Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/702

 666 FRANCE [LITERATURE. Diderot on its dramatic productions. This was Diderot (1713- (plays). 1781), the most fertile genius of the century, but also the least productive in finished and perfect work. His chief dramas, the Fils Naturel and the Pere de Famille. are cer tainly not great successes ; the shorter plays, Est-il bon ? est-il mechant ? and La Piece et la Prologue, are better. But it was his follower Sedaine (1717-1779) who in Le Philo- sopJie sans le savoir and other pieces produced the best ex amples of the bourgeois as opposed to the heroic drama. Diderot is sometimes credited or discredited with the invention of the Comedie Larmoyantc, a title which indeed his own plays do not altogether refuse, but this special variety seems to be in its invention rather the property of La Chaussee (1692-1754). Comedy sustained itself, and even gained ground towards the end of the century ; at the extreme limit of our present period there appears the re- Beaumar. markable figure of Beaumarchais (1732-1799). The dials Mariage de Figaro and the Barbier de Seville are well known as having had attributed to them no mean place among the literary causes and forerunners of the Revolution. Their dramatic and literary value would itself have sufficed to obtain attention for them at any time, though there can be no doubt that their popularity was mainly due to their political appositeness. The most remarkable point about them, as about the school of comedy, of which Congreve was the chief master in England at the beginning of the century, was the abuse and superfluity of wit in the dialogue, indis criminately allotted to all characters alike. th Century Fiction. With prose fiction the case was altogether different. We have seen how the short tale of a few pages had already in the 16th century attained high if not the highest excellence ; how at three different periods the fancy for long-winded prose narration developed itself in the prose rehandlings of the chivalric poems, in the Amadis romances, and in the portentous recitals of Gomber- ville and La Calprenede ; how burlesques of these romances were produced from Rabelais to Scarron ; and how at last Mad ime de Lafayette showed the way to something like the novel of the day. If we add the fairy story, and a small class of miniature romances, of which Aucassin et Nicolette in the 13th, and the delightful Jehan de Paris (of the 15th or 16th, in which a king of England is patriotically sacrificed) are good representatives, we shall have exhausted the list. The 18th century was quick to develop the system of the author of the Princesse de Cleves, but it did not abandon the cultivation of the romance, that is to say, fiction dealing with incident and with the simpler passions, in devoting itself to the novel, that is to say, fiction dealing with the analysis of sentiment and character. Le Sago. Le Sage, its first great novelist, in his Diable Boiteux and Gil Bias, went to Spain not merely for his subject but also for his inspiration and manner, following the lead of the picaroon romance of De Rojas and Scarron. Like Fielding, however, whom he much resembles, Le Sage mingled with the romance of incident the most careful attention to char acter and the most lively portrayal of it, while his style and language are such as to make his work one of the classics of French literature. The novel of character was really founded in France by the Abbe&quot; Provost (1697-1763), the author of Cleveland and. of the incomparable Manon Lescaut. The popularity of this style was much helped by the im mense vogue in France of the works of Richardson. Side by side with it, however, and for a time enjoying still greater popularity, there flourished a very different school of fiction, of which Voltaire, whose name occupies the first or all but the first place in every branch of literature of his time, was the most brilliant cultivator. This was a direct development of the 16th century conte, and consisted usually of the treatment in a humorous, satirical, and not always over-decent fashion of contemporary foibles, beliefs, philosophies, and occupations. These tales are of every rank of excellence and merit both literary and moral, and range from the astonishing wit, grace, and humour of Candide and Zadig to the book which is Diderot s one hardly pardonable sin, and the similar but more lively efforts of Crebillon fils (1707-1777). These latter deeps led in their turn to the still lower depths of La Clos and Louvet. A third class of 18th century fiction consists of attempts to return to the humorous fatrasie of the 16th century, attempts which were as much influenced by Sterne as the sentimental novel was by Richardson. The Hommc aux Qiiarante Ecus of Voltaire has something of this char acter, but the most characteristic works of the style are the Jacques le Fataliste of Diderot, which shows it nearly at its best, and the Compere Mathieu, sometimes attributed to Pigault-Lebrun (1753-1835), but apparently in reality due to Du Laurens (1719-1797), which shows it at perhaps its worst. Another remarkable story-teller was Cazotte (1724- 1793), whose Diable Amour eux displays much fantastic power, and connects itself with a singular fancy of the time for occult studies and diablerie, manifested later by the patronage shown to Cagliostro, Mesmer, St Germain, and others. In this connexion, too, may perhaps also be mentioned most appropriately Restif de la Bretonne, a re markably original and voluminous writer, who was little noticed by his contemporaries and successors for the best part of a century, and whom bibliomania chiefly has of late induced French critics to resuscitate. Restif, who was nick named the &quot; Rousseau of the gutter,&quot; Rousseau du ruisseait, presents to an English imagination many of the character istics of a non-moral Defoe. While these various schools busied themselves more or less with real life seriously depicted or purposely travestied, the great vogue and suc cess of Telemaque produced a certain number of didactic works, in which moral or historical information was sought to be conveyed under a more or less thin guise of fiction. Such was the Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis of Barthelerny (1716-1795); such the Numa Pompilius and Gonzale de Cordoue of Florian (1755-1794), who also deserves notice as a writer of pastorals, fables, and short prose tales ; such the Belisaire and Les Incas of Marmontel (1728-1799). Between this class and that of the novel of sentiment may perhaps be placed Paul et Virginie and La Chaumiere Ittdienne; though Bernardin de St Pierre (1737-1814) should perhaps properly be noticed after Rousseau and as a moralist. Diderot s fiction-writing has already been re ferred to more than once, but his Rcligieuse deserves citation here as a powerful specimen of the novel both of analysis and polemic ; while his undoubted masterpiece, the Neveu de Itameau, though very difficult to class, comes under this head as well as under any other. There are, however, two of the novelists of this age, and of the most remarkable, who have yet to be noticed, and these are the author of Mari anne and the author of Julie. We do not mention Marivaux Mar (1688-1763) in this connexion as the equal of Rousseau (1713-1778), but merely as beinginhis way almost equally original and equally remote from any suspicion of school influence. He began with burlesque writing, and was also the author of several comedies, of which Les Fausses Con fidences is the principal. But it is in prose fiction that he really excels. He niay claim to have, at least in the opinion of his contemporaries, invented a style, though perhaps the term marivaudage, which was applied to it, has a not altogether complimentary connotation. He may claim also to have invented the novel without a purpose, which aims simply at amusement, and at the same time does not seek to attain that end by buffoonery or by satire. Gray s definition of happiness, &quot; to lie on a sofa and read endless novels by Marivaux&quot; (it is true that he added Cre billon), is well known, and the production of mere pastime by means more or less