CHAPTER III.

FRENCH SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE AND ITS EUROPEAN INFLUENCE.

THE literature of France in the seventeenth century has always been regarded, both by other European peoples and (with the exception of a few writers whose influence is not perhaps of much weight) by the French themselves, as most thoroughly representative of the literature of which it forms part.

In no other period have the distinguishing characteristics of French intellect and genius-method, logical sequence of ideas, and lucidity of style-been so conspicuous. The classical tradition of Greece and Rome, followed by the great poets and prose-writers of the sixteenth century, with a zeal as overmastering as it was injudicious, and transmitted by them to those of the seventeenth, was handled by their successors with so fine an insight, so sure a sense of proportion, and so instinctive an art of combining national originality with the inspirations of classical tradition-in short, with such felicity and propriety and skill-as to have resulted in a success almost unparalleled in the whole history of literature.

Innumerable influences were intermingled and interwoven at this period of literary workmanship; but three of them, at least, proved so strong, so striking, and so continuous throughout the whole of the century, that a kind of authoritative rank ought to be assigned to them. These are the influence of Montaigne, that of Malherbe, and that of Descartes.

Although Montaigne represented the classical tradition in perfection, and borrowed from it all that was most refined and best suited to the French mind, he himself represented, or it might even be said evolved, the true French spirit. From him his compatriots learnt delicacy of treatment, and derived the taste for a searching but dexterously and gracefully conducted analysis of ideas, together with their love of the study of characters, pursued with ardour but not without the sure touch of the master's hand-in short, every tendency proper to the humanist and the moralist who is at the same time a man of genius. The literature of the seventeenth century, which concerned itself almost exclusively with the study of man, owes its bent in large measure to him. In a word, Montaigne might almost be described as the literary father-confessor of the seventeenth century.

Descartes, himself a moralist (for we must not forget his marvellous Traité des Passions), bestowed on the seventeenth century those qualities which Montaigne either naturally lacked or did not deign to acquire -careful arrangement, a sense of order, the rectilinear sequence of ideas, the art of boldly tracing the grand outlines of general conceptions with a sure touch and a master-hand. Teacher, in this respect, of Bossuet, of Bourdaloue, of Boileau, even of Molière and of Racine, as well as of Malebranche, he mapped out the high-roads along which the French intellect was to travel ; had Montaigne been the only writer to exercise a controlling influence over French minds, they might, perhaps, have become too much attached to winding by-paths; had Descartes been the sole influence, they might have fallen into the habit of keeping to the high-road. Thus, it is fortunate that one of those two great personalities revealed the charm of the labyrinths of literature through which the visitant strays, not however dropping the thread from his hand, while the other grandly opened out the royal highway straight through the forest intellectual.

School of 1660, the central rallying-place of all French literary effort. The members of this School included orators in verse as well as orators in prose, who set forth abstract ideas in harmonious and ample style- in other words, in the style best fitted for them, since it placed their finest qualities in the strongest light.

In Montaigne, then, we find a delicacy of diction which is full at the same time of grace and of strength ; in Descartes order and strength in composition ; in Malherbe a sure and expressive oratorical form : and in one and all we find reasonableness. These qualities in combination formed the essence of the classical French of 1660, which in its turn has exercised so profound and, all things considered, so salutary an influence on the different literatures of Europe.

The School of 1660 included at least a dozen writers of the first rank, each with his own distinctly defined originality, but each possessing qualities common to all, and each exhibiting close affinities to the rest. Only a few of the chief among these writers can be here mentioned and characterised.

Corneille, who, however, preceded the others, and who only belongs to this group in the sense in which a father belongs to his family, was as much of a Stoic as was Montaigne ; but, although he took delight in posing as such, he was, in the main, the poet of that doctrine of free will, of which Descartes was the convinced and eloquent exponent. Corneille sang of magnanimity, of loftiness of soul ; though he was not thereby prevented from frequently drawing base and vile characters, or from displaying singular penetration in the analysis of complex individualities. But he is preeminently the poet of the human will. He pourtrays man struggling against the blows of Fate and prevailing against them, by means of his trust in himself and in the inward strength with which he feels himself endowed. He depicted those " warrior souls " whom Bossuet was later to call to mind ; and at his bidding there passes before our eyes a long procession of combatant spirits. Corneille remains the very type of those artists who aspire towards the things that are great and who hold that the highest kind of beauty is to be found in the beauty of holiness.

