the queen’s prose works, but also the poems gracefully entitled
Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, are often attributed to the
literary men whom the sister of Francis I. gathered round
her. However this may be, some single influence of power
enough to give unity and distinctness of savour evidently The Heptaméron.
presided over the composition of the Heptaméron.
Composed as it is on the model of Boccaccio, its tone
and character are entirely different, and few works
have a more individual charm. The Tales of des Periers are
shorter, simpler and more homely; there is more wit in them
and less refinement. But both works breathe, more powerfully
perhaps than any others, the peculiar mixture of cultivated
and poetical voluptuousness with a certain religiosity and a
vigorous spirit of action which characterizes the French Renaissance.
Later in time, but too closely connected with Rabelais
in form and spirit to be here omitted, came the Moyen de parvenir
of Béroalde de Verville (1558?–1612?), a singular fatrasie, uniting
wit, wisdom, learning and indecency, and crammed with anecdotes
which are always amusing though rarely decorous.
At the same time a fresh vogue was given to the chivalric
romance by Herberay’s translation of Amadis de Gaula. French
writers have supposed a French original for the
Amadis in some lost roman d’aventures. It is of course
impossible to say that this is not the case, but there Amadis
of Gaul.
is not one tittle of evidence to show that it is. At any rate
the adventures of Amadis were prolonged in Spanish through
generation after generation of his descendants. This vast work
Herberay des Essarts in 1540 undertook to translate or retranslate,
but it was not without the assistance of several followers
that the task was completed. Southey has charged Herberay
with corrupting the simplicity of the original, a charge which
does not concern us here. It is sufficient to say that the French
Amadis is an excellent piece of literary work, and that Herberay
deserves no mean place among the fathers of French prose.
His book had an immense popularity; it was translated into
many foreign languages, and for some time it served as a favourite
reading book for foreigners studying French. Nor is it to be
doubted that the romancers of the Scudéry and Calprenède
type in the next century were much more influenced both for
good and harm by these Amadis romances than by any of the
earlier tales of chivalry.
16th-Century Historians.—As in the case of the tale-tellers, so in that of the historians, the writers of the 16th century had traditions to continue. It is doubtful indeed whether many of them can risk comparison as artists with the great names of Villehardouin and Joinville, Froissart and Comines. The 16th century, however, set the example of dividing the functions of the chronicler, setting those of the historian proper on one side, and of the anecdote-monger and biographer on the other. The efforts at regular history made in this century were not of the highest value. But on the other hand the practice of memoir-writing, in which the French were to excel every nation in the world, and of literary correspondence, in which they were to excel even their memoirs, was solidly founded.
One of the earliest historical writers of the century was Claude de Seyssel (1450–1520), whose history of Louis XII. aims not unsuccessfully at style. De Thou (1553–1617) wrote in Latin, but Bernard de Girard, sieur du Haillan (1537–1610), composed a Histoire de France on Thucydidean principles as transmitted through the successive mediums of Polybius, Guicciardini and Paulus Aemilius. The instance invariably quoted, after Thierry, of du Haillan’s method is his introduction, with appropriate speeches, of two Merovingian statesmen who argue out the relative merits of monarchy and oligarchy on the occasion of the election of Pharamond. Besides du Haillan, la Popelinière (c. 1540–1608), who less ambitiously attempted a history of Europe during his own time, and expended immense labour on the collection of information and materials, deserves mention.
There is no such poverty of writers of memoirs. Robert de la Mark, du Bellay, Marguerite de Valois (the youngest or third Marguerite, first wife of Henri IV., 1553–1615), Villars, Tavannes, La Tour d’Auvergne, and many others composed commentaries and autobiographies. The well-known and very agreeable Histoire du gentil seigneur de Bayart (1524) is by an anonymous “Loyal Serviteur.” Vincent Carloix (fl. 1550), the secretary of the marshal de Vielleville, composed some memoirs abounding in detail and incident. The Lettres of Cardinal d’Ossat (1536–1604) and the Négociations of Pierre Jeannin (1540–1622) have always had a high place among documents of their kind. But there are four collections of memoirs concerning this time which far exceed all others in interest and importance. The turbulent dispositions of the time, the loose dependence of the nobles and even the smaller gentry on any single or central authority, the rapid changes of political situations, and the singularly active appetite, both for pleasure and for business, for learning and for war, which distinguished the French gentleman of the 16th century, place the memoirs of François de Lanoue (1531–1591), Blaise de Mon[t]luc (1503–1577), Agrippa d’Aubigné and Pierre de Bourdeille[s] Brantôme (1540–1614) almost at the head of the literature of their class. The name of Brantôme is known to all who have the least tincture of French literature, and the works of the others are not inferior in interest, and perhaps superior in spirit and conception, to the Dames Galantes, the Grands Capitaines and the Hommes illustres. The commentaries of Montluc, which Henri Quatre is said to have called the soldier’s Bible, are exclusively military and deal with affairs only. Montluc was governor in Guienne, where he repressed the savage Huguenots of the south with a savagery worse than their own. He was, however, a partisan of order, not of Catholicism. He hung and shot both parties with perfect impartiality, and refused to have anything to do with the massacre of St Bartholomew. Though he was a man of no learning, his style is excellent, being vivid, flexible and straightforward. Lanoue, who was a moderate in politics, has left his principles reflected in his memoirs. D’Aubigné, so often to be mentioned, gives the extreme Huguenot side as opposed to the royalist partisanship of Montluc and the via media of Brantôme. Lanoue. Brantôme, on the other hand, is quite free from any political or religious prepossessions, and, indeed, troubles himself very little about any such matters. He is the shrewd and somewhat cynical observer, moving through the crowd and taking note of its ways, its outward appearance, its heroisms and its follies. It is really difficult to say whether the recital of a noble deed of arms or the telling of a scandalous story about a court lady gave him the most pleasure, and impossible to say which he did best. Certainly he had ample material for both exercises in the history of his time.
The branches of literature of which we have just given an account may be fairly connected, from the historical point of view, with work of the same kind that went before as well as with work of the same kind that followed them. It was not so with the literature of theology, law, politics and erudition, which the 16th century also produced, and with which it for the first time enlarged the range of composition in the vulgar tongue. Not only had Latin been invariably adopted as the language of composition on such subjects, but the style of the treatises dealing with such matters had been traditional rather than original. In speculative philosophy or metaphysics proper even this century did not witness a great development; perhaps, indeed, such a development was not to be expected until the minds of men had in some degree settled down from their agitation on more practical matters. It is not without significance that Calvin (1509–1564) is the great figure in serious French prose in the first half of the century, Montaigne the corresponding figure in the second half. After Calvin and Montaigne we expect Descartes.
16th-Century Theologians.—In France, as in all other countries, the Reformation was an essentially popular movement, though from special causes, such as the absence of political homogeneity, the nobles took a more active part both with pen and sword in it than was the case in England. But the Calvin. great textbook of the French Reformation was not the work of any noble. Jean Calvin’s Institution of the Christian Religion
