which was very agreeable to the eye. The veil was of the same substance; but sculptured so artfully that it seemed as soft as mere gauze. The laurel crown was of green jasper, and the buskins, as well as the sash she wore, were, again of different hues. This sash brought together all the folds of the gown over the hips; below, they fell again more carelessly, and still showed the beauty of her figure. But what was most worthy of admiration in the whole piece was the spirit which animated it, and almost persuaded the spectators that she was just about to walk and talk. There was even a touch of art in her face, and a certain haughtiness in her attitude which made her seem to scorn the captives chained beneath her feet: while the sculptor had so perfectly realised the indefinable freshness, tenderness, and _embonpoint_ of beautiful girls, that one almost knew her age. 

Then come two more startling events. A wicked Prince Phraortes boltswith the unwilling Araminta, and the King of Assyria (_alias_Philidaspes) slips away in search of Mandane on his own account--twothings inconvenient to Cyrus in some ways, but balancing themselves inothers. For if it is unpleasant to have a very violent and ratherunscrupulous Rival hunting the beloved on the one hand, that beloved'sjealousy, if not cured, is at least not likely to be increased by thedisappearance of its object. This last, however, hits Spithridates, whois, as it has been and will be seen, the _souffre-douleur_ of the book, much harder. And the double situation illustrates once more theextraordinary care taken in systematising--and as one might almost say_syllabising_--the book. It is almost impossible that there should notsomewhere exist an actual syllabus of the whole, though, my habit beingrather to read books themselves than books about them, I am not aware ofone as a fact. [178]

Another characteristic is also well illustrated in this context, and afurther translated extract will show the curious, if not very recondite, love-casuistry which plays so large a part. But these French writers ofthe seventeenth century[179] did not know one-tenth of the matter thatwas known by their or others' mediaeval ancestors, by their English andperhaps Spanish contemporaries, or by writers in the nineteenth century. They were not "perfect in love-lore"; their _Liber Amoris_ was, afterall, little more than a fashion-book in divers senses of "fashion. " Butlet them speak for themselves:

 [Sidenote: The judgment of Cyrus in a court of love. ]

 [_Ménécrate and Thrasimède are going to fight, and have, according to the unqualified legal theory[180] and very occasional actual practice of seventeenth-century France, if not of the Medes and Persians, been arrested, though in honourable fashion. The "dependence" is a certain Arpalice, who loves Thrasimède and is loved by him. But she is ordered by her father's will to marry Ménécrate, who is now quite willing to marry her, though she hates him, and though he has previously been in love with Androclée, to whom he has promised that he will not marry the other. A sort of informal_ Cour d'Amour _is held on the subject, the President being Cyrus himself, and the judges Princesses Timarète and Palmis, Princes Sesostris and Myrsilus, with "Toute la compagnie" as assessors and assessoresses. After much discussion, it is decided to disregard the dead father's injunction and the living inconstant's wishes, and to unite Thrasimède and Arpalice. But the chief points of interest lie in the following remarks:_]

 "As it seems to me, " said Cyrus, "what we ought most to consider in this matter is the endeavour to make the fewest possible persons unhappy, and to prevent a combat between two gentlemen of such gallantry, that to whichever side victory inclines, we should have cause to regret the vanquished. For although Ménécrate is inconstant and a little capricious, he has, for all that, both wits and a heart. We must, then, if you please, " added he, turning to the two princesses, "consider that if Arpalice were forced to carry out her father's testament and marry Ménécrate, everybody would be unhappy, and he would have to fight two duels, [181] one against Thrasimède and one against Philistion (_Androclée's brother_), the one fighting for his mistress, the other for his sister. " "No doubt, " said Lycaste, "several people will be unhappy, but, methinks, not all; for at any rate Ménécrate will possess _his_ mistress. " "'Tis true, " said Cyrus, "that he will possess Arpalice's beauty; but I am sure that as he would not possess her heart, he could not call himself satisfied; and his greatest happiness in this situation would be having prevented the happiness of his Rival. As for the rest of it, after the first days of his marriage, he would be in despair at having wedded a person who hated him, and whom he, perhaps, would have ceased to love; for, considering Ménécrate's humour, I am the most deceived of all men if the possession of what he loves is not the very thing to kill all love in his heart. As for Arpalice, it is easy to see that, marrying Ménécrate, whom she hates, and _not_ marrying Thrasimède, whom she loves, she would be very unhappy indeed; nor could Androclée, on her side, be particularly satisfied to see a man like Ménécrate, whom she loves passionately, the husband of another. Philistion could hardly be any more pleased to see Ménécrate, after promising to marry his sister, actually marrying another. As for Thrasimède, it is again easy to perceive that, being as much in love with Arpalice as he is, and knowing that she loves him, he would have good reason for thinking himself one of the unhappiest lovers in the world if his Rival possessed his mistress. Therefore, from what I have said, you will see that by giving Arpalice to Ménécrate, everybody concerned is made miserable; for even Parmenides [_not the philosopher, but a friend of Ménécrate, whose sister, however, has rejected him_], though he may make a show of being still attached to the interests of Ménécrate, will be, unless I mistake, well enough pleased that his sister should not marry the brother of a person whom he never wishes to see again, and by whom he has been ill-treated. Then, if we look at the matter from the other side and propose to give Arpalice to Thrasimède, it remains an unalterable fact that these two people will be happy; that Philistion will be satisfied; that justice will be done to Androclée; that nothing disobliging will be done to Parmenides, and that Ménécrate will be made by force more happy than he wishes to be; for we shall give him a wife by whom he is loved, and take from him one by whom he is hated. Moreover, things being so, even if he refuses to subject his whim to his reason, he can wish to come to blows with Thrasimède alone, and would have nothing to ask of Philistion; besides which, his sentiments will change as soon as Thrasimède is Arpalice's husband. One often fights with a Rival, thinking to profit by his defeat, when he has not married the beloved object; but one does not so readily fight the husband of one's mistress, as being her lover. [182]"

Much about the "Good Rival" (as we may call him) Mazare follows, andthere is an illuminative sentence about our favourite Doralise's _humeurenjouée et critique_, which, as the rest of her part does, gives us a"light" as to the origin of those sadly vulgarised lively heroines ofRichardson's whom Lady Mary very justly wanted to "slipper. " Doraliseand Martésie are ladies, which the others, unfortunately, are not. Andthen we pay for our _ecphrasis_ by an immense _Histoire_ of the TyrianÉlise, its original. 

At the beginning of VII. Ii. Cyrus is in the doldrums. Many of hisheroes have got their heroines--the personages of bygone_histoires_--and are honeymooning and (to borrow again from Mr. Kipling)"dancing on the deck. " He is not. Moreover, the army, like allseventeenth-century armies after victory and in comfortable quarters, isgetting rather out of hand; and he learns that the King of Pontus hascarried Mandane off to Cumae--not the famous Italian Cumae, home of theSibyl whom Sir Edward Burne-Jones has fixed for us, and of manyclassical memories, but a place somewhere near Miletus, defended byunpleasant marshes on land, and open to the sea itself, the element onwhich Cyrus is weakest, and by which the endlessly carried off Mandanemay readily be carried off again. He sends about for help to Phoeniciaand elsewhere; but when, after a smart action by land against the town, a squadron does appear off the port, he is for a time quite uncertainwhether it is friend or foe. Fortunately Cléobuline, Queen of Corinth, ayoung widow of surpassing beauty and the noblest sentiments, who hassworn never to marry again, has conceived a Platonic-romantic admirationfor him, and has sent her fleet to his aid. She deserves, of course, andstill more of course has, a _Histoire de Cléobuline_. Also theinestimable Martésie writes to say that Mandane has been dispossessed ofher suspicions, and that the King of Pontus is, in the race for herfavour, nowhere. The city falls, and the lovers meet. But if anybodythinks for a moment that they are to be happy ever afterwards, Arithmetic, Logic, and Literary History will combine to prove to himthat he is very much mistaken. In order to make these two lovers happyat all, not only time and space, but six extremely solid volumes wouldhave to be annihilated. 

The close of VII. Ii. And the whole of VIII. I. Are occupied withimbroglios of the most characteristic kind. There is a certain Anaxaris, who has been instrumental in preventing Mandane from being, according toher almost invariable custom, carried off from Cumae also. To whom, though he is one of the numerous "unknowns" of the book, Cyrus rashlyconfides not only the captainship of the Princess's guards, but variousand too many other things, especially when "Philip Devil" turns up oncemore, and, seeing the lovers in apparent harmony, claims the fulfilmentof Cyrus's rash promise to fight him before marrying. This gets wind ina way, and watch is kept on Cyrus by his friends; but he, thinking ofthe parlous state of his mistress if both her principal lovers werekilled--for Prince Mazare is, so to speak, out of the running, while theKing of Pontus is still lying _perdu_ somewhere--entrusts the secret toAnaxaris, and begs him to take care of her. Now Anaxaris--as is sousual--is not Anaxaris at all, but Aryante, Prince of the Massagetae andactually brother of the redoubtable Queen Thomyris; and he also hasfallen a victim to Mandane's fascinations, which appear to beirresistible, though they are, mercifully perhaps, rather taken forgranted than made evident to the reader. One would certainly rather haveone Doralise or Martésie than twenty Mandanes. However, again in the nowexpected manner, the fight does not immediately come off. For "PhilipDevil, " in his usual headlong violence, has provoked another duel withthe Assyrian Prince Intaphernes, [183] and has been badly worsted andwounded by his foe, who is unhurt. This puts everything off, and for along time the main story drops again (except as far as the struggles ofAnaxaris between honour and love are depicted), first to a great deal ofmiscellaneous talk about the quarrel of King and Prince, and then to aregular _Histoire_ of the King, Intaphernes, Atergatis, PrincessIstrine, and the Princess of Bithynia, Spithridates's sister anddaughter of a very robustious and rather usurping King Arsamones, who isa deadly enemy of Cyrus. The dead Queen Nitocris, and the passion forher of a certain Gadates, Intaphernes's father, and also sometimes, ifnot always, called a "Prince, " come in here. The story again introducesthe luckless Spithridates himself, who is first, owing to his likenessto Cyrus, persecuted by Thomyris, and then imprisoned by his fatherArsamones because he will not give up Araminta and marry Istrine, whomNitocris had wanted to marry her own son Philidaspes--a good instance ofthe extraordinary complications and contrarieties in which the bookindulges, and of which, if Dickens had been a more "literary" person, hemight have thought when he made the unfortunate Augustus Moddle observethat "everybody appears to be somebody else's. " Finally, the volume endswith an account of the leisurely progress of Mandane and Cyrus toEcbatana and Cyaxares, while the King of Assyria recovers as best hecan. But at certain "tombs" on the route evidence is found that the Kingof Pontus has been recently in the land of the living, and is by nomeans disposed to give up Mandane. 

The second volume of this part is one of the most eventless of all, andis mainly occupied by a huge _Histoire_ of Puranius, Prince of Phocaea, his love Cléonisbe, and others, oddly topped by a passage of the mainstory, describing Cyrus's emancipation of the captive Jews. He is for atime separated from the Princess. 

The first pages of IX. I. Are lively, though they are partly a _récit_. Prince Intaphernes tells Cyrus all about Anaxaris (Aryante), and how byrepresenting Cyrus as dead and the King of Assyria in full pursuit ofher, he has succeeded in carrying off Mandane; how also he has had thecunning, by availing himself of the passion of another high officer, Andramite, for Doralise, to induce him to join, in order that the maidof honour may accompany her mistress. Accordingly Cyrus, the King ofAssyria himself, and others start off in fresh pursuit; but the King hasat first the apparent luck. He overtakes the fugitives, and a sharpfight follows. But the guards whom Cyrus has placed over the Princess, and who, in the belief of his death, have followed the ravishers, aretoo much for Philidaspes, and he is fatally wounded; fulfilling theoracle, as we anticipated long ago, by dying in Mandane's arms, andhonoured with a sigh from her as for her intended rescuer. 

She herself, therefore, is in no better plight, for Aryante andAndramite continue the flight, with her and her ladies, to a port on theEuxine, destroying, that they may not be followed, all the shipping saveone craft they select, and making for the northern shore. Here after atime Aryante surrenders Mandane to his sister Thomyris, as he cannotwell help doing, though he knows her violent temper and her tigress-likepassion for Cyrus, and though, also, he is on rather less than brotherlyterms with her, and has a party among the Massagetae who would gladlysee him king. Meanwhile the King of Pontus and Phraortes, Araminta'scarrier-off, fight and kill each other, and Araminta is given up--a lossfor Mandane, for they have been companions in quasi-captivity, and thereis no longer any subject of jealousy between them. 

Having thus created a sort of "deadlock" situation such as she loves, and in the interval, while Cyrus is gathering forces to attack Thomyris, the author, as is her fashion likewise, surrenders herself to the joysof digression. We have a great deal of retrospective history of Aryante, and at last the famous Scythian philosopher, Anacharsis, is introduced, bringing with him the rest of the Seven Ancient Sages--with whom wecould dispense, but are not allowed to do so. There is a Banquet of themall at the end of the first volume of the Part; and they overflow intothe second, telling stories about Pisistratus and others, and discussing"love in the _aib_-stract, " as frigidly as might be expected, on suchpoints as, "Can you love the same person _twice_?"[184] But the lasthalf of this IX. Ii. Is fortunately business again. There is much hardfighting with Thomyris, who on one occasion wishes to come to actualsword-play with Cyrus, and of whom we have the liveliest _ecphrasis_, orset description, in the whole romance. 

 [Sidenote: Thomyris on the warpath. ]

 As for Thomyris, she was so beautiful that day that there was no one in the world save Mandane, who could have disputed a heart with her[185] without the risk of losing. This Princess was mounted on a fine black horse, trapped with gold; her dress was of cloth of gold, with green panels shot with a little carnation, and was of the shape of that of Pallas when she is represented as armed. The skirt was caught up on the hip with diamond clasps, and showed buskins of lions' muzzles made to correspond with the rest. Her head-dress was adorned with jewels, and a great number of feathers--carnation, white and green--hung over her beautiful fair tresses, while these, fluttering at the wind's will, mixed themselves with the plumes as she turned her head, and with their careless curls gave a marvellous lustre to her beauty. Besides, as her sleeves were turned up, and caught on the shoulder, while she held the bridle of her horse with one hand and her sword with the other, she showed the loveliest arms in the world. Anger had flushed her complexion, so that she was more beautiful than usual; and the joy of once more seeing Cyrus, and seeing him also in an action respectful towards her, [186] effaced the marks of her immediately preceding fury so completely that he could see nothing but what was amiable and charming. 

Thomyris, however, is as treacherous and cruel as she is beautiful; andpart of her reason for seeming milder is that more of her troops mayturn up and seize him. 

On another occasion, owing to false generalship and disorderly advanceon the part of the King of Hyrcania, Cyrus is in no small danger, but he"makes good, " though at a disastrous expense, and with still greaterdangers to meet. Thomyris's youthful son (for young and beautiful widowas she is, she has been an early married wife and a mother), Spargapises, just of military age, is captured in battle, suffers fromhis captors' ignorance what has been called "the indelible insult ofbonds, " and though almost instantly released as soon as he is known, stabs himself as disgraced. His body is sent to his mother with allsorts of honours, apologies, and regrets, but she, partly out of naturalfeeling, partly from her excited state, and partly because her mind ispoisoned by false insinuations, sends, after transports of maternal andother rage, a message to Cyrus to the effect that if he does not puthimself unreservedly in her hands, she will send him back Mandane dead, in the coffin of Spargapises. And so the last double-volume but one endswith a suitable "fourth act" curtain, as we may perhaps call it. 

The last of all, X. I. And ii. , exhibits, in a remarkable degree, thegeneral defects and the particular merits and promise of this curiousand (it cannot be too often repeated) epoch-making book. In the latterrespect more especially it shows the "laborious orient ivory sphere insphere" fashion in which the endless and, it may sometimes seem, aimlessepisodes, and digressions, and insets are worked into the general theme. The defects will hardly startle, though they may still annoy, any onewho has worked through the whole. But if another wickedly contentedhimself with a sketch of the story up to this point, and thought to makeup by reading this Part of two volumes carefully, he would probably feelthese defects very strongly indeed. We--we corrupt moderns--do expect aquickening up for the run-in. The usual beginning may seem to thenon-experts to promise this, or at least to give hopes of it; for thoughthere is a vast deal of talking--with Anacharsis as a go-between andGélonide (a good confidante), endeavouring to soften Thomyris, one canbut expect it--the situation itself is at once difficult and exciting. The position of Aryante in particular is really novel-dramatic. As he isin love with Mandane, he of course does not want his sister to murderher. But inasmuch as he fears Cyrus's rivalry, he does not want him tobe near Mandane for two obvious reasons: first, the actual proximity, and, secondly, the danger of Thomyris's temper getting the better (orworse) of her when both the lovers are in her power. So he sends privatemessengers to the Persian Prince, begging him _not_ to surrender. Cyrus, however, still thinks of exchanging himself for Mandane. At this pointthe neophyte's rage may be excited by being asked to plunge into theregular four-hundred page _Histoire_ of a certain Arpasie, who has twolovers--a Persian nobleman Hidaspe, and a supposed Assyrian championMéliante, who has come with reinforcements for Thomyris. And no doubtthe proportion _is_ outrageous. But "wait and see, " a phrase, it may beobserved, which was not, as some seem to think, invented by Mr. Asquith. 

At last the business does begin again, and a tremendous battle takesplace for the possession of certain forests which lie between the twoarmies, and are at first held by the Scythians. Cyrus, however, availshimself of the services of an engineer who has a secret of combustibles, sets the forests ablaze, and forces his way through one or two opendefiles, with little loss to himself and very heavy loss to the enemy, whose main body, however, is still unbroken. This affords a fine subjectfor one of the curious frontispieces known to all readers of seventeenthcentury books. A further wait for reinforcements takes place, and theauthor basely avails herself of it for a no doubt to herself verycongenial (they actually called her in "precious" circles by the name ofthe great poetess) and enormous _Histoire_ of no less a person thanSappho, which fills the last 250 pages of the first (nineteenth) volumeand about as much of the second (twentieth) or last. It has very littleconnection with the text, save that Sappho and Phaon (for theself-precipitation at Leucas is treated as a fable) retire to thecountry of the Sauromatae, to live there a happy, united, but unwed andpurely Platonic (in the silly sense) existence. The foolish side of the_précieuse_ system comes out here, and the treatment confirms one'ssuspicion that the author's classical knowledge was not very deep. 

It does come to an end at last, however, and at last also we do get our"run-in, " such as it is. The chief excuse for its existence is that itbrings in a certain Méréonte, who, like his quasi-assonant Méliante, isto be useful later, and that the tame conclusion is excused by a Sapphictheory--certainly not to be found in her too fragmentary works--that"possession ruins love, " a doctrine remembered and better put by Drydenin a speech of that very agreeable Doralice, whose name, though notoriginally connected with this part of it, he also, as has been noted, borrowed from the _Grand Cyrus_. 

The actual finale begins (so to speak) antithetically with the lastmisfortune of the unlucky Spithridates. His ill-starred likeness toCyrus, assisted by a suit of armour which Cyrus has given to him, makethe enemy certain that he is Cyrus himself, and he is furiouslyassaulted in an off-action, surrounded, and killed. His head is takento Thomyris, who, herself deceived, executes upon it the famous"blood-bath" of history or legend. [187] Unfortunately it is not only inthe Scythian army that the error spreads. Cyrus's troops are terrifiedand give way, so that he is overpowered by numbers and captured. Fortunately he falls into the hands, not of Thomyris's own people or ofher savage allies, the Geloni (it is a Gelonian captain who has acted asexecutioner in Spithridates's case), but of the supposed Assyrian leaderMéliante, who is an independent person, admires Cyrus, and, furtherpersuaded by his friend Méréonte (_v. Sup. _), resolves to let himescape. The difficulties, however, are great, and the really safest, though apparently the most dangerous way, seems to lie through the"Royal Tents" (the nomad capital of Thomyris) themselves. Meanwhile, Aryante is making interest against his sister; some of Cyrus's specialfriends, disguised as Massagetae, are trying to discover and rescue him, and the Sauromatae are ready to desert the Scythian Queen. One of hertransports of rage brings on the catastrophe. She orders the Gelonianbravo to poniard Mandane, and he actually stabs by mistake hermaid-of-honour Hésionide--the least interesting one, luckily. Cyrushimself, after escaping notice for a time, is identified, attacked, andnearly slain, when the whole finishes in a general chaos of rebellion, arrival of friends, flight of Thomyris, and a hairbreadth escape ofCyrus himself, which unluckily partakes more of the possible-improbablethan of the impossible-probable. The murders being done, the marriageswould appear to have nothing to delay them; but an evil habit, theorigin of which is hard to trace, and which is not quite extinct, stillputs them off. Méliante has got to be rewarded with the hand of Arpasie, which is accomplished after he has been discovered, in a manner notentirely romantic, to be the son of the King of Hyrcania, and both hismarriage and that of Cyrus are interfered with by a supposed Law of theMedes and of certain minor Asiatic peoples, that a Prince or Princessmay not marry a foreigner. Fresh discoveries get rid of this inMéliante's case, while in that of Cyrus a convenient Oracle declaresthat he who has conquered every kingdom in Asia cannot be considered aforeigner in any. So at last the long chart is finished, Doraliseretaining her character as lightener of this rather solid entertainmentby declaring that she cannot say she loves her suitor, Prince Myrsilus, because every phrase that occurs to her is either too strong or tooweak. So we bless her, and stop the water channels--or, as the Limousinstudent might have more excellently said, "claud the rives. "

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: General remarks on the book and its class. ]

If the reader, having tolerated this long analysis (it is perhaps mostprobable that he will _not_ have done so), asks what game one pretendsto have shown for so much expenditure or candle, it is, no doubt, noteasy to answer him without a fresh, though a lesser, trial of hispatience. You cannot "ticket" the _Grand Cyrus_, or any of its fellows, or the whole class, with any complimentary short description, such as acertain school of ancient criticism loved, and corresponding to ourmodern advertisement labels--"grateful and comforting, " "necessary inevery travelling bag, " and the like. They are, indeed, as I haveendeavoured to indicate indirectly as well as directly, by no means sodestitute of interest of the ordinary kind as it has generally been thefashion to think them. From the charge of inordinate length it is, ofcourse, impossible to clear the whole class, and _Artamène_ moreparticularly. [188] Length "no more than reason" is in some judgments apositive advantage in a novel; but this _is_ more than reason. I believe(the _moi_, I trust, is not utterly _haïssable_ when it is necessary)that I myself am a rather unusually rapid, without being a careless orunfaithful, reader; and that I have by nature a very little of thatfaculty with which some much greater persons have been credited, ofbeing able to see at a glance whether anything on a page needs morethan that glance or not, a faculty not likely to have been renderedabortive (though also not, I hope, rendered morbid) by infinite practicein reviewing. I do not say that, even now, I have read every word ofthis _Artamène_ as I should read every word of a sonnet of Shakespeareor a lyric of Shelley, even as I should read every word of a page ofThackeray. I have even skimmed many pages. But I have never found, evenin a time of "retired leisure, " that I could get through more thanthree, or at the very utmost four, of the twenty volumes or half-volumeswithout a day or two of rest or other work between. On the other hand, the book is not significantly piquant in detail to enable me to readattentively fifty or a hundred pages and then lay it down. [189] You do, in a lazy sort of way, want to know what happened--a tribute, no doubt, to Mlle. Madeleine--and so you have to go on ploughing the furrow. Butseveral weeks' collar-work[190] is a great deal to spend on a singlebook of what is supposed to be pastime; and the pastime becomesoccasionally one of doubtful pleasure now and then. In fact, it is, ashas been said, best to read in shifts. Secondly, there may, no doubt, becharged a certain unreality about the whole: and a good many othercriticisms may be, as some indeed have been already, made withoutinjustice. 

The fact is that not only was the time not yet, but something which wasvery specially of the time stood in the way of the other thing coming, despite the strong _nisus_ in its favour excited by various influencesspoken of at the beginning of this chapter. This was thedevotion--French at almost all times, and specially French at this--tothe type. There are some "desperate willins" (as Sam Weller called thegreengrocer at the swarry) who fail to see much more than types inRacine, though there is something more in Corneille, and a very greatdeal more in Molière. In the romances which charmed at home theaudiences and spectators of these three great men's work abroad, thereis nothing, or next to nothing, else at all. The spirit of the _Epistleto the Pisos_, which acted on the Tragedians in verse, which acted onBoileau in criticism and poetry, was heavier on the novelist than on anyof them. Take sufficient generosity, magnanimity, adoration, bravery, courtesy, and so forth, associate the mixture with handsome flesh androyal blood, clothe the body thus formed with brilliant scarfs andshining armour, put it on the best horse that was ever foaled, or kneelit at the feet of the most beautiful princess that ever existed, and youhave Cyrus. For the princess herself take beauty, dignity, modesty, graciousness, etc. , _quant. Suff. _, clothe _them_ in garments againmagnificent, and submit the total to extreme inconveniences, somedangers, and an immense amount of involuntary travelling, but nothing"irreparable, " and you have Mandane. For the rest, with the rare andslight exceptions mentioned, they flit like shadows ticketed with moreor less beautiful names. Even Philidaspes, the most prominent malecharacter after the hero by far, is, whether he be "in cog" as thatpersonage or "out of cog" as Prince and King of Assyria, merely apetulant hero--a sort of cheap Achilles, with no idiosyncrasy at all. Itis the fault, and in a way the very great fault, of all the kind: andthere is nothing more to do with it but to admit it and look forsomething to set against it. 

How great a thing the inception (to use a favourite word of the presentday, though it be no favourite of the writer's) of the "psychological"treatment of Love[191] was may, of course, be variously estimated. Thegood conceit of itself in which that day so innocently and amusinglyindulges will have it, indeed, that the twentieth century has inventedthis among other varieties of the great and venerable art of extractingnourishment from eggs. "We have, " somebody wrote not long ago--the exactwords may not be given, but the sense is guaranteed--"perceived thatLove is not merely a sentiment, an appetite, or a passion, but a greatmeans of intellectual development. " Of course Solomon did not know this, nor Sappho, nor Catullus, nor the fashioners of those "sentiments" ofthe Middle Ages which brought about the half-fabulous Courts of Loveitself, nor Chaucer, nor Spenser, nor Shakespeare, nor Donne. It wasreserved for--but one never names contemporaries except _honoris causâ_. 

It is--an "of course" of another kind--undeniable that the fashion oflove-philosophy which supplies so large a part of the "yarn" ofMadeleine de Scudéry's endless rope or web is not _our_ fashion. But itis, in a way, a new variety of yarn as compared with anything usedbefore in prose, even in the Greek romances[192] and the _Amadis_ group(nay, even in the _Astrée_ itself). Among other things, it connectsitself more with the actual society, manners, fashions of its day thanhad ever been the case before, and this is the only interesting side ofthe "key" part of it. This was the way that they did to some extent talkand act then, though, to be sure, they also talked and acted verydifferently. It is all very well to say that the Hôtel de Rambouillet isa sort of literary-historical fiction, and the _Précieuses Ridicules_ adelightful farce. The fiction was not wholly a fiction, and the farcewas very much more than a farce--would have been, indeed, not a farce atall if it had not satirised a fact. 

It is, however, in relation to the general history and development ofthe novel, and therefore in equally important relation to the present_History_, that the importance of the _Grand Cyrus_, or rather of theclass of which it was by far the most popular and noteworthy member, ismost remarkable. Indeed this importance can hardly be exaggerated, andis much more likely to be--indeed has nearly always been--undervalued. Even the jejune and partial analysis which has been given must haveshown how many of the elements of the modern novel are here--sometimes, as it were, "in solution, " sometimes actually crystallised. For any onewho demands plot there is one--of such gigantic dimensions, indeed, thatit is not easy to grasp it, but seen to be singularly well articulatedand put together when it is once grasped. Huge as it is, it is not inthe least formless, and, as has been several times pointed out, hardlythe most (as it may at first appear) wanton and unpardonable episode, digression, or inset lacks its due connection with and "orientation"towards the end. The contrast of this with the more or less formlesschronicle-fashion, the "overthwart and endlong" conduct, of almost allthe romances from the Carlovingian and Arthurian[193] to the _Amadis_type, is of the most unmistakable kind. 

Again, though character, as has been admitted, in any real live sense, is terribly wanting still; though description is a little general andwants more "streaks in the tulip"; and though conversation is formal andstilted, there is evident, perhaps even in the first, certainly in thesecond and third cases, an effort to treat them at any ratesystematically, in accordance with some principles of art, and perhapseven not without some eye to the actual habits, manners, demands of thetime--things which again were quite new in prose fiction, and, in fact, could hardly be said to be anywhere present in literature outside ofdrama. 

To set against these not so very small merits in the present, and veryconsiderable seeds of promise for the future, there are, of course, serious faults or defects--defaults which need, however, lessinsistence, because they are much more generally known, much moreobvious, and have been already admitted. The charge of excessive lengthneed hardly be dealt with at all. It has already been said that the mostinteresting point about it is the opportunity of discovering how it was, in part, a regular, and, in fact, almost the furthest possible, development of a characteristic which had been more or less observablethroughout the progress of romance. But it may be added that the law ofsupply and demand helped; for people evidently were not in the leastbored by bulk, and that the fancy for having a book "on hand" has onlylately, if it has actually, died out. [194] Now such a "book on hand" asthe _Grand Cyrus_ exists, as far as my knowledge goes, in no Westernliterature, unless you count collections of letters, which is not fair, or such memoirs as Saint-Simon's, which do not appeal to quite the sameclass of readers. 

A far more serious default or defect--not exactly blameworthy, _because_the time was not yet, but certainly to be taken account of--is thealmost utter want of character just referred to. From Cyrus and Mandanedownwards the people have qualities; but qualities, though they arenecessary to character, do not constitute it. Very faint approaches maybe discerned, by very benevolent criticism, in such a personage asMartésie with her shrewdness, her maid-of-honour familiarity with theways and manners of courtly human beings, and that very pardonable, indeed agreeable, tendency, which has been noticed or imagined, to flirtin respectful fashion with Cyrus, while carrying on more regularbusiness with Feraulas. But it is little more than a suggestion, and ithas been frankly admitted that it is perhaps not even that, but animagination merely. And the same observation may apply to her "secondstring, " Doralise. No others of the women have any character at all, andwe have already spoken of the men. 

Now these things, in a book very widely read and immensely admired, could not, and did not, fail to have their effect. Nobody--we shall seethis more in detail in the next chapter--can fail to perceive that the_Princesse de Clèves_ itself is, from one point of view, only a_histoire_ of the _Grand Cyrus_, taken out of its preposterous _matrix_of other matter, polished, charged with a great addition of internalfire of character and passion, and left to take its chance alone andunencumbered. Nobody, on the other hand, who knows Richardson andMademoiselle de Scudéry can doubt the influence of the French book--acentury old as it was--on the "father of the English novel. " Now anyinfluence exerted on these two was, beyond controversy, an influenceexerted on the whole future course of the kind, and it is as exercisingsuch an influence that we have given to the _Great Cyrus_ so great aspace. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The other Scudéry romances--_Ibrahim_. ]

After the exhaustive account given of _Artamène_, it is probably notnecessary to apologise for dealing with the rest of Mlle. De Scudéry'snovel work, and with that of her comrades in the Heroic romance, at novery great length. _Ibrahim ou L'Illustre Bassa_ has sometimes beencomplimented as showing more endeavour, if not exactly at "localcolour, " at technical accuracy, than the rest. It is true that theFrench were, at this time, rather amusingly proud of being the onlyWestern nation treated on something like equal terms by the SublimePorte, and that the Scudérys (possibly Georges, whose work theDedication to Mlle. De Rohan, daughter of the famous soldier, prettycertainly is) may have taken some pains to acquire knowledge. "Sandjak"(or "Sanjiac"), not for a district but for its governor, is a littleunlucky perhaps; but "Aderbion" is much nearer "Azerbaijan" than onegenerally expects in such cases from French writers of the seventeenthor even of other centuries. The Oriental character of the story, however, is but partial. The Illustrious Pasha himself, though FirstVizir and "victorious" general of Soliman the Second, is not a Turk atall, but a "Justinian" or Giustiniani of Genoa, whose beloved Isabelleis a Princess of Monaco, and who at the end, after necessarydangers, [195] retires with her to that Principality, with a punctiliousexplanation from the author about the Grimaldis. The scene is partlythere and at Genoa--the best Genoese families, including the Dorias, appearing--partly at Constantinople: and the business at the latterplace is largely concerned with the intrigues, jealousies, and crueltiesof Roxelane, who is drawn much more (one regrets to say) as historypaints her than as the agreeable creature of Marmontel's subsequentfancy. The book is a mere cockboat beside the mighty argosy of the_Cyrus_, running only to four volumes and some two thousand pages. Butthough smaller, it is much "stodgier. " The _Histoires_ break out at oncewith the story of a certain Alibech--much more proper for the youngperson than that connected with the same name by Boccaccio, --and thosewho have acquired some knowledge of Mlle. Madeleine's ways will knowwhat it means when, adopting the improper but defensible practice of"looking at the end, " they find that not merely "Justinian" andIsabelle, but a Horace and a Hypolite, a Doria and a Sophronie, anAlphonse and a Léonide are all married on the same day, while a "FrenchMarquis" and an Emilie vow inviolable but celibate constancy to eachother; they will know, that is to say, that in the course of the bookall these will have been duly "historiated. " To encourage them, a singlehint that Léonide sometimes plays a little of the parts of Martésie andDoralise in the _Cyrus_ may be thrown in. 

There is, however, one sentence in the second volume of _Ibrahim_ whichis worth quotation and brief comment, because it is a text for the wholemanagement and system of these novels, and accounts for much in theirsuccessors almost to the present day. Emilie is telling the _Histoire_of Isabelle, and excuses herself for not beginning at the beginning:"Puisque je sais que vous n'ignorez pas l'amour du Prince de Masseran, les violences et les artifices de Julie, la trahison de Féliciane, legénéreux ressentiment de Doria [this is another Doria], la mort de cetamant infortuné, et ensuite celle de Julie. " In other words, all thesethings have been the subject of previous histories or of the main text. And so it is always. Diderot admired, or at least excused, thatprocedure of Richardson's which involved the telling of the conversationof an average dinner-party in something like a small volume. But the"Heroic" method would have made it necessary to tell the previousexperiences of the lady you took down to dinner, and the man that youtalked to afterwards, while, if extended from aristocratic to democraticideas, it would have justified a few remarks on the cabmen who broughtboth, and the butcher and fishmonger who supplied the feast. Theinconvenience of this earlier practice made itself felt, and by degreesit dropped off; but it was succeeded by a somewhat similar habit ofgiving the subsequent history of personages introduced--a thing which, though Scott satirised it in Mrs. Martha Buskbody's insistence oninformation about the later history of Guse Gibbie, [196] by no meansceased with his time. Both were, in fact, part of the general refusal toaccept the conditions of ordinary life. If "tout _passe_" is anexaggeration, it is an exaggeration of the truth: and in fiction, as infact, the minor shapes must dissolve as well as arise without too muchfuss being made about them. [197]

[Sidenote: _Almahide. _]

_Almahide_ is, I think, more readable than _Ibrahim_; but the _English_reader must disabuse himself of the idea (if he entertains it) that hewill find much of the original of _The Conquest of Granada_. The bookdoes, indeed, open like the play, with the faction-fights ofAbencerrages and Zegrys, and it ends with Boabdelin's jealousy of hiswife Almahide, while a few of the other names in both are identical. But_Almahide_ contains nothing, or hardly anything, of the character ofAlmanzor, and Dryden has not attempted to touch a hundredth part of thecopious matter of the French novel, the early history of Almahide, theusual immense digressions and side-_histoires_, the descriptions (which, as in _Ibrahim_, play, I think, a larger relative part than in the_Cyrus_), and what not. 

[Sidenote: _Clélie. _]

[Sidenote: Perhaps the liveliest of the set. ]

Copious as these are, however, in both books, they do not fill them outto anything like the length of the _Cyrus_ itself, or of its rival insize, and perhaps superior in attraction, the _Clélie_. I do not pleadguilty to inconsistency or change of opinion in this "perhaps" when itis compared with the very much larger space given to the earlier novel. _Le Grand Cyrus_ has been estated too firmly, as the type andrepresentative of the whole class, to be dislodged, and there is, as weshall see presently, a good deal of repetition from it in _Clélie_itself. But this latter is the more amusing book of the two; it is, though equally or nearly as big, less labyrinthine; there is somewhatlivelier movement in it, and at the same time this is contrasted with aset or series of interludes of love-casuistry, which are better, Ithink, than anything of the kind in the _Cyrus_. [198] The most famousfeature of these is, of course, the well-known but constantly misnamed"Carte de Tendre" ("Map of the Country of Tenderness"--not of"Tenderness in the _aib_stract, " as _du_ Tendre would be). Thediscussion of what constitutes Tenderness comes quite early; there islater a notable discourse on the respective attractions of Love and ofGlory or Ambition; a sort of Code and Anti-code of lovers[199] occurs as"The Love-Morality of Tiramus, " with a set of (not always) contrarycriticism thereof; and a debate of an almost mediaeval kind as to therespective merits of merry and melancholy mistresses. Moreover, there isa rather remarkable "Vision of Poets"--past, present, and to come--whichshould be taken in connection with the appearance, as an actualpersonage, of Anacreon. All this, taken in conjunction with the"business" of the story, helps to give it the superior liveliness withwhich it has, rightly or wrongly, been credited here. 

[Sidenote: Rough outline of it. ]

Of that business itself a complete account cannot, for reasons givenmore than once, be attempted; though anybody who wants such a thing, without going to the book itself, may find it in the places also abovementioned. There is no such trick played upon the educated but notwideawake person as (_v. Inf. _) in La Calprenède's chief books. Clélieis the real Clelia, if the modern historical student will pass "real"without sniffing, or even if he will not. Her lover, "Aronce, " althoughhe probably may be a little disguised from the English reader by hisspelling, is so palpably the again real "Aruns, " son of Porsena, thatone rather wonders how his identity can have been so long concealed inFrench (where the pronunciations would be practically the same) from thereaders of the story. The book begins with a proceeding not quite solike that of the _Cyrus_ as some to be mentioned later, but still prettyclose to the elder overture. "The illustrious Aronce and the adorableClelia" are actually going to be married, when there is a fearful storm, an earthquake, and a disappearance of the heroine. She has, of course, been carried off; one might say, without flippancy, of any heroine ofMadeleine de Scudéry's not only that she was, as in a famous and alreadyquoted saying, "very liable to be carried off, " but that it was not innature that she should not be carried off as early and as often aspossible. And her abductor is no less a person than Horatius--our ownHoratius Cocles--the one who kept the bridge in some of the best knownof English verses, not he who provoked, from the sister whom hemurdered, the greatest speech in all French tragedy before, and perhapsnot merely before, Victor Hugo. Horatius is the Philidaspes of _Clélie_, but, as he was bound to be, an infinitely better fellow and of a betterfate. Of course the end knits straight on to the beginning. Clélie andAronce are united without an earthquake, and Porsena, with obliginggallantry, resigns the crown of Clusium (from which he has himself longbeen kept out by a "Mezentius, " who will hardly work in with Virgil's), not to Aronce, but to Clélie herself. The enormous interval between (thebook is practically as long as the _Cyrus_) is occupied by the same, or(_v. Sup. _) nearly the same tissue of delays, digressions, and othermaze-like devices for setting you off on a new quest when you seem to bequite close to the goal. A large part of the scene is in Carthage, where, reversing the process in regard to Mezentius, Asdrubals andAmilcars make their appearance in a very "mixedly" historical fashion. APrince of Numidia (who had heard of Numidia in Tarquin's days?) fights alively water-combat with Horatius actually as he is carrying Clélie off, over the Lake of Thrasymene. All the stock legends of the Porsena siegeand others are duly brought in: and the atrocious Sextus, not contentedwith his sin against Lucrèce, tries to carry off Clélie likewise, but isfortunately or wisely prevented. Otherwise the invariable proprietywhich from the time of the small love-novels (_v. Sup. _ pp. 157-162) haddistinguished these abductions might possibly have been broken through. These outlines might be expanded (and the process would not be verypainful to me) into an abstract quite as long as that of Cyrus; but "ItCannot Be. "

One objection, foreshadowed, and perhaps a little more, already, must beallowed against _Clélie_. That tendency to resort to repetition ofsituations and movements--which has shown itself so often, and whichpractically distinguishes the very great novelists from those not sogreat by its absence or presence--is obvious here, though the huge sizeof the book may conceal it from mere dippers, unless they be experts. The similarity of the openings is, comparatively speaking, a usualthing. It should not happen, and does not in really great writers; butit is tempting, and is to some extent excused by the brocard about _lepremier pas_. It is so nice to put yourself in front of yourbeginning--to have made sure of it! But this charity will hardly extendto such a thing as the repetition of Cyrus's foolish promise to fightPhilidaspes before he marries Mandane in the case of Aronce, Horatius, and Clélie. The way in which Aronce is kept an "unknown" for some time, and that in which his actual relationship to Porsena is treated, havealso too much of the _replica_; and though a lively skirmish with apirate which occurs is not quite so absurd as that ready-made series ofencores which was described above (pp. 181-2), there is something alittle like it in the way in which the hero and his men alternatelyreduce the enemy to extremity, and run over the deck to rescue friendswho are in the pirates' power from being butchered or flung overboard. "Sapho's" invention, though by no means sterile, was evidently somewhatindiscriminate, and she would seem to have thought it rather a pity thata good thing should be used only once. 

Nevertheless the compliment given above may be repeated. If I were sentto twelve months' imprisonment of a mild description, and allowed tochoose a library, I should include in it, from the heroic or semi-heroicdivision, _Clélie_, La Calprenède's two chief books, Gomberville's_Polexandre_, and Gombauld's _Endimion_ (this partly for the pictures), with, as a matter of course, the _Astrée_, and a choice of one other. Byreading slowly and "savouring" the process, I should imagine that, withone's memories of other things, they might be able to last for a year. And it would be one of the best kind of fallows for the brain. Inanticipation, let us see something of these others now. 

[Sidenote: La Calprenède: his comparative cheerfulness. ]

It has seemed, as was said, desirable to follow the common opinion ofliterary history in giving Madeleine de Scudéry the place of honour, andthe largest as well as the foremost share in our account of thiscurious stage in the history of the novel. But if, to alter slightly afamous quotation, I might "give a short hint to an impartial _reader_, "I should very strongly advise him to begin his studies (or at least hisenjoyment) thereof, not with "Sapho, " but with Gauthier de Costes, Seigneur de la Calprenède, himself according to Tallemant almost theproverbial "Gascon _et demi_"; a tragic dramatist, as well as a romanticwriter; a favourite of Mme. De Sévigné, who seldom went wrong in herpreferences, except when she preferred her very disagreeable daughter toher very agreeable son; and more than any one else the inventor, or atleast perfecter, of the hectoring heroic style which we associate withDryden's plays. Indeed the Artaban of _Cléopatre_ is much more theoriginal of Almanzor and Drawcansir than anything in Madeleine, though_Almahide_ was actually the source of Dryden's story, or heroine. Besides this, though La Calprenède has rather less of theintricate-impeach character than his she-rival, there is much morebustle and "go" in him; he has, though his books are proper enough, muchless fear of dealing with "the kissing and that sort of thing, " as itwas once discreetly put; and he is sometimes positively exciting in hisimbroglios, as when the beautiful Amazon princess Menalippe fights areal duel on horseback with Prince, afterwards King, Alcamenes ofScythia, under the impression that he has killed a certain Alcimedon, who was her lover; discovers, after no small time and considerabledamage, that he is Alcimedon himself; and, like a sensible and agreeablegirl, embraces him heartily in the sight of men and angels. 

[Sidenote: _Cléopatre_--the Cypassis and Arminius episode. ]

This is among the numerous _divertissements_ of _Cléopatre_ (not theearliest, but perhaps the chief of its author's novels[200]), theheroine of which is not

 The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands

herself, but her daughter by Antony, who historically married Juba ofMauretania, and is here courted by him under the name of Coriolanus, while he is in disgrace with Augustus. La Calprenède (all theseromancers are merciful men and women to the historically unlucky, andcruel only, or for the most part, to fictitious characters) saves herhalf-brother Caesarion from his actual death, and, after the duethousands of pages, unites him happily to Queen Candace of Æthiopia. There is the same odd muddle (which made a not unintelligent Jesuitlabel this class of books "historia _mixta_") with many other persons. Perhaps the most curious of all episodes of this kind is the use made ofOvid's "fusca Cypassis. " If Mrs. Grundy could be supposed ever to haveread the _Amores_, the mere sight of the name of that dusky handmaid--towhom Ovid behaved, by his own confession, in such an exceedingly shabbyas well as improper fashion--would make her shudder, if not shriek. ButLa Calprenède's Cypassis, though actually a maid of honour to Julia, asher original was a handmaid to Corinna, is of unblemished morality, flirted with certainly by Ovid, but really a German princess, Ismenia, in disguise, and beloved by, betrothed to, and in the end united with noless a compatriot than Arminius. This union gives also an illustrationof the ingenious fashion in which these writers reconcile and yet omit. La Calprenède, as we have seen, does not give Arminius's wife her usualname of Thusnelda, but, to obviate a complaint from readers who haveheard of Varus, he invents a protest on "Herman sla lerman" part againstthat general, who has trepanned him into captivity and gladiatorship, and makes him warn Augustus that he will be true to the Romans _unless_Varus is sent into his country. [201]

[Sidenote: The book generally. ]

This episode is, in many ways, so curious and characteristic, that itseemed worth while to dwell on it for a little; but the account itselfmust have shown how impossible it is to repeat the process of generalabstract. There are, I think, in the book (which took twelve years topublish and fills as many volumes in French, while the Englishtranslation is an immense folio of nearly a thousand pages in doublecolumn, also entitled _Hymen's Praeludia_[202]) fewer separate_Histoires_, though there are a good many, than in the _Cyrus_, but theintertwined love-plots are almost more complicated. For instance, theHerod-and-Mariamne tragedy is brought in with a strictly "proper" lover, Tiridates, whom Salome uses to provoke Herod's patience, and who has, atthe very opening of the book, proved himself both a natural philosopherof no mean order by seeing a fire at sea, and "judging with muchlikelihood that it comes from a ship, " and a brave fellow by rescuingfrom the billows no less a person than the above-mentioned QueenCandace. From her, however, he exacts immediate, and, as some modernsmight think, excessive, payment by making her listen to his own_Histoire_. 

Not the least attractive part of _Cléopatre_ to some people will be thatvery "Phébus, " or amatory conceit, which made the next ages scorn it. When one of the numerous "unknowns" of both sexes (in this case a girl)is discovered (rather prettily) lying on a river bank and playing withthe surface of the water, "the earth which sustained this fair bodyseemed to produce new grass to receive her more agreeably"--a phrasewhich would have shocked good Bishop Vida many years before, as much asit would have provoked the greater scorn of Mr. Addison about as manyafter. There are many "ecphrases" or set descriptions of this kind, andthey show a good deal of stock convention. For instance, the wind isalways "most discreetly, most discreetly" ready, as indeed it was inMlle. De Scudéry's own chaste stories, to blow up sleeves or skirts alittle, and achieve the distraction of the beholders by what it reveals. But on the whole, as was hinted above, Gauthier de Costes de LaCalprenède is the most natural creature of the heroic band. 

[Sidenote: _Cassandre. _]

His earlier _Cassandre_ is not much inferior to _Cléopatre_, and has alittle more eccentricity about it. The author begins his Second Part bymaking the ghost of Cassandra herself (who is not the Trojan Cassandraat all) address a certain Calista, whom she mildly accuses of "draggingher from her grave two thousand years after date, " adding, as a boast ofhis own in a Preface, that the very name "Cassandre" has never occurredin the _First_ Part--a huge cantle of the work. The fact is that it isan _alias_ for Statira, the daughter of Darius and wife of Alexander, and is kept by her during the whole of her later married life with herlover Oroondates, King of Scythia, who has vainly wooed her in earlydays before her union with the great Emathian conqueror. Here, again, the mere student of "unmixed" history may start up and say, "Why! thisStatira, who was also called Barsine [an independent personage here] wasmurdered by Roxana after Alexander's death!" But, as was also said, these romancers exercise the privilege of mercy freely; and though LaCalprenède's Roxana is naughty enough for anything (she makes, ofcourse, the most shameless love to Oroondates), she is not allowed tokill her rival, who is made happy, after another series of endlessadventures of her own, her lover's, and other people's. The book openswith a lively interest to students of the English novel; for the famoustwo cavaliers of G. P. R. James appear, though they are not actuallyriding at the moment, but have been, and, after resting, see two othersin mortal combat. Throughout there is any amount of good fighting, as, for the matter of that, there is in _Cléopatre_ also; and there is lessduplication of detail here than in some other respects, for LaCalprenède is rather apt to repeat his characters and situations. Forinstance, the fight between Lysimachus and Thalestris (La Calprenède isfond of Amazons), though _not_ in the details, is of course in the ideaa replica of that between Alcamenes and Menalippe in _Cléopatre_; andnames recur freely. Moreover, in the less famous story, the wholesituation of hero and heroine is exactly duplicated in respect of theabove-mentioned Lysimachus and Parisatis, Cassandra's younger sister, who is made to marry Hephaestion at first, and only awarded, in the samefashion as her elder sister, at last to her true lover. 

By the way, the already-mentioned "harmonising" is in few places moreoddly shown than by the remark that Plutarch's error in representingStatira as killed was due to the fact that he did not recognise herunder her later name of Cassandra--a piece of Gascon half-naïveté, half-jest which Mlle. De Scudéry's Norman shrewdness[203] would hardlyhave allowed. There is also much more of the supernatural in these booksthan in hers, and the characters are much less prim. Roxana, who, ofcourse, is meant to be naughty, actually sends a bracelet of her hair toOroondates! which, however, that faithful lover of another instantlyreturns. 

[Sidenote: _Faramond. _]

La Calprenède's third novel, _Faramond_, is unfinished as his work, andthe continuation seems to have more than one claimant to its authorship. If the "eminent hand" was one Vaumorière, who independently accomplisheda minor "heroic" in _Le Grand Scipion_, he was not likely to infuse muchfire into the ashes of his predecessor. As it stands in La Calprenède'sown part, _Faramond_ is a much duller book than _Cassandre_ or_Cléopatre_. It must, of course, be remembered that, though patriotismhas again and again prompted the French to attack these mistyMerovingian times (the _Astrée_ itself deals with them in the liberalfashion in which it deals with everything), the result has rarely, ifever, been a success. Indeed I can hardly think of any one--except ourown "Twin Brethren" in _Thierry and Theodoret_--who has made anythinggood out of French history before Charlemagne. [204] The reader, therefore, unless he be a very thorough and conscientious student, hadbetter let _Faramond_ alone; but its elder sisters are much pleasantercompany. Indeed the impolite thought will occur that it is much morelike the Scudéry novels, part of which it succeeded, and may possiblyhave been the result--not by any means the only one in literature--of anunlucky attempt to beat a rival by copying him or her. 

[Sidenote: Gomberville--_La Caritée_. ]

If any one, seeking acquaintance with the works of Marin le Roy, Seigneur de Gomberville, begins at the beginning with his earliest work, and one of the earliest of the whole class, _La Caritée_ (not"Carit_ie_, " as in some reference books), he may not be greatlyappetised by the addition to the title, "contenant, sous des temps, despersonnes, et des noms supposés, plusieurs rares et véritables histoiresde notre temps. " For this is a proclamation, as Urfé had _not_proclaimed it, [205] of the wearisome "key" system, which, thoughundoubtedly it has had its partisans at all times, is loathsome as wellas wearisome to true lovers of true literature. To such persons everylovable heroine of romance is, more or less, suggestive of more or fewerwomen of history, other romance, or experience; every hero, more orless, though to a smaller extent, recognisable or realisable in the sameway; and every event, one in which such readers have been, might havebeen, or would have liked to be engaged themselves; but they do not carethe scrape of a match whether the author originally intended her for thePrincess of Kennaquhair or for Polly Jones, him and it for correspondingrealities. Nor is the sequel particularly ravishing, though it isdedicated to "all fair and virtuous shepherdesses, all generous andperfect shepherds. " Perhaps it is because one is not a generous andperfect shepherd that one finds the "Great Pan is Dead" story lessimpressive in Gomberville's prose than in Milton's verse at no distantperiod; is not much refreshed by getting to Rome about the death ofGermanicus, and hearing a great deal about his life; or later still byEgyptian _bergeries_--things in which somehow one does not see aconcatenation accordingly; and is not consoled by having the Phoenixbusiness done--oh! so differently from the fashion of Shakespeare oreven of Darley. And when it finishes with a solemn function for the riseof the Nile, the least exclusively modern of readers may prefer Moore orGautier. 

[Sidenote: _Polexandre. _]

But if any one, deeming not unjustly that he had drunk enough of_Caritée_, were to conclude that he would drink no more of any of thewaters of Gomberville, he would make a mistake. _Cythérée_[1] I cannotyet myself judge of, except at second-hand; but the first part of_Polexandre_, if not also the continuation, _Le Jeune Alcidiane_, [206]may be very well spoken of. It, that is to say the first part of it, wastranslated into English by no less a person than William Browne, just atthe close of his life; and, perhaps for this reason, the British Museumdoes not contain the French original; but those who cannot attain tothis lose the less, because the substance of the book is the principalthing. This makes it one of the liveliest of the whole group, and onedoes not feel it an idle vaunt when at the end the author observescheerfully of his at last united hero and heroine, "Since we have solong enjoyed _them_, let us have so much justice as to think it fittingnow that _they_ should likewise enjoy each other. " Yet the unresting andunerring spirit of criticism may observe that even here the verbositywhich is the fault of the whole division makes its appearance. For whynot suppress most of the words after "them, " and merely add, "let themnow enjoy each other"?

The book is, in fact, rather like a modernised "number" of the _Amadis_series, [207], and the author has had the will and the audacity toexchange the stale old Greeks and Romans--not the real Greeks, who cannever be stale, or the real Romans, who can stand a good deal ofstaling, but the conventional classics--as well as the impossibleshadows of the Dark Ages, for Lepanto and the Western Main, Turks andSpaniards and Mexicans, and a Prince of Scotland. Here also we find inthe hero something more like Almanzor than Artamène, if not thanArtaban: and of the whole one may say vulgarly that "the pot boils. "Now, with the usual Heroic it too often fails to attain even a gentlesimmer. 

[Sidenote: Camus--_Palombe_, etc. ]

Jean Camus [de Pontcarré?], [208] Bishop of Belley and of Arras--friendof St. Francis of Sales and of Honoré d'Urfé; author of many "Christian"romances to counteract the bad effects of the others, of a famous_Esprit de Saint François de S. _, and of a very great number ofmiscellaneous works, --seems to have been a rather remarkable person, and, with less power and more eccentricity, a sort of Fénelon of thefirst half of the century. His best known novel, _Palombe_, standspractically alone in its group as having had the honour of a modernreprint in the middle of the nineteenth century. [209] The title-giver isa female, not a male, human dove, and of course a married one. Camus wasa divine of views which one does not call "liberal, " because the wordhas been almost more sullied by ignoble use in this connection than inany other--but unconventional and independent; and he provoked greatwrath among his brethren by reflecting on the abuses of the conventualsystem. _Palombe_ appears to be not uninteresting, but after all it isbut one of those parasitic exercises which have rarely been great exceptin the hands of very great genius. Historically, perhaps, the much lessfamous _Evènemens Singuliers_ (2 vols. , 1628) are more important, thoughthey cannot be said to be very amusing. For (to the surprise, perhaps, of a reader who comes to the book without knowing anything about it) itis composed of pure Marmontel-and-Miss-Edgeworth Moral Tales about_L'Ami Desloyal_, _La Prudente Mère_, _L'Amour et la Mort_, _L'Imprécation Maternelle_, and the like. Of course, as one would expectfrom the time, and the profession of the author, the meal of themorality is a little above the malt of the tale; but the very titles are"germinal. "

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Hédelin d'Aubignac--_Macarise. _]

François Hédelin, Abbé d'Aubignac, is one of those unfortunate butrarely quite guiltless persons who live in literary history much more bythe fact of their having attacked or lectured greater men thanthemselves, and by witticisms directed against them, than by their ownactual work, which is sometimes not wholly contemptible. He concerns ushere only as the author of a philosophical-heroic romance, ratheragreeably entitled _Macarise ou La Reine des Iles Fortunées_, where thebland naïveté of the pedantry would almost disarm the present members ofthat Critical Regiment, of which the Abbé, in his turn, was not so mucha chaplain as a most combatant officer. The very title goes on toneutralise its attractiveness by explaining--with that benignantcondescension which is natural to at least some of its author'sclass--that it "contains the Moral Philosophy of the Stoics under theveil of several agreeable adventures in the form of a Romance"; and thatwe may not forget this, various side-notes refer to passages in an_Abrégé_ of that philosophy. The net is thus quite frankly set in thesight of the bird, and if he chooses to walk into it, he has onlyhimself to blame. The opening is a fine example of that plunge into themiddle of things which Hédelin had learnt from his classical masters tothink proper: "Les cruels persécuteurs d'Arianax l'ayant réduit à lanécessité de se précipiter[210] dans les eaux de la Sennatèle avec sonfrère Dinazel.... " The fact that the presupposed gentle reader knowsnothing of the persons or the places mentioned is supposed to arouse inhim an inextinguishable desire to find out. That he should be at oncegratified is, of course, unthinkable. In fact his attention will soonbe diverted from Arianax and Dinazel and the banks of the Sennatèlealtogether by the very tragical adventures of a certain Cléarte. He, with a company of friends, visits the country of a tyrant, who isaccustomed to welcome strangers and heap them with benefits, till a timecomes (the allegory is something obvious) when he demands it all back, with their lives, through a cruel minister (again something "speakingly"named) "Thanate. " The head of this company, Cléarte, on receiving thesentence, talks Stoicism for many pages, and when he is exhausted, somebody else takes up the running in such a fascinating manner that it"seemed as if he had only to go on talking to make the victimsimmortal!" But the atrocious Thanate cuts, at the same moment, thethread of the discourse and the throat of Cléarte--who is, however, transported to the dominions of Macarise, --and _histoires_ and"ecphrases" and interspersions of verse follow as usual. But the Abbé isnowise infirm of purpose; and the book ends with the strangest mixtureof love-letters and not very short discourses on the various schools ofphilosophy, together with a Glossary or Onomasticon interpreting theproper names which have been used after the following fashion:"Alcarinte. _La Crainte_, du mot français par anagramme sans aucunchangement, " though how you can have an anagram without a change is notexplained. 

[Sidenote: Gombauld--_Endimion. _]

Perhaps one may class, if, indeed, classification is necessary, with thereligious romances of Camus and the philosophical romance of Hédelind'Aubignac, the earlier allegorical ones of the poet Gombauld, _Endimion_ and _Amaranthe_. The latter I have not yet seen. _Endimion_is rather interesting; there was an early English translation of it; andI have always been of those who believe that Keats, somehow or other, was more directly acquainted with seventeenth-century literature thanhas generally been allowed. [211] The wanderings of the hero are asdifferent as possible in detail; but the fact that there _are_wanderings at all is remarkable, and there are other coincidences withKeats and differences from any classical form, which it might be out ofplace to dwell on here. Endymion is waked from his Latmian sleep by theinfernal clatter of the dwellers at the base of the mountain, who useall the loudest instruments they possess to dispel an eclipse of themoon: and is discovered by his friend Pyzandre, to whom he tells thevicissitudes of his love and sleep. The early revealings of herself byDiana are told with considerable grace, and the whole, which is not toolong, is readable. But there are many of the _naïvetés_ andawkwardnesses of expression which attracted to the writers of this timethe scorn of Boileau and others down to La Harpe. The Dedication to theQueen may perhaps be excused for asserting, in its first words, that asEndymion was put to sleep by the Moon, so he has been reawakened by theSun, [212] _i. E. _ her Majesty. But a Nemesis of this Phébus follows. For, later, it is laid down that "La Lune doit _toujours_ sa lumière auSoleil. " From which it will follow that Diana owed her splendour to Anneof Austria, or was it Marie de Medicis?[213] It was fortunate forGombauld that he did not live under the older dispensation. Artemis wasnot a forgiving goddess like Aphrodite. 

Again, when Diana has disappeared after one of her graciousnesses, herlover makes the following reflection--that the gods apparently candepart _sans être en peine de porter nécessairement les pieds l'undevant l'autre_--an observation proper enough in burlesque, for the ideaof a divine goose-step or marking time, instead of the _incessus_, isludicrous enough. But there is not the slightest sign of humour anywherein the book. Yet, again, this is a thing one would rather not have said, "Diane cessant de m'être favorable, Ismène[214] _me pouvait tenir lieude Déesse_. " Now it is sadly true that the human race does occasionallyentertain, and act upon, reflections of this kind: and persons like Mr. Thomas Moore and Gombauld's own younger contemporary, Sir John Suckling, have put the idea into light and lively verse. But you do not expect itin a serious romance. 

Nevertheless it may be repeated that _Endimion_ is one of the mostreadable of the two classes of books--the smaller sentimental and thelonger heroic--between which it stands in scope and character. Theauthor's practice in the "other harmony" makes the obligatoryverse-insertions rather less clumsy than usual; and it may be permittedto add that the illustrations of the original edition, which areunusually numerous and elaborate, are also rather unusually effective. "Peggy's face" is too often as "wretched" as Thackeray confessed his ownattempts were; but the compositions are not, as such, despicable--evenin the case of the immortal and immortalising kiss-scene itself. The"delicious event, " to quote the same author in another passage, is notactually coming off--but it is very near. But it was perhaps a pity thateither Gombauld or Keats ever _waked_ Endymion. 

[Sidenote: Mme. De Villedieu. ]

The most recent book[215] but one about Mme. De Villedieu contains (and, oddly enough, confesses itself to contain) very little about her novels, which the plain man might have thought the only reason for writing abouther at all. It tells (partly after Tallemant) the little that is knownabout her (adding a great deal more about other people, things, andplaces, and a vast amount of conjecture), and not only takes the verydubious "letters" published by herself for gospel, but attributes toher, on the slightest evidence, if any, the anonymous _Mémoires sur laVie de Henriette Sylvie de Molière_, and, what is more, accepts them asautobiographic; quotes a good deal of her very valueless verse and thatof others, and relates the whole in a most marvellous style, thesmallest and most modest effervescences of which are things like this:"La religion arrose son âme d'une eau parfumée, et les fleurs noirs durépentir éclosent" or "Soixante ans pesaient sur son crâne ennuagé d'uneperruque. "[216] A good bibliography of the actual work, and not a littleuseful information about books and MS. Relating to the period, mayreconcile one class of readers to it, and a great deal of scandalanother; but as far as the subject of this history goes no one will bemuch wiser when he closes the volume than he was when he opened it. 

The novelist-heroine's actual name was Marie Catherine Hortense desJardins, and she never was really Mme. De Villedieu at all, though therewas a real M. De Villedieu whom she loved, went through a marriageceremony and lived with, left, according to some, or was left by, according to others. But he was already married, and this marriage wasnever dissolved. Very late in life she seems actually to have married aMarquis de Chaste, who died soon. But most of the time was spent inrather scandalous adventures, wherein Fouquet's friend Gourville, theminister Lyonne, and others figure. In fact she seems to have been acounterpart as well as a contemporary of our own Afra, though she nevercame near Mrs. Behn in poetry or perhaps in fiction. Her first novel, _Alcidamie_, not to be confounded with the earlier _Alcidiane_, was ascarcely concealed utilising of the famous scandal about Tancrède deRohan (Mlle. Des Jardins' mother had been a dependant on the Rohanfamily, and she herself was much befriended by that formidable andsombre-fated enchantress, Mme. De Montbazon). In fact, common as is thereal or imputed "key"-interest in these romances from the _Astrée_onwards, none seems to have borrowed more from at least gossip thanthis. Her later performances, _Les Annales Galantes de la Grèce_ (saidto be very rare), _Carmente_, _Les Amours des Grands Hommes_, _LesDésordres de l'Amour_, and some smaller pieces, all rely more or lesson this or that kind of scandal. Collections appeared three or fourtimes in the earlier eighteenth century. 

[Sidenote: _Le Grand Alcandre Frustré. _]

Since M. Magne wrote (and it is fair to say that the main purpose of hisbook was frankly avowed by its appearance as a member of a seriesentitled _Femmes Galantes_), a somewhat more sober account, definitelydevoted in part to the novels, has appeared. [217] But even this is notexhaustive from our point of view. The collected editions (of which thatof 1702, in 10 vols. , said to be the best, is the one I have used) mustbe consulted if one really wishes to attain a fair knowledge of what"this questionable Hortense" (as Mr. Carlyle would probably have calledher) really did in literature; and no one, even of these, appears tocontain the whole of her ascribed compositions. What used sometimes tobe quoted as her principal work, _Le Grand Alcandre Frustré_ (the lastword being often omitted), is, in fact, a very small book, containing abit of scandal about the Grand Monarque, of the same kind as those whichmyriad anonyms of the time printed in Holland, and of which any one whowants them may find specimens enough in the _Bibliothèque Elzévirienne_edition of Bussy-Rabutin. Its chief--if not its only--attraction is anexceedingly quaint frontispiece--a cavalier and lady standing withjoined hands under a chandelier, the torches of which are held by a ringof seven Cupids, so that the lower one hangs downwards, and thedisengaged hand of the cavalier, which is raised, seems to be grabbingat him. 

[Sidenote: The collected love-stories. ]

Most of the rest, putting aside the doubtful _Henriette de Molière_already referred to, are collections of love-stories, which theirtitles, rather than their contents, would seem to have represented tothe ordinary commentator as loose. There is really very littleimpropriety, except of the mildest kind, in any of them, [218] and theychiefly consist of the kind of quasi-historic anecdote (only bettertold) which is not uncommon in English, as, for instance, in Croxall's_Novelist_. They are rather well written, but for the most part consistof very "public" material, scarcely made "private" by any strikingmerit, and distinguished by curious liberties with history, if not withmorals. 

[Sidenote: Their historic liberties. ]

[Sidenote: _Carmente_, etc. ]

For instance, in one of her _Amours Galantes_ theElfrida-Ethelwold-Edgar story is told, not only with "_Edward I. _ ofEngland" for the deceived and revengeful king, but with a further andmore startling intrusion of Eleanor of Guyenne! That of Inez de Castrois treated in a still more audacious manner. Also (with what previousexample I know not, but Hortense was exceedingly apt to have previousexamples) the names of the heretic to whom Dante was not merciful and ofhis beloved Margaret--names to which Charles Kingsley made the atonementof two of the most charming of his neglected poems--appear as "Dulcin"and "Marguerite, " King and Queen of Lombardy, but guilty of moreoffensive lubricity than the sternest inquisitor ever charged on thehistorical Dolcino and his sect. For this King and Queen set up, in coldblood, two courts of divorce, in one of which each is judge, with thedirect purpose of providing themselves with a supply of temporary wivesand husbands. Some have maintained that no less a thing than the_Princesse de Clèves_ itself was suggested by something of Mme. DeVilledieu's; but this seems to me merely the usual plagiarism-hunter'sblunder of forgetting that the treatment, not the subject, is the _crux_of originality. Of her longer books, _Alcidamie_, the first, has beenspoken of. The _Amours des Grandes Hommes_ and _Cléonice ou le RomanGalant_ belong to the "keyed" Heroics; while the _Journal Amoureux_, which runs to nearly five hundred pages, has Diane de Poitiers for itschief heroine. Lastly, _Carmente_ (or, as it was reprinted, _Carmante_)is a sort of mixed pastoral, with Theocritus himself introduced, after afashion noted more than once before. 

[Sidenote: Her value on the whole. ]

Her most praised things, recently, have been the story of the loves ofHenri IV. And Mme. De Sauve (lightly touched on, perhaps "after" her inboth senses, by Dumas) in the _Amours Galantes_, and a doubtful story(also attributed to the obscure M. De Preschac of the _Cabinet desFées_[219]) entitled _L'Illustre Parisienne_, over which folk havequarrelled as to whether it is to be labelled "realist" or not. Oneregrets, however, to have to say that--except for fresh, if not verystrong, evidence of that "questing" character which we find all over thesubjects of these two chapters--the interest of Mme. De Villedieu's workcan hardly be called great. By a long chapter of accidents, the presentwriter, who had meant to read her some five-and-thirty years ago, neverread her actually till the other day--with all good will, with noextravagant expectation beforehand, but with some disappointment at theresult. She is not a bookmaker of the worst kind; she evidently had witsand literary velleities; and she does illustrate the blind _nisus_ ofthe time as already indicated. But beyond the bookmaking class shenever, I think, gets. Her mere writing is by no means contemptible, andwe may end by pointing out two little points of interest in _Carmente_. One is the appearance of the name "Ardélie, " which our own LadyWinchelsea took and anglicised as her coterie title. It may occurelsewhere, but I do not recollect it. The other is yet a freshanticipation of that bold figure of speech which has been cited beforefrom Dickens--one of the characters appearing "in a very cleanshepherd's dress _and a profound melancholy_. " Mme. De Villedieu (it isabout the only place she has held hitherto, if she has held any, inordinary Histories of French Literature) has usually been regarded asclosing the Heroic school. We may therefore most properly turn from herdirectly to the last and most cheerful division of the subjects of thischapter--the Fairy Tale. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The fairy tale. ]

One of the greatest solaces of the writer of this book, and, he wouldfain hope, something of a consolation to its readers, has been thepossibility, and indeed advisability, of abstention from certain stockliterary controversies, or at worst of dismissing them with very briefmention. This solace recurs in reference to the large, vague, and hotlydebated subject of folklore and fairy stories, their connection, and theorigin of the latter. It is true that "the pleasure gives way to asavour of sorrow, " to adopt a charming phrase of Mr. Dobson's, when Ithink of the amiable indignation which the absence of what I shall notsay, and perhaps still more the presence of some things that I shallsay, would have caused in my friend, and his friend, the late Mr. AndrewLang. [220] But the irreparable is always with us. Despite the undoubtedomnipresence of the folk-story, with its "fairy" character in thegeneral sense, I have always wanted more proof than I have everreceived, that the thing is of Western rather than of Eastern origin, and that our Western stories of the kind, in so far as they affectedliterature before a very recent period, are independent. But I attach noparticular value to this opinion, and it will influence nothing that Isay here. So with a few more half-words to the wise, as that Mme. D'Aulnoy had been in Spain, that the Crusades took place in the eleventhcentury, that, independently thereof, Scandinavians had been"Varangians" very early at Constantinople, etc. Etc. , let us come to thetwo great literary facts--the chorus of fairy tale-telling proper at theend of the century (of which the coryphaei are the lady alreadymentioned and Perrault), and the epoch-making translation of _TheArabian Nights_ by Galland. 

[Sidenote: Its _general_ characteristics--the happy ending. ]

In a certain sense, no doubt, the fairy tale may be said to be merely avariety of the age-old _fabliau_ and _nouvelle_. But it is, for literarypurposes, a distinctly and importantly new variety--new not merely insubject, even in the widest possible sense of that rather disputable(or at least disputed) word, but in that _nescio quid_ between subjectand treatment for which I know no better term than the somewhat vagueone "atmosphere. " It has the priceless quality of what may be calledgood childishness; it gives not merely Fancy but Imagination the freestplay, and, till it has itself created one, it is free from anyconvention. It continued, indeed, always free from those "previous"conventions which are so intolerable. For it is constantly forgottenthat a convention in its youth is often positively healthy, and aconvention in the prime of its life a very tolerable thing. It is the_old_ conventions which, as Mahomet rashly acknowledged about somethingelse (saving himself, however, most dexterously afterwards), cannot betolerated in Paradise. Moreover, besides creating of necessity a sort offresh dialect in which it had to be told, and producing a set ofpersonages entirely unhackneyed, it did an immense service byintroducing a sort of etiquette, quite different from the conventionsabove noticed, --a set of manners, as it may almost be called, which hadthe strongest and most beneficial influence--though, like all strong andgood things, it might be perverted--on fiction generally. In this allsorts of nice things, as in the original prescription for what girls aremade of, were included--variety, gaiety, colour, surprise, a completecontempt of the contemptible, or of that large part of it which containspriggishness, propriety, "prunes, and prism" generally. Moreover (andhere I fear that the above promised abstinence from the contentious mustbe for a little time waived) it confirmed a great principle of novel andromance alike, that if you can you should "make a good end, " as, _teste_Romance herself, Guinevere did, though the circumstances weremelancholy. 

