Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/714

 678 FRANCE [LITERATURE. 1 Prose Fiction since 1830. Even more remarkable, because more absolutely novel, was the outburst of prose fiction which followed 1830. We have said that in this department the productions of France since the discrediting of the Scudcry romances had not on the whole been remark able, and had been produced at considerable intervals. Madame de Lafayette, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire, the Abb6 Pre vost, Diderot, J. J. liousseau, Bernardin de St Pierre, and Fieve&quot;e had all of themproduced work excellent in its way, and comprising in a more or less rudimentary condition most varieties of the novel. But none of them had, in the French phrase, made a school, and at no time had prose fiction been composed in any considerable quantities. The immense influence which, as we have seen, Walter Scott exercised was perhaps the direct cause of the attention paid to prose fiction ; the facility, too, with which all the fancies, tastes, and beliefs of the time could be embodied in such work may have had considerable importance. But it is difficult on any theory of cause and effect to account for the appear ance in less than ten years of such a group of novelists as Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Me&quot; rime s, Balzac, George Sand, Jules Sandeau, and Charles de Bernard, names to which might be added others scarcely inferior. There is hardly anything else resembling it in literature, except the great cluster of English dramatists in the beginning of the 17th century, and of English poets at the beginning of the 19th ; and it is remarkable that the excellence of the first group has been maintained by a fresh generation, Murger, About, Feuillet, Flaubert, Erckmann-Chatrian, Droz, Daudet, Cherbuliez, and Gaboriau, forming a company of diadochi not far inferior to their predecessors. The romance writing of France during the period has taken two different direc tions, the first that of the novel of incident, the second that of analysis and character. The first, now mainly deserted, was that which, as was natural when Scott was the model, was formerly most trodden ; the second required the astonishing genius of George Sand and of Balzac to attract students to it. The novels of Victor Hugo are novels of incident, with a strong infusion of purpose, and considerable but rather ideal character drawing. They are in fact lengthy prose drames rather than romances proper, and they have found no imitators, probably because no other genius was equal to the task. They display, however, the Dumas, powers of the master at their fullest. On the other hand, Alexandre Dumas originally composed his novels in close imitation of Scott, and they are much less dramatic than narrative in character, so that they lend themselves to almost indefinite continuation, and there is often no particu lar reason why they should terminate even at the end of the score or so of volumes to which they sometimes actually extend. Of this purely narrative kind, which hardly even attempts anything but the boldest character drawing, the best of them, such as Vinyt Ans Apres, Les Trois Mousque- taires, La Heine Margot, are probably the best specimens extant. Dumas possesses almost alone among novelists the secretof writing interminable dialogue withoutbeing tedious. Of something the same kind, but of a far lower stamp, are the novels of Eugene Sue (180 4 -185 7). Dumas and Sue were accompanied and followed by a vast crowd of companions, independent or imitative. Alfred de Vigny had already attempted the historical novel in Cinq-Mars. Henri de La Touche, an excellent critic who formed George Sand, but a mediocre novelist, may bo mentioned, and perhaps also Roger do Beauvoir and Fr6d6ric Soulid. Paul Feval and Amcdde Achard are of the same school, and some of the at tempts of Jules Janin (1804-1874), more celebrated as a critic, may also be connected with it. By degrees, however, the taste for the novel of incident, at least of an historical kind, died out till it was revived in another form, and with an admixture of domestic interest, by MM. Erckmann- Chatrian. The last and one of the most splendid instances of the old style was Le Capitaine Fracassc, which Theophilo Gautier wrote in his old age as a kind of tour de force. The last-named writer in his earlier days had modified the incident novel in many short tales, a kind of writing for which French has always been famous, and in which Gautier s sketches are masterpieces. His only other long novel, Mademoiselle de Maupin, belongs rather to the class of analysis. With Gautier as a writer, whose literary character istics even excel his purely tale-telling powers, may be classed Prosper Merime e (1803-1871), one of the most exquisite 19th century masters of the language. Already, however, in 1830 the tide was setting strongly in favour of novels of contemporary life and manners. These were of course sus ceptible of extremely various treatment. For many years Paul de Kock, a writer who did not trouble himself about classics or romantics or any such matter, continued the tra dition of Marivaux, Crebillon fils, and Pigault Lebrun, in a series of not very moral or polished but lively and amusing sketches of life, principally of the bourgeois type. Later Charles de Bernard (1805-1850), with infinitely greater wit, elegance, propriety, and literary skill, did the same thing for the higher classes of French society. But the two great masters of the novel of character and manners as op posed to that of history and incident are Honore&quot; de Balzac (1799-1850) and Aurore Dudevant, commonly called George Sand (1793-1876). Their influence affected tho entire body of novelists who succeeded them, with very few exceptions. At the head of these exceptions may be placed Jules Sandeau (b. 1811), who, after writing a certain num ber of novels in a less individual style, at last made for himself a special subject in a certain kind of domestic novel, where the passions set in motion are less boisterous than those usually preferred by the French novelist, and reliance is mainly placed on minute character drawing and shades of colour sober in hue but very carefully adjusted (Catherine Mademoiselle de Penarvan, Mademoiselle de la Sei&amp;lt;jliere). In the same class of the more quiet and purely domestic novelists may be placed X. B. Saintine (Picciola), Madame C. Reybaud (Clementine, Le Cadet de Colobricres), J. T. de St Germain (Pour un fipingle, La Feuille de Coudrier), Madame Craven (Recit d une /Soeiir, Fleurange). Henri Beyle, who wrote under the nom de plume of Stendhal, also stands by himself. His chief work in tho line of fiction is La Chartreuse de Parme, an exceedingly powerful novel of the analytical kind, and he also composed a considerable number of critical and miscellaneous works. Last among the independents must be mentioned Henry Murger (1822- 18G1), the painter of what is called Bohemian life, that is to say, the struggles, difficulties, and amusements of students, youthful artists, and men of letters. In this peculiar style, which may perhaps be regarded as an irregu lar descendant of the picaroon romance, Murger has no rival ; and he is also, though on no extensive scale, a poet of great pathos. But with these exceptions, the influences of the two writers we have mentioned, sometimes combined, more often separate, may be traced throughout the whole of later novel literature. George Sand began with books G. strongly tinged with the spirit of revolt against moral and social arrangements, and she sometimes diverged into very curious paths of pseudo-philosophy, such as was popular in the second quarter of the century. At times, too, as in Lucrezia Floriani and some other works, she did not hesi tate to draw largely on her own personal adventures and experiences. But latterly she devoted herself rather to sketches of country life and manners, and to novels involving bold if not very careful sketches of character and more or less dramatic situations. She was one of the most fertile of novelists, continuing to the end of her long life to pour forth fiction at the rate of many volumes a year. This