A Short History of French Literature Part 41

Charles Baudelaire had a more original talent than either of these.

Although a very careful writer, he is not studious of bizarre rhythm, nor are his subjects for the most part outlandish. He chose, however, to ill.u.s.trate a peculiar form of poetical melancholy by dwelling on subjects many of which would have been better left alone, while others were treated in a manner unsuited to the time. His _Fleurs du Mal_, therefore, as his chief work is ent.i.tled, had to undergo expurgation before it was allowed to be published, and has never been popular with the general public. But its best pieces, as well as the best of some singular _Pet.i.ts Poemes en Prose_, partly inspired by Louis Bertrand, have extraordinary merit in the way of delicate poetical suggestion and a lofty spiritualism. Baudelaire was also a very accomplished critic, his point of view being less exclusively French than that of almost any other French writer of the same cla.s.s. He translated Poe and De Quincey.

[Sidenote: Minor Poets of the Second Romantic Group.]

[Sidenote: Dupont.]

The minor poets of this second Romantic school may again be grouped together. Charles Coran, a miscellaneous poet of talent, antic.i.p.ated the school of which we shall shortly have to give some notice, that of the _Parna.s.siens_. Josephin Soulary is remarkable for the extreme beauty of his sonnets, in devoting himself to which form he antic.i.p.ated a general tendency of contemporary poets both English and French. Auguste Vacquerie, better known as a critic, a dramatist, and a journalist, began as a lyrical and miscellaneous poet, and achieved some noticeable work. Gustave Le Vava.s.seur attempted, not without success, to revive the vigorous tradition of Norman poetry. Pierre Dupont, better known than any of these, seemed at one time likely to be a poet of the first rank, but unfortunately wasted his talent in Bohemian dawdling and disorder.

His songs were the delight of the young generation of 1848, and two of them, _Le Chant des Ouvriers_ and _Les Boeufs_, are still most remarkable compositions. Louis Bouilhet (whose best poem is _Melaenis_) has some resemblance to M. Leconte de Lisle, though he went still further afield for his subjects. He had no small power, but the defect of the old descriptive poetry revived in him, and in some of his contemporaries and followers, the defect necessarily attendant on forgetfulness of the fact that description by itself, however beautiful it may be, is not poetry. With these may be mentioned Gustave Nadaud, a song-writer pure and simple, free from almost any influence of school literature, a true follower of Beranger, though with much less range, wit, and depth.

[Sidenote: The Parna.s.se.]

Except Dupont and Nadaud, all the poets just mentioned may be said to belong more or less to the school of Gautier--the school, that is to say, which attached preponderant importance to form in poetry. Towards the middle of the Second Empire a crowd of younger writers, who had adopted this principle still more unhesitatingly, grew up, and formed what has been known for some years, partly seriously, partly in derision, as the _Parna.s.sien_ school. The origin of this term was the issue, in 1866 (as a sort of poetical manifesto preluding the great Exhibition of the next year), of a collection of poetry from the pens of a large number of poets, from Theophile Gautier and Emile Deschamps downwards. This was ent.i.tled _Le Parna.s.se Contemporain_, after an old French fas.h.i.+on. Another collection of the same kind was begun in 1869, interrupted by the war, and continued afterwards; and a third in 1876: while the _Parna.s.sien_ movement was also represented in several newspapers, the chief of which was _La Renaissance_. Another nickname of the poets of this sect (which, however, included almost all French writers of verse, even Victor de Laprade being counted in) was _les impa.s.sibles_, for their presumed devotion to art for art's sake, and their scorn of didactic, domestic, and sentimental poetry. Their numbers were very great, and none, save a few, can be mentioned here. Perhaps the chief of the original _Parna.s.siens_ were MM. Sully Prudhomme and Francois Coppee, the former of whom experienced some reaction and affected what is called 'thoughtful verse,' while M. Coppee, having taken to domestic subjects, is as popular as any contemporary French poet, and in at least one instance (_Le Luthier de Cremone_) has achieved success at the theatre. A poet of great gifts, the latest of the vagabond school of Villon, was Albert Glatigny, who lived as a strolling actor, and died young. Many of his poems, but especially the _Ballade des Enfans sans Souci_, have singular force and pathos. It would hardly be fair to mention any other names, because a singular evenness of talent and general characteristics manifests itself among these poets. All sacrifice something to the perfection of form, or, to speak more correctly and critically, most are saved only by the perfection of their form, which is as a rule far superior to that of English minor poets. Of late years the _Parna.s.se_ as a single group has broken up somewhat, and during the last decade some isolated poets of promise have appeared. M. Maurice Bouchor recurred to the baccha.n.a.lian model for inspiration; M. Paul Deroulede is tyrtaean and bellicose. Both of these may be said to be representative of reaction against the _Parna.s.se_. The new naturalist school, which has produced such singular work in prose fiction, is represented in poetry by M. Richepin and M.