The termination of a fairy tale rarely is, and never should be, anythingbut happy. For this reason I have always disliked--and though some ofthe mighty have left their calm seats and endeavoured to annihilate mefor it, I still continue to dislike--that old favourite of some part ofthe public, _The Yellow Dwarf_. That detestable creature (who does noteven amuse me) had no business to triumph; and, what is more, I don'tbelieve he did. Not being an original writer, I cannot tell the truehistory as it might be told; but I can criticise the false. I do notobject to this version because of its violation of poetical justice--inwhich, again, I don't believe. But this is neither poetical, nor just, nor amusing. It is a sort of police report, and I have never much caredfor police reports. I should like to have set Maimoune at the YellowDwarf: and then there would have been some fun. 

It is probably unnecessary to offer any translations here, because thematter is so generally known, and because the books edited by thatregretted friend of mine above mentioned have spread it (with much othermatter of the same kind) more widely than ever. But the points mentionedabove, and perhaps some others, can never be put too firmly to thecredit of the fairy tale as regards its influence on fiction, and onFrench fiction particularly. It remains to be seen, in the next chapter, how what a few purists may call its contamination by, but what we maysurely be permitted to call its alliance with, "polite literature" wasstarted, or practically started, through the direct agency of noFrenchman, but of a man who can be claimed by England in the larger andnational sense, by Scotland and Ireland and England again in thenarrower and more parochial--by Anthony Hamilton. His work, however, must be left till that next chapter, though in this we may, after the"blessed originals" just mentioned, take in their sometimes degeneratesuccessors for nearly a hundred years after Perrault's time. 

[Sidenote: Perrault and Mme. D'Aulnoy. ]

Well, however, as the simpler and purer fairy-tales may be known to allbut twentieth-century children (who are said not to like them), it isdoubtful whether many people have considered them in the light in whichwe have to regard them here, so as to see in them both a link in thesomewhat complicated chain of novel development, and also one which isnot dead metal, but serves as a medium for introducing powerful currentsof influence on the chain itself. We have dwelt on one point--thedesirableness, if not necessity, of shortness in them--as speciallyvaluable at the time. No doubt they need not all be as short asPerrault's, though even among his there are instances (not to mention_L'Adroite Princesse_ for the moment), such as _Peau d'Âne_, of morethan twenty pages, as against the five of the _Chaperon Rouge_ and theten of _Barbe Bleue_, _Le Chat Botté_, and _Cendrillon_. Mme. D'Aulnoy'srun longer; but of course the longest[221] of all are mites to themammoths of the Scudéry romance. A fairy story must never "drag, "and in its better, and indeed all its genuine, forms it never does. Further (it must be remembered that "Little Red Riding Hood, "in its unadulterated and "_un_happy ending" form, is not a fairystory at all, for talking animals are not peculiar to that), "fairiness, "the actual presence of these gracious or ungracious but alwaysbetween-human-and-divine-creatures, is necessary, [222] and their agencymust be necessary too. In this and other ways it is interesting tocontrast two stories (which are neighbours to each other, with _Peaud'Âne_ between them, in the convenient one-volume collection of FrenchFairy Tale classics published by Gamier), Mme. D'Aulnoy's _Gracieuse etPercinet_ and _L'Adroite Princesse ou Les Aventures de Finette_, whichappeared with Perrault's, but which I can hardly believe to be his. Theyare about the same length, but the one is one of the best and the otherone of the worst examples of its author and of the general style. It maybe worth while to analyse both very briefly. As for Perrault's betterwork, such analysis should be as unnecessary as it would be irreverent. 

[Sidenote: Commented examples--_Gracieuse et Percinet_. ]

That _Gracieuse et Percinet_ is of an essentially "stock" character isnot in the least against it, for so it ought to be: and the "stock"company that plays its parts plays them well. The father is perhapsrather excessively foolish and unnatural, but then he almost had to be. The wicked and ugly stepmother tops, but does not overtop, _her_ part, and her punishment is not commonplace. Gracieuse herself deserves hername, not only "by her comely face and by her fair bodie, " but by hergood but not oppressive wits, and her amiable but not faultlessdisposition. She ought not to have looked into the box; but then weshould not have liked her nearly as much if she had not done so. She wasfoolishly good in refusing to stay with Percinet; but we are by no meanscertain that we should like her better if she had thrown herself intohis arms at the first or second time of asking. Besides, where wouldhave been the story? As for Percinet, he escapes in a wonderful fashion, though partly by help of his lady's little wilfulnesses, the dangers ofthe handsome, amiable, in a small way always successful, and almostomnipotent hero. There is a sort of ironic tenderness, in his lettingGracieuse again and again go her wilful way and show her foolishfiliality, which saves him. He is always ready, and does his spiritingin the politest and best manner, particularly when he shepherds allthose amusing but rebellious little people into their box again--a featwhich some great novelists have achieved but awkwardly in their owncases. There is even pathos in the apparently melancholy statement thatthe fairy palace is dead, and that Gracieuse will never see it till sheis buried. I should like to have been Percinet, and I shouldparticularly like to have married Gracieuse. 

Moreover, the thing is full of small additional seasonings of incidentand phrase to the solid feast of fairy working which it provides. Gracieuse's "collation, " with its more than twenty pots of differentjams, has a delightful realty (which is slightly different from reality)even for those to whom jam has never been the very highest of humandelights, because they prefer savouries to sweets. Even the abominableduchess seems to have had a splendid cellar, before she took to fillingthe casks with mere gold and jewels to catch the foolish king. It isimpossible to imagine a scene more agreeably compounded of politenessand affection than Percinet's first introduction of himself to thePrincess: and it is extraordinarily nice to find that they knew allabout each other before, though we have had not the slightest previousinformation as to the acquaintance. I am very much afraid that he madehis famous horse kick and plunge when Grognon was on him; but it must beremembered that he had been made to lead that animal against his will. The description of the hag's flogging Gracieuse with feathers instead ofscourges is a quite admirable adaptation of some martyrological stories;and when, in her dilapidated condition, she remarks that she wishes hewould go away, because she has always been told that she must not bealone with young gentlemen, one feels that the martyrdom must have beentransferred, in no mock sense, to Percinet himself. If she borrowsPsyche's trials, what good story is not another good storyrefreshed?[223]

[Sidenote: _L'Adroite Princesse. _]

But if almost everything is good and well managed in _Gracieuse_, it mayalso be said that almost everything is badly managed in _Finette_. [224]To begin with, there is that capital error which has been noticed above, that it is not really a fairy tale at all. Except the magic_quenouilles_, which themselves are of the smallest importance in thestory, there is nothing in it beyond the ways of an ordinary adventurous_nouvelle_. The touch of _grivoiserie_ by which the PrincessesNonchalante and Babillarde allow the weaknesses ticketed in their namesto hand them over as a prey to the cunning and blackguard PrinceRiche-Cautèle, under pretence of entirely unceremonised and unwitnessed"marriage, " is in no way amusing. Finette's escapes from the same fateare a little better, but the whole is told (as its author seems to havefelt) at much too great length; and the dragging in of an actual fairyat the end, to communicate to the heroine the exceedingly novel andrecondite maxim that "Prudence is the mother of safety, " is almostidiotic. If the thing has any value, it is as an example, not of a realfairy tale nor of a satire on fairy tales (for which it is much too much"out of the rules" and much too stupid), but of something which may savean ordinary reader, or even student, from attacking, as I fear we shallhave to do, the _Cabinet des Fées_ at large, and discovering, by painfulexperience, how excessively silly and tedious the corruption of thiswise and delightful kind may be. 

One might, of course, draw lessons from others of the original batches, but this may suffice for the specimen batch under immediate review. _Peau d'Âne_, one of the most interesting to "folklorists" andorigin-hunters, is, of course, also in itself interesting to students ofliterature. Its combination of the old theme of the incestuous passionof a father for his daughter, with the special but not invariable shadowof excuse in the selfish vanity of the mother's dying request, is quiteout of the usual way of these things. So is the curious series of fairyfailures--things apparently against the whole set of the game--beginningwith the unimaginative conception of dresses, weather-, or sky-, moon-, and sun-colour, rendered futile by the success of the artists, andending in the somewhat banal device of making yourself ugly and runningaway, with the odd conclusion-contrast of Peau d'Âne's squalidappearance in public and her private splendour in the fairy garments. 

[Sidenote: The danger of the "moral. "]

Still, the lessons of correction, warning, and instruction to be drawnfrom these gracious little things, for the benefit of their younger andmore elaborate successors, are not easily exhausted. They are, on thewhole, very moral, and it is well that morality, rightly understood, should animate fiction. But they are occasionally much _too_ moral, andthen they warn off instead of cheering on. Take, for instance, two otherneighbours in the collection just quoted, _Le Prince Chéri_ and theever-delightful _La Belle et La Bête_. Both of these are moral; but thelatter is just moral enough, while _Chéri_, with one or two alleviations(of which, perhaps, more presently), is hardly anything if _not_ moral, and therefore disgusts, or at any rate bores. On the other hand, "Beauty" is as _bonne_ as she is _belle_; her only fault, that ofoverstaying her time, is the result of family affection, and her rewardand the punishment of the wicked sisters are quite copy-book. But it isnot for this part that we love what is perhaps the most engaging of allthe tales. It is for Beauty's own charm, which is subtly conveyed; forthe brisk and artistic "revolutions and discoveries"; above all, for thefar from merely sentimental pathos of the Beast's all but death _for_love, and the not in the least mawkish bringing of him to life again_by_ love. [225]

[Sidenote: Yet often redeemed. ]

One may perhaps also make amends to Prince Chéri for the abuse justbestowed on him. His story has at least one touch which is sovereign fora fiction-fault common in the past, and only too probable in the future, at whatever time one takes the "present" of the story. When he is notunjustly turned into a monster of the most allegorical-composite orderof monster architecture--a monster to whom dragons and wyverns andchimaeras dire are as ordinary as kittens--what do they do with him?They put him "with the other monsters. " _Ce n'est pas plus raide queça. _ The present writer need hardly fear to be thought ananti-mediaevalist, but he is very much afraid that an average mediaevalromancer might have thought it necessary to catalogue these othermonsters with the aid of a Bestiary. On the other hand, there have beentimes--no matter which--when this abrupt introduction and dismissal ofmonsters as common objects (for which any respectable community willhave proper stables or cages) would have been disallowed, or explainedaway, or apologised for, or, worst of all, charged with a sort of winkor sneer to let the reader know that the author knew what he was about. Here there is nothing of this superfluous or offensive sort. Theappropriate and undoubting logic of the style prevails over all tooreasonable difficulties. There are monsters, or how could Chéri be madeinto one? If there are monsters there must, or in the highestprobability may, be other monsters. Put him with them, and make no fussabout it. If all novelists had had this _aplomb_, we should have beenspared a great deal of tediousness, some positive failures, and thespoiling, or at least the blotting and marring, of many excellentsituations. But to praise the good points of fairy stories, from thebrief consummateness of _Le Chat Botté_ to the longer drawn but stillperfectly golden matter of _La Biche au Bois_, would really besuperfluous. One loathes leaving them; but one has to do it, so far asthe more unsophisticated part of them is concerned. Yet the duty of thehistorian will not let him be content with these, and, to vary "TheBrave Lord Willoughby" a little, "turning to the [_others_] a thousandmore, " he must "slay, " or at least criticise. 

[Sidenote: The main _Cabinet des Fées_--more on Mme. D'Aulnoy. ]

He who ventures on the complete _Cabinet des Fées_[226] in its more thanforty volumes, will provide himself with "cabin furniture" of nearly asgood pastime-quality, at least to my fancy (and yet I may claim to besomething of a Balzacian), as the slightly larger shelf-ful whichsuggested itself to the fancy of Mr. Browning and provoked (_as_ "cabinfurniture") the indignation of Mr. Swinburne. But he had better lookover the contents before he takes it on board, or he will find himself, if his travelling library is anything like as large as that of thepatriarch Photius, in danger of duplication. For the _Cabinet_ holds, not merely the _Arabian Nights_ in the original translation of Galland, but also Hamilton: as well, of course, as much of what we may call theclassical fairy matter proper on which we have already dwelt, and whichis known to all decent people. Still, he will find more of Mme. D'Aulnoythan, unless he is already something of an expert, he already knows, andperhaps he will not be entirely rejoiced at the amplification. She wrotemore or less regular heroic romances, [227] which are very inferior toher fairy tales; and though these are not in the _Cabinet_, shesometimes "mixes the kinds" rather disastrously in shorter pieces. Theframework of _Don Gabriel Ponce de Leon_, which enshrines the sad butcharming "Golden Sheep, " and a variant of _Cendrillon_, is poor stuff;and _Les Chevaliers Errans_ only shows what we knew before, that thejunction of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is not the time orthe place in which to find the loved one, if that loved one ismediaeval. Still, this invaluable lady does generally reck and exemplifyher own immortal rede. "Il me semble, " says Prince Marcassin to thefairies, "à vous entendre, qu'il ne faut pas même croire ce qu'on voit. "And they reply, "La règle n'est pas toujours générale; _mais il estindubitable que l'on doit suspendre son jugement sur bien des choses, etpenser qu'il peut entrer quelque chose de Féerie dans ce que nous paroîtde plus certain_. "

[Sidenote: Warning against disappointment. ]

Alas! it was precisely this _quelque chose de Féerie_ which is wantingin the majority of the minor fairy-tale writers. That they should attainthe wonderful simplicity, freshness, and charm of Perrault at his bestwas not to be expected; hardly that they should reach the moresophisticated grace of Hamilton; but it might have been hoped that somewould come more or less near the lower, and much more unequal, butoccasionally very successful art or luck of Mme. D'Aulnoy herself. Unfortunately very few of them do. It was easy enough to begin _Ilétait autrefois un roi et une reine_, to put in a Prince Charming and aPrincess Graciosa, and good fairies and bad fairies, and magicians andogres and talking beasts, and the like. It was not so easy to make allthese things work together to produce the peculiar spell which belongsto the true land of Faery, and to that land alone. Still moreunfortunately, wrong ways of attempting the object (or some otherobject) were as easy as the right ways were difficult. They cannot avoidmuddling the fairy tale with the heroic romance: and with thehalf-historical sub-variety of this latter which Mme. De La Fayetteintroduced. The worst enchanter that ever fairies had to fight with isnot such an enemy of theirs as History and Geography--two mostrespectable persons in their proper places, but fatal here. They willmake King Richard of England tell fairy tales to Blondel out of theAustrian tower, and muddle up things about his wicked brother the Countof Mortagne. They will talk of Lemnos and Memphis and other _patatis_and _patatas_ of the classical dictionary and the _Grand Cyrus_. In afashion not perhaps so instantly suicidal, but in a sufficientlyannoying fashion, they will invent clumsy "speaking" names, or dog-Latinand cat-Greek ones. And, perhaps worst of all, they prostitute thedelicate charms of the fairy tale to clumsy adulation of the reigningmonarch, and tedious half-veiled flattery or satire of less exaltedpersons, or, if "prostitute" be too harsh a word here, attempt to forcea marriage between these charms and the dullest moralising. In fact, itis scarcely extravagant to say that, in regard to too many of them--tosome of them at least--everything that ought not to be, such as thethings just mentioned and others, is there, and everything that ought tobe--lightness, brightness, the sense of the impossible in which it isdelightful to believe, the dream-feeling, the magic of gratified wishand realised ideal--is not. 

[Sidenote: Mlle. De la Force and others. ]

Of course, in these other and minor writers that the _Cabinet_ has togive, all these disappointments do not always occur, and the crop ismixed. Mlle. De la Force[228] was one of those _dames_ or _demoisellesde compagnie_ who figure so largely in the literary history of theFrench eighteenth century, and whose group is illustrated by such namesas those of Mlle. Delaunay and Mlle. De Lespinasse. Her full name wasCharlotte Rose de Caumont de la Force, and she was, if not anadventuress, a person of adventures, who also wrote manyquasi-historical romances in the _Princesse de Clèves_ manner. Her fairytales are thin, and marred by weak allegory of the "Carte de Tendre"kind. A "Pays des Délices, " very difficult to reach, and constantlypersonated by a "Pays des Avances, " promises little and performs less. 

The eleven (it is an exact eleven) called _Les Illustres Fées_ isscarcely so illustrious as the All England and the United were, in thememory of some of us, in another and better played kind of cricket. Thestories are not very long; they run to a bare eighteen small pagesapiece; but few readers are likely to wish them longer. _Blanche-Belle_introduces the _sylphes_--an adulteration[229] which generally producesthe effect that Thackeray deplored when his misguided friend would have_purée_ mixed with _julienne_. _Le Roi Magicien_ is painfully destituteof personality; we want names, and pretty names, for a fairy tale. _LePrince Roger_ is a descendant of Mélusine, and one does not think shewould be proud of him. _Fortunio_ is better, and _Quiribirini_, one ofthe numerous stories which turn on remembering or failing to remember anodd name, [230] perhaps better still; but the rest deserve little praise, and the last, _L'Ile Inaccessible_, appears to be, if it is anything butpure dulness, a flat political allegory about England and France. 

The style picks up a little in the miscellany called (not without atouch of piquancy) _La Tyrannie des Fées Détruite_, by a Mme. D'_Auneuil_, whom persons of a sceptical turn might imagine to be a sortof factitious rival to Mme. D'Aulnoy. [231] It returns to the Greek orpseudo-Greek names of the heroic romance, and to its questionable deviceof _histoires_ stuck like plums in a pudding. Nor are the _SansParangon_ and the _Fée des Fées_ of the Sieur de Preschac utterly bad. But _Les Aventures d'Abdalla_, besides rashly incurring the danger (tobe exemplified and commented on more fully a little later) of vying withthe _Arabian Nights_, substitutes for the genuine local colourand speech the _fade_ jargon of French eighteenth-century"sensibility"--_autels_ and _flammes_ and all the rest of the trumpery. But it does worse still--it tries to be instructive, and informs us ofthe difference between male and female _dives_ and _peris_, of thecustom of suttee, and of the fact that there are many professionalsingers and dancers among Indian girls. This is simply intolerable. [232]

[Sidenote: The large proportion of Eastern Tales. ]

[Sidenote: _Les Voyages de Zulma. _]

The great prominence of the Eastern Tale, indeed, in this collection islikely to be one of the most striking things in it to a new-comer. Hewould know, of course, that such tales are not uncommon in contemporaryEnglish; he would certainly be acquainted with Addison's, Johnson's, Goldsmith's experiments in them, perhaps with those of Hawkesworth andothers. [233] He could see for himself that the "accaparation" by Franceof the peerless _Arabian Nights_ themselves must have led to a stillgreater fancy for them there; and he might possibly have heard thetradition (which the present writer[234] never traced to its source, orconnected with any real evidence either way) that no less a person thanLesage assisted Galland in his task. But though the _Nights_ themselvesform the most considerable single group in the _Cabinet_, the unitedbulk of their congeners or imitations occupies a still larger space. There are the rather pale and "moon-like" but sometimes notuninteresting _Thousand and One Days_, and the obviously and ratherfoolishly pastiched _Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour_. There arePersian Tales--origin of a famous and characteristic jibe at "NambyPamby" Philips--and Turkish Tales which are a fragment of one of thenumerous versions of the _Seven Sages_ scheme. The just mentioned_Adventures of Abdallah_ betray their source and their nature at once;the hoary fables of Bidpai and Lokman are modernised to keep companywith these "fakings, " and there are more definitely literary attempts tofollow. _Les Voyages de Zulma_, again an incomplete thing which actuallytails off towards its failure of an end, shows some ingenuity in itsconception, but suffers, even in the beginning, from that mixing ofkinds which has been pointed out and reprobated. An attempt is made tosystematise the fairy idea by representing these gracious creatures asoffspring of Destiny and the Earth, with a cruel brother Time, and anoffset of mischievous sisters who exactly correspond to the goodones--Disgracieuse to Gracieuse, and so on--and have a queenLaide-des-Laides, who answers to the good fairy princess, Belle-des-Belles. A mortal--Zulma--is, for paternal rather than personalmerits, chosen by Destiny to enjoy the privilege of entering andunderstanding the fairy world, and Gracieuse is the fairy assigned ashis guide. The idea is, as has been said, rather ingenious; but it istoo systematic, and like other things in other parts of the collection, "loses the grace and liberty of the composition" in system. Moreover, the morality, as is rather the wont of these imitators when they are not(as a few of the partly non-cabinetted ones are) deliberately naughty, is much too scrupulous. [235] It is clear that Zulma is in love withGracieuse, that she responds to some extent, and that Her Majesty QueenBelle-des-Belles is a little jealous and inclined to cut Gracieuse out. But nothing in the finished part of the story gives us any of the nicelove-making that we want. 

[Sidenote: Fénelon. ]

Madame le Marchand's _Boca_ is a story which begins in Peru but finishesin an "Isle of Ebony, " where the names of Zobeide and Abdelazis seemrather more at home; it is not without merit. As for the fables andstories which Fénelon composed for that imperfect Marcellus, the Duke ofBurgundy, they have all the merits of style, sense, and good feelingwhich they might be expected to have, and it would be absurd to ask ofthem qualities which, in the circumstances, they could not display. 

The _Chinese Tales_ are about as little Chinese as may be, consisting ofaccounts of his punitive metempsychoses by the Mandarin Fum Hoam (a nameafterwards borrowed in better known work), who seems to have beenexcluded from the knowledge of anything particularly Celestial. [236] Butthey are rather smartly told. On the other hand, _Florine ou la BelleItalienne_, which is included in the same volume with the sham_Chinoiseries_, is one of the worst instances of the confusion of kindsnoted above. It honestly prepares one for what is coming by a referencein the Preface to Fénelon; but a list of _dramatis_ (or _fabulae_)_personae_, which follows, would have tried the saintliness even of himof Cambrai almost as much as a German occupation of his archiepiscopalsee. "Agatonphisie, " for a personage who represents, we are told, "LeBon Sens, " might break the heart of Clenardus, if not the head ofPriscian. 

_The Thousand and One Quarter Hours_, or _Contes Tartares_, have aslittle of the Tartar as those above mentioned of the Chinese, but ifsomewhat verbose, they are not wholly devoid of literary quality. Thesubstance is, as in nearly all these cases, _Arabian Nights_ rehashed;but the hashing is not seldom done _secundum artem_, and they have, withthe _Les Sultanes de Gujerate_ and _Nouveaux Contes Orientaux_, whichfollow them, the faculty of letting themselves be read. 

The best of these[237] (except the French translation of the so-calledSir Charles Morell's (really James Ridley's) _Tales of the Genii_ (seeabove)) is perhaps, on the whole, _Les Sultanes de Gujerate_, where notonly are some of the separate tales good, but the frame-story is farmore artistically worked in and round and out than is usually the case. But taking them all together, there is one general and obvious, as wellas another local and particular objection to them. Although thesub-title (_v. Sup. _ again) lets them in, the main one regards themwith, at best, an oblique countenance. The differences between theWestern fairy and the Eastern _peri_, _dive_, _djin_, or whatever onechooses to call her, him, or it, though not at all easy to define, areexceedingly easy to feel. The magicians and enchanters of the two kindsare nearer to each other, but still not the same. On the other hand, itis impossible for any one who has once felt the strange charm of the_Arabian Nights_ not to feel the immense inferiority of these rehashesand _croquettes_ and _rissoles_, and so forth, of the noble old haunchor sirloin. Yet again, from the special point of view of this book, though they cannot be simply passed over, they supply practicallynothing which marks, or causes, or even promises an advance in thegeneral development of fiction. They may be said to be simply acontinuation of, or a relapse upon, the pure romance of adventure, withdifferent dress, manners, and nomenclature. There is hardly a singletouch of character in any one; their very morals (and no shame to them)are arch-known; and they do not possess style enough to conferdistinction of the kind open to such things. If you take _Les QuatreFacardins_, before most of them, and _Vathek_[238] (itself, remember, originally French in language), after them all, the want of any kind ofgenius in their composers becomes almost disgustingly apparent. Yet eventhese masterpieces are masterpieces outside the main run of the novel. 

[Sidenote: Caylus. ]

Although, therefore, it would be very ungrateful not to acknowledge thatthey do sometimes comply with the demands of that sensible tyrantalready mentioned, Sultan Hudgiadge, and "either amuse us or send us tosleep, " it must be admitted to be with some relief that one turns oncemore, at about the five and twentieth volume, to something like thefairy tale proper, if to a somewhat artificial and sophisticated form ofit. The Comte de Caylus was a scholar and a man of unusual brains;Moncrif showed his mixture of Scotch and French blood in a correspondingblend of quaintness and _esprit_; others, such as Voisenon in one sexand Voltaire's pet Mlle. De Lubert in the other, whatever they were, were at any rate not stupid. 

[Sidenote: _Prince Courtebotte et Princesse Zibeline. _]

To Anne Claude Philippe de Tubières de Grimoard de Pestels de Lévi, Comte de Caylus, one owes particular thanks, at least when one comes tothe history of _Le Prince Courtebotte_, after wrestling with the_macédoine_ of orientalities just discussed. It is not, of course, Perrault, and it is not the best Madame D'Aulnoy. But you are never "putout" by it; the hero, if rather a hero of Scott in the uniform proprietyof his conduct, or of Virgil in his success, is not like Waverley, partly a simpleton, nor like Aeneas, wholly a cad. One likes thePrincess Zibeline both before she had a heart and afterwards; it can bevery agreeable to know a nice girl in both states. Perhaps it was notquite cricket of the good fairy to play that trick[239] on theambassador of King Brandatimor, but it was washed out in fair fight; andKing Biby and his people of poodles are delightful. One wonders whetherDickens, who was better read in this kind of literature than in most, consciously or unconsciously borrowed from Caylus one of his not leastknown touches. [240]

[Sidenote: _Rosanie. _]

In the next of the Caylus stories there is an Idea--the capital seemsdue because the Count was a man of Science, as science (perhaps better)went then, and because one or his other tales (not the best) is actuallycalled _Le Palais des Idées_. The idea of _Rosanie_ is questionable, though the carrying of it out is all right. Two fairies are fighting forthe (fairy) crown, and the test is who shall produce the most perfectspecimen of the special fairy art of education of mortals. (I may, as a_ci-devant_ member of this craft, be permitted to regret that thebusiness has been so largely taken over by persons who are neitherfairies in one sex, though there may be some exceptions here, norenchanters in the other, where exceptions are very rare indeed. ) Thetutoress of the Princess Rosanie pursues her task, and pursues ittriumphantly, by dividing the child into twelve _interim_ personalities, each of whom has a special characteristic--beauty, gentleness, vivacity, discretion, and what not. At the close of the prescribed period they arereunited, and their fortunate lover, who has hitherto been distractedbetween the twelve _eidola_, is blessed with the compound Rosanie. Although it is well known to be the rashest of things for a man to sayanything about women--although certainly sillier things have been saidby men about women than about any other subject, except, of course, education itself--I venture to demur to the fairy method. Both _apriori_ and from experience, I should say that unmixed Beauty wouldbecome intolerably vain; that Discretion would grow into a hypocriticaland unpleasant prude; that Vivacity would develop into Vulgarity; andthat the reincarnation of the twelve would be one of the mostintolerable creatures ever known, if it were not that the impossibilityof the concentrated essences being united in one person, afterseparation in several, would save the situation by annihilating her. 

[Sidenote: _Prince Muguet et Princesse Zaza. _]

Caylus, however, makes up in the third tale, _Le Prince Muguet et laPrincesse Zaza_, where, though the principal fairy, she of the _Hêtre_, is rather silly for one of the kind, Muguet is a not quite intolerablecoxcomb, and Zaza is positively charming. Her sufferings with a wickedold woman are common; but her distress when the fairy makes her seemugly to the Prince, who has actually fallen in love with her trueportrait, and the scenes where the two meet under this spell, are amongthe best in the whole _Cabinet_--which is a bold word. The others, though naturally unequal, never or very seldom lack charm, for thereason that Caylus knew what one has ventured to call the secret ofFairyland--that it is the land of the attained Wish--and that he has theart of scattering rememberable and generative phrases and fancies. _Tourlou et Rirette_, one of the lightest of all, may notimpossibly--indeed probably--have suggested Jean Ingelow's greatsingle-speech poem of _Divided_; the Princesses Pimprenelle andLumineuse are the right sort of Princesses; _Nonchalante et Papillon_, _Bleuette et Coquelicot_ come and take their places unpretentiously butcertainly; Mignonette and Minutieuse are not "out. " Caylus is notHamilton by a long way; but he has something that Hamilton has not. Heis still less Perrault or Madame d'Aulnoy, but he has a sufficientdifference from either. With these predecessors he makes the selectquartette of the fairy-tale tellers of France. 

After him one expects--and meets--a drop. No reasonable person wouldlook for a really great fairy tale from Jean Jacques, because you mustforget yourself to write one; and _La Reine Fantasque_, though not bad, is not good. Madame de Villeneuve may, for ought I know, have been anexcellent person in other ways, but she deserves one of the worstbolgias in the Inferno of literature for lengthening, muddling, andaltogether spoiling the ever-beloved "Beauty and the Beast. " Mlle. DeLussan, they say, [241] was too fond of eating, and died of indigestion. A more indigestible thing than her own _Les Veillées de Thessalie_, which figure here (she wrote a great deal more), the present writer hasnever come across. And as for _Prince Titi_, which fills a volume and ahalf, it might have been passed without any remark at all if it had notbecome famous in connection with the Battle of Croker and Macaulay overthe body of Boswell's _Johnson_. [242]

A break takes place at the thirtieth volume of the _Cabinet_, and afresh instalment, later than the first batch, follows, with moreparticulars about authors. Here we find the attributions of the verylarge series of imitative Eastern tales already noticed, and to befollowed in this new parcel by _Soirées Bretonnes_, to Thomas SimonGueulette. The thirty-first opens with the _Funestine_ ofBeauchamps[243]--an ingenious title and heroine-name, for it avoids theunnatural sounds so common, is a quite possible feminine appellation, and though a "speaking" one, is only so to those who understand thelearned languages, and so deserve to be spoken to. Moreover, the idea, though not startlingly original or a mark of genius, is good--that of anunlucky child who attracts the malignity of _all_ fairies, and is ugly, stupid, ill-natured, and everything that is detestable. Her reformationby the genie Clair-Obscur would not be bad if it were cut a great dealshorter. 

It is followed by a series of short tales, beginning with _The LittleGreen Frog_, and not of the first class, which in turn are succeeded bytwo (or, as the latter is in two parts, three) longer stories, sometimesattributed to Caylus--_Le Loup Galeux_ and _Bellinette et Belline_. The_Soirées Bretonnes_ themselves, though apparently the earliest, are notthe happiest of Gueulette's _pastiches_; the speaking names[244]especially are irritating. A certain Madame de Lintot, who does not seemto have had anything to do with the hero of Pope's famous "Ride with aBookseller, " is what may be called "neutral, " with _Timandre etBleuette_ and others; nor does a fresh instalment of Moncrif's effortsshow the historian of cats at his best. But in vol. Xxxiii. Mlle. DeLubert, glanced at before, raises the standard. She should have cut hertales down; it is the mischief of these later things that they extendtoo much. But _Lionnette et Coquérico_ is good; _Le Prince Glacé et laPrincesse Etincelante_ is not bad; and _La Princesse Camion_ attracts, by dint of extravagance in the literal sense. Fairy trials had gone far;but the necessity of either marrying a beautiful sort of mermaid or elseof _flaying_ her, and the subsequent trial, not of flaying, but brayingher in a mortar as a shrimp, show at least a lively fancy. Nor is theanonymous _Nourjahad_--an extremely moral but not dull tale, whichfollows--at all contemptible. 

The French Bar, inexhaustible in such things, gave another tale-tellerin one Pajon, who, besides the obligatory _polissonneries_, not includedin the _Cabinet_, composed not a few harmless things of some merit. Thefirst, _Eritzine et Paretin_, is perhaps the best. Nor is the complementof vol. Xxxiv. , the _Bibliothèque des Fées et des Génies_ (the title ofwhich was that of a larger collection, containing much the same matteras the _Cabinet_, and probably in Johnson's mind when he jotted down_Prince Titi_), quite barren. _La Princesse Minon-Minette et le PrinceSouci_, _Apranor et Bellanire_, _Grisdelin et Charmante_, are none ofthem unreadable. The next volume, too, is better as a whole than any wehave had for a long time. Mme. Fagnan's _Minet Bleu et Louvette_contains, in its fifteen pages, a good situation by no meansill-treated. The pair are under the same spell--that of being ugly andwitty for part of the week, handsome, stupid, and disagreeable for theother part, and of having the times so arranged that each sees the otherat his or her most repulsive to her or his actual state. The way inwhich "Love unconquered in battle" proves, though not without fairyassistance, victorious here also, is very ingeniously managed. 

One of the cleverest of all the later fairy tales is the _Acajou etZirphile_ of Duclos, who, indeed, had sufficient wits to do anythingwell, and was a novelist, though not a very distinguished one, on alarger scale. The tale itself (which is said to have been written "upto" illustrations of Boucher designed for something else) has, indeed, a smatch of vulgarity, but a purely superfluous and easily removableone. It is almost as cleverly written as any thing of Voltaire's: andthe final situation, where the hero, who has gone through all themischiefs and triumphs of one of Crébillon's, recovers his only reallove, Zirphile, in a torment and tornado of heads separated from bodiesand hands separated from arms, is rather capital. 

Not much less so, in the different way of a pretty sentimentality, isthe _Aglaé ou Naboline_ of the painter Coypel; while the batch of shortstories from Mme. Le Prince de Beaumont's _Magasin des Enfants_ have hada curious fate. They are rather pooh-poohed by French editors andcritics, and they are certainly _very_ moral, too much so, in fact, ashas been already objected to one of them, _Le Prince Chéri_. Butallowances have been allowed even there, and, somehow or other, _Fatalet Fortuné_, _Le Prince Charmant_, _Joliette_, and the rest haverecovered more of the root of the matter than most others, and haveestablished a just popularity in translation. 

And then comes the shortest, I think, of all the stories in the one andforty volumes; the silliest as a composition; the most contemptibly_thought_--but by the accidents of fate endowed later with atragic-satiric _moralitas_ almost if not quite unrivalled in literature. Its author was a certain M. Selis, apparently a very respectableschoolmaster, professor, and bookmaker of not the lowestclass--employments and occupations in respect of all of which not a fewof us have earned our bread and paid our income-tax. Unluckily for him, there was born in his time a Dauphin, and he wrote a little adulatorytale of the birth, and the editors of the _Cabinet_ Appendix thanked himmuch for giving it them. It is not four pages long; it tells how anancestral genie--a great king named Louis--blessed the child, and saidthat he would be called "the father of his people, " and another followedsuit with "the father of letters, " and a third swore _Ventre SaintGris!_ and named the baby's uncle as "Joseph, " and a still greater Louissaid other things, and a fairy named Maria Theresa crowned theblessings. Then came an ogre mounted on a leopard and eating raw meat, who was of Albion, and said he was king of the country, and observed"_God ham_" [_sic_], and was told that he would be beaten and made tolay down his arms by the child. 

And the Dauphin, unless this _signalement_ is strangely delusive, livedto know the worst ogres in the world (their chief was named Simon), whowere of his own people, and to die the most unhappy prince or king inthat world. And he of the Leopard who said _God ham_, would have savedthat Dauphin if he could, and did slay many of his less guiltlessrelations and subjects, and beat the rest "thorough and thorough, " andrestored (could they have had the will and wit to profit by it) the raceof Louis and Francis, and of the genie who said "Ventre Saint Gris!" totheir throne. And this was the end of the vaticinations of M. Selis, andsuch are the tears of things. 

The rest of this volume is occupied by a baker's dozen of _ContesChoisis_, the first of which, _Les Trois Epreuves_, seems to imitateVoltaire, and is smartly written, while some of the others are not bad. 

Volume xxxvi. Is occupied (not too appositely, though inoffensively initself) by a translation of Wieland's _Don Silvia de Rosalva_, which isa German _Sir Launcelot Greaves_ or _Spiritual Quixote_, with fairytales substituted for romances of chivalry. The author of _Oberon_ wasseldom, if ever, unreadable, and he is not so here; but the thing isneither a tale proper (seeing that it fills a whole volume), nor a realfairy tale, nor French, so we may let it alone. 

Then this curious collection once more comes to an end, which is not anend, with a very useful though not too absolutely trustworthy volume of_Notices des Auteurs_, containing not only "bio-bibliographical"articles on the actual writers collected, but references to others, great and small, from Marivaux, Lesage, Prévost, and Voltaire downwards, and glances, sometimes with actual _comptes rendus_, at pieces of theclass not included. That it is conducted on the somewhat irresponsibleand indolent principles of its time might be anticipated from previousthings, such as the clause in the Preface to Wieland's just noticedbook, that the author had "gone to Weimar, where perhaps he is still, "an observation which, from the context, seems not to be so much anattempt at _persiflage_ as a pure piece of lazy _naïveté_. The volume, however, contains a great deal of information such as it is; somesketches, ingeniously draped or Bowdlerised, of the "naughty" talesexcluded from the collection itself, and a few amusing stories. [245]

As, however, has been said, there was to be still another joint to thiscrocodile, and the four last volumes, xxxviii. To xli. (_not_, as iswrongly said by some, xxxvii. To xl. ), contain a somewhat rashcontinuation of the _Arabian Nights_ themselves, with which Cazotte[246]appears to have had a good deal to do, though an actual Arab monk ofthe name of Chavis is said to have been mainly concerned. They are notbad reading; but even less of fairy tales than Gueulette'sorientalities. 

 * * * * *

Not much apology is needed, it may be hoped, for the space given to thiscurious kind; the bulk of its production, the length of its popularity, and the intrinsic merit of some few of its better examples vindicate itsposition here. But a confession should take the place of the unnecessaryexcuse already partly made. The artificial fairy tale of the moreregular kind was not, by the law of its being, prevented almostunavoidably from doing service to the novel at large, as the Easternstory was; but, as a matter of fact, it did little except what will bementioned in the next paragraph. That it helped to exemplify afresh whathad been shown over and over again for centuries, the singularrecreative faculty of the nation and the language, was about all. Butanother national characteristic, the as yet incurable set of the Frenchmind towards types--which, if the second volume of this work everappears, will, it is hoped, be shown to have spared the laternovel--seized on these tales. They are "as like as my fingers to myfingers, " and they are not very pretty fingers as a rule. Incidentallythey served as frameworks to some of the worst verse in the world, nor, for the most part, did they even encourage very good prose. You may getsome good out of them; but unless you like hunting, and are not vexed byfrequent failures to "draw, " the _Cabinet des Fées_ is best left toexploration at second-hand. 

 * * * * *

To collect the results of this long chapter, we may observe that inthese three departments--Pastoral, Heroic, and Fairy--various importantelements of _general_ novel material and construction are provided in amanner not yet noticed. The Pastoral may seem to be the most obsolete, the most of a mere curiosity. But the singular persistence and, in away, universality of this apparently fossil convention has been alreadypointed out; and it is perhaps only necessary to shift the pointer tothe fact that the novels with which one of the most modern, in perhapsthe truest sense of that word, of modern novelists, though one of theeldest, Mr. Thomas Hardy, began to make his mark--_Under the GreenwoodTree_ and _Far from the Madding Crowd_--may be claimed by the pastoralwith some reason. And it has another and a wider claim--that it keepsup, in its own way, the element of the imaginative, of the fanciful--letus say even of the unreal--without which romance cannot live, withoutwhich novel is almost repulsive, and which the increasing advances ofrealism itself were to render more than ever indispensable. As for theHeroic, we have already shown how much, with all its faults, it did forthe novel generally in construction and in other ways. It has been shownlikewise, it is hoped, how the Fairy story, besides that additionalprovision of imagination, fancy, and dream which has just been said tobe so important--mingled with this a kind of realism which was totallylacking in the others, and which showed itself especially in oneimmensely important department wherein they had been so much to seek. Fairies may be (they are not to my mind) things that "do not happen";but the best of these fairies are fifty times more natural, not merelythan the characters of Scudéry and Gomberville, but than those (I holdto my old blasphemy) of Racine. Animals may not talk; but the animalsof Perrault and even of Madame d'Aulnoy talk divinely well, and, what ismore, in a way most humanly probable and interesting. Never was theresuch a triumph of the famous impossible-probable as a good fairy story. Except to the mere scientist and to (of course, quite a differentperson) the unmitigated fool, these stories, at least the best of them, fully deserve the delightful phrase which Southey attributes to a friendof his. They are "necessary and voluptuous and right. " They were, to theFrench eighteenth century and to French prose, almost what the balladwas to the English eighteenth century and to English verse; almost whatthe _Märchen_ was to the prose and verse alike of yet un-PrussianisedGermany. They were more than twice blessed: for they were charming inthemselves; they exercised good influence on other literary productions;and they served as precious antidotes to bad things that they could notimprove, and almost as precious alternatives to things good inthemselves but of a different kind from theirs. 

What, however, none of the kinds discussed in this chapter gaveentirely, while only the fairy story gave in part, and that in strongcontrast to another part of itself, was a history of ordinarylife--high, low, or middle--dealing with characters more or lessrepresenting live and individual personages; furnished with incidents ofa possible and probable character more or less regularly constructed;furnished further with effective description of the usual scenery, manners, and general accessories of living; and, finally, giving suchconversation as might be thought necessary in forms suitable to "men ofthis world, " in the Shakespearian phrase. In other words, none of themattained, or even attempted to fulfil, the full definition of the novel. The scattered books to be mentioned in the next chapter did not, perhaps, in any one case--even Madame de la Fayette's--quite achievethis; but in all of them, even in Sorel's, we see more or less consciousor unconscious attempt at it. 

FOOTNOTES:

[124] Herr Körting (_v. Sup. _ p. 133) gave considerable space toBarclay's famous _Argenis_, which also appeared fairly early in thecentury. To treat, however, a Latin book, written by a Scotsman, withadmittedly large if not main reference to European politics, as a"French novel, " seems a literary solecism. I do not know whether it isrash to add that the _Argenis_ itself seems to me to have been wildlyoverpraised. It is at any rate one of the few books--one of the stillfewer romances--which have defied my own powers of reading at more thanone attempt. 

[125]

[Sidenote: Note on marked influence of Greek Romance. ]

The repetition, in the seventeenth century, of something very like aphenomenon which we noticed in the twelfth, is certainly striking, andmay seem at first sight rather uncanny. But those who have made someattempt to "find the whole" in literature, and in that attempt have atleast found out something about the curious laws of revolution andrecurrence which take the place of any progress in a straight line, willdeem the thing natural enough. We declined, in the earlier case, toadmit much, if any, direct influence of the accomplished Greek Romanceon the Romance of the West; but we showed how classical subjects, whether pure or tinctured with Oriental influence, induced an immenselyimportant development of this same Western Romance in twodirections--that of manners, character, and passion, and that of marvel. In the later period classical influences of all sorts are again at work;but infinitely the larger part of that work is done by the GreekRomances themselves--pastoral, adventurous, and sentimental, --the datesof the translations of which will be given presently. And the newerOriental kind--coming considerably later still and sharing its naturecertainly, and perhaps its origin, not now with classical mythology, butagain, in the most curious way, with Western folk stories--supplementsand diversifies the reinforcement. 

[126] Scudéry writes "Urfé, " and this confirms the _obiter dictum_ ofSainte-Beuve, that with the Christian name, the "Monsieur, " or someother title you must use the "_de_, " otherwise not. But in thisparticular instance I think most French writers give the particle. 

[127] I myself, in writing a _Short History of French Literature_ manyyears ago, had to apologise for incomplete knowledge; and I will notundertake even now to have read every romance cursorily mentioned inthis chapter--indeed, some are not very easy to get at. But I have donemy best to extend my knowledge, assisted by a rather minute study of thecontemporary English heroic romance in prose and verse; and I believe Imay say that I do now really know the _Grand Cyrus_, though even now Iwill again not say that I have read every one of its perhaps two millionwords, or even the whole of every one of its more than 12, 000 pages. Inregard to the _Astrée_ I have been less fortunately situated; but "Ihave been there and still would go. "

[128] The above remarks are most emphatically _not_ intended to refer tothe work of Mr. Greg. 

[129] The sheep, whether as a beast of most multitude or for morerecondite reasons, has, of course, the preference; but it may bepermissible to say that no guardian of animals is excluded. Goat-herdsin the Greek ran the shepherd hard; neat-herds and swine-herds aboundeverywhere except, as concerns the last, in Jewry; even the goose-girlfigures, and has in Provençal at least a very pretty name--_auquiera_. 

[130] The mediaeval _pastourelle_ is no doubt to some extentconventional and "made in moulds. " But it is by no means so unreal as(whether Greek was so or not) Roman pastoral pretty certainly was, andas modern has been beyond possibility of doubt. How good it could be, without any convention at all, Henryson showed once for all in our ownlanguage by _Robene and Makyne_. 

[131] _Theagenes and Chariclea_ had preceded it by thirteen years, though a fresh translation appeared in the same year, as did the firstof _Hysminias and Hysmine_. Achilles Tatius (_Cleitophon and Leucippe_)had been partly done in 1545, but waited till 1568 for completion. 

[132] _Op. Cit. Sup. _

[133] They are almost always _Amours_ after their Greek prototypes, sometimes simple, often qualified, and these most frequently by suchadjectives as "Infortunées et chastes, " "Constantes et infortunées, ""Chastes et heureuses, " "Pudiques, " etc. Etc. Not a few are taken directfrom episodes of Ariosto or other elders; otherwise they are "loves" ofLaoniphile, Lozie, Poliphile and Mellonimphe, Pégase (who has somehow orother become a nymph) and Léandre, Dachmion and Deflore (a ratherunlucky heroine-name), etc. Etc. Their authors are nearly as numerous astheir titles; but the chief were a certain Sieur de Nervèze, whosenumerous individual efforts were collected more than once to the numberat least of a good baker's dozen, and a Sieur des Escuteaux, who had thesame fortune. Sometimes the Hellenism went rather to seed in such titlesas _Erocaligenèse_, which supposed itself to be Greek for "Naissanced'un bel amour. " It is only (at least in England) in the very largestlibraries, perhaps in the British Museum alone, that there is any chanceof examining these things directly; some of them escaped even the mightyhunt of M. Reynier himself. What the present writer has found is treatedshortly in the text. 

[134] M. Reynier (most justly, but of course after many predecessors)points out that the common filiation of these things on Marini andGongora is chronologically impossible. We could, equally of course, supply older examples still in English; and persons of any reading cancarry the thing back through sixteenth- and fifteenth-century examplesto the Dark Ages and the late Greek classics--if no further. 

[135] It is fair to say that the first is "make-weighted" with apastoral play entitled _Athlette_, from the heroine's rather curiousname. 

[136] It _has_ two poems and some miscellanea. Something like this isthe case with another bookmaker of the class, Du Souhait. 

[137] It may be childish, but the association in this group ofladies--three of them bearing some of the greatest historic names ofFrance, and the fourth that of the admirable critic with no othernamesake of whom I ever met--seemed to me interesting. It is perhapsworth adding that Isabel de Rochechouart seems to have been not merelydedicatee but part author of the first tale. 

[138] The habit is common with these authors. 

[139] He gives more analysis than usual, but complains of the author's"affectation and bad taste. " I venture to think this relatively ratherharsh, though it is positively too true of the whole group. 

[140] _La Vie et les Oeuvres de Honoré d'Urfé. _ Par le Chanoine O. C. Reure, Paris, 1910. 

[141] The Abbé Reure, to whom I owe my own knowledge of the translationand dedication, says nothing more. 

[142] M. Reynier, in the useful book so often quoted, has shown that, asone would expect, this influence is not absent from the smaller Frenchlove-novels which preceded the _Astrée_; indeed, as we saw, it isobvious, though in a form of more religiosity, as early as the_Heptameron_. But it was not till the seventeenth century in France, ortill a little before it in some cases with us, that "Love in fantastictriumph sat" between the shadowing wings of sensual and intellectualpassion. 

[143] They had, indeed, neither luck nor distinction after Honoré'sdeath: and the last of the family died, like others of the renegadenobles of France, by his own hand, to escape the guillotine which hehimself had helped to establish. 

[144] The more orthodox "laws of love" which Celadon puts up in his"Temple of Astraea" are less amusing. 

[145] He constantly plays this part of referee and moraliser. But he isby no means exempt from the pleasing fever of the place, and some havebeen profane enough to think his mistress, Diane, more attractive thanthe divine Astrée herself. 

[146] Very delicate persons have been shocked by the advantages affordedto Celadon in his disguise as the Druid's daughter, and the consequentfamiliarity with the innocent unrecognising heroine. But _honi soit_will cover them. 

[147] There is plenty of this, including a regular siege of the capital, Marcilly. 

[148] The constant confusion, in these quasi-classical romances, ofmasculine and feminine names is a rather curious feature. But the lateSir W. Gilbert played some tricks of the kind in _Pygmalion andGalatea_, and I remember an English novelist, with more pretensions toscholarship than Gilbert, making the particularly unfortunate blunder ofattributing to Longus a book called "_Doris_ and Chloe. "

[149] It is fair to say that Urfé has been praised for these historicalexcursions or incursions of his. 

[150] Its difficulty of access in the French has been noted. The Englishtranslation may be less rare, but it is not a good one even of its kind. And, in face of the most false and misleading statements, never morefrequent than at the present moment, about the efficacy of translations, it may be well to insist on the truth. For science, history philosophy(though in a descending ratio through these three) translations mayserve. The man who knows Greek or Latin or any other _literature_ onlythrough them knows next to nothing of that literature as such, and inits literary quality. The version may be, as in the leading case ofFitzGerald's Omar Khayyam, literature itself of the highest class; butit is quite other literature than the original, and is, in fact, a neworiginal itself. It may, while keeping closer, be as good as Catullus onSappho or as bad as Mr. Gladstone on Toplady in form; but the form, evenif copied, is always again other. 

[151] Some reasons will be given later for taking this first--not theleast being the juxtaposition with the _Astrée_. The actual order of thechief "Heroic" authors and books is as follows: Gomberville, _LaCaritée_, 1622; _Polexandre_, 1632; _Citherée_, 1640-42. _LaCalprenède_, _Cassandre_, 1642; _Cléopâtre_, 1648; _Faramond_, 1662. Mlle. De Scudéry, _Ibrahim_, 1641; _Artamène_, 1649; _Clélie_, 1656;_Almahide_, 1660. 

[152] Cousin relieved his work on "The True, the Good, and theBeautiful" not only with elaborate disquisitions on the ladies of theFronde who, though certainly beautiful were not very very good, but witha long exposition of French society as revealed in the _Grand Cyrus_itself. 

[153] Scudéry bore, and evidently rejoiced in, this sounding title, which can never have had a titular to whom it was more appropriate. Theplace seems to have been an actual fortress, though a small one, nearMarseilles. 

[154] I blushed for my namesake when I found, some time afterwards, thathe had copied this unusual (save in German) feminisation of the sun fromGomberville (_v. Inf. _ p. 240). 

[155] That is classical education: in comparison with which "all othersis cagmaggers. "

[156] I have wavered a little between adopting French or Greek forms ofnames. But as the authors are not consistent, and as some of their morefanciful compounds classicalise badly, I have finally decided to stickto the text in every case, except in those of historical persons whereFrench forms such as "Pisistrate" would jar. 

[157] Like Robina in _Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy_. 

[158] There are ten parts, each divisible into two _volumes_ and threebooks. There is also a division at the end of the fifth "part" and thetenth volume, the first five (ten) having apparently been issuedtogether. The "parts" are continuously paged--running never, I think, toless than 1000 pages and more than once to a little over 1400. 

[159] Drama may have done harm here, if those dramatic critics who saythat you must never "puzzle the audience" are right. The happynovel-reader is of less captious mood and mould: he trusts his authorand hopes his author will pull him through. 

[160] Some exception in the way of occasional flashes may be made fortwo lively maids of honour to be mentioned later, Martésie and Doralise. 

[161] There is an immense "throw-back" after the Sinope affair, in whichthe previous history of Artamène and the circumstances of Mandane'sabduction are recounted up to date--I hope that some readers at leastwill not have forgotten the introduction of Lancelot to Guinevere. Wehave here the Middle Age and the _Grand Siècle_ like philippines in anutshell. 

[162] To understand the account, it must be remembered that the combattakes place in a position secluded from the two armies and strictlyforbidden to lookers-on; also that it is to be absolutely _à outrance_. 

[163] It is not perhaps extravagant to suggest that Sir Walter hadsomething of this fight, as well as of the _Combat des Trente_, in hismind when he composed the famous record of the Clan Chattan and ClanQuhele battle. 

[164] Praed's delightful Medora might have found the practice of the_Grand Cyrus_ rather oppressive; but she would have thoroughly approvedits principles. 

[165] He is King of Cappadocia now, Astyages being alive; and onlysucceeds to Media later. It must never be forgotten that the_Cyropaedia_, not Herodotus, is the chief authority relied upon by theauthors, though they sometimes mix the two. 

[166] There is a very great physical resemblance between the two, andthis plays an important and repeated part in the book. 

[167] The King of Assyria, the King of Pontus, and the later Aryante(_v. Inf. _). The fourth is the "good Rival" Mazare, who, though he alsois at one time in possession of the prize, and though he never is wearyof "loving unloved, " is too honourable a gentleman to force hisattentions on an unwilling mistress. 

[168] It is probably, however, not quite fair to leave the reader, evenfor a time, under the impression that it is _merely_ an excursion. Ofall the huge and numerous loop-lines, backwaters, ramifications, reticulations, episodes, or whatever they may be called, there is hardlyone which has not a real connection with the general plot; and theappearance of Thomyris here has such connection (as will be duly seen)in a capital and vital degree. 

[169] Some readers no doubt will not need to be reminded that this isthe original title of _The Marriage of Kitty_, --literally "gangway, " butin the sense of "makeshift" or "_locum tenens_. "

[170] Cf. John Heywood's Interlude of _Love_. These stories also remindone of the short romances noticed above. 

[171] No gentleman, of course, could refuse a challenge pure and simple, unless in very peculiar circumstances; but hardly Sir Lucius O'Triggeror Captain M'Turk would oblige a friend to enter into this curious kindof bargain. 

[172] Another instance of the astonishing interweaving of the bookoccurs here; for here is the first mention of Sappho and other personsand things to be caught up sooner or later. 

[173] Such knowledge as I have of the other romances of the "heroic"group shows them to be, with the possible exception of those of LaCalprenède, inferior in this respect, even allowing for the influence ofthe _Cyropaedia_. 

[174] An extract may be worth giving in a note: "For the rest, if thereis anybody who is not acquainted enough with all my authors [_this is avery delightful sweep over literature_] to know what was the Ring ofGyges which is spoken of in this volume, let him not imagine that it isAngelica's, with which I chose to adorn Artamène; and let him, on thecontrary, know that it was Ariosto who stole this famous ring which gavehis Paladins so much trouble; that _he_ took it from those great menwhom I am obliged to follow" [_a sweep of George's plumed hat in thebest Molièresque marquis style to Herodotus, Xenophon, and Cicero (whocomes in shortly) and the others_]. 

[175] The opening sentences of this _Histoire_ give a curious picture ofthe etiquette of these spoken narrative episodes, which, from theletters and memoirs of the time, we can see to have been actuallypractised in the days of _Précieuse_ society. [_The story is not ofcourse delivered in the presence of Panthea herself; but she sends aconfidante, Pherenice, to tell it. _] "They were no sooner in Araminta'sapartment than, after having made Cyrus sit down, and placed Phereniceon a seat opposite to them, she begged her to begin her narrative andnot to hide from them, if it were possible, the smallest thought ofAbradates and Panthea. Accordingly this agreeable person, having madethem a compliment so as to ask their pardon for the scanty art shebrought to the story she was going to tell, actually began as follows:"

[176] Observe how _vague_ what follows is. A scholar and a _modiste_, working in happiest conjunction, might possibly "create" the dress; butas for the face it might be any one out of those on one hundredchocolate-boxes. 

[177] This passage gives a key to the degradation of the word "elegant. "It has kept the connotation of "grace, " but lost that of "nobility. "

[178] _Abstracts_ of all the principal members of this group and othersoccurred in the _Bibliothèque Universelle des Romans_, which appeared asa periodical at Paris in 1778. But what I do not know is whether any oneever arranged an elaborate tabular syllabus of the book like that ofBurton's _Anatomy_. It would lend itself admirably to the process if anyone had time and inclination to do the thing. 

[179] With the exception, already noted, of Urfé; and even he is farbelow Donne. 

[180] There were, though not many, actual instances of capitalpunishment for disregard of the edicts against duelling, andimprisonment was common. But the deterrent effect was very small. Montmorency-Bouteville was the best-known victim. 

[181] It is amusing, as one reads this, to remember Hume's essay inwhich he lays stress on the _contrast_ between Greek and French ideas inthis very matter of the duel. 

[182] A curious and rather doubtful position; well worth theconsideration of anybody who wishes to write the much-wanted _Historyand Philosophy of Duelling_. 

[183] The author uses "Prince, " as indeed one might expect, rather inthe Continental than in the English way, and the persons who bear it arenot always sons of kings or members of reigning families. The two mostagreeable _quiproquos_ arising from this difference are probably thefictitious unwillingness of the excellent Miss Higgs to descend from"Princesse de Montcontour" to "Duchesse d'Ivry, " and the, it is said, historical contempt of a comparatively recent Papal dignitary for anEnglish Roman Catholic document which had no Princes among thesignatories. 

[184] Nobody, unless I forget, has the wisdom to put thecounter-question, "Can you ever cease loving if you have once reallyloved?" which is to be carefully distinguished from a third, "Can youlove more than once?" But there are more approaches to these _arcana_ inthe _Astrée_ than in Mlle. De Scudéry. 

[185] A very nice phrase. 

[186] He had refused to cross swords with her, and had lowered his ownin salute. 

[187] Compare the not quite so ingenious adjustment of the intendedburning of Croesus. 

[188] _Clélie_ is about as bad in this respect, _v. Inf. _: the othersless so. 

[189] I have said that you _can_ do this with the _Astrée_, and thatthis makes for superiority in it: but there also I think absolutelycontinuous reading of the whole would become "collar-work. "

[190] That is to say, several weeks occupied in the manner aboveindicated. You may sometimes read two of the volumes in a day, but muchoftener you will find one enough; in the actual process for the presenthistory some intervals must be allowed for digestion and _précis_; and, as above remarked, if other forms of "cheerfulness, " in Dr. Johnson'sfriend Mr. Edwards's phrase, do not "break in" of themselves, you mustmake them, to keep any freshness in the task. I fancy the twenty volumeswere, if not "my _sole_ occupation" (like that more cheerful andcharitable one of the head-waiter at Limmer's), my main one for nearlytwice twenty days. 

[191] In this respect the remarks above extend backwards to the_Astrée_, and even to some of the smaller and earlier novels mentionedin connection with it. But the "Heroics, " especially Mlle. De Scudéry, _modernise_ the treatment not inconsiderably. 

[192] Achilles Tatius and the author of _Hysminias and Hysmine_ comenearest. But the first is too ancient and the last too modern. 

[193] We have indeed endeavoured to discover a "form" of the greatestand best kind in the Arthurian, but it has been acknowledged that it maynot have been deliberately reached--or approached--by even a singleartist, and that, if it was, the identity of that artist is not quitecertain. 

[194] The intolerance of anything but scraps is one of the numerous armsand legs of the twentieth century Baal. There are some who have notbowed down to it. 

[195] For Soliman is not indisposed to fall in love with his illustriousBassa's beloved. 

[196] At the close of _Old Mortality_. 

[197] One is lost if one begins quoting from these books. But there isanother passage at the end of the same volume worth glancing at for itsoddity. It is an elaborate chronological "checking" of the age of thedifferent characters; and, odd as it is, one cannot help rememberingthat not a few authors from Walter Map (or whoever it was) to Thackeraymight have been none the worse for similar calculations. 

[198] It is not, I hope, frivolous or pusillanimous, but merely honest, to add that, as I have spent much less time on _Clélie_ than on theother book, it has had less opportunity of boring me. 

[199] Cf. The _Astrée_ as noted above. 

[200] He also wrote several plays. 

[201] This would supply the ghost of Varus with a crushing answer to"Give me back my legions!" in such form as "Why did you send me withthem?"

[202] At another time there might have been a little gentle satire inthis, but hardly then. 

[203] It would seem, however, that the Scudérys were not originallyNorman. 

[204] Chateaubriand hardly counts in strictness. 

[205] Although some say that almost every one of the numerous _personae_of the _Astrée_ had a live original. 

[206] These books, having been constantly referred to in this fashion, offer a good many traps, into some of which I have fallen in the past, and may have done so even now. For instance, Körting rightly points outthat almost every one calls this "_La_ Jeune Alcidiane, " whereas A. Isthe hero, who bears his mother's name. 

[207] I had made this remark before I knew that Körting had anticipatedit. 

[208] The more recent books which refer to him, and (I think) theBritish Museum Catalogue, drop this addition. But he was admittedly ofthe Pontcarré family. 

[209] Neither the original, however, nor this revision seems to haveenjoyed the further honour of a place in the British Museum. Other booksof his which at least sound novelish were _Darie_, _Aristandre_, _Diotrèphe_, _Cléoreste_ (of which as well as of _Palombe_ analyses maybe found in Körting). The last would seem to be the most interesting. But in the bibliography of the Bishop's writings there are at least adozen more titles of the same kind. 

[210] Cf. The "self-precipitation" of Céladon. Perhaps no class ofwriters has ever practised "imitation, " in the wrong sense, more thanthese "heroic" romancers. 

[211] I am glad to find the high authority of my friend Sir SidneyColvin on my side here as to the wider position--though he tells me thathe was not, when he read _Endimion_, conscious of any positiveindebtedness on Keats' part. 

[212] _V. Sup. _ p. 177, note 3. 

[213] Gombauld seems to have been a devotee of both Queens: andcommentators will have it that this whole book is courtship as well ascourtiership in disguise. 

[214] A kind of intermediary nymph--an enchantress indeed--who hasassisted and advised him in his quests for the goddess. 

[215] Émile Magne, _Mme. De V. _, Paris, 1907. 

[216] This sometimes causes positive obscurity as to fact. Thus it isimpossible to make out from M. Magne whether Hortense, in her last days, actually married the cousin with whom she had been intimate in youth, ormerely lived with him. 

[217] By M. H. E. Chatenet, Paris, 1911. 

[218] There is a little in the verse, most of which belongs to the"flying" kind so common in the century. 

[219] _V. Inf. _ upon it. 

[220] His own admirable introduction to Perrault in the Clarendon Pressseries will, as far as our subject is directly concerned, supplywhatever a reader, within reason further curious, can want: and hiswell-known rainbow series of Fairy Books will give infiniteillustration. 

[221] The longest of all, in the useful collection referred to in thetext, are the _Oiseau Bleu_ and the charming _Biche au Bois_, each ofwhich runs to nearly sixty pages. But both, though very agreeable, aredistinctly "sophisticated, " and for that very reason useful as gangways, as it were, from the simpler fairy tale to the complete novel. 

[222] Enchanters, ogres, etc. "count" as fairies. 

[223] Apuleius, who has a good deal of the "fairy" element in him, wasnaturally drawn upon in this group. The _Psyche_ indebtedness reappears, with frank acknowledgment, in _Serpentin Vert_. 

[224] If Perrault really wrote this, the Muses, rewarding him elsewherefor the good things he said in "The Quarrel, " must have punished himhere for the silly ones. It has, in fact, most of the faults which_neo_-classicism attributed to its opposite. 

[225] For a spoiling of this delightful story _v. Inf. _ on the_Cabinet_. 

[226] Its full title, "ou Collection Choisie des C. Des F. _et autresContes Merveilleux_, " should in justice be remembered, when one feelsinclined to grumble at some of the contents. 

[227] This indeed was the case, in one or other kind of longer fictionwriting, with most of the authors to be mentioned. The total of this inthe French eighteenth century was enormous. 

[228] She is even preceded by a Mme. De Murat, a friend of Mme. DeParabère, but a respectable fairy-tale writer. It does not seemnecessary, according to the plan of this book, to give many particularsabout these writers; for it is their writings, not themselves, that oursubject regards. The curious may be referred to Walckenaer on the FairyTale in general, and Honoré Bonhomme on the _Cabinet_ in particular, aswell as (_v. Inf. _) to the thirty-seventh volume of the collectionitself. 

[229] There is sometimes alliance and sometimes jealousy on thissubject. In one tale the "Comte de Gabalis" is solemnly "had up, " tried, and condemned as an impostor. 

[230] _Ricdin-Ricdon_, one of those which pass between Coeur de Lion andBlondel, is of the same kind, is also good, and is longer. 

[231] She seems, however (see vol. 37 as above), to have been a realperson. 

[232] The would-be anonymous compiler (he was really Gueulette, on whom_v. Inf. _) of this and the other collections now to be noticed, whenacknowledging his sufficiently evident _supercherie_ and some of hisindebtednesses (_e. G. _ to Straparola), defends this on Edgeworthianprinciples. But though it is quite true that a healthy curiosity as tosuch things may be aroused by tales, it should be left to satisfyitself, not forestalled and spoilt and stunted by immediate information. 

[233] The once very popular _Tales of the Genii_ (_v. Inf. _) which areoften referred to by Scott and other men of his generation, seem to havedropped out of notice comparatively. We shall meet them here in French. 

[234] The late Mr. Henley was at one time much interested in this point, and consulted me about it. But I could tell him nothing; and I do notknow whether he ever satisfied himself on the subject. Lesage _is_ said(though I am not sure that the evidence goes beyond _on dit_) to haverevised the work of Pétis de La Croix in the _Days_; and some of his owncertainly corresponds to it. 

[235] Or, as it was once put, with easy epigram, when the artificialfairy tale is not dreadfully improper it is apt to be dreadfully proper. 

[236] Nothing suits the entire group better than the reply of theferocious and sleepless but not unintelligent Sultan Hudgiadge, in the_Nouveaux Contes Orientaux_, when his little benefactress Moradbak saysthat she will have the honour to-morrow of telling him a _histoireMongole_. "Le pays n'y fait rien, " says he. And it doesn't. 

[237] All of them, be it remembered, the work of Gueulette (_v. Inf. _). 

[238] The recently recovered "episodes" of this are rather more like the_Cabinet_ stories than _Vathek_ itself; and perhaps a sense of this mayhave been part of the reason why Beckford never published them. 

[239] He came to ask, or rather demand, Zibeline's hand for his master:and the fairy made his magnificence appear rags and rubbish. 

[240] Mr. Toots's "I'm a-a-fraid you must have got very wet. " WhenCourtebotte returns from his expedition, across six months of snow, tothe Ice Mountain on the top of which rests Zibeline's heart, "manythousand persons" ask him, "_Vous avez donc eu bien froid?_"

[241] She is also said to have been a "love-child" of no less a fatherthan Prince Eugene. 

[242] Anybody who is curious as to this should look up the matter, asmay be done most conveniently in an _excursus_ of Napier's edition, where my "friend of" [more than] "forty years, " the late Mr. MowbrayMorris, in a note to his own admirable one-volume "Globe" issue, thoughtthat Macaulay was "proved to be absolutely right. " Morris, though hispublished and signed writings were few, and though he pushed to its veryfurthest the hatred of personal advertisement natural to most English"_gentlemen_ of the press, " was a man of the world and of letters inmost unusual combination; of a true Augustan taste both in criticism andin composition; of wit and of _savoir vivre_ such as few possess. But, like all men who are good for anything, he had some crazes: and one ofthem was Macaulay. I own that I do not think all the honours were on T. B. M. 's side in this mellay: but this is not the place to reason out thematter. What is quite certain is that in this long-winded and mostlytrivial performance there is a great deal of intended, or at leastsuggested, political satire. But Johnson, though he might well thinklittle of _Titi_, need not have despised the whole _Cabinet_ (or as hecalls it, perhaps using the real title of another issue, _Bibliothèque_), and would not on another occasion. Indeed thediary-notes in which the thing occurs are too much in shorthand to betrustworthy texts. 

[243] Pierre François Godard de Beauchamps seems to have been anotherfair example of the half-scholarly bookmakers of the eighteenth century. He wrote a few light plays and some serious _Recherches sur les Théâtresde France_ which are said to have merit. He translated the late andcoxcombical but not uninteresting Greek prose romance of _Hysminias andHysmine_, as well as that painful verse-novel, the _Rhodanthe andDosicles_ of Theodoras Prodromus: and he composed, under a pseudonym, ofcourse, a naughty _Histoire du Prince Apprius_ to match his good_Funestine_. The contrasted ways and works of such bookmakers at varioustimes would make a not uninteresting essay of the Hayward type. 

[244] "Engageant, " "Adresse, " "Parlepeu, " etc. The _Avertissement del'Auteur_ is possibly a joke, but more probably an awkward and miss-fire_supercherie_ revealing the usual ignorance of the time as to mattersmediaeval. "Alienore" (though it would be better without the final _e_)is a pretty as well as historic form of one of the most beautiful andprotean of girl's names: but how did her father, a "seigneur _anglais_, "come to be called "Rivalon Murmasson"? And did they know much aboutArabia Felix in Brittany when "Daniel Dremruz" reigned there betweenA. D. 680 and 720? Gueulette himself was a barrister andProcureur-Substitut at the Châtelet. He seems to have imitated Hamilton, to whom the editors of the Cabinet rather idly think him "equal, "though, inconsistently, they admit that Hamilton "stands alone" andGueulette does not. On the other hand, they charge Voltaire withactually "tracing" over Gueulette. ("_Zadig_ est calqué sur les _SoiréesBretonnes_. ") This is again an exaggeration; but Gueulette had, undoubtedly, a pleasant and exceedingly fertile fancy, and a good knackof narrative. 

[245] The best perhaps is of a certain peppery Breton, Saint-Foix, whowas successively a mousquetaire, a lieutenant of cavalry, aide-de-campto "Broglie the War-god, " and a long-lived _littérateur_ in Paris. M. DeSaint-Foix picked a quarrel in the _foyer_ of the opera with an unknowncountry gentleman, as it seemed, and "gave him a rendezvous. " But theother party replied coolly that it "was his custom" to be called on ifpeople had business with him, and gave his address. Saint-Foix goes nextmorning, and is received with the utmost politeness and asked tobreakfast. "That's not the question, " says the indignant Breton. "Let usgo out. " "I never go out without breakfasting; _it is my custom_, " saysthe provincial, and does as he says, politely repeating invitations fromtime to time to his fretting adversary. At last they do go out, toSaint-Foix's great relief; but they pass a _café_, and it is once morethe stranger's sacred custom to play a game of chess or draughts afterbreakfast. The same thing happens with a "turn" in the Tuileries, atwhich Saint-Foix does not fume quite so much, because it is on the wayto the Champs Élysées, where fighting is possible. The "turn" achieved, he himself proposes to adjourn there. "What for?" says the strangerinnocently. "What _for_? A pretty question _pardieu_! To fight, ofcourse! Have you forgotten it?" "_Fight!_ Why, sir, what are youthinking of? What would people say of me? A magistrate, a treasurer ofFrance, put sword in hand? They would take us for a couple of fools. "Which argument being unanswerable, according to the etiquette of thetime, Saint-Foix leaves the dignitary--who himself takes good care totell the story. It must be remembered--first that no actual _challenge_had passed, merely an ambiguous demand for addresses; secondly, that thetreasurer, as the superior by far in rank, had a right to supposehimself known to his inferiors; and thirdly, that to challenge a"magistrate" was in France equivalent to being, in the words of alampoon quoted by Macaulay, "'Gainst ladies and bishops excessivelyvaliant" in England. 

