Thirty Years of French Literature. 431 ART. VI.-Etudes sur la Littérature Française au XIX: Siècle. Par ALEXANDRE VINET. Three Vols. 8vo. Paris: Meyrueis. THE Revue des Deux Mondes, in one of its recent numbers, has sounded a war-cry. Taking from the threshold of a new year a survey of contemporary French literature, and seeing nothing on the horizon but Alexandre Dumas, Théophile Gautier, and Champfleury, M. Buloz, the worthy editor, gives utterance to a deep sigh: "We are," exclaims he, "fast running down the road to intellectual and moral destruction: will any charitable person tell us why we don't stop, and how we should stop?" The Latin poet had said long ago: "Facilis descensus Averni;" but if it is comparatively easy to state the fact, M. Buloz does not think that he can account for it with the same readiness; for he has issued a kind of programme or prospectus, offering a prize of 2,500 francs (£100) to the writer of the best Essay on the causes which have brought about the gradual, yet sure, decay of French literature during the present century. A further sum of £200 will be awarded to the author of the novel describing in the most faithful colours the aspect of modern society, its anxieties, its forebodings, its follies. We have no doubt that this twofold task, if properly done, would result in a highly valuable contribution to the history of belles-lettres; but then the tableau critique must be treated with the sagacity of a Barante, and the deep moral perception of a Vinet; and as for the novel, what shall we say? Let us first be introduced to a writer combining George Sand's exquisite style, Charles de Bernard's knowledge of the human character, and Victor Hugo's pathos, with a higher sense of religion than is to be found under the latitude of Paris; let us see an individual embodying all these requisites....But it were vain to anticipate what is not likely to be realized; and certainly, if we expect that the programme of M. Buloz will revive literature, we might as reasonably suppose that the mere statement of grievances in the "Times" newspaper will reform the Horse Guards, or re-model the Commissariat. However, the programme we have alluded to suggests an inquiry, which seems to us extremely interesting; and without pretending to aim at the prize offered by the Revue des Deux Mondes, we shall, on the present occasion, lay before our readers a chapter of literary history. The first question which meets us, as we endeavour to grapple with our subject, is one which, it might have been supposed, was absolutely useless. And yet it is quite true that, for the great majority, the French literature of the last thirty years is a perfect terra incognita. Readers have been deterred from forming any acquaintance with the post-Restoration littérateurs by the rabid denunciations of Mr. Croker, and the fastidious criticisms of Mrs. Trollope: in their dread of evil communications, they have condemned wholesale, on the faith of our old anti-Gallican friend, good, bad, and indifferent. For them M. Thiers has become almost a sans-culotte, and they cannot help associating the author of Notre Dame de Paris with the spirit of evil himself. The drama of our neighbours, taken as a whole, is, we are quite willing to acknowledge, of a very doubtful quality; their historians have lately played sad pranks with the truth; and their metaphysicians begin to discover that eclecticism is not likely to regenerate society. But still, the intellectual condition of France is a fact in the history of the world; as such, we ought to know it better than we do; and when we see authors of established reputation, such as Sir Archibald Alison, professing to give as a critical sketch one which is neither complete nor exact, we feel that our first inquiry must be,-What is the present state of literature in France? Not being able to refer our readers to trustworthy data, we attempt to supply these data ourselves. When, about the year 1829, the strong Liberal reaction, which was ultimately to end in the downfall of Charles X., revolutionized literature likewise under the name of "Romanticism," poetry, and more especially lyric poetry, took a direction totally different from that which it had previously followed. During the grand siècle, J. B. Rousseau, and Racine in the exquisite choruses of his tragedies, left the only monuments of that style of writing worth mentioning; but these pieces, remarkable as they were, showed no traces of that inspiration which characterizes the genuine effusions of the heart. The next century was still more unfavourable to the growth of subjective poetry; it was too analytical for that; it studied nature, so to say, by the help of the rule and compass; it lacked enthusiasm, because it lacked faith. The extraordinary outburst of lyrism which was witnessed thirty years ago in France, originated most naturally from the force of circumstances. The young men who, between 1820 and 1830, attempted to sing either the events which were agitating society, or the fond aspirations of their own breasts, had no difficulty in selecting appropriate themes. Europe was still ringing with the tramp of those veteran legions which had conquered the world; but with the Corsican hero the inaction of captivity had just subsided into the sleep of death. Then what fond hopes were entertained for the future! On the one hand, the traditions of despotism were destroyed, never to visit this earth any more; on the other, Liberty presented herself under her true garb, and bearing the promise of blessings which were denied to the men of '93. The Poets of the Restoration. 433 No! Liberty was not that harlot who, reeking with the blood of the noble and the brave, had led the carmagnole dance around the mangled remains of Louis XVI. and Madame Roland! She would help a grateful nation to build up again the throne of a legitimate dynasty, she would embroider the lilies upon the tricolor, and establish permanently the constitutional monarchy of the nineteenth century on the principles obtained by the States-General in the Tennis-Court at Versailles. The prospect in religion was equally cheering: here, too, "old things had passed away." The cold, barren, analytical speculation of D'Alembert, Volney, and Destutt de Tracy was gone for ever; away with the hommemachine, and the homme-plante! Condillac's sensationalism does not solve the riddle of human destiny; we are of a higher nature than the "beasts that perish," and we shall devise some form of religious belief, founded upon the expansion or development of the old Catholic faith. Such, in a few words, were the ideas which inspired Young France in 1820, and which gave a fresh impulse to poetry. It may be asserted, we believe, that in no other country, at no other period of the world's history, was there such an effusion of lyrism. Brilliant strains, conceived and expressed with all the energy of youthful enthusiasm, took the reading public by surprise; a new system of poetics, derived from a thorough disregard for the traditions of Boileau, was inaugurated, and maintained with a talent of the highest order. Sir A. Alison says that, during the Restoration, "poetry was far from being cultivated with success.' "Two poets only," he adds, "during the whole period, have attained any note, and they were Delille and Béranger." In the first place, Delille died in 1813, and therefore can hardly be called a poet of the Restoration. Then what does the learned Baronet make of Lamartine and Victor Hugo?