A Short History of French Literature

275

'La philosophie donne moyen de parler vraisemblablement de toutes choses, et se faire admirer des moins savants.'

276

Sainte-Beuve, Port Royal. 6 vols. Paris, 1859-61.

277

These men, such as Saint Ibal, Bardouville, Desbarreaux, and others, figure largely in the anecdotic history of the time. In the persons of Théophile and Saint Evremond they touch on literature: but for the most part they were chiefly distinguished by revolting coarseness and blasphemy of expression, and by a childish delight in outraging religious sentiment, which was often changed into abject terror or hypocritical compliance as death approached. They were commonly called philosophes, a degradation of the word which was not much mended in the next century, though it then acquired a more strictly literary meaning.

278

Ed. Simon. 1854.

279

Bossuet's works are extremely voluminous. The most important of them are easily obtainable in the Collection Didot and similar libraries.

280

There is a fairly representative edition of Fénelon in five vols. large 8vo. Didot. Separate works are easily accessible.

281

Edition as in Fénelon's case. Selections of all the orthodox sermon-writers are abundant.

282

This was an album to which the poets of the day, from Corneille downwards, contributed verses, each on a different flower.

283

p. 267.

284

Editions of almost all authors of any merit from the beginning of the eighteenth century are common and accessible enough. They will, therefore, not be specially indicated henceforward unless there is some special reason for the citation, such as the peculiar elegance or literary merit of a particular edition, or else the comparative rarity of the book in any form.

285

Chénier has been somewhat unfortunate in his editors. The only complete and accurate edition (though it is far from perfect) is that of M. Gabriel de Chénier. 3 vols. 1879.

286

Excellent selections from many of these lighter poets have recently been put forth under the editorship of M. Octave Uzanne.

287

Rouget de L'Isle, the author of the famous Marseillaise, deserves mention for that only. He published poems, but their singular difference from, and inferiority to, his masterpiece were the chief causes of the scepticism (apparently ill-founded) which has sometimes been displayed as to his authorship of it.

288

The works of fiction written by the great authors of the century are easily obtainable. Manon Lescaut has been frequently and satisfactorily reproduced of late years – the two editions of Glady, with and without illustrations, being especially noteworthy. Restif de la Bretonne is a literary curiosity whose voluminous works hardly any collector possesses in their entirety; but the three volumes of the Contemporaines, selected and edited for the Nouvelle Collection Jannet by M. Assézat, will give a very fair idea of his peculiarities. Of most of the other authors mentioned convenient, handsome, and not too expensive editions will be found in the Bibliothèque Amusante of MM. Garnier Frères. This includes Mesdames de Tencin, de Fontaines, Riccoboni, de Beaumont, de Genlis, de Duras, de Souza, as well as Marivaux and Fiévée. Lesage's more remarkable fictions are obtainable at every library. Xavier de Maistre forms a single cheap volume. A handsome little edition of Constant's Adolphe has been edited by M. de Lescure for the Librairie des Bibliophiles. Cazotte's Diable Amoureux is in the Nouvelle Collection Jannet. M. Uzanne's reproductions of the prose tale-tellers are excellent.

289

In studying the history, and especially the memoirs, of the eighteenth century, the reader is at a disadvantage, inasmuch as the admirable collections of MM. Buchon, Petitot, Michaud et Poujoulat, etc., do not extend beyond its earliest years. Their place is very imperfectly supplied by a collection in twenty-eight small volumes, edited by F. Barrière for MM. Didot. This is useful as far as it goes, but it is very far from complete; much of it is in extract only, and the component parts of it are not selected as judiciously as they might be. Separate editions of the principal memoirs of the century are of course obtainable, and the number is being constantly increased; but such separate editions are far less useful than the collections which enable the memoir-writing of France during five centuries of its history to be studied at an advantage scarcely to be paralleled in the literature of any other nation.

290

Her earlier contemporary, Madame de Tencin, is her chief competitor.

291

I owe to M. Scherer the indication of a misprint of 'des Brosses' for 'de' in former editions. M. Scherer says that I 'have never heard' of the President's pleasant Lettres sur l'Italie, because I do not mention them. He also says that what I do say of De Brosses is 'également surprenante pour ce qu'elle avance et par ce qu'elle omet.' I am, therefore, justified in supposing that M. Scherer 'has never heard' of the Lettres sur Herculanum, the Navigations aux Terres Australes, or the Culte des Dieux Fétiches.

292

Mérimée's work is not absolutely despicable in bulk, for it extends to some eighteen volumes pretty closely packed. But much of these is occupied with familiar letters, and much more with merely miscellaneous writing. His finished and definitely literary publications do not amount to a third of the whole.

293

In this notice of the acting drama of France, with which, as contrasted with the literary theatre, the present writer has comparatively little acquaintance, he is considerably indebted to Mr. Brander Matthews' useful French Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century. London and New York; 1882.

294

The courtesy of Messrs. A. and C. Black allows me to repeat the following passage from an article of mine in the Encyclopædia Britannica. For this repetition I may borrow from a better writer than myself the excuse that a man cannot say exactly the same thing in two different sets of words so as to please himself, or perhaps others.