[246] Although there is a good deal of merit in some of these tales, none of them approaches the charming _Diable Amoureux_ which Cazotteproduced in 1772, twenty years before his famous and tragical deathafter once escaping the Revolutionary fangs. This little story, which isat least as much of a fairy tale as many things "cabinetted, " would benearly perfect if Cazotte had not unluckily botched it with a doubleending, neither of the actual closes being quite satisfactory. If, inone of them, he had had the pluck to stop at the outcry of the succubusBiondetta when she has at last attained her object, "Je suis le diable! mon cher Alvare, je suis le diable!"

and let the rest be "wrop in mystery, " it would probably have been thebest way. But the bulk of the book is beyond improvement: and there is afluid grace about the autobiographical _récit_ which is very rareindeed, at least in French, except in the unfortunate Gérard de Nerval, who was akin to Cazotte in many ways, and actually edited him. A verycarping critic may object to the not obvious nor afterwards explainedinterposition of a pretty little spaniel between the original diabolicavatar of the hideous camel's head and the subsequent incarnation of thebeautiful Biondetto-Biondetta; especially as the later employment ofanother dog, to prevent Alvare's succumbing to temptation earlier thanhe did, is confusing. But this would be "seeking a knot in a reed. "Perhaps the greatest merit of the story, next to the pure tale-tellingcharm above noted, is the singular taste and skill with which Biondetta, except for her repugnance to the marriage ceremony, is prevented fromshowing the slightest diabolic character during her long cohabitationwith Alvare, and her very "comingnesses" are arranged so as to give theidea, not in the least of a temptress, but of an extra-innocent butquite natural _ingénue_. Monk Lewis, of course, knew Cazotte, but he hascoarsened his original woefully. It may perhaps be added that the firstillustrations, reproduced in Gérard's edition as curiosities, are suchin the highest degree. They are ushered with an ironic Preface: and theysometimes make one rub one's eyes and wonder whether Futurism and Cubismare not, like so many other things, merely recooked cabbage. 

CHAPTER IX

THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--II

_From "Francion" to "La Princesse de Clèves"_--_Anthony Hamilton_[247]

[Sidenote: The material of the chapter. ]

Justice has, it is hoped, been done to the great classes of fictitiouswork which, during the seventeenth century, made fiction, as such, popular with high and of low in France. But it is one of the not verynumerous safe generalisations or inductions which may be fished out fromthe wide and treacherous Syrtes of the history of literature, that it isnot as a rule from "classes" that the best work comes; and that, when itdoes so come, it generally represents a sort of outside and uncovenantedelement or constituent of the class. We have, unfortunately, lost theGreek epic, as a class; but we know enough about it, with its fewspecimens, such as Apollonius Rhodius earlier and Nonnus later, to warnus that, if we had more, we should find Homer not merely better, butdifferent, and this though probably every practitioner was at leasttrying to imitate or surpass Homer. Dante stands in no class at all, nordoes Milton, nor does Shelley; and though Shakespeare indulgentlypermits himself to be classed as an "Elizabethan dramatist, " whatstrikes true critics most is again hardly more his "betterness" thanhis difference. The very astonishment with which we sometimes say ofWebster, Dekker, Middleton, that they come near Shakespeare, is not due, as foolish people say, to any only less foolish idolatry, but to a truecritical surprise at the approximation of things usually so verydistinct. 

The examples in higher forms of literature just chosen for comparison donot, of course, show any wish in the chooser to even any Frenchseventeenth-century novelist with Homer or Shakespeare, with Dante orMilton or Shelley. But the work noticed in the last chapter certainlyincludes nothing of strong idiosyncrasy. In other books scattered, inpoint of time of production, over great part of the period, suchidiosyncrasy is to be found, though in very various measure. Now, idiosyncrasy is, if not the only difference or property, the inseparableaccident of all great literature, and it may exist where literature isnot exactly great. Moreover, like other abysses, it calls to, and callsinto existence, yet more abysses of its own kind or not-kind; whileschool- and class-work, however good, can never produce anything butmore class- and school-work, except by exciting the always dubious andsometimes very dangerous desire "to be different. " The instances of thisidiosyncrasy with which we shall now deal are the _Francion_ of CharlesSorel; the _Roman Comique_ of Paul Scarron; the _Roman Bourgeois_ ofAntoine Furetière; the _Voyages_, as they are commonly called (thoughthe proper title is different[248]), _à la Lune et au Soleil_, of Cyranode Bergerac, and the _Princesse de Clèves_ of Mme. De La Fayette; whilelast of all will come the remarkable figure of Anthony Hamilton, less"single-speech"[249] than the others and than his namesake later, butpossessor of greater genius than any. 

[Sidenote: Sorel and _Francion_. ]

The present writer has long ago been found fault with for paying toomuch attention to _Francion_, and he may possibly (if any one thinks itworth while) be found fault with again for placing it here. But he doesso from no mere childish desire to persist in some rebuked naughtiness, but from a sincere belief in the possession by the book of somehistorical importance. Any one who, on Arnoldian principles, declines totake the historic estimate into account at all, is, on those principles, justified in neglecting it altogether; whether, on the other hand, suchneglect does not justify a suspicion of the soundness of the principlesthemselves, is another question. Charles Sorel, historiographer ofFrance, was a very voluminous and usually a very dull writer. Hisvoluminousness, though beside the enormous compositions of the lastchapter it is but a small thing, is not absent from _Francion_, nor ishis dulness. Probably few people have read the book through, and I amnot going to recommend anybody to do so. But the author does to someextent deserve the cruel praise of being "dull in a new way" (or atleast of being evidently in quest of a new way to be dull in), asJohnson wrongfully said of Gray. His book is not a direct imitation ofany one thing, though an attempt to adapt the Spanish picaresque styleto French realities and fantasies is obvious enough, as it is likewisein Scarron and others. But this is mixed with all sorts of otheradumbrations, if not wholly original, yet showing that quest oforiginality which has been commended. It is an almost impossible book toanalyse, either in short or long measure. The hero wanders about France, and has all sorts of adventures, the recounting of which is not withouttouches of Rabelais, of the _Moyen de Parvenir_, perhaps of the risingfancies about the occult, which generated Rosicrucianism and "astralspirits" and the rest of it--a whole farrago, in short, of mattersdecent and indecent, congruous seldom and incongruous often. It is notlike Sterne, because it is dull, and at the same time quasi-romantic;while "sensibility" had not come in, though we shall see it do so withinthe limits of this chapter. It has a resemblance, though not very muchof one, to the rather later work of Cyrano. But it is most like twoEnglish novels of far higher merit which were not to appear for acentury or a century and a half--Amory's _John Buncle_ and Graves's_Spiritual Quixote_. As it is well to mention things together withoutthe danger of misleading those who run as they read, and mind therunning rather than the reading, let me observe that the liveliest partof _Francion_ is duller than the dullest of _Buncle_, and duller stillthan the least lively thing in Graves. The points of resemblance are inpillar-to-postness, in the endeavour (here almost entirely a failure, but still an endeavour) to combine fancy with realism, and above all infreedom from following the rules of any "school. " Realism in the goodsense and originality were the two things that the novel had to achieve. Sorel missed the first and only achieved a sort of "distanced" positionin the second. But he tried--or groped--for both. 

[Sidenote: The _Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_. ]

I am bound to say that in Sorel's other chief works of fiction, the_Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_, I find the same curious mixture ofqualities which have made me more lenient than most critics to_Francion_. And I do not think it unfair to add that they also inclineme still more to think that there was perhaps a little of the _Pereantqui ante nos_ feeling in Furetière's attack (_v. Inf. _ p. 288). Neithercould possibly be called by any sane judge a good book, and both displaythe uncritical character, [250] the "pillar-to-postness, " themarine-store and almost rubbish-heap promiscuity, of the more famousbook. Like it, they are much too big. [251] But the _Berger Extravagant_, in applying (very early) the _Don Quixote_ method, as far as Sorel couldmanage it, to the _Astrée_, is sometimes amusing and by no means alwaysunjust. _Polyandre_ is, in part, by no means unlike an awkward firstdraft of a _Roman Bourgeois_. The scene in the former, where Lysis--theExtravagant Shepherd and the Don Quixote of the piece, --making anall-night sitting over a poem in honour of his mistress Charité (theDulcinea), disturbs the unfortunate Clarimond--a sort of "bachelor, " thesensible man of the book, and a would-be reformer of Lysis--by constantdemands for a rhyme[252] or an epithet, is not bad. The victim revengeshimself by giving the most ludicrous words he can think of, which Lysisduly works in, and at last allows Clarimond to go to sleep. But he isquickly waked by the poet running about and shouting, "I've got it! I'vefound it. The finest _reprise_ [= refrain] ever made!" And in_Polyandre_ there is a sentence (not the only one by many) which notonly gives a _point de repère_ of an interesting kind in itself, butmarks the beginning of the "_farrago libelli_ moderni": "Ils ont desmets qu'ils nomment des _bisques_; je doute si c'est potage oufricassée. "

Here we have (1) Evidence that Sorel was a man of observation, and tookan interest in really interesting things. 

(2) A date for the appearance, or the coming into fashion, of animportant dish. 

(3) An instance of the furnishing of fiction with something more thanconventional adventure on the one hand, and conventional harangues ordescriptions on the other. 

(4) An interesting literary parallel; for here is the libelled"Charroselles" (_v. Inf. _ p. 288) two centuries beforehand, feeling adoubt, exactly similar to Thackeray's, as to whether a _bouillabaisse_should be called soup or broth, brew or stew. Those who understand theart and pastime of "book-fishing" will not go away with empty basketsfrom either of these neglected ponds. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Scarron and the _Roman Comique_. ]

Almost as different a person as can possibly be conceived from Sorel wasPaul Scarron, Abbé, "Invalid to the Queen, " husband of the future Mme. De Maintenon, author of burlesques which did him no particular honour, of plays which, if not bad, were never first rate, of witticismsinnumerable, most of which have perished, and of other things, besidesbeing a hero of some facts and more legends; but author also of one bookin our own subject of much intrinsic and more historical interest, andoriginal also of passages in later books more interesting still to allgood wits. Not a lucky man in life (except for the possession of alively wit and an imperturbable temper), he was never rich, and hesuffered long and terribly from disease--one of the main subjects of hislegend, but, after all discussions and carpings, looking most likerheumatoid arthritis, one of the most painful and incurable of ailments. But Scarron was, and has been since, by no means unlucky in literature. He had, though of course not an unvaried, a great popularity in atroubled and unscrupulous time: and long after his death two of theforemost novelists of his country selected him for honourable treatmentof curiously different kinds. Somehow or other the introduction of menof letters of old time into modern books has not been usually veryfortunate, except in the hands of Thackeray and a very few more. Amongthese latter instances may certainly be ranked the pleasant picture ofScarron's house, and of the attention paid to him by the as yetunmarried Françoise d'Aubigné, in Dumas's _Vingt Ans Après_. Nor is iteasy to think of any literary following that, while no doubt bettering, abstains so completely from robbing, insulting, or obscuring its modelas does Gautier's _Capitaine Fracasse_. 

It is, however, with this pleasant book itself that we are concerned. Here again, of course, the picaresque model comes in, and there is agood deal of directly borrowed matter. But a much greater talent, andespecially a much more acute and critical wit than Sorel's, brings tothat scheme the practical-artistic French gift, the application of whichto the novel is, in fact, the subject of this whole chapter. Notunkindly judges have, it is true, pronounced it not very amusing; and anuncritical comparer may find it injured by Gautier's book. The oldernovel has, indeed, nothing of the magnificent style of the overture ofthis latter. _Le Château de la Misère_ is one of the finest things ofthe kind in French; for exciting incident there is no better duel inliterature than that of Sigognac and Lampourde; and the delicatepastel-like costumes and manners and love-making of Gautier's longestand most ambitious romance are not to be expected in the rough"rhyparography"[253] of the seventeenth century. But in itself the_Roman Comique_ is no small performance, and historically it is almostgreat. We have in it, indeed, got entirely out of the pure romance; butwe have also got out of the _fatrasie_--the mingle-mangle of story, jargon, nonsense, and what not, --out of the mere tale of adventure, outof the mere tale of _grivoiserie_. We have borrowed the comicdramatist's mirror--the "Muses' Looking-glass"--and are holding it up tonature without the intervention of the conventionalities of the stage. The company to which we are introduced is, no doubt, pursuing a somewhatartificial vocation; but it is pursuing it in the way of real life, asmany live men and women have pursued it. The mask itself may be of theirtrade and class; but it is taken off them, and they are not merely_personae_, they are persons. 

To re-read the _Roman Comique_ just after reading the _Grand Cyrus_ cameinto the present plan partly by design and partly by accident; but I hadnot fully anticipated the advantage of doing so. The contrast of thetwo, and the general relation between them could, indeed, escape no one;but an interval of a great many years since the last reading ofScarron's work had not unnaturally caused forgetfulness of thedeliberate and minute manner in which he himself points that contrast, and even now and then satirises the _Cyrus_ by name. The system of inset_Histoires_, [254] beginning with the well-told if borrowed story of DonCarlos of Aragon and his "Invisible Mistress, " is, indeed, hardly acontrast except in point of the respective lengths of the digressions, nor does it seem to be meant as a parody. It has been said that this"inset" system, whether borrowed from the episodes of the ancients ordescended from the constant divagations of the mediaeval romances, isvery old, and proved itself uncommonly tenacious of life. But thedifference between the opening of the two books can hardly have beenother than intentional on the part of the later writer; and it is a verymemorable one, showing nothing less than the difference between romanceand novel, between academic generalities and "realist" particularism, and between not a few other pairs of opposites. It has been fullyallowed that the overture of the _Grand Cyrus_ is by no means devoid ofaction, even of bustle, and that it is well done of its kind. But thatkind is strongly marked in the very fact that there is a sort offaintness in it. The burning of Sinope, the distant vessel, thestreet-fighting that follows, are what may be called "cartoonish"--largewashes of pale colour. The talk, such as there is, is stage-talk of thepseudo-grand style. It is curious that Scarron himself speaks of the_Cyrus_ as being the most "furnitured" romance, _le roman le plusmeublé_, that he knows. To a modern eye the interiors are anything butdistinct, despite the elaborate _ecphrases_, some of which have beenquoted. [255]

Now turn to the opening passage of the _Roman Comique_, which strikesthe new note most sharply. It is rather well known, probably even tosome who have not read the original or Tom Brown's congenial translationof it; for it has been largely laid under contribution by theinnumerable writers about a much greater person than Scarron, Molière. The experiences of the _Illustre Théâtre_ were a little later, andapparently not so sordid as those of the company of which Scarronconstituted himself historiographer; but they cannot have been verydissimilar in general kind, and many of the characteristics, such as theassumption now of fantastic names, "Le Destin, " "La Rancune, " etc. , nowof rococo-romantic ones, such as "Mademoiselle de l'Étoile, " remainedlong unaltered. But perhaps a fresh translation may be attempted, andthe attempt permitted. For though the piece, of course, has recentSpanish and even older Italian examples of a kind, still the change inwhat may be called "particular universality" is remarkable. 

 [Sidenote: The opening scene of this. ]

 The sun had finished more than half his course, and his chariot, having reached the slope of the world, was running quicker than he wished. If his horses had chosen to avail themselves of the drop of the road, they would have got through what remained of the day in less than half or quarter of an hour; but instead of pulling at full strength, they merely amused themselves by curvetting, as they drew in a salt air, which told them the sea, wherein men say their master goes to bed every night, was close at hand. To speak more like a man of this world, and more intelligibly, it was between five and six o'clock, when a cart came into the market-place of Le Mans. This cart was drawn by four very lean oxen, with, for leader, a brood-mare, whose foal scampered about round the cart, like a silly little thing as it was. The cart was full of boxes and trunks, and of great bundles of painted canvas, which made a sort of pyramid, on the top of which appeared a damsel, dressed partly as for town, partly for country. By the side of the cart walked a young man, as ill-dressed as he was good-looking. He had on his face a great patch, which covered one eye and half his cheek, and he carried a large fowling-piece on his shoulder. With this he had slain divers magpies, jays, and crows; and they made a sort of bandoleer round him, from the bottom whereof hung a pullet and a gosling, looking very like the result of a plundering expedition. Instead of a hat he had only a night-cap, with garters of divers colours twisted round it, which headgear looked like a very unfinished sketch of a turban. His coat was a jacket of grey stuff, girt with a strap, which served also as a sword-belt, the sword being so long that it wanted a fork to draw it neatly for use. He wore breeches trussed, with stockings attached to them, as actors do when they play an ancient hero; and he had, instead of shoes, buskins of a classical pattern, muddied up to the ankle. An old man, more ordinarily but still very ill-dressed, walked beside him. He carried on his shoulders a bass-viol, and as he stooped a little in walking, one might, at a distance, have taken him for a large tortoise walking on its hind legs. Some critic may perhaps murmur at this comparison; but I am speaking of the big tortoises they have in the Indies, and besides I use it at my own risk. Let us return to our caravan. 

 It passed in front of the tennis-court called the Doe, at the door of which were gathered a number of the topping citizens of the town. The novel appearance of the conveyance and team, and the noise of the mob who had gathered round the cart, induced these honourable burgomasters to cast an eye upon the strangers; and among others a Deputy-Provost named La Rappinière came up, accosted them, and, with the authority of a magistrate, asked who they were. The young man of whom I have just spoken replied, and without touching his turban (inasmuch as with one of his hands he held his gun and with the other the hilt of his sword, lest it should get between his legs) told the Provost that they were French by birth, actors by profession, that his stage-name was Le Destin, that of his old comrade La Rancune, and that of the lady who was perched like a hen on the top of their baggage, La Caverne. This odd name made some of the company laugh; whereat the young actor added that it ought not to seem stranger to men with their wits about them than "La Montagne, " "La Vallée, " "La Rose, " or "L'Épine. " The talk was interrupted by certain sounds of blows and oaths which were heard from the front of the cart. It was the tennis-court attendant, who had struck the carter without warning, because the oxen and the mare were making too free with a heap of hay which lay before the door. The row was stopped, and the mistress of the court, who was fonder of plays than of sermons or vespers, gave leave, with a generosity unheard of in her kind, to the carter to bait his beasts to their fill. He accepted her offer, and, while the beasts ate, the author rested for a time, and set to work to think what he should say in the next chapter. 

The sally in the last sentence, with the other about the tortoise, andthe mock solemnity of the opening, illustrate two specialcharacteristics, which will be noticed below, and which may be taken ineach case as a sort of revulsion from, or parody of, the solemn ways ofthe regular romance. There may be even a special reference to the"_Phébus_" the technical name or nickname of the "high language" inthese repeated burlesque introductions of the sun. And the almost pertflings and cabrioles of the narrator form a still more obvious anddirect Declaration of Independence. But these are mere details, almosttrivial compared with the striking contrast of the whole presentationand _faire_ of the piece, when taken together with most of the subjectsof the last chapter. 

It may require a little, but it should not require much, knowledge ofliterary history to see how modern this is; it should surely requirenone to see how vivid it is--how the sharpness of an etching and thecolour of a bold picture take the place of the shadowy "academies" ofprevious French writers. [256] There may be a very little exaggerationeven here--in other parts of the book there is certainly some--andScarron never could forget his tendency to that form of exaggerationwhich is called burlesque. But the stuff and substance of the piece isreality. 

An important item of the same change is to be found in the management ofthe insets, or some of them. One of the longest and most important isthe autobiographical history of Le Destin or Destin (the article isoften dropped), the tall young man with the patch on his face. But thisis not thrust bodily into the other body of the story, _Cyrus_-fashion;it is alternated with the passages of that story itself, and that in acomparatively natural manner--night or some startling accidentinterrupting it; while how even courtiers could find breath to tell, orpatience and time to hear, some of the interludes of the _Cyrus_ and itsfellows is altogether past comprehension. There is some coarseness inScarron--he would not be a comic writer of the seventeenth century ifthere were none. Not very long after the beginning the tale isinterrupted by a long account of an unseemly practical joke which surelycould amuse no mortal after a certain stage of schoolboyhood. But thereis little or no positive indecency: the book contrasts not moreremarkably with the Aristophanic indulgence of the sixteenth centurythan with the sniggering suggestiveness of the eighteenth. Some remnantsof the Heroic convention (which, after all, did to a great extentreflect the actual manners of the time) remain, such as the obligatory"compliment. " Le Destin is ready to hang himself because, at his firstmeeting with the beautiful Léonore, his shyness prevents his getting aproper "compliment" out. On the other hand, the demand for _esprit_, which was confined in the Heroics to a few privileged characters, nowbecomes almost universal. There are tricks, but fairly noveltricks--affectations like "I don't know what they did next" and theothers noted above: while the famous rhetorical beginnings of chaptersappear not only at the very outset, but at the opening of the secondvolume, "Le Soleil donnant aplomb sur les antipodes, "--things which acentury later Fielding, and two centuries later Dickens, did not disdainto imitate. 

Scarron did not live to finish the book, and the third part or volume, which was tinkered--still more the _Suite_, which was added--by somebodyelse, are very inferior. The somewhat unfavourable opinions referred toabove may be partly based on the undoubted fact that the story is ratherformless; that its most important machinery is dependent, after all, onthe old _rapt_ or abduction, the heroines of which are Mademoiselle del'Étoile (nominally Le Destin's sister, really his love, and at the endhis wife) and Angélique, daughter of La Caverne, who is provided with alover and husband of 12, 000 (_livres_) a year in the person of Léandre, one of the stock theatrical names, professedly "valet" to Le Destin, butreally a country gentleman's son. Thus everybody is somebody else, againin the old way. Another, and to some tastes a more serious, blot may befound in the everlasting practical jokes of the knock-about kind, inflicted on the unfortunate Ragotin, a sort of amateur member of thetroupe. But again these "_low_ jinks" were an obvious reaction from(just as the ceremonies were followings of) the solemnity of theHeroics; and they continued to be popular for nearly two hundred years, as English readers full well do know. Nevertheless these defects merelyaccompany--they do not mar or still less destroy--the strikingcharacteristics of progress which appear with them, and which, withoutany elaborate abstract of the book, have been set forth somewhatcarefully in the preceding pages. Above all, there is a real andconsiderable attempt at character, a trifle _typy_ and stagy perhaps, but still aiming at something better; and the older _nouvelle_-fashionis not merely drawn upon, but improved upon, for curious anecdotes, striking situations, effective names. Under the latter heads it isnoteworthy that Gautier simply "lifted" the name Sigognac from Scarron, though he attached it to a very different personage; and that Dumas got, from the same source, the startling incident of Aramis suddenlydescending on the crupper of D'Artagnan's horse. The jokes may, ofcourse, amuse or not different persons, and even different moods of thesame person; the practical ones, as has been hinted, may pall, even whenthey are not merely vulgar. Practical joking had a long hold ofliterature, as of life; and it would be sanguine to think that it isdead. Izaak Walton, a curious contemporary--"disparate, " as the Frenchsay, of Scarron, would not quite have liked the quarrel between thedying inn-keeper, who insists on being buried in his oldest sheet, fullof holes and stains, and his wife, who asks him, from a sense rather ofdecency than of affection, how he can possibly think of appearing thusclad in the Valley of Jehoshaphat? But there is something in the bookfor many tastes, and a good deal more for the student of the history ofthe novel. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Furetière and the _Roman Bourgeois_. ]

The couplet-contrast of the Comic Romance of Scarron and the "Bourgeois"Romance of Furetière[257] is one of the most curious among the minorphenomena of literary history; but it repeats itself in that history sooften that it becomes, by accumulation, hardly minor. There is a vastdifference between Furetière and Miss Austen, and a still vaster onebetween Scarron and Scott; but the two French books stand to each other, on however much lower a step of the stair, very much as _Waverley_stands to _Pride and Prejudice_, and they carry on a common revulsionagainst their forerunners and a common quest for newer and betterdevelopments. The _Roman Bourgeois_, indeed, is more definitely, moreexplicitly, and in further ways of exodus, a departure from the subjectsand treatment of most of the books noticed in the last chapter. It istrue that its author attributes to the reading of the regular romancesthe conversion of his pretty idiot Javotte from a mere idiot tosomething that can, at any rate, hold her own in conversation, and takean interest in life. [258] But he also adds the consequence of herelopement, without apparently any prospect of marriage, but with anaccomplished gentleman who has helped her to _esprit_ by introducing herto those very same romances; and he has numerous distinct girds at hispredecessors, including one at the multiplied abductions of Mandaneherself. Moreover his inset tale _L'Amour Égaré_ (itself something of aparody), which contains most of the "key"-matter, includes a satiricalaccount (not uncomplimentary to her intellectual, but exceedingly so toher physical characteristics) of "Sapho" herself. For after declining togive a full description of poor Madeleine, for fear of disgusting hisreaders, he tells us, in mentioning the extravagant complimentsaddressed to her in verse, that she only resembled the Sun in having acomplexion yellowed by jaundice; the Moon in being freckled; and theDawn in having a red tip to her nose!

But this last ill-mannered particularity illustrates the character, andin its way the value, of the whole book. A romance, or indeed in theproper sense a story--that is to say, _one_ story, --it certainly isnot: the author admits the fact frankly, not to say boisterously, andhis title seems to have been definitely suggested by Scarron's. The twoparts have absolutely no connection with one another, except that asingle personage, who has played a very subordinate part in the first, plays a prominent but entirely different one in the second. This secondis wholly occupied by legal matters (Furetière had been "bred to thelaw"), and the humours and amours of a certain female litigant, Collantine, to whom Racine and Wycherley owe something, with the unluckyauthor "Charroselles"[259] and a subordinate judge, Belastre, who hasbeen pitch-forked by interest into a place which he finally loses by hisutter incapacity and misconduct. To understand it requires even moreknowledge of old French law terms generally than parts of Balzac do ofspecially commercial and financial lingo. 

This "specialising" of the novel is perhaps of more importance thaninterest; but interest itself may be found in the First Part, wherethere is, if not much, rather more of a story, some positivecharacter-drawing, a fair amount of smart phrase, and a great deal oflively painting of manners. There is still a good deal of law, to whichprofession most of the male characters belong, but there are plentifulcompensations. 

As far as there is any real story or history, it is that of two girls, both of the legal _bourgeoisie_ by rank. The prettier, Javotte, has beenbriefly described above. She is the daughter of a rich attorney, andhas, before her emancipation and elopement, two suitors, bothadvocates; the one, Nicodème, young, handsome, well dressed, and a greatflirt, but feather-headed; the other, Bedout, a middle-aged sloven, collector, and at the same time miser, but very well off. The secondheroine, Lucrèce, is also handsome, though rather less so than Javotte:but she has plenty of wits. She is, however, in an unfortunate position, being an orphan with no fortune, and living with an uncle and aunt, thelatter of whom has a passion for gaming, and keeps open house for it, sothat Lucrèce sees rather undesirable society. Despite her wits, shefalls a victim to a rascally marquis, who first gives her a writtenpromise of marriage, and afterwards, by one of the dirtiest tricks everimagined by a novelist--a trick which, strange to say, the presentwriter does not remember to have seen in any other book, obvious thoughit is--steals it. [260] Fortunately for her, Nicodème, who is of heracquaintance, and a general lover, has also given her, though not inearnest and for no serious "consideration, " a similar promise: and bythe help of a busybody legal friend she gets 2000 crowns out of him toprevent an action for breach. And, finally, Bedout, after displacing theunlucky Nicodème (thus left doubly in the cold), and being himselfthrown over by Javotte's elopement, takes to wife, being induced to doso by a cousin, Lucrèce herself, in blissful ignorance (which is neverremoved) of her past. The cousin, Laurence, has also been the link ofthese parts of the tale with an episode of _précieuse_ society in whichthe above-mentioned inset is told; a fourth feminine character, Hyppolyte (_vice_ Philipote), of some individuality, is introduced;Javotte makes a greater fool of herself than ever; and her futureseducer, Pancrace, makes his appearance. 

Thus reduced to "argument" form, the story may seem even more modernthan it really is, and the censures, apologies, etc. , put forward abovemay appear rather unjust. But few people will continue to think soafter reading the book. The materials, especially with the "trimmings"to be mentioned presently, would have made a very good novel of thecompletest kind. But, once more, the time had not come, though Furetièrewas, however unconsciously, doing his best to bring it on. One fault, not quite so easy to define as to feel, is prominent, and continued tobe so in all the best novels, or parts of novels, till nearly the middleof the nineteenth century. There is far too much mere _narration_--thethings being not smartly brought before the mind's eye as _being_ done, and to the mind's ear as _being_ said, but recounted, sometimes not evenas present things, but as things that _have been_ said or done already. This gives a flatness, which is further increased by the habit of notbreaking up even the conversation into fresh paragraphs and lines, butrunning the whole on in solid page-blocks for several pages together. Yet even if this mechanical mistake were as mechanically redressed, [261]the original fault would remain and others would still appear. A scenebetween Javotte and Lucrèce, to give one instance only, would enliventhe book enormously; while, on the other hand, we could very well spareone of the few passages in which Nicodème is allowed to be more than thesubject of a _récit_, and which partakes of the knock-about character solong popular, the young man and Javotte bumping each other's foreheadsby an awkward slip in saluting, after which he first upsets a piece ofporcelain and then drags a mirror down upon himself. There is "action"enough here; while, on the other hand, the important and promisingsituations of the two promises to Lucrèce, and the stealing by theMarquis of his, are left in the flattest fashion of "recount. " But itwas very long indeed before novelists understood this matter, and aslate as Hope's famous _Anastasius_ the fault is present, apparently tothe author's knowledge, though he has not removed it. 

To a reader of the book who does not know, or care to pay attention to, the history of the matter, the opening of the _Roman Bourgeois_ may seemto promise something quite free, or at any rate much more free than isactually the case, from this fault. But, as we have seen, they generallytook some care of their openings, and Furetière availed himself of acustom possibly, to present readers, especially those not of the RomanChurch, possessing an air of oddity, and therefore of freshness, whichit certainly had not to those of his own day. This was the curiousfashion of _quête_ or collection at church--not by a commonplace verger, or by respectable churchwardens and sidesmen, but by the prettiest girlwhom the _curé_ could pitch upon, dressed in her best, and lavishingsmiles upon the congregation to induce them to give as lavishly, and toenable her to make a "record" amount. 

The original meeting of Nicodème and the fair Javotte takes place inthis wise, and enables the author to enlighten us further as to mattersquite proper for novel treatment. [262] The device of keeping gold andlarge silver pieces uppermost in the open "plate"; the counter-balancingmischief of covering them with a handful of copper; the licensed habit, a rather dangerous one surely, of taking "change" out of that plate, which enables the aspirant for the girl's favour to clear away theobnoxious _sous_ as change for a whole pistole--all this has a kind ofattraction for which you may search the more than myriad pages of_Artamène_ without finding it. The daughter of a citizen's family, inthe French seventeenth century, was kept with a strictness which perhapsexplains a good deal in the conduct of an Agnes or an Isabelle incomedy. She was almost always tied to her mother's apron-strings, andeven an accepted lover had to carry on his courtship under the verysuperfluous number of _six_ eyes at least. But the Church wasmisericordious. The custom of giving and receiving holy water could beimproved by the resources of amatory science; but this of the _quête_was, it would seem, still more full of opportunity. Apparently (perhapsbecause in these city parishes the church was always close by, and thewhole proceedings public) the fair _quêteuse_ was allowed to walk homealone; and in this instance Nicodème, having ground-baited with hispistole, is permitted to accompany Javotte Vollichon to her father'sdoor--her extreme beauty making up for the equally extreme silliness ofher replies to his observations. 

The possible objection that these things, fresh and interesting to us, were ordinary and banal to them, would be a rather shallow one. Thepoint is that, in previous fiction, circumstantial verisimilitude ofthis kind had hardly been tried at all. So it is with the incident ofNicodème sending a rabbit (supposed to be from his own estate, butreally from the market--a joke not peculiar to Paris, but speciallyfavoured there), or losing at bowls a capon, to old Vollichon, and onthe strength of each inviting himself to dinner; the fresh girds at theextraordinary and still not quite accountable plenty of marquises(Scarron, if I remember rightly, has the verb _se marquiser_); and thecontributory (or, as the ancients would have said, symbolic) dinners--asit were, picnics at home--of _bourgeois_ society at each other's houses, with not a few other things. A curious plan of a fashion-review, withpatterns for the benefit of ladies, is specially noticeable at a periodso early in the history of periodicals generally, and is one of the notfew points in which there is a certain resemblance between Furetière andDefoe. 

It is in this daring to be quotidian and contemporary that his claim toa position in the history of the novel mainly consists. Some might add athird audacity, that of being "middle-class. " Scarron had dealt withbarn-mummers and innkeepers and some mere riff-raff; but he had includednot a few nobles, and had indulged in fighting and other "noble"subjects. There is no fighting in Furetière, and his chief "noble"figure--the rascal who robbed Lucrèce of her virtue and her keys--isthe sole figure of his class, except Pancrace and the _précieuse_Angélique. This is at once a practical protest against the commoninterpretation and extension of Aristotle's prescription of"distinguished" subjects, and an unmistakable relinquishment of merepicaresque squalor. Above all, it points the way in practice, indirectlyperhaps but inevitably, to the selection of subjects that the authorreally _knows_, and that he can treat with the small vivifying detailsgiven by such knowledge, and by such knowledge alone. There is anadvance in character, an advance in "interior" description--theVollichon family circle, the banter and the gambling at Lucrèce's home, the humour of a _précieuse_ meeting, etc. In fact, whatever be thedefects[263] in the book, it may almost be called an advance all round. A specimen of this, as of other pioneer novels, may not be superfluous;it is the first conversation, after the collection, between Nicodème andJavotte. 

 [Sidenote: Nicodème takes Javotte home from church. ]

 This new kind of gallantry [_his removing the offensive copper coins as pretended "change" for his pistole_] was noticed by Javotte, who was privately pleased with it, and really thought herself under an obligation to him. Wherefore, on their leaving the church, she allowed him to accost her with a compliment which he had been meditating all the time he was waiting for her. This chance favoured him much, for Javotte never went out without her mother, who kept her in such a strait fashion of living that she never allowed her to speak to a man either abroad or at home. Had it not been so, he would have had easy access to her; for as she was a solicitor's daughter and he was an advocate, they were in relations of close affinity and sympathy--such as allow as prompt acquaintance as that of a servant-maid with a _valet-de-chambre_. [264]

 As soon as the service was over and he could join her, he said, as though with the most delicate attention, "Mademoiselle, as far as I can judge, you cannot have failed to be lucky in your collection, being so deserving and so beautiful. " "Alas! Sir, " replied Javotte in the most ingenuous fashion, "you must excuse me. I have just been counting it up with the Father Sacristan, and I have only made 65 livres 5 sous. Now, Mademoiselle Henriette made 90 livres a little time since; 'tis true she collected all through the forty hours'[265] service, and in a place where there was the finest Paradise ever seen. " "When I spoke, " said Nicodème, "of the luck of your collection, I was not only speaking of the charity you got for the poor and the church; I meant as well what you gained for yourself. " "Oh, Sir!" replied Javotte, "I assure you I gained nothing. There was not a farthing more than I told you; and besides, can you think I would butter my own bread[266] on such an occasion? 'Twould be a great sin even to think of it. " "I was not speaking, " said Nicodème, "of gold or silver. I only meant that nobody can have given you his alms without at the same time giving you his heart. " "I don't know, " quoth Javotte, "what you mean by hearts; I didn't see one in the plate. " "I meant, " added Nicodème, "that everybody before whom you stopped must, when he saw such beauty, have vowed to love and serve you, and have given you his heart. For my own part I could not possibly refuse you mine. " Javotte answered him naïvely, "Well! Sir, if you gave it me I must have replied at once, 'God give it back to you. '"[267] "What!" cried Nicodème rather angrily, "can you jest with me when I am so much in earnest, and treat in such a way the most passionate of all your lovers?" Whereat Javotte blushed as she answered, "Sir, pray be careful how you speak. I am an honest girl. I have no lovers. Mamma has expressly forbidden me to have any. " "I have said nothing to shock you, " replied Nicodème. "My passion for you is perfectly honest and pure, and its end is only a lawful suit. " "Then, Sir, " answered Javotte, "you want to marry me? You must ask my papa and mamma for that; for indeed I do not know what they are going to give me when I marry. " "We have not got quite so far yet, " said Nicodème. "I must be assured beforehand of your esteem, and know that you have admitted me to the honour of being your servant. " "Sir, " said Javotte, "I am quite satisfied with being my own servant, and I know how to do everything I want. "

Now this, of course, is not extraordinarily brilliant; but itis an early--a _very_ early--beginning of the right sort ofthing--conversation of a natural kind transferred from the boards to thebook, sketches of character, touches of manners and of life generally, individual, national, local. The cross-purposes of the almost idiotic_ingénue_ and the philandering gallant are already very well done; andif Javotte had been as clever as she was stupid she could hardly haveset forth the inwardness of French marriages more neatly than by theblunt reference to her _dot_, or have at the same moment more thoroughlydisconcerted Nicodème's regularly laid-out approaches for a flirtationin form, with only a possible, but in any case distant, termination inanything so prosaic as marriage. [268] The thing as a whole is, infamiliar phrase, "all right" in kind and in scheme. It requires someperfecting in detail; but it is in every reasonable sense perfectible. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Cyrano de Bergerac and his _Voyages_. ]

It has been possible to speak of one of the pioneer books mentioned inthis chapter with more allowance than most of the few critics andhistorians who have discussed or mentioned it have given it, and torecommend the others, not uncritically but quite cheerfully. Thissatisfactory state of things hardly persists when we reach what seemsperhaps, to those who have never read it, not the least considerable ofthe batch--the _Voyage à la Lune_ of Cyrano de Bergerac, as his name isin literary history, though he never called himself so. [269] Cyrano, though he does not seem to have had a very fortunate life, and diedyoung, yet was not all unblest, and has since been rather blessed thanbanned. Even in his own day Boileau spoke of him with what, in the"Bollevian" fashion, was comparative compliment--that is to say, he saidthat he did not think Cyrano so bad as somebody else. But longafterwards, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Gautier took him upamong his _Grotesques_ and embalmed him in the caressing andimmortalising amber of his marvellous style and treatment; while at theend of the same century one of the chief living poets and playwrights ofFrance made him the subject of a popular and really pathetic drama. His_Pedant Joué_ is not a stupid comedy, and had the honour of furnishingMolière with some of that "property" which he was, quite rightly, in thehabit of commandeering wherever he found it. _La Mort d'Agrippine_ is byno means the worst of that curious school of tragedy, so like and sounlike to that of our own "University wits, " which was partlyexemplified and then transcended by Corneille, and which some of us areabandoned enough to enjoy more as readers, though as critics we may findmore faults with it, than we find it possible to do with Racine. But the_Voyage à la Lune_, as well as, though rather less than, itscomplementary dealing with the Sun, has been praised with none of theseallowances. On the contrary, it has had ascribed to it the credit ofhaving furnished, not scraps of dialogue or incident, but a solidsuggestion to an even greater than Molière--to Swift; remarkableintellectual and scientific anticipations have been discovered in it, and in comparatively recent times versions of it have been published toserve as proofs that Cyrano was actually a father[270] of Frencheighteenth-century _philosophie_--a different thing, once more, fromphilosophy. 

Let us, however, use the utmost possible combination of criticalmagnanimity with critical justice: and allow these precious additions, which did not form part of the "classical" or "received" text of theauthor, not to count against him. _For_ him they can only count withthose who still think the puerile and now hopelessly stale jests aboutEnoch and Elijah and that sort of thing clever. But they can be eitherdisregarded or at least left out of the judgment, and it will yet remaintrue that the so-called _Voyage_ is a very disappointing book indeed. Asthis is one of the cases where the record of personal experience is notimpertinent, I may say that I first read it some forty years ago, whenfresh from reading about it and its author in "Théo's" prose; that Itherefore came to it with every prepossession in its favour, and stroveto like it, or to think I did. I read it again, if I remember rightly, about the time of the excitement about M. Rostand's _Cyrano_, and likedit less still; while when I re-read it carefully for this chapter, Iliked it least of all. There is, of course, a certain fancifulness aboutthe main idea of a man fastening bottles of dew round him in theexpectation (which is justified) that the sun's heat will convert thedew into steam and raise him from the ground. But the reader (it is notnecessary to pay him the bad compliment of explaining the reasons) willsoon see that the scheme is aesthetically awkward, if not positivelyludicrous, and scientifically absurd. Throwing off bottles to lower yourlevel has a superficial resemblance to the actual principles andpractice of ballooning; but in the same way it will not here "work" atall. 

This, however, would be a matter of no consequence whatever if theactual results of the experiment were amusing. Unfortunately they arenot. That the aeronaut's first miss of the Moon drops him into the newFrench colony of Canada may have given Cyrano some means of interestingpeople then; but, reversing the process noticed in the cases of Scarronand Furetière, it does not in the least do so now. We get nothing out ofit except some very uninteresting gibes at the Jesuits, and, connectedwith these, some equally uninteresting discussions whether the flight tothe Moon is possible or not. 

Still one hopes, like the child or fool of popular saying, for the Moonitself to atone for Canada, and tolerates disappointment till oneactually gets there. Alas! of all Utopias that have ever been Utopiated, Cyrano's is the most uninteresting, even when its negative want ofinterest does not change into something positively disagreeable. TheLunarians, though probably intended to be, are hardly at all a satire onus Earth-dwellers. They are bigger, and, as far as the male sex isconcerned, apparently more awkward and uglier; and their ideas inreligion, morals, taste, etc. , are a monotonously direct reversal of ourorthodoxies. There is at least one passage which the absence of all"naughty niceness" and the presence of the indescribably nasty make agood "try" for the acme of the disgusting. More of it is less but stillnasty; much of it is silly; all of it is dull. [271]

Nevertheless it is not quite omissible in such a history as this, or inany history of French literature. For it is a notable instance of thecoming and, indeed, actual invasion, by fiction, of regions which hadhitherto been the province of more serious kinds; and it is a link, notunimportant if not particularly meritorious, in the chain of theeccentric novel. Lucian of course had started it long ago, and Rabelaishad in a fashion taken it up but a century before. But the fashioners ofnew commonwealths and societies, More, Campanella, Bacon, had been as arule very serious. Cyrano, in his way, was serious too; but the wayitself was not one of those for which the ticket has been usuallyreserved. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Mme. De la Fayette and _La Princesse de Clèves_. ]

But the last of this batch is the most important and the best of thewhole. This is _La Princesse de Clèves_, by Marie Madeleine Pioche deLavergne, Comtesse de la Fayette, friend of Madame de Sévigné and ofHuet; more or less Platonic, and at any rate last, love of LaRochefoucauld; a woman evidently of great charm as well as of greatability, and apparently of what was then irreproachable character. Shewrote, besides other matter of no small literary value and historicalinterest, four novels, the minor ones, which require no special noticehere, being _Zaïde_, _La Comtesse de Tende_, and (her opening piece)_Madame de Montpensier_. Their motives and methods are much the same asthose of the _Princesse de Clèves_, but this is much more effectivelytreated. In fact, it is one of the very few highly praised books, at thebeginnings of departments of literature, which ought not to disappointcandid and not merely studious readers. 

It begins with a sketch, very cleverly done, of the Court of Henri II. , with the various prominent personages there--the King and the Queen, Diane de Poitiers, Queen Mary of Scotland ("La Reine Dauphine"), "Madame, soeur du Roi" (the second Margaret of Valois--not so cleveras her aunt and niece namesakes, and not so beautiful as the latter, but, like both of them, a patroness of men of letters, especiallyRonsard, and apparently a very amiable person, though rude things weresaid of her marriage, rather late in life, to the Duke of Savoy), withmany others of, or just below, royal blood. Of these latter there areMademoiselle de Chartres, the Prince de Clèves, whom she marries, andthe Duc de Nemours, who completes the usual "triangle. "[272] As is alsousual--in a way not unconnected in its usuality with that of triangularsequences--the Princess has more _amitié_ and _estime_ than _amour_ forher husband, though he, less usually, is desperately in love with her. So, very shortly, is Nemours, who is represented as an almostirresistible lady-killer, though no libertine, and of the "respectful"order. His conduct is not quite that of the Elizabethan or Victorianideal gentleman; for he steals his mistress's portrait while it is beingshown to a mixed company; eavesdrops (as will be seen presently) in themost atrocious manner; chatters about his love affairs in a way almostworse; and skulks round the Princess's country garden at night in amanner exceedingly unlikely to do his passion any good, and nearlycertain to do (as it does) her reputation much harm. Still, if not anAmadis, he is not in the least a Lovelace, and that is saying a gooddeal for a French noble of his time. The Princess slowly falls in lovewith him (she has seen him steal the portrait, though he does not knowthis and she dares say nothing for fear of scandal); and divers Courtand other affairs conduct this concealed _amourette_ (for she preventsall "declaration") in a manner very cleverly and not too tediously told, to a point when, though perfectly virtuous in intention, she feels thatshe is in danger of losing self-control. 

[Sidenote: Its central scene. ]

Probably, though it is the best known part of the book, it may be wellto give the central scene, where M. De Nemours plays the eavesdropper toM. And Mme. De Clèves, and overhears the conversation which, with equalwant of manners and of sense, he afterwards (it is true, without names)retails to the Vidame de Chartres, a relation of Mme. De Clèves herself, and a well-known gossip, with a strong additional effect on the fatalconsequences above described. It is pretty long, and some "cutting" willbe necessary. 

 He[273] heard M. De Clèves say to his wife, "But why do you wish not to return to Paris? What can keep you in the country? For some time past you have shown a taste for solitude which surprises me and pains me, because it keeps us apart. In fact, I find you sadder than usual, and I am afraid that something is annoying you. " "I have no mind-trouble, " she answered with an embarrassed air; "but the tumult of the Court is so great, and there is always so much company at home, that both body and mind must needs grow weary, and one wants only rest. " "Rest, " replied he, "is not the proper thing for a person of your age. Your position is not, either at home or at Court, a fatiguing one, and I am rather afraid that you do not like to be with me. " "You would do me a great injustice if you thought so, " said she with ever-increasing embarrassment, "but I entreat you to leave me here. If you would stay too, I should be delighted--if you would stay here alone and be good enough to do without the endless number of people who never leave you. " "Oh! Madam, " cried M. De Clèves, "your looks and your words show me that you have reasons for wishing to be alone which I do not know, and which I beg you to tell me. " He pressed her a long time to do so without being able to induce her, and after excusing herself in a manner which increased the curiosity of her husband, she remained in deep silence with downcast eyes. Then suddenly recovering her speech, and looking at him, "Do not force me, " said she, "to a confession which I am not strong enough to make, though I have several times intended to do so. Think only that prudence forbids a woman of my age, who is her own mistress, [274] to remain exposed to the trials[275] of a Court. " "What do you suggest, Madame?" cried M. De Clèves. "I dare not put it in words for fear of offence. " She made no answer, and her silence confirming her husband in his thought, he went on: "You tell me nothing, and that tells me that I do not deceive myself. " "Well then, Sir!" she answered, throwing herself at his feet, "I will confess to you what never wife has confessed to her husband; but the innocence of my conduct and my intentions gives me strength to do it. It is the truth that I have reasons for quitting the Court, and that I would fain shun the perils in which people of my age sometimes find themselves. I have never shown any sign of weakness, and I am not afraid of allowing any to appear if you will allow me to retire from the Court, or if I still had Mme. De Chartres to aid in guarding me. However risky may be the step I am taking, I take it joyfully, as a way to keep myself worthy of being yours. I ask your pardon a thousand times if my sentiments are disagreeable to you; at least my actions shall never displease you. Think how--to do as I am doing--I must have more friendship and more esteem for you than any wife has ever had for any husband. Guide me, pity me, and, if you can, love me still. " M. De Clèves had remained, all the time she was speaking, with his head buried in his hands, almost beside himself; and it had not occurred to him to raise his wife from her position. When she finished, he cast his eyes upon her and saw her at his knees, her face bathed in tears, and so admirably lovely that he was ready to die of grief. But he kissed her as he raised her up, and said:

[_The speech which follows is itself admirable as an expression ofdespairing love, without either anger or mawkishness; but it is ratherlong, and the rest of the conversation is longer. The husband naturally, though, as no doubt he expects, vainly, tries to know who it is thatthus threatens his wife's peace and his own, and for a time theeavesdropper (one wishes for some one behind him with a jack-boot on) ishardly less on thorns than M. De Clèves himself. At last a reference tothe portrait-episode (see above) enlightens Nemours, and gives, if notan immediate, a future clue to the unfortunate husband. _]

It will be seen at once that this is far different from anything we havehad before--a much further importation of the methods and subjects ofpoetry and drama into the scheme of prose fiction. 

We need only return briefly to the main story, the course of which, asone looks back to it through some 250 years of novels, cannot be verydifficult to "_pro_ticipate. " A continuance of Court interviews andgossip, with the garrulity of Nemours himself and the Vidame, as well asthe dropping of a letter by the latter, brings a complete_éclaircissement_ nearer and nearer. The Countess, though more and morein love, remains virtuous, and indeed hardly exposes herself to directtemptation. But her husband, becoming aware that Nemours is the lover, and also that he is haunting the grounds at Coulommiers by night whenthe Princess is alone, falls, though his suspicion of actual infidelityis removed too late, into hopeless melancholy and positive illness, tillthe "broken heart" of fact or fiction releases him. Nemours is only tooanxious to marry the widow, but she refuses him, and after a few yearsof "pious works" in complete retirement, herself dies early. 

It is possible that, even in this brief sketch, some faults of the bookmay appear; it is certain that actual reading of it will not utterlydeprive the fault-finder of his prey. The positive history--of whichthere is a good deal, very well told in itself, [276] and the appearanceof which at all is interesting--is introduced in too great proportions, so as to be largely irrelevant. Although we know that this extremelyartificial world of love-making with your neighbours' wives was alsoreal, in a way and at a time, the reality fails to make up for theartifice, at least as a novel-subject. It is like golf, or acting, orbridge--amusing enough to the participants, no doubt, but very tediousto hear or read about. [277] Another point, again true to the facts ofthe time, no doubt, but somewhat repulsive in reading, is the almostentire absence of Christian names. The characters always speak to eachother as "Monsieur" and "Madame, " and are spoken of accordingly. I donot think we are ever told either of M. Or of Mme. De Clèves's name. Nowthere is one person at least who cannot "see" a heroine without knowingher Christian name. More serious, in different senses of that word, isthe fact that there is still ground for the complaint made above as tothe too _solid_ character of the narrative. There is, indeed, morepositive dialogue, and this is one of the "advances" of the book. Buteven there the writer has not had the courage to break it up intoactual, not "reported, " talk, and the "said he's" and "said she's, ""replied so and so's" and "observed somebody's" perpetually get in theway of smooth reading. 

So much in the way of alms for Momus. Fortunately a much fullercollection of points for admiration offers itself. It has been admittedthat the historical element[278] is perhaps, in the circumstances andfor the story, a trifle irrelevant and even "in the way. " But itspresence at all is the important point. Some, at any rate, of thedetails--the relations of that Henri II. , with whom, it seems, we may_not_ connect the very queer, very rare, but not very beautiful_faïence_ once called "Henri Deux" ware, [279] with his wife and hismistress; his accidental death at the hands of Montgomery; the historyof Henry VIII. 's matrimonial career, and the courtship of his daughterby a French prince (if not _this_ French prince)--are historical enoughto present a sharp contrast with the cloudy pseudo-classical canvas ofthe Scudéry romances, or the mere fable-land of others. Any criticalBrown ought to have discovered "great capabilities" in it; and though itwas not for more than another century that the true historical novel gotitself born, this was almost the nearest experiment to it. But the otherside--the purely sentimental--let us not say psychological--side, is offar more consequence; for here we have not merely aspiration orchance-medley, we have attainment. 

There is a not wholly discreditable prejudice against abridgments, especially of novels, and more especially against what are calledcondensations. But one may think that the simple knife, without anyartful or artless aid of interpolated summaries, could carve out of _LaPrincesse de Clèves_, as it stands, a much shorter but fullyintelligible presentation of its passionate, pitiful subject. A slightwant of _individual_ character may still be desiderated; it is hardlytill _Manon Lescaut_ that we get that, but it was not to be expected. Scarcely more to be expected, but present and in no small force, is thattruth to life; that "knowledge of the human heart" which had beenhitherto attempted by--we may almost say permitted to--the poet, thedramatist, the philosopher, the divine; but which few, if any, romancershad aimed at. This knowledge is not elaborately but sufficiently "set"with the halls and _ruelles_ of the Court, the gardens and woods ofCoulommiers; it is displayed with the aid of conversation, which, if itseems stilted to us, was not so then; and the machinery employed forworking out the simple plot--as, for instance, in the case of thedropped letter, which, having originally nothing whatever to do with anyof the chief characters, becomes an important instrument--is sometimesfar from rudimentary in conception, and very effectively used. 

It is therefore no wonder that the book did two things--things ofunequal value indeed, but very important for us. In the first place, itstarted the School of "Sensibility"[280] in the novel, and so provided alarge and influential portion of eighteenth-century fiction. In thesecond--small as it is--it almost started the novel proper, the class ofprose fiction which, though it may take on a great variety of forms andcolours, though it may specialise here and "extravagate" there, yet inthe main distinguishes itself from the romance by being first of allsubjective--by putting behaviour, passion, temperament, character, motive before incident and action in the commoner sense--which had hadfew if any representatives in ancient times, had not been disentangledfrom the romantic envelope in mediaeval, but was to be the chief newdevelopment of modern literature. 

 * * * * *

There seemed to be several reasons for separating Hamilton from theother fairy-tale writers. The best of all is that he has the samequalification for the present chapter as that which has installed in itthe novelists already noticed--that of idiosyncrasy. This leads to, orrather is founded on, the consideration that his tales are fairy-talesonly "after a sort, " and testify rather to a prevalent fashion than to anatural affection for the kind. [281] Thirdly, he exhibits, in hissupernatural matter, a new and powerful influence on fictiongenerally--that of the first translated _Arabian Nights_. Lastly, he isin turn himself the head of two considerable though widely differentsub-departments of fiction--the decadent and often worthless but largelycultivated department of what we may call the fairy-tale_improper_, [282] and the very important and sometimes consummatelyexcellent "ironic tale, " to be often referred to, and sometimes fullydiscussed, hereafter. 

The singularity of Hamilton's position has always been recognised; butuntil comparatively recently, his history and family relations were verylittle understood. Since the present writer discussed him in apaper[283] now a quarter of a century old in print, and older incomposition, further light has been thrown on his life and surroundingsin the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and more still in a monographby a lady[284] whose researches will, it is hoped, sooner or later bepublished. A very little, too, of the unprinted work which was held backat his death has been recovered. But this, it seems, includes nothing ofimportance; and his fame will probably always rest, as it has so longand so securely rested, on the _Mémoires de Grammont_, the few butsometimes charming independent verses, some miscellanies not generallyenough appreciated, and the admirable group of ironic tales which set afashion hardly more admirably illustrated since by Voltaire andBeckford[285] and Lord Beaconsfield, to name no others. Of these thingsthe verses, [286] unfortunately, do not concern us at all; and the_Mémoires_ and miscellanies[286] only in so far as they add another, andone of the very best, to the brilliant examples of personal narrative ofwhich the century is so full, and which have so close a connection withthe novel itself. But the _Tales_ are, of course, ours of most obviousright; and they form one of the most important _points de repère_ in ourstory. 

To discuss, on the one hand, how Hamilton's singularly mixed conditionsand circumstances of birth[287] and life[288] influenced his literaryproduction would be interesting, but in strictness rather irrelevant. Toattempt, on the other, at any great length to consider the influenceswhich produced the kind of tale he wrote would have more relevance, butwould, if pursued in similar cases elsewhere, lengthen the bookenormously. Two main ancestor or progenitor forces, as they may becalled, though both were of very recent date and one actuallycontemporary, may be specified. The one was the newborn fancy forfairy-tales, and Eastern tales in particular. The other was the nowingrained disposition towards ironic writing which, begun by Rabelais, as a most notable origin, varied and increased by Montaigne and others, had, just before Hamilton, received fresh shaping and tempering from nota few writers, especially Saint-Évremond. There is indeed no doubt thatthis last remarkable and now far too little read writer, [289] who, letit be remembered, was, like Hamilton, and even more so, an intimatefriend of Grammont and also an inmate of Charles's court, was Hamilton'sdirect and immediate model so far as he had any such--his "master" inthe general tone of _persiflage_. But master and pupil chose, as a rule, different subjects, and the idiosyncrasy of each was intense; it must beremembered, too, that both were of Norman blood, though that of theHamiltons had long been transfused into the veins of a new nationality, while Saint-Évremond was actually born in Normandy. The Norman (that isto say, the English, with a special intention of difference[290]) ineach could be very easily pointed out if such things were our business. But it is the application of this, and of other things in relation tothe development of the novel, that we have to deal with. 

It is said, and there is good reason for believing it to be true, thatall the stories have a more or less pervading vein of "key" applicationin them. But this, except for persons particularly interested in suchthings, has now very little attraction. It has been admitted that itprobably exists, as indeed it does in almost everything of the day, fromthe big as well as "great" _Cyrus_ to the little, but certainly not muchless great, _Princesse de Clèves_. But our subject is what Hamiltonwrites about these people, not the people about whom he may or may notbe writing. 

What we have left of Hamilton's tales, as far as they have been printed(and, as was said above, not much more seems to exist), consists of fivestories of very unequal length, and in two cases out of the fiveunfinished. One of the finished pieces, _Fleur d'Épine_, and one of theunfinished--although unfinished it is not only one of the longest, but, unluckily in a way, by far the best of all--_Les Quatre Facardins_, are"framework" stories, and avowedly attach themselves, in an irreverentsort of attachment, to the _Arabian Nights_; the others, _Le Bélier_, _Zénéyde_ (unfinished), and _L'Enchanteur Faustus_, are independent, andwritten in the mixed verse-and-prose style which had been made popularby various writers, especially Chapelle, but which cannot be said to bevery acceptable in itself. Taken together, they fill a volume of justover 500 average octavo pages in the standard edition of 1812; but theirindividual length is very unequal. The two longest, the fragmentary_Quatre Facardins_ and the finished _Le Bélier_, run each of them to 142pages; the shortest, _L'Enchanteur Faustus_, has just five-and-twenty;while _Fleur d'Épine_, in its completeness, has 114, and _Zénéyde_, inits incompleteness, runs to 78, and might have run, for aught one cantell--in the mixed tangle of Roman and Merovingian history in which theauthor (possibly in ridicule of Madeleine de Scudéry's classicalchronicling) has chosen to plunge it--to 780 or 7800, which latterfigure would, after all, have been little more than half the length ofthe _Grand Cyrus_ itself. 

We may take _L'Enchanteur Faustus_ first, as it requires the shortestnotice. In fact, if it had not been Hamilton's, it would hardly requireany. Written to a "charmante Daphné" (evidently one of the EnglishJacobite exiles, from a reference to a great-great-grandfather of herswho was "admiral in Ireland" during Queen Elizabeth's time), it isoccupied by a story of the great Queen herself, who is treated with themixture of admiration (for her intelligence and spirit) with "scandal"(about her person and morals) that might be expected at St. Germains. The subject is the usual exhibition of dead beauties (here by, not to, Faustus), with Elizabeth's affected depreciation of Helen, Cleopatra, and Mariamne, and her equally affected admiration of Fair Rosamond, [291]whom she insists on summoning _twice_, despite Faustus's warning, andwith disastrous consequences. Hamilton's irony is so pervading that onedoes not know whether ignorance, carelessness, or intention made him notonly introduce Sidney and Essex as contemporary favourites of Elizabeth, but actually attribute Rosamond's end to poor Jane Shore instead of toQueen Eleanor! This would matter little if the tale had been stronger;but though it is told with Hamilton's usual easy fluency, the Queen'sdepreciations, the flattery of the courtiers, and the rest of it, arerather slightly and obviously handled. One would give half a dozen likeit for that _Second_ (but not necessarily _Last_) _Part_ of the_Facardins_, which Crébillon the younger is said to have actually seenand had the opportunity of saving, a chance which he neglected till toolate. 

As _L'Enchanteur Faustus_ is the shortest of the completed tales, so _LeBélier_ is the longest; indeed, as indicated above, it is the samelength as what we have of _Les Quatre Facardins_. It is also--in thatunsatisfactory and fragmentary way of knowledge with which literatureoften has to content itself--much the best known, because of thecelebrated address of the giant Moulineau to the hero-beast "Bélier, monami, ... Si tu voulais bien commencer par le commencement, tu me feraisplaisir. " There are many other agreeable things in it; but it has on thewhole a double or more than double portion of the drawback which attendsthese "key" stories. It was written to please his sister, Madame deGrammont, who had established herself in a country-house, nearVersailles. This she transformed from a mere cottage, called Moulineau, into an elegant villa to which she gave the name of Pontalie. There wereapparently some difficulties with rustic neighbours, and Anthony wovethe whole matter into this story, with the giant and the (of courseenchanted) ram just mentioned; and the beautiful Alie who hates all men(or nearly all); and her father, a powerful druid, who is the giant'senemy; and the Prince de Noisy and the Vicomte de Gonesse, and otherpersonages of the environs of Paris, who were no doubt recognisable andinteresting once, but who, whether recognisable or not, are notspecially interesting now. To repeat that there are good scenes andpiquant remarks is merely to say once more that the thing is Hamilton's. But, on the whole, the present writer at any rate has always found itthe least interesting (next to _L'Enchanteur Faustus_) of all. 

On the other hand, _Zénéyde_--though unfinished, and though containing, in its ostensibly main story, things compared to which the Prince deNoisy and the Vicomte de Gonesse excite to palpitation--has points ofremarkable interest about it. One of these--a prefatory sketch of themelancholy court of exiles at St. Germains--is like nothing else inHamilton and like very few things anywhere else. This is in no sensefiction--it is, in fact, a historical document of the most strikingkind; but it makes background and canvas for fiction itself, [292] and itgives us, besides, a most vivid picture of the priest-ridden, caballinglittle crowd of folk who had made great renunciations but could not makesmall. It also shows us in Hamilton a somewhat darker but also astronger side of satiric powers, differently nuanced from the quiet_persiflage_ of the _Contes_ themselves. This, however, though easily"cobbled on" to the special tale, and possibly not unconnected with itkey-fashion, is entirely separable, and might just as well have formedpart of an actual letter to the "Madame de P. , " to whom it is addressed. 

The tale itself, like some if not all the others, but in a much morestrikingly contrasted fashion, again consists of two strands, interwovenso intimately, however, that it is almost impossible to separate them, though it is equally impossible to conceive two things more differentfrom each other. The ostensible theme is a history of herself, given bythe Nymph of the Seine to the author--a history of which more presently. But this is introduced at considerable length, and interrupted more thanonce, by scenes and dialogues, between the nymph and her distinctlyunwilling auditor, which are of the most whimsically humorous characterto be found even in Hamilton himself. 

The whole account of the self-introduction of the nymph to the narratoris extremely quaint, but rather long to give here as a whole. It isenough to say that Hamilton represents himself as by no means an ardentnympholept, or even as flattered by demi-goddess-like advances, whichare of the most obliging description; and that the lady has not only tomake fuller and fuller revelations of her beauty, but at last to exerther supernatural power to some extent in order to carry the recreantinto her "cool grot, " not, indeed, under water, but invisibly situatedon land. What there takes place is, unfortunately, as has been said, mainly the telling of a very dull story with one not so dull episode. But the conclusion of the preface exemplifies the whimsicality even ofthe writer, and points to the existence of a commodity in the fashion ofwig-wearing which few who glory in "their own hair, " and despise theirperiwigged forefathers, are likely to have thought of:

 [Sidenote: Hamilton and the Nymph. ]

 At these words [_her own_] raising her eyes to heaven, she sighed several times; and though she tried to keep them back, I saw, coursing the length of her cheeks and falling on her beautiful neck, tears so natural, in the midst of a silence so touching, that I was just about to follow her example. [293] But she soon recovered herself; and having shown me by a languishing look that she was not insensible to my sympathetic emotion ... [_she enjoins discretion, and then_:--] After having looked at me attentively for some time she came closer to me, and as she gently pulled one side of my wig in order to whisper in my ear, I had to lean over her in a rather familiar manner. [294] Her face touched mine, and it seemed to me animated by a lively warmth, very different from the insensibility which I had accused[295] her of shedding upon me when she came out of the water. Her breath was pure and fresh, and her goddess-ship, which I had suspected of being something marshy, had no taint of mud about it. If only I might reveal all that she said to me in a confidence which I could have wished longer![295] But apparently she got tired of it[295] and let go my wig. "'Twould be too tiresome, " she said, "to go on talking like this. Go out there, and leave us alone!" I turned round, and seeing no one in the room, I thought this order was addressed to me, so I was just rising.... 

This quaint presentation of a craven swain is perhaps as good an exampleas could be found of the curious mixture of French and English inHamilton. Hardly any Frenchman could have borne to put even a fictitiouseidolon of himself in such a contemptible light; very few Englishmen, though they might easily have done this, would have done it so neatly, and with so quaint a travesty of romantic situation. But the main story, as admitted above, is _assommant_, though, just before the breach, asubstitution of three agreeable damsels for the nymph herself promisessomething better. 

This combination of the dullest with some of the finest and mostcharacteristic work of the author, would be rather a puzzle in a more"serious" writer than Hamilton; but in his case there is no need todistress, or in any way to cumber, oneself about the matter. The wholething was a "compliment, " as the age would have said, to Fantasy; andthe rules of the Court of Quintessence, though not non-existent as dullfools suppose, are singularly elastic to skilled players. 

We are left with what, even as it exists, is by far his most ambitiousattempt, and with one in which, considering all its actual features, oneneed not be taking things too seriously if one decides that he had anaim at something like a whole--even if the legends[296] about furtherparts, actually seen and destroyed by a more than Byzantine pudibundity, are not taken as wholly gospel. 

The completed _Fleur d'Épine_ and the uncompleted _QuatreFacardins_[297] are in effect continuous parts (and to all appearanceincomplete in more than the finishing of the second story) of anuntitled but intelligibly sketched continuation of the _Arabian Nights_themselves. Hamilton, like others since, had evidently conceived anaffection for Dinarzade: and a considerable contempt for Schahriar'snotion of the advantages of matrimony. It is less certain, but I thinkpossible, that he had anticipated the ideas of those who think that theunmarried sister went at least halves in the composition or remembranceof the stories themselves, or she could not have varied her timing atdawn so adroitly. He had, at any rate, an Irish-Englishman's sense ofhonest if humorous indignation at the part which she has to play (orrather endure) in these "two years" (much nearer three!), and the sequelin a way revenges her. 

I should imagine that Thackeray must have been reminiscent of Hamiltonwhen he devised the part of "Sister Anne" in _Bluebeard's Ghost_. Likeher, Hamilton's Dinarzade is slightly flippant; she would most certainlyhave observed "Dolly Codlins is the matter" in Anne's place. Like her, she is not unprovided with lovers; she actually, at the beginning, "takes a night off" that she may entertain the Prince of Trebizond; andit is the Prince himself who relates the great, but, alas! torsoed epicof the Facardins, [298] of whom he is himself one. But as there are onlytwo stories, there is no room for much framework, and we see much lessof the "resurrected" Dinarzade[299] than we could wish from what we dosee and hear. 

_Fleur d'Épine_, which she herself tells, is a capital story, somewhatcloser to the usual norm of the _Nights_ than is usual with Hamilton. Itbases itself on the well-known legends of the Princess with theliterally murderous eyes; but this Princess Luisante is not really theheroine, and is absent from the greater part of the tale, though she isfinally provided with the hero's brother, who is a reigning prince, andhas everything handsome about him. The actual hero Tarare (French for"Fiddlestick!" or something of that sort, and of course an assumedname), in order to cure Luisante's eyes of their lethal quality, has toliberate a still more attractive damsel--the title-heroine--putativedaughter of a good fairy and actual victim of a bad one, quite in theorthodox style. He does this chiefly by the aid of a very amiable mare, who makes music wherever she goes, and can do wonderful things when herears are duly manipulated. It is a good and pleasant story, with plentyof the direct relish of the fairy-tale, Eastern and Western, and plentyalso of satirical parody of the serious romance. But it is not quiteconsummate. The opening, however, as a fair specimen of Hamilton'sstyle, may be given. 

 [Sidenote: The opening of _Fleur d'Épine_. ]

 Two thousand four hundred and fifty-three leagues from here there is an extraordinarily fine country called Cashmere. In this country reigned a Caliph; that Caliph had a daughter, and that daughter had a face; but people wished more than once that she had never had any. Her beauty was not insupportable till she was fifteen; but at that age it became impossible to endure it. She had the most beautiful mouth in the world; her nose was a masterpiece; the lilies of Cashmere--a thousand times whiter than ours--were discoloured beside her complexion; and it seemed impertinent of the fresh-blown rose to show itself beside the carnation of her cheek. Her forehead was unmatchable for shape and brilliancy; its whiteness was contrasted with a Vandyke point of hair blacker and more shining than jet--whence she took her name of "Luisante"; the shape of her face seemed made to frame so many wonders. But her eyes spoilt everything. 

 No one had ever been able to look at them long enough to distinguish their exact colour; for as soon as one met her glance it was like a stroke of lightning. When she was eight years old her father, the Caliph, was in the habit of sending for her, to admire his offspring and give the courtiers the opportunity of paying a thousand feeble compliments to her youthful beauty; for even then they used to put out the candles at midnight, no other light being necessary except that of the little one's eyes. Yet all this was nothing but--in the literal sense, and the other--child's play; it was when her eyes had acquired full strength that they became no joking matter. 

[_The fatal effects--killing men in twenty-four hours, and blindingwomen--are then told, with the complaints of the nobility whose sonshave fallen victims, and the various suggestions for remedying the evilmade at a committee, which is presided over by the Seneschal of thekingdom ... "the silliest man who had ever held such an office--so muchso that the caliph could not possibly think of choosing any one lesssilly. " Tarare happens to be in this pundit-potentate's service; and sothe story starts. _]

[Sidenote: _Les Quatre Facardins. _]

But--and indeed the writer's opinion on this point has already beenindicated--Hamilton's masterpiece, unfinished as it is, is _Les QuatreFacardins_. Indeed, though unfinished in one sense, it is, in another, the most finished of all. Beside it the completed _Faustus_ is a meretrifle, and not a very interesting trifle. It has no dull parts like_Zénéyde_ and even _Le Bélier_. It has much greater complication ofinterest and variety of treatment than _Fleur d'Épine_, in which, afterthe opening, Hamilton's peculiar _persiflage_, though not absent, ismuch less noticeable. It at least suggests, tantalising as thesuggestion is, that the author for once really intended to wind up allhis threads into a compact ball, or (which is the better image) to weavethem into a new and definite pattern. Moreover--this may not be arecommendation to everybody, but it is a very strong one to the presenthistorian, --it has no obvious or insistent "key"-element whatsoever. Itis, indeed, not at all unlikely that there _is_ one, for the trick wasingrained in the literature and the society of the time. But if so, itis a sleeping dog that neither bites nor barks; and if you let it aloneit will stay in its kennel, and not even obtrude itself upon your view. 