-Lamartine, whose splendid lyrics, the most justly celebrated of his works, were published before the Revolution of 1880: Victor Hugo, whose Odes et Ballades caused him to be pointed out as the poet of the Restoration? We maintain that, between 1820 and 1830, poetry was cultivated in France with the greatest success. It has ever since been constantly declining, and our business will be presently to show the causes of this decline. The great truths of religion, the problem of our destiny, will always supply poetry with its choicest subjects. Since M. de Lamennais and M. de Châteaubriand had, each in his own way, stood forward before their country and their age as the apologists of a faith which many thought swept away by the violence of the revolutionary current, a reaction had taken place in favour of Catholicism. It cannot be questioned now, whether the semitheatrical religion-made-easy of the Génie du Christianisme was a better antidote to the Voltaireanism which pervaded every class of society than could be found in the violent Ultramontanism of the Essai sur l'Indifférence. The progress of con temporary literature has proved sufficiently that such was not the case. M. de Lamartine is the latest and most illustrious representative of the dreamy, vague, unsatisfactory theology first introduced by M. de Châteaubriand. Now, will any person -who has attentively perused the works of that eminent poet, beginning with the Méditations Poétiques, and ending with La Chute d'un Ange-maintain that these splendid compositions exhibit any thing else but a pantheism which becomes gradually more and more objectionable, until it finds its exponent in that grossly material theory to which the barbarous name Humanitarianism has been given? Although the first volume of the Méditations evidences on the part of the author a thorough acquaintance with the Scriptures, and a certain consciousness of the true character of Christianity, M. Vinet has very aptly remarked, that even in those earlier productions we do not find the positive, the decided, the welldefined lineaments of Gospel truths. M. de Lamartine's faith has nothing practical about it; and the reading of his works acts on the unguarded mind not as a fortifying draught, but as an enchanted potion which melts the soul into melancholy, instead of bracing it for the daily struggle against the passions. If we cannot give our adhesion to the comparatively unobjectionable Méditations, what shall we say of Jocelyn,-the Hegelian Curé,-and of that elastic creed in the Recueillements Poétiques which, discarding all positive religion, and concealing a thorough indifference under the veil of universal toleration, exclaims?— "Que t'importe si mes symboles Sont les symboles que tu crois! J'ai prié des mêmes paroles, J'ai saigné sur la même croix!" If M. de Lamartine was the literary disciple of M. de Châteaubriand, the Abbé de Lamennais gave the impulse to another knot of poets, amongst whom the chief were M. Reboul and M. Turquety. But, in spite of all the talent which strikes us in the works of these gentlemen, they have never been popular. A few persons, faithful to the traditions of a creed now on the wane, admired them, and spoke of them as of the bards of the future; the majority passed by with some slight commendation of the style and the ideas. Critics were wont to object: "Let poets sing positive Christianity with the same genius as M. de Lamartine, and then you will see if they do not become popular." This objection falls to the ground for a very simple reason. "Literature," as M. de Bonald said long ago, "is the expression of society." Now, a society whose moral energy is dissolved, and whose profession of faith is indifference, will naturally find its exponent in a vague, pantheistic poetry; and the author of the Méditations Poétiques rose at once to popularity, precisely because the France of the nineteenth century was speaking through him. Even when religion loses its power over the hearts of men, and when, careless of the future, they seek all their comfort and happiness in the persons and things which immediately surround them, another source of hallowed emotions would seem to remain within our reach. There is home with its ties, its joys, its sorrows. The poetry of the fireside is one which appeals directly to the best feelings of our nature; and thence are to be drawn some of our purest and most powerful inspirations. But the whole history of the last thirty years goes to prove, in the strongest manner, that if the choicest string on the lyre is not tuned by the hand of religion, the sounds it gives are harsh and discordant. There has been amongst our contemporary French writers a great talk of poésie intime, "domestic poetry,' the epics of private life. In this particular field of literature many remarkable productions are now extant, to render it manifest that across the Channel some choice minds are found, who have walked in the paths rendered so illustrious by the name of Cowper. Our readers will, we feel quite sure, acknowledge in M. SainteBeuve a man who has all the qualities, all the inspirations of a genuine poet. But, as the French proverb truly says, "Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas ;" and if M. Sainte-Beuve was so successful in that minute analysis of the human heart which is the characteristic of his writings, if he really imparted by his genius to the commonest incidents of life, that extraordinary prestige which carries us along whilst we read the poem, and gives us food for reflection after we have perused it, no one will pretend that it was only because he could describe with the exactness of a Téniers fire-side scenes, and those home dramas which are not the less interesting because they are not acted coram populo. No; the following exquisite piece will show to our friends what we understand to be the true character of domestic poetry,-of poésie intime, as our neighbours call it : "Dans ce cabriolet de place j'examine L'homme qui me conduit, qui n'est plus que machine, Vice et vin et sommeil chargent ses yeux soûlés. Comment l'homme peut-il ainsi tomber? pensais-je, Et je me reculais à l'autre coin du siège. -Mais toi, qui vois si bien le mal à son dehors, La crapule poussée à l'abandon du corps, Comment tiens tu ton âme au dedans ? Souvent pleine Et chargée, es-tu prompt à la mettre en haleine? Le matin, plus soigneux que l'homme d'à côté, La laves-tu du songe épais? et dégouté, |