Bossuet pressed the most powerful eloquence, and a " verbal," but yet disciplined, "vehemence'" into the service of the religion he expounded. The impetuous arguments with which he stormed the enemies' citadel were tempered by order and method, and each was advanced in its own place and season. Indeed, he conveys the impression of a general who has weighty and powerful forces under his control, which he pushes to the front with equal rapidity and precision, in an assault that never breaks the ranks or mars the symmetry of their lines.

Boileau is, strictly speaking, the pupil of Malherbe, and-whether for better or for worse, just as one may view it-a pupil turned teacher, a pupil, that is to say, who fears to go further than his master and shrinks from nothing so much as from being original. Possessed of wit, especially of that satirical wit which is not the highest kind, he had good judgment, a logical mind and even eloquence ; he knew how to draw a portrait or at least how to block out a sketch ; his style, when defining literary precepts, was clear and fairly powerful ; he discoursed on questions of morals as one possessing authority and capable of some emphasis ; and he could be carried away by feverish indignation in rebuking an indifferent writer. He ought to be, although he probably is not, the idol of the "Aesthetic School," since he exhibited against the writers of other Schools than his own a spirit of indignation which found its vent in invective such as is usually reserved for criminals. Thus he possessed all the qualities, together with the chief failing, of men of letters.

Finally (for we must not unduly prolong this rapid survey) Racine showed throughout his work what Corneille showed only on occasion, that he was a delicate and subtle and profound painter of the passions. It is true that, strictly speaking, he only studied the three passions of love and jealousy and ambition ; but he treated these with great skill in all their devious movements, he traced their development, and he depicted every shade in their operation, even the most fleeting, without, however, losing himself in a maze of detail, and never forgetting the broad outline. Hence his gallery of living portraits, admirably managed from the point of view of technique, which time will never obliterate or change or tarnish.

These great men were the admiration of all Europe in their day, and they exercised a very powerful influence over the European literatures of their times. In Germany this influence lasted for nearly a century-from the Thirty Years' War until the middle of the eighteenth century. Mention must be made of Martin Opitz, who, copying the example of his Dutch master Daniel Heinsius, had imbibed the leading principles of French literature in such a degree as to earn for himself the name of the " German Malherbe" ; he was a pronounced partisan of the system of imitation, and, far more like Ronsard than Malherbe, he strove to introduce into the literature of his own country the distinguishing beauties of every other literature.

But the great name which dominates the whole of the period from 1650 to about 1750 is that of Leibniz. He was great enough to need no master; nevertheless, he owed to Descartes his first incentive, the foundation of his inspiration, more especially and beyond doubt the very tone of his mind, that wide and tolerant optimism which runs throughout the whole of his work, and animates it with confidence and with hope. Leibniz might almost be said to impersonate a French idea, which after sounding the depths of a German mind, comes forth the richer and fuller for the experience, while still retaining the distinctive style and characteristics of its origin.

After him, Lessing appeared above the literary horizon, who dealt the goût français such a blow that, after 1760, the influence of French on German literature practically ceased to exist-a fact which should not be treated as a grievance, since it is best for every nation to live its own life, both intellectually and morally.

Italy, too, came under French influence after 1650, having, in its day, exercised an immense effect upon the literature of France. The Seicentisti, from the middle of the century onwards, were strongly coloured with French influence. Guidi bears the stamp of Malherbe, but his style is more inflated ; Testi, a faithful disciple of Horace, also possesses something of the grace of Maynard and of Racan; Chiabrera, " the Italian Pindar," learns lessons from the French poets rather than copies them ; but his confirmed habit of imitating the classics is very evidently traceable to French influence, and his pupils, Filicaya and Menzini, followed the same course, perhaps almost too faithfully. Finally, in 1713, Italian tragedy, after keeping silent long after the profound slumber in which it had been sunk during the whole of the seventeenth century, was reawakened by the inspiring touch of the Merope of MafFei, who was, like Voltaire, one of the most brilliant pupils of the French tragic writers of the seventeenth century.