To these partly, if not wholly, negative merits it adds positive ones ofa very considerable and delectable kind. The connection with the_Arabian Nights_ is brought closer still in the fact that it is not onlytold (as of himself) by the Prince of Trebizond, Dinarzade'sservant-cavalier, but is linked--to an important extent, and not at allto Schahriar's unmixed satisfaction--with one of the earliest incidentsof the _Nights_ themselves, the remarkable story how the Lady from theSea increases her store of rings at the cost of some exertion andalarm--not to mention the value of the rings themselves--to the Sultanand his brother, the King of Tartary. This lady, with her genie and herglass box, reappears as "Cristalline la Curieuse"--one of the twoheroines. The other, of whose actual adventures we hear only thebeginning, and that at the very close of the story, is Mousseline laSérieuse, who never laughs, and who, later, escaping literally by theloss of her last garment, twitched off by the jaws of an enormouscrocodile, afterwards the pest of the country, finds herself under amysterious weird. She is never able to get a similar vestment made forher, either of day- or night-fashion. Three hundred and seventy-fourdozen of such things, which formed her wardrobe, had disappeared[300]after the death (actually crocodile-devoured) of her Mistress of theRobes; and although she used up all the linen-drapers' stocks of thecapital in trying to get new ones, they were all somewhat mildervarieties of the shirt of Nessus. For the day-shifts deprived her of allappetite for food or drink, and the night ones made it impossible forher to sleep. 

This particular incident comes, as has been said, just at the end ofwhat we have of the book; indeed there is nothing more, save a burlesqueembassy, amply provided with painted cloth[301] and monkeys, to thegreat enchanter Caramoussal (who has already figured in the book), andthe announcement, by one of the other Facardins, of its result--a newadventure for champions, who must either make the Princess laugh or killthe crocodile. "It is indifferent, " we learn from a most Hamiltoniansentence, "whether you begin with the crocodile or with the Princess. "Indeed there is yet another means of restoring peace in the Kingdom ofAstrachan, according to the enchanter himself, who modestly disclaimsbeing an enchanter, observing (again in a thoroughly Hamiltonian manner)that as he lives on the top of a mountain close to the stars, theyprobably tell him more than they tell other people. It is to collectthree spinning-wheels[302] which are scattered over the universe, butof some of which we have heard earlier in the story. 

One takes perhaps a certain pleasure in outraging the feelings of thegiant Moulineau, so hateful to Madame de Grammont, by beginning notmerely in the middle but at the end--an end, alas! due, if we believeall the legends, to her own mistaken zeal when she became a _dévote_--avariety of person for whom her brother[303] certainly had smallaffection, though he did not avenge himself on it in novel-form quite socruelly as did Marivaux later. It is, however, quite good to begin atthe beginning, though the verse-preface needs perhaps to be read witheyes of understanding. Ostensibly, it is a sort of historicalcondemnation of all the species of fiction which had been popular forhalf a century or so, and is thus very much to our purpose, though, likealmost all the verses included in these tales, it does not show thepoetic power which the author of _Celle que j'adore_[304] undoubtedlypossessed. Mere tales, he says, have quite banished from court favourromances, celebrated for their sentiments, from _Cyrus_ to _Zaïde_, _i. E. _ from Mlle. De Scudéry to Mme. De la Fayette. _Télémaque_ had nobetter fate

 On courut au Palais[305] le rendre, Et l'on s'empressa d'y reprendre Le Rameau d'Or et l'Oiseau Bleu. [306]

Then came the "Arabian tales, " of which he speaks with a harshness, thesincerity or design of which may be left to the reader; and then hehimself took up the running, of course obliged by request ofirresistible friends of the other sex. All which may or may not be readwith grains of salt--the salt-merchant of which everybody is at libertyto choose for himself. Something may be said on the subject when we, inall modesty, try to sum up Hamilton and the period. 

But we must now give some more account of the "Four Facardins"themselves. He of Trebizond is a tributary Prince of Schahriar's, muchafter the fashion (it is to be feared here burlesqued) of theinnumerable second- and third-class heroes whom one meets in the_Cyrus_. He begins, like Dinarzade, [307] by "cheeking" the Sultan on hisviews of matrimony; and then he tells how he set out from his dominionsin quest of adventures, and met another bearer of the remarkable namewhich his mother had insisted on giving him. This second adventurerhappened to be bearer also of a helmet with a strange bird, apparentlyall made of gems, as its crest. They exchange confidences, which are tothe effect that the Trebizondian Facardin is a lady-killer of the mostextravagant success, while the other (who is afterwards called Facardinof the Mountain) is always unfortunate in love; notwithstanding which heproposes to undertake the adventure (to be long afterwards defined) ofMousseline la Sérieuse. For the present he contents himself with two orthree more stories (or, rather, one in several "fyttes"), which reducethe wildest of the _Nights_ to simple village tales--of an island wherelions are hunted with a provision of virgins, chanticleers, and smalldeer on an elaborately ruled system; of a mountain full of wild beasts, witches, lovely nymphs, savages, and an enchanter at the top. After aninterruption very much in the style of Chaucer's Host and _Sir Thopas_, from Dinarzade, who is properly rebuked by the Sultan, Facardin of theMountain (he has quite early in the story received the celebratedscratch from a lion's claw, "from his right shoulder to his left heel")recounts a shorter adventure with Princess Sapinelle of Denmark, and atlast, after a fresh outburst from Dinarzade, the Prince of Trebizondcomes to his own affairs. 

Then it is that (after some details about the Prince of Ophir, who has aminim mouth and an enormous nose, and the Princess of Bactria, whosefeatures were just the reverse) we recover Cristalline. It is perhapsonly here that even Mrs. Grundy, though she may have been uncomfortableelsewhere, can feel really shocked at Hamilton; others than Mrs. Grundyneed not be so even here. The genie has discovered his Lady's littleways, and has resolved to avenge himself on her by strict custody, andby a means of delivery which, if possible, might not have entirelydispleased her. The hundred rings are bewitched to their chain, and areonly to be recovered by the same process which strung them on it. Butthis process must be applied by one person in the space of twelve hours, and the conditions are only revealed to him after he has been kidnappedor cajoled within the genie's power. If he refuses to try, he is clad asOmphale clad Hercules, and set to work. If he tries and fails, he is tobe flayed alive and burnt. Facardin, to the despair of his secretary, enters--beguiled by a black ambassadress, who merely informs him that alady wants help--the enchanted boat which takes him to the fatal scene. But when he is to be introduced to the lady he entirely declines to partwith his sword; and when the whole secret is revealed he, with the helpof Cristalline, who is really a good-natured creature in more sensesthan one, slays the three chief minions of the tyrant--a watchmaker whosets the clock, a locksmith who is to count the detached rings, and akind of Executioner High-priest who is to do the flaying andburning, --cuts his way with Cristalline herself to the enchanted boat, regaining _terra firma_ and (relatively speaking) _terra_ not too muchenchanted. But at his very landing at the mouth of the crocodile riverhe again meets Facardin of the Mountain (who has figured inCristalline's history earlier) with the two others, whose stories weshall never hear; and is told about Mousseline; whereat we and the tale"join our ends" as far as is permitted. 

It would be easy to pick from this story alone a sort of nosegay ofHamiltonisms like that from Fuller, which Charles Lamb selected soconvincingly that some have thought them simply invented. But it wouldbe unjust to Anthony, because, unless each was given in a _matrix_ ofcontext, nobody could, in most cases at any rate, do justice to thiscurious glancing genius of his. It exists in Sydney Smith to someextent--in Thackeray to more--among Englishmen. There is, in French, something of it in Lesage, who possibly learnt it directly from him; andof course a good deal, though of a lower kind, in Voltaire, whocertainly did learn it from him. But it is, with that slightindebtedness to Saint-Évremond noticed above, essentially new andoriginal. It is a mixture of English-Irish (that is to say, Anglo-Norman) humour with French wit, almost unattainable at that dayexcept by a man who, in addition to his natural gifts, had the mixedadvantages and disadvantages of his exile position. 

Frenchmen at the time--there is abundance, not of mere anecdote, but ofsolid evidence to prove it--knew practically nothing of Englishliterature. Englishmen knew a good deal more of French, and imitated andtranslated it, sometimes more eagerly than wisely. But they had not asyet assimilated or appreciated it: that was left for the eighteenthcentury to do. Meanwhile Hamilton brought the double influence to bear, not merely on the French novel, but on the novel in general and on theeccentric novel in particular. To appreciate him properly, he ought tobe compared with Rabelais before him and with Voltaire or Sterne--withboth, perhaps, as a counsel of perfection--after him. He is a smallerman, both in literature and in humanity, than Master Francis; but thephrase which Voltaire himself rather absurdly used of Swift might beused without any absurdity in reference to him. He _is_ a "Rabelais debonne compagnie, " and from the exactly opposite point of view he mightbe called a Voltaire or a Sterne _de bonne compagnie_ likewise. That isto say, he is a gentleman pretty certainly as well as a genius, whichRabelais might have been, at any rate in other circumstances, but didnot choose to be, and which neither François Arouet nor Laurence Sternecould have been, however much either had tried, though the metamorphosisis not quite so utterly inconceivable in Sterne's case as in theother's. Hamilton, it has been confessed, is sometimes "naughty"; buthis naughtiness is neither coarse nor sniggering, [308] and he dependsupon it so little--a very important point--that he is sometimes mostamusing when he is not naughty at all. In other words, he has no need ofit, but simply takes it as one of the infinite functions of humancomedy. Against which let Mrs. Grundy say what she likes. 

 * * * * *

It is conceivable that objection may be taken, or at any rate surprisefelt, at the fulness with which a group of mostly little books--no oneof them produced by an author of the first magnitude as usual estimatesrun--has been here handled. But the truth is that the actual birth ofthe French novel took a much longer time than that of the English--aphenomenon explicable, without any national vainglory, by the fact thatit came first and gave us patterns and stimulants. The writers surveyedin this chapter, and those who will take their places in the next--atleast Scarron, Furetière, Madame de La Fayette and Hamilton, Lesage, Marivaux, and Prévost--whatever objections or limitations may be broughtagainst them, form the central group of the originators of the modernnovel. They open the book of life, as distinguished from that offactitious and rather stale literature; they point out the varieties ofincident and character; the manners and interiors and fantasticadjustments; the sentiment rising to passion--which are to determine thedevelopments and departments of the fiction of the future. They leave, as far as we have seen them, great opportunities for improvement tothose immediate followers to whom we shall now turn. Hamilton is, indeed, not yet much followed, but Lesage far outgoes Scarron in theraising of the picaresque; Marivaux distances Furetière in painting ofmanners and in what some people call psychology; _Manon Lescaut_ throws_La Princesse de Clèves_ into the shade as regards the greatest andmost novel-breeding of the passions. But the whole are really a _bloc_, the continental sense of which is rather different from our "block. " Andperhaps we shall find that, though none of them was equal in genius tosome who succeeded them in novel-writing, the novel itself made littleprogress, and some backsliding, during nearly a hundred years after theyceased to write. 

NOTE ON _TÉLÉMAQUE_

 It may not perhaps be superfluous to give the rest of that criticism of Hamilton's on _Télémaque_, the conclusion of which has been quoted above. "In vain, from the famous coasts of Ithaca, the wise and renowned Mentor came to enrich us with those treasures of his which his _Télémaque_ contains. In vain the art of the teacher delicately displays, in this romance of a rare kind, the usefulness and the deceitfulness of politics and of love, as well as that fatal sweetness--frail daughter of luxury--which intoxicates a conquering hero at the feet of a young mistress or of a skilful enchantress, such as in each case this Mentor depicts them. But, well-versed as he was in human weakness, and elaborately as he imitated the style and the stories of Greece, the vogue that he had was of short duration. Weary of inability to understand the mysteries which he unfolded, men ran to the Palais to give back the volume, " etc. , etc. 

 Hamilton, no doubt intentionally, has himself made this criticism rather "mysterious. " It is well known that, if not quite at first, very soon after its appearance, the fact that the politics, if not also the morals, of Fénelon's book were directly at variance with Court standards was recognised. At a time when Court favour and fashion were the very breath of the upper circles, and directly or indirectly ruled the middle, the popularity of this curious romance-exhortation was, at any rate for a time, nipped in the bud, to revive only in the permanent but not altogether satisfactory conditions of a school-book. Whether Hamilton dealt discreetly with the matter by purposely confining himself to the record of a fact, or at least mixing praise to which no exception could be taken, with what might be taken for blame, one cannot say. By dotting a few i's, crossing the t's, and perhaps touching up some hidden letters with the requisite reagent, one can, however, get a not unfair or unshrewd criticism of the book out of this envelope. _Télémaque_, if it is not, as one of Thackeray's "thorn" correspondents suggested, superior to "_Lovel Parsonage_ and _Framley the Widower_, " has, or with some easy suppressions and a very few additions and developments might have, much more pure romance interest than its centuries of scholastic use allow it to have for most people. Eucharis is capable of being much more than she is allowed to show herself; and some Mrs. Grundys, with more intelligence than the average member of the clan, have hinted that Calypso might be dangerous if the persons who read about her were not likely to consider her as too old to be interesting. The style is, of course, admirable--there has hardly ever been a better writer of French than Fénelon, who was also a first-rate narrator and no mean critic. Whether by the "mysteries" Hamilton himself meant politics, morals, religion, or all three and other "serious" things, is a point which, once more, is impossible to settle. But it is quite certain that, whether there is any difficulty in comprehending them or not, a great many--probably the huge majority--of novel readers would not care to take the trouble to comprehend them, and might, even if they found little difficulty, resent being asked to do so. And so we have here not the first--for, as has been said, the Heroic romance itself had much earlier been "conscripted" into the service of didactics--but the first brilliant, or almost brilliant, example of that novel of purpose which will meet us so often hereafter. It may be said to have at once revealed (for the earlier examples were, as a rule, too dull to be fair tests) the ineradicable defects of the species. Even when the purpose does not entirely preclude the possibility of enjoyment, it always gets in the way thereof; and when the enjoyable matter does not absorb attention to the disregard of the purpose altogether, it seldom--perhaps never--really helps that purpose to get itself fulfilled. 

FOOTNOTES:

[247] It is perhaps not quite superfluous to point out that theprinciple of separation in these chapters is quite different from that(between "idealist" and "realist") pursued by Körting and others, andreprobated, partially or wholly, by MM. Le Breton and Brunetière. 

[248] _L'Autre Monde: ou Histoire Comique des États et Empires de laLune_, etc. 

[249] It must be remembered that even Gerard Hamilton made many morespeeches, but only one good one, while the novelists discussed herewrote in most cases many other books. But their goodness shows itself inhardly more than a single work in each case. Anthony Hamilton's is inall his. 

[250] It has been noted, I think, by all who have written about the_Berger_, that Sorel is a sort of Balak and Balaam in one. He calls onhimself to curse the _Astrée_, but he, sometimes at least, blesses it. 

[251] The _Berger_ fills two volumes of some nine hundred pages;_Polyandre_, two of six hundred each! But it must be admitted that theprint is very large and widely spaced. 

[252] One remembers the story of the greater Corneille calling to thelesser down a trap between their two houses, "Sans-Souci!--une rime!"

[253] I have known this word more than once objected to as pedantic. Butpedantry in this kind consists in using out-of-the-way terms when commonones are ready to hand. There is no single word in English to expressthe lower kind of "Dutch-painting" as this Greek word does. And Greek isa recognised and standing source of words for English. If geography, whynot rhyparography?--or, if any one prefers it, "rhypography, " which, however, is not, I think, so good a form. 

[254] There is, no doubt, significance in the fact that they aredefinitely called _nouvelles_. 

[255] _V. Sup. _ p. 204. The habit of these continues in all the books. _L'Illustre Bassa_ opens with a most elaborate, but still not very much"alive, " procession and sham fight. 

[256] Of course Cervantes is not shadowy. 

[257] As far as mere chronology goes, Cyrano, _v. Inf. _, should comebetween; but it would split the parallel. 

[258] Scarron had, in Le Destin's account of himself, made a distinctionbetween the pastoral and heroic groups and the "old" romances, meaningthereby not the true mediaeval specimens but the _Amadis_ cycle. Furetière definitely classes all of them together. 

[259] The time is well known to have been fond of anagrams, and"Charroselles" is such an obvious one for "Charles Sorel" that for oncethere is no need to gainsay or neglect the interpreters. The thing, ifreally meant for a real person, is a distinct lampoon, and may perhapsexplain the expulsion and persecution of Furetière, by his colleagues ofthe Academy, almost as well as the ostensible cause thereof--hiscompiling, in competition with the Academy itself, of a FrenchDictionary, and a very good one, which was not printed till after hisdeath, and ultimately became the famous _Dictionnaire de Trévoux_. Notthat Sorel himself was of much importance, but that the thing shows theirritable and irritating literary failing in the highest degree. Furetière had friends of position, from Boileau, Racine, and Bossuetdownwards; and the king himself, though he did not interfere, seems tohave disapproved the Academy's action. But the _Roman_ was heavily"slated" for many years, though it had a curious revival in the earlierpart of the next century; and for the rest of that century and the firstpart of the nineteenth it was almost wholly forgotten. 

[260] She falls in love with an ebony cabinet at a fair which they visittogether, and he gives it her. But, anticipating that she will use itfor her most precious things, he privately gets a second set of keysfrom the seller, and in her absence achieves the theft of the promise. 

[261] Any one who has, as the present writer has had, opportunities ofactually doing this, will find it a not uninteresting operation, and onewhich "amply repays the expense" of time and trouble. 

[262] This is a point of importance. Details of a life-like characterare most valuable in the novel; but if they are not "material" in thetransferred sense they are simply a bore. Scott undoubtedly learnt thislesson from his prentice work in finishing Strutt's _Queenhoo Hall_, where the story is simply a clumsy vehicle for conveying informationabout sports and pastimes and costumes and such-like "antiqu_ar_ities. "

[263] To us small, as are not those of its predecessors. 

[264] Not a bad instance of the subacid touches which make the booklively, and which probably supply some explanation of its author'sunpopularity. The "furred law-cats" of all kinds were always aprevailing party in Old France, and required stout gloves to touch themwith. 

[265] This (often called by its Italian name of Quarant' ore) is a"Devotion" during an exposure of the Sacrament for that time, in memoryof the interval between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of OurLord. It is a public service, and, I suppose, collections were made _atintervals_. No one, especially no girl, could stand the time straightthrough. The "Paradise" was, of course, a "decoration. "

[266] Javotte says "shoe the mule"--"ferrer la mule"--one of the phraseslike "faire danser l'anse du panier" and others, for taking"self-presented testimonials, " as Wilkie Collins's Captain Wragge moreelegantly and less cryptically calls it. 

[267] Of course the regular "thanks" of a collector for pious purposes. 

[268] He does later seek this, and only loses her (if she can be calleda loss) by his own folly. But his main objective is to _conter_ (or asFuretière himself has it, _débiter_) _la fleurette_. It ought, perhaps, to be mentioned, as a possible counterweight or drawback, that thenovelist breaks off to discuss the too great matter-of-factness ofbourgeois girls and women. But he was to have great followers in thisalso. 

[269] He was born and baptised Savinien de Cyrano, and called himself deCyrano-Bergerac. The sound of the additional designation and some of hislegendary peculiarities probably led to his being taken for a Gascon;but there is no evidence of meridional extraction or seat, and thereappears to be some of Breton or other Western connection. 

[270] There is nothing in the least astonishing in his having beenthis--if he was. The tendency of the Renaissance towards what is called"free thought" is quite well known; and the existence, in theseventeenth century, of a sort of school of boisterous and rather vulgarinfidelity is familiar--with the names of Bardouville, and Saint-Ibal orSaint-Ibar, as members of it--to all readers of Saint-Évremond, Tallemant, the _Ana_, etc. 

[271] Perhaps the dullest part is where (save the mark!) the Demon ofSocrates is brought in to talk sometimes mere platitudes, sometimes tameparadoxes which might as well be put in the mouth of any pupil-teacher, or any popular journalist or dramatist, of the present day. --Of theattempt to make Swift Cyrano's debtor one need say little: but amongpredecessors, if not creditors, Ben Jonson, for his _News from the NewWorld discovered in the Moon_, may at least be mentioned. 

[272] The key-mongers, of course, identify the three with the author, her own husband, and La Rochefoucauld. 

[273] He has ensconced himself in one of the smaller rooms of a gardenpavilion outside of which they are sitting, having left their suite atsome distance. 

[274] _Maîtresse de sa conduite_, a curious but not difficult text as toFrench ideas of marriage. 

[275] I have been obliged to insert "trials" to bring out the meaning of"_exposée au milieu_. " "_Exposée_" has a fuller sense than the simpleEnglish verb, and almost equals the legal "exposed for sale. "

[276] Mme. De la Fayette was a very accomplished woman, and, possiblyfrom her familiarity with Queen Henrietta Maria, well acquainted withEnglish as well as French history. But our proper names, as usual, vanquish her, and she makes Henry VIII. Marry Jane _Seimer_ andCatherine _Havart_. 

[277] This does not apply to the _main_ love story but to the atmospheregenerally. The Vidame de Chartres, for instance, is represented as inlove with (1) Queen Catherine; (2) a Mme. De Themines, with whom he isnot quite satisfied; (3) a Mme. De Martignes, with whom he is; (4) alady unnamed, with whom he has _trompé_ them all. This may be trueenough to life; but it is difficult to make it into good matter offiction, especially with a crowd of other people doing much the same. 

[278] It ought, perhaps, to be added that though manners, etc. , alterednot a little between Henri II. And Louis XIV. , the alteration was muchless than in most other histories at most other periods. It would beeasy to find two persons in Tallemant whose actual experience coveredthe whole time. 

[279] You _had_ to call it so when I first saw it; when I last did so itwas "Oiron. " No doubt it is something else now. 

[280] For that, see Chapter XII. 

[281] See below on the version Introduction to the _Quatre Facardins_. 

[282] Including miscellaneous imbecility and unsuitableness as well asmoral indecorum. 

[283] Written for the _Fortnightly Review_ in 1882, but by a chapter ofaccidents not printed till 1890. Reprinted next year in _Essays onFrench Novelists_ (London, 1891). 

[284] Miss Ruth Clark. 

[285] The conclusion of _Vathek_ is of course undoubtedly more"admirable" than anything of Hamilton's; but it is in a quite differentgenus. 

[286] The piece _Celle que j'adore_ is the best of the casual verses, though there are other good songs, etc. Those which alternate with theprose of some of the tales are too often (as in the case of the_Cabinet_ insets, _v. Sup. _) rather prosaic. Of the prose miscellaniesthe so-called _Relations_ "of different places in Europe, " and "of avoyage to Mauritania, " contain some of the cream of Hamilton's almostuniquely ironic narrative and commentary. When that great book, "TheNature and History of Irony, " which has to be written is written--thelast man died with the last century and the next hour seems far off--acontrast of Hamilton and Kinglake will probably form part of it. 

[287] As a member, though a cadet, of a cadet branch of one of thenoblest families of Great Britain and Ireland. 

[288] As a soldier, a courtier of Charles II. , and a Jacobite exile inFrance. 

[289] I may perhaps be allowed to refer to another essay of mine on himin _Miscellaneous Essays_ (London, 1892). It contains a full account, and some translation, of the _Conversation du maréchal d'Hocquincourtavec le Père Canaye_, which is at once the author's masterpiece of quietirony, his greatest pattern for the novelist, and his clearest evidenceof influence on Hamilton. 

[290] There are some who hold that _the_ "English" differentia, whethershown in letters or in life, whether south or north of Tweed, east orwest of St. George's Channel is always Anglo-Norman. 

[291] The "Marian" and Roman comparison of Anne Boleyn's position toRosamond's is interesting. 

[292] It is a sort of brief lift and drop of the curtain which stillconcealed the true historical novel; it has even got a further literaryinterest as giving the seamy side of the texture of Macaulay's admirable_Jacobite's Epitaph_. The account would be rather out of place here, butmay be found translated at length (pp. 44-46) in the volume of _Essayson French Novelists_ more than once referred to. 

[293] The most unexpected bathos of these last three words is of courseintentional, and is Hamilton all over. 

[294] The nymph is lying on a couch, and her companion (who has beenrecalcitrant even to this politeness) is sitting beside her. 

[295] This is as impudent as the other passages below are imbecile--ofcourse in each case (as before) with a calculated impudence andimbecility. The miserable creature had himself obliged her to "come outof the water" by declining to join her there on the plea that he wasnever good for an assignation when he was wet!

[296] If they are true, and if Madame de Grammont was the culprit, it isa sad confirmation of the old gibe, "Skittish in youth, prudish in age. "It can only be pleaded in extenuation that some youth which was notskittish, such as Sarah Marlborough's, matured or turned into somethingworse than "devotion. " And Elizabeth Hamilton was so very pretty!

[297] "Completions" of both _Zénéyde_ and _Les Quatre Facardins_, by theDuke de Lévis, are included in some editions, but they are, after thefashions of such things, very little good. 

[298] The name is not, like "Tarare, " a direct burlesque; but itsuggests a burlesque intention when taken with "facond" and othersincluding, perhaps, even _faquin_. 

[299] The Sultaness is almost _persona muta_--and indeed her tongue musthave required a rest. 

[300] As Hamilton's satiric intention is as sleepless as poor PrincessMousseline herself, it is not impossible that he remembered the incidentrecorded by Pepys, or somebody, how King Charles the Second could notget a sheet of letter paper to write on for all the Royal Households andStationery Offices and such-like things in the English world. 

[301] _I. E. _ colour-printed cotton from India--a novelty "fashionable"and, therefore, satirisable in France. 

[302] Or "distaffs and spindles"?

[303] She is indeed said to have "converted" both him and Grammont, thelatter perhaps the most remarkable achievement of its kind. 

[304] Mr. Austin Dobson's charming translation of this was originallyintended to appear in the present writer's essay above mentioned. 

[305] The chief region of bookselling. Cf. Corneille's early comedy, _LaGalerie du Palais_. 

[306] For note on _Télémaque_ see end of chapter. 

[307] Who is here herself an improved Doralise. 

[308] To put it otherwise in technical French, there is a little_grivoiserie_ in him, but absolutely no _polissonnerie_, still less any_cochonnerie_. Or it may be put, best of all, in his own words when, ina short French-Greek dialogue, called _La Volupté_, he makes Aspasia sayto Agathon, "Je vous crois fort voluptueux, sans vous croire débauché. "

CHAPTER X

LESAGE, MARIVAUX, PRÉVOST, CRÉBILLON

The words which closed the last chapter should make it unnecessary toprefix much of the same kind to this, though at the end we may haveagain to summarise rather more fully. 

[Sidenote: The subjects of the chapter. ]

As was there observed, our figures here are, with the possible exceptionof Crébillon _Fils_, "larger" persons than those dealt with before them;and they also mark a further transition towards the condition--the"employment or vocation"--of the novelist proper, though the polygraphichabit which has grown upon all modern literature, and which began inFrance almost earlier than anywhere else, affects them. Scarron was evenmore of a dramatist than of a novelist; and though this was also thecase with Lesage and Marivaux--while Prévost was, save for hismasterpiece, a polygraph of the polygraphs--their work in fiction wasfar larger, both positively and comparatively, than his. _Gil Blas_ forgeneral popularity, and _Manon Lescaut_ for enthusiastic admiration ofthe elect, rank almost, if not quite, among the greatest novels of theworld. Marivaux, for all his irritating habit of leaving thingsunfinished, and the almost equally irritating affectation of phrase, inwhich he anticipated some English novelists of the late nineteenth andearliest twentieth century, is almost the first "psychologist" of prosefiction; that is to say, where Madame de la Fayette had taken thesoul-analysis of hardly more than two persons (Nemours scarcely counts)in a single situation, Marivaux gives us an almost complete dissectionof the temperament and character of a girl and of a man under manyordinary life-circumstances for a considerable time. 

[Sidenote: Lesage--his Spanish connections. ]

But we must begin, not with him but with Lesage, not merely as the olderman by twenty years, but in virtue of that comparative "greatness" ofhis greatest work which has been glanced at. There is perhaps a doubtwhether _Gil Blas_ is as much read now as it used to be; it is prettycertain that _Le Diable Boiteux_ is not. The certainty is a pity; and ifthe doubt be true, it is a greater pity still. For more than a century_Gil Blas_ was almost as much[309] a classic, either in the original orin translation, in England as it was in France; and the delight which itgave to thousands of readers was scarcely more important to the historyof fiction generally than the influence it exerted upon generation aftergeneration of novelists, not merely in its own country, but on the fargreater artists in fiction of the eighteenth and early nineteenthcentury in England from Fielding to Scott, if not to Dickens. Now, Isuppose, that we are told to start with the axiom that even Fielding'sstructure of humanity is a simple toy-like thing, how much more isLesage's? But for those of us who have not bowed the knee to foolishmodern Baals, "They reconciled us; we embraced, and we have since beenmortal enemies"; and the trout; and the soul of the licentiate; and Dr. Sangrado; and the Archbishop of Granada--to mention only the most famousand hackneyed matters--are still things a little larger, a little morecomplex, a little more eternal and true, than webs of uninterestinganalysis told in phrase to which Marivaudage itself is golden andhoneyed Atticism. 

Yet once more we can banish, with a joyful and quiet mind, a crowd ofidle fancies and disputes, apparently but not really affecting oursubjects. The myth of a direct Spanish origin for _Gil Blas_ is almostas easily dispersible by the clear sun of criticism as the exaggerationof the debt of the smaller book to Guevara. On the other hand, the_general_ filiation of Lesage on his Spanish predecessors is undeniable, and not worth even shading off and toning down. A man is not ashamed ofhaving good fathers and grandfathers, whose property he now enjoys, before him in life; and why should he be in literature?

[Sidenote: Peculiarity of his work generally. ]

Lesage's work, in fiction and out of it, is considerable in bulk, but itis affected (to what extent disadvantageously different judges may judgedifferently) by some of the peculiarities of the time which have beenalready mentioned, and by some which have not. It is partly original, partly mere translation, and partly also a mixture of the strangestkind. Further, its composition took place in a way difficult to adjustto later ideas. Lesage was not, like Marivaux, a professed and shameless"_un_finisher, " but he took a great deal of time to finish hiswork. [310] He was not an early-writing author; and when he did begin, heshowed something of that same strange need of a suggestion, a"send-off, " or whatever anybody likes to call it, which appears even inhis greatest work. He began with the _Letters_ of Aristaenetus, which, though perhaps they have been abused more than they deserve by peoplewho have never read them, and would never have heard of them if it hadnot been for Alain René, are certainly not the things that mostscholars, with the whole range of Greek literature before them to choosefrom, would have selected. His second venture was almost worse than hisfirst; for there _are_ some prettinesses in Aristaenetus, and except forthe one famous passage enshrined by Pope in the _Essay on Criticism_, there is, I believe, [311] nothing good in the continuation of _DonQuixote_ by the so-called Avellaneda. But at any rate this job, whichis attributed to the suggestion of the Abbé de Lyonne, "put" Lesage onSpanish, and never did fitter seed fall on more fertile soil. 

[Sidenote: And its variety. ]

Longinus would, I think, have liked _Gil Blas_, and indeed Lesage, verymuch. You might kill ten asses, of the tallest Poitou standard in sizeand the purest Zoilus or Momus sub-variety in breed, under you whilegoing through his "faults. " He translates; he borrows; he "plagiarises"about as much as is possible for anybody who is not a mere dullard todo. Of set plot there is nothing in his work, whether you take the twofamous pieces, or the major adaptations like _Estévanille Gonzales_ and_Guzman d'Alfarache_, or the lesser things, more Lucianic than anythingelse, such as the _Cheminées de Madrid_[312] and the _Journée desParques_ and the _Valise Trouvée_. "He worked for his living" (as M. Anatole France long ago began a paper about him which is not quite thebest of its very admirable author's work), and though the pot neverboiled quite so merrily as the cook deserved, the fact of thepot-boiling makes itself constantly felt. _Les chaînes de l'esclavage_must have cut deep into his soul, and the result of the cutting isevident enough in his work. But the vital marks on that work are such asmany perfectly free men, who have wished to take literature as amistress only, have never been able to impress on theirs. He died fullof years, but scarcely of the honours due to him, failing in power, andafter a life[313] of very little luck, except as regards possession of awife who seems to have been beautiful in youth and amiable always, withat least one son who observed the Fifth Commandment to the utmost. Buthe lives among the immortals, and there are few names in our presenthistory which are of more importance to it than his. 

Some of his best and least unequal work is indeed denied us. We havenothing to do with his drama, though _Turcaret_ is something like amasterpiece in comedy, and _Crispin Rival de son Maître_ a capitalfarce. We cannot even discuss that remarkable _Théâtre de la Foire_, which, though a mere collection of the lightest Harlequinades, has morereadable matter of literature in it than the whole English comic dramasince Sheridan, with the exception of the productions of the late SirWilliam Gilbert. 

Nor must much be said even of his minor novel work. The latertranslations and adaptations from the Spanish need hardly any notice forobvious reasons; whatever is good in them being either not his, orbetter exemplified in the _Devil_ and in _Gil_. The extremely curiousand very Defoe-like book--almost if not quite his last--_Vie etAventures de M. De Beauchesne, Capitaine de Flibustiers_, is rather asubject for a separate essay than for even a paragraph here. But Lesage, from our point of view, is _Le Diable Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_, and tothe _Diable Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_ let us accordingly turn. 

[Sidenote: _Le Diable Boiteux. _]

The relations of the earlier and shorter book to the _Diablo Cojuelo_ ofLuis Velez de Guevara are among the most open secrets of literature. TheFrenchman, in a sort of prefatory address to his Spanish parent andoriginal, has put the matter fairly enough; anybody who will take thetrouble can "control" or check the statement, by comparing the two booksthemselves. The idea--the rescuing of an obliging demon from the graspof an enchanter, and his unroofing the houses of Madrid to amuse hisliberator--is entirely Guevara's, and for a not inconsiderable space oftime the French follows the Spanish closely. But then it breaks off, andthe remainder of the book is, except for the carrying out of the generalidea, practically original. The unroofing and revealing of secrets, frombeing merely casual and confined to a particular neighbourhood, becomessystematised: a lunatic asylum and a prison are subjected to theprocess; a set of dreamers are obliged to deliver up what Queen Mab isdoing with them; and, as an incident, the student Don Cleofas, who hasfreed Asmodeus, [314] gains through the friendly spirit's means a richand pretty bride whom the demon--naturally immune from fire--has rescuedin Cleofas's likeness from a burning house. 

[Sidenote: Lesage and Boileau. ]

The thing therefore neither has, nor could possibly pretend to have, anymerit as a plotted and constructed whole in fiction. It is merely avariety of the old "framed" tale-collection, except that the frame is ofthe thinnest; and the individual stories, with a few exceptions, areextremely short, in fact little more than anecdotes. The power andattraction of the book lie simply in the crispness of the style, theease and flow of the narrative, and the unfailing satiric knowledge ofhuman nature which animates the whole. As it stands, it is double itsoriginal length; for Lesage, finding it popular, and never being underthe trammels of a fixed design, very wisely, and for a wonder notunsuccessfully, gave it a continuation. And, except the equally obviousand arbitrary one of the recapture of the spirit by the magician, it hasand could have no end. The most famous of the anecdotes about it is thatBoileau--in 1707 a very old man--found his page reading it, and declaredthat such a book and such a critic as he should never pass a night underthe same roof. Boileau, though he often said rude, unjust, anduncritical things, did not often say merely silly ones; and it has beenquestioned what was his reason for objecting to a book by no meansshocking to anybody but Mrs. Grundy Grundified to the very _n_th, excellently written, and quite free from the bombast and thewhimsicality which he loathed. Jealousy for Molière, [315] to whom, invirtue of _Turcaret_, Lesage had been set up as a sort of rival; meresenile ill-temper, and other things have been suggested; but the matteris of no real importance even if it is true. Boileau was one of theleast catholic and the most arbitrary critics who ever lived; he hadlong made up and colophoned the catalogue of his approved library; hedid not see his son's coat on the new-comer, and so he cursed him. It isnot the only occasion on which we may bless what Boileau cursed. 

[Sidenote: _Gil Blas_--its peculiar cosmopolitanism. ]

_Gil Blas_, of course, is in every sense a "bigger" book of literature. That it has, from the point of view of the straitest sect of theUnitarians--and not of that sect only--much more unity than the_Diable_, would require mere cheap paradox to contend. It has neitherthe higher unity, say, of _Hamlet_, where every smallest scene andalmost personage is connected with the general theme; nor the lowerunity of such a thing as _Phèdre_, where everything is pared down, or, as Landor put it in his own case, "boiled off" to a meagre residuum oftheme special. It has, at the very most, that species of unity whichAristotle did not like even in epic, that of a succession of eventshappening to an individual; and while most of these might be omitted, orothers substituted for them, without much or any loss, they existwithout prejudice to mere additions to themselves. As the excellent Mr. Wall, sometime Professor of Logic at Oxford, and now with God, used tosay, "Gentlemen, I can conceive an elephant, " so one may conceive a _GilBlas_, not merely in five instead of four, but in fifty or five hundredvolumes. But, on the other hand, it has that still different unity (ofwhich Aristotle does not seem to have thought highly, even if he thoughtof it at all), that all these miscellaneous experiences do not merelyhappen to a person with the same name--they happen to the sameperson. [316] And they have themselves yet another unity, which I hardlyremember any critic duly insisting on and discussing, in the fact thatthey all are possibly human accidents or incidents. Though he was anative of one of the most idiosyncratic provinces of not the leastidiosyncratic country in Europe, Lesage is a citizen not of Brittany, not of France, not of Europe even, but of the world itself, in far morethan the usual sense of cosmopolitanism. He has indeed colouredbackground and costume, incident and even personage itself so deeplywith essence of "things of Spain, " that, as has been said, theSpaniards, the most jealous of all nationalities except the smallerCeltic tribes, have claimed his work for themselves. Yet though Spainhas one of the noblest languages, one of the greatest literatures inquality if not in bulk, one of the most striking histories, and one ofthe most intensely national characters in the world, it is--perhaps forthe very reason last mentioned--as little cosmopolitan as any country, and Lesage, as has been said, is inwardly and utterly cosmopolitan ornothing. 

 At Paris, at Rome, at the Hague he's at home;

and though he seems to have known little of England, and, as mostFrenchmen of his time had reason to do, to have disliked us, he hascertainly never been anywhere more at home than in London. In fact--andit bears out what has been said--there is perhaps no capital in Europewhere, in the two hundred years he has had to nationalise himself, Lesage has been less at home than at Paris itself. The French are ofcourse proud of him in a way, but there is hardly one of their greatwriters about whom they have been less enthusiastic. The technical, andespecially the neo-classically technical, shortcomings which have beenpointed out may have had something to do with this; but thecosmopolitanism has perhaps more. 

[Sidenote: And its adoption of the _homme sensuel moyen_ fashion. ]

For us Lesage occupies a position of immense importance in the historyof the French novel; but if we were writing a history of the novel atlarge it would scarcely be lessened, and might even be relativelylarger. He had come to it perhaps by rather strange ways; but it is nonovelty to find that conjunction of road and goal. The Spanishpicaresque romance was not in itself a very great literary kind; but ithad in it a great faculty of _emancipation_. Outside the drama[317] itwas about the first division of literature to proclaim boldly therefusal to consider anything human as alien from human literaryinterest. But, as nearly always happens, it had exaggerated itsprotests, and become sordid, merely in revolt from the high-flownnon-sordidness of previous romance. Lesage took the principle andrejected the application. He dared, practically for the first time, totake the average man of unheroic stamp, the _homme sensuel moyen_ of alater French phrase, for his subject. _Gil Blas_ is not a virtuousperson, [318] but he is not very often an actual scoundrel. [319] (Isthere any of us who has never been a scoundrel at all at all?) He isclever after his fashion, but he is not a genius; he is a little bit ofa coward, but can face it out fairly at a pinch; he has some luck andill-luck; but he does not come in for _montes et maria_, either of goldor of misery. I have no doubt that the comparison of _Gil Blas_ and _DonQuixote_ has often been made, and it would be rather an _excursus_ here. But inferior as Lesage's work is in not a few ways, it has, like othernon-quintessential things, much more virtue as model and pattern. Imitations of _Don Quixote_ (except Graves's capital book, where thefollowing is of the freest character) have usually been failures. It ishardly an extravagance to say that every novel of miscellaneousadventure since its date owes something, directly or indirectly, to _GilBlas_. 

One of the "faults"--it must be understood that between "faults" withinverted commas and faults without them there is a wide and sometimes anunbridgeable gulf--lies in the fact that the book is after all not muchmore of a whole, in any sense but that noted above, than _Le DiableBoiteux_ itself. The innumerable incidents are to a very large extentepisodes merely, and episodes in the loose, not the precise, sense ofthe term. That is to say, they are not merely detachable; they might bereattached to almost any number of other stories. But the redeemingfeature--which is very much more than a _mere_ redeeming feature--is thepersonality of the hero which has been already referred to. Lesage'sscrip and staff, to apply the old images exactly enough, are hisinexhaustible fertility in well-told stories and his faculty ofdelineating a possible and interesting human character. 

[Sidenote: Its inequality--in the Second and Fourth Books especially. ]

The characteristics of the successive parts of _Gil Blas_ are distinctand interesting, the distinctions themselves being also rather curious. The anecdote cited above as to the Fourth and last volume is certainlyconfirmed by, and does not seem, as so many anecdotes of the kind do, tohave been even possibly drawn from, the volume itself. Although the oldpower is by no means gone, the marks of its failing are pretty obvious. A glance has been given already to the unnecessary and disgustingrepetition of the Pandar business--made, as it is, more disgusting bythe distinctly tragic touch infused into it. The actual _finale_ is, onthe other hand, a good comedy ending of a commonplace kind, except thata comic author, such as Lesage once had been on and off the stage, wouldcertainly have made _Gil Blas_ suffer in his second marriage for hismisdeeds of various kinds earlier, instead of leaving him in the not tooclean cotton or clover of an old rip with a good young wife. If he hadwanted a happy ending of a still conventional but satisfactory kind, heshould have married Gil to Laure or Estelle (they were, in modern slang, sufficiently "shop-worn goods" not to be ill-mated, and Laure is perhapsthe most attractive character in the whole book); have legitimatedLucrèce, as by some odd crotchet he definitely refuses to do;[320] havedropped the later Leporello business, in which his old love and herdaughter are concerned, altogether, and have left us in a mild sunset of"reconciliation. " If anybody scorns this suggestion as evidence of afutile liking for "rose-pink, " let him remember that Gil Blas, _ci-devant picaro_ and other ugly things, is actually left lapped in anElysium not less improbable and much more undeserved than this. But itis disagreeable to dwell on the shortcomings of age, and it has onlybeen done to show that this is a criticism and not a mere panegyric. 

Oddly enough, the Second volume is also open to much exception ofsomething, though not quite, the same kind; it seems as if Lesage, aftermaking strong running, had a habit of nursing himself and evengoing to sleep for a while. The more than questionable habit of_histoire_-insertions revives; that of the rascal-hermit _picaro_, "DonRaphael, " is, as the author admits, rather long, and, as he might haveadmitted, and as any one else may be allowed to say, very tiresome. GilBlas himself goes through a long period of occultation, and the wholerather drags. 

The First and the Third are the pillars of the house; and the Third, though (with the exception of the episode of the Archbishop, and thateternal sentence governing the relations of author and critic that "thehomily which has the misfortune not to be approved" by the one is thevery best ever produced by the other) not so well known, is perhaps evenbetter than anything in the First. But the later part has, of course, not quite so much freshness; and nobody need want anything better thanthe successive scenes, slightly glanced at already, in which Gil Blas istaught, by no means finally, [321] the ways of the world; the pureadventure interest of the robbers' cave, so admirably managed and solittle over-dwelt on; the experiences of travel and of the capital; thevivid pictures of _petit maître_ and actress life; the doubledeception--thoroughly Spanish this, but most freshly and universallyhandled--by Laure and Gil; many other well-known things; all deserve theknowledge and the admiration that they have won. But the Third, in whichthe hero is hardly ever off the scene from first to last, is my ownfavourite. He shows himself--not at his best, but humanly enough--in theaffair with the ill-fated Lorença, on which the Leyva family might havelooked less excusingly if the culprit had been anybody but Gil. TheGranada scenes, however, and not by any means merely those with theArchbishop, are of the very first class; and the reappearance of Laure, with the admirable coolness by which she hoodwinks her "keeper"Marialva, yields to nothing in the book. For fifty pages it is allnovel-gold; and though Gil Blas, in decamping from the place, andleaving Laure to bear the brunt of a possible discovery, commits one ofhis least heroic deeds, it is so characteristic that one forgives, notindeed him, but his creator. The whole of the Lerma part is excellentand not in the least improbably impossible; there is infinitely more"human natur'" in it, as Marryat's waterman would have said, than in the_réchauffé_ of the situation with Olivares. 

[Sidenote: Lesage's quality--not requiring many words, butindisputable. ]

The effect indeed which is produced, in re-reading, by _Le DiableBoiteux_ and _Gil Blas_, but especially by the latter, is of thatespecial kind which is a sort of "_a posteriori_ intuition, " if such aphrase may be permitted, of "classical" quality. [322] This sensation, which appears, unfortunately, to be unknown to a great many people, issometimes set down by the more critical or, let us say, the morecensorious of them, to a sort of childish prepossession--akin to thatwhich makes a not ill-conditioned child fail to discover anyuncomeliness in his mother's or a favourite nurse's face. There is noretort to such a proposition as this so proper as the argument not _adhominem_, but _ab_ or _ex homine_. The present writer did not read the_Devil_ till he had reached quite critical years; and though he read_Gil Blas_ much earlier, he was not (for what reason he cannot say)particularly fond of it until the same period was reached. And yet itsattractions cannot possibly be said to be of any recondite or artificialkind, and its defects are likely to be more, not less, recognised as thecritical faculty acquires strength and practice. Nevertheless, recentreperusal has made him more conscious than ever of the existence of thisquality of a classic in both, but especially in the larger and morefamous book. And this is a mere pailful added to an ocean of previousand more important testimony. _Gil Blas_ has certainly "classed" itselfin the most various instances, of essentially critical, not speciallycritical but generally acute and appreciative, and more or lessunsophisticated and ordinary judgments, as a thing that is past allquestion, equally enjoyable for its incidents, its character-sketches, and its phrasing--though the first are (for time and country) in nosense out of the way, the second scarcely go beyond the individualisedtype, and the third is neither gorgeous nor "alambicated, " as the Frenchsay, nor in any way peculiar, except for its saturation with a sharp, shrewd, salt wit which may be described as the spirit of the popularproverb, somehow bodied and clothed with more purely literary form. Itis true that, in the last few clauses, plenty of ground has beenindicated for ascription of classicality in the best sense; and perhapsLesage himself has summed the whole thing up when, in the "Declaration"of the author at the beginning of _Gil Blas_, he claims "to have setbefore himself only the representation of human life as it is. " He hassaid it; and in saying and doing it he has said and done everything forhis merits as a novelist and his place in the history of the novel. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Marivaux--_Les Effets de la Sympathie (?)_]

The Archbishop of Sens, who had the duty of "answering" Marivaux's"discourse of reception" into the Academy in the usual _aigre-doux_manner, informed him, with Academic frankness and Archiepiscopalpropriety, that "in the small part of your work which I have runthrough, I soon recognised that the reading of these agreeable romancesdid not suit the austere dignity with which I am invested, or the purityof the ideas which religion prescribes me. " This was all in the game, both for an Academician and for an Archbishop, and it probably did notdiscompose the novelist much. But if his Grace had read _Les Effets dela Sympathie_, and had chosen to criticise it, he might have made itsauthor (always supposing that Marivaux _was_ its author, which does notseem to be at all certain) much more uncomfortable. Although there isplenty of incident, it is but a dull book, and it contains not a traceof "Marivaudage" in style. A hero's father, who dies of poison in thefirst few pages, and is shown to have been brought round by an obliginggaoler in the last few; a hero himself, who thinks he has fallen in lovewith a beautiful and rich widow, playing good Samaritaness to him afterhe has fallen in among thieves, but a page or two later really does fallin love with a fair unknown looking languishingly out of a window; a_corsaire_, [323] with the appropriate name of Turcamène, who isrobustious almost from the very beginning, and receives at the end afatal stab with his own poniard from the superfluous widow, herself alsofatally wounded at the same moment by the same weapon (an economy oftime, incident, and munitions uncommon off the stage); an intermediatepersonage who, straying--without any earthly business there--into one ofthose park "pavilions" which play so large a part in these romances, finds a lady asleep on the sofa, with her hand invitingly dropped, promptly kneels down, and kisses it: these and many other things fill upa Spanish kind of story, not uningeniously though rather improbablyengineered, but dependent for its interest almost wholly on incident;for though it is not devoid of conversation, this conversation iswithout spirit or sparkle. It is, in fact, a "circulating library" novelbefore--at any rate at an early period of--circulating libraries: notunworkmanlike, probably not very unsatisfactory to its actual readers, and something of a document as to the kind of satisfaction theydemanded; but not intrinsically important. 

One has not seen much, in English, [324] about Marivaux, despite theexistence, in French, of one of the best[325] of those monographs whichassist the foreign critic so much, and sometimes perhaps help to begethis own lucubrations. Yet he is one of the most interesting writers ofFrance, one of the most curious, and, one may almost say, one of themost puzzling. This latter quality he owes, in part at least, to a"skiey influence" of the time, which he shares with Lesage and Prévost, and indeed to some extent with most French writers of the eighteenthcentury--the influence of the polygraphic habit. 

[Sidenote: His work in general. ]

He was a dramatist, and a voluminous one, long before he was a novelist:and some of his thirty or forty plays, especially _Les FaussesConfidences_ and _Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard_, still rank among atleast the second-class classics of the French comic stage. He tried, fora time, one of the worst kinds of merely fashionable literature, thetravesty-burlesque. [326] He was a journalist, following Addison openlyin the title, and to some extent in the manner, of _Le Spectateur_, which he afterwards followed by _Le Cabinet d'un Philosophe_, showing, however, here, as he was more specially tempted to do, his curious, andit would seem unconquerable, habit of leaving things unfinished, whichonly does not appear in his plays, for the simple and obvious reasonthat managers will not put an unfinished play on the stage, and that, ifthey did, the afterpiece would be premature and of a very livelycharacter. But the completeness of his very plays is incomplete; they"run huddling" to their conclusion, and are rather bundles of good ornot so good acts and scenes than entire dramas. We are, however, onlyconcerned with the stories, of which there are three: the early, complete, but doubtful _Effets de la Sympathie_, already discussed; thecentral in every way, but endlessly dawdled over, _Marianne_, whichnever got finished at all (though Mme. Riccoboni continued it inMarivaux's own lifetime, and with his placid approval, and somebodyafterwards botched a clumsy _Fin_); and _Le Paysan Parvenu_, the latterpart of which is not likely to be genuine, and, even if so, is not areal conclusion. We may, however, with some, advantage, take it before_Marianne_, if only because it is not the book generally connected withits author's name. 

[Sidenote: _Le Paysan Parvenu. _]

Notwithstanding this comparative oblivion, _Le Paysan Parvenu_ is analmost astonishingly clever and original book, at least as far as thefive of its eight parts, which are certainly Marivaux's, go. I have readthe three last twice critically, at a long interval of time, and I feelsure that the positive internal evidence confirms, against theirauthenticity, the negative want of external for it. In any case they addnothing--they do not, as has been said, even really "conclude"--and wemay, therefore, without any more apology, confine ourselves to the partwhich is certain. Some readers may possibly know that when thatstrangest of strange persons, Restif de la Bretonne (see the lastchapter of this book), took up the title with the slight change or glossof _Parvenu_ to _Perverti_, he was at least partly actuated by his ownvery peculiar, but distinctly existing, variety of moral indignation. And though Pierre Carlet (which was Marivaux's real name) and "MonsieurNicolas" (which was as near a real name as any that Restif had) were, the one a quite respectable person on ordinary standards, and the otheran infinitely disreputable creature, still the later novelist wasperhaps ethically justified. Marivaux's successful rustic does not, sofar as we are told, actually do anything that contravenes popularmorality, though he is more than once on the point of doing so. He isnot a bad-blooded person either; and he has nothing of the wild-beastelement in the French peasantry which history shows us from theJacquerie to the Revolution, and which some folk try to excuse as theresult of aristocratic tyranny. But he is an elaborate and exceedinglyable portrait of another side of the peasant, and, if we may trustliterature, even with some administration of salt, of the French peasantmore particularly. He is what we may perhaps be allowed to callunconsciously determined to get on, though he does not go quite to thelength of the _quocunque modo_, and has, as far as men are concerned, some scruples. But in relation to the other sex he has few if any, though he is never brutal. He is, as we may say, first "perverted, "though not as yet _parvenu_, [327] in the house of a Parisian, himself a_nouveau riche_ and _novus homo_, on whose property in Champagne his ownfather is a wine-farmer. He is early selected for the beginnings ofLady-Booby-like attentions by "Madame, " while he, as far as he iscapable of the proceeding, falls in love with one of Madame's maids, Geneviève. It does not appear that, if the lady's part of the matter hadgone further, Jacob (that is his name) would have been at all likeJoseph. But when he finds that the maid is also the object of"Monsieur's" attentions, and when he is asked to take the profits ofthis affair (the attitude[328] of the girl herself is very skilfullydelineated) and marry her, his own _point d'honneur_ is reached. [329]Everything is, however, cut short by the sudden death, in hopelesslyembarrassed circumstances, of Monsieur, and the consequent cessation ofMadame's attraction for a young man who wishes to better himself. Heleaves both her and Geneviève with perfect nonchalance; though he hasgood reason for believing that the girl really loves him, however shemay have made a peculiar sort of hay when the sun shone, and that bothshe and his lady are penniless, or almost so. 

He has, however, the luck which makes the _parvenu_, if in this instancehe can hardly be said to deserve it. On the Pont Neuf he sees an elderlylady, apparently about to swoon. He supports her home, and finds thatshe is the younger and more attractive of two old-maid and _dévote_sisters. The irresistibleness to this class of the feminine sex (andindeed by no means to this class only) of a strapping and handsomefootman is a commonplace of satire with eighteenth-century writers, bothFrench and English. It is exercised possibly on both sisters, though theelder is a shrew; certainly on the younger, and also on their elderly_bonne_, Catherine. But it necessarily leads to trouble. The younger, Mlle. Habert (the curious hiding of Christian names reappears here), wants to retain Jacob in the joint service, and Catherine at least makesno objection, for obvious reasons. But the elder sister recalcitratesviolently, summoning to her aid her "director, " and the younger, who isfinancially independent, [330] determines to leave the house. She does so(_not_ taking Catherine with her, though the _bonne_ would willinglyhave shared Jacob's society), and having secured lodgings, regularlyproposes to her (the word may be used almost accurately) "swain. " Jacobhas no scruples of delicacy here, though the nymph is thirty years olderthan himself, and though he has, if no dislike, no particular affectionfor her. But it is an obvious step upwards, and he makes nodifficulties. The elder sister, however, makes strong efforts to forbidthe banns, and her interest prevails on a "President" (the half-regularpower of the French _noblesse de robe_, though perhaps less violentlyexercised, must have been almost as galling as the irresponsibleness ofmen of birth and "sword") to interpose and actually stop the arrangedceremony. But Jacob appears in person, and states his case convincingly;the obstacle is removed, and the pair are made happy at an extraordinaryhour (two or three in the morning), which seems to have been thenfashionable for marriages. The conventional phrase is fairly justified;for the bride is completely satisfied, and Jacob is not displeased. 

His marriage, however, interferes not in the very least with hisintention to "get on" by dint of his handsome face and brawny figure. Onthe very day of his wedding he goes to visit a lady of position, andalso of devoutness, who is a great friend of the President and his wife, has been present at the irregular enquiry, and has done something forhim. This quickly results in a regular assignation, which, however, iscomically broken off. Moreover this lady introduces him to another ofthe same temperament--which indeed seems to have been common with Frenchladies (the Bellaston type being not the exception, but the rule). _She_is to introduce him to her brother-in-law, an influential financier, andshe quickly makes plain the kind of gratitude she expects. This also is, as far as we are told, rather comically interfered with--Marivaux'sdramatic practice made him good at these disappointments. She does givethe introduction, and her brother-in-law, though a curmudgeon, is atfirst disposed to honour her draft. But here an unexpected change ismade by the presentation of Jacob as a man of noble sentiment. The placehe is to have is one taken from an invalid holder of it, whose wifecomes to beg mercy: whereat Jacob, magnanimously and to the financier'sgreat wrath, declines to profit by another's misfortune. Whether thefact that the lady is very pretty has anything to do with the matterneed not be discussed. His--let us call it at least--good nature, however, indirectly makes his fortune. Going to visit the husband andwife whom he has obliged, he sees a young man attacked by three enemiesand ill-bested. Jacob (who is no coward, and, thanks to his wifeinsisting on his being a gentleman and "M. De la Vallée, " has a sword)draws and uses it on the weaker side, with no skill whatever, but in thedownright, swash-and-stab, short- and tall-sailor fashion, which (innovels at least) is almost always effective. The assailants decamp, andthe wounded but rescued person, who is of very high rank, conceives astrong friendship for his rescuer, and, as was said above, makes hisfortune. The last and doubtful three-eighths of the book kill off poorMlle. Habert (who, although Jacob would never have been unkind to her, was already beginning to be very jealous and by no means happy), andmarry him again to a younger lady of rank, beauty, fashion, and fortune, in the imparted possession of all of which we leave him. But, except tothe insatiables of "what happened next, " these parts are as questionablyimportant as they are decidedly doubtful. 

The really important points of the book are, in the first place, theease and narrative skill with which the story is told in the difficultform of autobiography, and, secondly, the vivacity of the characters. Jacob himself is, as will have been seen already, a piebald sort ofpersonage, entirely devoid of scruple in some ways, but not ill-natured, and with his own points of honour. He is perfectly natural, and so areall the others (not half of whom have been mentioned) as far as they go. The cross sister and the "kind" one; the false prude and false _devoté_Mme. De Ferval, and the jolly, reckless, rather coarse Mme. De Fécour;the tyrannical, corrupt, and licentious financier, with others moreslightly drawn, are seldom, if ever, out of drawing. The contemporarywash of colour passes, as it should, into something "fast"; you are inthe Paris of the Regency, but you are at the same time in general humantime and place, if not in eternity and infinity. 

[Sidenote: _Marianne_--outline of the story. ]

The general selection, however, of _Marianne_ as Marivaux's masterpieceis undoubtedly right, though in more ways than one it has less engagingpower than the _Paysan_, and forebodes to some extent, if it does notactually display, the boring qualities which novels of combined analysisand jargon have developed since. The opening is odd: the author havingapparently transplanted to the beginning of a novel the promiscuousslaughter with which we are familiar at the end of a play. Marianne (letus hail the appearance of a Christian-named heroine at last), a smallchild of the tenderest years, is, with the exception of an ecclesiastic, who takes to his heels and gets off, the sole survivor of a coachful oftravellers who are butchered by a gang of footpads, [331] because two ofthe passengers have rashly endeavoured to defend themselves. Nothing canbe found out about the child--an initial improbability, for the partyhas consisted of father, mother, and servants, as well as Marianne. Butthe good _curé_ of the place and his sister take charge of her, andbring her up carefully (they are themselves "gentle-people, " as the goodold phrase, now doubtless difficult of application, went) till she isfifteen, is very pretty, and evidently must be disposed of in some way, for her guardians are poor and have no influential relations. Thesister, however, takes her to Paris--whither she herself goes to secure, if possible, the succession of a relative--to try to obtain somesituation. But the inheritance proves illusory; the sister falls ill atParis and dies there; while the brother is disabled, and his living hasto be, if not transferred to, provided with, a substitute. This secondmassacre (for the brother dies soon) provides Marivaux with thesituation he requires--that of a pretty girl, alone in the capital, andabsolutely unfriended. Fortunately a benevolent Director knows a piousgentleman, M. De Climal, who is fond of doing good, and also, as itappears shortly by the story, of pretty girls. Marianne, with theearliest touch of distinct "snobbishness"--let it be proudly pointed outthat the example is not English, [332]--declines to go into service, butdoes not so much mind being a shop-girl, and M. De Climal establishesher with his _lingère_, a certain Mme. Dutour. 

This good lady is no procuress, but her morals are of a somewhataccommodating kind, and she sets to work, experiencing very littledifficulty in the process, to remove Marianne's scruples about acceptingpresents from M. De Climal--pointing out, very logically, that there isno obligation to (as Chesterfield put it not long after) _payer de sapersonne_; though she is naturally somewhat disgusted when the giftstake the form of handsome _lingerie_ bought at another shop. When this, and a dress to match, are made up, Marianne as naturally goes to churchto show them: and indulges in very shrewd if not particularly amiableremarks on her "even-Christians"--a delightful English archaism, whichsurely needs no apology for its revival. Coming out, she slips andsprains her ankle, whereupon, still naturally, appears the inevitableyoung man, a M. De Valville, who, after endless amicable wrangling, procures her a coach, but not without an awkward meeting. For M. DeValville turns out to be the nephew of M. De Climal; and the uncle, witha lady, comes upon the nephew and Marianne; while, a little later, eachfinds the other in turn at the girl's feet. Result: of course more thansuspicion on the younger man's part, and a mixture of wrath and desireto hurry matters on the elder's. He offers Marianne a regular (orirregular) "establishment" at a dependent's of his own, with a smallincome settled upon her, etc. She refuses indignantly, the indignationbeing rather suspiciously divided between her two lovers; is "plantedthere" by the old sinner Climal, and of course requested to leave byMme. Dutour; returns all the presents, much to her landlady's disgust, and once more seeks, though in a different mood, the shelter of theChurch. Her old helper the priest for some time absolutely declines toadmit the notion of Climal's rascality; but fortunately a charitablelady is more favourable, and Marianne gets taken in as a _pensionnaire_at a convent. Climal, whose sister and Valville's mother the lady turnsout to be, falls ill, repents, confesses, and leaves Marianne acomfortable annuity. Union with Valville is not opposed by the mother;but other members of the family are less obliging, and Valville himselfwanders after an English girl of a Jacobite exiled family, Miss Warton(Varthon). The story then waters itself out, before suddenly collapsing, with a huge and uninteresting _Histoire d'une Religieuse_. Whereat somefolk may grumble; but others, more philosophically, may be satisfied, inno uncomplimentary sense, without hearing what finally made MarianneCountess of Three Stars, or indeed knowing any more of her actualhistory. 

For in fact the entire interest of _Marianne_ is concentrated in and onMarianne herself, and the fact that this is so at once makescontinuation superfluous, and gives the novel its place in the historyof fiction. We have quite enough, as it is, to show us--as the PrincessAugusta said to Fanny Burney of the ill-starred last of French "MesdamesRoyales"--"what sort of a girl she is. " And her biographer has made hera very interesting sort of girl, and himself in making her so, a veryinteresting, and almost entirely novel, sort of novelist. To say thatshe is a wholly attractive character would be entirely false, exceptfrom the point of view of the pure student of art. She is technicallyvirtuous, which is, of course, greatly to her credit. [333] She is notbad-blooded, but if there were such a word as "good-blooded" it couldhardly be applied to her. With all her preserving borax- orformalin-like touch of "good form, " she is something of a minx. She isvain, selfish--in fact wrapped up in self--without any sense of otherthan technical honour. But she is very pretty (which covers a multitudeof sins), and she is really clever. 

[Sidenote: Importance of Marianne herself. ]

Yet the question at issue is not whether one can approve of Marianne, nor whether one can like her, nor even whether, approving and liking heror not, one could fall in love with her "for her comely face and for herfair bodie, " as King Honour did in the ballad, and as _homo rationalis_usually, though not invariably, does fall in love. The question iswhether Marivaux has, in her, created a live girl, and to what extent hehas mastered the details of his creation. The only critical answer, Ithink, must be that he has created such a girl, and that he has not lefther a mere outline or type, but has furnished the house as well as builtit. She is, in the particular meaning on which Mr. Hardy's defendersinsist, as "pure" a "woman" as Tess herself. And if there is a good dealmissing from her which fortunately some women have, there is nothing inher which some women have not, and not so very much which the majorityof women have not, in this or that degree. It is difficult not to smilewhen one compares her quintessence with the complicated and elusivecaricatures of womanhood which some modern novel-writers--noisily hailedas _gyno_sophists--have put together, and been complimented on puttingtogether. What is more, she is perhaps the first nearly completecharacter of the kind that had been presented in novel at her date. Thisis a great thing to say for Marivaux, and it can be said without theslightest fear of inability to support the saying. [334]

[Sidenote: Marivaux and Richardson--"Marivaudage. "]

Although, therefore, we may not care much to enter into calculations asto the details of the indebtedness of Richardson to Marivaux, someapproximations of the two, for critical purposes, may be useful. One mayeven see, without too much folly of the Thaumast kind, an explanation, beyond that of mere idleness, in the Frenchman's inveterate habit of notcompleting. He did not want you to read him "for the story"; andtherefore he cared little for the story itself, and nothing at all forthe technical finishing of it. The stories of both his characteristicnovels are, as has been fairly shown, of the very thinnest. What he didwant to do was to analyse and "display, " in a half-technical sense ofthat word, his characters; and he did this as no man had done beforehim, and as few have done since, though many, quite ignorant of theirindebtedness, have taken the method from him indirectly. In the secondplace, his combination of method and phrase is for infinite thoughts. This combination is not necessary; there is, to take up the comparativeline, nothing of it in Richardson, nothing in Fielding, nothing inThackeray. A few French eighteenth-century writers have it in directimitation of Marivaux himself; but it dies out in France, and in thegreatest novel-period there is nothing of it. It revives in the laternineteenth century, especially with us, and, curiously enough, if welook back to the beginnings of Romance in Greek, there is a good dealthere, the crown and flower being, as has been before remarked, inEustathius Macrembolita, but something being noticeable in earlier folk, especially Achilles Tatius, and the trick having evidently come fromthose rhetoricians[335] of whose class the romancers were a kind ofoffshoot. It is, however, only fair to say that, if Marivaux thought inintricate and sometimes startling ways, his actual expression is neverobscure. It is a maze, but a maze with an unbroken clue of speechguiding you through it. [336]

[Sidenote: Examples:--Marianne on the _physique_ and _moral_ ofPrioresses and Nuns. ]

A few examples of method and style may now be given. Here is Marianne'scriticism--rather uncannily shrewd and very characteristic both of hersubject and of herself--of that peculiar placid plumpness which has beenobserved by the profane in devout persons, especially in the RomanChurch and in certain dissenting sects (Anglicanism does not seem to beso favourable to it), and in "persons of religion" (in the technicalsense) most of all. 

 This Prioress was a short little person, round and white, with a double chin, and a complexion at once fresh and placid. You never see faces like that in worldly persons: it is a kind of _embonpoint_ quite different from others--one which has been formed more quietly and more methodically--that is to say, something into which there enters more art, more fashioning, nay, more self-love, than into that of such as we. [337]

 As a rule, it is either temperament, or feeding, or laziness and luxury, which give _us_ such of it as we have. But in order to acquire the kind of which I am speaking, it is necessary to have given oneself up with a saintlike earnestness to the task. It can only be the result of delicate, loving, and devout attention to the comfort and well-being of the body. It shows not only that life--and a healthy life--is an object of desire, but that it is wanted soft, undisturbed, and dainty; and that, while enjoying the pleasures of good health, the person enjoying it bestows on herself all the pettings and the privileges of a perpetual convalescence. 

 Also this religious plumpness is different in outward form from ours, which is profane of aspect; it does not so much make a face fat, as it makes it grave and decent; and so it gives the countenance an air, not so much joyous, as tranquil and contented. 

 Further, when you look at these good ladies, you find in them an affable exterior; but perhaps, for all that, an interior indifference. Their faces, and not their souls, give you sympathy and tenderness; they are comely images, which seem to possess sensibility, and which yet have merely a surface of kindness and sentiment. [338]

Acute as this is, it may be said to be somewhat displaced--though itmust be remembered that it is the Marianne of fifty, "Mme. La Comtessede * * *, " who is supposed to be writing, not the Marianne of fifteen. No such objection can be taken to what follows. 

[_She is, after the breach with Climal, and after Valville has earlierdiscovered his wicked uncle on his knees before her, packing upthe--well! not wages of iniquity, but baits for it--to send back to thegiver. A little "cutting" may be made. _]

[Sidenote: She returns the gift-clothes. ]

 Thereupon I opened my trunk to take out first the newly bought linen. "Yes, M. De Valville, yes!" said I, pulling it out, "you shall learn to know me and to think of me as you ought. " This thought spurred me on, so that, without my exactly thinking of it, it was rather to him than to his uncle that I was returning the whole, all the more so that the return of linen, dress, and money, with a note I should write, could not fail to disabuse Valville, and make him regret the loss of me. He had seemed to me to possess a generous soul; and I applauded myself beforehand on the sorrow which he would feel at having treated so outrageously a girl so worthy of respectful treatment as I was--for I saw in myself, confessedly, I don't know how many titles to respect. 

 In the first place I put my bad luck, which was unique; to add to this bad luck I had virtue, and they went so well together! Then I was young, and on the top of it all I was pretty, and what more do you want? If I had arranged matters designedly to render myself an object of sympathy, to make a generous lover sigh at having maltreated me, I could not have succeeded better; and, provided I hurt Valville's feelings, I was satisfied. My little plan was never to see him again in my lifetime; and this seemed to me a very fair and proud one; for I loved him, and I was even very glad to have loved him, because he had perceived my love, and, seeing me break with him, notwithstanding, would see also what a heart he had had to do with. 

The little person goes on very delectably describing the packing, andhow she grudged getting rid of the pretty things, and at last sighed andwept--whether for herself, or Valville, or the beautiful gown, shedidn't know. But, alas! there is no more room, except to salute her asthe agreeable ancestress of all the beloved coquettes and piquant minxesin prose fiction since. Could anything handsomer be said of her creator?

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Prévost. ]

[Sidenote: His minor novels--the opinions on them of Sainte-Beuve. ]

[Sidenote: And of Planche. ]

It is, though an absolute and stereotyped commonplace, an almost equallyabsolute necessity, to begin any notice of the Abbé Prévost by remarkingthat nothing of his voluminous work is now, or has been for a long time, read, except _Manon Lescaut_. It may be added, though one is hererepeating predecessors to not quite the same extent, that nothing elseof his, in fiction at least, is worth reading. The faithful few who donot dislike old criticism may indeed turn over his _Le Pour et [le]Contre_ not without reward. But his historical and othercompilations[339]--his total production in volumes is said to run overthe hundred, and the standard edition of his _Oeuvres Choisies_extends to thirty-nine not small ones--are admittedly worthless. As tohis minor novels--if one may use that term, albeit they are as major inbulk as they are minor in merit--opinions of importance, and presumablyfounded on actual knowledge, have differed somewhat strangely. Sainte-Beuve made something of a fight for them, but it was theSainte-Beuve of almost the earliest years (1831), when, according to aweakness of beginners in criticism, he was a little inclined "to bedifferent, " for the sake of difference. Against _Cléveland_ even helifts up his heel, though in a rather unfortunate manner, declaring thereading of the greater part to be "aussi fade que celle d'_Amadis_. " Nowto some of us the reading of _Amadis_ is not "fade" at all. But he findssome philosophical and psychological passages of merit. Over the_Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité_--that huge and unwieldy galleon towhich the frail shallop of _Manon_ was originally attached, and whichhas long been stranded on the reefs of oblivion, while its fly-boatsails for ever more--he is quite enthusiastic, finds it, though with acertain relativity, "natural, " "frank, " and "well-preserved, " gives it along analysis, actually discovers in it "an inexpressible savour"surpassing modern "local colour, " and thinks the handling of itcomparable in some respects to that of _The Vicar of Wakefield_! The_Doyen de Killérine_--the third of Prévost's long books--is "infinitelyagreeable, " "si l'on y met un peu de complaisance. " (The Sainte-Beuve oflater years would have noticed that an infinity which has to be madeinfinite by a little complaisance is curiously finite). The later andshorter _Histoire d'une Grecque moderne_ is a _joli roman_, and_gracieux_, though it is not so charming and subtle as Crébillon _fils_would have made it, and is "knocked off rather haphazardly. " Anothercritic of 1830, now perhaps too much forgotten, Gustave Planche, doesnot mention the _Grecque_, and brushes aside the three earlier andbigger books rather hastily, though he allows "interest" to both_Cléveland_ and the _Doyen_. Perhaps, before "coming to real things" (asBalzac once said of his own work) in _Manon_, some remarks, not long, but first-hand, and based on actual reading at more than one time oflife, as to her very unreal family, may be permitted here, though theymay differ in opinion from the judgment of these two redoubtablecritics. 