Guy de Maupa.s.sant. The former, with much unworthy work, produced in _La Mer_ and elsewhere excellent things. The latter, despite an unfortunate licence of subject, showed himself the strongest and most accomplished versifier who has made his appearance in France for the last twenty years. But after his first efforts he appeared to abandon himself almost entirely to prose. M. Paul Verlaine, a poet known from the early days of the Parna.s.se, has more recently produced work of increased but very unequal merit, exaggerating the faults but showing some of the charm of Baudelaire; and, partly under his, partly under foreign influence, a still younger school has begun to make experiments in prosody which are not uninteresting, but which are too minute for notice here.

[Sidenote: Minor and later Dramatists.]

[Sidenote: Scribe.]

[Sidenote: Ponsard.]

[Sidenote: Emile Augier.]

[Sidenote: Eugene Lab.i.+.c.he.]

[Sidenote: Dumas the Younger.]

[Sidenote: Victorien Sardou.]

The progress of French drama during the last half century is of somewhat less importance to literature, but of even more to social history, than that of poetry. The greatest masters of drama have already been mentioned among the eight typical names of 1830, even Balzac having attempted it, though without much success. The most famous and successful playwrights, however, as distinguished from the producers of literary dramas, have yet to be noticed[293]. Pixerecourt, a melodramatist and a book-collector, achieved his first success with a play on the well-known story of the Dog of Montargis (itself dating back to the earliest days of the Chansons de Gestes), in 1814, and followed it up with a long succession of similar pieces. Two years later Eugene Scribe, who had been born in 1791, made his _debut_, as far as success goes, with _Une Nuit de la Garde Nationale_. Scribe was one of the most prolific, one of the most successful, and one of the least literary of French dramatists. For nearly half a century he continued, sometimes alone, and sometimes in collaboration, to pour forth vaudevilles, dramas, and comedies, almost all of which were favourably received.

