SEVENTEENTH CENTUHY FICTION.] FRANCE 659 measure of reputation most of the literary relics of the past. Romances of chivalry, fabliaux, early drama, Provencal poetry, prose chronicles, have all had, and deservedly, their rehabilitators. But Polexandre and Cleopatre, Cliilie and the Grand Cyrus, have been too heavy for all the industry and energy of literary antiquarians. As we have already hinted, the nearest ancestry which can be found for them is the romances of the Amadis type. But the Amadis, and in a less degree its followers, although long, are long in virtue of incident. The romances of the Clclie type are long in virtue of interminable discourse, moralizing, and description. Their manner is not unlike that of the Arcadia and the Euphues which preceded them in England ; and they express in point of style the tendency which simultaneously manifested itself all over Europe at this period, and whose chief exponents were Gongora in Spain, Marini in Italy, and Lyly in England. Everybody knows the Carte de Tendre which originally appeared in Clclie, and most people have heard of the shepherds and shepherdesses who figure in the Astree of D Urfo (1567-1625), on the borders of the Lignon ; but here general knowledge ends, and there is perhaps no reason why it should go much further. It is sufficient to say that Mademoiselle de Scudory (1G07-1701) principally devotes herself to labori ous gallantry and heroism, La Calprenede (1C 10-1 663) to something which might have been the historical novel if it had been constructed on a less preposterous scale, and Gomberville (1600-1647) to moralizings and theological discussions on Jansenist principles. In the latter part of the century, the example of La Fontaine, though he himself wrote in poetry, helped to recall the tale-tellers of France to an occupation more worthy of them, more suitable to the genius of the literature, and more likely to last. The reac tion against the Clelie school produced first Madame de Villedieu (Catherine Desjardins) (1631-1683), a fluent and facile novelist, who enjoyed great but not enduring popu larity. The form which the prose tale took at this period was that of the fairy story. Perrault (1628-1703) and Madame d Aulnoy (d. 1705) composed specimens of this kind which have never ceased to be popular since. Hamilton (1646-1720), the author of the well-known Htmoires de Grammont, wrote similar stories of extraor dinary merit in style and ingenuity. There is yet a third class of prose writing which deserves to be mentioned. It also may probably be traced to Spanish influence, that is ito say, to the picaroon romances which the 16th and 17th centuries produced in Spain in large numbers. The most remarkable example of this is the Roman Comique of the burlesque writer Scarron. The Roman Bourgeois of Furetiere also deserves mention as a collection of pictures of the life of the time, arranged in the most desultory manner, but drawn with great vividness, observation, and -^kill. A remarkable writer who had great influence on Moliere, has also to be mentioned in this connexion rather than in any other. This is Cyrano de Bergerac (1620- 1655), who, besides composing doubtful comedies and ragedies, writing political pamphlets, and exercising the jtaMC of literary criticism in objecting to Scarron s burlesques, iroduced Voyages ft, la Lune et an Soldi, half romantic and mlf satirical compositions, in which some have seen the riginal of Gulliver s Travels, in which others have dis covered only a not very successful imitation of Rabelais, and .vhich, without attempting to decide these questions, may airly be ranked in the same class of fiction with the master- >ieces of Swift and Rabelais, though of course at an immense listance below them. One other work, and in literary in flu- mce perhaps the most remarkable of its kind in the
- entury, remains. Madame de Lafayette, the friend of La
Rochefoucauld and of Madame de Se vigne , though she did lot exactly anticipate the modern novel, showed the way to it in her stories, the principal of which are Zdide and still more La Princesse de Cleves. The latter, though a long way from Manon Lescaut, Clarissa, or Tom Jones, is a longer way still from Polexandre or the Arcadia. The novel be comes in it no longer a more or less fictitious chronicle, but an attempt at least at the display of character. La Prin cesse de Cleves has never been one of the works widely popu lar out of their owu country, nor perhaps does it deserve such popularity, for it has more grace than strength; but as an original effort in an important direction its historical value is considerable. But with this exception, the art of fictitious prose composition, except on a small scale, is cer tainly not one in which the century excelled, nor are any of the masterpieces which it produced to be ranked in this class. 17th Century Prose. If, however, this was the case, it cannot be said that French prose as a whole was unproduc tive at this time. On the contrary, it was now, and only now, that it attained the strength and perfection for which it has been so long renowned, and which has perhaps, by a curious process of compensation, somewhat deteriorated since the restoration of poetry proper in France. The prose Balzac Malherbe of French literature was Balzac (1594-1654). and The writers of the 17th century had practically created the 0(lern literary language of prose, but they had not created a prose se style. The charm of Rabelais, of Amyot, of Montaigne, and of the numerous writers of tales and memoirs whom we have noticed, was a charm of exuberance, of naivete", of pic turesque effect, in short, of a mixture of poetry and prose, rather than of prose proper. Sixteenth century French prose- is a delightful instrument in the hands of men and women of genius, but in the hands of those who have not genius it is full of defects, and indeed is nearly unreadable. Now, prose is essentially an instrument of all work. The poet who has not genius had better not write at all ; the prose writer often may and sometimes must dispense with this qualification. He has need, therefore, of a suitable machine to help him to perform his task, and this machine it is the glory of Balzac to have done more than any other person to create. He produced himself no great work, his principal writings being letters, a few discourses and dissertations, and a work entitled Le Socrate Chretien, a sort of treatise on political theology. But if the matter of his work is not of the first importance, its manner is of a very different value. Instead of the endless diffuseness of the preceding century, its ill-formed or rather unformed sentences, and its haphazard periods, we find clauses, sentences, and para graphs distinctly planned, shaped, and balanced, a cadenco introduced which is rhythmical but not metrical, and, in short, prose which is written knowingly instead of the prose which is unwittingly talked. It has been well said of him that he "ecrit pour ccrire"; and such a man, it is evident, if he does nothing else, sets a valuable example to those who write because they have something to say. He has time which they have not to make technical discoveries in his art, and his technical discoveries are in turn at their service, while they are almost compelled to make use of them by the appetite for such refinements which his works have created in the public. Voiture seconded Balzac without much intending to do so. His prose style, also chiefly con tained in letters, is lighter than that of his contemporary, and helped to gain for French prose the tradition of vivacity and sparkle which it has always possessed, as well as that of correctness and grace. 17th Century History. In historical composition, espe cially in the department of memoirs, this period was ex ceedingly rich, yet the first and perhaps the greatest of its historical works was not composed in French. The Thitana, or history of De Thou, was written in Latin, and only trans lated into French more than a century after its author s