[Sidenote: The books themselves--_Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_. ]

I do not think that when I first wrote about Prévost (I had read _Manon_long before) more than thirty years ago, in a _Short History of FrenchLiterature_, I paid very much attention to these books. I evidently hadnot read the _Grecque Moderne_, for I said nothing about it. Of theothers I said only that they are "romances of adventure, occupying amiddle place between those of Lesage and Marivaux. " It is perfectlytrue, but of course not very "in-going, " and whatever reading I thengave any of them had not left very much impression on my mind, whenrecently, and for the purpose of the present work, I took them up again, and the _Histoire_ as well. This last is the story of a young modernGreek slave named Théophé (a form of which the last syllable seems moremodern than Greek), who is made visible in full harem by herparticularly complaisant master, a Turkish pasha, to a young Frenchman, admired and bought by this Frenchman (the relater of the story), andfreed by him. He does not at first think of making her his mistress, butlater does propose it, only to meet a refusal of a somewhatsentimental-romantic character, though she protests not merelygratitude, but love for him. The latter part of the book is occupied bywhat Sainte-Beuve calls "delicate" ambiguities, which leave us in doubtwhether her "cruelty" is shown to others as well, or whether it is not. In suggesting that Crébillon would have made it charming, the greatcritic has perhaps made another of those slips which show the novitiate. The fact is that it is an exceedingly dull book: and that to have madeit anything else, while retaining anything like its present "propriety, "either an entire metamorphosis of spirit, which might have made it aspassionate as _Manon_ itself, or the sort of filigree play with thoughtand phrase which Marivaux would have given, would be required. As a"Crébillonnade" (_v. Inf. _) it might have been both pleasant and subtle, but it could only have been made so by becoming exceedingly indecent. 

[Sidenote: _Cléveland. _]

Still, its comparative (though only comparative) shortness, and acertain possibility rather than actuality of interest in thesituation, [340] may recommend this novel at least to mercy. If thepresent writer were on a jury trying _Cléveland_, no want of food orfire should induce him to endorse any such recommendation in regard tothat intolerable book. It is, to speak frankly, one of the very fewbooks--one of the still fewer novels--which I have found it practicallyimpossible to read even in the "skim and skip and dip" fashion whichshould, no doubt, be only practised as a work of necessity (_i. E. _ dutyto others) and of mercy (to oneself) on extraordinary occasions, butwhich nobody but a prig and a pedant will absolutely disallow. Almostthe only good thing I can find to say about it is that Prévost, wholived indeed for some time in England, is now and then, if not always, miraculously correct in his proper names. He can actually spellHammersmith! Other merit--and this is not constant (in the dips which Ihave actually made, to rise exhausted from each, and skip rather thaneven skim to the rest)--I can find none. The beginning is absurd andrather offensive, the hero being a natural son of Cromwell by a womanwho has previously been the mistress of Charles I. The continuation is amish-mash of adventure, sometimes sanguinary, but never exciting, travel(in fancy parts of the West Indies, etc. ), and the philosophicaldisputations which Sainte-Beuve found interesting. As for the end, notwo persons seem quite agreed what _is_ the end. Sainte-Beuve speaks ofit as an attempted suicide of the hero--the most justifiable of all hisactions, if he had succeeded. Prévost himself, in the Preface to the_Doyen de Killérine_, repeats an earlier disavowal (which he says hehad previously made in Holland) of a fifth volume, and says that his ownwork ended with the murder of Cléveland by one of the characters. Again, this is a comprehensible and almost excusable action, and might havefollowed, though it could not have preceded, the other. But if it wasthe end, the other was not. A certain kind of critic may say that it ismy duty to search and argue this out. But, for my part, I say as areader to _Cléveland_, "No more _in_ thee my steps shall be, For everand for ever. "[341]

[Sidenote: _Le Doyen de Killérine. _]

_Le Doyen de Killérine_ is not perhaps so utterly to be excommunicatedas _Cléveland_, and, as has been said above, some have found realinterest in it. It is not, however, free either from thepreposterousness or from the dulness of the earlier book, though thefirst characteristic is less preposterous as such preposterousness goes. The Dean of Killérine (Coleraine) is a Roman Catholic dean, just afterthe expulsion of James II. , when, we learn with some surprise, thatneighbourhood was rather specially full of his co-religionists. He is asort of _lusus naturae_, being bow-legged, humpbacked, potbellied, andpossessing warts on his brows, which make him a sort of later hornedMoses. The eccentricity of his appearance is equalled by that of hisconduct. He is the eldest son of an Irish gentleman (nobleman, it wouldsometimes seem), and his father finds a pretty girl who is somehowwilling to marry him. But, feeling no vocation for marriage, he suggeststo her (a suggestion perhaps unique in fiction if not in fact) that sheshould marry his father instead. This singular match comes off, and asecond family results, the members of which are, fortunately, not _lususnaturae_, but a brace of very handsome and accomplished boys, George andPatrick, and an extremely pretty girl, Rosa. Of these three, theirparents dying when they are something short of full age, the excellentdean becomes a sort of guardian. He takes them to the exiled court ofVersailles, and his very hen-like anxieties over the escapades of thesemost lively ducklings supply the main subject of the book. It might havebeen made amusing by humorous treatment, but Prévost had no humour inhim: and it might have been made thrilling by passion, but he never, except in the one great little instance, compressed or distilled hisheaps and floods of sensibility and sensationalism into that. The scenewhere a wicked Mme. De S---- plays, and almost outplays, Potiphar's wifeto the good but hideous Dean's Joseph is one of the most curious innovel-literature, though one of the least amusing. 

[Sidenote: The _Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité_. ]

We may now go back to the _Mémoires_, partly in compliment to the masterof all mid-nineteenth-century critics, but more because of their almostfortuitous good luck in ushering _Manon_ into the world. There issomething in them of both their successors, _Cléveland_ and the _Doyen_, but it may be admitted that they are less unreadable than the first, andless trivial than the second. The plan--if it deserve that name--is odd, one marquis first telling his own fortunes and voyages and whatnots, andthen serving as Mentor (the application, though of course not original, is inevitable) to another marquis in further voyages and adventures. There are Turkish brides and Spanish murdered damsels; English politicsand literature, where, unfortunately, the spelling _does_ sometimesbreak down; glances backward, in "Histoires" of the _Grand Siècle_, atmeetings with Charles de Sévigné, Racine, etc. ; mysterious remedies, agreat deal of moralising, and a great deal more of weeping. Indeed thewhole of Prévost, like the whole of that "Sensibility Novel" of which heis a considerable though rather an outside practitioner, is pervadedwith a gentle rain of tears wherein the personages seem to revel--indeedadmit that they do so--in the midst of their woes. 

[Sidenote: Its miscellaneous curiosities. ]

On the whole, however, the youthful--or almost youthful--half-wisdom ofSainte-Beuve is better justified of its preference for the _Mémoires_than of other things in the same article. I found it, reading it lateron purpose and with "preventions" rather the other way, very much morereadable than any of its companions (_Manon_ is not its companion, butin a way its constituent), without being exactly readable _simpliciter_. All sorts of curious things might be dug out of it: for instance, quiteat the beginning, a more definite declaration than I know elsewhere ofthat curious French title-system which has always been such a puzzle toEnglishmen. "Il _se fit_ appeler le Comte de ... Et, se voyant un fils, il _lui donna_ celui de Marquis de ... " There is a good deal in it whichmakes us think that Prévost had read Defoe, and something which makes itnot extravagant to fancy that Thackeray had read Prévost. But once more"let us come to the real things--let us speak of" _Manon Lescaut_. 

[Sidenote: _Manon Lescaut. _]

[Sidenote: Its uniqueness. ]

It would be a very interesting question in that study ofliterature--rather unacademic, or perhaps academic in the best senseonly--which might be so near and is so far--whether the man is most tobe envied who reads _Manon Lescaut_ for the first time in blissfulignorance of these other things, and even of what has been said of them;or he who has, by accident or design, toiled through the twenty volumesof the others and comes upon Her. My own case is the former: and I amfar from quarrelling with it. But I sometimes like to fancy--now that Ihave reversed the proceeding--what it would have been like to dare thevoices--the endless, dull, half-meaningless, though not threateningvoices--of those other books--to refrain even from the appendix to the_Mémoires_ as such, and never, till the _Modern Greekess_ has beendispatched, return to and possess the entire and perfect jewel of_Manon_. I used to wonder, when, for nearer five and twenty than twentyyears, I read for review hundreds of novels, English and French, whetheranybody would ever repeat Prévost's extraordinary spurt and "sport" inthis wonderful little book. I am bound to say that I never knew aninstance. The "first book" which gives a promise--dubious it may be, butstill promising--and is never followed by anything that fulfils this, isnot so very uncommon, though less common in prose fiction than inpoetry. The not so very rare "single-speech" poems are also not realparallels. It is of the essence of poetry, according to almost everytheory, that it should be, occasionally at least, inexplicable andunaccountable. I believe that every human being is capable of poetry, though I should admit that the exhibition of the capability would be inmost cases--I am sure it would be in my own--"highly to be deprecated. "But with a sober prose fiction of some scope and room and verge it isdifferent. The face of Helen; the taste of nectar; the vision of theclouds or of the sea; the passion of a great action in oneself orothers; the infinite poignancy of suffering or of pleasure, maydraw--once and never again--immortal verse from an exceedingly mortalperson. Such things might also draw a phrase or a paragraph of prose. But they could not extract a systematic and organised prose tale of sometwo hundred pages, each of them much fuller than those of our averagesix-shilling stuff; and yet leave the author, who had never shownhimself capable of producing anything similar before, unable to produceanything in the least like it again. I wonder that the usual literarybusybodies have never busied themselves--perhaps they have, for during acouple of decades I have not had the opportunity of knowing everythingthat goes on in French literature as I once did--with Prévost, demonstrating that _Manon_ was a posthumous work of the Regent (who wasa clever man), or an expression of a real passion which lay at the backof Richelieu's debauchery, or written by some unknown author from whomthe Abbé bought it, and who died early, or something else of the kind. 

There does not, however, appear to be the slightest chance or hope orfear (whichever expression be preferred) of the kind. Although Prévostelsewhere indulges--as everybody else for a long time in France andEngland alike did, save creative geniuses like Fielding--intransparently feigned talk about the origins of his stories, he was avery respectable man in his way, and not at all likely to father or tosteal any one else's work in a disreputable fashion. There are no otherclaimants for the book: and though it may be difficult for a foreignerto find the faults of style that Gustave Planche rebukes in Prévostgenerally, there is nothing in the mere style of _Manon_ which sets itabove the others. 

For once one may concede that the whole attraction of the piece, barringone or two transient but almost Shakespearian flashes ofexpression--such as the famous "Perfide Manon! Perfide!" when she andDes Grieux first meet after her earliest treason--is to be found in itsmarvellous humanity, its equally marvellous grasp of character, and theintense, the absolutely shattering pathos of the relations of the heroand heroine. There are those, of course, who make much of the _personatertia_, Tiberge, the virtuous and friendly priest, who has a remarkablecommand of money for a not highly placed ecclesiastic, lends it withsingular want of circumspection, and then meddles with the best ofintentions and the most futile or mischievous of results. Veryrespectable man, Tiberge; but one with whom _on n'a que faire_. Manonand Des Grieux; Des Grieux and Manon--these are as all-sufficient to thereader as Manon was more than sufficient to Des Grieux, and as he, alas!was, if only in some ways, _in_sufficient to Manon. 

One of the things which are nuisances in Prévost's other books becomespardonable, almost admirable, in this. His habit of incessant, straight-on narration by a single person, his avoidance of dialogueproperly so called, is, as has been noted, a habit common to all theseearly novels, and, to our taste if not to that of their early readers, often disastrous. Here it is a positive advantage. Manon speaks verylittle; and so much the better. Her "comely face and her fair bodie" (torepeat once more a beloved quotation) speak for her to the ruin of herlover and herself--to the age-long delectation of readers. On the otherhand, the whole speech is Des Grieux', and never was a monologue bettersuited or justified. The worst of such things is usually that there arein them all sorts of second thoughts of the author. There is none ofthis littleness in the speech of Des Grieux. He is a gentle youth in thevery best sense of the term, and as we gather--not from anything he saysof himself, but from the general tenor--by no means a "wild gallant";affectionate, respectful to his parents, altogether "douce, " and, indeed, rather (to start with) like Lord Glenvarloch in _The Fortunes ofNigel_. He meets Manon (Prévost has had the wits to make her a littleolder than her lover), and _actum est de_ both of them. 

[Sidenote: The character of its heroine. ]

But Manon herself? She talks (it has been said) very little, and it wasnot necessary that she should talk much. If she had talked as Mariannetalks, we should probably hate her, unless, as is equally probable, weceased to take any interest in her. She is a girl not of talk but ofdeeds: and her deeds are of course quite inexcusable. But still thatgreat and long unknown verse of Prior, which tells how a more harmlessheroine did various things--

 As answered the end of her being created, fits her, and the deeds create her in their process, according to thewonderful magic of the novelist's art. Manon is not in the least aMessalina; it is not what Messalina wanted that she wants at all, thoughshe may have no physical objection to it, and may rejoice in it when itis shared by her lover. Still less is she a Margaret of Burgundy, or oneof the tigress-enchantresses of the Fronde, who would kill their loversafter enjoying their love. It has been said often, and is beyond alldoubt true, that she would have been perfectly happy with Des Grieux ifhe had fulfilled the expostulations of George the Fourth as to Mr. Turveydrop, and had not only been known to the King, but had had twentythousand a year. She wants nobody and nothing but him, as far as the"Him" is concerned: but she does not want him in a cottage. And here thesubtlety comes in. She does not in the least mind giving to others whatshe gives him, provided that they will give her what he cannot give. Thepossibility of this combination is of course not only shocking to Mrs. Grundy, but deniable by persons who are not Mrs. Grundy at all. Itsexistence is not really doubtful, though hardly anybody, except Prévostand (I repeat it, little as I am of an Ibsenite) Ibsen in the _WildDuck_, has put it into real literature. Manon, like Gina and probablylike others, does not really think what she gives of immense, or of anygreat, importance. People will give her, in exchange for it, what shedoes think of great, of immense importance; the person to whom she wouldquite honestly prefer to give it cannot give her these other things. Andshe concludes her bargain as composedly as any _bonne_ who takes thebasket to the shops and "makes its handle dance"--to use the Frenchidiom--for her own best advantage. It does annoy her when she has topart from Des Grieux, and it does annoy her that Des Grieux should beannoyed at what she does. But she is made of no nun's flesh, and suchsoul as she has is filled with much desire for luxury and pleasure. Thedesire of the soul will have its way, and the flesh lends itself readilyenough to the satisfaction thereof. 

[Sidenote: And that of the hero. ]

So, too, there is no such instance known to me of the presentation oftwo different characters, in two different ways, so complete and yet soidiosyncratic in each. Sainte-Beuve showed what he was going to become(as well, perhaps, as something which he was going to lose) in hisslight but suggestive remarks on the relation of Des Grieux to theaverage _roué_ hero of that most _roué_ time. It is only a suggestion;he does not work it out. But it is worth working out a little. DesGrieux is _ab initio_, and in some ways _usque ad finem_, a sort of_ingénu_. He seems to have no vicious tendencies whatever; and had Manonnot supervened, might have been a very much more exemplary Chevalier deMalte than the usual run of those dignitaries, who differed chieflyfrom their uncrossed comrades and brethren in having no wife to beunfaithful to. He is never false to Manon--the incident of one ofManon's lovers trying vainly to tempt his rival, with a pretty cast-offmistress of his own, is one of the most striking features of the book. He positively reveres, not his mother, who is dead, and reverence forwhom would be nothing in a Frenchman, but his father, and even, it wouldseem, his elder brother--a last stretch of reverence quite unknown tomany young English gentlemen who certainly would not do things that DesGrieux did. Except when Manon is concerned, it would seem that he mighthave been a kind of saint--as good at least as Tiberge. But his love forher and his desire for her entirely saturate and transform him. That hedisobeys his father and disregards his brother is nothing: we all dothat in less serious cases than his, and there is almost warrant for itin Scripture. But he cheats at play (let us frankly allow, rememberingGrammont and others, that this was not in France the unpardonable sinthat it has--for many generations, fortunately--been with us), at thesuggestion of his rascally left-hand brother-in-law, in order to supplyManon's wants. He commits an almost deliberate (though he makes someexcuses on this point) and almost cowardly murder, on an unarmedlay-brother of Saint-Sulpice, to get to Manon. And, worst of all, heconsents to the stealing of moneys given to her by his supplanters inorder to feed her extravagance. After this his suborning the King'ssoldiers to attack the King's constabulary on the King's highway torescue Manon is nothing. But observe that, though it is certainly not"All for God, " it _is_ "All for Her. " And observe further that all thesethings--even the murder--were quite common among the rank and file ofthat French aristocracy which was so busily hurrying on the FrenchRevolution. Only, Des Grieux himself would pretty certainly not havedone them if She had never come in his way. And he tells it all with alimpid and convincing clarity (as they would say now) which puts thewhole thing before us. No apology is made, and no apology is needed. Itis written in the books of the chronicles of Manon and Des Grieux; inthe lives of Des Grieux and Manon, suppose them ever to have existed orto exist, it could not but happen. 

[Sidenote: The inevitableness of both and the inestimableness of theirhistory. ]

It is surely not profane (and perhaps it has been done already) toborrow for these luckless, and, if you will, somewhat graceless persons, the words of the mighty colophon of Matthew Arnold's most unequal but inparts almost finest poem, at least the first and last lines:

 So rest, for ever rest, immortal pair, and

 The rustle of the eternal rain of love. 

Nor is it perhaps extravagant to claim for their creator--even for theirreporter--the position of the first person who definitely vindicated forthe novel the possibility of creating a passionate masterpiece, outstripping _La Princesse de Clèves_ as _Othello_ outstrips _A WomanKilled with Kindness_. As for the enormous remainder of him, if it isvery frankly negligible by the mere reader, it is not quite so by thestudent. He was very popular, and, careless bookmaker as he was in avery critical time, his popularity scarcely failed him till his horribledeath. [342] It can scarcely be said that, except in the one great citedinstance, he heightened or intensified the French novel, but he enlargedits scope, varied its interests, and combined new objectives with itsalready existing schemes, even in his less good work. In _Manon Lescaut_itself he gave a masterpiece, not only to the novel, not only to France, but to all literature and all the world. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Crébillon _fils_. ]

The unfortunate nobleman as to whom Dickens has left us in doubt whetherhe was a peer in his own right or the younger son or a Marquis or Duke, pronounced Shakespeare "a clayver man. " It was perhaps, in theparticular instance, inadequate though true. I hardly know any one inliterature of whom it is truer and more adequate than it is of ClaudeProsper Jolyot de Crébillon the younger, commonly called Crébillon_fils_. [343] His very name is an abomination to Mrs. Grundy, whoprobably never read, or even attempted to read, one of his naughtybooks. Gray's famous tribute[344] to him--also known to a large numberwho are in much the same case with Mrs. Grundy--is distinctlypatronising. But he is a very clever man indeed, and the cleverness ofsome of his books--especially those in dialogue--is positively amazing. 

[Sidenote: The case against him. ]

At the same time it is of the first importance to make the due provisosand allowances, the want of which so frequently causes disappointment, if not positive disgust, when readers have been induced by unbalancedlaudation to take up works of the literature of other days. There are, undoubtedly, things--many and heavy things--to be said againstCrébillon. A may say, "I am not, I think, _Mr. _ Grundy: but I cannotstand your Crébillon. I do not like a world where all the men areapparently atheists, and all the women are certainly the other thingmentioned in Donne's famous line. It disgusts and sickens me: and I willhave none of it, however clever it may be. " B, not quite agreeing withA, may take another tone, and observe, "He _is_ clever and he _is_amusing: but he is terribly monotonous. I do not mind a visit to the'oyster-bearing shores' now and then, but I do not want to live inLampsacus. After all, even in a pagan Pantheon, there are otherdivinities besides a cleverly palliated Priapus and a comparativelyladylike Cotytto. Seven volumes of however delicately veiled'sculduddery' are nearly as bad as a whole evening's golf-talk in a St. Andrews hotel, or a long men's dinner, where everybody but yourself is amember of an Amateur Dramatic Society. " The present writer is not farfrom agreeing with B, while he has for A a respect which disguises noshadow of a sneer. Crébillon does harp far too much on one string, andthat one of no pure tone: and even the individual handlings of thesubject are chargeable throughout his work with _longueurs_, in thegreater part of it with sheer tedium. It is very curious, and for us ofthe greatest importance, to notice how this curse of long-windedness, episodic and hardly episodic "inset, " endless talk "about it and aboutit, " besets these pioneers of the modern novel. Whether it was a legacyof the "Heroics" or not it is difficult to say. I think it was--to someextent. But, as we have seen, it exists even in Lesage; it is foundconspicuously in Marivaux; it "advances insupportably" in Prévost, except when some God intervenes to make him write (and to stop himwriting) _Manon_; and it rests heavily even on Crébillon, one of thelightest, if not one of the purest, of literary talents. It isimpossible to deny that he suffers from monotony of general theme: andequally impossible to deny that he suffers from spinning out ofparticular pieces. There is perhaps not a single thing of his whichwould not have been better if it had been shorter: and two of hisliveliest if also most risky pieces, _La Nuit et le Moment_ and _LeHasard au Coin du Feu_, might have been cut down to one half withadvantage, and to a quarter with greater advantage still. 

There are, however, excuses for Crébillon: and though it may seem a rashthing to say, and even one which gives the case away, there is, at leastin these two and parts of _Le Sopha_, hardly a page--even of the partswhich, if "cut, " would improve the work as a whole--that does not initself prove the almost elfish cleverness now assigned to him. 

[Sidenote: For the defendant--The veracity of his artificiality and hisconsummate cleverness. ]

The great excuse for him, from the non-literary point of view, is thatthis world of his--narrow though crowded as it is, corrupt, preposterous, inviting the Judgment that came after it as no periodperhaps has ever done, except that immediately before the Deluge, thatof the earlier Roman empire, and one other--was a real world in its day, and left, as all real things do, an abiding mark and influence on whatfollowed. One of the scores and almost hundreds of sayings whichdistinguish him, trivial as he seems to some and no doubt disgusting ashe seems to others, is made by one of his most characteristic and mostimpudent but not most offensive heroes _à la_ Richelieu, who says, notin soliloquy nor to a brother _roué_, but to the mistress of the moment:"If love-making is not always a pleasure, at any rate it is always akind of occupation. " That is the keynote of the Crébillon novel: it isthe handbook, with illustrative examples, of the business, employment, or vocation of flirting, in the most extensive and intensive meanings ofthat term comprehensible to the eighteenth century. 

[Sidenote: The Crébillonesque atmosphere and method. ]

Now you should never scamp or hurry over business: and Crébillonobserves this doctrine in the most praiseworthy fashion. With thethorough practicality of his century and of his nation (which has alwaysbeen in reality the most practical of all nations) he sets to work togive us the ways and manners of his world. It is an odd world at firstsight, but one gets used to its conventions. It is a world of what theyused to call, in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century, "high fellers" and of great ladies, all of whom--saving for glimpses ofmilitary and other appointments for the men, which sometimes take themaway and are useful for change of scene, of theatres, balls, gaming-tables for men and women both--"have nothing in the world to do"but carry on that occupation which Clitandre of "The Night and theMoment, " at an extremely suitable time and in equally appropriatecircumstances, refers to in the words quoted above. There are some otheroddities about this world. In some parts of it nobody seems to bemarried. Mrs. Grundy, and even persons more exercised in actual factthan Mrs. Grundy, would expect them all to be, and to neglect the tie. But sometimes Crébillon finds it easier to mask this fact. Often hisladies are actual widows, which is of course very convenient, and mightbe taken as a sign of grace in him by Mrs. G. : oftener it is difficultto say what they are legally. They are nearly all duchesses ormarchionesses or countesses, just as the men hold corresponding ranks:and they all seem to be very well off. But their sole occupation is thatconducted under the three great verbs, _Prendre_; _Avoir_; _Quitter_. These verbs are used rather more frequently, but by no meansexclusively, of and by the men. Taking the stage nomenclature familiarto everybody from Molière, which Crébillon also uses in some of hisbooks, though he exchanges it for proper names elsewhere, let us supposea society composed of Oronte, Clitandre, Eraste, Damis (men), andCydalise, Célie, Lucinde, Julie (ladies). Oronte "takes" Lucinde, "possesses" her for a time, and "quits" her for Julie, who has beenmeanwhile "taken, " "possessed, " and "quitted" by Eraste. Eraste passesto the conjugation of the three verbs with Cydalise, who, however, takesthe initiative of "quitting" and conjugates "take" in joint active andpassive with Damis. Meanwhile Célie and Clitandre are similarly occupiedwith each other, and ready to "cut in" with the rest at fresharrangements. These processes require much serious conversation, andthis is related with the same mixture of gravity and irony which isbestowed on the livelier passages of action. 

The thing, in short, is most like an intensely intricate dance, withendless figures--with elaborate, innumerable, and sometimesindescribable stage directions. And the whole of it is written downcarefully by M. Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. 

He might have occupied his time much better? Perhaps, as to the subjectof occupation. But with that we have, if not nothing, very little to do. The point is, How did he handle these better-let-alone subjects? andwhat contribution, in so handling them, did he make to the generaldevelopment of the novel?

I am bound to say that I think, with the caution given above, he handledthem, when he was at his best, singularly well, and gave hints, to betaken or left as they chose, to handlers of less disputable subjectsthan his. 

One at least of the most remarkable things about him is connected withthis very disputableness. Voltaire and Sterne were no doubt greater menthan Crébillon _fils_: and though both of them dealt with the same classof subject, they also dealt with others, while he did not. But, curiously enough, the reproach of sniggering, which lies so heavily onLaurence Sterne and François Arouet, does not lie on Crébillon. He hasan audacity of grave persiflage[345] which is sometimes almost Swiftianin a lower sphere: and it saves him from the unpardonable sin of thesnigger. He has also--as, to have this grave persiflage, he almostnecessarily must have--a singularly clear and flexible style, which isonly made more piquant by the "-assiez's" and "-ussiez's" of the olderlanguage. Further, and of still greater importance for the novelist, hehas a pretty wit, which sometimes almost approaches humour, and, if nota diabolically, a _diablotin_ically acute perception of human nature asit affects his subject. This perception rarely fails: and conventional, and very unhealthily conventional, as the Crébillon world is, the peoplewho inhabit it are made real people. He is, in those best things of hisat least, never "out. " We can see the ever-victorious duke (M. DeClerval of the _Hasard_ is perhaps the closest to the Richelieu model ofall Crébillon's coxcomb-gallants), who, even after a lady has given himmost unequivocal proofs of her affection, refuses for a long time, ifnot finally, to say that he loves her, because he has himself agraduated scheme of values in that direction, and though she may havetouched his heart, etc. , she has not quite come up to his "love"standard. [346] And we know, too, though she is less common, thephilosophical Marquise herself, who, "possessing" the most notoriouslyinconstant lover in all Paris (this same M. De Clerval, it happens), maintains her comparative indifference to the circumstance, allegingthat even when he is most inconstant he is always "very affectionate, though a little _extinguished_. " And in fact he goes off to her from thevery fireside, where such curious things have chanced. Extravagant asare the situations in _La Nuit et le Moment_, the other best thing, theyare, but for the _longueurs_ already censured, singularly verisimilar ontheir own postulates. The trusty coachman, who always drivesparticularly slowly when a lady accompanies his master in the carriage, but would never think of obeying the check-string if his master's ownvoice did not authorise it; the invaluable _soubrette_ who will sit upto any hour to play propriety, when her mistress is according a_tête-à-tête_, but who, most naturally, always falls asleep--thesecomplete, at the lower end of the scale, what the dukes and thecountesses have begun at the upper. And Crébillon, despite hisverbosity, is never at a loss for pointed sayings to relieve and frothit up. Nor are these mere _mots_ or _pointes_ or conceits--there is asingular amount of life-wisdom in them, and a short anthology might bemade here, if there were room for it, which would entirely vindicate theassertion. 

[Sidenote: Inequality of his general work--a survey of it. ]

It is true that the praises just given to Crébillon do not (as wasindeed hinted above) apply to the whole of his work, or even to thelarger part of it. An unfavourable critic might indeed say that, instrictness, they only apply to parts of _Le Sopha_ and to the two littledialogue-stories just referred to. The method is, no doubt, one by nomeans easy to apply on the great scale, and the restriction of thesubject adds to the difficulty. The longest regular stories of all, _Ah!Quel Conte!_ and _Le Sopha_ itself, though they should have beenmentioned in reverse order, are resumptions of the Hamiltonian idea[347]of chaining things on to the _Arabian Nights_. Crébillon, however, doesnot actually resuscitate Shahriar and the sisters, but substitutes alater Caliph, Shah Baham, and his Sultana. The Sultan is exceedinglystupid, but also very talkative, and fond of interrupting his vizier andthe other tale-tellers with wiseacreries; the Sultana is an acute enoughlady, who governs her tongue in order to save her neck. The framework isnot bad for a short story, but becomes a little tedious when it is madeto enshrine two volumes, one of them pretty big. It is better in _LeSopha_ than in _Ah! Quel Conte!_ and some of the tales that it gives usin the former are almost equal to the two excepted dialogues. Moreover, it is unluckily true that _Ah! Quel Conte!_ (an ejaculation of theSultana's at the beginning) might be, as Crébillon himself doubtlessforesaw, repeated with a sinister meaning by a reader at the end. _Tanzaï et Néadarné_ or _L'Écumoire_, another fairy story, thoughlivelier in its incidents than _Ah! Quel Conte!_--nay, though itcontains some of Crébillon's smartest sayings, and has perhaps hisnicest heroine, --is heavy on the whole, and in it, the author's_gauffre_-like lightness of "impropriety" being absent, the toneapproaches nearer to that dismallest form of literature ornon-literature--the deliberate obscene. 

_Les Égarements du Coeur et de l'Esprit_, on the other hand--one ofthe author's earliest books--is the furthest from that most undesirableconsummation, and one of the most curious, if not of the most amusing, of all. It recounts, from the mouth of the neophyte himself, the"forming" of a very young man--almost a boy--to this strange kind ofcommerce, by an elderly, but not yet old, and still attractivecoquette, Madame de Lursay, whose earlier life has scandalised even thenot easily scandalisable society of her time (we are not told quitehow), but who has recovered a reputation very slightly tarnished. Thehero is flattered, but for a long time too timid and innocent to availhimself of the advantages offered to him; while, before very long, Madame de Lursay's wiles are interfered with by an "Inconnue-Ingénue, "with whom he falls in deep calf-love of a quasi-genuine kind. The bookincludes sketches of the half-bravo gallants of the time, and is notnegligible: but it is not vividly interesting. 

Still less so, though they contain some very lively passages, and arethe chief _locus_ for Crébillon's treatment of the actual trio ofhusband, wife, and lover, are the _Lettres de la Marquise de M---- auComte de P----_. The scene in which the husband--unfaithful, peevish, and a _petit maître_--enters his wife's room to find an ancient, goutyMarquis, who cannot get off his knees quick enough, and terminates thesituation with all the _aplomb_ of the Regency, is rather nice: and thegradual "slide" of the at first quite virtuous writer (the wife herself, of course) is well depicted. But love-letters which are neitherhalf-badinage--which these are not--nor wholly passionate--which thesenever are till the last, [348] when the writer is describing a state ofthings which Crébillon could not manage at all--are very difficultthings to bring off, and Claude Prosper is not quite equal to thesituation. 

It will thus be seen that the objectors whom we have called A and B--orat least B--will find that they or he need not read all the pages of allthe seven volumes to justify their views: and some other work, still tobe mentioned, completes the exhibition. I confess, indeed, once moreunblushingly, that I have not read every page of them myself. Had theyfallen in my way forty years ago I should, no doubt, have done so; butforty years of critical experience and exercise give one the power, andgrant one the right, of a more summary procedure in respect of matterthus postponed, unless it is perceived to be of very exceptionalquality. These larger works of Crébillon's are not good, though they arenot by any means so bad as those of Prévost. There are nuggets, of theshrewd sense and the neat phrase with which he has been credited, innearly all of them: and these the skilled prospector of reading goldwill always detect and profit by. But, barring the possibility of acollection of such, the _Oeuvres Choisies_ of Crébillon need notcontain more than the best parts of _Le Sopha_, the two comparativelyshort dialogue-tales, and a longer passage or two from _Tanzaï etNéadarné_. It would constitute (I was going to say a respectable, but asthat is hardly the right word, I will say rather) a tolerable volume. Even in a wider representation _Les Heureux Orphelins_ and _LettresAthéniennes_ would yield very little. 

The first begins sensationally with the discovery, by a young Englishsquire in his own park, of a foundling girl and boy--_not_ of his ownproduction--whom he brings up; and it ends with a tedious description ofhow somebody founded the first _petite maison_ in England--a worthy workindeed. It is also noteworthy for a piece of bad manners, which, oneregrets to say, French writers have too often committed; lords andladies of the best known names and titles in or near Crébillon's ownday--such as Oxford, Suffolk, Pembroke--being introduced with the utmostnonchalance. [349] Our novelists have many faults to charge themselveswith, and Anthony Trollope, in _The Three Clerks_, produced a Frenchmanwith perhaps as impossible a name as any English travesty in Frenchliterature. But I do not remember any one introducing, in a _not_historical novel, a Duc de la Tremoille or a member of any of thebranches of Rohan, at a time when actual bearers of these titles existedin France. As for the _Lettres Athéniennes_, if it were not forcompleteness, I should scarcely even mention them. Alcibiades is thechief male writer; Aspasia the chief female; but all of them, male andfemale, are equally destitute of Atticism and of interest. The contrastof the contrasts between Crébillon's and Prévost's best and worst workis one of the oddest things in letters. One wonders how Prévost came towrite anything so admirable as _Manon Lescaut_; one wonders howCrébillon came to write anything so insufficient as the two books justcriticised, and even others. 

It may be said, "This being so, why have you given half a chapter tothese two writers, even with Lesage and Marivaux to carry it off?" Thereason is that this is (or attempts to be) a history of the Frenchnovel, and that, in such a history, the canons of importance are not thesame as those of the novel itself. _Gil Blas_, _Marianne_, _ManonLescaut_, and perhaps even _Le Hasard au Coin du Feu_ are interesting inthemselves; but the whole work of their authors is important, andtherefore interesting, to the historical student. For these authorscarried further--a great deal further--the process of laying thefoundations and providing the materials and plant for what was to come. Of actual masterpieces they only achieved the great, but not _equally_great, one of _Gil Blas_ and the little one of _Manon Lescaut_. But itis not by masterpieces alone that the world of literature lives in thesense of prolonging its life. One may even say--touching the uncleanthing paradox for a moment, and purifying oneself with incense, andsalt, and wine--that the masterpieces of literature are more beautifuland memorable and delectable in themselves than fertile in results. Theycatch up the sum of their own possibilities, and utter it in such afashion that there is no more to say in that fashion. The drearyimitation _Iliads_, the impossible sham _Divina Commedias_, theSheridan-Knowles Shakespearian plays, rise up and terrify or bore us. Whereas these second-rate experimenters, these adventurers in quest ofwhat they themselves hardly know, strike out paths, throw seed, sketchdesigns which others afterwards pursue, and plant out, and fill up. There are probably not many persons now who would echo Gray's wish foreternal romances of either Marivaux or Crébillon; and the accompanyingremarks in the same letter on _Joseph Andrews_, though they show someappreciation of the best characters, are quite inappreciative of themerit of the novel as a whole. For eternal variations of _JosephAndrews_, "_Passe!_" as a French Gray might have said. 

Nevertheless, I am myself pretty sure that Marivaux at least helpedRichardson and Fielding, and there can be no doubt that Crébillon helpedSterne. And what is more important to our present purpose, they andtheir companions in this chapter helped the novel in general, and theFrench novel in particular, to an extent far more considerable. We maynot, of course, take the course of literary history--general orparticular--which has been, as the course which in any case must havebeen. But at the same time we cannot neglect the facts. And it is aquite certain fact that, for the whole of the last half of theeighteenth century, and nearly the whole of the first quarter of thenineteenth, the French novel, as a novel, made singularly littleprogress. We shall have to deal in the next chapter, if not in the nexttwo chapters, with at least two persons of far greater powers than anyone mentioned in the last two. But we shall perhaps be able to showcause why even Voltaire and Rousseau, why certainly Diderot, whyMarmontel and almost every one else till we come, not in this volume, toChateaubriand, whose own position is a little doubtful, somehow failedto attain the position of a great advancer of the novel. 

These others, whatever their shortcomings, _had_ advanced it by bringingit, in various ways, a great deal nearer to its actual ideal of acompleted picture of real human life. Lesage had blended with hisrepresentation a good deal of the conventional picaresque; Marivaux hadabused preciousness of language and petty psychology; Prévost, save inthat marvellous windfall of his and the Muses which the historian ofnovels can hardly mention without taking off his hat if he has one on, or making his best bow if he has not, had gone wandering afterimpossible and uninteresting will-o'-the-wisps; Crébillon had done worsethan "abide in his inn, " he had abided almost always in his polite[350]bordello. But all of them had meant to be real; and all of them had, ifonly now and then, to an extent which even Madame de la Fayette hadscarcely achieved before, attained reality. 

FOOTNOTES:

[309] In fact it has been said, and may be said again, that Lesage isone of the prophets who have never had so much justice done them intheir own countries as abroad. 

[310] The first part of _Gil Blas_ appeared in 1715; and nearly twentyyears later gossip said that the fourth was not ready, though the authorhad been paid in advance for it six or seven years earlier. 

[311] I have never read it in the original, being, though a greatadmirer of Spanish, but slightly versed therein. 

[312] This, which is a sort of Appendix to the _Diable Boiteux_, is muchthe best of these _opera minora_. 

[313] He had a temper of the most _Breton-Bretonnant_ type--notill-natured but sturdy and independent, recalcitrant alike toill-treatment and to patronage. He got on neither at the Bar, his firstprofession, nor with the regular actors, and he took vengeance in hisbooks on both; while at least one famous anecdote shows his way oftreating a patron--indeed, as it happened, a patroness--who presumed. 

[314] Asmodeus, according to his usual station in the infernalhierarchy, is _démon de la luxure_: but any fears or hopes which may bearoused by this description, and the circumstances of the action, willbe disappointed. Lesage has plenty of risky situations, but his languageis strictly "proper. "

[315] Against this may be cited his equally anecdotic acceptance ofRegnard, who was also "run" against Molière. But Regnard was a "classic"and orthodox in his way; Lesage was a free-lance, and even a Romanticbefore Romanticism. Boileau knew that evil, as evil seemed to him, _had_come from Spain; he saw more coming in this, and if he anticipated morestill in the future, 1830 proved him no false prophet. 

[316] In other words, there is a unity of personality in the attitudewhich the hero takes to and in them. 

[317] And in it too, of course; as well as in Spain's remarkable but toosoon re-enslaved criticism. 

[318] As he says of himself (vii. X. ): _Enfin, après un sévère examen jetombais d'accord avec moi-même, que si je n'étais pas un fripon, il nes'en fallait guère. _ And the Duke of Lerma tells him later, "_M. DeSantillane, à ce que je vois, vous avez été tant soit peu_ picaro. "

[319] The two most undoubted cases--his ugly and, unluckily, repeatedacceptance of the part of Pandarus-Leporello--were only too ordinaryrascalities in the seventeenth century. The books of the chronicles ofEngland and France show us not merely clerks and valets but gentlemen ofevery rank, from esquire to duke, eagerly accepting this office. 

[320] In a curious passage of Bk. XII. Chap. I. In which Gil disclaimspaternity and resigns it to Marialva. This may have been prompted by adesire to lessen the turpitude of the go-between business; but it is aclumsy device, and makes Gil look a fool as well as a knave. 

[321] One of Lesage's triumphs is the way in which, almost to the last, "M. De Santillane, " despite the rogueries practised often on andsometimes by him, retains a certain gullibility, or at leastingenuousness. 

[322] Not of course as opposed to "romantic, " but as = "chief andprincipal. "

[323] The reader must not forget that this formidable word means"privateer" rather than "pirate" in French, and that this was the goldenage of the business in that country. 

[324] Those who are curious may find something on him by the presentwriter, not identical with the above account, in an essay entitled _AStudy of Sensibility_, reprinted in _Essays on French Novelists_(London, 1891), and partly, but outside of the Marivaux part, reproducedin Chap. XII. Of the present volume. 

[325] By M. Gustave Larroumet. Paris, 1882. 

[326] I need hardly say that I am not referring to things like _Rebeccaand Rowena_ or _A Legend of the Rhine_, which "burst the outer shell ofsin, " and, like Mrs. Martha Gwynne in the epitaph, "hatch themselves acherubin" in each case. 

[327] The reader will perhaps excuse the reminder that the sense inwhich we (almost exclusively) use this word, and which it had gained inFrench itself by the time of Talleyrand's famous double-edged sarcasm onperson and world (_Il n'est pas parvenu: il est arrivé_), was not quiteoriginal. The _parvenu_ was simply a person who _had_ "got on": thedisobliging slur of implication on his former position, and perhaps onhis means of freeing himself from it, came later. It is doubtful whetherthere is much, if indeed there is any, of this slur in Marivaux's title. 

[328] It is the acme of what may be called innocent corruption. She doesnot care for her master, nor apparently for vicious pleasure, nor--certainly--for money as such. She does care for Jacob, and wants tomarry him; the money will make this possible; so she earns it by themeans that present themselves, and puts it at his disposal. 

[329] He is proof against his master's threats if he refuses; as well asagainst the money if he accepts. Unluckily for Geneviève, when he breaksaway she faints. Her door and the money-box are both left open, and thelatter disappears. 

[330] Here and elsewhere the curious cheapness of French living (despitewhat history tells of crushing taxation, etc. ) appears. The _locusclassicus_ for this is generally taken to be Mme. De Maintenon'swell-known letter about her brother's housekeeping. But here, well intoanother century, Mlle. Habert's 4000 _livres_ a year are supposed to beat least relative affluence, while in _Marianne_ (_v. Inf. _) M. DeClimal thinks 500 or 600 enough to tempt her, and his final bequest ofdouble that annuity is represented as making a far from despicable _dot_even for a good marriage. 

[331] The much greater blood-thirstiness of the French highwayman, ascompared with the English, has been sometimes attributed byhumanitarians to the "wheel"--and has often been considered by personsof sense as justifying that implement. 

[332] The Devil's Advocate may say that Marianne turns out to be ofEnglish extraction after all--but it is not Marivaux who tells us so. 

[333] To question or qualify Marianne's virtue, even in the slightestdegree, may seem ungracious; for it certainly withstands what to somegirls would have been the hardest test of all--that is to say, not somuch the offer of riches if she consents, as the apparent certainty ofutter destitution if she refuses. At the same time, the Devil's Advocateneed not be a Kelly or a Cockburn to make out some damaging suggestions. Her vague, and in no way solidly justified, but decided family prideseems to have a good deal to do with her refusal; and though this showsthe value of the said family pride, it is not exactly virtue in itself. Still more would appear to be due to the character of the suit and thesuitor. M. De Climal is not only old and unattractive; not only a sneakand a libertine; but he is a clumsy person, and he has not, as he mighthave done, taken Marianne's measure. The mere shock of his suddentransformation from a pious protector into a prospective "keeper, " whois making a bid for a new concubine, has evidently an immense effect onher quick nervous temperament. She is not at all the kind of girl tolike to be the plaything of an old man; and she is perfectly shrewdenough to see that vengeance, and fear as regards his nephew, have asmuch as anything else, or more, to do with the way in which he brusqueshis addresses and hurries his gift. Further, she has already conceived afancy, at least, for that nephew himself; and one sees the "jury droop, "as Dickens has put it, with which the Counsel of the Prince of the Airwould hint that, if the offers had come in a more seductive fashion fromValville himself, they might not have been so summarily rejected. Butlet it be observed that these considerations, while possibly unfair toMarianne, are not in the least derogatory to Marivaux himself. On thecontrary, it is greatly to his credit that he should have created acharacter of sufficient lifelikeness and sufficient complexity to serveas basis for "problem"-discussions of the kind. 

[334] To put the drift of the above in other words, we do not need tohear any more of Marianne in any position, because we have had enoughshown us to know generally what she would do, say, and think, in allpositions. 

[335] It has been observed that there is actually a Meredithian qualityin Aristides of Smyrna, though he wrote no novel. A tale in Greek, toillustrate the parallel, would be an admirable subject for a UniversityPrize. 

[336] Two descriptions of "Marivaudage" (which, by the way, was partlyanticipated by Fontenelle)--both, if I do not mistake, by Crébillon_fils_--are famous: "Putting down not only everything you said andthought, but also everything you would like to have thought and said, but did not, " and, "Introducing to each other words which never hadthought of being acquainted. " Both of these perhaps hit the modern formsof the phenomenon even harder than they hit their original butt. 

[337] It is only fair to the poor Prioress to say that there is hardly aheroine in fiction who is more deeply in love with her own pretty littleself than Marianne. 

[338] One does not know whether it was prudence, or that materialismwhich, though he was no _philosophe_, he shared with most of hiscontemporaries, which prevented Marivaux from completing this sharpthough mildly worded criticism. The above-mentioned profane have hintedthat both the placidity and the indifference of the persons concerned, whether Catholic or Calvinist, arise from their certainty of their ownsafety in another world, and their looking down on less "guaranteed"creatures in this. It may be just permissible to add that a comparisonof Chaucer's and Marivaux's prioresses will suggest itself to manypersons, and should be found delectable by all fit ones. 

[339] His books on Margaret of Anjou and William the Conqueror are oddcrosses between actual historical essays and the still unborn historicalnovel. 

[340] Mlle. De Launay, better known as Mme. De Staal-Delaunay, saw, asmost would have seen, a resemblance in this to the famous Mlle. Aïssé's. But the latter was bought as a little child by her provident"protector, " M. De Ferréol. Mlle. Aïssé herself had earlier read the_Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité_ and did not think much of them. Butthis was the earlier part. It would be odd if she had not appreciatedManon had she read it: but she died in the year of its appearance. 

[341] The excellent but rather stupid editor of the [Dutch] _OeuvresChoisies_ above noticed has given abstracts of Prévost's novels as wellas of Richardson's, which the Abbé translated. These, withSainte-Beuve's of the _Mémoires_, will help those who want somethingmore than what is in the text, while declining the Sahara of theoriginal. But, curiously enough, the Dutchman does not deal with the endof _Cléveland_. 

[342] He had a fit of apoplexy when walking, and instead of being bledwas actually cut open by a village super-Sangrado, who thought him deadand only brought him to life--to expire actually in torment. 

[343] Crébillon _père_, tragedian and academician, is one of the personswho have never had justice done to them: perhaps because they neverquite did justice to themselves. His plays are unequal, rhetorical, andas over-heavy as his son's work is over-light. But, if we want to findthe true tragic touch of verse in the French eighteenth century, we mustgo to him. 

[344] "Be it mine to read endless romances of Marivaux and Crébillon. "

[345] Learnt, no doubt, to a great extent from Anthony Hamilton, withwhose family, as has been noticed, he had early relations. 

[346] He goes further, and points out that, as she is his _really_beloved Marquise's most intimate friend, she surely wouldn't wish him todeclare himself false to that other lady?--having also previouslyobserved that, after what has occurred, he could never think ofdeceiving his Célie herself by false declarations. Thesetopsy-turvinesses are among Crébillon's best points, and infinitelysuperior to the silly "platitudes reversed" which have tried to producethe same effect in more recent times. 

[347] It has been said more than once that Crébillon had early access toHamilton's MSS. He refers directly to the Facardins in _Ah! Quel Conte!_and makes one of his characters claim to be grand-daughter ofCristalline la Curieuse herself. 

[348] Nor perhaps even then, for passion is absolutely unknown to ourauthor. One touch of it would send the curious Rupert's drop of hismicrocosm to shivers, as _Manon Lescaut_ itself in his time, and_Adolphe_ long after, show. 

[349] Some remarks are made by "Madame _Hépenny_"--a very pleasingphoneticism, and, though an actual name, not likely to offend any actualperson. 

[350] No sneer is intended in this adjective. Except in one or two ofthe personages of _Les Égarements_, Crébillon's intended gentlemen arenearly always well-bred, however ill-moralled they may be, and hisladies (with the same caution) are ladies. It is with him, in this lastpoint at any rate, as with our own Congreve, whom he rather closelyresembles in some ways: though I was amused the other day to find sometwentieth-century critical objections to actresses' rendering of _Lovefor Love_ as "too well-bred. " The fact is that the tradition of"breeding" never broke down in France till the _philosophe_ period, while with us it lasted till--when shall we say?

CHAPTER XI

THE _PHILOSOPHE_ NOVEL

[Sidenote: The use of the novel for "purpose"--Voltaire. ]

It has been for some time a commonplace--though, like most commonplaces, it is probably much more often simply borrowed than an actual and (evenin the sense of _communis_) original perception of the borrowers--thatnothing shows the comparative inevitableness of the novel in theeighteenth century better than the use of it by persons who would, atother times, have used quite different forms to subserve similarpurposes. The chief instance of this with us is, of course, Johnson in_Rasselas_, but it is much more variously and voluminously, if not inany single instance much better, illustrated in France by the threegreat leaders of the _philosophe_ movement; by considerable, ifsecond-rate figures, more or less connected with that movement, likeMarmontel and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre; and by many lesser writers. 

There can be no question that, in more ways than one, Voltaire[351]deserves the first place in this chapter, not only by age, by volume, and by variety of general literary ability, but because he, perhaps morethan any of the others, is a tale-teller born. That he owes a good dealto Hamilton, and something directly to Hamilton's master, Saint-Évremond, has been granted elsewhere; but that he is dependent onthese models to such an extent as to make his actual production unlikelyif the models had not been ready for him, may be roundly denied. Thereare in literature some things which must have existed, and of which itis not frivolous to say that if their actual authors had not been there, or had declined to write them, they would have found somebody else to doit. Of these, _Candide_ is evidently one, and more than one of_Candide's_ smaller companions have at least something of the samecharacteristic. Yet one may also say that if Voltaire himself had notwritten these, he must have written other things of the kind. Themordant wit, the easy, fluent, rippling style, so entirely free fromboisterousness yet with constant "wap" of wavelet and bursting offoam-bubble; above all, the pure unadulterated faculty of tale-telling, must have found vent and play somehow. It had been well if theplayfulness had not been, as playfulness too often is, of whatcontemporary English called an "unlucky" (that is, a "mischievous")kind; and if the author had not been constantly longing to make somebodyor many bodies uncomfortable, [352] to damage and defile shrines, toexhibit a misanthropy more really misanthropic, because less passionateand tragical, than Swift's, and, in fact, as his patron, persecutor, andcounterpart, Frederick the Jonathan-Wildly Great, most justly observedof him, to "play monkey-tricks, " albeit monkey-tricks of immense talent, if not actually of genius. If the recent attempts to interpretmonkey-speech were to come to something, and if, as a consequence, monkeys were taught to write, one may be sure that prose fiction wouldbe their favourite department, and that their productions would be, though almost certainly disreputable, quite certainly amusing. In factthere would probably be some among these which would be claimed, bycritics of a certain type, as hitherto unknown works of Voltairehimself. 

Yet if the straightforward tale had not, owing to the influencesdiscussed in the foregoing chapters, acquired a firm hold, it is atleast possible that he would not have adopted it (for originality ofform was not Voltaire's _forte_), but would have taken the dialogue, orsomething else capable of serving his purpose. As it was, the particularfield or garden had already been marked out and hedged after a fashion;tools and methods of cultivation had been prepared; and he set to workto cultivate it with the application and intelligence recommended in thefamous moral of his most famous tale--a moral which, it is only fair tosay, he did carry out almost invariably. A garden of very questionableplants was his, it may be; but that is another matter. The fact and thesuccess of the cultivation are both undeniable. 

[Sidenote: General characteristics of his tales. ]

At the same time, Voltaire--if indeed, as was doubted just now, he be agenius at all--is not a genius, or even a djinn, of the kind thatcreates and leaves something Melchisedec-like; alone and isolated fromwhat comes before and what comes after. He is an immense talent--perhapsthe greatest talent-but-not-genius ever known--who utilises and improvesand develops rather than invents. It is from this that his faculty ofnever boring, except when he has got upon the Scriptures, comes; it isbecause of this also that he never conceives anything really, simply, absolutely _great_. His land is never exactly weary, but there is noimposing and sheltering and refreshing rock in it. These _romans_ and_contes_ and _nouvelles_ of his stimulate, but they do not either restor refresh. They have what is, to some persons at any rate, thetheatrical quality, not the poetical or best-prosaic. But as nearlyconsummate works of art, or at least craft, they stand almost alone. 

He had seen[353] the effect of which the fairy tale of thesophisticated kind was capable, and the attraction which it had for bothvulgars, the great and the small: and he made the most of it. He keptand heightened its _haut goût_; he discarded the limitations to a verypartial and conventional society which Crébillon put on it; but helimited it in other ways to commonplace and rather vulgar fancy, withoutthe touches of imagination which Hamilton had imparted. Yet he infusedan even more accurate appreciation of certain phases of human naturethan those predecessors or partial contemporaries of his who werediscussed in the last chapter had introduced; he _practicalised_ it tothe _n_th, and he made it almost invariably subordinate to a direct, though a sometimes more or less ignoble, purpose. There is no doubt thathe had learnt a great deal from Lucian and from Lucian's Frenchimitators, perhaps as far back as Bonaventure des Périers; there is, Ithink, little that he had added as much as he could add from Swift. [354]His stolen or borrowed possessions from these sources, and especiallythis last, remind one in essence rather of the pilferings of a "lighthorseman, " or river-pirate who has hung round an "old three-decker, "like that celebrated in Mr. Kipling's admirable poem, and has caughtsomething even of the light from "her tall poop-lanterns shining so farabove him, " besides picking up overboard trifles, and cutting looseboats and cables. But when he gets to shore and to his own workshop, hisalmost unequalled power of sheer wit, and his general craftsmanship, bring out of these lootings something admirable in its own way. 

[Sidenote: _Candide. _]

_Candide_ is almost "great, " and though the breed of Dr. Pangloss in itsoriginal kind is nearly extinct, the England which suffered theapproach, and has scarcely yet allowed itself to comprehend the reality, of the war of 1914, ought to know that there have been and arePangloss_otins_ of almost appalling variety. The book does not reallyrequire the smatches of sculduddery, which he has smeared over it, tobe amusing; for its lifelikeness carries it through. As is well known, Johnson admitted the parallel with _Rasselas_, which is among the mostextraordinary coincidences of literature. I have often wondered whetheranybody ever took the trouble to print the two together. There would bemany advantages in doing so; but they might perhaps be counter-balancedby the fact that some of the most fervent admirers of _Rasselas_ wouldbe infinitely shocked by _Candide_, and that perhaps more of the speciallovers of _Candide_ would find themselves bored to extinction by_Rasselas_. Let those who can not only value but enjoy both be thankful, but not proud. 

Many people have written about the Consolations of Old Age, not seldom, it is to be feared, in a "Who's afraid?" sort of spirit. But there are afew, an apple or two by the banks of Ulai, which we may pluck as thenight approaches. One is almost necessarily accidental, for it would berash and somewhat cold-blooded to plan it. It consists in the reading, after many years, of a book once familiar almost to the point of knowingby heart, and then laid aside, not from weariness or disgust, but merelyas things happened. This, as in some other books mentioned in thishistory, was the case with the present writer in respect of _Candide_. From twenty to forty, or thereabouts, I must have read it over and overagain; the sentences drop into their places almost without exercisingany effort of memory to recognise them. From forty to seventy I do notthink I read it at all; because no reason made reading necessary, andchance left it untouched on the shelf. Sometimes, as everybody knows, the result of renewed acquaintance in such cases is more or less severedisappointment; in a few of the happiest, increased pleasure. But it isperhaps the severest test of a classic (in the exact but limited senseof that word) that its effect shall be practically unchanged, shall havebeen established in the mind and taste with such a combination ofsolidity and _netteté_, that no change is possible. I do not think Ihave ever found this to be more the case than with the history ofCandide (who was such a good fellow, without being in the least a prig, as I am afraid Zadig was, that one wonders how Voltaire came to think ofhim) and of Mademoiselle Cunégonde (nobody will ever know anything aboutstyle who does not feel what the continual repetition in Candide's mouthof the "Mademoiselle" does) of the indomitable Pangloss, and thedetestable baron, and the forgivable Paquette, and that philosopherMartin, who did _not_ "let cheerfulness break in, " and the admirableCacambo, who shows that, much as he hated Rousseau, Voltaire himself wasnot proof against the noble savage mania. [355]

As a piece (_v. Sup. _) of art or craft, the thing is beyond praise orpay. It could not be improved, on its own specification, except thatperhaps the author might have told us how Mademoiselle Cunégonde, whohad kept her beauty through some very severe experiences, suddenly lostit. It is idle as literary, though not as historical, criticism to say, as has been often said about the Byng passage, that Voltaire's smartnessrather "goes off through the touch-hole, " seeing that the admiral'sexecution did very considerably "encourage the others. " It issuperfluous to urge the unnecessary "smuts, " which are sometimes not inthe least amusing. All these and other sought-for knots are lost in theadmirable smoothness of this reed, which waves in the winds of time withunwitherable greenness, and slips through the hand, as you stroke it, with a coaxing tickle. To praise its detail would again be idle--nobodyought to read such praise who can read itself; and if anybody, havingread its first page, fails to see that it is, and how it is, praiseworthy, he never will or would be converted if all the eulogies ofthe most golden-mouthed critics of the world were poured upon him in asteady shower. As a whole it is undoubtedly the best, and (except partof _Zadig_) it is nowhere else matched in the book of the romances ofVoltaire, while for those who demand "purposes" and "morals, " it standsalmost alone. It is the comic "Vanity of Human Wishes" in prose, as_Rasselas_ is the tragic or, at least, serious version: and, as has beensaid, the two make an unsurpassable sandwich, or, at least, _tartine_. Nor could it have been told, in any other way than by prose fiction, with anything like the same effect, either as regards critical judgmentor popular acceptance. 

[Sidenote: _Zadig_ and its satellites. ]

_Zadig_, as has been indicated already, probably ranks in point of meritnext to _Candide_. If it had stopped about half-way, there could be nodoubt about the matter. The reader is caught at once by one of the mostfamous and one of the most Voltairian of phrases, "Il savait de lamétaphysique ce qu'on a su dans tous les âges, c'est-à-dire fort peu dechose, " a little more discussion of which saying, and of others like it, may perhaps be given later. The successive disappointments of the almosttoo perfect[356] hero are given with the simplicity just edged withirony which is Voltaire's when he is at his best, though he undoubtedlylearnt it from the masters already assigned, and--the suggestion wouldhave made him very angry, and would probably have attracted one of hismost Yahoo-like descents on this humble and devoted head--from Lesage. But though the said head has no objection--much the reverse--to "happyendings, " the romance-finish of _Zadig_ has always seemed to it amistake. Still, how many mistakes would one pardon if they came aftersuch a success? _Babouc_, the first of those miniature _contes_ (theyare hardly "tales" in one sense), which Voltaire managed so admirably, has the part-advantage part-disadvantage of being likewise the first ofa series of satires on French society, which, piquant as they are, wouldcertainly have been both more piquant and more weighty if there had beenfewer of them. It is full of the perfect, if not great, Voltairianphrases, --the involuntary _Mene Tekel_, "Babouc conclut qu'une tellesociété ne pouvait subsister"; the palinode after a fashion, "Ils'affectionnait à la ville, dont le peuple était doux [oh! Nemesis!]poli et bien-faisant, quoique léger, médisant et plein de vanité"; andthe characteristic collection of parallel between Babouc and Jonah, surely not objectionable even to the most orthodox, "Mais quand on a ététrois jours dans le corps d'une baleine on n'est pas de si bonne humeurque quand on a été à l'opéra, à la comédie et qu'on a soupé en bonnecompagnie. "

[Sidenote: _Micromégas. _]

_Memnon, ou La Sagesse Humaine_ is still less of a tale, only a livelysarcastic apologue; but he would be a strange person who would quarrelwith its half-dozen pages, and much the same may be said of the _Voyagesde Scarmentado_. Still, one feels in both of them, and in many of theothers, that they are after all not much more than chips of an inferiorrehandling of _Gulliver_. _Micromégas_, as has been said, does notdisguise its composition as something of the kind; but the desire toannoy Fontenelle, while complimenting him after a fashion as the "dwarfof Saturn, " and perhaps other strokes of personal scratching, have putVoltaire on his mettle. You will not easily find a better Voltairism ofits particular class than, "Il faut bien citer ce qu'on ne comprendpoint du tout, dans la langue qu'on entend le moins. " But, as so oftenhappens, the cracker in the tail is here the principal point. Micromégas, the native of Sirius, who may be Voltaire himself, oranybody else--after his joint tour through the universes (much moreamusing than that of the late Mr. Bailey's Festus), with the smaller butstill gigantic Saturnian--writes a philosophical treatise to instruct uspoor microbes of the earth, and it is taken to Paris, to the secretaryof the Academy of Science (Fontenelle himself). "Quand le sécretairel'eut ouvert il ne vit rien qu'un livre tout blanc. 'Ah!' dit-il, 'jem'en étais bien douté. '" Voltaire did a great deal of harm in the world, and perhaps no solid good;[357] but it is things like this which makeone feel that it would have been, a loss had there been no Voltaire. 

[Sidenote: _L'Ingénu. _]

_L'Ingénu_, which follows _Candide_ in the regular editions, fallsperhaps as a whole below all these, and _L'Homme aux Quarante Écus_, which follows it, hardly concerns us at all, being mere politicaleconomy of a sort in dialogue. _L'Ingénu_ is a story, and has manyamusing things in it. But it is open to the poser that if Voltairereally accepted the noble savage business he was rather silly, and thatif he did not, the piece is a stale and not very biting satire. It is, moreover, somewhat exceptionally full (there is only one to beat it) ofthe vulgar little sniggers which suggest the eunuch even more than theschoolboy, and the conclusion is abominable. The seducer and, indirectly, murderer Saint-Pouange may only have done after his kind inregard to Mlle. De Saint-Yves; but the Ingénu himself neither acted upto his Huron education, nor to his extraction as a French gentleman, inforgiving the man and taking service under him. 

[Sidenote: _La Princesse de Babylone. _]

_La Princesse de Babylone_ is more like Hamilton than almost any otherof the tales, and this, it need hardly be said here, is high praise, even for a work of Voltaire. For it means that it has what we commonlyfind in that work, and also something that we do not. But it has thatdefect which has been noticed already in _Zadig_, and which, by itsabsence, constitutes the supremacy of _Candide_. There is in it a sortof "break in the middle. " The earlier stages of the courtship ofFormosante are quite interesting; but when she and her lover beginseparately to wander over the world, in order that their chronicler maymake satiric observations on the nations thereof, one feels inclined tosay, as Mr. Mowbray Morris said to Mr. Matthew Arnold (who thought itwas Mr. Traill):

 Can't you give us something new?

[Sidenote: Some minors. ]

_Le Blanc et le Noir_ rises yet again, and though it has perhaps notmany of Voltaire's _mots de flamme_, it is more of a fairy moraltale--neither a merely fantastic mow, nor sicklied over with itsmorality--than almost any other. It is noteworthy, too, that the authorhas hardly any recourse to his usual clove of garlic to give seasoning. _Jeannot et Colin_ might have been Marmontel's or Miss Edgeworth's, being merely the usual story of two rustic lads, one of whom becomesrich and corrupt till, later, he is succoured by the other. NowMarmontel and Miss Edgeworth are excellent persons and writers; buttheir work is not work for Voltaire. 

The _Lettres d'Amabed_[358] are the dirtiest and the dullest of thewhole batch, and the _Histoire de Jenni_, though not particularly dirty, is very dull indeed, being the "History of a Good Deist, " a thingwithout which (as Mr. Carlyle used to say) we could do. The same sort of"purpose" mars _Les Oreilles du Comte de Chesterfield_, in which, afterthe first page, there is practically nothing about Lord Chesterfield orhis deafness, but which contains a good deal of Voltaire's crispestwriting, especially the definition of that English freedom which hesometimes used to extol. With thirty guineas a year, [359] thematerialist doctor Sidrac informs the unfortunate Goudman, who has losta living by the said deafness, "on peut dire tout ce qu'on pense de lacompagnie des Indes, du parlement, de nos colonies, du roi, de l'état engénéral, de l'homme et de Dieu--ce qui est un grand amusement. " But thepiece itself would be more amusing if Voltaire could let the Biblealone, though he does not here come under the stroke of Diderot'ssledge-hammer as he does in _Amabed_. 

One seldom, however, echoes this last wish, and remembers the strokereferred to, more than in reference to _Le Taureau Blanc_. Here, ifthere were nobody who reverenced the volume which begins with _Genesis_and ends with _Revelation_, the whole thing would be utterly dead andstupid: except for a few crispnesses of the Egyptian Mambrès, whichcould, almost without a single exception, have been uttered on any othertheme. The identification of Nebuchadnezzar with the bull Apis is notprecisely an effort of genius; but the assembling, and putting throughtheir paces, of Balaam's ass and Jonah's whale, the serpent of Eden, andthe raven of the Ark, with the three prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, andDaniel, and with an historical King Amasis and an unhistorical PrincessAmaside thrown in, is less a _conte à dormir debout_, as Voltaire'scountrymen and he himself would say, than a tale to make a man sleepwhen he is running at full speed--a very dried poppy-head of the gardenof tales. On the other hand, the very short and very early _LeCrocheteur Borgne_, which, curiously enough, Voltaire never printed, andthe not much longer _Cosi-Sancta_, which he printed in his queerostrich-like manner, are, though a little naughty, quite nice; and havea freshness and demure grace about their naughtiness which contrastsremarkably with the ugly and wearisome snigger of later work. 

[Sidenote: Voltaire--the Kehl edition--and Plato. ]

The half-dozen others, [360] filling scarce twenty pages between them, which conclude the usual collection, need little comment; but a "Kehl"note to the first of them is for considerable thoughts:

 M. De Voltaire s'est égayé quelquefois sur Platon, dont le galimatias, regardé autrefois comme sublime, a fait plus de mal au genre humain qu'on ne le croit communément. 

One should not hurry over this, but muse a little. In copying the note, I felt almost inclined to write "_M. De_ Platon" in order to put thewhole thing in a consistent key; for somehow "Plato" by itself, even inthe French form, transports one into such a very different world thatadjustment of clocks and compasses becomes at once necessary anddifficult. "Galimatias" is good, "autrefois" is possibly better, the"evils inflicted on the human race" better still, but _égayé_ perhapsbest of all. The monkey, we know, makes itself gay with the elephant, and probably would do so with the lion and the tiger if these animalshad not an unpleasant way of dealing with jokers. And the tomtit andcanary have, no doubt, at least private agreement that the utterances ofthe nightingale are _galimatias_, while the carrion crow thinks theeagle a fool for dwelling so high and flying so much higher. But as forthe other side of the matter, how thin and poor and puerile even thosesmartest things of Voltaire's, some of which have been quoted andpraised, sound, if one attempts to read them after the last sentence ofthe _Apology_, or after passage on passage of the rest of the"galimatias" of Plato!

Nevertheless, though you may answer a fool according to his folly, youshould not, especially when he is not a fool absolute, judge him solelythereby. When Voltaire was making himself gay with Plato, with theBible, and with some other things, he was talking, not merely ofsomething which he did not completely understand, but of somethingaltogether outside the range of his comprehension. But in the judgmentof literature the process of "cancelling" does not exist. A quality isnot destroyed or neutralised by a defect, and, properly speaking (thoughit is hard for the critic to observe this), to strike a balance betweenthe two is impossible. It is right to enter the non-values; but thevalues remain and require chief attention. 

[Sidenote: An attempt at different evaluation of himself. ]

From what has been already said, it will be clear that there is nodisposition here to give Voltaire anything short of the fullest credit, both as an individual writer of prose fiction and as a link in the chainof its French producers. He worked for the most part in miniature, andeven _Candide_ runs but to its bare hundred pages. But these are of thefirst quality in their own way, and give the book the same position forthe century, in satiric and comic fiction, which _Manon Lescaut_ holdsin that of passion. That both should have taken this form, while, earlier, _Manon_, if written at all, would probably have been a poem, and _Candide_ would have been a treatise, shows on the one side theimportance of the position which the novel had assumed, and on the otherthe immense advantages which it gave, as a kind, to the artist inliterature. I like poetry better than anything, but though the subjectcould have been, and often has been, treated satirically in verse, averse _narrative_ could hardly have avoided inferiority, while evenBerkeley (who himself borrowed a little of novel-form for _Alciphron_)could not have made _Candide_ more effective than it is. It is of coursetrue that Voltaire's powers as a "fictionist" were probably limited infact, to the departments, or the department, which he actually occupied, and out of which he wisely did not go. He must have a satiric purpose, and he must be allowed a very free choice of subject and seasoning. Inparticular, it may be noted that he has no grasp whatever of individualcharacter. Even Candide is but a "humour, " and Pangloss a very decidedone; as are Martin, Gordon in _L'Ingénu_, and others. His women are allslightly varied outline-sketches of what he thought women in generalwere, not persons. Plot he never attempted; and racy as his dialogueoften is, it is on the whole merely a setting for these very sparkles ofwit some of which have been quoted. 

It is in these scintillations, after all, that the chief delight of histales consists; and though, as has been honestly confessed and shown, helearnt this to some extent from others, he made the thing definitely hisown. When the Babylonian public has been slightly "elevated" by therefreshments distributed at the great tournament for the hand of thePrincess Formosante, it decides that war, etc. , is folly, and that theessence of human nature is to enjoy itself, "Cette excellente morale, "says Voltaire gravely, "n'a jamais été démentie" (the words reallyshould be made to come at the foot of a page so that you might have toturn over before coming to the conclusion of the sentence) "que par lesfaits. " Again, in the description of the Utopia of the Gangarides (samestory), where not only men but beasts and birds are all perfectly wise, well conducted, and happy, a paragraph of quite sober description, without any flinging up of heels or thrusting of tongue in cheek, ends, "Nous avons surtout des perroquets qui prêchent à merveille, " and foronce Voltaire exercises on himself the Swiftian control, which he toooften neglected, and drops his beloved satire of clerics after thisgentle touch at it. [361]

He is of course not constantly at his best; but he is so often enough tomake him, as was said at the beginning, very delectable reading, especially for the second time and later, which will be admitted to beno common praise. When you read him for the first time his bad taste, his obsession with certain subjects, his repetition of the same gibes, and other things which have been duly mentioned, strike and maydisgust--will certainly more or less displease anybody but a partisan onthe same side. On a second or later reading you are prepared for them, and either skip them altogether or pass them by without special notice, repeating the enjoyment of what is better in an unalloyed fashion. Andso doth the excellent old chestnut-myth, which probably most of us haveheard told with all innocence as an original witticism, justify itself, and one should "prefer the second hour" of the reading to the first. Butif there is a first there will almost certainly be a second, and it willbe a very great pity if there is no reading at all. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Rousseau--the novel-character of the _Confessions_. ]

According to the estimate of the common or vulgate (I do not say"vulgar, " though in the best English there is little or no difference)literary history, Rousseau[362] ranks far higher in the scale ofnovel-writing than Voltaire, having left long and ambitious books of thekind against Voltaire's handful of short, shorter, and shortest stories. It might be possible to accept this in one sense, but in one which wouldutterly disconcert the usual valuers. The _Confessions_, if it were notan autobiography, would be one of the great novels of the world. A largepart of it is probably or certainly "fictionised"; if the whole werefictitious, it would lose much of its repulsiveness, retain (except fora few very matter-of-fact judges) all its interest, and gain theenormous advantage of art over mere _reportage_ of fact. Of courseRousseau's art of another kind, his mere mastery of style andpresentation, does redeem this _reportage_ to some extent; but thiswould remain if the thing were wholly fiction, and the other art ofinvention, divination, _mimesis_--call it what you will--would come in. Yet it is not worth while to be idly unlike other people and claim it asan actual novel. It may be worth while to point out how it displays someof the great gifts of the novel-writer. The first of these--the greatestand, in fact, the mother of all the rest--is the sheer faculty, so oftenmentioned but not, alas! so invariably found, of telling the tale andholding the reader, not with any glittering eye or any enchantment, white or black, but with the pure grasping--or, as French admirably hasit, "enfisting"--power of the tale itself. Round this there cluster--or, rather, in this necessarily abide--the subsidiary arts of managing thevarious parts of the story, of constructing characters sufficient tocarry it on, of varnishing it with description, and to some extent, though naturally to a lesser one than if it had been fiction pure andsimple, "lacing" it, in both senses of the word, with dialogue. Commonplace (but not the best commonplace) taste often cries "Oh! ifthis were only true!" The wiser mind is fain sometimes--not often, forthings are not often good enough--to say, "Oh! if this were only_false_!"