Scribe was generous to his a.s.sociates, and would sometimes acknowledge the communication of a bare idea by a share in the profits of the play which it suggested. He had also an almost unrivalled knowledge of the _technique_ of the theatre, and not a little wit. But his style is loose and careless, and his dramas do not bear reading. His most important later plays are _Valerie_, 1822; _Le Mariage d'Argent_, 1827; _Bertrand et Raton_, 1833; _Le Verre d'Eau_, 1840; _Une Chaine_, 1841; _Bataille de Dames_, 1851. One of the less famous partakers in the first Romantic movement, Bouchardy, distinguished himself, in succession to Pixerecourt, as a Romantic melodramatist, his most famous works being _Le Sonneur de Saint Paul_, and _Lazare le Patre_. In 1843 a kind of reaction was supposed to be about to take place, the signs of which were the performance of the _Lucrece_ of Ponsard in that year, and of the _Cigue_ of Emile Augier the year after. Ponsard, however, was only a Romantic whose colour was deadened by his inability to attain more brilliant tones. His succeeding plays, _Agnes de Meranie_, _Charlotte Corday_, _L'Honneur et l'Argent_, showed this sufficiently. M. Emile Augier is a more remarkable and a more independent figure. In so far as he represents a protest against Romanticism at all (which he does only very partially), it is because he shared in the growing tendency towards realism, that is, to a recurrence in the Romantic sense to the _tragedie bourgeoise_ of the preceding century, and because also he gave no countenance to the practice, in which some of the early Romantics indulged, of representing immoral personages as interesting. Almost all M. Augier's dramas, such as _L'Aventuriere_, 1849, which is his masterpiece, _Gabrielle_, 1849, _Diane_, 1852, _Le Mariage d'Olympe_, 1855, _Le Fils de Giboyer_, 1862, and others of more recent date, are distinctly on the side of the angels. But the author does not make the excellence of his intention a reason for pa.s.sing off inferior work, and he is justly recognised as one of the leaders of French drama in the latter half of the century. About this same time (1845) was the date of the appearance of a fertile and successful playwright of the less exalted cla.s.s, M. Dennery (_Don Cesar de Bazan_, _L'Aieule_). Auguste Maquet, another of the old guard of Romanticism, distinguished himself by helping to adapt to the stage the novels of Dumas the elder, which he had already helped to write; and one of his colleagues on Dumas' staff, M. Octave Feuillet, who was shortly to make a great reputation for himself as a novelist, appeared on the boards with _echec et Mat_.

During the whole of this decade (1840-1850) Delphine Gay, the beautiful and accomplished wife of the journalist Emile de Girardin, was a frequent and successful play-writer. Soon afterwards M. Legouve, son of the academician of the same name, and himself an academician, began to collaborate with Scribe in works of more importance (_Adrienne Lecouvreur_) than the latter had before attempted; while George Sand and her former friend, Jules Sandeau, were also drawn into the inevitable theatrical vortex. In collaboration with Augier, Sandeau produced, from one of his own novels, one of the best plays of the century, _Le Gendre de M. Poirier_, 1855. Eugene Lab.i.+.c.he, who had been born in 1815, distinguished himself, in 1851, by _Le Chapeau de Paille d'Italie_, and in it laid the foundation of a long career of success in the lighter kind of play which, at last, conducted him to the Academy. His best-known play is _Le Voyage de M. Perrichon_. The year 1852 was memorable for the French stage, for it saw the production of _La Dame aux Camelias_, the first important play of Alexandre Dumas _fils_.

Without much of his father's talent for novel-writing, M. Dumas has been both a more successful, and perhaps a better, dramatist. Most of his plays have been directed to some burning question of the social or ethical kind, and it has been his practice to re-issue them after a time, with argumentative prefaces, in a very singular style. _Diane de Lys_, _Le Demi-Monde_, _La Question d'Argent_, _Le Fils Naturel_, _Le Supplice d'une Femme_ (nominally composed with Emile de Girardin), _Les Idees de Madame Aubray_, _Une Visite de Noces_, and _L'etrangere,_ are his chief works. In 1854 appeared a now almost forgotten work by Victorien Sardou, who was destined to be the favourite dramatist of the Second Empire, and to share with MM. Augier and Dumas _fils_ the chief rank among the dramatists of the last half of the century. Seven years later _Nos Intimes_ gave him a great success, and, in 1865, _La Famille Benoiton_ a greater, which he followed up with _Nos Bons Villageois_, 1866. Since that time he has written many plays, of which the finest by far, and one of the few comedies of this age likely to become cla.s.sical, is the admirable _Rabagas_--a satire of the keenest on the interested politicians, who, in France as elsewhere, take up demagogy as a trade.

