Part 18

_Periodical Literature since 1830. Criticism._--One of the causes which led to this extensive composition of novels was the great spread of periodical literature in France, and the custom of including in almost all periodicals, daily, weekly or monthly, a _feuilleton_ or instalment of fiction. Of the contributors of these periodicals who were strictly journalists and almost political journalists only, the most remarkable after Carrel were his opponent in the fatal duel,--Emile de Girardin, Lucien A. Prevost-Paradol (1829-1870), Jean Hippolyte Cartier, called de Villemessant (1812-1879), and, above all, Louis Veuillot (1815-1883), the most violent and unscrupulous but by no means the least gifted of his class. The same spread of periodical literature, together with the increasing interest in the literature of the past, led also to a very great development of criticism. Almost all French authors of any eminence during nearly the last century have devoted themselves more or less to criticism of literature, of the theatre, or of art. And sometimes, as in the case of Janin and Gautier, the comparatively lucrative nature of journalism, and the smaller demands which it made for labour and intellectual concentration, have diverted to feuilleton-writing abilities which might perhaps have been better employed. At the same time it must be remembered that from this devotion of men of the best talents to critical work has arisen an immense elevation of the standard of such work. Before the romantic movement in France Diderot in that country, Lessing and some of his successors in Germany, Hazlitt, Coleridge and Lamb in England, had been admirable critics and reviewers. But the theory of criticism, though these men's principles and practice had set it aside, still remained more or less what it had been for centuries. The critic was merely the administrator of certain hard and fast rules. There were certain recognized kinds of literary composition; every new book was bound to class itself under one or other of these. There were certain recognized rules for each class; and the goodness or badness of a book consisted simply in its obedience or disobedience to these rules. Even the kinds of admissible subjects and the modes of admissible treatment were strictly noted and numbered. This was especially the case in France and with regard to French _belles-lettres_, so that, as we have seen, certain classes of composition had been reduced to unimportant variations of a registered pattern. The Romantic protest against this absurdity was specially loud and completely victorious. It is said that a publisher advised the youthful Lamartine to try "to be like somebody else" if he wished to succeed. The Romantic standard of success was, on the contrary, to be as individual as possible. Victor Hugo himself composed a good deal of criticism, and in the preface to his _Orientales_ he states the critical principles of the new school clearly. The critic, he says, has nothing to do with the subject chosen, the colours employed, the materials used. Is the work, judged by itself and with regard only to the ideal which the worker had in his mind, good or bad? It will be seen that as a legitimate corollary of this theorem the critic becomes even more of an interpreter than of a judge. He can no longer satisfy himself or his readers by comparing the work before him with some abstract and accepted standard, and marking off its shortcomings. He has to reconstruct, more or less conjecturally, the special ideal at which each of his authors aimed, and to do this he has to study their idiosyncrasies with the utmost care, and set them before his readers in as full and attractive a fashion as he can manage. The first writer who thoroughly grasped this necessity and successfully dealt with it was Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), who has indeed identified his name with the method of criticism just described. Sainte-Beuve's first remarkable work (his poems and novels we may leave out of consideration) was the sketch of 16th-century literature already alluded to, which he contributed to the _Globe_. But it was not till later that his style of criticism became fully developed and accentuated. During the first decade of Louis Philippe's reign his critical papers, united under the title of _Critiques et portraits litteraires_, show a gradual advance. During the next ten years he was mainly occupied with his studies of the writers of the Port Royal school. But it was during the last twenty years of his life, when the famous _Causeries du lundi_ appeared weekly in the columns of the _Constitutionnel_ and the _Moniteur_, that his most remarkable productions came out. Sainte-Beuve's style of criticism (which is the key to so much of French literature of the last half-century that it is necessary to dwell on it at some length), excellent and valuable as it is, lent itself to two corruptions. There is, in the first place, in making the careful investigations into the character and circumstances of each writer which it demands, a danger of paying too much attention to the man and too little to his work, and of substituting for a critical study a mere collection of personal anecdotes and traits, especially if the author dealt with belongs to a foreign country or a past age. The other danger is that of connecting the genius and character of particular authors too much with their conditions and circumstances, so as to regard them as merely so many products of the age. These faults, and especially the latter, have been very noticeable in many of Sainte-Beuve's successors, particularly in, perhaps, Hippolyte Taine, who, however, besides his work on English literature, did much of importance on French, and has been regarded as the first critic who did thorough honour to Balzac in his own country. A large number of other critics during the period deserve notice because, though acting more or less on the newer system of criticism, they have manifested considerable originality in its application. As far as merely critical faculty goes, and still more in the power of giving literary expression to criticism, Theophile Gautier yields to no one. His _Les Grotesques_, an early work dealing with Villon, the earlier "Theophile" de Viau, and other _enfants terribles_ of French literature, has served as a model to many subsequent writers, such as Charles Monselet (1825-1888), and Charles Asselineau (1820-1874), the affectionate historian, in his _Bibliographie romantique_ (1872-1874), of the less famous promoters of the Romantic movement. On the other hand, Gautier's picture criticisms, and