Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/698

 662 FRANCE [LITERATURE. had given them an unapproachable superiority in matter of argument and literature. Their other literary works were inferior, though still remarkable. Arnauld (1612-1694) and 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 Perpetuite de la Foi due to both, and the Apoloyie des Catholiques written by Arnaud 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 Generate 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 quan tity of miscellaneous literary work, to which full justice has been done in Sainte-Beuve s well known volumes. th 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 unjust, for though the most prominent of them all, Bossuet (1627-1704), was remarkable as a writer of matter intended to be read, not merely as a speaker of matter intended to be heard, this double char acter is not possessed by most of the orthodox theologians of the time ; and even Bossuet, great as is his genius, is more of a rhetorician than of a philosopher or a theologian. In no quarter was the advance of culture more remarkable in France than in the pulpit. We have already had occa sion to notice the characteristics of French pulpit eloquence in the 15th and 16th centuries. Though this was very far from destitute of vigour and imagination, the political frenzy of the preachers, and the habit of introducing anecdotic buffoonery, spoilt the eloquence of Maillard and of Raulin, of Boucher and of Rose. The powerful use which the Re formed ministers made of the pulpit stirred up their rivals ; the advance in science and classical study added weight and dignity to the matter of their discourses. The improvement of prose style and language provided them with a suitable instrument, and the growth of taste and refinement purged their sermons of grossness and buffoonery, of personal allusions, and even, as the monarchy became more absolute, of direct political purpose. The earliest examples of this improved style were given by St Francis de Sales and by Fenouillet, bishop of Marseilles (d. 1652) ; but it was not till the latter half of the century, when tlie troubles of the Fronde had completely subsided, and the church was esta blished in the favour of Louis XIV., that the full efflores cence of theological eloquence took place. There were at the time pulpit orators of considerable excellence in England, and perhaps Jeremy Taylor, assisted by the genius of the language, has wrought a vein more precious than any which the somewhat academic methods and limitations of the French teachers allowed them to reach. But no country has ever been able to show a more magnificent concourse of orators, sacred or profane, than that formed by Bossuet, Fe nelon (1651-1715), Flechier (1632-1710), Mascaron (1634-1703), Bourdaloue (1632-1704), and Massillon (1663-1742), to whom may be justly added the Protestant divines Claude (1619-1687) and Saurin (1677-1730). Bossuet. The characteristics of all these were different. Bossuet, the earliest and certainly the greatest, was also the most uni versal. He was not merely a preacher; lie was, as we have said, a controversialist, indeed somewhat too much of a controversialist, as his battle with Fcnclon proved. He was a philosophical or at least a theological historian, and his Discours sur VHistoire Universelle is equally remarkable from the point of view of theology, philosophy, history, and literature. Turning to theological politics, he wrote his Politigue liree de Vficriture Sainte, to theology proper his Meditations sur les fivangiles and his Elevations sur les Mysteres. But his principal work, after all, is his Oraisons Funebres. The funeral sermon was the special oratorical exercise of the time. Its subject and character invited the gorgeous if somewhat theatrical commonplaces, the display of historical knowledge and parallel, and the moralizing analogies, in which the age specially rejoiced. It must also be noticed to the credit of the preachers that such occasions gave them opportunity, of which they rarely failed to avail themselves, of correcting the adulation which was but too frequently characteristic of the period. The spirit of these compositions is fairly reflected in the most famous and often quoted of their phrases, the opening &quot; Mes freres, Dieu seul est grand &quot; of Massillon s funeral discourse on Louis XIV.; and though panegyric is necessarily by no means absent, it is rarely carried beyond bounds. While Bossuet made himself chiefly remarkable in his sermons and in his writings by an almost Hebraic grandeur and rudeness, the more special characteristics of Christianity, largely alloyed with a Greek and Platonic spirit, displayed them selves in Fenelon. A successor of St Francis de Sales, he I * found that even a previous canonization was not a safeguard for imitators. The Maximes des Saints of Fe nelon, and later his Memoires Particuliers &$L Directions pour la Con-. science d un lloi, were distinguished not only by a mystical j theology which was not relished, but also by a very moder ate admiration for despotic government. In pure literature i Fe nelon is not less remarkable than in theology, politics, ; and morals. His practice in matters of style was admirable, as the universally known Telemaque sufficiently shows to those who know nothing else of his writing. But his taste, -i both in its correctness and its audacity, is perhaps more ad mirable still. Despite of Malherbe, Balzac, Boileau, and the traditions of nearly a century, he dared to speak favour- i, ably of Ronsard, and plainly expressed his opinion that the practice of his own contemporaries and predecessors had cramped and impoverished the French language quite as much as they had polished or purified it. The other doctors whom we have mentioned were more purely theo logical than the accomplished archbishop of Cambray. Fle chier is somewhat more archaic in style than Bossuet or Fe nelon, and he is also more definitely a rhetorician than either. Mascaron has the older fault of prodigal and somewhat indiscriminate erudition. But the two latest of the series, Bourdaloue and Massillon, had far the greatest repute in their own time purely as orators, and perhaps de served this preference. The difference between the two re peated that between Du Perron and De Sales. Bourdaloue^ great forte was vigorous argument and unsparing denuncia tion, but he is said to have been lacking in the power of influencing and affecting his hearers. His attraction was purely intellectual, and it is reflected in his style, which is clear and forcible, but destitute of warmth and colour. Massillon, on the other hand, was remarkable for his pathos, and for his power of enlisting and influencing the sympathies of his hearers. The two Protestant ministers whom we have mentioned, though inferior to their rivals, yet deserve honourable mention among the ecclesiastical writers of the period. Claude engaged in a controversy with Bossuet, in which victory is claimed for the invincible eagle of Meaux. Saurin, by far the greater preacher of the two, long con tinued to occupy, and indeed still occupies, in the libraries of French Protestants the position given to Bossuet and Massillon on the other side. 17 th Century Moralists. It is not surprising that the works of Montaigne and Charron, with the immense popu larity of the former, should have inclined the more thoughtful minds in France to moral reflexion, especially as many other influences, both direct and indirect, contributed to produce