M. Sardou has attempted serious work in various plays, the best of which is, perhaps, _Patrie_, but it is not his forte. Satirical observation of manners, and especially of the current political and social follies of the day, is what he can do best, and in this peculiar line he has few equals. But he is admitted to be one of the most unequal of writers. A peculiar offspring of the Second Empire are the brilliant burlesques of Offenbach, which owed at least part of their brilliancy to the librettos composed for them by MM. Meilhac and Halevy. The first-named of these had produced successful dramas as far back as 1859. The collaborateurs did not confine themselves to furnis.h.i.+ng words for M. Offenbach's music, but attempted the prose drama frequently and with success, _Froufrou_ being their most important work in this way. M. Gondinet and M.

Pailleron also deserve notice as successful manufacturers of light plays, the latter in especial having an excellent wit (_Le monde ou l'on s'ennuie_, _Le Chevalier Trumeau_). This may also be a.s.serted of M.

Halevy, who has latterly, in _Les Pet.i.tes Cardinal_ and other non-dramatic sketches, shown himself to even greater advantage than on the stage. Indeed the Cardinal family may be said to be the most striking literary creation of its kind for years.

In a different cla.s.s and earlier, Joseph Autran, a poet of the school of Lamartine, obtained a great reputation by his tragedy of _La Fille d'Eschyle_, which procured him a seat in the Academy, and gave him the opportunity of writing not a few volumes of polished, but not very vigorous, poetry. M. Theodore de Banville, who has tried most paths in literature, produced, in 1866, a short play, with the old mystery-writer Gringoire for hero and t.i.tle-giver; a play which is admirably written, and which has kept its place on the stage. M. Francois Coppee's graceful _Luthier de Cremone_ has already been mentioned. Another literary dramatist, to distinguish the cla.s.s from those who are playwrights first of all, is M. Henri de Bornier, who obtained some success, in 1875, with _La Fille de Roland_, and, in 1880, with _Les Noces d'Attila_. Both these are good, though not consummate, specimens of the poetical drama.

[Sidenote: Cla.s.ses of Nineteenth-Century Fiction.]

Active, however, as was the cultivation of poetry proper and of the drama, it is not likely that the nineteenth century will be princ.i.p.ally known in French literary history either as a poetical, or as a dramatic age. Its most creative production is in the field of prose fiction. It is particularly noteworthy that every one of the eight names which have been set at its head is the name of a novelist, and that the energy of most of these authors in novel-writing has been very considerable. Their production may be divided into two broad cla.s.ses--novels of incident, of which Hugo and Dumas were the chief pract.i.tioners, and which derive chiefly from Sir Walter Scott; and novels of character, which, with a not inconsiderable admixture of English influence, may be said to be legitimately descended from the indigenous novel created by Madame de la Fayette, continued by Marivaux and still more by Prevost, and maintained, though in diminished vivacity, by later writers. Of this school George Sand and Balzac are the masters, though much importance must also be a.s.signed to Stendhal. At first the novelists of 1830 decidedly preferred the novel of incident, the literary success of which in the hands of Hugo, and its pecuniary success in the hands of Dumas, were equally likely to excite ambitions of different kinds.

[Sidenote: Minor and later Novelists.]

[Sidenote: Jules Janin.]

A rival of both of these in popularity during the reign of Louis Philippe, though infinitely inferior to both in literary skill, was Eugene Sue. With him may be cla.s.sed another voluminous manufacturer of exciting stories, Frederic Soulie, and somewhat later Paul Feval, with next to them Amedee Achard and Roger de Beauvoir. A better writer than any of these was Jules Janin, whose literary career was long and prosperous, but not uniform. Janin began with a strange story, in the extremest Romantic taste, called _L'Ane Mort et la Femme Guillotinee_.