[Sidenote: The ambiguous position of _Émile_. ]

But if a severe auditor were to strike the _Confessions_ out ofRousseau's novel-account to the good, on the score of technicalinsufficiency or disqualification, he could hardly refuse to do the samewith _Émile_ on the other side of the sheet. In fact its second title(_de l'Éducation_), its opening remarks, and the vastly larger part ofthe text, not only do not pretend to be a novel but frankly decline tobe one. In what way exactly the treatise, from the mere assumption of asupposed "soaring human boy" named Émile, who serves as the victim of afew _Sandford-and-Merton_-like illustrations, burgeoned into the romanceof actual novel-kind with Sophie in the Fifth Book, and the purelynovel-natured, but unfinished and hardly begun, sequel of _Émile etSophie ou Les Solitaires_, it is impossible to say. From the sketch ofthe intended conclusion of this latter given by Prévost[363] it wouldseem that we have not lost much, though with Rousseau the treatment isso constantly above the substance that one cannot tell. As it is, thenovel part is nearly worthless. Neither Émile nor Sophie is made in theleast a live person; the catastrophe of their at first ideal union mightbe shown, by an advocate of very moderate skill, to be largely if notwholly due to the meddlesome, muddle-headed, and almost inevitablymischievous advice given to them just after their marriage by theirfoolish Mentor; and one neither finds nor foresees any real novelinterest whatever. Anilities in the very worst style of the eighteenthcentury--such as the story how Émile instigated mutiny in an Algerianslave-gang, failed, made a noble protest, and instead of being impaled, flayed, burnt alive, or otherwise taught not to do so, was made overseerof his own projects of reformed discipline--are sufficientlyunrefreshing in fact. And the sort of "double arrangement" foreshadowedin the professorial programme of the unwritten part, where, in somethinglike Davenant and Dryden's degradation of _The Tempest_, Émile andSophie, she still refusing to be pardoned her fault, are broughttogether after all, and are married, in an actual though not consummatedcross-bigamy, with a mysterious couple, also marooned on a desertisland, is the sort of thing that Rousseau never could have managed, though Voltaire, probably to the discontent of Mrs. Grundy, could havedone it in one way, and Sir William Gilbert would have done itdelightfully in another. But Jean-Jacques's absolute lack of humourwould have ensured a rather ghastly failure, relieved, it may be, by afew beautiful passages. 

[Sidenote: _La Nouvelle Héloïse. _]

If, therefore, Rousseau had nothing but _Émile_, or even nothing but_Émile_ and the _Confessions_ to put to his credit, he could but obtaina position in our "utmost, last, provincial band, " and that more becauseof his general literary powers than of special right. But, as everybodyknows, there is a third book among his works which, whether universallyor only by a majority, whether in whole or in part, whether with heavydeductions and allowances or with light ones, has been reckoned amongthe greatest and most epoch-making novels of the world. The full titleof it is _Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse, ou Lettres de deux Amans, habitans d'une petite ville au pied des Alpes, recueillies et publiées, par J. J. Rousseau_. [364] Despite its immense fame, direct and atsecond-hand--for Byron's famous outburst, though scarcely lessrhetorical, is decidedly more poetical than most things of his, and hasinscribed itself in the general memory--one rather doubts whether thebook is as much read as it once was. Quotations, references, and thosehalf-unconscious reminiscences of borrowing which are more eloquentthan anything else, have not recently been very common either in Englishor in French. It has had the fate--elsewhere, I think, alluded to--ofone of the two kinds of great literature, that it has in a manner seededitself out. An intense love-novel--it is some time since we have seenone till the other day--would be a descendant of Rousseau's book, butwould not bear more than a family likeness to it. Yet this, of itself, is a great testimony. 

[Sidenote: Its numerous and grave faults. ]

Except in rhetoric or rhapsody, the allowances and deductions abovereferred to must be heavy; and, according to a custom honoured both bytime and good result, it is well to get them off first. That peculiarityof being a novelist only _par interim_, much more than Aramis was amousquetaire, appears, even in _Julie_, so glaringly as to be dangerousand almost fatal. The book fills, in the ordinary one-volume editions, nearly five hundred pages of very small and very close print. Of thesethe First Part contains rather more than a hundred, and it would beinfinitely better if the whole of the rest, except a few passages (whichwould be almost equally good as fragments), were in the bosom of theocean buried. Large parts of them are mere discussions of some ofRousseau's own fads; clumsy parodies of Voltaire's satiricmanners-painting; waterings out of the least good traits in the hero andheroine; uninteresting and superfluous appearances of the third and onlyother real person, Claire; a dreary account of Julie's married life;tedious eccentricities of the impossible and not very agreeable LordEdward Bomston, who shares with Dickens's Lord Frederick Verisopht thepeculiarity of being alternately a peer and a person with a courtesy"Lord"-ship; a rather silly end for the heroine herself;[365] andfinally, a rather repulsive and quite incongruous acknowledgment ofaffection for the creature Saint-Preux, with a refusal to "implement"it (as they say in Scotland) matrimonially, by Claire, who is by thistime a widow. [366] If mutilating books[367] were not a crime deservingterrible retribution in this life or after it, one could be excused fortearing off the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Parts, with the_Amours de Lord Édouard_ which follow. If one was rich, one would beamply justified in having a copy of Part I. , and the fragments aboveindicated, printed for oneself on vellum. 

[Sidenote: The minor characters. ]

But this is not all. Even the First Part--even the presentation of thethree protagonists--is open to some, and even to severe, criticism. Themost guiltless, but necessarily much the least important, is Claire. Sheis, of course, an obvious "borrow" from Richardson's lively secondheroines; but she is infinitely superior to them. It is at first sight, though not perhaps for long, curious--and it is certainly a very greatcompliment to Madame de Warens or Vuarrens and Madame d'Houdetot, andperhaps other objects of his affections--that Rousseau, cad as he was, and impossible as it was for him to draw a gentleman, could and did drawladies. It was horribly bad taste in both Julie and Claire to love sucha creature as Saint-Preux; but then _cela s'est vu_ from the time of theLady of the Strachy downwards, if not from that of Princess Michal. ButClaire is faithful and true as steel, and she is lively without being, as Charlotte Grandison certainly is, vulgar. She is very much more areally "reasonable woman, " even putting passion aside, than the somewhatsermonising and syllogising Julie; and it would have been both agreeableand tormenting to be M. D'Orbe. (Tormenting because she only half-lovedhim, and agreeable because she did love him a little, and, whether itwas little or much, allowed herself to be his. ) He himself, slight andrather "put upon" as he is, is also much the most agreeable of the"second" male characters. Of Bomston and Wolmar we shall speakpresently; and there is so little of the Baron d'Étange that one reallydoes not know whether he was or was not something more than thetyrannical husband and father, and the ill-mannered specimen of thelesser nobility, that it pleased Saint-Preux or Rousseau to representhim as being. He had provocation enough, even in the case of hisotherwise hardly pardonable insolence to Bomston. [368]

[Sidenote: The delinquencies of Saint-Preux. ]

But Saint-Preux himself? How early was the obvious jest made that he isabout as little of a _preux_ as he is of a saint? I have heard, ordreamt, of a schoolboy who, being accidentally somewhat precocious inFrench, and having read the book, ejaculated, "_What_ a sweep he is!"and I remember no time of my life at which I should not have heartilyagreed with that youth. I do not suppose that either of us--thoughperhaps we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for not doing so--foundedour condemnation on Saint-Preux's "forgetfulness of all but love. " Thatis a "forfeit, " in French and English sense alike, which has itselfregistered and settled in various tariffs and codes, none of whichconcerns the present history. It is not even that he is a mostunreasonable creature now and then; that can be pardoned, beingunderstood, though he really does strain the benefit of _amare etsapere_ etc. It is that, except when he is in the altitudes of passion, and not always then, he never "knows how to behave, " as the simple andsufficient old phrase had it. If M. D'Étange had had the wits, and haddeigned to do it, he might even, without knowing his deepest cause ofquarrel with the treacherous tutor, have pointed out that Saint-Preux'sclaim to be one of God Almighty's gentlemen was as groundless as his"proofs, " in the French technical sense of gentility, were non-existent. It is impossible to imagine anything in worse taste than his reply tothe Baron's no doubt offensive letter, and Julie's enclosedrenunciation. Even the adoring Julie herself, and the hardly lessadoring Claire--the latter not in the least a prude, nor given to givingherself "airs"--are constantly obliged to pull him up for his want of_délicatesse_. He is evidently a coxcomb, still more evidently a prig;selfish beyond even that selfishness which is venial in a lover; not inthe least, though he can exceed in wine, a "good fellow, " and in manyways thoroughly unmanly. A good English school and college might havemade him tolerable: but it is rather to be doubted, and it is certainthat his way as a transgressor would have been hard at both. As it is, he is very largely the embodiment--and it is more charitable thanuncharitable to regard him as largely the cause--of the faults of theworst kind of French, and not quite only French, novel-hero ever since. 

[Sidenote: And the less charming points of Julie. Her redemption. ]

One approaches Julie herself, in critical intent, with mixed feelings. One would rather say nothing but good of her, and there is plenty ofgood to say: how much will be seen in a moment. Most of what is not sogood belongs, in fact, to the dreary bulk of sequel tacked on bymistaken judgment to that more than true history of a hundred pages, which leaves her in despair, and might well have left her altogether. Even here she is not faultless, quite independently of her sinsaccording to Mrs. Grundy and the Pharisees. If she had not been, asClaire herself fondly but truly calls her, such a _prêcheresse_, shemight not have fallen a victim to such a prig. One never can quiteforgive her for loving him, except on the all-excusing ground that sheloved him so much; and though she is perhaps not far beyond the licenceof "All's fair, in certain conditions, " there is no doubt that, like herpart-pattern Clarissa, she is not passionately attached to the truth. It might be possible to add some cavils, but for the irresistible pleajust glanced at, which stops one. 

_Quia multum amavit!_ Nobody--at least no woman--had loved like that ina prose novel before; nobody at all except Des Grieux, and he is but asa sketch to an elaborate picture. She will wander after Pallas, andwould like to think that she would like to be of the train of Dian (oneshudders at imagining the scowl and the shrug and the twist of the skirtof the goddess!). But the kiss of Aphrodite has been on her, and hasmastered her whole nature. How the thing could be done, out of poetry, has always been a marvel to me; but I have explained it by thesupposition that the absolute impossibility of writing poetry at thistime in French necessitated the break-out in prose. Rousseau's wonderfulstyle--so impossible to analyse, but so irresistible--does much; theanimating sense of his native scenery something. But, after all, whatgives the thing its irresistibleness is the strange command he had ofPassion and of Sorrow--two words, the first of which is actually, in theoriginal sense, a synonym of the second, though it has been expanded tocover the very opposite. 

[Sidenote: And the better side of the book generally. ]

But it would be unfair to Rousseau, especially in such a place as this, to confine the praise of _Julie_ as a novel to its exhibition ofpassion, or even to the charm of Julie herself. Within its properlimits--which are, let it be repeated, almost if not quite exactly thoseof the First Part--many other gifts of the particular class of artistare shown. The dangerous letter-scheme, which lends itself so easily, and in the other parts surrenders itself so helplessly and hopelessly, to mere "piffle" about this and that, is kept well in hand. Much asRousseau owes to Richardson, he has steered entirely clear of thatsystem of word-for-word and incident-for-incident reporting which makesthe Englishman's work so sickening to some. You have enough of each andno more, this happy mean affecting both dialogue and description. Theplot (or rather the action) is constantly present, probably managed, always enlivened by the imminence of disastrous discovery. As has beenalready pointed out, one may dislike--or feel little interest in--someof the few characters; but it is impossible to say that they are out ofdrawing or keeping. Saint-Preux, objectionable and almost loathsome ashe may be sometimes, is a thoroughly human creature, and is undoubtedlywhat Rousseau meant him to be, for the very simple reason that he is(like the Byronic hero who followed) what Rousseau wished to be, if notexactly what he was, himself. Bomston is more of a lay figure; but thenthe _Anglais philosophe de qualité_ of the French imagination in theeighteenth century was a lay figure, and, as has been excellently saidby De Quincey in another matter, nothing can be wrong which conforms tothe principles of its own ideal. As for Julie and Claire, they once more

 Answer the ends of their being created. 

Even the "talking-book" is here hardly excessive, and comes legitimatelyunder the excuse of showing how the relations between the hero andheroine originally got themselves established. [369]

[Sidenote: But little probability of more good work in novel from itsauthor. ]

Are we, then, from the excellence of the "Confessions" _in pari materia_and _in ipsa_ of _Julie_, to lament that Rousseau did not take tonovel-writing as a special and serious occupation? Probably not. Theextreme weakness and almost _fadeur_ of the strictly novel part of_Émile_, and the going-off of _Julie_ itself, are very open warnings;the mere absence of any other attempts worth mentioning[370] is evidenceof a kind; and the character of all the rest of the work, and of allthis part of the work but the opening of _Julie_, and even of thatopening itself, counsel abstention, here as everywhere, from quarrellingwith Providence. Rousseau's superhuman concentration on himself, whileit has inspired the relevant parts of the _Confessions_ and of _Julie_, has spoilt a good deal else that we have, and would assuredly havespoilt other things that we have not. It has been observed, by all acutestudents of the novel, that the egotistic variety will not bear heavycrops of fruit by itself; and that it is incapable, or capable with verygreat difficulty, of letting the observed and so far altruistic kindgrow from the same stool. Of what is sometimes called the dramaticfaculty (though, in fact, it is only one side of that), --the facultywhich in different guise and with different means the general novelistmust also possess, --Rousseau had nothing. He could put himself in noother man's skin, being so absolutely wrapped up in his own, which wasitself much too sensitive to be disturbed, much less shed. Anything oranybody that was (to use Mill's language) a permanent or even atemporary possibility of sensation to him was within his power; anythingout of immediate or closely impending contact was not. Now some of thegreat novelists have the external power--or at least the will to usethat power--alone, others have had both; but Rousseau had the internalonly, and so was, except by miracle of intensive exercise, incapable offurther range. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The different case of Diderot. ]

Neither of the disabilities which weighed on Voltaire and Rousseau--theincapacity of the former to construct any complex character, and of thelatter to portray any but his own, or some other brought into intensestcommunion, actually or as a matter of wish, with his own--weighed uponthe third of the great trio of _philosophe_ leaders. There is everyprobability that Diderot might have been a very great novelist if he hadlived a hundred years later; and not a little evidence that he onlymissed being such, even as it was, because of that mysterious cursewhich was epigrammatically expressed about him long ago (I reallyforget who said it first), "Good pages, no good book. " So far from beingself-centred or of limited interests, he could, as hardly any other manever could, claim the hackneyed _Homo sum_, etc. , as his rightful motto. He had, when he allowed himself to give it fair play, an admirable giftof tale-telling; he could create character, and set it to work, almostafter the fashion of the very greatest novelists; his universal interestand "curiosity" included such vivid appreciation of literature, and ofart, and of other things useful to the novel-writer, that he never couldhave been at a loss for various kinds of "seasoning. " He had keenobservation, an admittedly marvellous flow of ideas, and a style which(though, like everything else about him, careless) was of singularvigour and freshness when, once more, he let it have fair play. But histime, his nature, and his circumstances combined to throw in his waytraps and snares and nets which he could not, or would not, avoid. Hisanti-religiosity, though sometimes greatly exaggerated, was a badstumbling-block; although he was free from the snigger of Voltaire andof Sterne, you could not prevent him, as Horace Walpole complains of hisdistinguished sire, from blurting out the most improper remarks andstories at the most inconvenient times and in the most unsuitablecompanies; while his very multiscience, and his fertility of thought andimagination, kept him in a whirl which hindered his "settling" toanything. Although in one sense he had the finest and wisest criticaltaste of any man then living--I do not bar even Gray or evenLessing--his taste in some other ways was utterly untrustworthy andsometimes horribly bad; while even his strictly critical faculty seemsnever to have been exercised on his own books--a failure forming part ofthe "ostrich-like indifference" with which he produced and abandonedthem. [371]

[Sidenote: His gifts and the waste of them. ]

It is sometimes contended, and in many cases, no doubt, is the fact, that "Selections" are disgraceful and unscholarly. But what has beensaid will show that this is an exceptional case. The present writerwaded through the whole of twenty-volume edition of Assézat and Tourneuxwhen it first appeared, and is very glad he did; nor is there perhapsone volume (he does not say one page, chapter, or even work) which hehas not revisited more or fewer times during the forty years in which(alas! for the preterite) they remained on his shelves. But it isscarcely to be expected that every one, that many, or that more than avery few readers, have done or will do the same. It so happens, however, that Génin's _Oeuvres Choisies_--though it has been abused by someanti-Ydgrunites as too much Bowdlerised--gives a remarkably full andsatisfactory idea of this great and seldom[372] quite rightly valuedwriter. It must have cost much, besides use of paste and scissors, todo; for the extracts are often very short, and the bulk of matter to bethoroughly searched for extraction is, as has just been said, huge. Athird volume might perhaps be added;[373] but the actual two are farfrom unrepresentative, while the Bowdlerising is by no meansultra-Bowdlerish. 

[Sidenote: The various display of them. ]

The reader, even of this selection, will see how, in quite miscellaneousor heterogeneous writing, Diderot bubbles out into a perfectly told taleor anecdote, no matter what the envelope (as we may call it) of thistale or anecdote may be. All his work is more or less like conversation:and these excursus are like the stories which, if good, are among thebest, just as, if bad, they are the worst, sets-off to conversationitself. Next to these come the longer _histoires_--as one would callthem in the Heroic novel and its successors--things sometimes found bythemselves, sometimes ensconced in larger work[374]--the story ofDesroches and Mme. De la Carlière, _Les Deux Amis de Bourbonne_, thealmost famous _Le Marquis des Arcis et Mme. De la Pommeraye_, of whichmore may be said presently; and things which are not exactly tales, butwhich have the tale-quality in part, like the charming _Regrets sur maVieille Robe de Chambre, Ceci n'est pas un conte_, etc. Thirdly, and tobe spoken of in more detail, come the things that are nearest actualnovels, and in some cases are called so, _Le Neveu de Rameau_, the"unspeakable" _Bijoux Indiscrets_, _Jacques le Fataliste_ (the matrix of_Le Marquis des Arcis_) and _La Religieuse_. 

The "unspeakable" one does not need much speaking from any point ofview. If it is not positively what Carlyle called it, "the beastliest ofall dull novels, past, present, or to come, " it really would require amost unpleasant apprenticeship to scavenging in order to discover adirtier and duller. The framework is a flat imitation of Crébillon, the"insets" are sometimes mere pornography, and the whole thing isevidently scribbled at a gallop--it was actually a few days' work, toget money, from some French Curll or Drybutter, to give (theappropriateness of the thing at least is humorous) to the mistress ofthe moment, a Madame de Puisieux, [375] who, if she was like Crébillon'sheroines in morals, cannot have been like the best of them in manners. Its existence shows, of course, Diderot's worst side, that is to say, the combination of want of breeding with readiness to get money anyhow. If it is worth reading at all, which may be doubted, it is to show thereal, if equivocal, value of Crébillon himself. For it is vulgar, whichhe never is. 

[Sidenote: _Le Neveu de Rameau. _]

_Le Neveu de Rameau_, has only touches of obscenity, and it has beenenormously praised by great persons. It is very clever, but it seems tome that, as a notable critic is said to have observed of something else, "it has been praised quite enough. " It is a sketch, worked out in a sortof monologue, [376] of something like Diderot's own character without hisgenius and without his good fellowship--a gutter-snipe of art andletters possessed of some talent and of infinite impudence. It showsDiderot's own power of observation and easy fluid representation ofcharacter and manners, but not, as I venture to think, much more. 

[Sidenote: _Jacques le Fataliste. _]

_Jacques le Fataliste_ is what may be called, without pedantry orpreciousness, eminently a "document. " It is a document of Diderot'sgenius only indirectly (save in part), and to those who can read notonly in the lines but between them: it is a document, directly, of theinsatiable and restless energy of the man, and of the damage which thisrestlessness, with its accompanying and inevitable want ofself-criticism, imposed upon that genius. Diderot, though he did notrhapsodise about Sterne as he rhapsodised about Richardson, was, likemost of his countrymen then, a great admirer of "Tristram, " and in anevil hour he took it into his head to Shandyise. The book starts with anactual adaptation of Sterne, [377] which is more than once repeated; itsscheme--of a master (who is as different as possible from my Uncle Toby, except that when not in a passion he is rather good-natured, and atalmost all times very easily humbugged) and a man (who is what Trimnever is, both insolent and indecent)--is at least partially the same. But the most constant and the most unfortunate imitation is of Sterne'sliterally eccentric, or rather zigzag and pillar-to-post, fashion ofnarration. In the Englishman's own hands, by some prestidigitation ofgenius, this never becomes boring, though it probably would have becomeso if either book had been finished; for which reason we may be quitecertain that it was not only his death which left both in fragments. Inthe hands of his imitators the boredom--simple or in the form ofirritation--has been almost invariable;[378] and with all his greatintellectual power, his tale-telling faculty, his _bonhomie_, and othergood qualities, Diderot has not escaped it--has, in fact, rushed upon itand compelled it to come in. It is comparatively of little moment thatthe main ostensible theme--the very unedifying account of the loves, orat least the erotic exercises, of Jacques and his master--isdeliberately, tediously, inartistically interrupted and "put off. " Thegreat feature of the book, which has redeemed it with some who wouldotherwise condemn it entirely, the Arcis and La Pommeraye episode (_v. Inf. _), is handled after a fashion which suggests Mr. Ruskin's famousdenunciation in another art. The _ink_pot is "flung in the face of thepublic" by a purely farcical series of interruptions, occasioned by theaffairs of the inn-landlady, who tells the story, by her servants, dog, customers, and Heaven only knows what else; while the minor incidentsand accidents of the book are treated in the same way, in and out ofproportion to their own importance; the author's "simple plan, " thoughby no means "good old rule, " being that _everything_ shall beinterrupted. Although, in the erotic part, the author never returnsquite to his worst _Bijoux Indiscrets_ style, he once or twice goes verynear it, except that he is not quite so dull; and when the book comes toan end in a very lame and impotent fashion (the farce being kept up tothe last, and even this end being "recounted" and not made part of themainly dialogic action), one is rather relieved at there being no more. One has seen talent; one has almost glimpsed genius; but what one hasbeen most impressed with is the glaring fashion in which both thecertainty and the possibility have been thrown away. 

[Sidenote: Its "Arcis-Pommeraye" episode. ]

The story which has been referred to in passing as muddled, or, to adopta better French word, for which we have no exact equivalent, _affublé_(travestied and overlaid) with eccentricities and interruptions, the_Histoire_ of the Marquis des Arcis and the Marquise de la Pommeraye, has received a great deal of praise, most of which it deserves. TheMarquis and the Marquise have entered upon one of the fashionable_liaisons_ which Crébillon described in his own way. Diderot describesthis one in another. The Marquis gets tired--it is fair to say that hehas offered marriage at the very first, but Madame de la Pommeraye, awidow with an unpleasant first experience of the state, has declined it. He shows his tiredness in a gentlemanly manner, but not very mistakably. His mistress, who is not at first _femina furens_, but who possessessome feminine characteristics in a dangerous degree, as he might perhapshave found out earlier if he had been a different person, determines tomake sure of it. She intimates _her_ tiredness, and the Marquis makeshis first step downwards by jumping at the release. They are--the old, old hopeless folly!--to remain friends, but friends only. But she reallyloves him, and after almost assuring herself that he has really ceasedto love her (which, in the real language of love, means that he hasnever loved her at all), devises a further, a very clever, but a ratherdiabolical system of last proof, involving vengeance if it fails. Shehas known, in exercises of charity (the _femme du monde_ has seldomquite abandoned these), a mother and daughter who, having lost theirmeans, have taken to a questionable, or rather a very unquestionablemanner of life, keeping a sort of private gaming-house, and extending tothose frequenters of it who choose, what the late George Augustus Salanot inelegantly called, in an actual police-court instance, "thethorough hospitality characteristic of their domicile. " She prevails onthem to leave the house, get rid of all their belongings (down toclothes) which could possibly be identified, change their name, move toanother quarter of Paris, and set up as _dévotes_ under the fullprotection of the local clergy. Then she manages an introduction, of anapparently accidental kind, to the Marquis. He falls in love at oncewith the daughter, who is very pretty, and with masculine (or at least_some_ masculine) fatuity, makes Madame de la Pommeraye his confidante. She gives him rope, but he uses it, of course, only to hang himself. Hetries the usual temptations; but though the mother at least would notrefuse them, Madame de la Pommeraye's hand on the pair is too tight. Atlast he offers marriage, and--with her at least apparent consent--ismarried. The next day she tells him the truth. But her diabolism fails. At first there is of course a furious outburst. But the girl isbeautiful, affectionate, and humble; the mother is pensioned off; theMarquis and Marquise des Arcis retire for some years to those invaluable_terres_, after a sojourn at which everything is forgotten; and thestory ends. Diderot, by not too skilfully throwing in casuisticalattacks and defences of the two principal characters, but telling usnothing of Madame de la Pommeraye's subsequent feelings or history, doeswhat he can, unluckily after his too frequent fashion, to spoil or atleast to blunt his tale. It is not necessary to imitate him bydiscussing the _pros_ and _cons_ at length. I think myself that theMarquis, both earlier and later, is made rather too much of a _benêt_, or, in plain English, a nincompoop. But nincompoops exist: in fact howmany of us are not nincompoops in certain circumstances? Madame de laPommeraye is, I fear, rather true, and is certainly sketched withextraordinary ability. On a larger scale the thing would probably, atthat time and by so hasty and careless a workman, have been quitespoilt. But it is obviously the skeleton--and something more--of areally great novel. 

[Sidenote: _La Religieuse. _]

It may seem that a critic who speaks in this fashion, after an initialpromise of laudation, is a sort of Balaam topsyturvied, and merelycurses where he is expected to bless. But ample warning was given of thepeculiar position of Diderot, and when we come to his latest known andby far his best novel, _La Religieuse_, the paradox (he was himself veryfond of paradoxes, [379] though not of the wretched things which nowdisgrace the name) remains. The very subject of the book, or of thegreatest part of it, was for a long time, if it is not still, taboo; andeven if this had not been the case, it has other drawbacks. Itoriginated in, and to some extent still retains traces of, one of thesilly and ill-bred "mystifications" in which the eighteenth and earlynineteenth century delighted. [380] It is, at least in appearance, badlytainted with purpose; and while it is actually left unfinished, the lastpages of it, as they stand, are utterly unworthy of the earlier part, and in fact quite uninteresting. Momus or Zoilus must be allowed to sayso much: but having heard him, let us cease to listen to the half-god orthe whole philologist. 

[Sidenote: Its story. ]

Yet _La Religieuse_, for all its drawbacks, is almost a great, and mightconceivably have been a very great book. Madame d'Holbach is credited byDiderot's own generosity with having suggested its crowning _mot_, [381]and her influence may have been in other ways good by governing theforce and fire, so often wasted or ill-directed, of Diderot's genius. Soeur Sainte-Suzanne is the youngest daughter of a respectablemiddle-class family. She perceives, or half-perceives (for, though nofool, she is a guileless and unsuspicious creature), that she isunwelcome there; the most certain sign of which is that, while hersisters are married and dowered handsomely, she is condemned to be anun. She has, though quite real piety, no "vocation, " and though sheallows herself to be coaxed through her novitiate, she at last, in faceof almost insuperable difficulties, summons up courage enough torefuse, at the very altar, the final profession. There is, of course, aterrible scandal; she has more black looks in the family than ever, andat last her mother confesses that she is an illegitimate child, andtherefore hated by her putative father, whose love for his wife, however, has induced him to forgive her, and not actually renounce (asindeed, by French law, he could not) the child. Broken in heart andspirit, Suzanne at last accepts her doom. She is fortunate in oneabbess, but the next persecutes her, brings all sorts of falseaccusations against her, strips, starves, imprisons, and actuallytortures her by means of the _amende honorable_. She manages to get hercomplaints known and to secure a counsel, and though she cannot obtainliberation from her vows, the priest who conducts the ecclesiasticalpart of the enquiry is a just man, and utterly repudiates the methods ofpersecution, while he and her lay lawyer procure her transference toanother convent. Here her last trial (except those of the foolishpost-_scrap_, as we may call it) begins, as well as the most equivocaland the greatest part of the book. Her new superior is in every respectdifferent from any she has known--of a luxurious temperament, good-natured, though capricious, and inclined to be very much tooaffectionate. Her temptation of the innocent Suzanne is defeated by thisvery innocence, and by timely revelation, though the revealer does notknow what she reveals, to a "director"; and the wayward and corruptedfancy turns by degrees to actual madness, which proves fatal, Suzanneremaining unharmed, though a piece of not inexcusable eavesdroppingremoves the ignorance of her innocence. 

[Sidenote: A hardly missed, if missed, masterpiece. ]

If the subject be not simply ruled out, and the book indexed forsilence, it is practically impossible to suggest that it could have beentreated better. Even the earlier parts, which could easily have beenmade dull, are not so; and it is noteworthy that, anti-religionist asDiderot was, and directly as the book is aimed at the conventualsystem, [382] all the priests who are introduced are men of honour, justice, and humanity. But the wonder is in the treatment of the"scabrous" part of the matter by the author of Diderot's other books. Whether Madame d'Holbach's[383] influence, as has been suggested, wasmore widely and subtly extended than we know, or whatever else may bethe cause, there is not a coarse word, not even a coarsely drawnsituation, in the whole. Suzanne's innocence is, in the subtlest manner, prevented from being in the least _bête_. The fluctuations andficklenesses of the abbess's passion, and in a less degree of that ofanother young nun, whom Suzanne has partially ousted from her favour, are marvellously and almost inoffensively drawn, and the stages by whicherotomania passes into mania general and mortal, are sketched slightly, but with equal power. There is, I suppose, hardly a book which one oughtto discommend to the young person more than _La Religieuse_. There arenot many in which the powers required by the novelist, in delineatingmorbid, and not only morbid, character, are more brilliantly shown. 

It is not the least remarkable thing about this remarkable book, and notthe least characteristic of its most remarkable author, that its verysurvival has something extraordinary about it. Grimm, who was morelikely than any one else to know, apparently thought it was destroyed orlost; it never appeared at all during Diderot's life, nor for a dozenyears after his death, nor till seven after the outbreak of theRevolution, and six after the suppression of the religious orders inFrance. That it might have brought its author into difficulties is morethan probable; but the undisguised editor of the _Encyclopédie_, theauthor, earlier, of the actually disgraceful _Bijoux Indiscrets_, andthe much more than suspected principal begetter of the _Système de laNature_, could not have been much influenced by this. The true cause ofits abscondence, as in so much else of his work, was undoubtedly thatultra-Bohemian quality of indifference which distinguished Diderot--thefirst in a way, probably for ever the greatest, and, above all, the mostaltruistic of literary Bohemians. Ask him to do something definite, especially for somebody else's profit, to be done off-hand, and it wasdone. Ask him to bear the brunt of a dangerous, laborious, by no meanslucrative, but rather exciting adventure, and he would, one cannot quitesay consecrate, but devote (which has two senses) his life to it. Butset him to elaborate artistic creation, confine him to it, and expecthim to finish it, and you were certain to be disappointed. At anothertime, even at this time, if his surroundings and his society, hiseducation and his breeding had been less unfortunate, he might, as itseems to me, have become a very great novelist indeed. As it is, he is agreat possibility of novel and of much other writing, with occasionaloutbursts of actuality. The _Encyclopédie_ itself, for aught I care, might have gone in all its copies, and with all possibility ofrecovering or remembering it on earth, to the place where so many peopleat the time would have liked to send it. But in the rest of him, andeven in some of his own Encyclopædia articles, [384] there is much ofquite different stuff. And among the various gifts, critical andcreative, which this stuff shows, not the least, I think, was thehalf-used and mostly ill-used gift of novel-writing. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The successors--Marmontel. ]

What has been called the second generation of the _philosophes_, whowere naturally the pupils of the first, "were not like [that] first, "that is to say, they did not reproduce the special talents of theirimmediate masters in this department of ours, save in two instances. Diderot's genius did not propagate itself in the novel way at all[385]:indeed, as has been said, his best novel was not known till this secondgeneration itself was waning. The most brilliant of his direct hearers, Joubert, took to another department; or rather, in his famous _Pensées_, isolated and perfected the utterances scattered through the master'simmense and disorderly work. Naigeon, the most devoted, who might havetaken for his motto a slight alteration of the Mahometan confession offaith, "There is no God; but there is only one Diderot, and I am hisprophet, " was a dull fellow, and also, to adopt a Carlylian epithet, a"dull-snuffling" one, who could not have told a neck-tale if theHairibee of the guillotine had caught him and given him a mercifulchance. Voltaire in Marmontel, and Rousseau in Bernardin deSaint-Pierre, were more fortunate, though both the juniors considerablytransformed their masters' fashions; and Marmontel was always more orless, and latterly altogether, an apostate from the principle that thefirst and last duty of man is summed up in _écrasons l'infâme_. 

This latter writer has had vicissitudes both in English and Frenchappreciation. We translated him early, and he had an immense influenceon the general Edgeworthian school, and on Miss Edgeworth herself. Muchlater Mr. Ruskin "took him up. "[386] But neither his good nor his badpoints have, for a long time, been such as greatly to commendthemselves, either to the major part of the nineteenth century, or towhat has yet passed of the twentieth, on either side of the channel. 

He was, no doubt, only a second-class man of letters, and though heranks really high in this class, he was unfortunately much influenced bymore or less passing fashions, fads, and fancies of histime--_sensibilité_ (see next chapter) philosophism, politico-philanthropic economy, and what not. He was also much of a"polygraph, " and naturally a good deal of his polygraphy does notconcern us, though parts of his _Memoirs_, especially the ratherwell-known accounts of his sufferings as a new-comer[387] in theatrocious Bastille, show capital tale-telling faculty. His unequalcriticism, sometimes very acute, hardly concerns us at all; his _Essaisur les Romans_ being very disappointing. [388] But he wrote not a littlewhich must, in different ways and "strengths, " be classed as actualfiction, and this concerns us pretty nearly, both as evidencing thatgeneral set towards the novel which is so important, and also in detail. 

[Sidenote: His "Telemachic" imitations worth little. ]

It divides itself quite obviously into two classes, the almost didacticmatter of _Bélisaire_ and _Les Incas_, and the still partly didactic, but much more "fictionised" _Contes Moraux_. The first part (which isevidently of the family of _Télémaque_) may be rapidly dismissed. Exceptfor its good French and good intentions, it has long had, and is likelyalways to have, very little to say for itself. We have seen that Prévostattempted a sort of quasi-historical novel. Of actual history there islittle in _Bélisaire_, rather more in _Les Incas_. But historical factand story-telling art are entirely subordinated in both to moralpurpose, endless talk about virtue and the affections and justice andall the rest of it--the sort of thing, in short, which provoked theimmortal outburst, "In the name of the Devil and his grandmother, _be_virtuous and have done with it!" There is, as has just been said, agreat deal of this in the _Contes_ also; but fortunately there issomething else. 

[Sidenote: The best of his _Contes Moraux_ worth a good deal. ]

The something else is not to be found in the "Sensibility" parts, [389]and could not be expected to be. They do, indeed, contain perhaps themost absolutely ludicrous instance of the absurdest side of thatremarkable thing, except Mackenzie's great _trouvaille_ of thepress-gang who unanimously melted into tears[390] at the plea of anaffectionate father. Marmontel's masterpiece is not so very far removedin subject from this. It represents a good young man, who stirs up thetimorous captain and crew of a ship against an Algerine pirate, and inthe ensuing engagement, sabre in hand, makes a terrible carnage: "Assoon as he sees an African coming on board, he runs to him and cuts himin half, crying, 'My poor mother!'" The filial hero varies this alittle, when "disembowelling" the Algerine commander, by requesting theDeity to "have pity on" his parent--a proceeding faintly suggestive of asurvival in his mind of the human-sacrifice period. 

Fortunately, as has been said, it is not always thus: and some of thetales are amusing in almost the highest degree, being nearly as witty asVoltaire's, and entirely free from ill-nature and sculduddery. Not thatMarmontel--though a great advocate for marriage, and even (for aFrenchman of his time) wonderfully favourable to falling in love_before_ marriage--pretends to be altogether superior to the customs ofhis own day. We still sometimes have the "Prendre-Avoir-Quitter" seriesof Crébillon, [391] though with fewer details; and Mrs. Newcome wouldhave been almost more horrified than she was at _Joseph Andrews_ by theperusal of one of Marmontel's most well-intentioned things, _Annette etLubin_. But he never lays himself out for attractions of a doubtfulkind, and none of his best stories, even when they may sometimes involvebowing in the house of Ashtoreth as well as that of Rimmon, derive theirbait from this kind. Indeed they rather "assume and pass it by" as afashion of the time. 

[Sidenote: _Alcibiade ou le Moi. _]

We may take three or four of them as examples. One is the very first ofthe collection, _Alcibiade ou le Moi_. Hardly anybody need be told thatthe Alcibiades of the tale, though nominally, is not in the least reallythe Alcibiades of history, or that his Athens is altogether Paris; whilehis Socrates is a kind of _philosophe_, the good points of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot being combined with the faults of none of them, and his ladies are persons who--with one exception--simply could nothave existed in Greece. This Alcibiades wishes to be loved "forhimself, " and is (not without reason) very doubtful whether he ever hasbeen, though he is the most popular and "successful" man in Athens. His_avoir_, for the moment, is concerned with a "Prude. " (Were there prudesin Greece? I think Diogenes would have gladly lent his lantern for thesearch. ) He is desperately afraid that she only loves him for _her_self. He determines to try her; takes her, not at her deeds, but at her words, which are, of course, such as would have made the Greeks laugh asinextinguishably as their gods once did. She expresses gratitude for hisunselfishness, but is anything but pleased. Divers experiments are triedby her, and when at last he hopes she will not tempt him any more, exclaiming that he is really "l'amant le plus fidèle, le plus tendre etle plus respectueux" ... "et le plus sot, " adds she, sharply, concludingthe conversation and shutting her, let us say, doors[392] on him. 

He is furious, and tries "Glicerie" (the form might be more Greek), an_ingénue_ of fifteen, who was "like a rose, " who had attracted alreadythe vows of the most gallant youths, etc. The most brilliant of theseyouths instantly retire before the invincible Alcibiades. But in thefirst place she wishes that before "explanations"[393] take place, amarriage shall be arranged; while he, oddly enough, wishes that theexplanations should precede the hymen. Also she is particular about theconsent of her parents: and, finally, when he asks her whether she willswear constancy against every trial, to be his, and his only, whateverhappens, she replies, with equal firmness and point, "Never!" So he isfurious again. But there is a widow, and, as we have seen in formercases, there was not, in the French eighteenth century, the illiberalprejudice against widows expressed by Mr. Weller. She is, of course, inconsolable for her dear first, but admits, after a time, thepossibility of a dear second. Only it must be kept secret as yet. For atime Alcibiades behaves nobly, but somehow or other he finds thateverybody knows the fact; he is treated by his lady-love with obvioussuperiority; and breaks with her. An interlude with a "magistrate's"wife, on less proper and more Crébillonish lines, is not moresuccessful. So one day meeting by the seashore a beautiful courtesan, Erigone, he determines, in the not contemptible language of thatsingle-speech poetess, Maria del Occidente, to "descend and sip a lowerdraught. " He is happy after a fashion with her for two whole months: butat the end of that time he is beaten in a chariot race, and, going toErigone for consolation, finds the winner's vehicle at her door. Socrates, on being consulted, recommends Glicerie as, after all, thebest of them, in a rather sensible discourse. But the concluding wordsof the sage and the story are, as indeed might be expected fromXanthippe's husband, not entirely optimist: "If your wife is wellconducted and amiable, you will be a happy man; if she is ill-temperedand a coquette, you will become a philosopher--so you must gain in anycase. " An "obvious, " perhaps, but a neat and uncommonly well-told story. 

[Sidenote: _Soliman the Second. _]

_Soliman the Second_ is probably the best known of Marmontel's tales, and it certainly has great merits. It is hardly inferior in wit toVoltaire, and is entirely free from the smears of uncomeliness and thesniggers of bad taste which he would have been sure to put in. Thesubject is, of course, partly historical, though the reader of Knollys(and one knows more unhappy persons) will look in vain there, not, indeed, for Roxelana, but for the _nez retroussé_, which is theimportant point of the story. The great Sultan tires of his Asiaticharem, complaisant but uninteresting, and orders European damsels to becaught or bought for him. The most noteworthy of the catch or batch areElmire, Delia, and Roxelane. Elmire comes first to Soliman's notice, charms him by her sentimental ways, and reigns for a time, but loses herpiquancy, and (by no means wholly to her satisfaction) is able to availherself of the conditional enfranchisement, and return to her country, which his magnanimity has granted her. Her immediate supplanter, Delia, is an admirable singer, and possessed of many of the qualifications ofan accomplished _hetæra_. But for that very reason the Sultan tires ofher likewise; and for the same, she is not inconsolable or restive:indeed she acts as a sort of Lady Pandara, if not to introduce, at anyrate to tame, the third, Roxelane, a French girl of no very regularbeauty, but with infinite attractions, and in particular possessed ofwhat Mr. Dobson elegantly calls "a madding ineffable nose" of the_retroussé_ type. 

The first thing the Sultan hears of this damsel is that the Master ofthe Eunuchs cannot in the least manage her; for she merely laughs at allhe says. The Sultan, out of curiosity, orders her to be brought to him, and she immediately cries: "Thank Heaven! here is a face like a man's. Of course you are the sublime Sultan whose slave I have the honour tobe? Please cashier this disgusting old rascal. " To which extremelyirreverent address Soliman makes a dignified reply of the proper kind, including due reference to "obedience" and his "will. " This brings downa small pageful of raillery from the young person, who asks "whetherthis is Turkish gallantry?" suggests that the restrictions of theseraglio involve a fear that "the skies should rain men, " and more thanhints that she should be very glad if they did. For the moment Soliman, though much taken with her, finds no way of saving his dignity except bya retreat. The next time he sends for her, or rather announces his ownarrival, she tells the messenger to pack himself off: and when theCommander of the Faithful does visit her and gives a little good advice, she is still incorrigible. She will, once more, have nothing to do withthe words _dois_ and _devoir_. When asked if she knows what he is andwhat _she_ is, she answers with perfect _aplomb_, "What we are? You arepowerful, and I am pretty; so we are quite on an equality. " In the mostpainfully confidential and at the same time quite decent manner, sheasks him what he can possibly do with five hundred wives? and, stillmore intolerably, tells him that she likes his looks, and has alreadyloved people who were not worth him. The horror with which this Turkishsoldan, himself so full of sin, ejaculates, "Vous _avez_ aimé?" may beeasily imagined, and again she simply puts him to flight. When he getsover it a little, he sends Delia to negotiate. But Roxelane tells thego-between to stay to supper, declaring that she herself does not feelinclined for a _tête-à-tête_ yet, and finally sends him off with thisobliging predecessor and substitute, presenting her with the legendaryhandkerchief, which she has actually borrowed from the guilelessPadishah. There is some, but not too much more of it; there can but beone end; and as he takes her to the Mosque to make her legitimateSultana, quite contrary to proper Mussulman usage, he says to himself, "Is it really possible that a little _retroussé_ nose should upset thelaws of an empire?" Probably, though Marmontel does not say so, helooked down at the said nose, as he communed with himself, and decidedthat cause and effect were not unworthy of each other. There is hardly arighter and better hit-off tale of the kind, even in French. 

[Sidenote: _The Four Flasks. _]

"The Four Flasks" or "The Adventures of Alcidonis of Megara, " a sort ofoutside fairy tale, is good, but not quite so good as either of theformer. Alcidonis has a fairy protectress, if not exactly godmother, whogives him the flasks in question to use in amatory adventures. One, withpurple liquor in it, sets the drinker in full tide of passion; thesecond (rose-coloured) causes a sort of flirtation; the third (blue)leads to sentimental and moderate affection; and the last (pure white)recovers the experimenter from the effects of any of the others. Hetries all, and all but the last are unsatisfactory, though, much as inthe case of Alcibiades and Glicerie, the blue has a second chance, theresults of which are not revealed. This is the least important of thegroup, but is well told. 

[Sidenote: _Heureusement. _]

There is also much good in _Heureusement_, the nearest to a"Crébillonnade" of all, though the Crébillonesque situations areingeniously broken off short. It is told by an old marquise[394] to analmost equally old abbé, her crony, who only at the last discovers that, long ago, he himself was very nearly the shepherd of the proverbialhour. And _Le Mari Sylphe_, which is still more directly connected withone of Crébillon's actual pieces, and with some of the weaker stories(_v. Sup. _) of the _Cabinet des Fées_, would be good if it were not muchtoo long. Others might be mentioned, but my own favourite, though it hasnothing quite so magnetic in it as the _nez de Roxelane_, is _LePhilosophe Soi-disant_, a sort of apology for his own clan, in a satireon its less worthy members, which may seem to hit rather unfairly atRousseau, but which is exceedingly amusing. 

[Sidenote: _Le Philosophe Soi-disant. _]

Clarice--one of those so useful young widows of whom the novelists ofthis time might have pleaded that they took their ideas of them from theApostle St. Paul--has for some time been anxious to know a _philosophe_, though she has been warned that there are _philosophes_ and_philosophes_, and that the right kind is neither common nor very fondof society. She expresses surprise, and says that she has always heard a_philosophe_ defined as an odd creature who makes it his business to belike nobody else. "Oh, " she is told, "there is no difficulty about_that_ kind, " and one, by name Ariste, is shortly added to hercountry-house party. She politely asks him whether he is not a_philosophe_, and whether philosophy is not a very beautiful thing? Hereplies (his special line being sententiousness) that it is simply theknowledge of good and evil, or, if she prefers it, Wisdom. "Only that?"says wicked Doris; but Clarice helps him from replying to the scoffer bygoing on to ask whether the fruit of Wisdom is not happiness? "And, Madame, the making others happy. " "Dear me, " says naïve Lucinde, halfunder her breath, "I must be a _philosophe_, for I have been told ahundred times that it only depended on myself to be happy by makingothers happy. " There is more wickedness from Doris; but Ariste, with acontemptuous smile, explains that the word "happiness" has more than onemeaning, and that the _philosophe_ kind is different from that at thedisposal and dispensation of a pretty woman. Clarice, admitting this, asks what _his_ kind of happiness is? The company then proceeds, in themost reprehensible fashion, to "draw" the sage: and they get from him, among other things, an admission that he despises everybody, and anunmistakable touch of disgust when somebody speaks of "his_semblables_. "[395]

Clarice, however, still plays the amiable and polite hostess, lets himtake her to dinner, and says playfully that she means to reconcile himto humanity. He altogether declines. Man is a vicious beast, whopersecutes and devours others, he says, making all the time aparticularly good dinner while denouncing the slaughter of animals, andeulogising the "sparkling brook" while getting slightly drunk. Hedeclaims against the folly and crime of the modern world in not makingphilosophers kings, and announces his intention of seeking completesolitude. But Clarice, still polite, decides that he must stay with thema little while, in order to enlighten and improve the company. 

After this, Ariste, in an alley alone, to digest his dinner and walk offhis wine, persuades himself that Clarice has fallen in love with him, and that, to secure her face and her fortune, he has only got to go onplaying the misanthrope and give her a chance of "taming the bear. " Thecompany, perfectly well knowing his thoughts, determine to play up tothem--not for his greater glory; and Clarice, not quite willingly, agrees to take the principal part. In a long _tête-à-tête_ he makes hisclumsy court, airs his cheap philosophy, and lets by no means the meresuggestion of a cloven foot appear, on the subject of virtue and vice. However, she stands it, though rather disgusted, and confesses to himthat people are suggesting a certain Cléon, a member of the party, asher second husband; whereon he decries marriage, but proposes himself asa lover. She reports progress, and is applauded; but the Présidente dePonval, another widow, fat, fifty, fond of good fare, possessed of afine fortune, but very far from foolish, vows that _she_ will make thegreatest fool of Ariste. Cléon, however, accepts his part; and appearsto be much disturbed at Clarice's attentions to Ariste, who, being shownto his room, declaims against its luxuries, but avails himself of themvery cheerfully. In the morning he, though rather doubtfully, accepts abath; but on his appearance in company Clarice makes remonstrances onhis dress, etc. , and actually prevails on him to let a valet curl hishair. This is an improvement; but she does not like his browncoat. [396] He must write to Paris and order a suit of _gris-de-linclair_, and after some wrangling he consents. But now the Présidentetakes up the running. After expressing the extremest admiration for hiscoiffure, she makes a dead set at him, tells him she wants a secondhusband whom she can love for himself, and goes off with a passionateglance, the company letting him casually know that she has ten thousandcrowns a year. He affects to despise this, which is duly reported to hernext morning. She vows vengeance; but he dreams of her (and the crowns)meanwhile, and with that morning the new suit arrives. He is admiringhimself in it when Cléon comes in, and throws himself on his mercy. Headores Clarice; Ariste is evidently gaining fatally on her affections;will he not be generous and abstain from using his advantages? But if_he_ is really in love Cléon will give her up. 

The hook is, of course, more than singly baited and barbed. Ariste canat once play the magnanimous man, and be rewarded by the Présidente'sten thousand a year. He will be off with Clarice and on with Mme. DePonval, whom he visits in his new splendour. She admires it hugely, butis alarmed at seeing him in Clarice's favourite colour. An admirableconversation follows, in which she constantly draws her ill-bred, ill-blooded, and self-besotted suitor into addressing her with insults, under the guise of compliments, and affects to enjoy them. He nextvisits Clarice, with whom he finds Cléon, in the depths of despair. Shebegins to admire the coat, and to pride herself on her choice, when heinterrupts her, and solemnly resigns her to Cléon. Doris and Lucindecome in, and everybody is astounded at Ariste's generosity as he takesClarice's hand and places it in that of his rival. Then he goes to thePrésidente, and tells her what he has done. She expresses her delight, and he falls at her feet. Thereupon she throws round his neck arose-coloured ribbon (_her_ colours), calls him "her Charming man, "[397]and insists on showing him to the public as her conquest and captive. Hehas no time to refuse, for the door opens and they all appear. "Levoilà, " says she, "cet homme si fier qui soupire à mes genoux pour lesbeaux yeux de ma cassette! Je vous le livre. Mon rôle est joué. " SoAriste, tearing his curled hair, and the _gris-de-lin clair_ coat, and, doubtless, the Présidente's "red rose chain, " cursing also terribly, goes off to write a book against the age, and to prove that nobody iswise but himself. 

I can hardly imagine more than one cavil being made against this by themost carping of critics and the most wedded to the crotchet of"kinds"--that it is too dramatic for a _story_, and that we ought tohave had it as a drama. If this were further twisted into an accusationof plagiarism from the actual theatre, I think it could be rebutted atonce. The situations separately might be found in many dramas; thecharacters in more; but I at least am not aware of any one in which theyhad been similarly put together. Of course most if not all of us haveseen actresses who would make Clarice charming, Madame de Ponvalamusing, and Doris and Lucinde very delectable adjuncts; as well asactors by whom the parts of Cléon and Ariste would be very effectivelyworked out. But why we should be troubled to dress, journey, waste timeand money, and get a headache, by going to the theatre, when we canenjoy all this "in some close corner of [our] brain, " I cannot see. As Iread the story in some twenty minutes, I can see _my_ Clarice, _my_Madame de Ponval, _my_ Doris and Lucinde and Cléon and Ariste andJasmin--the silent but doubtless highly appreciative valet, --and Irather doubt whether the best company in the world could give me quitethat. 

[Sidenote: A real advance in these. ]

But, even in saying this, full justice has not yet been done toMarmontel. He has, from our special point of view, made a real furtherprogress towards the ideal of the ordinary novel--the presentation ofordinary life. He has borrowed no supernatural aid;[398] he has laidunder contribution no "fie-fie" seasonings; he has sacrificed nothing, or next to nothing, in these best pieces, whatever he may have doneelsewhere, to purpose and crotchet. He has discarded stuffing, digression, episode, and other things which weighed on and hampered hispredecessors. In fact there are times when it seems almost unjust, inthis part of his work, to "second" him in the way we have done; thoughit must be admitted that if you take his production as a whole herelapses into the second order. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. ]

The actual books, in anything that can be called fiction, of Bernardinde Saint-Pierre are of far less merit than Marmontel's; but most peoplewho have even the slightest knowledge of French literature know why hecannot be excluded here. Personally, he seems to have been anineffectual sort of creature, and in a large part of his rathervoluminous work he is (when he ceases to produce a sort of languidamusement) a distinctly boring one. [399] He appears to have beenunlucky, but to have helped his own bad luck with the only signs ofeffectualness that he ever showed. It is annoying, no doubt, to getremonstrances from headquarters as to your not sending any work (plans, reports, etc. ) as an engineer, and to find, or think you find, thatyour immediate C. O. Has suppressed them. But when you charge him withhis disgraceful proceeding, and he, as any French officer in hisposition at his time was likely to do, puts his hand on his sword, it isundiplomatic to rush on another officer who happens to be present, grabat and draw his weapon (you are apparently not entitled to one), andattack your chief. Nor when, after some more unsuccessful experiences athome and abroad, you are on half or no pay, and want employment, wouldit seem to be exactly the wisdom of Solomon to give a minister thechoice of employing you on (1) the civilisation of Corsica, (2) theexploration of the unknown parts of the Western Continent, (3) thediscovery of the sources of the Nile, and (4) a pedestrian tourthroughout India. But, except in the first instance (for the "Citizen ofGeneva" did not meddle much with cold steel), it was all very like apupil, and (in the Citizen's later years) a friend, of Rousseau, carrying out his master's ideas with a stronger dose of Christianity, but with quite as little common sense. I have not seen (or remembered)any more exact account of Saint-Pierre's relations with Napoleon thanthat given by the excellent Aimé-Martin, an academic euphemiser of theFrench kind. But, even reading between his lines, they must have beenvery funny. [400]

_Paul et Virginie_, however, is one of those books which, havingattained and long kept a European reputation, cannot be neglected, andit may be added that it does deserve, though for one thing only, neverto be entirely forgotten. It is chock-full of _sensibilité_, thecharacters have no real character, and all healthy-minded persons havelong ago agreed that the concomitant facts, if not causes, of Virginie'sfate are more nasty than the nastiest thing in Diderot or Rabelais. [401]But the descriptions of the scenery of Mauritius, as sets-off to anovel, are something new, and something immensely important. _LaChaumière Indienne_, though less of a story in size and general texture, is much better from the point of view of taste. It has touches of realirony, and almost of humour, though its hero, the good pariah, is acreature nearly as uninteresting as he is impossible. Yet his "black andpolished" baby is a vivid property, and the descriptions are againfamous. The shorter pieces, _Le Café de Surate_, etc. , require littlenotice. 

 * * * * *

It will, however, have been seen by anybody who can "seize points, " thatthis _philosophe_ novel, as such, is a really important agent inbringing on the novel itself to its state of full age. That men like thethree chiefs should take up the form is a great thing; that men who arenot quite chiefs, like Marmontel and Saint-Pierre, should carry it on, is not a small one. They all do something to get it out of the rough; todiscard--if sometimes also they add--irrelevances; to modernise this onekind which is perhaps the predestined and acceptable literary product ofmodernity. Voltaire originates little, but puts his immense power and_diable au corps_ into the body of fiction. Rousseau enchains passion inits service, as Madame de la Fayette, as even Prévost, had not been ableto do before. Diderot indicates, in whatever questionable material, thevast possibilities of psychological analysis. Marmontel--doing, likeother second-rate talents, almost more _useful_ work than hisbetters--rescues the _conte_ from the "demi-rep" condition into which ithad fallen, and, owing to the multifariousness of his examples, does notentirely subjugate it even to honest purpose; while Bernardin deSaint-Pierre carries the suggestions of Rousseau still further in theinvaluable department of description. No one, except on the smallscale, is great in plot; no one produces a really individualcharacter;[402] and it can hardly be said that any one providesthoroughly achieved novel dialogue. But they have inspired and enlivenedthe whole thing as a whole; and if, against this, is to be set the crimeof purpose, that is one not difficult to discard. [403]

FOOTNOTES:

[351] His _verse_ tales, even if stories in verse had not by this timefallen out of our proper range, require little notice. The faculty of"telling" did not remain with him here, perhaps because it wasprejudicially affected by the "dryness" and unpoetical quality of hispoetry, and of the French poetry of the time generally, perhaps forother reasons. At any rate, as compared with La Fontaine or Prior, hehardly counts. _Le Mondain_, _Le Pauvre Diable_, etc. , are skits orsquibs in verse, not tales. The opening one of the usual collection, _Cequi plaît aux Dames_, --in itself a flat rehandling of Chaucer andDryden, --is saved by its charming last line--

 Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son mérite, a rede which he himself might well have recked. 

[352] In justice to Voltaire it ought to be remembered that no lessgreat, virtuous, and religious a person than Milton ranked as one of thetwo objects to which "all mortals most aspire, " "to offend yourenemies. "

[353] It has been noted above (see p. 266, _note_), how some havedirectly traced _Zadig_ to the work of a person so much inferior toHamilton as Gueulette. 

[354] _Micromégas_ and one or two other things avowed--in fact, Voltaire, if not "great, " was "big" enough to make as a rule littlesecret of his levies on others; and he had, if not adequate, aconsiderable, respect for the English Titan. 

[355] Cacambo was not a savage, but he had savage or, at least, non-European blood in him. 

[356] Not in the Grandisonian sense, thank heaven! But as has beenhinted, he is a _little_ of a prig. 

[357] He has been allowed a great deal of credit for the Calas and someother similar businesses. It is unlucky that the injustices he combatedwere somehow always _clerical_, in this or that fashion. 

[358] It was said of them at their appearance "[cet] ouvrage est sansgoût, sans finesse, sans invention, un rabâchage de toutes les vieillespolissonneries que l'auteur a débitées sur Moïse, et Jésus-Christ, lesprophètes et les apôtres, l'Église, les papes, les cardinaux, lesprêtres et les moines; nul intêret, nulle chaleur, nulle vraisemblance, force ordures, une grosse gaieté.... Je n'aime pas la religion: mais jene la hais pas assez pour trouver cela bon. " The authorship, added tothe justice of it, makes this one of the most crushing censures evercommitted to paper; for the writer was Diderot (_Oeuvres_, Ed. Assézat, vi. 36). 

[359] It is a singular coincidence that this was exactly the sum whichJohnson mentioned to Boswell as capable of affording decent subsistencein London during the early middle eighteenth century. 

[360] _Songe de Platon_, _Bababec et les Fakirs_, _Aventure de laMémoire_, _Les Aveugles Juges des Conteurs_, _Aventure Indienne_, and_Voyage de la Raison_. 

[361] It is only fair to mention in this place, and in justice to a muchabused institution, that this Babylonian story is said to be the onlything of its kind and its author that escaped the Roman censorship. Ifthis is true, the unfeathered _perroquets_ were not so spiteful as thefeathered ones too often are. Or perhaps each chuckled at the satire onhis brethren. 

[362] As with other controverted points, not strictly relevant, it ispermissible for us to neglect protests about _la légende desphilosophes_ and the like. Of course Rousseau was not only, at one timeor another, the personal enemy of Voltaire and Diderot--he was, at onetime or another, the personal enemy of everybody, including (not at anyone but at all times) himself--but held principles very different fromtheirs. Yet their names will always be found together: and for ourobject the junction is real. 

[363] Not the Abbé, who had been dead for some years, but a Geneveseprofessor who saw a good deal of Jean-Jacques in his later days. 

[364] "For short" _La Nouvelle Héloïse_ has been usually adopted. Iprefer _Julie_ as actually the first title, and for other reasons withwhich it is unnecessary to trouble the reader. 

[365] She dies after slipping into the lake in a successful attempt torescue one of her children; but neither is drowned, and she does notsuccumb rapidly enough for "shock" to account for it, or slowly enoughfor any other intelligible malady to hold its course. 

[366] There is another curious anticipation of Dickens here: for Julie, as Dora does with Agnes, entreats Claire to "fill her vacantplace"--though, by the way, not with her husband. And a third parallel, between Saint-Preux and Bradley Headstone, need not be quite farcical. 

[367] You _may_ tear out Introductions, if you do it neatly; and this Isay, having written many. 

[368] Also Rousseau, without meaning it, has made him by no means afool. When, on learning from his wife and daughter that Saint-Preux hadbeen officiating as "coach, " he asked if this genius was a gentleman, and on hearing that he was not, replied, "What have you paid him, then?"it was not, as the novelist and his hero took it, in their vanity, tobe, mere insolence of caste. M. D'Étange knew perfectly well that thoughhe could not trust a French gentleman with his wife, there was notnearly so much danger with his daughter--while a _roturier_ was not onlyentitled to be paid, and might accept pay without derogation, but wasnot unlikely, as the old North Country saying goes, to take it in maltif he did not receive it in meal. 

[369] I observe that I have not yet fulfilled the promise of sayingsomething of Wolmar, but the less said of him the better. He belongswholly to that latter portion which has been wished away; he is arespectable Deist--than which it is essentially impossible, one wouldsuppose, for orthodoxy and unorthodoxy alike to imagine anything moreuninteresting; and his behaviour to Saint-Preux appears to me to besimply nauseous. He cannot, like Rowena, "forgive as a Christian, "because he is not one, and any other form of forgiveness or even oftolerance is, in the circumstances, disgusting. But it was Rousseau'sway to be disgusting sometimes. 

[370] We have spoken of his attempt at the fairy tale; _qui_ Gomersal_non odit_ in English verse, _amet Le Lévite d'Ephraïm_ in French prose, etc. Etc. 

[371] He did not even, as Rousseau did with his human offspring, habitually take them to the Foundling Hospital--that is to say, in thecase of literature, the anonymous press. He left them in MS. , gave themaway, and in some cases behaved to them in such an incomprehensiblefashion that one wonders how they ever came to light. 

[372] Carlyle's _Essay_ and Lord Morley of Blackburn's book areexcepted. But Carlyle had not the whole before him, and Lord Morley wasprincipally dealing with the _Encyclopédie_. 

[373] Especially as Génin, like Carlyle, did not know all. There is, Ibelieve, a later selection, but I have not seen it. 

[374] Even the long, odd, and sometimes tedious _Rêve de D'Alembert_, which Carlyle thought "we could have done without, " but which othershave extolled, has vivid narrative touches, though one is not muchsurprised at Mlle. De Lespinasse having been by no means grateful forthe part assigned to her. 

[375] The cleansing effect of war is an old _cliché_. It has beencuriously illustrated in this case: for the first proof of the presentpassage reached me on the very same day with the news of the expulsionof the Germans from the village of Puisieux. So the name got"_red_-washed" from its old reproach. 

[376] There really are touches of resemblance in it to Browning, especially in things like _Mr. Sludge the Medium_. 

[377] The corporal's wound in the knee. 

[378] Of course, there _are_ exceptions, and with one of the chief ofthem, Xavier de Maistre, we may have, before long, to deal. 

[379] His longest, most avowed, and most famous, the _Paradoxe sur leComédien_, has been worthily Englished by Mr. Walter H. Pollock. 

[380] Its heroine, Suzanne Simonin, was, as far as the attempt torelieve herself of her vows went, a real person; and a benevolentnobleman, the Marquis de Croixmare, actually interested himself in thisattempt--which failed. But Diderot and his evil angel Grimm got up shamletters between themselves and her patron, which are usually printedwith the book. 

[381] _Mon père, je suis damnée_ ... The opening words, and the onlyones given, of the confession of the half-mad abbess. 

[382] Evangelical Protestantism has more than once adopted the principlethat the Devil should not be allowed to have all the best tunes: and Iremember in my youth an English religious novel of ultra-anti-Romanpurpose, which, though, of course, dropping the "scabrousness, " had, asI long afterwards recognised when I came to read _La Religieuse_, almostcertainly borrowed a good deal from our most unsaintly Denis of Langres. 

[383] She seems to have been, in many ways, far too good for hersociety, and altogether a lady. --The opinions of the late M. Brunetièreand mine on French literature were often very different--though he wasgood enough not to disapprove of some of my work on it. But with theterms of his expression of mere opinion one had seldom to quarrel. Imust, however, take exception to his attribution of _grossièreté_ to _LaReligieuse_. Diderot, as has been fully admitted, _was_ too often_grossier_: sometimes when it was almost irrelevant to the subject. Buthere, "scabrous" as the subject might be, the treatment is scrupulously_not_ coarse. Nor do I think, after intimate and long familiarity withthe whole of his work, that he was ever a _faux bonhomme_. 

[384] They have hardly had a fair opportunity of comparison withVoltaire's _Dictionnaire Philosophique_; but they can stand it. 

[385] Unless Dulaurens' not quite stupid, but formless anddiscreditable, _Compère Mathieu_ be excepted. 

[386] In consequence of which Mr. Ruskin's favourite publisher, the lateMr. George Allen, asked the present writer, some twenty years ago, torevise and "introduce" the old translation of his _Contes Moraux_. Thevolume had, at least, the advantage of very charming illustrations byMiss Chris. Hammond. 

[387] They were even worse than Leigh Hunt's in the strictly Englishcounterpart torture-house for the victims of tyranny--consisting, forinstance, in the supply of so good a dinner, at His Most ChristianMajesty's expense, for the prisoner's servant, that the prisoner ate ithimself, and had afterwards, on the principles of rigid virtue anddistributive justice, to resign, to the minion who accompanied him, hisown still better one which came later, also supplied by the tyrant. 

[388] One expects something of value from the part-contemporary, part-successor of the novelists from Lesage to Rousseau. But where it isnot mere blether about virtue and vice, and _le coeur humain_ and so on, it has some of the worst faults of eighteenth-century criticism. Hethinks it would have been more "moral" if Mme. De Clèves had actuallysuccumbed as a punishment for her self-reliance (certainly one of themost remarkable topsyturvifications of morality ever crotcheted); is, ofcourse, infinitely shocked at being asked and induced to "interesthimself in a prostitute and a card-sharper" by _Manon Lescaut_; and, equally of course, extols Richardson, though it is fair to say that hespeaks well of _Tom Jones_. 

[389] See next chapter. 

[390] I wonder whether any one else has noticed that Thackeray, in thevery agreeable illustration to one of not quite his greatest"letterpress" things, _A New Naval Drama_ (Oxford Ed. Vol. Viii. P. 421), makes the press-gang weep ostentatiously in the picture, thoughnot in the text, where they only wave their cutlasses. It may be merelya coincidence: but it may not. 

[391] There are reasons for thinking that Marmontel was deliberately"antidoting the _fanfreluches_" of the older tale-teller. 

[392] In the original, suiting the rest of the setting, it is _rideaux_. 

[393] "Explanations" is quite admirable, and, I think, neither borrowedfrom, nor, which is more surprising, by others. 

[394] She declares that she has never actually "stooped to folly"; butadmits that on more than one occasion it was only an accidentalinterruption which "luckily" (_heureusement_) saved her. 

[395] It is necessary to retain the French here: for our "likes" isambiguous. 

[396] Cf. The stories, contradictory of each other, as to _our_brown-coated philosopher's appearance in France. (Boswell, p. 322, Globeed. )

[397] Cf. Again the bestowal of this title by Horace Walpole, in hislater days, on Edward Jerningham, playwright, poetaster, and _petitmaître_, who, unluckily for himself, lived into the more roughlysatirical times of the Revolutionary War. 

[398] "The _sylph_ishness of _Le Mari Sylphe_ is only an ingenious anddefensible fraud; and the philtre-flasks of _Alcidonis_ are little morethan "properties. ""

[399] Here is a specimen of his largest and most ambitious production, the _Études de la Nature_. "La femelle du tigre, exhalant l'odeur ducarnage, fait retentir les solitudes de l'Afrique de ses miaulementsaffreux, et paraît remplie d'attraits à ses cruels amants. " By an oddchance, I once saw a real scene contrasting remarkably withSaint-Pierre's sentimental melodrama. It was in the Clifton ZoologicalGardens, which, as possibly some readers may know, were at one timeregarded as particularly home-like by the larger carnivora. It was avery fine day, and an equally fine young tigress was endeavouring toattract the attention of her cruel lover. She rolled delicately about, like a very large, very pretty, and exceptionally graceful cat; she madefantastic gestures with her paws and tail; and she purred literally "asgently as any sucking dove"--_roucoulement_ was the only word for it. But her "lover, " though he certainly looked "cruel" and as if he wouldvery much like to eat _me_, appeared totally indifferent to herattractions. 

[400] So, also, when one is told that he called his son Paul and hisdaughter Virginie, it is cheerful to remember, with a pleasant sense ofcontrast, Scott's good-humoured contempt for the tourists who wanted toknow whether Abbotsford was to be called Tullyveolan or Tillietudlem. 

[401] As the story is not now, I believe, the universal school-book itonce was, something more than mere allusion may be desirable. The shipin which Virginie is returning to the Isle of France gets into shallowsduring a hurricane, and is being beaten to pieces close to land. Onestalwart sailor, stripped to swim for his life, approaches Virginie, imploring her to strip likewise and let him try to pilot her through thesurf. But she (like the lady in the coach, at an early part of _JosephAndrews_) won't so much as look at a naked man, clasps her arms roundher own garments, and is very deservedly drowned. The sailor, to one'sgreat relief, is not. 

[402] Julie herself is an intense type rather than individual. 

[403] I have not thought it necessary, except in regard to those of themwho have been touched in treating of the _Cabinet des Fées_, to speak atany length of the minor tale-tellers of the century. They are sometimesnot bad reading; but as a whole minor in almost all senses. 

CHAPTER XII

"SENSIBILITY. " MINOR AND LATER NOVELISTS. 

THE FRENCH NOVEL, _C. _ 1800

[Sidenote: "Sensibility. "]

Frequent reference has been made, in the last two chapters, to thecurious phenomenon called in French _sensibilité_ (with a derivative ofcontempt, _sensiblerie_), the exact English form of which supplies partof the title, and the meaning an even greater part of the subject, ofone of Miss Austen's novels. The thing itself appears firstdefinitely[404] in Madame de la Fayette, largely, though not unmixedly, in Marivaux, and to some extent in Prévost and Marmontel, while it is, as it were, sublimed in Rousseau, and present very strongly inSaint-Pierre. There are, however, some minor writers and booksdisplaying it in some cases even more extensively and intensively; andin this final chapter of the present volume they may appropriately finda place, not merely because some of them are late, but becauseSensibility is not confined to any part of the century, but, beginningbefore its birth, continued till after its end. We may thus have toencroach on the nineteenth a little, but more in appearance than inreality. In quintessence, and as a reigning fashion, Sensibility was theproperty of the eighteenth century. [405]

[Sidenote: A glance at Miss Austen. ]

To recur for a moment to Miss Austen and _Sense and Sensibility_, everybody has laughed, let us hope not unkindly, over MarianneDashwood's woes. But she herself was only an example, exaggerated in thegenial fashion of her creatress, of the proper and recognised standardof feminine feeling in and long before her time. The "man of feeling"was admitted as something out of the way--on which side of the wayopinions might differ. But the woman of feeling was emphatically theaccepted type--a type which lasted far into the next century, though itwas obsolete at least by the Mid-Victorian period, of which some do sovainly talk. The extraordinary development of emotion which was expectedfrom women need not be illustrated merely from love-stories. Thewonderful transports of Miss Ferrier's heroines at sight of theirlong-lost mothers; even those of sober Fanny Price in _Mansfield Park_, at the recovery of her estimable but not particularly interestingbrother William, give the keynote much better than any more questionableecstasies. "Sensibility, so charming, " was the pet affectation of theperiod--an affectation carried on till it became quite natural, and wasonly cured by the half-caricature, half-reaction of Byronism. 