his short reviews of books, obituary notices, and other things of the kind contributed to daily papers, are in point of style among the finest of all such fugitive compositions. Jules Janin (1804-1874), chiefly a theatrical critic, excelled in light and easy journalism, but his work has neither weight of substance nor careful elaboration of manner sufficient to give it permanent value. This sort of light critical comment has become almost a speciality of the French press, and among its numerous practitioners the names of Armand de Pontmartin (1811-1890) (an imitator and assailant of Sainte-Beuve), Arsene Houssaye, Pierangelo Fiorentino (1806-1864), may be mentioned. Edmond Scherer (1815-1889) and Paul de Saint-Victor (1827-1881) represent different sides of Sainte-Beuve's style in literary criticism, Scherer combining with it a martinet and somewhat prudish precision, while Saint-Victor, with great powers of appreciation, is the most flowery and "prose-poetical" of French critics. In theatrical censure Francisque Sarcey (1827-1899), an acute but somewhat severe and limited judge, succeeded to the good-natured sovereignty of Janin. The criticism of the _Revue des deux mondes_ has played a sufficiently important part in French literature to deserve separate notice in passing. Founded in 1829, the _Revue_, after some vicissitudes, soon attained, under the direction of the Swiss Buloz, the character of being one of the first of European critical periodicals. Its style of criticism has, on the whole, inclined rather to the classical side--that is, to classicism as modified by, and possible after, the Romantic movement. Besides some of the authors already named, its principal critical contributors were Gustave Planche (1808-1857), an acute but somewhat truculent critic, Saint-Rene Taillandier (1817-1879), and Emile Montegut (1825-1895), a man of letters whom greater leisure would have made greater, but who actually combined much and varied critical power with an agreeable style. Lastly we must notice the important section of professorial or university critics, whose critical work has taken the form either of regular treatises or of courses of republished lectures, books somewhat academic and rhetorical in character, but often representing an amount of influence which has served largely to stir up attention to literature. The most prominent name among these is that of Abel Villemain (1790-1867), who was one of the earliest critics of the literature of his own country to obtain a hearing out of it. Desire Nisard (1806-1888) was perhaps more fortunate in his dealings with Latin than with French, and in his _History_ of the latter literature represents too much the classical tradition, but he had dignity, erudition and an excellent style. Alexandre Vinet (1797-1847), a Swiss critic of considerable eminence, Saint-Marc-Girardin (1801-1873), whose _Cours de litterature dramatique_ is his chief work, and Eugene Geruzez (1799-1865), the author not only of an extremely useful and well-written handbook to French literature before the Revolution, but also of other works dealing with separate portions of the subject, must also be mentioned. One remarkable critic, Ernest Hello (1818-1885), attracted during his life little attention even in France, and hardly any out of it, his work being strongly tinctured with the unpopular flavour and colour of uncompromising "clericalism," and his extremely bad health keeping him out of the ordinary fraternities of literary society. It was, however, as full of idiosyncrasy as of partisanship, and is exceedingly interesting to those who regard criticism as mainly valuable because it gives different aspects of the same thing.

Perhaps in no branch of _belles-lettres_ did the last quarter of the century maintain the level at which predecessors had arrived better than in criticism; though whether this fact is connected with something of decadence in the creative branches, is a question which may be better posed than resolved here. A remarkable writer whose talent, approaching genius, was spoilt by eccentricity and pose, and who belonged to a more modern generation, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-1889), poet, novelist and critic, produced much of his last critical work, and corrected more, in these later days. Not only did the critical work in various ways of Renan, Taine, Scherer, Sarcey and others continue during parts of it, but a new generation, hardly in this case inferior to the old, appeared. The three chiefs of this were the already mentioned Anatole France, Emile Faguet (b. 1847), and Ferdinand Brunetiere (1849-1906), to whom some would add Jules Lemaitre (b. 1853). The last, however, though a brilliant writer, was but an "interim" critic, beginning with poetry and other matters, and after a time turning to yet others, while, brilliant as he was, his criticism was often ill-informed. So too Anatole France, after compiling four volumes of _La Vie litteraire_ in his own inimitable style and with singular felicity of appreciation, also turned away. The phenomenon in both cases may be associated, though it must not be too intimately connected in the relation of cause and effect, with the fact that both were champions and practitioners of "impressionist criticism"--of the doctrine (unquestionably sound if not exaggerated) that the first duty of the critic is to reproduce the effect produced on his own mind by the author. Brunetiere and Faguet, on the other hand, are partisans of the older academic style of criticism by kind and on principle. Faguet, besides regular volumes on each of the four great centuries of French literature, has produced much other work--all of it somewhat "classical" in tendency and frequently exhibiting something of a want of comprehension of the Romantic side. Brunetiere was still more prolific on the same side but with still greater effort after system and "science." In the books definitely called _L'Evolution des genres_, in his _Manuel_ of French literature, and in a large number of other volumes of collected essays he enforced with great learning and power of argument, if with a somewhat narrow purview and with some prejudice against writers whom he disliked, a new form of the old doctrine that the "kind" not the individual author or book ought to be the main subject of the critic's attention. He did not escape the consequential danger of taking authors and books not as they are but as in relation to the kinds which they in fact constitute and to his general views. But he was undoubtedly at his death the first critic of France and a worthy successor of her best.