This at a later period he represented as an intentional caricature, which is not on the whole likely. He followed it up with _Barnave_, a historical novel full of exciting incident. Both these books, however, with grave defects, have power perhaps superior to that shown in anything that Janin did later. Being an exceedingly facile writer, and lacking that peculiar quality of style which sometimes precludes popularity with the many as much as it secures it with the few, he became absorbed in journalism, in the furnis.h.i.+ng of miscellaneous articles, prefaces, and so forth, to the booksellers, and finally in theatrical criticism, where he reigned supreme for many years. None of his later novels need remark. With Janin may be mentioned M. Alphonse Karr, who however has been more of a journalist than of a novelist. His abundant and lively work has not perhaps the qualities of permanence.

But his _Voyage autour de mon Jardin_, his _Sous les Tilleuls_, and the satirical publication known as _Les Guepes_, deserve at least to be named. Here too may be noticed M. Barbey d'Aurevilly whose works critical and fict.i.tious (the chief being probably _L'Ensorcelee_) display a very remarkable faculty of style, perhaps too deliberately eccentric, but full of distinction and vigour.

Under the Empire, a fresh group of novelists of incident sprang up. MM.

Erckmann and Chatrian produced in collaboration a large number of tales, chiefly dealing with the events of the Revolution and the First Empire in the north-eastern provinces of France. Criminal and legal subjects were great favourites with the late Emile Gaboriau, who naturalised in France the detective novel. His chief follower is M. Fortune du Boisgobey.

[Sidenote: Charles de Bernard.]

The best novelists of the generation of 1830, outside the list of masters, have yet to be noticed. These are Charles de Bernard and Jules Sandeau. Charles de Bernard was at one time Balzac's secretary, but his fas.h.i.+on of work is entirely different from that of his employer. He divides himself for the most part between the representation of the Parisian life of good society and that of country-house manners. His shorter tales are perhaps his best, and many of them, such as _L'Ecueil_, _La Quarantaine_, _Le Paratonnerre_, _Le Gendre_, etc., are admirable examples of a cla.s.s in which Frenchmen have always excelled.

But his longer works, _Gerfaut_, _Les Ailes d'Icare_, _Un Homme Serieux_, etc., are not inferior to them in wit, in accurate knowledge and skilful portraiture of character, in good breeding, and in satiric touches which are always good-humoured.

[Sidenote: Jules Sandeau.]

Jules Sandeau was a novelist of no very different cla.s.s, but with less wit, with much less satiric intention, and with a greater infusion of sentiment, not to say tragedy. His best novels, _Catherine_, _Mademoiselle de Penarvan_, _Mademoiselle de la Seigliere_, _Le Docteur Herbeau_, are drawn from provincial life, which, from the great size of France and its diversity in scenery and local character, has been a remarkably fertile subject to French novelists. These novels are remarkable for their accurate and dramatic construction (which is such that they have lent themselves in more than one instance to theatrical adaptation with great success) and their pure and healthy morality.

[Sidenote: Octave Feuillet.]

[Sidenote: Murger.]

[Sidenote: Edmond About.]

[Sidenote: Feydeau.]

[Sidenote: Gustave Droz]