[Sidenote: The thing essentially French. ]

The thing, however, was not English in origin, and never was thoroughlyEnglish at all. The main current of the Sensibility novelists, whoimpressed their curious morals or manners on all men and women incivilised Europe, was French in unbroken succession, from the day whenMadame de la Fayette first broke ground against the ponderous romancesof Madeleine de Scudéry, to the day when Benjamin Constant forged, in_Adolphe_, the link between eighteenth-century and nineteenth-centuryromance, between the novel of sentiment and the novel of analysis. 

[Sidenote: Its history. ]

Of the relations to it of the greater novelists of the main century wehave already spoken: and as for the two greatest of the extreme close, Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël, they mix too many secondary purposeswith their philandering, and moreover do not form part of the plan ofthe present volume. For the true Sensibility, the odd quintessence ofconventional feeling, played at steadily till it is half real, if notwholly so, which ends in the peculiarities of two such wholesome youngBritonesses as Marianne Dashwood and Fanny Price, we must lookelsewhere. After Madame de la Fayette, and excluding with her othernames already treated, we come to Madame de Fontaines, Madame de Tencin(most heartless and therefore naturally not least sentimental of women), Madame Riccoboni, the group of lady-novelists of whom Mesdames de Souzaand de Duras are the chief, and, finally, the two really remarkablenames of Xavier de Maistre and Benjamin Constant. These are our"documents. " Even the minor subjects of this inquiry are pleasant piecesof literary _bric-à-brac_; perhaps they are something a little more thanthat. For Sensibility was actually once a great power in the world. Transformed a little, it did wonderful things in the hands of Rousseauand Goethe and Chateaubriand and Byron. It lingers in odd nooks andcorners even at the present day, when it is usually and irreverentlycalled "gush, " and Heaven only knows whether it may not be resuscitatedin full force before some of us are dead. [406] For it has exactly thepeculiarities which characterise all recurrent fashions--the appeal tosomething which is genuine connected with the suggestion of a great dealthat is not. 

[Sidenote: Mme. De Tencin and _Le Comte de Comminge_. ]

In the followers of Madame de la Fayette[407] we find that a good manyyears have passed by. The jargon appropriated to the subject has grownstill more official; and instead of using it to express genuinesentiments, which in another language might deserve expression wellenough, the characters are constantly suspected by the callous modernreader or elaborately, though perhaps unconsciously, feigning thesentiments which the jargon seems to imply that they ought to have. Thisis somewhat less noticeable in the work of Madame de Tencin thanelsewhere, because d'Alembert's mother was so very much cleverer aperson than the generality of the novel-writers of her day that shecould hardly fail to hide defects more cunningly. But it is evidentenough in the _Comte de Comminge_ and in the _Malheurs de l'Amour_. Having as questionable morals as any lady of the time (the time of theRegency), Madame de Tencin of course always had a moral purpose in herwritings, and this again gives her books a certain difference. But, likethe former, this difference only exposes, all the more clearly, thedefects of the style, and the drawbacks from which it was almostimpossible that those who practised it should escape. 

Madame de Tencin tried to escape by several gates. Besides her moralpurposes and her _esprit_, she indulged in a good deal of rathercomplicated and sometimes extravagant incident. _M. De Comminge_, whichis very short, contains, not to mention other things, the ratherstartling detail of a son who, out of chivalrous affection for hislady-love, burns certain of his father's title-deeds which he has beencharged to recover, and the still more startling incident of the heroineliving for some years in disguise as a monk. The following epistle, however, from the heroine to the hero, will show better than anythingelse the topsy-turvy condition which sensibility had already reached. All that need be said in explanation of it is that the father (who isfurious with his son, and not unreasonably so) has shut him up in adungeon, in order to force him to give up his beloved Adelaide. [408]

 Your father's fury has told me all I owe you: I know what your generosity had concealed from me. I know, too, the terrible situation in which you are, and I have no means of extracting you therefrom save one. This will perhaps make you more unhappy still. But I shall be as unhappy as yourself, _and this gives me the courage to do what I am required to do_. They would have me, by engaging myself to another, give a pledge never to be yours: 'tis at this price that M. De Comminge sets your liberty. It will cost me perhaps my life, certainly my peace. But I am resolved. I shall in a few days be married to the Marquis de Bénavidés. What I know of his character forewarns me of what I shall have to suffer; _but I owe you at least so much constancy as to make only misery for myself in the engagement I am contracting_. 

The extremity of calculated absurdity indicated by the italicisedpassages was reached, let it be remembered, by one of the cleverestwomen of the century: and the chief excuse for it is that therestrictions of the La Fayette novel, confined as it was to the upperclasses and to a limited number of elaborately distressing situations, were very embarrassing. 

[Sidenote: Mme. Riccoboni and _Le Marquis de Cressy_. ]

Madame Riccoboni, mentioned earlier as continuing _Marianne_, shows thecompleted product very fairly. Her _Histoire du Marquis de Cressy_ is acapital example of the kind. The Marquis is beloved by a charming girlof sixteen and by a charming widow of six-and-twenty. An envious rivalbetrays his attentions to Adelaide de Bugei, and her father makes herwrite an epistle which pretty clearly gives him the option of adeclaration in form or a rupture. For a Sensible man, it must beconfessed, the Marquis does not get out of the difficulty too well. Shehas slipped into her father's formal note the highly Sensiblepostscript, "Vous dire de m'oublier? Ah! Jamais. On m'a forcé del'écrire; rien ne peut m'obliger à le penser ni le désirer. " Apparentlyit was not leap-year, for the Marquis replied in a letter nearly as badas Willoughby's celebrated epistle in _Sense and Sensibility_. 

 MADEMOISELLE, --Nothing can console me for having been the innocent cause of fault being found with the conduct of a person so worthy of respect as you. I shall approve whatever you may think proper to do, without considering myself entitled to ask the reason of your behaviour. How happy should I be, mademoiselle, if my fortune, and the arrangements which it forces me to make, did not deprive me of the sweet hope of an honour of which my respect and my sentiments would perhaps make me worthy, but which my present circumstances permit me not to seek. 

Sensibility does not seem to have seen anything very unhandsome in thisbroad refusal to throw the handkerchief; but though not unhandsome, itcould not be considered satisfactory to the heart. So M. De Cressydespatches this private note to Adelaide by "Machiavel thewaiting-maid"--

 Is it permitted to a wretch who has deprived himself of the greatest of blessings, to dare to ask your pardon and your pity? Never did love kindle a flame purer and more ardent than that with which my heart burns for the amiable Adelaide. Why have I not been able to give her those proofs of it which she had the right to expect? Ah! mademoiselle, how could I bind you to the lot of a wretch all whose wishes even you perhaps would not fulfil? who, when he possessed you, though master of so dear, so precious a blessing, might regret others less estimable, but which have been the object of his hope and desire, etc. Etc. 

This means that M. De Cressy is ambitious, and wants a wife who willassist his views. The compliment is doubtful, and Adelaide receives itin approved fashion. She opens it "with a violent emotion, " and her"trouble was so great in reading it through, that she had to begin itagain many times before she understood it. " The exceedingly dubiousnature of the compliment, however, strikes her, and "tears of regret andindignation rise to her eyes"--tears which indeed are excusable evenfrom a different point of view than that of Sensibility. She is far, however, from blaming that sacred emotion. "Ce n'est pas, " she says; "denotre sensibilité, mais de l'objet qui l'a fait naître, que nous devonsnous plaindre. " This point seems arguable if it were proper to arguewith a lady. 

The next letter to be cited is from Adelaide's unconscious rival, whoseconduct is--translated into the language of Sensibility, and adjustedto the manners of the time and class--a ludicrous anticipation of thePickwickian widow. She buys a handsome scarf, and sends it anonymouslyto the victorious Marquis just before a Court ball, with this letter--

 A sentiment, tender, timid, and shy of making itself known, gives me an interest in penetrating the secrets of your heart. You are thought indifferent; you seem to me insensible. Perhaps you are happy, and discreet in your happiness. Deign to tell me the secret of your soul, and be sure that I am not unworthy of your confidence. If you have no love for any one, wear this scarf at the ball. Your compliance may lead you to a fate which others envy. She who feels inclined to prefer you is worthy of your attentions, and the step she takes to let you know it is the first weakness which she has to confess. 

The modesty of this perhaps leaves something to desire, but itsSensibility is irreproachable. There is no need to analyse the story ofthe _Marquis de Cressy_, which is a very little book[409] and notextremely edifying. But it supplies us with another _locus classicus_ onsentimental manners. M. De Cressy has behaved very badly to Adelaide, and has married the widow with the scarf. He receives a letter fromAdelaide on the day on which she takes the black veil--

 'Tis from the depths of an asylum, where I fear no more the perfidy of your sex, that I bid you an eternal adieu. Birth, wealth, honours, all vanish from my sight. My youth withered by grief, my power of enjoyment destroyed, love past, memory present, and regret still too deeply felt, all combine to bury me in this retreat. 

And so forth, all of which, if a little high-flown, is not speciallyunnatural; but the oddity of the passage is to come. Most men would be alittle embarrassed at receiving such a letter as this in presence oftheir wives (it is to be observed that the unhappy Adelaide is profuseof pardons to Madame as well as to Monsieur de Cressy), and most wiveswould not be pleased when they read it. But Madame de Cressy has thefinest Sensibility of the amiable kind. She reads it, and then--

 The Marquise, having finished this letter, cast herself into the arms of her husband, and clasping him with an inexpressible tenderness, "Weep, sir, weep, " she cried, bathing him with her own tears; "you cannot show too much sensibility for a heart so noble, so constant in its love. Amiable and dear Adelaide! 'Tis done, then, and we have lost you for ever. Ah! why must I reproach myself with having deprived you of the only possession which excited your desires? Can I not enjoy this sweet boon without telling myself that my happiness has destroyed yours?"

[Sidenote: Her other work--_Milady Catesby_. ]

All Madame Riccoboni's work is, with a little good-will, more or lessinteresting. Much of it is full of italics, which never were used sofreely in France as in England, but which seem to suit the queer, exaggerated, topsy-turvyfied sentiments and expressions very well. The_Histoire d'Ernestine_ in particular is a charming little novelette. Butif it were possible to give an abstract of any of her work here, _MiladyCatesby_, which does us the honour to take its scene and personages fromEngland, would be the one to choose. _Milady Catesby_ is well worthcomparing with _Evelina_, which is some twenty years its junior, and thesentimental parts of which are quite in the same tone with it. LordOssery is indeed even more "sensible" than Lord Orville, but then he isdescribed in French. Lady Catesby herself is, however, a model of thestyle, as when she writes--

 Oh! my dear Henrietta! What agitation in my senses! what trouble in my soul!... I have seen him.... He has spoken to me.... Himself.... He was at the ball.... Yes! he. Lord Ossery.... Ah! tell me not again to see him.... Bid me not hear him once more. 

That will do for Lady Catesby, who really had no particular occasion orexcuse for all this excitement except Sensibility. But Sensibility wasgetting more and more exacting. The hero of a novel must always be inthe heroics, the heroine in a continual state of palpitation. We arealready a long way from Madame de la Fayette's stately passions, fromMarianne's whimsical _minauderies_. All the resources oftypography--exclamations, points, dashes--have to be called in toexpress the generally disturbed state of things. Now unfortunately thissort of perpetual tempest in a teacup (for it generally is in a teacup)requires unusual genius to make it anything but ludicrous. I myself havenot the least desire to laugh when I read such a book as _La NouvelleHéloïse_, and I venture to think that any one who does laugh must havesomething of the fool and something of the brute in his composition. Butthen Rousseau is Rousseau, and there are not many like him. At theMadame Riccobonis of this world, however clever they may be, it isdifficult not to laugh, when they have to dance on such extraordinarytight ropes as those which Sensibility prescribed. 

[Sidenote: Mme. De Beaumont--_Lettres du Marquis de Roselle_. ]

The writers who were contemporary with Madame Riccoboni's later days, and who followed her, pushed the thing, if it were possible, evenfarther. In Madame de Genlis's tiny novelette of _Mademoiselle deClermont_, the amount of tears shed, the way in which the knees of thecharacters knock together, their palenesses, blushes, tears, sighs, andother performances of the same kind, are surprising. In the _Lettres duMarquis de Roselle_ of Madame Élie de Beaumont (wife of the youngadvocate who defended the Calas family), a long scene between a brotherand sister, in which the sister seeks to deter the brother from what sheregards as a misalliance, ends (or at least almost ends, for the usualflood of tears is the actual conclusion) in this remarkable passage. 

 "And I, " cried he suddenly with a kind of fury, "I suppose that a sister who loves her brother, pities and does not insult him; that the Marquis de Roselle knows better what can make him happy than the Countess of St. Séver; and that he is free, independent, able to dispose of himself, in spite of all opposition. " With these words he turned to leave the room brusquely. I run to him, I stop him, he resists. "My brother!" "I have no sister. " He makes a movement to free himself: he was about to escape me. "Oh, my father!" I cried. "Oh, my mother! come to my help. " At these sacred names he started, stopped, and _allowed himself to be conducted to a sofa_. 

[Sidenote: Mme. De Souza. ]

This unlucky termination might be paralleled from many other places, even from the agreeable writings of Madame de Souza. This writer, by theway, when the father of one of her heroes refuses to consent to hisson's marriage, makes the stern parent yield to a representation that bynot doing so he will "authorise by anticipation a want of filialattachment and respect" in the grandchildren who do not as yet exist. These excursions into the preposterous in search of something new in theway of noble sentiment or affecting emotion--these whippings andspurrings of the feelings and the fancy--characterise all the later workof the school. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Xavier de Maistre. ]

Two names of great literary value and interest close the list of thenovelists of Sensibility in France, and show at once its Nemesis and itscaricature. They were almost contemporaries, and by a curiouscoincidence neither was a Frenchman by birth. It would be impossible toimagine a greater contrast than existed personally between Xavier deMaistre and Henri Benjamin de Constant-Rebecque, commonly calledBenjamin Constant. But their personalities, interesting as both are, arenot the matter of principal concern here. The _Voyage autour de maChambre_, its sequel the _Expédition Nocturne_, and the _Lépreux de laCité d'Aoste_, exhibit one branch of the river of Sensibility (if onemay be permitted to draw up a new Carte de Tendre), losing itself inagreeable trifling with the surface of life, and in generous, butfleeting, and slightly, though not consciously, insincere indulgence ofthe emotions. In _Adolphe_ the river rushes violently down a steepplace, and _in nigras lethargi mergitur undas_. It is to be hoped thatmost people who will read these pages know Xavier de Maistre's charminglittle books; it is probable that at least some of them do not know_Adolphe_. Constant is the more strictly original of the two authors, for Xavier de Maistre owes a heavy debt to Sterne, though he employs theborrowed capital so well that he makes it his own, while _Adolphe_ canonly be said to come after _Werther_ and _René_ in time, not in theleast to follow them in nature. 

The _Voyage autour de ma Chambre_ (readers may be informed or reminded)is a whimsical description of the author's meditations and experienceswhen confined to barracks for some military peccadillo. After a fashionwhich has found endless imitators since, the prisoner contemplates thevarious objects in his room, spins little romances to himself about themand about his beloved Madame de Hautcastel, moralises on thefaithfulness of his servant Joannetti, and so forth. The _ExpéditionNocturne_, a less popular sequel, is not very different in plan. The_Lépreux de la Cité d'Aoste_ is a very short story, telling how thenarrator finds a sufferer from the most terrible of all diseases lodgedin a garden-house, and of their dialogue. The chief merit of theseworks, as of the less mannerised and more direct _Prisonnier du Caucase_and _Jeune Sibérienne_, resides in their dainty style, in their singularnarrative power (Sainte-Beuve says justly enough that the _Prisonnier duCaucase_ has been equalled by no other writer except Mérimée), and inthe remarkable charm of the personality of the author, which escapes atevery moment from the work. The pleasant picture of the Chevalier deB---- in the _Soirées de St. Pétersbourg_, which Joseph de Maistre issaid to have drawn from his less formidable brother, often suggestsitself as one follows the whimsicalities of the _Voyage_ and the_Expédition_. The affectation is so natural, the mannerism so simple, that it is some time before one realises how great in degree both are. 

[Sidenote: His illustrations on the lighter side of Sensibility. ]

Looked at from a certain point of view, Xavier de Maistre illustratesthe effect of the Sensibility theory on a thoroughly good-natured, cultivated, and well-bred man of no particular force or character orstrength of emotion. He has not the least intention of takingSensibility seriously, but it is the proper thing to take it somehow orother. So he sets himself to work to be a man of feeling and a humoristat the same time. His encounter with the leper is so freshly and simplytold, there is such an air of genuineness about it, that it seems atfirst sight not merely harsh, but unappreciative, to compare it toSterne's account of his proceedings with his monks and donkeys, hisimaginary prisoners, and his fictitious ensigns. Yet there is a realcontact between them. Both have the chief note of Sensibility, thetaking an emotion as a thing to be savoured and degusteddeliberately--to be dealt with on scientific principles and strictlyaccording to the rules of the game. One result of this proceeding, whenpursued for a considerable time, is unavoidably a certain amount offrivolity, especially in dealing with emotions directly affecting theplayer. Sympathy such as that displayed with the leper may be strong andgenuine, because there is no danger about it; there is the _suave marimagno_ preservative from the risk of a too deep emotion. But in matterswhich directly affect the interest of the individual it does not do tobe too serious. The tear of Sensibility must not be dropped in a mannergiving real pain to the dropper. Hence the humoristic attitude. WhenXavier de Maistre informs us that "le grand art de l'homme de génie estde savoir bien élever sa bête, " he means a great deal more than hesupposes himself to mean. The great art of an easy-going person, whobelieves it to be his duty to be "sensible, " is to arrange for a seriesof emotions which can be taken gently. 

The author of the _Voyage_ takes his without any extravagance. He takesgood care not to burn his fingers metaphorically in this matter, thoughhe tells us that in a fit of absence he did so literally. His affectionfor Madame de Hautcastel is certainly not a very passionate kind ofaffection, for all his elaborately counted and described heartbeats ashe is dusting her portrait. Indeed, with his usual candour, he leaves usin no doubt about the matter. "La froide raison, " he says, "repritbientôt son empire. " Of course it did; the intelligent, and in the othersense sensible, person who wishes to preserve his repose must take careof that. We do not even believe that he really dropped a tear ofrepentance on his left shoe when he had unreasonably rated his servant;it is out of keeping with his own part. He borrowed that tear, eitherironically or by oversight, from Sterne, just as he did "Ma chèreJenny. " He is much more in his element when he proves that a lover is tohis mistress, when she is about to go to a ball, only a "decimal of alover, " a kind of amatory tailor or ninth part of man; or when, in the_Expédition_, he meditates on a lady's slipper in the balcony fathomsbelow his garret. 

[Sidenote: A sign of decadence. ]

All this illustrates what may be called the attempt to get rid ofSensibility by the humorist gate of escape. Supposing no such attemptconsciously to exist, it is, at any rate, the sign of an approachingdownfall of Sensibility, of a feeling, on the part of those who have todo with it, that it is an edged tool, and an awkward one to handle. Incomparing Xavier de Maistre with his master Sterne, it is verynoticeable that while the one in disposition is thoroughly insincere, and the other thoroughly sincere, yet the insincere man is a truebeliever in Sensibility, and the sincere one evidently a semi-heretic. How far Sterne consciously simulated his droppings of warm tears, andhow far he really meant them, may be a matter of dispute. But he wasquite sincere in believing that they were very creditable things, andvery admirable ones. Xavier de Maistre does not seem by any means sowell convinced of this. He is, at times, not merely evidently pretendingand making believe, but laughing at himself for pretending and makingbelieve. He still thinks Sensibility a _gratissimus error_, a verypretty game for persons of refinement to play at, and he plays at itwith a great deal of industry and with a most exquisite skill. But thespirit of Voltaire, who himself did his _sensibilité_ (in real life, ifnot in literature) as sincerely as Sterne, has affected Xavier deMaistre "with a difference. " The Savoyard gentleman is entirely andunexceptionably orthodox in religion; it may be doubted whether a severeinquisition in matters of Sensibility would let him off scatheless. Itis not merely that he jests--as, for instance, that when he is imaginingthe scene at the Rape of the Sabines, he suddenly fancies that he hearsa cry of despair from one of the visitors. "Dieux immortels! Pourquoin'ai-je amené ma femme à la fête?" That is quite proper and allowable. It is the general tone of levity in the most sentimental moments, theundercurrent of mockery at his own feelings in this man of feeling, which is so shocking to Sensibility, and yet it was precisely this thatwas inevitable. 

Sensibility, to carry it out properly, required, like other elaborategames, a very peculiar and elaborate arrangement of conditions. Theparties must be in earnest so far as not to have the slightest suspicionthat they were making themselves ridiculous, and yet not in earnestenough to make themselves really miserable. They must have plenty oftime to spare, and not be distracted by business, serious study, political excitement, or other disturbing causes. On the other hand, toget too much absorbed, and arrive at Werther's end, was destructive notonly to the individual player, but to the spirit of the game. As thecentury grew older, and this danger of absorption grew stronger, thatgame became more and more difficult to play seriously enough, and yetnot too seriously. When the players did not blow their brains out, theyoften fell into the mere libertinism from which Sensibility, properly socalled, is separated by a clear enough line. Two such examples in reallife as Rousseau and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, one such demonstrationof the same moral in fiction as _Werther_, were enough to discourage theman of feeling. Therefore, when he still exists, he takes to motley, the only wear for the human race in troublesome circumstances whichbeset it with unpleasant recurrence. When you cannot exactly believeanything in religion, in politics, in literature, in art, and yetneither wish nor know how to do without it, the safe way is to make anot too grotesque joke of it. This is a text on which a long sermonmight be hung were it worth while. But as it is, it is sufficient topoint out that Xavier de Maistre is an extremely remarkable illustrationof the fact in the particular region of sentimental fiction. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Benjamin Constant--_Adolphe_. ]

Benjamin Constant's masterpiece, which (the sequel to it never havingappeared, though it was in existence in manuscript less than a centuryago) is also his only purely literary work, is a very small book, but itcalls here for something more than a very small mention. The books whichmake an end are almost fewer in literature than those which make abeginning, and this is one of them. Like most such books, it made abeginning also, showing the way to Beyle, and through Beyle to all theanalytic school of the nineteenth century. Space would not here sufficeto discuss the singular character of its author, to whom Sainte-Beuvecertainly did some injustice, as the letters to Madame Recamier show, but whose political and personal experiences as certainly call for alarge allowance of charity. The theory of _Adolphe's_ best editor, M. DeLescure (which also was the accepted theory long before M. De Lescure'stime), that the heroine of the novel was Madame de Staël, will not, Ithink, hold water. In every characteristic, personal and mental, Ellénore and Madame de Staël are at opposite poles. Ellénore wasbeautiful, Madame de Staël was very nearly hideous; Ellénore wascareless of her social position, Corinne was as great a slave to societyas any one who ever lived; Ellénore was somewhat uncultivated, hadlittle _esprit_, was indifferent to flattery, took not much upon herselfin any way except in exacting affection where no affection existed; thegood Corinne was one of the cleverest women of her time, and thoughtherself one of the cleverest of all times, could not endure that any onein company should be of a different opinion on this point, and insistedon general admiration and homage. 

However, this is a very minor matter, and anybody is at liberty toregard the differences as deliberate attempts to disguise the truth. What is important is that Madame de Staël was almost the last genuinedevotee of Sensibility, and that _Adolphe_ was certainly written by alover of Madame de Staël, who had, from his youth up, been a Man ofFeeling of a singularly unfeeling kind. When Constant wrote the book hehad run through the whole gamut of Sensibility. He had been instructedas a youth[410] by ancient women of letters; he had married and got ridof his wife _à la mode Germanorum_; he had frequently taken a hint from_Werther_, and threatened suicide with the best possible results; he hadgiven, perhaps, the most atrocious example of the atrocious want oftaste which accompanied the decadence of Sensibility, by marryingCharlotte von Hardenburg out of pique, because Madame de Staël would notmarry him, then going to live with his bride near Coppet, and finallydeserting her, newly married as she was, for her very uncomely butintellectually interesting rival. In short, according to the theory of acertain ethical school, that the philosopher who discusses virtue shouldbe thoroughly conversant with vice, Benjamin Constant was a past masterin Sensibility. It was at a late period in his career, and when he hadonly one trial to go through (the trial of, as it seems to me, a sincereand hopeless affection for Madame Recamier), that he wrote _Adolphe_. But the book has nothing whatever to do with 1815, the date which itbears. It is, as has been said, the history of the Nemesis ofSensibility, the prose commentary by anticipation on Mr. Swinburne'sadmirable "Stage Love"--

 Time was chorus, gave them cues to laugh and cry, They would kill, befool, amuse him, let him die; Set him webs to weave to-day and break to-morrow, Till he died for good in play and rose in sorrow. 

That is a history, in one stanza, of Sensibility, and no better accountthan _Adolphe_ exists of the rising in sorrow. 

The story of the book opens in full eighteenth century. A young man, fresh from the University of Göttingen, goes to finish his education atthe _residenz_ of D----. Here he finds much society, courtly and other. His chief resort is the house of a certain Count de P----, who lives, unmarried, with a Polish lady named Ellénore. In the easy-going days ofSensibility the _ménage_ holds a certain place in society, though it islooked upon a little askance. But Ellénore is, on her own theory, thoroughly respectable, and the Count de P----, though in danger of hisfortune, is a man of position and rank. As for Adolphe, he is the resultof the struggle between Sensibility, an unquiet and ironic nature, andthe teaching of a father who, though not unquiet, is more ironicallygiven than himself. His main character is all that a young man's shouldbe from the point of view of Sensibility. "Je ne demandais alors qu'à melivrer à ces impressions primitives et fougueuses, " etc. But his fathersnubs the primitive and fiery impressions, and the son, feeling thatthey are a mistake, is only more determined to experience them. Alternately expanding himself as Sensibility demands, and making ironicjests as his own nature and his father's teaching suggest, he acquiresthe character of "un homme immoral, un homme peu sûr, " the last of whichexpressions may be paralleled from the British repertory by "anill-regulated young man, " or "a young man on whom you can never depend. "

All this time Adolphe is not in love, and as the dominant teaching ofSensibility lays it down that he ought to be, he feels that he is wrong. "'Je veux être aimé, ' me dis-je, et je regardai autour de moi. Je nevoyais personne qui m'inspirait de l'amour; personne qui me parutsusceptible d'en prendre. " In parallel case the ordinary man wouldresign himself as easily as if he were in face of the two conditions ofhaving no appetite and no dinner ready. But this will not do for thepupil of Sensibility. He must make what he does not find, and so Adolphepitches on the luckless Ellénore, who "me parut une conquête digne demoi. " To do Sensibility justice, it would not, at an earlier time, haveused language so crude as this, but it had come to it now. Here is theportrait of the victim, drawn by her ten years younger lover. 

 Ellénore's wits were not above the ordinary, but her thoughts were just, and her expression, simple as it was, was sometimes striking by reason of the nobility and elevation of the thought. She was full of prejudices, but she was always prejudiced against her own interest. There was nothing she set more value on than regularity of conduct, precisely because her own conduct was conventionally irregular. [411] She was very religious, because religion rigidly condemned her mode of life. In conversation she frowned on pleasantries which would have seemed quite innocent to other women, because she feared that her circumstances might encourage the use of such as were not innocent. She would have liked to admit to her society none but men of the highest rank and most irreproachable reputation, because those women with whom she shuddered at the thought of being classed usually tolerate mixed society, and, giving up the hope of respect, seek only amusement. In short, Ellénore and her destiny were at daggers drawn; every word, every action of hers was a kind of protest against her social position. And as she felt that facts were too strong for her, and that the situation could be changed by no efforts of hers, she was exceedingly miserable.... The struggle between her feelings and her circumstances had affected her temper. She was often silent and dreamy: sometimes, however, she spoke with impetuosity. Beset as she was by a constant preoccupation, she was never quite calm in the midst of the most miscellaneous conversation, and for this very reason her manner had an unrest and an air of surprise about it which made her more piquant than she was by nature. Her strange position, in short, took the place of new and original ideas in her. 

The difference of note from the earlier eighteenth century will strikeeverybody here. If we are still some way from Emma Bovary, it is onlyin point of language: we are poles asunder from Marianne. But the herois still, in his own belief, acting under the influence of Sensibility. He is not in the least impassioned, he is not a mere libertine, but hehas a "besoin d'amour. " He wants a "conquête. " He is still actuated bythe odd mixture of vanity, convention, sensuality, which goes by thename of our subject. But his love is a "dessin de lui plaire"; he hastaken an "engagement envers son amour propre. " In other words, he isplaying the game from the lower point of view--the mere point of view ofwinning. It does not take him very long to win. Ellénore at firstbehaves unexceptionably, refuses to receive him after his firstdeclaration, and retires to the country. But she returns, and theexemplary Adolphe has recourse to the threat which, if his creator'sbiographers may be believed, Constant himself was very fond of employingin similar cases, and which the great popularity of _Werther_ madeterrible to the compassionate and foolish feminine mind. He will killhimself. She hesitates, and very soon she does not hesitate any longer. The reader feels that Adolphe is quite worthless, that nothing but thefact of his having been brought up in a time when Sensibility wasdominant saves him. But the following passage, from the point of viewalike of nature and of expression, again pacifies the critic:[412]

 I passed several hours at her feet, declaring myself the happiest of men, lavishing on her assurances of eternal affection, devotion, and respect. She told me what she had suffered in trying to keep me at a distance, how often she had hoped that I should detect her notwithstanding her efforts, how at every sound that fell on her ears she had hoped for my arrival; what trouble, joy, and fear she had felt on seeing me again; how she had distrusted herself, and how, to unite prudence and inclination, she had sought once more the distractions of society and the crowds which she formerly avoided. I made her repeat the smallest details, and this history of a few weeks seemed to us the history of a whole life. Love makes up, as it were by magic, for the absence of far-reaching memory. All other affections have need of the past: love, as by enchantment, makes its own past and throws it round us. It gives us the feeling of having lived for years with one who yesterday was all but a stranger. Itself a mere point of light, it dominates and illuminates all time. A little while and it was not: a little while and it will be no more: but, as long as it exists, its light is reflected alike on the past and on the future. 

This calm, he goes on to say, lasted but a short time; and, indeed, noone who has read the book so far is likely to suppose that it did. Adolphe has entered into the _liaison_ to play the game, Ellénore(unluckily for herself) to be loved. The difference soon brings discord. In the earlier Sensibility days men and women were nearly on equalterms. It was only in the most strictly metaphorical way that theunhappy lover was bound to expire, and his beloved rarely took themethod of wringing his bosom recommended by Goldsmith, when anybody elseof proper Sensibility was there to console her. But the game had becomeunequal between the Charlottes and the Werthers, the Adolphes and theEllénores. The Count de P---- naturally perceives the state of affairsbefore long, and as naturally does not like it. Adolphe, having playedhis game and won it, does not care to go on playing for love merely. "Ellénore était sans doute un vif plaisir dans mon existence, mais ellen'était pas plus un but--elle était devenue un lien. " But Ellénore doesnot see this accurate distinction. After many vicissitudes and a fewscenes ("Nous vécûmes ainsi quatre mois dans des rapports forcés, quelque fois doux, jamais complétement libres, y rencontrant encore duplaisir mais n'y trouvant plus de charme") a crisis comes. The Countforbids Ellénore to receive Adolphe any more: and she thereupon breaksthe ten years old union, and leaves her children and home. 

Her young lover receives this riveting of his chains with consternation, but he does his best. He defends her in public, he fights with a man whospeaks lightly of her, but this is not what she wants. 

 Of course I ought to have consoled her. I ought to have pressed her to my heart and said, "Let us live for each other; let us forget the misjudgments of men; let us be happy in our mutual regard and our mutual love. " I tried to do so, but what can a resolution made out of duty do to revive a sentiment that is extinct? Ellénore and I each concealed something from the other. She dared not tell me her troubles, arising from a sacrifice which she knew I had not asked of her. I had accepted that sacrifice; I dared not complain of ills which I had foreseen, and which I had not had courage enough to forestall. We were therefore silent on the very subject which occupied us both incessantly. We were prodigal of caresses, we babbled of love, but when we spoke of it we spoke for fear of speaking of something else. 

Here is the full Nemesis of the sentiment that, to use Constant's ownwords, is "neither passion nor duty, " and has the strength of neither, when it finds itself in presence of a stronger than itself. There werenone of these unpleasant meetings in Sensibility proper. There sentimentmet sentiment, and "exchanged itself, " in Chamfort's famous phrase. Whenthe rate of exchange became unsatisfactory it sought some othercustomer--a facile and agreeable process, which was quite consistent inpractice with all the sighs and flames. Adolphe is not to be quit soeasily of his conquest. He is recalled by his father, and hiscorrespondence with Ellénore is described in one of the astonishinglytrue passages which make the book so remarkable. 

 During my absence I wrote regularly to Ellénore. I was divided between the desire of not hurting her feelings and the desire of truthfully representing my own. I should have liked her to guess what I felt, but to guess it without being hurt by it. I felt a certain satisfaction when I had substituted the words "affection, " "friendship, " "devotion, " for the word "love. " Then suddenly I saw poor Ellénore sitting sad and solitary, with nothing but my letters for consolation: and at the end of two cold and artificial pages I added in a hurry a few phrases of ardour or of tenderness suited to deceive her afresh. In this way, never saying enough to satisfy her, I always said enough to mislead her, a species of double-dealing the very success of which was against my wishes and prolonged my misery. 

This situation, however, does not last. Unable to bear his absence, andhalf puzzled, half pained by his letters, Ellénore follows him, and hisfather for the first time expresses displeasure at this compromisingstep. Ellénore being threatened with police measures, Adolphe is oncemore perforce thrown on her side, and elopes with her to neutralterritory. Then events march quickly. Her father's Polish property, longconfiscated, is restored to him and left to her. She takes Adolphe(still struggling between his obligations to her and his desire to befree) to Warsaw, rejects an offer of semi-reconciliation from the Countde P----, grows fonder and more exacting the more weary of her yoke herlover becomes; and at last, discovering his real sentiments from acorrespondence of his with an artful old diplomatic friend of hisfather's, falls desperately ill and dies in his arms. A prologue andepilogue, which hint that Adolphe, far from taking his place in theworld (from which he had thought his _liaison_ debarred him), wanderedabout in aimless remorse, might perhaps be cut away with advantage, though they are defensible, not merely on the old theory of politicaljustice, but on sound critical grounds. 

[Sidenote: Mme. De Duras's "postscript. "]

[Sidenote: _Sensibilité_ and _engouement_. ]

This was the end of sensibility in more senses than one. It is truethat, five years later than _Adolphe_, appeared Madame de Duras'sagreeable novelettes of _Ourika_ and _Édouard_, in which something ofthe old tone revives. But they were written late in their author's life, and avowedly as a reminiscence of a past state of sentiment and ofsociety. "Le ton de cette société, " says Madame de Duras herself, "étaitl'engouement. " As happy a sentence, perhaps, as can be anywhere found todescribe what has been much written about, and, perhaps it may be saidwithout presumption, much miswritten about. _Engouement_ itself is anearly untranslatable word. [413] It may be clumsily but not inaccuratelydefined as a state of fanciful interest in persons and things which israther more serious than mere caprice, and a good deal less seriousthan genuine enthusiasm. The word expresses exactly the attitude ofFrench polite society in the eighteenth century to a vast number ofsubjects, and, what is more, it helps to explain the _sensibilité_ whichdominated that society. The two terms mutually involve each other, and_sensibilité_ stands to mere flirtation on the one hand, and genuinepassion on the other, exactly as _engouement_ does to caprice andenthusiasm. People flirted admirably in the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies, and the art was, I fancy, recovered in the nineteenth withsome success, but I do not think they flirted, properly speaking, in theeighteenth. [414] Sensibility (and its companion "sensuality") preventedthat. Yet, on the other hand, they did not, till the society itself andits sentiments with it were breaking up, indulge in anything that can becalled real passion. Sensibility prevented that also. The kind oflove-making which was popular may be compared without much fancifulnessto the favourite card-game of the period, quadrille. You changedpartners pretty often, and the stakes were not very serious; but therules of the game were elaborate and precise, and it did not admit ofbeing treated with levity. 

[Sidenote: Some final words on the matter. ]

Only a small part, though the most original and not the least remarkablepart, of the representation of this curious phenomenon in literature hasbeen attempted in this discussion. The English and German developmentsof it are interesting and famous, and, merely as literature, containperhaps better work than the French, but they are not so original, andthey are out of our province. Marivaux[415] served directly as model toboth English and German novelists, though the peculiarity of thenational temperament quickly made itself felt in both cases. In Englandthe great and healthy genius of Fielding applied the humour cure toSensibility at a very early period; in Germany the literature ofSensibility rapidly became the literature of suicide--a consummationthan which nothing could be more alien from the original conception. Itis true that there is a good deal of dying in the works of Madame de laFayette and her imitators. But it is quite transparent stage-dying, andthe virtuous Prince of Clèves and the penitent Adelaide in the _Comte deComminge_ do not disturb the mind at all. We know that, as soon as thecurtain has dropped, they will get up again and go home to supper quitecomfortably. It is otherwise with Werther and Adolphe. With all thefirst-named young man's extravagance, four generations have knownperfectly well that there is something besides absurdity in him, whilein Adolphe there is no extravagance at all. The wind of Sensibility hadbeen sown, in literature and in life, for many a long year, and thewhirlwind had begun to be reaped. [416]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Its importance here. ]

This, however, is the moral side of the matter, with which we have notmuch to do. As a division of literature these sentimental novels, artificial as they are, have a good deal of interest; and in a _History_such as the present they have very great importance. They are soentirely different in atmosphere from the work of later times, thatreading them has all the refreshing effect of a visit to a strangecountry; and yet one feels that they themselves have opened thatcountry for coming writers as well as readers. They are oftenextraordinarily ingenious, and the books to which in form they set theexample, though the power of the writers made them something verydifferent in matter--_Julie_, _La Religieuse_, _Paul et Virginie_, [417]_Corinne_, _René_--give their progenitors not a little importance, or atleast not a little interest of curiosity. Besides, it was in the schoolof Sensibility that the author of _Manon Lescaut_ somehow or otherdeveloped that wonderful little book. I do not know that it would beprudent to recommend modern readers to study Sensibility for themselvesin the original documents just surveyed. Disappointment and possiblymaledictions would probably be the result of any such attempt, except inthe case of Xavier de Maistre and Constant. But these others are justthe cases in which the office of historical critic justifies itself. Itis often said (and nobody knows the truth of it better than criticsthemselves) that a diligent perusal of all the studies and _causeries_that have ever been written, on any one of the really great writers, will not give as much knowledge of them as half an hour's reading oftheir own work. But then in that case the metal is virgin, and to be hadon the surface and for the picking up. The case is different where tonsof ore have to be crushed and smelted, in order to produce a fewpennyweights of metal. 

 * * * * *

Whatever fault may be found with the "Sensibility" novel, it is, as arule, "written by gentlemen [and ladies] for [ladies and] gentlemen. " Ofthe work of two curious writers, who may furnish the last detailednotices of this volume, as much cannot, unfortunately, be said. 

[Sidenote: Restif de la Bretonne. ]

It may, from different points of view, surprise different classes ofreaders to find Restif de la Bretonne (or as some would call him, Rétif)mentioned here at all--at any rate to find him taken seriously, and notentirely without a certain respect. One of these classes, consisting ofthose who know nothing about him save at second-hand, may ground theirsurprise on the notion that his work is not only matter for the _IndexExpurgatorius_, but also vulgar and unliterary, such as a French NedWard, without even Ned's gutter-wit, might have written. And these mightderive some support from the stock ticket-jingle _Rousseau du ruisseau_, which, though not without some real pertinency, is directly misleading. Another class, consisting of some at least, if not most, of those whohave read him to some extent, may urge that Decency--taking her revengefor the axiom of the boatswain in _Mr. Midshipman Easy_--forbids Duty tolet him in. And yet others, less under the control of any Mrs. Grundy, literary or moral, may ask why he is let in, and Choderlos deLaclos[418] and Louvet de Courray, with some more, kept out, as theymost assuredly will be. 

In the first place, there is no vulgarity in Restif. If he had had amore regular education and society, literary or other, and could havekept his mind, which was to a certainty slightly unhinged, off thecontinual obsession of morbid subjects, he might have been a veryconsiderable man of letters, and he is no mean one, so far as stylegoes, [419] as it is. He avails himself duly of the obscurity of alearned language when he has to use (which is regrettably often) wordsthat do not appear in the dictionary of the Academy: and there is notthe slightest evidence of his having taken to pornography for money, asLouvet and Laclos--as, one must regretfully add, Diderot, if not evenCrébillon--certainly did. When a certain subject, or group of subjects, gets hold of a man--especially one of those whom a rather celebratedFrench lady called _les cérébraux_--he can think of nothing else: andthough this is not absolutely true of Restif (for he had several minorcrazes), it is very nearly true of him, and perhaps more true than ofany one else who can be called a man of letters. 

Probably no one has read all he wrote;[420] even the late M. Assézat, who knew more about him than anybody else, does not, I think, pretend tohave done so. He was himself a printer, and therefore found exceptionalmeans of getting the mischief, which his by no means idle hands found todo, into publicity of a kind, though even their subject does not seem tohave made his books popular. [421] His largest work, _LesContemporaines_, is in forty-two volumes, and contains some threehundred different sections, reminding one vaguely, though thedifferences in detail are very great, of Amory's plan, at least, for the_Memoirs of Several Ladies_. His most remarkable by far, thequasi-autobiographical _Monsieur Nicolas_, [422] in fourteen. He couldwrite with positive moral purpose, as in the protest against _Le PaysanParvenu_, above referred to; in _La Vie de Mon Père_ (a book agreeablyfree from any variety of that sin of Ham which some biographicalwritings of sons about their fathers display); and in the unpleasantlytitled _Pornographe_, which is also morally intended, and dull enough tobe as moral as Mrs. Trimmer or Dr. Forsyth. 

Indeed, this moral intention, so often idly and offensively put forwardby those who are themselves mere pornographers, pervades Restifthroughout, and, while it certainly sometimes does carry dulness withit, undoubtedly contributes at others a kind of piquancy, because of itsevident sincerity, and the quaint contrast with the subjects the authoris handling. These subjects make explicit dealing with himselfdifficult, if not impossible: but his _differentia_ as regards them may, with the aid of a little dexterity, be put without offence. In the firstplace, as regards the comparison with Rousseau, Restif is almost agentleman: and he could not possibly have been guilty of Rousseau'sblackguard tale-telling in the cases of Madame de Warens (or, as Ibelieve, we are now told to spell it "Vuarrens") or Madame de Larnage. The way in which he speaks of his one idealised mistress, Madame"Parangon, " is almost romantic. He is, indeed, savage in respect to hiswife--whom he seems to have married in a sort of _clairvoyant_ mixtureof knowledge of her evil nature and fascination by her personal charmsand allurements, though he had had no difficulty in enjoying thesewithout marriage. But into none other of his scores and hundreds ofactual loves in some cases and at least passing intimacies inothers, [423] does he ever appear to have taken either the Restorationand Regency tone on the one hand, or that of "sickly sentimentality" onthe other. Against commerce for money he lifts up his testimonyunceasingly; he has, as his one editor has put it, a _manie depaternité_, and denounces any vice disconnected with it. With theprivileges of Solomon or Haroun al Raschid, Restif would have beenperfectly contented: and he never would have availed himself of that ofSchahriar before the two divine sisters put a stop to it. 

All this, however, strictly speaking, is outside our present subject, and is merely intended as a sort of excuse for the introduction of awriter who has been unfairly ostracised, not as a passport for Restif tothe young person. But his actual qualities as tale-teller are veryremarkable. The second title of _Monsieur Nicolas_--_Le Coeur HumainDévoilé_--ambitious as it is, is not fatuous. It is a human heart in asingularly morbid condition which is unveiled: but as, if I rememberrightly, either Goethe or Schiller, or both, saw and said near the time, there is no charlatanery about the unveiling, and no bungling about theautopsy. Restif has been compared, and not unfairly, to Defoe, as wellas to Rousseau; in a certain way he may be likened to Pepys; and allfour share an intense and unaffected reality, combined, however, in theFrenchman's case with a sort of exaggeration of a dreamy kind, and withother dream-character, which reminds one of Borrow, and even of DeQuincey. His absolute shamelessness is less unconnected with thisdream-quality than may at first appear, and, as in all such cases, ismade much less offensive by it. Could he ever have taken holiday fromhis day-long and night-long devotion to

 Cotytto or Venus Astarte or Ashtoreth, he might have been a most remarkable novelist, and as it is his _mere_narrative faculty is such as by no means every novelist possesses. Moreover, he counts, once more, in the advance towards real things infiction. "A pretty kind of reality!" cries Mrs. Grundy. But the real isnot always the pretty, and the pretty is not always the real. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Pigault-Lebrun--the difference of his positive and relativeimportance. ]

There is also a good deal that is curious, as well as many things thatare disgusting, for the student of the novel in Pigault-Lebrun. [424] Inthe first place, one is constantly reminded of that redeeming pointwhich the benevolent Joe Gargery found in Mr. Pumblechook--

 And, wotsume'er the failings on his part, He were a corn-and-seedsman in his hart. 

If Pigault cannot exactly be said to have been a good novelist, he"were" a novelist "in his hart. " Beside his _polissonneries_, hisfrequent dulness, his singular gropings and failures at anything likegood novelist _faire_, one constantly finds what might be pedanticallyand barbarously called a "novelistic velleity. " His much too ambitiouslytitled _Mélanges Littéraires_ turn to stories, though stories touchedwith the _polisson_ brush. His _Nouvelles_ testify at least to hisambition and his industry in the craft of fiction. "Je ne suis pasVoltaire, " he says somewhere, in reference, I think, to his plays, nothis tales. He most certainly is not; neither is he Marmontel, as far asthe tale is concerned. But as for the longer novel, in a blind andblundering way, constantly trapped and hindered by his want of geniusand his want of taste, by his literary ill-breeding and other faults, heseems to have more of a "glimmering" of the real business than theyhave, or than any other Frenchman had before him. 

[Sidenote: His general characteristics. ]

Pigault-Lebrun[425] spent nearly half of his long life in the nineteenthcentury, and did not die till Scott was dead in England, and the greatseries of novel-romances had begun, with Hugo and others, in France. Buthe was a man of nearly fifty in 1800, and the character of his work, except in one all-important point, or group of points, is thoroughly ofthe eighteenth, while even the excepted characteristics are of a morereally transitional kind than anything in Chateaubriand and Madame deStaël, whom we have postponed, as well as in Constant and Xavier deMaistre, whom we have admitted. He has no high reputation in literature, and, except from our own special point of view, he does not deserve evena demi-reputation. Although he is not deliberately pornographic, he isexceedingly coarse, with a great deal of the nastiness which is not evennaughty, but nastiness pure and simple. There is, in fact, and in moreways than one, something in him of an extremely inferior Smollett. Comparing him with his elder contemporary, Restif de la Bretonne, he isvulgar, which Restif never is. Passing to more purely literary matters, it would be difficult, from the side of literature as an art--I do notsay as a craft--to say anything for him whatever. His style[426] is, Ishould suppose (for I think no foreigner has any business to do morethan "suppose" in that matter), simply wretched; he has sentences aslong as Milton's or Clarendon's or Mr. Ruskin's, not merely without thegrandeur of the first, the beauty of the last, and the weighty sense ofthe second, but lacking any flash of graceful, pithy, or witty phrase;character of the model-theatre and cut-out paper kind; a mereaccumulation of incidents instead of a plot; hardly an attempt atdialogue, and, where description is attempted at all, utterineffectiveness or sheer rhyparography. [427]

It is a fair _riposte_ to the last paragraph to ask, "Then why do youdrag him in here at all?" But the counter-parry is easy. The exceptedpoints above supply it. With all his faults--admitting, too, that everygeneration since his time has supplied some, and most much better, examples of his kind--the fact remains that he was the firstconsiderable representative, in his own country, of that variety ofprofessional novelist who can spin yarns, of the sort that his audienceor public[428] wants, with unwearied industry, in great volume, and of aquality which, such as it is, does not vary very much. He is, in short, the first notable French novelist-tradesman--the first who gives usnotice that novel-production is established as a business. There is evena little more than this to be said for him. He has really madeconsiderable progress, if we compare him with his predecessors andcontemporaries, in the direction of the novel of ordinary life, as thatlife was in his own day. There are extravagances of course, but they arescarcely flagrant. His atmosphere is what the cooks, housemaids, footmen, what the grocers and small- or middle-class persons who, Isuppose, chiefly read him, were, or would have liked to be, accustomedto. His scene is not a paradise in either the common or the Greek sense;it is a sort of cabbage-garden, with a cabbage-garden's lack of beauty, of exquisiteness in any form, with its presence of untidiness, andsometimes of evil odour, but with its own usefulness, and with acultivator of the most sedulous. Pigault-Lebrun, for France, may be saidto be the first author-in-chief of the circulating library. It may notbe a position of exceeding honour; but it is certainly one which giveshim a place in the story of the novel, and which justifies not merelythese general remarks on him, but some analysis (not too abundant) ofhis particular works. As for translating him, a Frenchman might as wellspend his time in translating the English newspaper _feuilletons_ of"family" papers in the earlier and middle nineteenth century. Indeedthat _Minnigrey_, which I remember reading as a boy, and which longafterwards my friend, the late Mr. Henley, used to extol as one of themasterpieces of literature, is worth all Pigault put together and agreat deal more. 

[Sidenote: _L'Enfant du Carnaval and Les Barons de Felsheim. _]

The worst of it is, that to be amused by him--to be, except as astudent, even interested in a large part of his work--you must be almostas ill-bred in literature as he himself is. He is like a person who hashad before him no models for imitation or avoidance in behaviour: andthis is where his successor, Paul de Kock, by the mere fact of being hissuccessor, had a great advantage over him. But to the student he _is_interesting, and the interest has nothing factitious in it, and nothingto be ashamed of. There is something almost pathetic in his struggles tomaster his art: and his frequent remonstrances with critics and readersappear to show a genuine consciousness of his state, which is not alwaysthe case with such things. 

The book which stands first in his Works, _L'Enfant du Carnaval_, startswith an ultra-Smollettian[429] passage of coarseness, and relapses nowand then. The body of it--occupied with the history of a base-bornchild, who tumbles into the good graces of a Milord and his littledaughter, is named by them "Happy, " and becomes first the girl's loverand then her husband--is a heap of extravagances, which, nevertheless, bring the picaresque pattern, from which they are in part evidentlytraced, to a point, not of course anywhere approaching in genius _DonQuixote_ or _Gil Blas_, but somehow or other a good deal nearer generalmodern life. _Les Barons de Felsheim_, which succeeds it, seems to havetaken its origin from a suggestion of the opening of _Candide_, andcontinues with a still wilder series of adventures, satirising Germanways, but to some extent perhaps inspired by German literature. Verycommonly Pigault falls into a sort of burlesque melodramatic style, withfrequent interludes of horse-play, resembling that of the ineffablydreary persons who knock each others' hats off on the music-hall stage. There is even something dreamlike about him, though of a very low orderof dream; he has at any rate the dream-habit of constantly attemptingsomething and finding that he cannot bring it off. 

At the close of one of his most extravagant, most indecent, andstupidest novels, _La Folie Espagnole_--a supposed tale of chivalry, which of course shows utter ignorance of time, place, and circumstance, and is, in fact, only a sort of travestied _Gil Blas_, with a rankinfusion of further vulgarised Voltairianism[430]--the author has arather curious note to the reader, whom he imagines (with considerableprobability) to be throwing the book away with a suggested cry of"Quelles misères! quel fatras!" He had, he says, previously offered_Angélique et Jeanneton_, a little work of a very different kind, andthe public would neither buy nor read it. His publisher complained, andhe must try to please. As for _La Folie_, everybody, including his cook, can understand _this_. One remembers similar expostulations from morerespectable authors; but it is quite certain that Pigault-Lebrun--aLebrun so different from his contemporary "Pindare" of thatname--thoroughly meant what he said. He was drawing a bow, always at aventure, with no higher aim than to hit his public, and he did hit itoftener than he missed. So much the worse, perhaps, both for him and forhis public; but the fact is a fact, and it is in the observation andcorrelation of facts that history consists. 

[Sidenote: _Angélique et Jeanneton. _]

_Angélique et Jeanneton_ itself, as might be expected from the abovereference, is, among its author's works, something like _Le Rêve_ amongZola's; it is his endeavour to be strictly proper. But, as it is alsoone of his most Sternian exercises, the propriety is chequered. Itbegins in sufficiently startling fashion; a single gentleman of easyfortune and amiable disposition, putting his latchkey in the door of hischambers one night, is touched and accosted by an interesting youngperson with an "argentine" voice. This may look _louche_; but thesilvery accents appeal only for relief of needs, which, as it shortlyappears, are those most properly to be supplied by a maternity hospital. It is to be understood that the suppliant is an entire stranger to thehero. He behaves in the most amiable and, indeed, noble fashion, instalsher in his rooms, turns himself and his servant out to the nearesthotel, fetches the proper ministress, and, not content with this GoodSamaritanism, effects a legitimate union between Jeanneton and herlover, half gives and half procures them a comfortable maintenance, resists temptation of repayment (_not_ in coin) on more than oneoccasion, and sets out, on foot, to Caudebec, to see about a heritagewhich has come to Jeanneton's husband. On the way he falls in withAngélique (a lady this time), falls also in love with her, and marriesher. The later part of the story, as is rather the way with Pigault, becomes more "accidented. " There are violent scenes, jealousies, notsurprising, between the two heroines, etc. But the motto-title ofMarmontel's _Heureusement_ governs all, and the end is peace, though notwithout some spots in its sun. That the public of 1799 did not like thebook and did like _La Folie Espagnole_ is not surprising; but thebearing of this double attempt on the growth of novel-writing as aregular craft is important. 

[Sidenote: _Mon Oncle Thomas. _]

Perhaps on the whole _Mon Oncle Thomas_, which seems to have been one ofthe most popular, is also one of the most representative, if not thebest, of Pigault-Lebrun's novels. Its opening, and not its opening only, is indeed full of that mere nastiness which we, with Smollett and othersto our _dis_credit, cannot disclaim for our own parallel period, andwhich was much worse among the French, who have a choice selection ofepithets for it. But the fortunes of the youthful Thomas--child of aprostitute of the lowest class, though a very good mother, whoafterwards marries a miserly and ruffianly corporal of police--are toldwith a good deal of spirit--one even thinks of _Colonel Jack_--and theauthor shows his curious vulgar common sense, and his knowledge ofhuman nature of a certain kind, pretty frequently, at least in theearlier part of the book. 

[Sidenote: _Jérôme. _]

_Jérôme_ is another of Pigault's favourite studies of boys--distinctlyblackguard boys as a rule--from their mischievous, or, as the earlyEnglish eighteenth century would have put it, "unlucky" childhood, totheir most undeserved reward with a good and pretty wife (whom onesincerely pities), and more or less of a fortune. There is, however, more vigour in _Jérôme_ than in most, and, if one has the knack of"combing out" the silly and stale Voltairianism, and paying littleattention to the far from exciting sculduddery, the book may be read. Itcontains, in particular, one of the most finished of its author'ssketches, of a type which he really did something to introduce into hiscountry's literature--that of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic _routier_or professional soldier--brave as you like, and--at least at some timeswhen neither drunk nor under the influence of the garden god--notungenerous; with a certain simplicity too: but as braggart as he isbrave; a mere brute beast as regards the other sex; utterly ignorant, save of military matters, and in fact a kind of caricature of the oldertype, which the innocent Rymer was so wrath with Shakespeare forneglecting in Iago. 

[Sidenote: The redeeming points of these. ]

It may seem that too much space is being given to a reprobate and oftendull author; but something has been said already to rebut the complaint, and something more may be added now and again. French literature, fromthe death of Chénier to the appearance of Lamartine, has generally beenheld to contain hardly more than two names--those of Chateaubriand andMadame de Staël--which can even "seem to be" those of "pillars"; and itmay appear fantastic and almost insulting to mention one, who in longstretches of his work might almost be called a mere muckheap-raker, incompany with them. Yet, in respect to the progress of his owndepartment, it may be doubted whether he is not even more than theirequal. _René_ and _Corinne_ contain great suggestions, but they aresuggestions rather for literature generally than for the novel proper. Pigault used the improperest materials; he lacked not merely taste, butthat humour which sometimes excuses taste's absence; power of creatingreal character, decency almost always, sense very often. [431] But allthe same, he made the novel _march_, as it had not marched, save inisolated instances of genius, before. 

[Sidenote: Others--_Adélaïde de Méran_ and _Tableaux de Société_. ]

[Sidenote: _L'Officieux. _]

Yet Pigault could hardly have deserved even the very modified praisewhich has been given to him, if he had been constant to the muckheap. Hecould never quite help approaching it now and then; but as time went onand the Empire substituted a sort of modified decency for the Feasts ofRepublican Reason and ribaldry, he tried things less uncomely. _Adélaïdede Méran_ (his longest single book), _Tableaux de Société_, _L'Officieux_, and others, are of this class; and without presenting asingle masterpiece in their own kind, they all, more or less, giveevidence of that advance in the kind generally with which their authorhas been credited. _Adélaïde_ is very strongly reminiscent ofRichardson, and more than reminiscent of "Sensibility"; it is written inletters--though all by and to the same persons, except a fewextracts--and there is no individuality of character. Pigault, it hasbeen said, never has any, though he has some of type. But by exercisingthe most violent constraint upon himself, he indulges only in one rape(though there have been narrow escapes before), in not more than two orthree questionable incidents, and in practically no "improper"details--conduct almost deserving the description of magnanimity andself-denial. Moreover, the thing really is a modern novel, though a badand rickety one; the indefinable _naturaleza_ is present in it after astrange fashion. There is less perhaps in the very inappropriately named_Tableaux de Société_--the autobiography of a certain Fanchette deFrancheville, who, somewhat originally for a French heroine, starts bybeing in the most frantic state of mutual passion with her husband, though this is soon to be succeeded by an infatuation (for some timevirtuously resisted) on her side for a handsome young naval officer, andby several others (not at all virtuously resisted) for divers ladies onthe husband's. With his usual unskilfulness in managing character, Pigault makes very little of the opportunities given by his heroine'salmost unconscious transference of her affections to Sainte-Luce; whilehe turns the uxorious husband, not out of jealousy merely, into afaithless one, and something like a general ruffian, after a very clumsyand "unconvincing" fashion. As for his throwing in, at the end, anotherfatal passion on part of their daughter for her mother's lover, it is, though managed with what is for the author, perfect cleanliness, entirely robbed of its always doubtful effect by the actual marriage ofFanchette and her sailor, and that immediately after the poor girl'sdeath. If he had had the pluck to make this break off the whole thing, the book might have been a striking novel, as it is actually an attemptat one; but Pigault, like his friends of the gallery, was almostinviolably constant to happy endings. [432] _L'Officieux_, if he had onlyhad a little humour, might have been as good comically as the Tableauxmight have been tragically; for it is the history, sometimes notill-sketched as far as action goes, of a _parvenu_ rich, but brave andextremely well-intentioned marquis, who is perpetually getting intofearful scrapes from his incorrigible habit of meddling with otherpeople's affairs to do them good. The situations--as where the marquis, having, through an extravagance of officiousness, got himself put underarrest by his commanding officer, and at the same time insulted by acomrade, insists on fighting the necessary duel in his own drawing-room, and thereby reconciling duty and honour, to the great terror of a ladywith whom he has been having a tender interview in the adjoiningapartment--are sometimes good farce, and almost good comedy; butPigault, like Shadwell, has neither the pen nor the wits to make themost of them. 

_La Famille Luceval_--something of an expanded and considerablyPigaultified story _à la_ Marmontel--is duller than any of these, andthe opening is marred by an exaggerated study of a classical mania onthe part of the hero; but still the novel quality is not quite absentfrom it. 

[Sidenote: Further examples. ]

Of the rest, _M. Botte_, which seems to have been a favourite, is arather conventional extravaganza with a rich, testy, but occasionallygenerous uncle; a nephew who falls in love with the charming butpenniless daughter of an _émigré_; a noble rustic, who manages to keepsome of his exiled landlord's property together, etc. _M. De Roberval_, though in its original issue not so long as _Adélaïde de Méran_, becomeslonger by a _suite_ of another full volume, and is a rather tediouschronicle of ups and downs. There may be silence about the remainder. 

[Sidenote: Last words on him. ]

The stock and, as it may be called, "semi-official" ticket forPigault-Lebrun in such French literary history as takes notice of him, appears to be _verve_: and the recognised dictionary-sense of _verve_ is"heat of imagination, which animates the artist in his composition. " Inthe higher sense in which the word imagination is used with us, it couldnever be applied here; but he certainly has a good deal of "go, " whichis perhaps not wholly improper as a colloquial Anglicising of the label. These semi-official descriptions, which have always pleased the Latinraces, are of more authority in France than in England, though as longas we go on calling Chaucer "the father of English poetry" and Wyclif"the father of English prose" we need not boast ourselves too much. ButPigault has this "go"--never perhaps for a whole book, but sometimes forpassages of considerable length, which possess "carrying" power. Itundoubtedly gave him his original popularity, and we need not despise itnow, inasmuch as it makes less tedious the task of ascertaining andjustifying his true place in the further "domestication"--if only indomesticities too often mean and grimy--of the French novel. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The French novel in 1800. ]

There are more reasons than the convenience of furnishing a separatelypublished first volume with an interim conclusion, for making, at theclose of this, a few remarks on the general state of the French novel atthe end of the eighteenth century. No thoroughly similar point isreached in the literary history of France, or of any country known tome, in regard to a particular department of literature. In England--theonly place, which can, in this same department, be even considered incomparison, although at this very time two novelists, vastly superior toany of whom France has to boast, were just writing, or just about towrite, and were a little later to revolutionise the novel itself--thegeneral state and history of the kind had, for nearly two generations, reached a stage far beyond anything that France could claim. She hadmade earlier "running"; on the whole period of some seven hundred yearsshe had always, till very recently, been in front. But in the novel, asdistinguished from the romance, she had absolutely nothing to show likeour great quartette of the mid-eighteenth century, and hardly anythingto match the later developments of Miss Burney and others in domestic, of Mrs. Radcliffe and others still in revived romantic fiction. Verygreat Frenchmen or French writers had written novels; but, with theexceptions of Lesage in _Gil Blas_, Prévost in that everlastinglywonderful "single-speech" of his, and Rousseau in _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, none had written a great novel. No single writer of any greatness hadbeen a novelist pure and simple. No species[433] of fiction, except theshort tale, in which, through varying forms, France held an age-longmastery, had been thoroughly developed in her literature. 

The main point, where England went right and France went wrong--to beonly in the most equivocal way corrected by such a writer asPigault-Lebrun--was the recognition of the connection--the intimate andall but necessary connection--of the completed novel with ordinary life. Look over the long history of fiction which we have surveyed in the lastthree or four or five chapters. There is much and sometimes greatliterary talent; sometimes, again, even genius; there are episodes ofreality; there are most artful adjustments of type and convention andthe like, of fashion in morals (or immorals) and sentiments. But a realobjective novel of ordinary life, such as _Tom Jones_, or even _HumphryClinker_, nay, such inferior approaches to it as exist elsewhere inEnglish, you will not find. Of the Scudéry romances we need not speakagain; for all their key-references to persons, and their abstentionfrom the supernatural, etc. , they are, as wholes, hardly more real than_Amadis_ and its family themselves. Scarron has some and Furetière moreobjectivity that may be argued for, but the Spanish picaresque hasbecome a convention, and they, especially Scarron, are aiming more atthe pattern than at the life-model. Madame de la Fayette has much, andsome of her followers a little, real passion; but her manners, descriptions, etc. , are all conventional, though of another kind. Thefairy tales are of course not "real. " Marivaux is aiming directly atSensibility, preciousness, "psychology, " if you like, but not at holdingup the glass to any ordinary nature as such. [434] And though Crébillonmight plead that his convention was actually the convention of hundredsand almost thousands of accomplished ladies and gentlemen, no one candeny that it was almost as much a convention as the historical orlegendary acting of the _Comédie Humaine_ by living persons a hundredyears later at Venice. 

No writer perhaps illustrates what is being said better than Prévost. Noone of his books, voluminous as they are, has the very slightestreality, except _Manon Lescaut_; and that, like _La Princesse deClèves_, though with much more intensity and fortunately with no alloyof convention whatever, is simply a study of passion, not of life atlarge at all. With the greater men the case alters to some extent inproportion to their greatness, but, again with one exception, not tosuch an extent as to affect the general rule. Voltaire avowedly neverattempts ordinary representation of ordinary life--save as the merestby-work, it is all "purpose, " satire, fancy. Rousseau may not, in onesense, go beyond that life in _Julie_, but in touching it he is almostas limited and exclusive as Prévost in his masterpiece. Diderot has toget hold of the abnormal, if not the unreal, before he can give yousomething like a true novel. Marmontel is half-fanciful, and though hedoes touch reality, subordinates it constantly to half-allegorical andwholly moral purpose. All the minor "Sensibility" folk follow theirleaders, and so do all the minor _conteurs_. 

The people (believed to be a numerous folk) who are uncomfortable with afact unless some explanation of it is given, may be humoured here. Thefailure of a very literary nation--applying the most disciplinedliterary language in Europe to a department, in the earlier stages ofwhich they had led Europe itself--to get out of the trammels which wehad easily discarded, is almost demonstrably connected with the verynature of their own literary character. Until the most recent years, ifnot up to the very present day, few Frenchmen have ever been happywithout a type, a "kind, " a set of type-and kind-rules, a classificationand specification, as it were, which has to be filled up and workedover. Of all this the novel had nothing in ancient times, while inmodern it had only been wrestling and struggling towards something ofthe sort, and had only in one country discovered, and not quiteconsciously there, that the beauty of the novel lies in having no type, no kind, no rules, no limitations, no general precept or motto for thecraftsman except "Here is the whole of human life before you. Copy it, or, better, recreate it--with variation and decoration _ad libitum_--asfaithfully, but as freely, as you can. " Of this great fact evenFielding, the creator of the modern novel, was perhaps not wholly awareas a matter of theory, though he made no error about it in practice. Indeed the "comic prose epic" notion _might_ reduce to rules like thoseof the verse. Both Scott and Miss Austen abstained likewise fromformalising it. But every really great novel has illustrated it; andattempts, such as have been recently made, to contest it and draw up anovelists' code, have certainly not yet justified themselves accordingto the Covenant of Works, and have at least not disposed some of us towelcome them as a Covenant of Faith. It is because Pigault-Lebrun, though a low kind of creature from every point of view, except that ofmere craftsmanship, did, like his betters, recognise the fact inpractice, that he has been allowed here a place of greater considerationthan perhaps has ever fallen to his lot before in literary history. 

Still, even putting out of sight the new developments which had shownthe irrepressible vitality of the French _conte_, the seven hundredyears had not been wasted. The product of the first half of themremained, indeed, at this time sealed up in the "gazophile" of the olderage, or was popularised only by well-meaning misinterpreters like theComte de Tressan;[435] but the treasure-house was very soon to be brokenopen and utilised. It is open to any one to contend--it is, indeed, pretty much the opinion of the present writer--that it was this veryneglect which had made the progress of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies themselves so slow and so imperfect in its total results. Forthose who like to look for literary causes outside literature, there maybe other explanations. But any intelligent reader can do something forhimself if he has the facts before him. It is these facts that it hasbeen and will be our business to give and to summarise here. 

They have been given; let us attempt to summarise them in the briefestpossible way. France possibly did not invent Romance; no man or mencould do that; it was a sort of deferred heritage which Humankind, likethe Heir of Lynne, discovered when it was ready to hang itself (speakingin terms of literature) during the Dark Ages. But she certainly grew theseed for all other countries, and dispersed the growth to the ends ofthe earth. Very much the same was the case with the short tale in the"Middle" period. From the fifteenth century to the eighteenth (bothincluded) she entered upon a curious kind of wilderness, studded withoases of a more curious character still. In one of them Rabelais wasborn, and found Quintessence, and of that finding--more fortunate thanthe result of True Thomas finding the Elf Queen--was born Pantagruelism. In another came Lesage, and though his work was scarcely original, itwas consummate. None of these happy sojourns produced a _Don Quixote_ ora _Tom Jones_, but divers smaller things resulted. And again and again, as had happened in the Middle Ages themselves, but on a smaller scale, what France did found development and improvement in other lands; whileher own miniature masterpieces, from the best of the _Cent NouvellesNouvelles_ and the _Heptameron_, through all others that we noticed downto _Adolphe_, showed the enormous power which was working half blindly. How the strength got eyes, and the eyes found the right objects to fixupon, must be left, if fortune favour, for the next volume to tell. [436]

FOOTNOTES:

[404] We have seen above how things were "shaping for" it, in thePastoral and Heroic romances. But the shape was not definitely taken inthem. 

[405] In the following pages, and here only in this volume, the authorhas utilised, though with very considerable alterations, some previouslypublished work, _A Study of Sensibility_, which appeared originally inthe _Fortnightly Review_ for September 1882, and was republished in avolume (_Essays on French Novelists_, London, 1891) which has been forsome years out of print. Much of the original essay, dealing withMarivaux and others already treated here, has been removed, and thewhole has been cut down, revised, and adjusted to its new contexts. Butit seemed unnecessary to waste time in an endeavour to say the samething differently about matters which, though as a whole indispensable, are, with perhaps one exception, individually not of the firstimportance. 

[406] These words were originally written more than thirty years ago. Iam not sure that there was not something prophetic in them. 

[407] Madame de Fontaines in _La Comtesse de Savoie_ and _Amenophis_"follows her leader" in more senses than one--including a sort ofpseudo-historical setting or insetting which became almost a habit. Butshe is hardly important. 

[408] Readers of Thackeray may remember in _The Paris Sketch Book_ ("Onthe French School of Painting, " p. 52, Oxford ed. ) some remarks onJacquand's picture, "The Death of Adelaide de Comminge, " which hethought "neither more nor less than beautiful. " But from his "itappears, " in reference to the circumstances, it would seem that he didnot know the book, save perhaps from a catalogue-extract or summary. 

[409] The extreme shortness of all these books may be just worthnoticing. Reaction from the enormous romances of the preceding centurymay have had something to do with it; and the popularity of the "tale"something more. But the _causa verissima_ was probably the impossibilityof keeping up sentiment at high pressure for any length of time, incident, or talk. 

[410] _Vide_ on the process Crébillon's _Les Égarements du Coeur et del'Esprit_, as above, pp. 371, 372. 

[411] The parallel with "George Eliot" will strike most people. 

[412] But for uniformity's sake I should not have translated this, forfear of doing it injustice. "Not presume to dictate, " in Mr. Jingle'sconstantly useful phrase, but it seems to me one of the finest in Frenchprose. 

[413] "Craze" has been suggested; but is, I think, hardly an exactsynonym. 