Of others older and younger must be mentioned Paul Stapfer (b. 1840), professor of literature, and the author of divers excellent works from _Shakespeare et l'antiquite_ to volumes of the first value on Montaigne and Rabelais; Paul Bourget and Edouard Rod, already noticed; Augustin Filon (b. 1841), author of much good work on English literature and an excellent book on Merimee; Alexandre Beljame (1843-1906), another eminent student of English literature, in which subject J. A. Jusserand (b. 1855), Legouis, K. A. J. Angellier (b. 1848), and others have recently distinguished themselves; Gustave Larroumet, especially an authority on Marivaux; Eugene Lintilhac (b. 1854); Georges Pellissier; Gustave Lanson, author of a compact history of French literature in French; Marcel Schwob, who had done excellent work on Villon and other subjects before his early death; Rene Doumic, a frequent writer in the _Revue des deux mondes_, who collected four volumes of _Etudes sur la litterature francaise_ between 1895 and 1900; and the Vicomte Melchior de Vogue (b. 1848), whose interests have been more political-philosophical than strictly literary, but who has done much to familiarize the French public with that Russian literature to which Merimee had been the first to introduce them. But the body of recent critical literature in France is perhaps larger in actual proportion and of greater value when considered in relation to other kinds of literature than has been the case at any previous period.

_History since 1830._--The remarkable development of historical studies which we have noticed as taking place under the Restoration was accelerated and intensified in the reigns of Charles X. and Louis Philippe. Both the scope and the method of the historian underwent a sensible alteration. For something like 150 years historians had been divided into two classes, those who produced elegant literary works pleasant to read, and those who produced works of laborious erudition, but not even intended for general perusal. The Vertots and Voltaires were on one side, the Mabillons and Tillemonts on another. Now, although the duty of a French historian to produce works of literary merit was not forgotten, it was recognized as part of that duty to consult original documents and impart original observation. At the same time, to the merely political events which had formerly been recognized as forming the historian's province were added the social and literary phenomena which had long been more or less neglected. Old chronicles and histories were re-read and re-edited; innumerable monographs on special subjects and periods were produced, and these latter were of immense service to romance writers at the time of the popularity of the historical novel. Not a few of the works, for instance, which were signed by Alexandre Dumas consist mainly of extracts or condensations from old chronicles, or modern monographs, ingeniously united by dialogue and varnished with a little description. History, however, had not to wait for this second-hand popularity, and its cultivators had fully sufficient literary talent to maintain its dignity. Sismondi, whom we have already noticed, continued during this period his great _Histoire des Francais_, and produced his even better-known _Histoire des republiques italiennes au moyen age_. The brothers Thierry devoted themselves to early French history, Amedee Thierry (1797-1873) producing a _Histoire des Gaulois_ and other works concerning the Roman period, and Augustin Thierry (1795-1856) the well-known history of the Norman Conquest, the equally attractive _Recits des temps Merovingiens_ and other excellent works. Philippe de Segur (1780-1873) gave a history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon, and some other works chiefly dealing with Russian history. The voluminous _Histoire de France_ of Henri Martin (1810-1883) is perhaps the best and most impartial work dealing in detail with the whole subject. A. G. P. Brugiere, baron de Barante (1782-1866), after beginning with literary criticism, turned to history, and in his _Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne_ produced a work of capital importance. As was to be expected, many of the most brilliant results of this devotion to historical subjects consisted of works dealing with the French Revolution. No series of historical events has ever perhaps received treatment at the same time from so many different points of view, and by writers of such varied literary excellence, among whom it must, however, be said that the purely royalist side is hardly at all represented. One of the earliest of these histories is that of Francois Mignet (1796-1884), a sober and judicious historian of the older school, also well known for his _Histoire de Marie Stuart_. About the same time was begun the brilliant if not extremely trustworthy work of Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) on the Revolution, which established the literary reputation of the future president of the French republic, and was at a later period completed by the _Histoire du consulat et de l'empire_. The downfall of the July monarchy and the early years of the empire witnessed the publication of several works of the first importance on this subject. Barante contributed histories of