Next in order of birth may be mentioned Octave Feuillet, who began, as has been mentioned, by officiating as a.s.sistant to Alexandre Dumas. His first independent efforts in novel-writing, _Bellah_ and _Onesta_, were of the same kind as his master's; but they were not great successes, and after a short time he struck into an original and much more promising path. His first really characteristic novel was _La Pet.i.te Comtesse_, 1856, and this was followed by others, the best of which are _Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_, 1858; _Sibylle_, 1862; _M. de Camors_, 1867; and _Julia de Trecoeur_, 1872: the two last being perhaps his strongest books, though the _Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_ is the most popular. M. Feuillet wrote in a pure and easy style, and exhibited in his novels acquaintance with the manners of good society, and a considerable command of pathos. He was more studious of the proprieties than most of his contemporaries, but has indulged in a somewhat unhealthy sentimentalism. Henry Murger had a very original, though a somewhat limited, talent. He is the novelist of what is called the Parisian _Boheme_, the reckless society of young artists and men of letters, which has always grouped itself in greater numbers at Paris than anywhere else. The novel, or rather the series of sketches, ent.i.tled _La Vie de Boheme_ is one which, from the truth to nature, the pathos, and the wit which accompany its caricature and burlesque of manners, will always hold a position in literature. Murger, who experienced many hards.h.i.+ps in his youth, was all his life a careless and reckless liver, and died young. His works (all prose fiction, except a small collection of poems not very striking in form but touching and sincere in sentiment) are tolerably numerous, but the best of them are little more than repet.i.tions of the _Vie de Boheme_. Edmond About, a very lively writer, whose liveliness was not always kept sufficiently in check by good taste, oscillated between fiction and journalism, latterly inclining chiefly to journalism. In his younger days he was better known as a novelist, and some of his works, such as _Tolla_ and _Le Roi des Montagnes_, were very popular. More characteristic perhaps are his shorter and more familiar stories (_L'Homme a l'Oreille Ca.s.see_, _Le Nez d'un Notaire_, etc.). In this same group of novelists of the Second Republic and Empire ranks Ernest Feydeau, a morbid and thoroughly unwholesome author, who, however, did not lack power, and once at least (in _Sylvie_) produced work of unquestionable merit. His other novels, _f.a.n.n.y_, _Daniel_, _La Comtesse de Chalis_, are chiefly remarkable as showing the worst side of the society of the Empire. Among writers of short stories Champfleury, a friend and contemporary of Murger (who has more recently betaken himself to artistic criticism of the historical kind), deserves notice for his amusing extravaganzas, and Gustave Droz for the singularly ingenious and witty series of domestic sketches ent.i.tled _Monsieur_, _Madame et Bebe_, and _Entre Nous_. The range of subject in these is wide and not always what is understood by the English word domestic. But the fancy shown in their design and the literary skill of their execution are alike remarkable and worthy of the ancient reputation of France in the short prose tale. Nor have they lacked followers.

[Sidenote: Flaubert.]

The greatest of the Second Empire novelists is unquestionably Gustave Flaubert, who was born in 1821. Having a sufficient income he betook himself early to literature, which he cultivated with an amount of care and elaborate self-discipline rare among authors. In 1848 he contributed to the _Artiste_ newspaper, then edited by Gautier, some fragments of a remarkable fantasy-piece on the legend of St. Anthony, which was not published as a whole till nearly a quarter of a century later. In 1859, being then nearly forty years old, he achieved at once a great success and a great scandal by his novel of _Madame Bovary_, a study of provincial life, as unsparing as any of Balzac's, but more true to actual nature, more finished in construction, and far superior in style.

It was the subject of a prosecution, but the author was acquitted. Next, M. Flaubert selected an archaeological subject, and produced, after long study, _Salammbo_, a novel the scene of which is pitched at Carthage in the days of the mercenary war. This book, like the former, has a certain repulsiveness of subject in parts; but the vigour of the drawing and the extraordinary skill in description are as remarkable as ever.

_L'Education Sentimentale_, which followed, was Flaubert's least popular work, being too long, and having an insufficiently defined plot and interest. Then appeared the completed _Tentation de St. Antoine_, a book deserving to rank at the head of its cla.s.s--that of the fantastic romance. Afterwards came _Trois Contes_, exhibiting in miniature all the author's characteristics; and lastly, after his sudden death, in 1881, the unfinished _Bouvard et Pecuchet_. The faults of Flaubert are, in the first place, indiscriminate meddling with subjects best left alone, which he shares with most French novelists; in the second, a certain complaisance in dealing with things simply horrible, which is more peculiar to him; in the third, an occasional prodigality of erudite detail which clogs and impedes the action. His merits are an almost incomparable power of description, a mastery of those types of character which he attempts, an imagination of extraordinary power, and a singular satirical criticism of life, which does not exclude the possession of a vein of romantic and almost poetical sentiment and suggestion. He is a writer repulsive to many, unintelligible to more, and never likely to be generally popular, but sure to retain his place in the admiration of those who judge literature as literature.

