Part 9

_17th-Century Drama._--We have already seen how the medieval theatre was formed, and how in the second half of the 16th century it met with a formidable rival in the classical drama of Jodelle and Garnier. In 1588 mysteries had been prohibited, and with the prohibition of the mysteries the Confraternity of the Passion lost the principal part of its reason for existence. The other bodies and societies of amateur actors had already perished, and at length the Hotel de Bourgogne itself, the home of the confraternity, had been handed over to a regular troop of actors, while companies of strollers, whose life has been vividly depicted in the _Roman comique_ of Scarron and the _Capitaine Fracasse_ of Theophile Gautier, wandered all about the provinces. The old farce was for a time maintained or revived by Tabarin, a remarkable figure in dramatic history, of whom but little is known. The great dramatic author of the first quarter of the 17th century was Alexandre Hardy (1569-1631), who surpassed even Heywood in fecundity, and very nearly approached the portentous productiveness of Lope de Vega. Seven hundred is put down as the modest total of Hardy's pieces, but not much more than a twentieth of these exist in print. From these latter we can judge Hardy. They are hardly up to the level of the worst specimens of the contemporary Elizabethan theatre, to which, however, they bear a certain resemblance. Marston's _Insatiate Countess_ and the worst parts of Chapman's _Bussy d'Ambois_ may give English readers some notion of them. Yet Hardy was not totally devoid of merit. He imitated and adapted Spanish literature, which was at this time to France what Italian was in the century before and English in the century after, in the most indiscriminate manner. But he had a considerable command of grandiloquent and melodramatic expression, a sound theory if not a sound practice of tragic writing, and that peculiar knowledge of theatrical art and of the taste of the theatrical public which since his time has been the special possession of the French playwright. It is instructive to compare the influence of his irregular and faulty genius with that of the regular and precise Malherbe. From Hardy to Rotrou is, in point of literary interest, a great step, and from Rotrou to Corneille a greater. Yet the theory of Hardy only wanted the genius of Rotrou and Corneille to produce the latter. Jean de Rotrou (1610-1650) has been called the French Marlowe, and there is a curious likeness and yet a curious contrast between the two poets. The best parts of Rotrou's two best plays, _Venceslas_ and _St Genest_, are quite beyond comparison in respect of anything that preceded them, and the central speech of the last-named play will rank with anything in French dramatic poetry. Contemporary with Rotrou were other dramatic writers of considerable dramatic importance, most of them distinguished by the faults of the Spanish school, its declamatory rodomontade, its conceits, and its occasionally preposterous action. Jean de Schelandre (d. 1635) has left us a remarkable work in _Tyr et Sidon_, which exemplifies in practice, as its almost more remarkable preface by Francois Ogier defends in principle, the English-Spanish model. Theophile de Viau in _Pyrame et Thisbe_ and in _Pasiphae_ produced a singular mixture of the classicism of Garnier and the extravagancies of Hardy. Scudery in _l'Amour tyrannique_ and other plays achieved a considerable success. The _Marianne_ of Tristan (1601-1655) and the _Sophonisbe_ of Jean de Mairet (1604-1686) are the chief pieces of their authors. Mairet resembles Marston in something more than his choice of subject. Another dramatic writer of some eminence is Pierre du Ryer (1606-1648). But the fertility of France at this moment in dramatic authors was immense; nearly 100 are enumerated in the first quarter of the century. The early plays of Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) showed all the faults of his contemporaries combined with merits to which none of them except Rotrou, and Rotrou himself only in part, could lay claim. His first play was _Melite_, a comedy, and in _Clitandre_, a tragedy, he soon produced what may perhaps be not inconveniently taken as the typical piece of the school of Hardy. A full account of Corneille may be found elsewhere. It is sufficient to say here that his importance in French literature is quite as great in the way of influence and example as in the way of intellectual excellence. The _Cid_ and the _Menteur_ are respectively the first examples of French tragedy and comedy which can be called modern. But this influence and example did not at first find many imitators. Corneille was a member of Richelieu's band of five poets. Of the other four Rotrou alone deserves the title; the remaining three, the prolific abbe de Boisrobert, Guillaume Colletet (whose most valuable work, a MS. _Lives of Poets_, was never printed, and burnt by the Communards in 1871), and Claude de Lestoile (1597-1651), are as dramatists worthy of no notice, nor were they soon followed by others more worthy. Yet before many years had passed the examples which Corneille had set in tragedy and in comedy were followed up by unquestionably the greatest comic