Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/717

 RECEXT HISTORY.] F R A N C E 681 De Barante, after beginning with literary criticism, turned to history, and in his Histoire des Dues de Bourgogne pro duced a work of capital importance. .As was to be expected, many of the most brilliant results of this devotion to histori cal subjects consisted of works dealing with the French Revolution. No series of historical events has ever per haps received treatment at the same time from so many different points of view, and by writers of such varied literary excellence, among whom it must, however, be said that the purely royalist side is hardly at all represented. One of the earliest of these histories is that of Mignet (b. 179G), a sober and judicious historian of the older school. About the same time was begun the brilliant work of M. Thiers (1797-1877) on the Revolution, which established the literary reputation of the future president of the French republic, and was at a later period completed by the Histoire du Consulat et de V Empire. The downfall of the July monarchy and the early years of the empire witnessed the publication of several works of the first importance on this subject. De Barante contributed histories of the Convention and the Directory, but the three books of greatest note were those of Lamartine, Michelet (1798-1873), and Louis Blanc (b. 1813). Lamartine s Histoire des Girondins is written from the constitutional republican point of view, and is some times considered to have had much influence in producing the events of 1848. It is, perhaps, rather the work of an orator and poet than of a historian. The work of Michelet is of a more original character. Besides his history of the Revolution, Michelet wrote an extended history of France, aud a very large number of smaller works on historical, political, and social subjects. His imaginative powers are of the highest order, and his style stands alone in French for its strangely broken and picturesque character, its turbid abundance of striking images, arid its somewhat sombre magnificence, qualities which, as may easily be supposed, found full occupation in a history of the Revolution. Tho work of Louis Blanc is that of a sincere but ardent republi can, and is useful from this point of view, but possesses no extraordinary literary merit. The principal contributions to the history of the Revolution during the last twenty years are those of Quinet, Lanfrey, and Taine. Edgar Quinet (1803-1875), like Louis Blanc a devotee of the Republic and an exile for its sake, brought to this one of his latest works a mind and pen long trained to literary and historical studies ; but La Revolution is not considered his best work. P. Lanfrey devoted himself with extraordinary patience and acuteness to the destruction of the Napoleonic legend, and the setting of the character of Napoleon I. in a new, auth entic, and very far from favourable light. Quite recently M. Taine, after distinguishing himself, as we have mentioned, in literary criticism (Hisloire de la Litterature Anglaise), and attaining less success in philosophy (De V Intelligence), has begun an elaborate discussion of the Revolution, its causes, character, and consequences, which has excited some com motion among the more ardent devotees of the principles of 89. To return from this group, we must notice Michaud (1767-1839), the historian of the- crusades, and Guizot (1787-1876), who, like his rival Thiers, devoted himself much to historical study. His earliest works were literary and linguistic, but he soon turned to political history, and for the last half-century of his long life his contributions to historical literature were almost incessant and of the most various character. The most important are the. histories Des Origines du Gouvernemcnt Representatif, De la Revolution d A ngleterre, De la Civilisation en France, and latterly a Histoire de France, which he was writing at the time of his death. Among minor historians of the century may be mentioned Duvergier de Hauranne (Gouvernement Parlementaire en France), Mignet (Histoire de Marie Stuart), Ampere (Histoire Romaine a Rome), Beugnot (Destruction du Paganisms d Occident), ilaussonville (La Reunion de la Lorraine a la France), Vaulabelle (Les Deux Restaurations.) Summary and Conclusion. We have in these last pages given such an outline of the 19th century literature of France as seemed convenient for the completion of what has gone before. It has been already remarked that the nearer approach is made to our own time the less is it possible to give exhaustive accounts of the individual cultivators of the different branches of literature. It maybe added, perhaps, that such exhaustivencss becomes, as we advance, less and less necessary, as well as less and less possible. The indi vidual Parnassien may and does produce work that is in itself of greater literary value than that of the individual trouvere. As a matter of literary history his contribution is less remarkable because of the examples he has before him and the circumstances which he has around him. Yet we have endeavoured to draw such a sketch of French litera ture from the Chanson de Roland to the Legende des Siecles that no important development and hardly any important partaker in such development should be left out. A few lines may, perhaps, be now profitably given to summing up the aspects of the whole, remembering always that, as in no case is generalization easier than in the case of the literary aspects and tendencies of periods and nations, so in no case is it apt to be more delusive unless corrected and supported by ample information cf fact and detail. At, the close of the llth century and at the beginning of the 12th we find the vulgar tongue in France not merely in fully organized use for literary purposes, but already employed in most of the forms of poetical writing. An immense outburst of epic and narrative verse has taken place, and lyrical poetry, not limited as in the case of the epics to the north of France, but extending from Roussillon to the Pas de Calais, completes this. The 12th century adds to these earliest forms the important development of the mystery, extends the subjects and varies the manner of epic verse, and begins the compositions of literary prose with the chronicles of St Denis and of Yillehardouin, and the prose romances of the Arthurian cycle. All this litera ture is so far connected purely with the knightly and priestly orders, though it is largely composed and still more largely dealt in by classes of men, trouveres and jongleurs, who are not necessarily either knights or priests, and in the case of the jongleurs are certainly neither. With a possible ancestry of Romance and Teutonic cantilena?, Breton lain, and vernacular legends, the new literature has a certain pattern and model in Latin and for the most part ecclesi astical compositions. It has the sacred books and the legends of the saints for examples of narrative, the rhythm of the hymns for a guide to metre, and the ceremonies of the church for a stimulant to dramatic performance. By degrees also in this 12th century forms of literature which busy themselves with the unprivileged classes begin to be born. The fabliau takes every phase of life for its subject ; the folk-song acquires elegance and does not lose raciness and truth. In the next century, the 13th, mediaeval litera ture in France arrives at its prime a prime which lasts until the first quarter of the 14th. The early epics lose something of their savage charms, the polished literature of Provence quickly perishes. But in the provinces which speak the more prevailing tongue nothing is wanting to literary development. The language itself has shaken off all it3 youthful incapacities, and, though not yet well adapted for the requirements of modern life and study, is in every way equal to the demands made upon it by its own time. The dramatic germ contained in the fabliau and quickened by the mystery produces the profane drama. Ambitious works of merit in the most various kinds are published ; Aucassin et Nicolelte stands side by side with the Vie de IX. 86