A History of the French Novel

A History of the French Novel.

Vol. 1.

by George Saintsbury.

PREFACE

In beginning what, if it ever gets finished, must in all probability be the last of some already perhaps too numerous studies of literary history, I should like to point out that the plan of it is somewhat different from that of most, if not all, of its predecessors. I have usually gone on the principle (which I still think a sound one) that, in studying the literature of a country, or in dealing with such general characteristics of parts of literature as prosody, or such coefficients of all literature as criticism, minorities are, sometimes at least, of as much importance as majorities, and that to omit them altogether is to risk, or rather to a.s.sure, an imperfect--and dangerously imperfect--product.

In the present instance, however, I am attempting something that I have never, at such length, attempted before--the history of a Kind, and a Kind which has distinguished itself, as few others have done, by communicating to readers the _pleasure_ of literature. I might almost say that it is the history of that pleasure, quite as much as the history of the kind itself, that I wish to trace. In doing so it is obviously superfluous to include inferiorities and failures, unless they have some very special lesson or interest, or have been (as in the case of the minorities on the bridge of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) for the most part, and unduly, neglected, though they are important as experiments and links.[1] We really do want here--what the reprehensible hedonism of Mr. Matthew Arnold, and his submission to what some one has called "the eternal enemy, Caprice," wanted in all cases--"only the chief and princ.i.p.al things." I wish to give a full history of how what is commonly called the French Novel came into being and kept itself in being; but I do not wish to give an exhaustive, though I hope to give a pretty full, account of its pract.i.tioners.

In another point, however, I have kept to my old ways, and that is the way of beginning at the beginning. I disagree utterly with any Balbus who would build an absolute wall between romance and novel, or a wall hardly less absolute between verse- and prose-fiction. I think the French have (what is not common in their language) an advantage over us in possessing the general term _Roman_, and I have perhaps taken a certain liberty with my own t.i.tle in order to keep the noun-part of it to a single word. I shall extend the meaning of "novel"--that of _roman_ would need no extension--to include, not only the prose books, old and new, which are more generally called "romance," but the verse romances of the earlier period.

The subject is one with which I can at least plead almost lifelong familiarity. I became a subscriber to "Rolandi's," I think, during my holidays as a senior schoolboy, and continued the subscriptions during my vacations when I was at Oxford. In the very considerable leisure which I enjoyed during the six years when I was Cla.s.sical Master at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, I read more French than any other literature, and more novels than anything else in French. In the late 'seventies and early 'eighties, as well as more recently, I had to round off and fill in my knowledge of the older matter, for an elaborate account of French literature in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, for a long series of articles on French novelists in the _Fortnightly Review_, and for the _Primer_ and _Short History_ of the subject which I wrote for the Clarendon Press; while from 1880 to 1894, as a _Sat.u.r.day Review_er, I received, every month, almost everything notable (and a great deal hardly worth noting) that had appeared in France.

Since then, the cutting off of this supply, and the extreme and constant urgency of quite different demands on my time, have made my cultivation of the once familiar field "_parc_ and infrequent." But I doubt whether any really good judge would say that this was a serious drawback in itself; and it ceases to be one, even relatively, by the restriction of the subject to the close of the last century. It will be time to write of the twentieth-century novel when the twentieth century itself has gone more than a little farther.

For the abundance of translation, in the earlier part especially, I need, I think, make no apology. I shall hardly, by any one worth hearing, be accused of laziness or scamping in consequence of it, for translation is much more troublesome, and takes a great deal more time, than comment or history. The advantage, from all other points of view, should need no exposition: nor, I think, should that of pretty full story-abstract now and then.

There is one point on which, at the risk of being thought to "talk too much of my matters," I should like to say a further word. All my books, before the present volume, have been composed with the aid of a library, not very large, but constantly growing, and always reinforced with special reference to the work in hand; while I was able also, on all necessary occasions, to visit Oxford or London (after I left the latter as a residence), and for twenty years the numerous public or semi-public libraries of Edinburgh were also open to me. This present _History_ has been outlined in expectation for a very long time; and has been actually laid down for two or three years. But I had not been able to put much of it on paper when circ.u.mstances, while they gave me greater, indeed almost entire, leisure for writing, obliged me to part with my own library (save a few books with a reserve _pretium affectionis_ on them), and, though they brought me nearer both to Oxford and to London, made it less easy for me to visit either. The London Library, that Providence of unbooked authors, came indeed to my aid, for without it I should have had to leave the book alone altogether; and I have been "munitioned" sometimes, by kindness or good luck, in other ways. But I have had to rely much more on memory, and of course in some cases on previous writing of my own, than ever before, though, except in one special case,[2] there will be found, I think, not a single page of mere "rehas.h.i.+ng." I mention this without the slightest desire to beg off, in one sense, from any omissions or mistakes which may be found here, but merely to a.s.sure my readers that such mistakes and omissions are not due to idle and careless bookmaking. That "books have fates" is an accepted proposition. In respect to one of these--possession of materials and authorities--mine have been exceptionally fortunate hitherto, and if they had any merit it was no doubt largely due to this.