writer, and by one who long held the position of the greatest tragic writer of France. Beginning with mere farces of the Italian type, and passing from these to comedies still of an Italian character, it was in _Les Precieuses ridicules_, acted in 1659, that Moliere (1622-1673), in the words of a spectator, hit at last on "la bonne comedie." The next fifteen years comprise the whole of his best known work, the finest expression beyond doubt of a certain class of comedy that any literature has produced. The tragic masterpieces of Racine (1639-1699) were not far from coinciding with the comic masterpieces of Moliere, for, with the exception of the remarkable aftergrowth of _Esther_ and _Athalie_, they were produced chiefly between 1667 and 1677. Both Racine and Moliere fall into the class of writers who require separate mention. Here we can only remark that both to a certain extent committed and encouraged a fault which distinguished much subsequent French dramatic literature. This was the too great individualizing of one point in a character, and the making the man or woman nothing but a blunderer, a lover, a coxcomb, a tyrant and the like. The very titles of French plays show this influence--they are _Le Grondeur_, _Le Joueur_, &c. The complexity of human character is ignored. This fault distinguishes both Moliere and Racine from writers of the very highest order; and in especial it distinguishes the comedy of Moliere and the tragedy of Racine from the comedy and tragedy of Shakespeare. In all probability this and other defects of the French drama (which are not wholly apparent in the work of Moliere and Corneille, are shown in their most favourable light in those of Racine, and appear in all their deformity in the successors of the latter) arise from the rigid adoption of the Aristotelian theory of the drama with its unities and other restrictions, especially as transmitted by Horace through Boileau. This adoption was very much due to the influence of the French Academy, which was founded unofficially by Conrart in 1629, which received official standing six years later, and which continued the tradition of Malherbe in attempting constantly to school and correct, as the phrase went, the somewhat disorderly instincts of the early French stage. Even the Cid was formally censured for irregularity by it. But it is fair to say that Francois Hedelin, abbe d'Aubignac (1604-1676), whose _Pratique du theatre_ is the most wooden of the critical treatises of the time, was not an academician. It is difficult to say whether the subordination of all other classes of composition to the drama, which has ever since been characteristic of French literature, was or was not due to the predilection of Richelieu, the main protector if not exactly the founder of the Academy, for the theatre. Among the immediate successors and later contemporaries of the three great dramatists we do not find any who deserve high rank as tragedians, though there are some whose comedies are more than respectable. It is at least significant that the restrictions imposed by the academic theory on the comic drama were far less severe than those which tragedy had to undergo. The latter was practically confined, in respect of sources of attraction, to the dexterous manipulation of the unities; the interest of a plot attenuated as much as possible, and intended to produce, instead of pity a mild sympathy, and instead of terror a mild alarm (for the purists decided against Corneille that "admiration was not a tragic passion"); and lastly the composition of long tirades of smooth but monotonous verses, arranged in couplets tipped with delicately careful rhymes. Only Thomas Corneille (1625-1709), the inheritor of an older tradition and of a great name, deserves to be excepted from the condemnation to be passed on the lesser tragedians of this period. He was unfortunate in possessing his brother's name, and in being, like him, too voluminous in his compositions; but _Camma_, _Ariane_, _Le Comte d'Essex_, are not tragedies to be despised. On the other hand, the names of Jean de Campistron (1656-1723) and Nicolas Pradon (1632-1698) mainly serve to point injurious comparisons; Joseph Francois Duche (1668-1704) and Antoine La Fosse (1653-1708) are of still less importance, and Quinault's tragedies are chiefly remarkable because he had the good sense to give up writing them and to take to opera. The general excellence of French comedy, on the other hand, was sufficiently vindicated. Besides the splendid sum of Moliere's work, the two great tragedians had each, in _Le Menteur_ and _Les Plaideurs_, set a capital example to their successors, which was fairly followed. David Augustin de Brueys (1640-1723) and Jean Palaprat (1650-1721) brought out once more the ever new _Advocat Patelin_ besides the capital _Grondeur_ already referred to. Quinault and Campistron wrote fair comedies. Florent Carton Dancourt (1661-1726), Charles Riviere Dufresny (c. 1654-1724), Edmond Boursault (1638-1701), were all comic writers of considerable merit. But the chief comic dramatist of the latter period of the 17th century was Jean Francois Regnard (1655-1709), whose _Joueur_ and _Legataire_ are comedies almost of the first rank.

Heroic Romance.