the Convention and the Directory, but the three books of greatest note were those of Lamartine, Jules Michelet (1798-1874), and Louis Blanc (1811-1882). Lamartine's _Histoire des Girondins_ is written from the constitutional-republican point of view, and is sometimes considered to have had much influence in producing the events of 1848. It is, perhaps, rather the work of an orator and poet than of an historian. The work of Michelet is of a more original character. Besides his history of the Revolution, Michelet wrote an extended history of France, and a very large number of smaller works on historical, political and social subjects. His imaginative powers are of the highest order, and his style stands alone in French for its strangely broken and picturesque character, its turbid abundance of striking images, and its somewhat sombre magnificence, qualities which, as may easily be supposed, found full occupation in a history of the Revolution. The work of Louis Blanc was that of a sincere but ardent republican, and is useful from this point of view, but possesses no extraordinary literary merit. The principal contributions to the history of the Revolution of the third quarter of the century were those of Quinet, Lanfrey and Taine. Edgar Quinet (1803-1875), like Louis Blanc a devotee of the republic and an exile for its sake, brought to this one of his latest works a mind and pen long trained to literary and historical studies; but _La Revolution_ is not considered his best work. P. Lanfrey devoted himself with extraordinary patience and acuteness to the destruction of the Napoleonic legend, and the setting of the character of Napoleon I. in a new, authentic and very far from favourable light. And Taine, after distinguishing himself, as we have mentioned, in literary criticism (_Histoire de la litterature anglaise_), and attaining less success in philosophy (_De l'intelligence_), turned in _Les Origines de la France moderne_ to an elaborate discussion of the Revolution, its causes, character and consequences, which excited some commotion among the more ardent devotees of the principles of '89. To return from this group, we must notice J. F. Michaud (1767-1839), the historian of the crusades, and Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874), who, like his rival Thiers, devoted himself much to historical study. His earliest works were literary and linguistic, but he soon turned to political history, and for the last half-century of his long life his contributions to historical literature were almost incessant and of the most various character. The most important are the histories _Des Origines du gouvernement representatif_, _De la revolution d'Angleterre_, _De la civilisation en France_, and latterly a _Histoire de France_, which he was writing at the time of his death. Among minor historians of the earlier century may be mentioned Prosper Duvergier de Hauranne (1798-1881) (_Gouvernement parlementaire en France_), J. J. Ampere (1800-1864) (_Histoire romaine a Rome_), Auguste Arthur Beugnot (1797-1865) (_Destruction du paganisme d'occident_), J. O. B. de Cleron, comte d'Haussonville (_La Reunion de la Lorraine a la France_), Achille Tendelle de Vaulabelle (1799-1870) (_Les Deux Restaurations_). In the last quarter of the century, under the department of history, the most remarkable names were still those of Taine and Renan, the former being distinguished for thought and matter, the latter for style. Indeed it may be here proper to remark that Renan, in the kind of elaborated semi-poetic style which has most characterized the prose of the 19th century in all countries of Europe, takes pre-eminence among French writers even in the estimation of critics who are not enamoured of his substance and tone. But, under the influence of Taine to some extent and of a general European tendency still more, France during this period attained or recovered a considerable place for what is called "scientific" history--the history which while, in some cases, though not in all, not neglecting the development of style attaches itself

## particularly to "the document," on the one hand, and to philosophical

arrangement on the other. The chief representative of the school was probably Albert Sorel (1842-1906), whose various handlings of the Revolutionary period (including an excursion into partly literary criticism in the shape of an admirable monograph on Madame de Stael) have established themselves once for all. In a wider sweep Ernest Lavisse (b. 1842), who has dealt mainly with the 18th century, may hold a similar position. Of others, older and younger, the duc de Broglie (1821-1901), who devoted himself also to the 18th century and especially to its secret diplomacy; Gaston Boissier (b. 1823), a classical scholar rather than an historian proper, and one of the latest masters of the older French academic style; Thureau-Dangin (b. 1837), a student of mid 19th-century history; Henri Houssaye (b. 1848), one of the Napoleonic period; Gabriel Hanotaux (b. 1853), an historian of Richelieu and other subjects, and a practical politician, may be mentioned. A large accession has also been made to the publication of older memoirs--that important branch of French literature from almost the whole of its existence since the invention of prose.