Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/64

54 F A U F A U him was an inquiry into the origin of modern civilization, the wide range of his preliminary studies being accounted for by the fact that they were of the nature of soundings taken with a view to discover with some approximation to certainty where the treasure he was in search of was con cealed ; and it was because he became convinced that the object of his quest was to be found in southern Gaul that his studies gradually came to have a bearing more or less direct on the elucidation of the early history of that country. His opinions on subjects which had an incidental relation to his chief purpose were occasionally contributed to peri odicals ; and as a kind of interlude to his severer studies he published in 1810 a translation of the Parthenais oder die Alpenreise of the Danish poet Baggesen, with a preface on the various kinds of poetry ; in 1823 translations of two tragedies of his friend Manzoni, with a preface Sur la theorie de I art dramatique ; and in 1824 his translation of the popular songs of modern Greece, with a Discours pre- liminaire on. popular poetry, in which he claims for that species of literature a preference in some respects over the most cultivated and artistic productions on account of its freshness and its intimate connexion with nature and reality, and also as the best key to the comprehension of a nation s history inasmuch as it is the spontaneous expression and outflow of its peculiar genius and of its deepest experiences. After the revolution of 1830 the Government was per suaded by his friends to establish expressly for Fauriel a chair of foreign literature. In 1836 he was elected a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, and in the same year he published in four volumes L Histoire de la Gaule meridionale soils la domination des conquerants Germains the second portion of a work which, when com pleted, was to have consisted of three parts, the first on southern Gaul under the Roman dominion, and the third and most important embracing the period from the dis memberment of the empire of Charlemagne to the end of the 13th century, and including the brilliant though premature spring-time of early literature and culture which for a short period relieved the sterile winter that had so long overshadowed the intellect of Europe. In 1837 Fauriel published, along with an introduction, a translation of the Provengal poem on the war of the Albigenses, and in 1839 he became a member of the com mission of the Histoire Iitt6raire de la France, to which work he contributed a number of articles on the writers of the 13th century. He died 15th July 1844. After his death appeared, in 1846, Histoire de la litterature provencale, which formed his course of professorial lectures for 1831-32, and may be regarded as a portion of the third part of the great work which he had sketched out on the history of southern Gaul. In these lectures he sought to prove that from the embers of the. civilization of Greece and Rome, which, by a peculiar combination of circumstances, had been transferred not wholly quenched to the foreign soil of Provence, was lighted the spark which originated the greater part of the romances of chivalry (that is, not only those of the cycle of Charlemagne, but of the cycle of the Round Table), and thus kindled the civilization of modern Europe. Various opinions have been formed as to the amount of truth in this theory, and it must at least be admitted that Fauriel has been somewhat hampered and biased in his inquiry by preconceived conclusions; but in any case he must be allowed the merit of having first fully revealed the importance of the epoch of which he treats, and having supplied the greater part of the materials for the solution of the problems which it presents for discus sion. ^ Indeed, the distinguishing quality of his writings is their suggestiveness, and their value is therefore scarcely lessened even when their conclusions are disputed. The statement of Renan, made in 1855, that he is the man of our times who has put in circulation the greatest number of new ideas, can scarcely, however, be accepted, even when we remember his indirect influence on the contemporary writers of France ; but none was more than he en rapport with the spirit of the 19th century, or has done a more im portant work in reference to those problems which are strictly literary or historical. The professorial lectures of Fauriel for 1833-34 were published in 1854, under the title of Dante tt les origines de la langue et de la litterature italiennes ; and among his miscellaneous writings the most important are his examination of the Systeme de M. liay- nouard sur Vorigine des langues romanes, contributed to the Hibliot/ieque de l cole des Chartes, and his lives of Dante and Lope de Vega in the Revue des Deux Mondes for Octo ber 1834 and September 1839 respectively. The best and fullest account of Fauriel is that by Sainte-Beuve in his Portraits Contcmporains, vol. iv. See also the review of Fauriel s work on Provencal literature by H. Fortoul in the Rerua des Deux Mondes for May 1846, and the short notice of his work on Dante by Eenan in. the Jicvue des Deux Mondes for December 1855. FAUST, or FUST, printer. See FUST. FAUSTINA, ANNIA, wife of Marcus Aurelius, was the daughter of Antoninus Pius and the empress Annia Galena, Faustina Augusta. Her husband, whose original name was Marcus Annius Verus, was the son of her maternal uncle Annius Verus ; and both, through their grandfather Annius Verus, consul for the third time in 126 A.D., traced their descent from Numa Pompilius. Besides Commoduf:, Faustina had six children whose names are known, viz., Annius Verus, Annia Lucilla Augusta, Vibia Aurelin, Sabina, Domitia Faustina, Fadilla; but she is supposed to have had eleven. Faustina was either one of the most profligate or most maligned of women. Wieland appears to be almost her only apologist in modern times ; and in her own day (if we accept the testimony of contemporary historians) the only man who believed in her virtue and goodness was her great and wise husband, whose testimony, it has been urged, ought to be deemed sufficient to out weigh the gossip of Dion Cassius. On the other hand, it might be contended that the emperor was just as likely to misjudge the character of his wife as of his son Corn- modus, the buffoon of the imperial purple. The empress s impunity amid her alleged vices, and the emperor s patron age of her supposed paramours, have even been deemed unfavourable to the reputation for judgment and sincerity of one of the noblest men of antiquity. Faustina died in 175, at Ilalala, near Mount Taurus, in Cappadocia, whither she had accompanied Marcus in his expedition against the rebel Avidius Cassius, Commander-in-chief of the imperial armies in Asia. Aurelius, in memory of his wife, raised the obscure viHage to the rank of a city, with the name of Faustinopolis. In her honour, too, he founded charitable schools for orphan girls which were similar to those that Antoninus had established in memory of his own wife, the elder Faustina. The title Mater Castrorum first appeared on the coins of the younger Faustina. Pudicitia is another legend commemorative of this supposed incarnation of im modesty. Marcus Aurelius placed his wife s statue in tho temple of Venus, and Faustina was numbered among the guardian deities of Rome. FAUSTUS. Although probably the name of an actual historical personage, Faustus or Faust is principally inter esting as an ideal figure of a twofold and in some respects antithetical type, on the one hand the deliberate choice of evil, on the other an unsatisfied aspiration towards the highest good. The development of the latter conception from the former of Goethe s Faust from the mediaeval Faustus is an interesting study iu itself, and affords a curious example of the accretions and modifications inci dental to popular myths. The Faustus of tradition arose from the fusion of two more primitive conceptions, that