_17th-Century Fiction._--In the department of literature which comes between poetry and prose, that of romance-writing, the 17th century, excepting one remarkable development, was not very fertile. It devoted itself to so many new or changed forms of literature that it had no time to anticipate the modern novel. Yet at the beginning of the century one very curious form of romance-writing was diligently cultivated, and its popularity, for the time immense, prevented the introduction of any stronger style. It is remarkable that, as the first quarter of the 17th century was pre-eminently the epoch of Spanish influence in France, the distinctive satire of Cervantes should have been less imitated than the models which Cervantes satirized. However this may be, the romances of 1600 to 1650 form a class of literature vast, isolated, and, perhaps, of all such classes of literature most utterly obsolete and extinct. Taste, affectation or antiquarian diligence have, at one time or another, restored to a just, and sometimes a more than just, measure of reputation most of the literary relics of the past. Romances of chivalry, fabliaux, early drama, Provencal poetry, prose chronicles, have all had, and deservedly, their rehabilitators. But _Polexandre_ and _Cleopatre_, _Clelie_ and the _Grand Cyrus_, have been too heavy for all the industry and energy of literary antiquarians. As we have already hinted, the nearest ancestry which can be found for them is the romances of the _Amadis_ type. But the _Amadis_, and in a less degree its followers, although long, are long in virtue of incident. The romances of the _Clelie_ type are long in virtue of interminable discourse, moralizing and description. Their manner is not unlike that of the _Arcadia_ and the _Euphues_ which preceded them in England; and they express in point of style the tendency which simultaneously manifested itself all over Europe at this period, and whose chief exponents were Gongora in Spain, Marini in Italy, and Lyly in England. Everybody knows the _Carte de Tendre_ which originally appeared in _Clelie_, while most people have heard of the shepherds and shepherdesses who figure in the _Astree_ of Honore D'Urfe (1568-1625), on the borders of the Lignon; but here general knowledge ends, and there is perhaps no reason why it should go much further. It is sufficient to say that Madeleine de Scudery (1607-1701) principally devotes herself in the books above mentioned to laborious gallantry and heroism, La Calprenede (1610-1663) in _Cassandre et Cleopatre_ to something which might have been the historical novel if it had been constructed on a less preposterous scale, and Marin le Roy de Gomberville (1600-1647) in _Polexandre_ to moralizings and theological discussions on Jansenist principles, while Pierre Camus, bishop of Belley (1582-1652), in _Palombe_ and others, approached still nearer to the strictly religious story. In the latter part of the century, the example of La Fontaine, though he himself wrote in poetry, helped to recall the tale-tellers of France to an occupation more worthy of them, more suitable to the genius of the literature, and more likely to last. The reaction against the _Clelie_ school produced first Madame de Villedieu (Catherine Desjardins) (1632-1692), a fluent and facile novelist, who enjoyed great but not enduring popularity. The form which the prose tale took at this period was that of the fairy story. Perrault (1628-1703) and Madame d'Aulnoy (d. 1705) composed specimens of this kind which have never ceased to be popular since. Hamilton (1646-1720), the author of the well-known _Memoires du comte de Gramont_, wrote similar stories of extraordinary merit in style and ingenuity. There is yet a third class of prose writing which deserves to be mentioned. It also may probably be traced to Spanish influence, that is to say, to the picaresque romances which the 16th and 17th centuries produced in Spain in large numbers. The most remarkable example of this is the _Roman comique_ of the burlesque writer Scarron. The _Roman bourgeois_ of Antoine Furetiere (1619-1688) also deserves mention as a collection of pictures of the life of the time, arranged in the most desultory manner, but drawn with great vividness, observation and skill. A remarkable writer who had great influence on Moliere has also to be mentioned in this connexion rather than in any other. This is Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655), who, besides composing doubtful comedies and tragedies, writing political pamphlets, and exercising the task of literary criticism in objecting to Scarron's burlesques, produced in his _Histoires comiques des etats et empires de la lune et du soleil_, half romantic and half satirical compositions, in which some have seen the original of _Gulliver's Travels_, in which others have discovered only a not very successful imitation of Rabelais, and which, without attempting to decide these questions, may fairly be ranked in the same class of fiction with the masterpieces of Swift and Rabelais, though of course at an immense distance below them. One other work, and in literary influence perhaps the most remarkable of its kind in the century, remains. Madame de Lafayette, Marie de la Vergne (1634-1692), the friend of La Rochefoucauld and of Madame de Sevigne, though she did not exactly anticipate the modern novel, showed the way to it in her stories, the principal of which are _Zaide_ and still more La _Princesse de Cleves_. The latter, though a long way from _Manon Lescaut_, _Clarissa_, or _Tom Jones_, is a longer way still from _Polexandre_ or the _Arcadia_. The novel becomes in it no longer a more or less fictitious chronicle, but an attempt at least at the display of character. _La Princesse de Cleves_ has never been one of the works widely popular out of their own country, nor perhaps does it deserve such popularity, for it has more grace than strength; but as an original effort in an important direction its historical value is considerable. But with this exception, the art of fictitious prose composition, except on a small scale, is certainly not one in which the century excelled, nor are any of the masterpieces which it produced to be ranked in this class.

