also, in this 12th century, forms of literature which busy themselves
with the unprivileged classes begin to be born. The
fabliau takes every phase of life for its subject; the folk-song
acquires elegance and does not lose raciness and truth. In the
next century, the 13th, medieval literature in France arrives at
its prime—a prime which lasts until the first quarter of the 14th.
The early epics lose something of their savage charms, the polished
literature of Provence quickly perishes. But in the provinces
which speak the more prevailing tongue nothing is wanting to
literary development. The language itself has shaken off all
its youthful incapacities, and, though not yet well adapted
for the requirements of modern life and study, is in every way
equal to the demands made upon it by its own time. The
dramatic germ contained in the fabliau and quickened by the
mystery produces the profane drama. Ambitious works of merit
in the most various kinds are published; Aucassin et Nicolette
stands side by side with the Vie de Saint Louis, the Jeu de la
feuillie with Le Miracle de Théophile, the Roman de la rose
with the Roman du Renart. The earliest notes of ballads and
rondeau are heard; endeavours are made with zeal, and not
always without understanding, to naturalize the wisdom of the
ancients in France, and in the graceful tongue that France
possesses. Romance in prose and verse, drama, history, songs,
satire, oratory and even erudition, are all represented and
represented worthily. Meanwhile all nations of western Europe
have come to France for their literary models and subjects,
and the greatest writers in English, German, Italian, content
themselves with adaptations of Chrétien de Troyes, of Benoit
de Sainte More, and of a hundred other known and unknown
trouvères and fabulists. But this age does not last long. The
language has been put to all the uses of which it is as yet capable;
those uses in their sameness begin to pall upon reader and hearer;
and the enormous evils of the civil and religious state reflect themselves
inevitably in literature. The old forms die out or are
prolonged only in half-lifeless travesties. The brilliant colouring
of Froissart, and the graceful science of ballade and rondeau
writers like Lescurel and Deschamps, alone maintain the literary
reputation of the time. Towards the end of the 14th century
the translators and political writers import many terms of art,
and strain the language to uses for which it is as yet unhandy,
though at the beginning of the next age Charles d’Orléans by
his natural grace and the virtue of the forms he used emerges
from the mass of writers. Throughout the 15th century the
process of enriching or at least increasing the vocabulary goes on,
but as yet no organizing hand appears to direct the process.
Villon stands alone in merit as in peculiarity. But in this time
dramatic literature and the literature of the floating popular
broadsheet acquire an immense extension—all or almost all the
vigour of spirit being concentrated in the rough farce and rougher
lampoon, while all the literary skill is engrossed by insipid
rhétoriqueurs and pedants. Then comes the grand upheaval
of the Renaissance and the Reformation. An immense influx
of science, of thought to make the science living, of new terms
to express the thought, takes place, and a band of literary
workers appear of power enough to master and get into shape
the turbid mass. Rabelais, Amyot, Calvin and Herberay
fashion French prose; Marot, Ronsard and Regnier refashion
French verse. The Pléiade introduces the drama as it is to be
and the language that is to help the drama to express itself.
Montaigne for the first time throws invention and originality
into some other form than verse or than prose fiction. But by the
end of the century the tide has receded. The work of arrangement
has been but half done, and there are no master spirits
left to complete it. At this period Malherbe and Balzac make
their appearance. Unable to deal with the whole problem, they
determine to deal with part of it, and to reject a portion of the
riches of which they feel themselves unfit to be stewards. Balzac
and his successors make of French prose an instrument faultless
and admirable in precision, unequalled for the work for which
it is fit, but unfit for certain portions of the work which it was
once able to perform. Malherbe, seconded by Boileau, makes
of French verse an instrument suited only for the purposes of the
drama of Euripides, or rather of Seneca, with or without its
chorus, and for a certain weakened echo of those choruses,
under the name of lyrics. No French verse of the first merit
other than dramatic is written for two whole centuries. The
drama soon comes to its acme, and during the succeeding time
usually maintains itself at a fairly high level until the death of
Voltaire. But prose lends itself to almost everything that is
required of it, and becomes constantly a more and more perfect
instrument. To the highest efforts of pathos and sublimity
its vocabulary and its arrangement likewise are still unsuited,
though the great preachers of the 17th century do their utmost
with it. But for clear exposition, smooth and agreeable narrative,
sententious and pointed brevity, witty repartee, it soon proves
itself to have no superior and scarcely an equal in Europe.
In these directions practitioners of the highest skill apply it
during the 17th century, while during the 18th its powers are
shown to the utmost of their variety by Voltaire, and receive
a new development at the hands of Rousseau. Yet, on the whole,
it loses during this century. It becomes more and more unfit
for any but trivial uses, and at last it is employed for those uses
only. Then occurs the Revolution, repeating the mighty stir
in men’s minds which the Renaissance had given, but at first
experiencing more difficulty in breaking up the ground and once
more rendering it fertile. The faulty and incomplete genius
of Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël gives the first evidence
of a new growth, and after many years the Romantic movement
completes the work. Whether the force of that movement is
now, after three-quarters of a century, spent or not, its results
remain. The poetical power of French has been once more
triumphantly proved, and its productiveness in all branches of
literature has been renewed, while in that of prose fiction there has
been almost created a new class of composition. In the process
of reform, however, not a little of the finish of French prose
style has been lost, and the language itself has been affected in
something the same way as it was affected by the less judicious
innovations of the Ronsardists. The pedantry of the Pléiade
led to the preposterous compounds of Du Bartas; the passion
of the Romantics for foreign tongues and for the mot propre
has loaded French with foreign terms on the one hand and with
argot on the other, while it is questionable whether the vers libre
is really suited to the French genius. There is, therefore, room
for new Malherbes and Balzacs, if the days for Balzacs and Malherbes
had not to all appearance passed. Should they be once
more forthcoming, they have the failure as well as the success
of their predecessors to guide them.
Finally, we may sum up even this summary. For volume and merit taken together the product of these eight centuries of literature excels that of any European nation, though for individual works of the supremest excellence they may perhaps be asked in vain. No French writer is lifted by the suffrages of other nations—the only criterion when sufficient time has elapsed—to the level of Homer, of Shakespeare, or of Dante, who reign alone. Of those of the authors of France who are indeed of the thirty but attain not to the first three Rabelais and Molière alone unite the general suffrage, and this fact roughly but surely points to the real excellence of the literature which these men are chosen to represent. It is great in all ways, but it is greatest on the lighter side. The house of mirth is more suited to it than the house of mourning. To the latter, indeed, the language of the unknown marvel who told Roland’s death, of him who gave utterance to Camilla’s wrath and despair, and of Victor Hugo, who sings how the mountain wind makes mad the lover who cannot forget, has amply made good its title of entrance. But for one Frenchman who can write admirably in this strain there are a hundred who can tell the most admirable story, formulate the most pregnant reflection, point the acutest jest. There is thus no really great epic in French, few great tragedies, and those imperfect and in a faulty kind, little prose like Milton’s or like Jeremy Taylor’s, little verse (though more than is generally thought) like Shelley’s or like Spenser’s. But there are the most delightful short tales, both in prose and in verse, that the world has ever seen, the most polished jewelry of reflection that has