[414] This may seem to contradict, or at any rate to be inconsistentwith, a passage above (p. 367) on the "flirtations" of Crébillon'spersonages. It is, however, only a more strictly accurate use of theword. 

[415] Two remarkable and short passages of his, not quoted in thespecial notice of him, may be given--one in English, because of itsremarkable anticipation of the state of mind of Catherine Morland in_Northanger Abbey_; the other in French, as a curious "conclusion of thewhole matter. " They are both from _Marianne_. 

"I had resolved not to sleep another night in the house. I cannot indeedtell you what was the exact object of my fear, or why it was so lively. All that I know is that I constantly beheld before me the countenance ofmy landlord, to which I had hitherto paid no particular attention, andthen I began to find terrible things in this countenance His wife'sface, too, seemed to be gloomy and dark; the servants looked likescoundrels; all their faces made me in a state of unbearable alarm. Isaw before me swords, daggers, murders, thefts, insults. My blood grewcold at the perils I imagined. "

 * * * * *

"Enfin ces agitations, tant agréables que pénibles, s'affaiblirent et sepassèrent. L'âme s'accoutume à tout; sa sensibilité s'use: et je mefamiliarisais avec mes espérances et mes inquiétudes. "

[416] Since, long ago, I formed the opinion of _Adolphe_ embodied above, I have, I think, seen French criticisms which took it ratherdifferently--as a personal confession of the "confusions of a wastedyouth, " misled by passion. The reader must judge which is the justerview. 

[417] By a little allowance for influence, if not for intrinsic value. 

[418] On representations from persons of distinction I have given Laclosa place in an outhouse (see "Add. And Corr. "). But I have made thisplace as much of a penitentiary as I could. 

[419] I must apologise by anticipation to the _official_ French critic. To him, I know, even if he is no mere minor Malherbe, Restif's style isvery faulty; but I should not presume to take his point of view, eitherfor praise or blame. 

[420] There is a separate bibliography by Cubières-Palmézeaux (1875). The useful _Dictionnaire des Littératures_ of Vapereau contains a listof between thirty and forty separate works of Restif's, divided intonearer two than one hundred volumes. He followed Prévost in _NouveauxMémoires d'un Homme de Qualité_ as he had followed Marivaux in the_Paysan Perverti_. He completed this work of his own with _La PaysannePervertie_; he wrote, besides the _Pornographe_, numerous books ofsocial, general, and would-be philosophical reform--_Le Mimographe_, dealing with the stage; _Les Gynographes_, with a general plan forrearranging the status of women; _L'Andrographe_, a "whole duty of man"of a very novel kind; _Le Thesmographe_, etc. , --besides, close upon theend and after the autobiography above described, a _Philosophie de M. Nicolas_. His more or less directly narrative pieces, _Le Pied deFanchette_, _Lucile_, _Adèle_, _La Femme Infidèle_, _Ingénue Saxancour_, are nearly always more or less tinged with biography of himself and ofpersons closely connected with him, as _La Vie de Mon Père_, his mostrespectable book, is wholly. It may be added, perhaps, that the noticein Vapereau, while not bearing very hard on Restif on the whole, repeatsthe words _cynisme_ and _cynique_ in regard to him. Unless the term isin part limited and in part extended, so as to mean nothing but"exposure of things generally kept secret without apparent shame, " it isentirely misplaced. Not merely outside of, but actually in hiserotomania, Restif was a sentimental philanthropist of the all but mostgenuine kind, tainted indeed with the vanity and self-centredness whichhad reached their acme in Rousseau, but very much more certainlysincere, and of a temperament as different as possible from what iscommonly called cynicism. 

[421] There are, however, contradictory statements on this point. 

[422] Nicolas [Edme] Restif being apparently his baptismal name, and "dela Bretonne" merely one of the self-bestowed agnominal nourishes socommon in the French eighteenth century. He chose to consider thesurname evidence of descent from the Emperor Pertinax; and as for hisChristian name he seems to have varied it freely. Rose Lambelin, one ofhis harem, and a _soubrette_ of some literature, used to address him as"Anne-Augustin, " Anne being, as no doubt most readers know, a masculineas well as a feminine _prénom_ in French. 

[423] Some, and perhaps not a few of their objects, may have beenimaginary "dream-mistresses, " created by Morpheus in an impurer moodthan when he created Lamb's "dream-children. " But some, I believe, havebeen identified; and others of the singular "Calendar" affixed to_Monsieur Nicolas_ have probably escaped identification. 

[Sidenote: His life and the reasons for giving it. ]

[424]It has not been necessary (and this is fortunate, for even if it hadbeen necessary, it would have been scarcely possible) to givebiographies of the various authors mentioned in this book, except inspecial cases. Something was generally known of most of them in the daysbefore education received a large E, with laws and rates to suit: andsomething is still in a way, supposed to be known since. But of the lifeof Pigault, who called himself Lebrun, it may be desirable to saysomething, for more reasons than one. In the first place, this life hadrather more to do with his work than is always the case; in the second, very little will be found about him in most histories of Frenchliterature; in the third, there will be found assigned to him, in thetext--not out of crotchet, or contumacy, or desire to innovate, but as aresult of rather painful reading--a considerably higher place in thehistory of the novel than he has usually occupied. His correctname--till, by one of the extremest eccentricities of the French_Chats-Fourrés_, he was formally unbegot by his Roman father, and theunbegetting (plus declaration of death) confirmed by the Parlement ofParis--was the imposing one of Charles Antoine Guillaume Pigault deL'Épinoy. The paternal Pigault, as may be guessed from his proceedings, was himself a lawyer, but of an old Calais family tracing itself toQueen Philippa's _protégé_, Eustache de Saint-Pierre; and, besides themysterious life-in-death or death-in-life, Charles Antoine Guillaume hadto suffer from him, while such things existed, several _lettres decachet_. The son certainly did his best to deserve them. Having beensettled, on leaving school as a clerk in an English commercial house, heseduced his master's daughter, ran away with her, and would no doubthave married her--for Pigault was never a really bad fellow--if she hadnot been drowned in the vessel which carried the pair back to France. Heescaped--one hopes not without trying to save her. After anotherscandal--not the second only--of the same kind, he did marry the victim, and the marriage was the occasion of the singular exertion of _patriapotestas_ referred to above. At least two _lettres de cachet_ hadpreceded it, and it is said that only the taking of the Bastilleprevented the issue, or at least the effect, of a third. Meanwhile, hehad been a gentleman-trooper in the _gendarmerie d'élite de la petitemaison du roi_, which, seeing that the _roi_ was Louis Quinze, probablydid not conduct itself after the fashion of the Thundering Legion, or ofCromwell's Ironsides, or even of Captain Steele's "Christian Hero. " Thelife of this establishment, though as probably merry, was not long, andPigault became an actor--a very bad but rather popular actor, it wassaid. Like other bad actors he wrote plays, which, if not good (they arecertainly not very cheerful to read), were far from unsuccessful. But itwas not till after the Revolution, and till he was near forty, that heundertook prose fiction; his first book being _L'Enfant du Carnaval_ in1792 (noticed in text). The revolutionary fury, however, of which thereare so many traces in his writings, caught him; he went back tosoldiering and fought at Valmy. He did not stay long in the army, butwent on novel-writing, his success having the rather unexpected, andcertainly very unusual, effect of reconciling his father. Indeed, thisarbitrary parent wished not only to recall him to life, which wasperhaps superfluous, but to "make an eldest son of him. " This, Pigault, who was a loose fish and a vulgar fellow, but, as was said above, not ascoundrel, could not suffer; and he shared and shared alike with hisbrothers and sisters. Under the Empire he obtained a place in thecustoms, and held it under succeeding reigns till 1824, dying elevenyears later at over eighty, and having written novels continuously tilla short time before his death, and till the very eve of 1830. This oddcareer was crowned by an odd accident, for his daughter's son was ÉmileAugier. I never knew this fact till after the death of my friend, thelate Mr. H. D. Traill. If I had, I should certainly have asked him towrite an Imaginary Conversation between grandfather and grandson. Someyears (1822-1824) before his last novel, a complete edition of novels, plays, and very valueless miscellanies had been issued in twenty octavovolumes. The reader, like the river Iser in Campbell's great poem, willbe justified for the most part in "rolling rapidly" through them. But hewill find his course rather unexpectedly delayed sometimes, and it isthe fact and the reasons of these delays which must form the subject ofthe text. --There is no doubt that Pigault was very largely read abroadas well as at home. We know that Miss Matilda Crawley read him beforeWaterloo. She must have inherited from her father, Sir Walpole, a strongstomach: and must have been less affected by the change of times thanwas the case with her contemporary, Scott's old friend, who havingenjoyed "your bonny Mrs. Behn" in her youth, could not read her in age. For our poor maligned Afra (in her prose stories at any rate, and mostof her verse, if not in her plays) is an anticipated model of Victorianprudery and nicety compared with Pigault. I cannot help thinking thatMarryat knew him too. Chapter and verse may not be forthcoming, and theresemblance may be accounted for by common likeness to Smollett: butnot, to my thinking, quite sufficiently. 

[425] He had a younger brother, in a small way also a novelist, and, apparently, in the Radcliffian style, who extra-named himself rather inthe manner of 1830--Pigault-_Maubaillarck_. I have not yet come acrossthis junior's work. --For remarks of Hugo himself on Pigault and Restif, see note at end of chapter. 

[426] At least in his early books; it improves a little later. But seenote on p. 453. 

[427] For a defence of this word, _v. Sup. _ p. 280, _note_. 

[428] It may be objected, "Did not the Scudérys and others do this?" Theanswer is that their public was not, strictly speaking, a "public" atall--it was a larger or smaller coterie. 

[429] It has been said that Pigault spent some time in England, and heshows more knowledge of English things and books than was common withFrenchmen before, and for a long time after, his day. Nor does he, evenduring the Great War, exhibit any signs of acute Anglophobia. 

[430] Pigault's adoration for Voltaire reaches the ludicrous, though wecan seldom laugh _with_ him. It led him once to compose one of the verydullest books in literature, _Le Citateur_, a string of anti-Christiangibes and arguments from his idol and others. 

[431] Yet sometimes--when, for instance, one thinks of therottenness-to-the-core of Dean Farrar's _Eric_, or the _spiritusvulgaritatis fortissimus_ of Mark Twain's _A Yankee at the Court of KingArthur_--one feels a little ashamed of abusing Pigault. 

[432] There was, of course, a milder and perhaps more effectivepossibility--to make the young turn to the young, and leave Madame deFrancheville no solace for her sin. But for this also Pigault would havelacked audacity. 

[433] For the story "species" of _Gil Blas_ was not new, was of foreignorigin, and was open to some objection; while the other two books justnamed derived their attraction, in the one case to a very small extent, in the other to hardly any at all, from the story itself. 

[434] Not that Jacob and Marianne are unnatural--quite the contrary--butthat their situations are conventionalised. 

[435] _Corps d'Extraits de Romans de Chevalerie. _ 4 vols. Paris, 1782. 

[436] The link between the two suggested at p. 458, _note_, is asfollows. That Victor Hugo should, as he does in the Preface to _Hand'Islande_ and elsewhere, sneer at Pigault, is not very wonderful: for, besides the difference between _canaille_ and _caballería_, the authorof _M. Botte_ was the most popular novelist of Hugo's youth. But why hehas, in Part IV. Book VII. Of _Les Misérables_ selected Restif as"undermining the masses in the most unwholesome way of all" is notnearly so clear, especially as he opposes this way to the"wholesomeness" of, among others--Diderot!

APPENDICES

CHRONOLOGICAL CONSPECTUS OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRENCH FICTIONNOTICED IN THIS VOLUME

11TH CENTURY

_Vie de Saint Alexis_ (probably). 

_Roland_ and one or two other _Chansons_ (possibly). 

12TH CENTURY

Most of the older _Chansons_. 

_Arthurian Legend_ (in some of its forms). 

_Roman de Troie_, _Romans d'Alexandre_ (older forms). 

13TH CENTURY

Rest of the more genuine _Chansons_. 

Rest of ditto Arthuriad and "Matter of Rome. "

_Romans d'Aventures_ (many). 

Early Fabliaux (probably). 

_Roman de la Rose_ and _Roman de Renart_ (older parts). 

Prose Stories (_Aucassin et Nicolette_), etc. 

14TH CENTURY

Rehandlings, and younger examples, of all kinds above mentioned. 

15TH CENTURY

Ditto, but only latest forms of all but Prose Stories, and many of theothers rendered into prose. 

_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. _ First _edition_, 1480, but written muchearlier. 

_Petit Jehan de Saintré_, about 1459, or earlier. 

_Jehan de Paris. _ Uncertain, but before 1500. 

16TH CENTURY

Rabelais. First Book of _Pantagruel_ Second of the whole, 1533;_Gargantua_, 1535; rest of _Pantagruel_ at intervals, to the(posthumous) Fifth Book in 1564. 

Marguerite de Navarre. _Heptameron. _ Written before (probably some timebefore) Marguerite's death in 1549. Imperfectly published as _Les AmantsFortunés_, etc. , in 1558; completely, under its permanent title, nextyear. 

Bonaventure Despériers. _Cymbalum Mundi_, 1537; _Contes et JoyeuxDevis_, 1558, but written at least fourteen years earlier, as the authordied in 1544. 

Hélisenne de Crenne. _Les Angoisses_, etc. , 1538. 

_Amadis_ Romances. Date of Spanish or Portuguese originals uncertain. Herberay published the first part of his French translation of _Amadis_itself in 1540. 

Many of the small pastoral and adventurous stories noticed at thebeginning of Chapter VIII. Appeared in the last fifteen years of thesixteenth century, the remainder in the first quarter of theseventeenth. But of the Greek and Spanish compositions, which had sogreat an influence on them and on the subsequent "Heroic" School, thework of Heliodorus had been translated as early as 1546, and the _Diana_of Montemayor in 1578. 

17TH CENTURY

Honoré d'Urfé. _L'Astrée_, 1607-19. (First three parts in Urfé'slifetime, fourth and fifth after his death in 1625. )

"Heroic" Romance, 1622-60, as regards its principal examples, the exactdates of which are given in a note to p. 176. Madame de Villedieu wrotealmost up to her death in 1683. 

Fairy Tales, etc. The common idea that Perrault not only produced themasterpieces but set the fashion of the kind is inexact. Madamed'Aulnoy's _Contes des Fées_ appeared in 1682, whereas Perrault's_Contes de ma Mère L'Oye_ did not come till fifteen years later, in1697. The precise dates of the writing of Hamilton's Tales are not, Ithink, known. They must, for the most part, have been between theappearance of Galland's _Arabian Nights_, 1704, and the author's deathin 1720. As for the _Cabinet_ and its later constituents, see below onthe eighteenth century. 

Sorel, Ch. _Francion_, 1622; _Le Berger Extravagant_, 1627. 

Scarron, P. _Le Roman Comique_, 1651. 

Cyrano de Bergerac. _Histoire Comique_, etc. , 1655. 

Furetière, A. _Le Roman Bourgeois_, 1666. 

La Fayette, Madame de. _La Princesse de Clèves_, 1678. Her first book, _La Princesse de Montpensier_ (much slighter but well written), hadappeared eighteen years earlier, and _Zaïde_ or _Zayde_ in 1670, fathered by Segrais. 

Fénelon. _Télémaque_, 1699. 

18TH CENTURY

_Cabinet des Fées_, containing not only the authors or translatorsmentioned under the head of the preceding century, but a series of laterwritings down to the eve of the Revolution. Gueulette's adaptations andimitations ranged from the _Soirées Bretonnes_, published in 1712 duringHamilton's lifetime, to the _Thousand and One Hours_, 1733, the othercollections mentioned in the text coming between. It may be worthmentioning that, being an industrious editor as well as tale-teller andplaywright, he reprinted _Le Petit Jehan de Saintré_ in 1724 andRabelais in 1732. Caylus's tales seem to have been scattered over themiddle third of the century from about 1730 to his death in 1765. Cazotte's _Diable Amoureux_ (not in the _Cabinet_) is of 1772--he hadwritten very inferior things of the tale kind full thirty years earlier. Mme. Le Prince de Beaumont (who was long an actual governess in England)wrote her numerous "books for the young" for the most part between 1757(_Le Magazin des Enfants_) and 1774 (_Contes Moraux_). 

Lesage. _Le Diable Boiteux_, 1707; _Gil Blas de Santillane_, 1715-35. 

Marivaux. _Les Effets Surprenants_, 1713-14; _Marianne_, 1731-36; _LePaysan Parvenu_, 1735. 

Prévost. _Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité_, 1728-32, followed by _ManonLescaut_, 1733; _Cléveland_, 1732-39; _Le Doyen de Killérine_, 1735;_Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_, 1741. 

(It may not be impertinent to draw attention to the fact that Prévost, like Defoe--though not quite to the same extent, and in the middle, nottowards the end of his career--concentrated the novel-part of anenormous polygraphic production upon a few years. )

Crébillon _fils_. _Lettres de la Marquise_, 1732; _Tanzaï et Néadarné_, 1734; _Les Égarements_, 1736; _Le Sopha_, 1745; _La Nuit et le Moment_, 1755; _Le Hasard au Coin du Feu_, 1763; _Ah! Quel Conte!_ 1764. 

Voltaire's _Tales_ were distributed over a large part of his long andinsatiably busy life; but none of his best are very early. _Zadig_ is of1747; _Micromégas_ of 1752; _Candide_ of 1759; _L'Ingénu_ and _LaPrincesse de Babylone_ of 1767 and 1768 respectively. 

Rousseau. _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, 1760; _Émile_, 1762. 

Diderot. _Les Bijoux Indiscrets_, 1748. _Jacques le Fataliste_ and _LaReligieuse_ were posthumously published, but must have been written muchearlier than their author's death in 1784. 

Marmontel. _Contes Moraux_ appeared in the official or semi-official_Mercure de France_, with which the author was connected from 1753-60, being its manager or editor for the last two of these years. _Bélisaire_came out in 1767. 

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. _Paul et Virginie_, 1787; _La ChaumièreIndienne_, 1790. 

"Sensibility" Novels:--

Madame de Tencin. _Le Comte de Comminge_, 1735; _Les Malheurs del'Amour_, 1747. 

Madame Riccoboni. _Le Marquis de Cressy_, 1758; _Lettres de JulieCatesby_, 1759; _Ernestine_, 1762. 

Madame Élie de Beaumont. _Le Marquis de Roselle_, 1764. 

Madame de Souza. _Adèle de Senanges_, 1794. 

Madame de Genlis. _Mlle. De Clermont_, 1802. 

Madame de Duras. _Ourika_, 1823; _Édouard_, 1825. 

Xavier de Maistre. _Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, 1794; _Le Lépreux dela Cité d'Aoste_, 1812; _Les Prisonniers du Caucase, La JeuneSibérienne_, 1825. 

Benjamin Constant. _Adolphe_, 1815. 

Restif de la Bretonne. _Le Pied de Fanchette_, 1769; _Adèle_, 1772; _LePaysan Perverti_, 1775-76; _Les Contemporaines_, 1780-85; _IngénueSaxancour_, 1789; _Monsieur Nicolas_, 1794-97. 

Pigault-Lebrun. _L'Enfant du Carnaval_, 1792; _Les Barons de Felsheim_, 1798; _Angélique et Jeanneton_, _Mon Oncle Thomas_, _La FolieEspagnole_, 1799; _M. Botte_, 1802; _Jérôme_, 1804; _Tableaux deSociété_, 1813; _Adélaïde de Méran_, 1815; M. De Roberval, _L'Officieux_, 1818. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

(Although it is probably idle to attempt to satisfy or placate thecontemporary _helluo_ of bibliography, it may be respectful to otherreaders to observe that this is not intended to deal with the wholesubject, but only as a companion, or chrestomathic guide, to this bookitself. )

CHAPTER I

_Apollonius of Tyre. _ Ed. Thorpe. London, 1834. 

_English Novel, The. _ By the present writer. London (Dent), 1913. 

_French Literature, A Short History of. _ By the present writer. Oxford, 1882, and often reprinted. 

_Greek Romances, The. _ Most convenient editions of originals--Didot's_Erotici Graeci_, Paris, 1856, or Teubner's, ed. Herscher, Leipzig, 1858. English translations in Bohn's Library. For those who prefer booksabout things to the things themselves, there is a very good Englishmonograph by Wolff (Columbia University Series, New York). 

_Hymn of St. Eulalia. _ Quoted in most histories of French literature, _e. G. _ that entered above, pp. 4, 5. 

_Life of St. Alexis. _ Ed. G. Paris and L. Pannier. Paris, 1872-87. 

CHAPTER II

_Alexander Legends_ ("Matter of Rome"). The most important editions ofromances concerning Alexander are Michelant's of the great poem fromwhich, according to the most general theory, the "Alexandrine" ortwelve-syllabled verse takes its name (Stuttgart, 1846), and M. PaulMeyer's _Alexandre le Grand dans la Littérature Française au moyen âge_(2 vols. , Paris, 1886), a monograph of the very first order, withplentiful reproduction of texts. 

_Arthurian Legend, The. _ No complete bibliography of this is possiblehere--a note of some fulness will be found in the writer's _ShortHistory_ (see above on Chapter I. ). The most important books for anEnglish reader who wishes to supplement Malory are M. Paulin Paris'sabstract of the whole, _Les Romans de la Table Ronde_ (5 vols. , Paris, 1869-77), a very charming set of handy volumes, beautifully printed andillustrated; and, now at last, Dr. Sommer's stately edition of the"Vulgate" texts, completed recently, I believe (Carnegie Institution, Washington, U. S. A. ). 

_Chansons de Gestes. _ The first sentence of the last entry applies herewith greater fulness. The editions of _Roland_ are very numerous; andthose of other _chansons_, though there are not often two or more of thesame, run to scores of volumes. The most important books about them areM. Léon Gautier's _Les Épopées Françaises_ (4 vols. , Paris, 1892) and M. Bédier's _Les Légendes Épiques_ (4 vols. , Paris, 1908-13). 

Sainte-More, B. De. _Roman de Troie. _ Ed. Joly. Rouen, 1870. Edited asecond time in the series of the Société des Anciens Textes Français. 

CHAPTER III

The bibliography of the _Romans d'Aventures_ generally is again toocomplicated and voluminous to be attempted here. A fair amount ofinformation will be found, as regards the two sides, French and English, of the matter, in the writer's _Short Histories_ of the twoliteratures--_French_ as above, _English_ (Macmillan, 9th ed. , London, 1914), and in his _Romance and Allegory_, referred to in the text. Shortof the texts themselves, but for fuller information than generalhistories contain, Dunlop's well-known book, reprinted in Bohn's Librarywith valuable additions, and Ellis's _Early English Romances_, especially the latter, will be found of greatest value. 

_Partenopeus de Blois. _ 2 vols. Paris, 1834. 

CHAPTER IV

_Nouvelles du 13'e et du 14'me Siècle. _ Ed. L. Moland et Ch. D'Héricault. Bibliothèque Elzévirienne. 2 vols. Paris, 1856. 

CHAPTER V

_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Les. _ Numerous editions in the cheapcollections of French classics. 

_Fabliaux. _ Ed. A. De Montaiglon et G. Raynaud. 6 vols. Paris, 1872-88. 

_Jehan de Paris. _ Ed. Montaiglon. Paris, 1874. 

_Petit Jehan de Saintré. _ Ed. Guichard. Paris, 1843. 

_Roman de la Rose. _ Ed. F. Michel. Paris, 1864. 

_Roman de Renart. _ The completest (but not a complete) edition of thedifferent parts is that of Méon and Chabaille (5 vols. , Paris, 1826-35). The main or "Ancien" Renart was re-edited by E. Martin (3 vols. , Parisand Strasbourg, 1882-87). 

CHAPTER VI

Rabelais. Editions of the original very numerous: and of Urquhart'sfamous English translation more than one or two recently. The cheapestand handiest of the former, _without_ commentary, is that in theCollection Garnier. Of commentaries and books _on_ Rabelais there is noend. 

CHAPTER VII

_Amadis_ Romances. No modern reprints of Herberay and his followers. Southey's English versions of _Amadis_ and _Palmerin_ are not difficultto obtain. 

Despériers, B. _Contes et Joyeuse Devis_, etc. Ed. Lacour. 2 vols. Paris, 1866. 

Marguerite de Navarre, The _Heptameron_. Editions again numerous, including cheap ones in the collections. 

_Moyen de Parvenir, Le. _ Ed. Jacob. Paris, 1860. (For Hélisenne deCrenne see text, and Reynier--_v. Inf. _ on next chapter. )

CHAPTER VIII

The general histories and bibliographies of M. Reynier and Herr Körting, as well as the monographs of MM. Chatenay, Magne, and Reure, will befound registered in the notes to text, and references to them in theindex. The original editions are also given in text or note. Modernreprints--except of the fairy stories and one or two others--are almostentirely wanting. For the Greek Romances see above under Chapter I. The_Astrée_, after its first issues, appeared as a whole in 1637 and 1647, the latter being the edition referred to in "Add. And Corr. " But thelater eighteenth-century (1733) version of the Abbé Souchay is said tobe "doctored. " I have not thought it worth while to look up either thisor the earlier abridgment (_La Nouvelle Astrée_ of 1713), though thislatter is not ill spoken of. For the _Cabinet des Fées_ (41 vols. , Geneva, 1785-89) see text. 

CHAPTER IX

Sorel. _Francion_ is in the Collection Garnier, _Le Berger Extravagant_and _Polyandre_ only in the originals. 

Scarron. _Le Roman Comique. _ The 1752 edition (3 vols. ) is useful, butthere are reprints. 

Furetière. _Le Roman Bourgeois. _ Collection Jannet et Picard, 1854. 

Cyrano de Bergerac. _Voyages_, etc. Ed. Jacob. Paris, 1858. 

Mme. De la Fayette. _La Princesse de Clèves. _ Paris, 1881. 

CHAPTER X

For those who wish to study Lesage and Prévost at large, the combinedDutch _Oeuvres Choisies_, in 54 vols. (Amsterdam, 1783), will offer aconvenient, if not exactly handy, opportunity. Separate editions of the_Diable Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_ are very, and of _Manon Lescaut_ fairly, numerous. 

Marivaux. _Oeuvres. _ 12 vols. Paris, 1781. 

Crébillon _fils_. _Oeuvres Complètes. _ 7 vols. Londres, 1772. 

CHAPTER XI

The work, in novel, of Voltaire and Rousseau is in all the cheapcollections of Didot, Garnier, etc. Of that of Diderot there haverecently been several partial collections, but I think no complete one. It is better to take the _Oeuvres_, by Assézat and Tourneux, mentionedin the text (20 vols. , Paris, 1875-77). 

Marmontel's _Oeuvres_ appeared in 19 vols. (Paris, 1818), and I haveused, and once possessed, a more modern and compacter issue in 7 vols. (Paris, 1820?). The _Contes Moraux_ appeared together in 1770 and later. 

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. _Oeuvres_. 12 vols. 1834. Very numerousseparate editions (or sometimes with _La Chaumière Indienne_) of _Paulet Virginie_. 

CHAPTER XII

Minor "Sensibility" novels. Most of them in a handsome 7-vol. Edition(Paris, _n. D. _) in Garnier's _Bibliothèque Amusante_. This also includesMarivaux. 

X. De Maistre. Editions numerous. 

B. Constant. _Adolphe. _ Paris, 1842; and with Introduction by M. AnatoleFrance (1889); besides M. De Lescure's noticed in text. 

Restif de la Bretonne. Selection of _Les Contemporaines_, by Assézat. 3vols. Paris, 1875-76. 

Pigault-Lebrun. Edition mentioned in text. 

INDEX

(The dates given in this Index are confined to _persons_ directly dealtwith in this volume. Those of the more important _books_ noticed will befound in the Chronological Conspectus. In other respects I have made itas full as possible, in an _Index nominum_, as regards both authors andtitles. )

_Abbot, The_, xiii

_Abdalla, Les Aventures d'_, 258, 259

_Acajou et Zirphile_, 267

Achilles Tatius, 37, 157 _note_, 220 _note_, 350

Addison, 107, 232, 339

_Adélaïde de Méran_, 465

_Adolphe_, 372 _note_, 429, 437, 438, 442-451, 472

Ælfric, 73 _note_

_Aeneid, The_, 2 _note_

_Ah! Quel Conte!_ 371 _sq. _

Aimé-Martin, 425

Aïssé, Mlle. , 355 _note_

_Alcandre Frustré_, 243

_Alcibiade ou le moi_, 415, 416

_Alcidamie_, 242

_Alcidiane_, 236

"Alcidonis of Megara, " 419, 424 _note_

_Alciphron_, 389

Alexander, Romances of, 19, 20, 473

_Alexis, Vie de Saint_, 6-8, 475, 479

_Aliscans_, 14

Allen, Mr. George, 412 _note_

_Almahide_, 176 _note_, 225, 226

_Amadas et Idoine_, 71

_Amadis of Gaul_, 42 _note_, 57, 134, 145-150, 171, 175, 197, 201, 220, 221, 236, 287 _note_, 353, 409, 476, 481

_Amenophis_, 430 _note_

_Amis et Amiles_, 13, 14, 77, 146

Amory (author of _John Buncle_), 277, 454

_Amours Galantes_, 243-245

Amyot, Jacques (1513-1593), 133, 144

Anacharsis, 212 _sq. _

_Anastasius_, 290

_Anatomy_ (Burton's), 206 _note_

_Angélique et Jeanneton_, 462, 463

_Angoisses, Les. _ _See_ H. De Crenne

_Annette et Lubin_, 415

_Apollonius of Tyre_, 3, 479

_Apollonius Rhodius_, 1 _note_, 2 _note_, 37, 274

_Apologie pour Hérodote_, 143

_Apology_, the Platonic, 388

Apuleius, 2, 251 _note_

_Arabian Nights, The_, 246 _sq. _, 258 _sq. _, 305, 313 _sq. _, 318, 371 _sq. _, 476

_Arcadia_, the, 103, 165, 166, 174

_Argenis_, 152 _note_

Aristaenetus, _Letters_ of, 327

Aristides (of Smyrna), 350 _note_

Aristophanes, 136

Aristotle, 331

_Arnalte and Lucenda_, 145 _note_

Arnold, Mr. Matthew, vi, 156, 364, 385

_Arnoult et Clarimonde_, 161, 162

_Artamène. _ See _Grand Cyrus, Le_

Arthurian Legend, The, 3, 20-54, 73, 104, 105

_Arthur of Little Britain_, 146, 147

Ascham, 26 _note_, 61

_Asseneth_, 80, 81, 87

Assézat, M. , 454

_Astrée_, the, xii, xiii, 152-157, 162, 167-175, 197, 212 _note_, 218 _note_, 220, 226 _note_, 229, 234, 277 _note_, 476, 481

_As You Like It_, 48, 174

Aubignac (F. Hédelin, Abbé d', 1604-1676), 238, 239

_Aucassin et Nicolette_, 24, 59, 61, 74, 79, 87, 475

Augier, E. , 458 _note_

Aulnoy (Marie Catherine le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d', 1650?-1705), 154, 246 _sq. _, 273, 476

Auneuil, Mme. D', 258

Austen, Miss, 287, 428-434, 471

Avellaneda, 327

_Aventures de Floride, Les_, 162

_Babouc_, 383

Bacon, 298

Bailey, Mr. P. J. , 384

Balfour, Mr. A. J. , 115

Balzac, H. De, 288, 353

Barclay (author of _Argenis_), 152 _note_

_Barons de Felsheim, Les_, 461

_Bassa, L'Illustre_, 223-225, 281

Baudelaire, xiv

Beaconsfield, Lord, 306

Beauchamps, P. F. G. De (1689-1761), 265 _note_, 266

Beauvau, P. De, 81

Beckford, 306

Bédier, M. , 13 _note_, 480

Behn, Afra, 242, 458 _note_

_Bélier, Le_, 308 _sq. _

_Bélisaire_, 413

Bellaston, Lady, 343

_Belle et la Bête, La_, 253

Bentley, 194

_Beowulf_, 11

_Berger Extravagant, Le_, 277, 278, 476, 482

Bergerac. _See_ Cyrano de B. 

_Bergeries de Juliette, Les_, 157, 159, 160

Berkeley, 389

Berners, Lord, 146

Béroalde de Verville (François, 1558-1612), 111, 162, 163

_Berte aux grands Piés_, 15

Besant, Sir W. , 121

_Bevis of Hampton_, 71

Beyle, 442

_Bibliothèque Universelle des Romans_, 206 _note_

_Biche au Bois, La_, 254

_Bijoux Indiscrets, Les_, 403, 405, 411

_Black Arrow, The_, 82

Blair, H. , 71

_Blancandin et l'Orgueilleuse d'Amours_, 71

_Blonde d'Oxford_, 102 _note_

Boccaccio, 16, 18, 81, 93

Boileau-Despréaux (Nicolas, 1636-1711), 175, 240, 295, 330, 331

Bonhomme, M. H. , 257 _note_

Borrow, 456

Bors, Sir, 53

Bossuet, 40 _note_

Boswell, 386 _note_, 422 _note_

_Botte, M. _, 467, 472 _note_

Bouchet, G. (1526-1606), 143

Bouchet, J. (1475-1550), 143 _note_

_Bovary, Madame_, 446

Brantôme (Pierre de Bourdeilles, 1540?-1614), 135, 136, 140

Brown, Tom, 281

Browne, W. , 236

Browning, R. , 52, 74, 234, 404 _note_

Brunetière, M. , 161 _note_, 274 _note_, 410 _note_

_Buncle, John_, 277

Burney, Miss, 347, 468

Burton (of the _Anatomy_), 206 _note_

Bussy-Rabutin, Roger, Comte de (1618-1693), 243

Butler, Mr. A. J. , xi

Butler, S. , 139 _note_

Byron, 393

_Cabinet de Minerve, Le_, 163

_Cabinet des Fées, Le_, 246-272, 419, 427 _note_, 476, 477, 481

_Cabinet d'un Philosophe, Le_, 339

_Café de Surate, Le_, 426

Callisthenes, the pseudo-, 17

Campanella, 298

Camus (de Pontcarré), Jean (1584-1653), 153, 237, 238

_Candide_, 379 _sq. _, 461, 477

_Capitaine Fracasse, Le_, 279-280

_Caritée, La_, 176 _note_, 235, 236

Carlyle, 130, 139 _note_, 243, 402 _notes_, 403 and _note_, 414

_Carmente_, 244, 245

"Carte de Tendre, " the, 226

_Cassandre_, 176 _note_, 233-234

Catullus, 176 _note_, 220

Caylus, Anne Claude Philippe de Tubières de Grimoard de Pestels de Lévi, Comtede (1692-1765), 262-264, 477

Cazotte, Jacques (1720-1792), 270 _note_, 477

_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, 92-100, 472, 475, 480

_Ce qui plaît aux Dames_, 377 _note_

Cervantes, 124, 284 _note_

_Chanson de Geste, The_, 9-16

Chapelain, 178

_Chat Botté, Le_, 254

Chateaubriand, 234 _note_, 430, 459, 464

_Château de la Misère, Le_, 280

Chatenet, M. H. E. , 243 _note_

Chaucer, 16, 18, 22, 61 _note_, 81, 91, 103, 220, 319, 351 _note_, 377 _note_, 467

_Chaumière Indienne, La_, 426

_Cheminées de Madrid, Les_, 328

Chénier, A. , 464

_Chevalier à la Charette_, 24-28

_Chevalier au Lyon_, 24, 25

Cholières, 143

Chrestien de Troyes (12th cent. ), 21-29, 37, 106

_Citateur, Le_, 462 _note_

_Citherée_, 176 _note_

Clarendon, 459

_Clélie_, 176 _note_, 226-229

_Cléopatre_, 176 _note_, 230-232

_Cléveland_, 353-357

_Clidamant et Marilinde_, 160, 161

_Cligès_, 24

Coleridge, 31 _note_

Collins, Wilkie, 294 _note_

_Colonel Jack_, 463

Colvin, Sir Sidney, 239 _note_

_Comédie Humaine_, the, 469, 470

_Compère Mathieu, Le_, 412 _note_

_Comte de Comminge, Le_, 431, 451

"Comte de Gabalis, " the, 257 _note_

_Comtesse de Savoie, La_, 430 _note_

_Confessions_, Rousseau's, 391 _sq. _

Congreve, xiv, 376 _note_

_Conquest of Granada, The_, 225

Conrart, 201

Constant-Rebecque, Henri Benjamin de (1767-1830), 429, 430, 437, 438, 442-452, 482

_Contemporaines, Les_, 454

_Contes et Joyeux Devis_, 141, 142, 476, 481

_Contes Moraux_ (Marmontel's), 414-424

_Conversation du maréchal d'Hocquincourt avec le Père Canaye_, 307 _note_

Corbin, J. , 162

_Corinne_, 452, 465

Corneille, 219, 278 _note_, 296, 318 _note_

_Cosi-Sancta_, 387

_Courtebotte, Le Prince_, 262, 263

Courthope, Mr. W. J. , xi

Courtils de Sandras, 153

Cousin, V. , 177 and _note_

Crawley, Miss Matilda, 458 _note_

Crébillon _fils_, Claude Prosper Jolyot de (1707-1777), xiv, 325, 350_note_, 353, 354, 364, 376, 403, 406, 415, 419, 450 _note_, 453, 459, 469, 477, 482

Crébillon _père_, Prosper Jolyot de, 365

Crenne, H. De (16th cent. ), 150 _note_, 476

_Cressy, Le Marquis de. _ See _Histoire du Marquis de Cressy_

_Crispin Rival de son Maître_, 329

_Crocheteur Borgne, Le_, 387

Croxall, 244

Ctesias, 179

_Cupid and Psyche_, 58, 59

_Cymbalum Mundi_, 140, 141, 476

Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien (1609-1655), 275, 286 _note_, 295-298, 476, 482

_Cyropaedia_, 187 _note_, 197 _note_

_Cyrus_. See _Grand Cyrus_

Dante, xi, xii, 45, 49, 119 _notes_, 150 _note_, 179, 274 _note_

_Daphnis and Chloe_, 155, 159

Davenant, 393

_Decameron_, the, 93

Defoe, 292, 329, 358, 456

Dekker, 275

De Launay, Mlle. _See_ Staal-Delaunay, Mme. 

De Quincey, 399, 456

Despériers, Bonaventure (?-1544?), 137, 140-142, 380, 476, 481

_Deux Amis de Bourbonne, Les_, 403

_Diable Amoureux, Le_, 270, 271 _notes_, 477

_Diable Boiteux, Le_, 326 _sq. _, 477

_Diablo Cojuelo, El_, 329

_Diana_ (Montemayor's), 157, 165, 476

Dickens, 15, 245, 262 and _note_, 285, 326, 348 _note_, 364, 394, 395 _note_

_Dictionnaire Philosophique_ (Voltaire's), 411 _note_

Diderot, Denis (1713-1784), 225, 375, 386 _note_, 391 _note_, 400-411, 425, 426, 453, 470, 472 _note_, 482

Disraeli, Mr. , 37

Dobson, Mr. A. , 246, 317 _note_, 417

Donne, 150 _note_, 206 _note_, 220

_Don Quixote_, 57, 277, 333, 461, 472

_Don Silvia de Rosalva_, 269

_Doon de Mayence_, 15

_Doyen de Killérine, Le_, 353-357

Dryden, 44 _note_, 200, 203, 215, 226, 230, 377 _note_, 393

Duclos, Charles Pinot (1704-1772), 267

Du Croset (_c. _ 1600), 162

Du Fail, Noël (16th cent. ), 143

Dulaurens, H. J. (1719-1797), 412 _note_

Dumas, 98, 181, 245, 279, 286

Dunlop, 165

Du Périer (_c. _ 1600), 161

Duras, Mme. De (Claire de Kersaint, 1778-1844), 430, 449, 450

Du Souhait (_c. _ 1600), 160 _note_

_Earthly Paradise, The_, 14

Edgeworth, Miss, 237, 386, 412

_Édouard_, 449

_Effets de la Sympathie, Les_, 338, 340

_Égarements du Coeur et de l'Esprit, Les_, 371 _sq. _, 443 _note_

Elie de Beaumont, Mme. (Marie Louise Morin Dumesnil, ?-1783), 436

Ellis, G. , 57, 480

Elton, Prof. , ix _note_

_Émile_, 392, 393, 478

_Encyclopædia Britannica_, vii

_Encyclopédie, The_, 411

_Endimion_, Gombauld's, 229

_Endymion_, Keats's, 239

"_Engouement_, " 449, 450

_Epistle to the Pisos_, 219

_Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, 116, 124

_Erec et Énide_, 24, 25

_Eric_ (Dean Farrar's), 465 _note_

_Ernestine_, 435

Escuteaux, Sieur des (_c. _ 1600), 157 _note_, 160, 161

Esmond, Beatrix, 49

_Essai sur les Romans_ (Marmontel's), 413

_Essay on Criticism_ (Pope's), 327

_Estévanille Gonzales_, 328

_Études de la Nature_, 424 _note_

Eulalia, Legend of St. , 4, 5, 479

_Euphues_, 103, 116

Eustathius (Macrembolites or -ta, sometimes called Eu_m_athius, 12thcent. ), 18, 350

_Evelina_, 435

_Evènemens Singuliers_, 237, 238

_Expédition Nocturne_, 437 _sq. _

_Fabliaux_, The, 91, 92

_Facardins, Les Quatre_, 262, 308, 313, 316-320

_Famille Luceval, La_, 467

_Faramond_, 176 _note_, 234, 235

Farrar, Dean, 465 _note_

_Fausses Confidences, Les_, 339

Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe, (1651-1715), 153, 237, 260, 323, 324, 477

Ferrier, Miss, 429

_Festus_, 384

Fielding, 285, 326, 349, 375, 451, 471

_Finette_, 251, 252

FitzGerald, E. , 118, 176 _note_

Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Prof. , ix _note_

_Fleur d'Épine_, 308 _sq. _

_Floire et Blanchefleur_, 3, 59, 71

Folengo, 124

_Folie Espagnole, La_, 462, 463

Fontaines, Mme. De (Marie Louise Charlotte de Pelard de Givry, ?-1730), 430 _note_

Fontenelle, 350 _note_, 384

Forsyth, Dr. , 455

_Fortnightly Review_, vii, 306 _note_, 428 _note_

_Fortunes of Nigel, The_, 361

_Foulques Fitzwarin_, 81-87

_Four Flasks, The_, 419

France, M. A. , 328

_Francion_, 275-277, 476

Froissart, 135

_Fuerres de Gadres_, xi, 20

Fuller, 320

_Funestine_, 265, 266

Furetière, Antoine (1620-1688), 154, 275, 277, 286-295, 469, 482

Galland, Antoine (1646-1715), 246 _sq. _, 476

_Gargantua_ (and _Pantagruel_), Chap. VI. , _passim_

Gautier, M. Léon, 279, 280, 286, 296, 480

_Gawain and the Green Knight_, 56

Génin, F. , 402 and _note_

Genlis, Mme. De (Stéphanie Félicité du Crest de St. Aubin, 1746-1830), 436

Geoffrey of Monmouth, 17

George Eliot, 445 _note_

_Gesta Romanorum_, 89

Gilbert, Sir W. , 172 _note_, 181, 329, 393

_Gil Blas_, 325 _sq. _, 374, 461, 462, 468, 457

Gladstone, Mr. , 176 _note_

Godfrey de Lagny (12th cent. ), 24 _note_, 29

Goethe, 456

Gombauld, J. Ogier de (1570-1666), 229, 239-241

Gomberville, Marin le Roy de (1600-1674), 176 _note_, 177 _note_, 229, 235-237

Gomersal, 399 _note_

Gongora, 159 _note_

_Gracieuse et Percinet_, 250, 251

_Grand Cyrus, The_, 154 _note_, 170, 176-223, 280, 281, 284, 318

Grantley, Archdeacon, xii, 121

Graves, 277, 333

Gray, 276, 365, 375

_Grecque moderne, Histoire d'une_, 353-358

Greek Romances. _See_ Romances, Greek

Greg, Mr. , 155 _note_

Grimm, F. M. , 408 _note_, 410

_Grotesques, Les_, 296

Gueulette, Thomas Simon (1683-1766), 258-266, 379, 477

Guevara, 329, 372

Guido de Columnis, or delle Colonne, 18, 87

_Guillaume d'Angleterre_, 24

Guinevere, Queen (character of), xi, xii, 25-54 _passim_, 182 _note_

_Gulliver's Travels_, 110, 384

_Guzman d'Alfarache_, 328

Hamilton, Anthony (1646?-1720), 153, 154, 248, 264, 266 _note_, 275 and_note_, 305-325, 369 _note_, 371 _note_, 378, 379 _note_, 380, 385, 476

Hamilton, Gerard, 275 _note_

_Hamlet_, 331

Hammond, Miss Chris. , 412 _note_

Hardy, Mr. Thomas, 272, 348

_Hasard au Coin du Feu, Le_, 366 _sq. _

Hawker, 41 and _note_

Hegel, 139 _note_

Heliodorus, 179, 476

_Héloïse, La Nouvelle_, see _Julie_

Henley, Mr. W. E. , 259 _note_, 460

Henryson, 18, 156 _note_

_Heptameron, The_, 136-143, 472, 476, 481

Herberay des Essarts, Nicolas (?-1552?), 145 _sq. _, 476, 481

Herodotus, 1, 2, 178

_Heureusement_, 419, 463

_Heureux Orphelins, Les_, 373

Heywood, J. , 192 _note_

_Histoire de Jenni_, 386

_Histoire du Marquis de Cressy_, 432, 433

_Histoire Véritable_ (B. De Verville's), 163

Holbach, Mme. D', 408, 410 and _note_

Homer, 1, 71, 274, 275

Hope, T. , 290

Hudgiadge, Sultan, 260 _note_, 262

Hugo, Victor, xiii, 228, 458, 472 _note_

Hume, 207 _note_

_Humphrey Clinker_, 469

Hunt, Leigh, 91, 413 _note_

Hunt, Rev. W. , ix _note_, xiii

_Huon de Bordeaux_, 14

_Hysminias and Hyasmine_, 18, 37, 157 _note_, 220 _note_, 265 _note_

_Ibrahim_, 176 _note_, 223-225

Ibsen, 39 _note_, 362

_Idylls of the King_, Chap. II. _passim_

_Iliad, The_, 11, 71

_Illustres Fées, Les_, 257

_Incas, Les_, 413

_Interlude of Love_, 192 _note_

_Jacques le Fataliste_, 404-407

James, G. P. R. , 233

_Jeannot et Colin_, 386

_Jehan de Paris_, 101-103, 475, 480

Jerningham, E. , 423 _note_

_Jérôme_, 464

_Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, Le_, 339

Johnson, Dr. , 107, 139 _note_, 155, 178, 218 _note_, 265 and_note_, 276, 377, 381, 386 _note_

Joinville, 135

_Jonathan Wild_, xv, 101

_Joseph Andrews_, 375, 415, 426 _note_

Joubert, 412

_Jourdains de Blaivies_, 14

_Journée des Parques, La_, 328

_Julie_, 393-400, 436, 452, 468, 470, 477

"Katherine and Gerard, " story of, 94-99

Ker, Mr. W. P. , ix _note_, xii, 119 _note_

Kinglake, 306 _note_

Kingsley, Charles, xii, 52, 244

Kipling, Mr. , 195, 208, 380

_Knight of the Sun, The_, 147

Knollys, 417

Kock, Paul de, 461

Körting, H. , 133 _note_, 165 _sq. _, 236 _notes_, 274 _note_

La Calprenède, Gauthier de Costes de (1610?-1633), 176 _note_, 197_note_, 227, 230-235

Laclos (Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de, 1741-1803), xiv, xv, 453

_La Comtesse de Ponthieu_, 77-80, 86

La Croix, Pétro de, 259 _note_

"Lady of the Lake, " The, 30 _note_

La Fayette, Mme. De (Marie Madeleine Pioche de Lavergne, 1634-1693), 154, 273, 298-300, 318, 325, 376, 426, 428, 429, 436, 451, 469, 477, 482

La Fontaine, 92, 175

La Force, Mlle. De (Charlotte Rose de Caumont de, 1654?-1724), 257

La Harpe, 240

_La Jeune Sibérienne_, 437 _sq. _

Lamartine, 464

Lamb, Charles, 28, 320, 455 _note_

Lamoracke, Sir, 53

La Morlière (Charles Louis Auguste de La Rochette Chevalier de, 1719-1785), vi _note_

Lancelot, Sir (character of), xi, xii, 25-54 _passim_, 182 _note_

Landor, 331

Lang, Mr. A. , 246

Lannoi, J. De, 162

_La Princesse de Clèves_, 223, 244, 298-300, 470

La Rochefoucauld, 299 and _note_

Larroumet, M. G. , 339 _note_

La Salle, Antoine de (1398-1462?), 93, 101, 102, 106

_Latin Stories_ (Wright's), 73 _note_

Lavington, Argemone, 49

Lawrence, G. , 51 _note_

_Le Blanc et le Noir_, 385, 386

Le Breton, M. , 274 _note_

Le Brun "Pindare, " 462

_L'Écumoire_, 371 _sq. _

_Legend of the Rhine, A_, 339 _note_

Leigh Hunt, 413 _note_

_L'Empereur Constant_, 74, 75, 86

_L'Enchanteur Faustus_, 308 _sq. _

_L'Enfant du Carnaval_, 457 _note_, 461

_Lépreux de la Cité d'Aoste, Le_, 437 _sq. _

Le Prince de Beaumont, Marie, Mme. (1711-1780), 268, 477

_Le Prisonnier de Caucase_, 437 _sq. _

_Le Roi Flore et La Belle Jehane_, 75, 76, 86

Lesage, Alain René (1668-1747), 259 and _note_, 325-337, 374, 375, 468, 472, 477, 482

Lescure, M. De, 442

_Le Sot Chevalier_, 91

Lespinasse, Mlle. De, 257, 403 _note_, 441

_Lettres d'Amabed_, 386

_Lettres Athéniennes_, 373, 374

_Lettres de la Marquise de M----_, 372

_Lettres du Marquis de Roselle_, 437

Lévis, Pierre Marc Gaston Duc de (1755-1830), 313 _note_

_Lévite d'Ephraïm, Le_, 399 _note_

Lewis, "Monk, " 271 _note_

_L'Homme aux Quarante Écus_, 385

_Liaisons Dangereuses, Les_, xiv, xv

_L'Ingénu_, 385, 475

Livy, 2

_L'Officieux_, 465-467

Longinus, 328

Longus, 172 _note_

Louis XI. , 92

Louvet de Coudray, 453

Lubert, Mlle. De. (1710-1779), 266

Lucian, 2, 141, 142, 298, 328, 380

Lucius of Patrae, 2

Lussan, Mlle. De (1682-1758), xiii, 265

_Lycidas_, 156

Lyndsay, Sir D. , 100 _note_

Lyonne, the Abbé de, 328

_Macarise_, 238

Macaulay, 265 and _note_, 311 _note_

Macdonald, G. , 52

Mackenzie, H. , 414

_M. De Beauchesne_, 329

_Mlle. De Clermont_, 436

Magne, M. E. , 241

Maintenon, Mme. De, 279, 342 _note_

Mairet, 167

Maistre, Joseph de, 126, 438

Maistre, Xavier de (1763-1852), 405 _note_, 430, 437-441, 452, 459

_Malachi's Cove_, 41 _note_

Malory, 26 _sq. _

_Man Born to be King, The_, 74

_Manon Lescaut_, 304, 325, 352-364, 372 _note_, 374, 389, 413_note_, 470, 477, 482

_Mansfield Park_, 429

Map or Mapes, Walter, 23 _sq. _, 29, 106, 226 _note_

Marguerite de Valois (the eldest) (1491-1549), 126, 136-143, 475, 481

---- (the middle), 299

---- (the youngest) (1553-1615), 158, 159

Maria del Occidente, 416

_Marianne_, 340, 342 _note_, 345-352, 374, 436, 446, 450 _note_, 477

Marini, 159 _note_

"Marion de la Brière and Sir Ernault de Lyls, " story of, 84-86

_Mari Sylphe, Le_, 419, 424 _note_

Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de (1688-1763), 318, 325, 326, 337-352, 365 _note_, 366, 374, 375, 428, 450, 454 _note_, 469, 477, 482

Marlowe, xiv

_Marmion_, 83

Marmontel, Jean François (1723-1799), 375, 377, 412-424, 428, 458, 463, 470, 482

Marot, 137, 138, 155

_Marquis des Arcis, Le_, 403, 406, 407

_Marriage à la Mode_ (Dryden's), 200

_Marriage of Kitty, The_, 191 _note_

Marryat, 336

Martial, 136

"Matter of Britain, France, and Rome, " the, 3, Chap. II. _passim_

Maupassant, 2

_Mélanges Littéraires_ (Pigault-Lebrun's), 458

_Memnon_, 384

_Mémoires de Grammont_, 306

_Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité_, 353-358

_Memoirs_ (Marmontel's), 413

_Memoirs of Several Ladies_, 454

_Méraugis de Portlesguez_, 71

Meredith, Mr. George, 2, 37, 49, 91, 350 _note_

Mérimée, 438

Meyer, M. Paul, 479

_Micromégas_, 380 _note_, 384, 477

Middleton, 275

_Midsummer Night's Dream, A_, 26

_Milady Catesby_, 435

Mill, J. S. , 400

Milton, 30 _note_, 139, 155, 274, 275, 378 _note_, 459

_Minnigrey_, 460

Molière, F. De (?-1623?), 161

_Molière, Henriette de_, 242, 243

Molière, J. B. P. De, 219, 282, 296, 330, 368

_Mon Oncle Thomas_, 463, 464

_Monsieur Nicolas_, 454, 456

Montaigne, 133, 136 _note_, 184

Montemayor, 157, 165, 476

Montreux, N. De (c. 1600), 157-160

Moore, T. , 241

Mordred, Sir, 50 _note_

More, M. F. , 298

Morgane-la-Fée, 39

Morley of Blackburn, Lord, 402 _note_

Morris, Mr. Mowbray, 265 _note_, 385

Morris, Mr. W. , 14, 38 _note_, 52, 74

_Mort d'Agrippine, La_, 296

_Moyen de Parvenir_, 111, 162, 276, 481

_Mr. Midshipman Easy_, 453

_Mr. Sludge the Medium_, 404 _note_

_Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy_, 180 _note_

_Muguet, Le Prince_, 264

Murat, Mme. De (Henriette Julie de Castelnau, 1670-1716), 257 _note_

Naigeon, 412

Nennius, 17

Nerval, G. De, 271 _note_

Nervèze, A. De (c. 1600), 157 _note_, 160

_Neveu de Rameau, Le_, 403, 404

_Newton Forster_, 189

Nonnus, 274

_Northanger Abbey_, 450 _note_

_Nouveaux Contes Orientaux_, 260 _note_, 261

_Nouvelle Héloïse, La. _ See _Julie_. 

_Nuit et le Moment, La_, 366 _sq. _, 477

_Odyssey, The_, 1, 11, 71

_Ogier de Danemarche_, 14

_Old Mortality_, 176

"Ollenix du Mont Sacré. " _See_ Montreux, N. De

_Oreilles du Comte de Chesterfield, Les_, 386

_Othello_, 364

_Ourika_, 449

Ovid, 2

Pajon, xiii, 267

_Palerne, Guillaume de (William of)_, 60

_Palmerin of England_, 146-150

_Palombe_, 237

Palomides, Sir, 53

_Pantagruel_, Chap. VI. _passim_

_Paradoxe sur le Comédien_, 408 _note_

Paris, M. Gaston, 22, 23

Paris, M. Paulin, 22, 23, 38, 480

_Partenopeus (-pex) de Blois_, 3, 57-71, 480

Pasquier, 150 _note_

_Pathelin_, 101

_Paul et Virginie_, 425, 426-452

_Paysan Parvenu, Le_, 340-345, 454

_Paysan Perverti, Le_, 340, 454

_Peau d'Âne_, 252

_Pédant Joué, Le_, 296

_Pensées_ (Joubert's), 412

Pepys, 135, 317 _note_, 456

_Percevale le Gallois_, 24

Perrault, Charles (1628-1703), 154, 246 _sq. _, 273

_Petit Jehan de Saintré_, 100-102, 475, 480

Petronius, 2

_Phèdre_, 331

_Philocalie_, 162

_Philocaste_, 162

_Philosophe Soi-distant, Le_, 419-423

Pigault-Lebrun, Charles Antoine Guillaume P. De L'Épinoy (1753-1835), 456-471, 472 _note_, 482

Pigault-_Maubaillarck_, 458 _note_

Planche, G. , 353, 360

Plato, 1 _note_, 82, 165, 166, 387, 388

Plutarch, 234

_Polexandre_, 176 _note_, 236, 237

_Polite Conversation_, 110

Pollock, Mr. W. H. , 408 _note_

_Polyandre_, 277, 278, 482

_Polyxène_, 161

Pope, 29, 37, 194, 327

_Pornographe, Le_, 454 _note_, 455

_Pour et Contre, Le_, 352

Praed, 187 _note_

_Prècieuses Ridicules, Les_, 220

Preschac, Sieur de (early 18th cent. ), 258

Prévost (Antoine François P. D'Exilles, 1697-1763), 325, 352-364, 366, 373, 375, 426, 428, 468, 470, 477

Prévost, Pierre, 394

_Pride and Prejudice_, 287

_Prince Chéri, Le_, 253

_Princesse de Babylone, La_, 385, 389, 390, 478

_Princesse de Clèves, La_, 275, 298-305, 308, 364, 413 _note_, 482

Prior, 91

Prudentius, 5

Puisieux, Mme. De, 403

Pyramus, Denis (early 13th cent. ), 58

_Quatre Facardins, Les. _ See _Facardins_

_Quatre Fils d'Aymon, Les_, 15

_Queenhoo Hall_, 291 _note_

_Quentin Durward_, 94 _note_

_Quinze Joies de Mariage, Les_, 101

Rabelais, François (1495?-1553?), xii, Chap. VI. , 134-144 _passim_, 276, 298, 307, 321, 425, 372, 476, 481

Racine, 219, 272, 288, 296

Radcliffe, Mrs. , 468

_Rasselas_, 377, 381

Reade, Charles, 98

_Rebecca and Rowena_, 339 _note_

Recamier, Mme. , 442, 443

Regnard, 330 _note_

_Regrets sur ma Vieille Robe de Chambre_, 403

_Reine Fantasque, La_, 265

_Relations_ (A. Hamilton's), 306 _note_

_Religieuse, Histoire d'une_ (Marivaux's), 347

_Religieuse, La_ (Diderot's), 407-411, 452

_René_, 452, 464

Restif de la Bretonne (Nicolas Edmé, 1734-1806), 340, 452-456, 459, 472_note_, 482

Reure, the Abbé, 163 _sq. _

_Rêve de D'Alembert_, 403 _note_

_Rêve, Le_ (Zola's), 462

Reynier, M. G. , 145 _note_, 150, 150 _note_, 157-163

_Rhodanthe and Dosicles_, 265 _note_

Rhys, Sir John, 31

Riccoboni, Mme. (Marie Jeanne Laboras de Mézières, 1714-1792), 340, 430, 432-436

Richardson, xvi, 26, 208, 225, 349, 356 _note_, 375, 395, 398, 404, 465

_Robene and Makyne_, 156 _note_

_Roberval, M. De_, 467

_Robin Hood_, 82

Rochechouart, Isabel de (c. 1600), 162, 163 and _note_

_Roland, Chanson de_, 12 _sq. _, 147

_Roman Bourgeois_, 275, 277, 286-295, 476, 482

_Roman Comique_, 275, 279-287, 476, 482

_Roman de la Rose_, 89, 90, 106, 475, 481

_Roman de Renart_, 90, 106, 475

_Roman de Troie_, 17, 475

_Roman Satirique_, 162

_Roman Sentimental avant l'Astrée, Le. _ _See_ Reynier

Romances, Greek, 2, 3, 18, 153, 154 _note_, 204, 476, 479

_Romans de la Table Ronde, Les_, 480

_Rosanie_, 263

Ross, Alexander, 139 _note_

Rostand, M. , 297

Rousseau, J. J. (1712-1778), 160, 175, 265, 375, 382, 390-400, 401_note_, 412, 426, 428, 436, 441, 455, 456, 457, 468, 470, 482

Ruskin, Mr. , 405, 412 _note_, 459, 481

Rymer, 464

Saint-Évremond, 296 _note_, 317 and _note_, 321, 378

Saint-Foix, M. De, story of, 270 _note_

Saint-Marc-Girardin, 175

Saint-Pierre (Jacques Henri Bernardin de, 1737-1814), 377, 412, 424-427, 428, 478

Saint-Simon, 222

Sainte-Beuve, 154 _note_, 353 _sq. _, 438, 442

_Sainte-Eulalie_, the, 4-6

Sainte-More (or Maure), Benoît de (12th cent. ), 17, 87, 480

"Saint's Life, " the, 3-8

_Sandford and Merton_, 392

San Pedro, Diego de, 145 _note_

_Sans Merci_, 51 _note_

_Sappho_, 176 _note_, 195 _note_, 215

_Saturday Review_, vii

_Savoisiade_ (Urfé's), 167

Scarron, Paul (1610-1660), 275, 278-287, 292, 325, 469, 476, 482

Schiller, 456

Scott, Sir W. , xiii, 15, 93, 94, 98, 135, 176, 181, 186 _note_, 225, 287, 291 _note_, 326, 471

Scudéry, Georges (1601-1667) and Madeleine de (1607-1701) de, 154, 176-229, 287, 309, 318, 429, 460 _note_, 469

Selis, Nicolas Joseph (1737-1802), 268, 269

Sens, the Archbishop of, 337, 338

_Sense and Sensibility_, 429, 432

"Sensibility, " 428-452

_Serpentin Vert_, 251 _note_

_Seven Wise Masters, The_, 89, 93

Sévigné, Mme. De, 153, 173, 175, 230, 298

Shakespeare, 26, 122, 150, 150 _note_, 218, 220, 274, 275, 364, 464

Sharp, Becky, xv

Shelley, 150 _note_, 156, 218, 274, 275

Sidney, Sir Philip, 165

_Silvanire_ (Urfé's), 167

_Sireine_ (Urfé's), 167

_Sir Isumbras_, 4, 24

Smith, Prof. Gregory, ix _note_, 26 _note_

Smith, Sydney, 321

Smollett, 458 _note_, 459, 463

Socrates, 1 _note_

_Soirées Bretonnes, Les_, 266

_Soirées de St. Pétersbourg, Les_, 438

_Soliman the Second_, 417-419

Sommer, Dr. , 27, 30 _note_, 480

_Songe de Platon_, 387, 388

_Sopha, Le_, 366 _sq. _

Sorel, Charles (1597-1674), 273, 275-278, 288 _note_, 476, 482

Southey, xii, 60 _note_, 93, 121, 150, 273, 481

Souza, Mme. De (Adélaïde-Marie Émilie-Filleul, 1761-1836), 430, 437

_Spectateur, Le_ (Marivaux's), 339

Spenser, 21, 26 _note_, 31 _note_, 61 _note_, 65, 155, 220

_Spiritual Quixote, The_, 277

_St. Alexis, The_, 6-8, 100

_St. Leger, The_, 6

Staal-Delaunay, Mme. De, 355 _note_

Staël, Mme. De, 430, 442, 443, 459, 464

_Stage Love_ (Mr. Swinburne's), 443, 444

Sterne, 132 _note_, 133, 276, 321, 369, 375, 401, 404, 438-441

Stevenson, J. H. , 91

---- R. L. , 6, 101 _note_

Straparola, 258 _note_

Strutt, 291 _note_

Suckling, Sir J. , 241

_Sultanes de Gujerate, Les_, 261

Swift, 109, 110, 115, 125 _note_, 132, 321, 369, 378, 380, 390

Swinburne, Mr. , 33, 52, 254, 443

_Système de la Nature_, 411

_Tableaux de Société_ (Pigault-Lebrun's), 465, 466

Tabourot des Accords (1549-1590), 143

_Tales of the Genii_, 258 _note_

Tallemant des Réaux, Gédéon (1619-1692), 136 _note_, 140, 230, 296_note_, 330 _note_

Talleyrand, 341 _note_

_Tanzaï et Néadarné_, 371 _sq. _, 477

_Taureau Blanc, Le_, 387

_Télémaque_, 318, 323, 324, 477

_Tempest, The_, 393

Temple, Henrietta, 37

Tencin, Mme. De (Claudine Alexandrine Guérin, 1681-1749), 430-432

Tennyson, 30 _note_ and _sq. _, 54

Thackeray, 15, 125, 150, 153, 218, 241, 257, 278, 279, 314, 321, 349, 358, 414 _note_, 431 _note_

_Theagenes and Chariclea_, 157 _note_

_Théâtre de la Foire_ (Lesage's), 329

Theocritus, 36 _note_

Theodorus Prodromus, 266 _note_

_Thierry and Theodoret_, 234

Thoms, Mr. , 103

_Thousand and One Days_, 259

_Thousand and One Nights_, 259

_Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour_, 259

_Three Clerks, The_, 373

Thucydides, 1

Tilley, Mr. A. , 138

_Titi, Le Prince_, 265 and _note_

_Tom Jones_, 413 _note_, 469, 472

Toplady, 176 _note_

Tory, G. (1480?-1533), 124

Toyabee, Mr. Paget, xii

Traill, Mr. H. D. , 164, 385, 458 _note_

Tressan (Louis Élisabeth de Lavergne, Comte de, 1705-1783), 471

Trimmer, Mrs. , 455

_Troilus_ (B. De Sainte-More's). See _Roman de Troie_

_Troilus_ (1st cent. Prose), 81, 87

Trollope, A. , 41 _note_, 373

_Turcaret_, 329, 330

Twain, Mark, 465 _note_

Urfé, Honoré d' (1568-1625), 152-154, 157, 162-175, 179, 206 _note_, 476

Urquhart, Sir T. , 114

_Valise Trouvée, La_, 328

_Vathek_, 262, 306 _note_

_Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 353

Vida, 232

_Vie de Mon Père, La_, 454

Villedieu, Mme. De (Marie Catherine Hortense des Jardins, 1631-1683), 241-245, 472

Villehardouin, 135

Villeneuve, Mme. De, 265

Villon, F. , 128, 129

_Vingt Ans Après_, 114, 279

Virgil, 2 _note_, 155

Voisenon, Claude Henri de Fusée de (1708-1775), vi _note_

Voltaire (Francis Marie Arouet de, 1694-1778), 153, 307, 321, 369, 375, 377-390, 391 _note_, 393, 400, 401, 412, 414, 426, 441, 458, 462 _note_, 470, 477, 482

_Volupté, La_ (A. Hamilton's), 322 _note_

_Voyage à Constantinoble_, 13

_Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, 438 _sq. _

_Voyages à la Lune et au Soleil_, 275, 295-298, 482

_Voyages de Scarmentado, Les_, 384

Wall, Professor, 331

Walpole, H. , 401 _note_, 423 _note_

Walton, I. , 286

Ward, Ned, 453

_Water Babies, The_, xii

_Waverley_, 287

Webster, xiv, 275

_Werther_, 441, 443, 446, 451

Wieland, 269, 270

_Wild Duck, The_, 39 _note_, 362

Williams, Sir C. H. , 91

Winchelsea, Lady, 245

_Woman Killed with Kindness, A_, 364

Wright, Dr. Hagbert, xii

---- T. , 73 _note_

Wycherley, 288

Wyclif, 467

Xenophon, 1, 2, 178

_Yankee at the Court of King Arthur, A_, 465 _note_

_Yellow Dwarf, The_, 248

_Ywain and Gawain_, 56

_Zadig_, 379 _note_, 382, 383, 477

_Zaïde_, 299, 318

_Zaza, La Princesse_, 264

_Zénéyde_, 308 _sq. _

_Zibeline, La Princesse_, 262, 263

Zola, 462

_Zulma, Les Voyages de_, 259, 260

THE END

PRINTED BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. 

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY

FROM THE TWELFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY

By DR. GEORGE SAINTSBURY

Three Vols. 8vo. 

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_THE ATHENÆUM. _--"A thing complete and convincing beyond any former workfrom the same hand. 'Hardly any one who takes a sufficient interest inprosody to induce him to read this book' will fail to find it absorbing, and even entertaining, as only one other book on the subject ofversification is: the _Petit Traité de poésie française_ of Théodore deBanville.... We await the second and third volumes of this admirableundertaking with impatience. To stop reading it at the end of the firstvolume leaves one in just such a state of suspense as if it had been anovel of adventure, and not the story of the adventures of prosody. 'Iam myself quite sure, ' says Prof. Saintsbury, 'that English prosody is, and has been, a living thing for seven hundred years at least. ' That hesees it living is his supreme praise, and such praise belongs to himonly among historians of English verse. "

_THE TIMES. _--"To Professor Saintsbury English prosody is a livingthing, and not an abstraction. He has read poetry for pleasure longbefore he began to read it with a scientific purpose, and so he haslearnt what poetry is before making up his mind what it ought to be. Itis a common fault of writers upon prosody that they set out to discoverthe laws of music without ever training their ears to apprehend music. They theorise very plausibly at large, but they betray their incapacityso soon as they proceed to scan a difficult line. Professor Saintsburynever fails in this way. He knows a good line from a bad one, and heknows how a good line ought to be read, even though he may sometimes bedoubtful how it ought to be scanned. He has, therefore, the knowledgemost essential to a writer upon prosody.... His object, as he constantlyinsists, is to write a history, to tell us what has happened to ourprosody from the time when it began to be English and ceased to beAnglo-Saxon; not to tell us whether it has happened rightly or wrongly, nor even to be too ready to tell us why or how it has happened. "

Professor W. P. KER in the _SCOTTISH HISTORICAL REVIEW_. --"The historyof verse, as Mr. Saintsbury takes it, is one aspect of the history ofpoetry; that is to say, the minute examination of structure does notleave out of account the nature of the living thing; we are not kept allthe time at the microscope. This is the great beauty of his book; it isa history of English poetry in one particular form or mode.... Theauthor perceives that the form of verse is not separable from the soulof poetry; poetry 'has neither kernel nor husk, but is all one, ' toadapt the phrase of another critic. "

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY

By DR. GEORGE SAINTSBURY

SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF VOLUME II. 

_THE ATHENÆUM. _--"We have read this volume with as eager an impatienceas that with which we read the first, for the author is in love with hissubject; he sees 'that English prosody is and has been a living thingfor seven hundred years at least, ' and, knowing that metre, verse pureand simple, is a means of expressing emotion, he here sets out to showus its development and variety during the most splendid years of ournational consciousness. "

_THE STANDARD. _--"The second volume of Professor Saintsbury's elaboratework on English prosody is even more interesting than his former volume. Extending as it does from Shakespeare to Crabbe, it covers the greatperiod of English poetry and deals with the final development of theprosodic system. It reveals the encyclopædic knowledge of Englishliterature and the minute scholarship which render the Edinburghprofessor so eminently suited to this inquiry, which is, we think, themost important literary adventure he has undertaken.... It is certainlythe best book on the subject of which it treats, and it will be longindeed before it is likely to be superseded. "

_THE CAMBRIDGE REVIEW. _--"It is the capacity of being able to departfrom traditional opinion, the evidence shown on every page ofindependent thought based upon a first-hand study of documents, whichmake the present volume one of the most stimulating that even ProfessorSaintsbury has written. The work, as a whole, is a fine testimony to hislack of pedantry, to his catholicity of taste, to his sturdy commonsense, and it exhibits a virtue rare among prosodists (dare we say amongscholars generally?)--courtesy to opponents. "

_THE PALL MALL GAZETTE. _--"This volume is even more fascinating than wasthe first. For here there are even greater names concerned--Shakespeareand Milton.... It appears to us that Professor Saintsbury hardly writesa page in which he does not advance by some degree his view of the rightlaws of verse. We cannot imagine any one seriously defending, after thismajestical work, the old syllabic notion of scansion.... The book iswritten with all the liveliness of style, richness of argument, andwealth of material that we expect. Not only is it a history of prosody;but it is full of acute judgments on poetry and poets. "

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