J. G. de Balzac and modern French prose.

_17th-Century Prose._--If, however, this was the case, it cannot be said that French prose as a whole was unproductive at this time. On the contrary, it was now, and only now, that it attained the strength and perfection for which it has been so long renowned, and which has perhaps, by a curious process of compensation, somewhat deteriorated since the restoration of poetry proper in France. The prose Malherbe of French literature was Jean Guez de Balzac (1594-1654). The writers of the 17th century had practically created the literary language of prose, but they had not created a prose style. The charm of Rabelais, of Amyot, of Montaigne, and of the numerous writers of tales and memoirs whom we have noticed, was a charm of exuberance, of naivete, of picturesque effect--in short, of a mixture of poetry and prose, rather than of prose proper. Sixteenth-century French prose is a delightful instrument in the hands of men and women of genius, but in the hands of those who have not genius it is full of defects, and indeed is nearly unreadable. Now, prose is essentially an instrument of all work. The poet who has not genius had better not write at all; the prose writer often may and sometimes must dispense with this qualification. He has need, therefore, of a suitable machine to help him to perform his task, and this machine it is the glory of Balzac to have done more than any other person to create. He produced himself no great work, his principal writings being letters, a few discourses and dissertations, and a work entitled _Le Socrate chretien_, a sort of treatise on political theology. But if the matter of his work is not of the first importance, its manner is of a very different value. Instead of the endless diffuseness of the preceding century, its ill-formed or rather unformed sentences, and its haphazard periods, we find clauses, sentences and paragraphs distinctly planned, shaped and balanced, a cadence introduced which is rhythmical but not metrical, and, in short, prose which is written knowingly instead of the prose which is unwittingly talked. It has been well said of him that he "_ecrit pour ecrire_"; and such a man, it is evident, if he does nothing else, sets a valuable example to those who write because they have something to say. Voiture seconded Balzac without much intending to do so. His prose style, also chiefly contained in letters, is lighter than that of his contemporary, and helped to gain for French prose the tradition of vivacity and sparkle which it has always possessed, as well as that of correctness and grace.

_17th-century History._--In historical composition, especially in the department of memoirs, this period was exceedingly rich. At last there was written, in French, an entire history of France. The author was Francois Eudes de Mezeray (1610-1683), whose work, though not exhibiting the perfection of style at which some of his contemporaries had already arrived, and though still more or less uncritical, yet deserves the title of history. The example was followed by a large number of writers, some of extended works, some of histories in part. Mezeray himself is said to have had a considerable share in the _Histoire du roi Henri le grand_ by the archbishop Perefixe (1605-1670); Louis Maimbourg (1610-1686) wrote histories of the Crusades and of the League; Paul Pellisson (1624-1693) gave a history of Louis XIV. and a more valuable _Memoire_ in defence of the superintendent Fouquet. Still later in the century, or at the beginning of the next, the Pere d'Orleans (1644-1698) wrote a history of the revolutions of England, the Pere Daniel (1649-1728), like d'Orleans a Jesuit, composed a lengthy history of France and a shorter one on the French military forces. Finally, at the end of the period, comes the great ecclesiastical history of Claude Fleury (1640-1723), a work which perhaps belongs more to the section of erudition than to that of history proper. Three small treatises, however, composed by different authors towards the middle part of the century, supply remarkable instances of prose style in its application to history. These are the _Conjurations du comte de Fiesque_, written by the famous Cardinal de Retz (1613-1679), the _Conspiration de Walstein_ of Sarrasin, and the _Conjuration des Espagnols contre Venise_, composed in 1672 by the abbe de Saint-Real (1639-1692), the author of various historical and critical works deserving less notice. These three works, whose similarity of subject and successive composition at short intervals leave little doubt that a certain amount of intentional rivalry animated the two later authors, are among the earliest and best examples of the monographs for which French, in point of grace of style and lucidity of exposition, has long been the most successful vehicle of expression among European languages. Among other writers of history, as distinguished from memoirs, need only be noticed Agrippa d'Aubigne, whose _Histoire universelle_ closed his long and varied list of works, and Varillas (1624-1696), a historian chiefly remarkable for his extreme untrustworthiness. In point of memoirs and correspondence the period is hardly less fruitful than that which preceded it. The _Registres-Journaux_ of Pierre de l'Etoile (1540-1611) consist of a diary something of the Pepys character, kept for nearly forty years by a person in high official employment. The memoirs of Sully (1560-1641), published under a curious title too long to quote, date also from this time.