[Sidenote: The Naturalists. Emile Zola.]

The name of Flaubert has been much invoked, and his reputation has been not a little compromised, by a small but noisy school of novelists and critics who call themselves naturalists, and affect to preach and practice a new crusade for the purpose of revolutionising poetry, fiction, and the drama. These persons, whose leader is M. Emile Zola, a busy and popular novelist, an unsuccessful dramatist, and a critic of great industry, include the brothers Goncourt (one of whom is now dead) and a number of younger writers who deserve no notice, except M. Guy de Maupa.s.sant, whose prose, if too often ill employed, is as vigorous as his verse, and who in his excellent _Pierre et Jean_ broke his naturalist chains. The naturalists affect to derive from Stendhal, through Balzac and Flaubert. That is to say, they adopt the a.n.a.lytic method, and devote themselves chiefly to the study of character. But they go farther than these great artists by objecting to the processes of art. According to them, literature is to be strictly 'scientific,' to confine itself to anatomy, and, it would appear, to morbid anatomy only.

The Romantic treatment, that is to say, the presentation of natural facts in an artistic setting, is rigidly proscribed. Everything must be set down on the principle of a newspaper report, or, to go to another art for an ill.u.s.tration, as if by a photographic camera, not by an artist's pencil. Now it will be obvious to any impartial critic that the pursuance of this method is in itself fatal to the interest of a book.

The reader, unless of the very lowest order of intellect, does not want in a novel a mere reproduction of the facts of life, still less a mere scientific reference of them to causes. Accordingly, the naturalist method inevitably produces an extreme dulness. In their search for a remedy, its pract.i.tioners have observed that there are certain divisions of human action, usually cla.s.sed as vice and crime, in which, for their own sake, and independently of pleasure in artistic appreciation of the manner in which they are presented, a morbid interest is felt by a large number of persons. They therefore, with businesslike shrewdness, invariably, or almost invariably, select their subjects from these privileged cla.s.ses. The ambition of the naturalist, briefly described without epigram or flippancy, but as he would himself say scientifically, is to mention the unmentionable with as much fulness of detail as possible. In this business M. Emile Zola has not hitherto been surpa.s.sed, though many of his pupils have run him hard. Unfortunately, for those who are proof against the attraction of disgusting subjects merely because they are disgusting, M. Zola is one of the dullest of writers. His style is also very bad, possessing for its sole merits a certain vulgar vigour which is occasionally not ineffective, and a capacity for vivid description. He is deeply learned in _argot_, or slang, the use of which is one of the naturalist instruments, and his works are therefore not useless as repertories of expressions to be avoided. M. Zola's criticisms are more interesting than his novels, consisting chiefly of vigorous denunciations of all the good writers of his own day.

M. Victor Cherbuliez, besides political and miscellaneous work of inferior relative power, has produced a series of novels (_Le Comte Kostia_, _Le Roman d'une Honnete Femme_, _Meta Holdenis_, _Samuel Brohl et Cie_) which are remarkable for style, construction, and wit. M.

Alphonse Daudet, beginning early, produced in his first stage a charming collection of _Lettres de mon Moulin_, and a pathetic autobiographic novel _Le Pet.i.t Chose_. In his second, attempting the manner of d.i.c.kens, he obtained with _Jack_, 1873, and _Froment Jeune et Risler Aine_, 1874, great popularity. His later works, _Le Nabab_, _Les Rois en Exil_, _Numa Roumestan_, _L'evangeliste_, _L'Immortel_, shew, in their condescending to the satisfaction of vulgar curiosity as to living or lately dead persons, a great falling off. The capacity of M. Daudet (whose _Tartarin de Tarascon_ with its sequel is wholly admirable extravaganza) cannot be doubted: his taste is deplorable. Of still more recent novelists two only can be mentioned: M. Georges Ohnet (_Serge Panine_, _Le Maitre de Forges_, _La Grande Marniere_) whose popularity with readers is only equalled by the unanimous disfavour with which all competent critics regard him, and M. Viaud ('Pierre Loti'), a naval officer, whose work (_Aziyade_, _Le Mariage de Loti_, _Mon Frere Yves_, _Madame Chrysantheme_), midway between the novel, the autobiography, and the travel-book displays some elegance and much 'preciousness' of style and fancy.