Finally, from 1700 onwards, England came under French influence in a very clear and unmistakable manner. Addison is the pupil of Boileau, more gifted, more refined, and more brilliant than his master, but still never forgetful of his master's teaching. Moralist, satirist, and critic, a poet equally at home in the romantic, allegorical, and tragic styles, he could turn with ease from French wit to English humour, and often seems even to combine, mix and blend the two together. Taking everything into account, we find Addison so exquisitely French in his methods that we are often tempted to say of him as Valentine of Milan said of Dunois : " He was stolen from us."

Pope, who has inevitably been much imitated in France, owed much to her in his earlier days. The style and manner of his letters remind us of Balzac and of Voiture ; his moral poems have the precise turn of wit characteristic of Boileau ; he represents, as it were, the transition between Boileau and Voltaire ; moreover, the Dunciad reads as though it were copied from the Lutrin, the evident relationship between the two poems being shown by their close similarity of style.

These great names must be supplemented by those of Waller, the friend of Saint-Evremond and the correspondent of La Fontaine, in whom we might almost say was revived all that was finest in our witty précieux of the seventeenth century ; Garth, the amusing humorist, who recalls the French burlesques, and whose works Voltaire so highly appreciated as to translate some of them ; Arbuthnot, Gay, Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Chesterfield. The name of Swift may be omitted from the list, inasmuch as, in the first instance, if he borrowed at all from the French, it was rather from the writers of the sixteenth than from those of the seventeenth century, and, secondly, because Swift's was too original and too individual a nature to allow of his being cited as an example of any kind of external influence. But here it is necessary to stop-in view of the well-known fact that, if the English humorists of the early eighteenth century certainly owe much to the French, the English " Sentimentalists " of the middle of the eighteenth century no less certainly exercised a very strong and deep influence over Diderot, Rousseau, and Sedaine.

This outline-for it is nothing more-indicates the general characteristics of the great French writers of the seventeenth century, who made themselves heard and felt throughout the European world of letters of that century and the earlier years of its successor. It was a glorious era in French history, however diversely it may be regarded according to the national standpoint of the student; as had been her lot in the thirteenth century, so again in the seventeenth France was unanimously acclaimed the intellectual sovereign of Europe, all eyes being turned towards her, and all ears listening for her action.

It may be (for on these inevitably obscure and extremely complex matters it is better not to dogmatise) that contact with a foreign influence enriches, in a general way, the national literary sense ; or, again, certain sides of the national mind which were unaware of their own existence or at all events hardly suspected it may awake and become conscious of their existence when they recognise themselves in the literature of a foreign land ; or, yet again, the real essence of a nation's intellectual life may be distilled and acquire fresh strength by the very reaction against a foreign literature that has for a time been injudiciously worshipped; and in this case, too, good arises, though indirectly.

For example, English humour will endure for all time ; but we have seen that it was developed to a singularly high degree in England after contact with French wit; and again, in Germany, the national revolution brought about by Lessing and the great literary results that ensued for German literature were stimulated by French influence, which not only invigorated German wit, but incited it to the assertion of its own independence.

We are reminded of the saying of La Bruyère concerning strong and sturdy children who fight their nurses. Nurses give sustenance to their foster-children for the very purpose of making them strong and able, if need be, to fight their foster-mothers. They perform this task m perfect consciousness, and cheerfully undertake the risk which it implies. Whatever the explanation may be, for nearly a hundred years France occupied a position towards every other European nation analogous to that of a nurse ; and, on the whole, she cannot assert that, when she remembers this experience, it is wholly unsatisfactory to her.