Gassendi devoted himself to the maintenance of a
modernized form of the Epicurean doctrines, but he wrote mainly,
if not entirely, in Latin. Another sceptical philosopher of a less
scientific character was the physicist Gabriel Naudé (1600–1653),
who, like many others of the philosophers of the time, was
accused of atheism. But as none of these could approach
Descartes in philosophical power and originality, so also none
has even a fraction of his importance in the history of French
literature. Descartes stands with Plato, and possibly Berkeley
and Malebranche, at the head of all philosophers in respect of
style; and in his case the excellence is far more remarkable
than in others, inasmuch as he had absolutely no models, and
was forced in a great degree to create the language which he
used. The Discours de la méthode is not only one of the epoch-making
books of philosophy, it is also one of the epoch-making
books of French style. The tradition of his clear and perfect
expression was taken up, not merely by his philosophical disciples,
but also by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) and the school of
Port Royal, who will be noticed presently. The very genius
of the Cartesian philosophy was intimately connected with
this clearness, distinctness and severity of style; and there is
something more than a fanciful contrast between these literary
characteristics of Descartes, on the one hand, and the elaborate
splendour of Bacon, the knotty and crabbed strength of Hobbes,
and the commonplace and almost vulgar slovenliness of Locke.
Of the followers of Descartes, putting aside the Port Royalists,
by far the most distinguished, both in philosophy and in literature, Malebranche.
is Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715). His Recherche
de la vérité, admirable as it is for its subtlety and its
consecutiveness of thought, is equally admirable for
its elegance of style. Malebranche cannot indeed, like his great
master, claim absolute originality. But his excellence as a
writer is as great as, if not greater than, that of Descartes, and the
Recherche remains to this day the one philosophical treatise of
great length and abstruseness which, merely as a book, is delightful
to read—not like the works of Plato and Berkeley, because
of the adventitious graces of dialogue or description, but from
the purity and grace of the language, and its admirable adjustment
to the purposes of the argument. Yet, for all this, philosophy
hardly flourished in France. It was too intimately
connected with theological and ecclesiastical questions, and
especially with Jansenism, to escape suspicion and persecution.
Descartes himself was for much of his life an exile in Holland
and Sweden; and though the unquestionable orthodoxy of
Malebranche, the strongly religious cast of his works, and the
remoteness of the abstruse region in which he sojourned from
that of the controversies of the day, protected him, other followers
of Descartes were not so fortunate. Holland, indeed, became
a kind of city of refuge for students of philosophy, though even
in Holland itself they were by no means entirely safe from
persecution. By far the most remarkable of French philosophical Bayle.
sojourners in the Netherlands was Pierre Bayle
(1647–1706), a name not perhaps of the first rank in
respect of literary value, but certainly of the first as regards
literary influence. Bayle, after oscillating between the two
confessions, nominally remained a Protestant in religion. In
philosophy he in the same manner oscillated between Descartes
and Gassendi, finally resting in an equally nominal Cartesianism.
Bayle was, in fact, both in philosophy and in religion, merely
a sceptic, with a scepticism at once like and unlike that of
Montaigne, and differenced both by temperament and by circumstance—the
scepticism of the mere student, exercised more or
less in all histories, sciences and philosophies, and intellectually
unable or unwilling to take a side. His style is hardly to be called
good, being diffuse and often inelegant. But his great dictionary,
though one of the most heterogeneous and unmethodical of
compositions, exercised an enormous influence. It may be
called the Bible of the 18th century, and contains in the germ
all the desultory philosophy, the ill-ordered scepticism, and the
critical but negatively critical acuteness of the Aufklärung.
We have said that the philosophical, theological and moral
tendencies of the century, which produced, with the exception
of its dramatic triumphs, all its greatest literary works, are almost
inextricably intermingled. Its earliest years, however, bear
in theological matters rather the complexion of the Jansenists.
previous century. Du Perron and St Francis of Sales
survived until nearly the end of its first quarter, and the
most remarkable works of the latter bear the dates of 1608 and
later. It was not, however, till some years had passed, till the
counter-Reformation had reconverted the largest and most
powerful portion of the Huguenot party, and till the influence of
Jansenius and Descartes had time to work, that the extraordinary
outburst of Gallican theology, both in pulpit and in press, took
place. The Jansenist controversy may perhaps be awarded the
merit of provoking this, as far as writing was concerned. The
astonishing eloquence of contemporary pulpit oratory may be set
down partly to the zeal for conversion of which du Perron and
de Sales had given the example, partly to the same taste of the
time which encouraged dramatic performances, for the sermon
and the tirade have much in common. Jansenius himself, though
a Dutchman by birth, passed much time in France, and it was
in France that he found most disciples. These disciples consisted
in the first place of the members of the society of Port Royal
des Champs, a coterie after the fashion of the time, but one which
devoted itself not to sonnets or madrigals but to devotional
exercises, study and the teaching of youth. This coterie early Port Royal.
Pascal.
adopted the Cartesian philosophy, and the Port Royal
Logic was the most remarkable popular hand-book
of that school. In theology they adopted Jansenism,
and were in consequence soon at daggers drawn with the Jesuits,
according to the polemical habits of the time. The most distinguished
champions on the Jansenist side were Jean Duvergier
de Hauranne, abbé de St Cyran (1581–1643), and Antoine Arnauld
(1560–1619), but by far the most important literary results of the
quarrel were the famous Provinciales of Pascal, or, to give them
their proper title, Lettres écrites à un provincial.
Their literary importance consists, not merely in their
grace of style, but in the application to serious discussion of the
peculiarly polished and quiet irony of which Pascal is the greatest
master the world has ever seen. Up to this time controversy had
usually been conducted either in the mere bludgeon fashion of
the Scaligers and Saumaises—of which in the vernacular the
Jesuit François Garasse (1585–1631) had already contributed
remarkable examples to literary and moral controversy—or else
in a dull and legal style, or lastly under an envelope of Rabelaisian
buffoonery such as survives to a considerable extent in the
Satire Ménippée. Pascal set the example of combining the use
of the most terribly effective weapons with good humour, good
breeding and a polished style. The example was largely
followed, and the manner of Voltaire and his followers in the 18th
century owes at least as much to Pascal as their method and
matter do to Bayle. The Jansenists, attacked and persecuted by
the civil power, which the Jesuits had contrived to interest,
were finally suppressed. But the Provinciales had given them
an unapproachable superiority in matter of argument and
literature. Their other literary works were inferior, though still
remarkable. Antoine Arnauld (the younger, often called “the
great”) (1612–1694) and Pierre Nicole (1625–1695) managed
their native language with vigour if not exactly with grace.
They maintained their orthodoxy by writings, not merely against
the Jesuits, but also against the Protestants such as the Perpétuité
de la foi due to both, and the Apologie des Catholiques
written by Arnauld alone. The latter, besides being responsible
for a good deal of the Logic (L’Art de penser) to which we have
alluded, wrote also much of a Grammaire générale composed
by the Port Royalists for the use of their pupils; but his principal
devotion was to theology and theological polemics. To the latter
Nicole also contributed Les Visionnaires, Les Imaginaires and
other works. The studious recluses of Port Royal also produced
a large quantity of miscellaneous literary work, to which full
justice has been done in Sainte-Beuve’s well-known volumes.
17th-Century Preachers.—When we think of Gallican theology during the 17th century, it is always with the famous pulpit orators of the period that thought is most busied. Nor is this