[Sidenote: Journalists and Critics.]

[Sidenote: Paul de Saint-Victor.]

[Sidenote: Hippolyte Taine.]

After the Revolution the fortune of journalism was a.s.sured, and though under the subsequent forms of government it was subjected to a rigid censors.h.i.+p, it was too firmly established to be overthrown. Almost all men of letters flocked to it. The leading article or unsigned political and miscellaneous essay has never been so strong a feature of French journalism as it has been of English. On the other hand, the _feuilleton_, or daily, weekly, and monthly instalment of fiction or criticism, has been one of its chief characteristics. Many, if not most, of the most celebrated novels of the last half century have originally appeared in this form, publication in independent parts, which was long fas.h.i.+onable in England, never having found favour in France. In the same way, though weekly reviews devoted wholly or mainly to literary criticism have, for some reason, never been successful with the French as they have with us, daily journalism has given a greater s.p.a.ce to criticism, and especially to theatrical criticism. All French criticism subsequent to 1830 may be said to derive, whether it deals with literature, with the theatre, or with art, from three masters, Sainte-Beuve, Gautier, and Janin. The method of the first has been sufficiently explained. Gautier's was rather the expression of a fine critical appreciation in the most exquisite style, and Janin's, the far easier, and, after a short time, unimportant plan of gossiping amiably and amusingly about, it might be the subject, it might be something quite different. The only successor to Gautier was Paul de Saint-Victor, who, however, was inferior to his master in appreciative power, and exaggerated his habit of relying on style to carry him through. Paul de Saint-Victor was not a frequent writer, and his collected works as yet do not fill many volumes. _Hommes et Dieux_, which is perhaps the princ.i.p.al of them, exhibits a deficiency of catholicity in literary appreciation. His latest book, _Les Deux Masques_, an unfinished study of the history of the stage, contains much brilliant writing, but is wanting in solid qualities. As a theatrical critic, Janin was succeeded by a curiously different person, M. Francisque Sarcey, who has chiefly been noteworthy for severity and a kind of pedagogic common sense, as unlike as possible to the good-humoured gossip of Janin. M. de Pontmartin was an acrid but vigorous critic on the royalist and orthodox side. M. Hippolyte Taine, chief of Sainte-Beuve's followers, has somewhat caricatured his master's method. Sainte-Beuve's principle was, it must be remembered, to examine carefully the circ.u.mstances of his author's time, in order to ascertain their bearing upon him. In M.

Taine's hands this wise practice changed itself into a theory--the theory that every man is a kind of product of the circ.u.mstances, and that, by examining the latter, the man is necessarily explained. M.

Taine chose for his princ.i.p.al exercising ground the history of English literature. He produced under that t.i.tle a series of studies often acute, always brilliant in style, but constantly showing the faults of the critical method just indicated. Of other literary critics, the two chief besides M. Taine are M. Edmond Scherer and M. Emile Montegut. The latter is a critic of a very fine and delicate appreciation. A short essay of his on Boccaccio may be specified as one of the best of French contemporary critical exercises. M. Scherer has a good deal of common sense, a considerable acquaintance with literature, and a clear, straightforward, and vigorous style. His judgment, however, is much limited by prejudice, and some of his studies, such as those on Baudelaire and Diderot, show that he is an untrustworthy judge of what is not commonplace.