I have, in the present, endeavoured to make the best of what was not quite such good fortune. And if anybody still says, "Why did you not wait till you could supply deficiencies?" I can only reply that, after seventy, [Greek: nyx gar erchetai] is a more insistent warrant, and warning, than ever.[3]

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

[_Edinburgh, 1914-15; Southampton, 1915-16_]

1 ROYAL CRESCENT, BATH, _May 31, 1917_.

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

P. 3, _note_.--This note was originally left vague, because, in the first place, to perform public and personal fantasias with one's spear on the s.h.i.+eld of a champion, with whom one does not intend to fight out the quarrel, seems to me bad chivalry, and secondly, because those readers who were likely to be interested could hardly mistake the reference. The regretted death, a short time after the page was sent to press, of Mr. W. J. Courthope may give occasion to an acknowledgment, coupled with a sincere _ave atque vale_. Mr. Courthope was never an intimate friend of mine, and our agreement was greater in political than in literary matters: but for more than thirty years we were on the best terms of acquaintance, and I had a thorough respect for his accomplishments.

P. 20, l. 5.--_Fuerres de Gadres._ I wonder how many people thought of this when Englishmen "forayed Gaza" just before Easter, 1917?

P. 46, mid-page.--It so happened that, some time after having pa.s.sed this sheet for press, I was re-reading Dante (as is

Butler, who, by his translation and edition of the _Purgatorio_ in 1880, was my Virgil to lead me through the _Commedia_, after I had sinfully neglected it for exactly half a life-time. He did not know, and might easily not have known, the Vulgate _Lancelot_: but some of those whom he cites, and who evidently _did_ know it, do not seem to have recognised the full significance of the pa.s.sage in Dante. The text will give the original: the _Paradiso_ (xvi. 13-15) reference tells how Beatrice (after Cacciaguida's biographical and historical recital, and when Dante, in a confessed outburst of family pride, addresses his ancestor with the stately _Voi_), "smiling, appeared like her who coughed at the first fault which is written of Guinevere." This, of course (see text once more), is the Lady of Malahault, though Dante does not name her as he does Prince Galahault in the other _locus_. The older commentators (who, as has been said, _did_ know the original) do not seem to have seen in the reference much more than that both ladies noticed, and perhaps approved, what was happening. But I think there is more in it.

The Lady of Malahault (see note in text) had previously been aware that Lancelot was deeply in love, though he would not tell her with whom. Her cough therefore meant: "Ah! I have found you out." Now Beatrice, well as she knew Dante's propensity to love, knew as well that _pride_ was even more of a besetting weakness of his. This was quite a harmless instance of it: but still it _was_ an instance--and the "smile" which is _not_ recorded of the Arthurian lady meant: "Ah! I have _caught_ you out."

Even if this be excessive "reading into" the texts, the juxtaposition of them may not be unsatisfactory to some who are not least worth satisfying. (Since writing this, I have been reminded that Mr. Paget Toynbee did make the "juxtaposition" in his Clarendon Press _Specimens of Old French_ (October, 1892), printing there the "Lady of Malahault"

pa.s.sage from MSS. copied by Professor Ker. But there can be no harm in duplicating it.)

P. 121, ll. 8-10. Perhaps instead of, or at least beside, Archdeacon Grantly I should have mentioned a more real dignitary (as some count reality) of the Church, Charles Kingsley. The Archdeacon and the Canon would have fought on many ecclesiastical and some political grounds, but they might have got on as being, in Dr. Grantly's own words at a memorable moment "both gentlemen." At any rate, Kingsley was soaked in Rabelais, and one of the real curiosities of literature is the way in which the strength of _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ helped to beget the sweetness of _The Water Babies_.

Chap. viii. pp. 163-175.--After I had "made my" own "siege" of the _Astree_ on the basis of notes recording a study of it at the B.M., Dr.

Hagbert Wright of the London Library was good enough to let me know that his many years' quest of the book had been at last successful, and to give me the first reading of it. (It was Southey's copy, with his own unmistakable autograph and an inserted note, while it also contained a cover of a letter addressed to him, which had evidently been used as a book-mark.) Although not more than four months had pa.s.sed since the previous reading, I found it quite as appetising as (in the text itself) I had expressed my conviction that it would be: and things not noticed before cropped up most agreeably. There is no s.p.a.ce to notice all or many of them here. But one of the earliest, due to Hylas, cannot be omitted, for it is the completest and most sententious vindication of polyerotism ever phrased: "Ce n'etait pas que je n'aima.s.se les autres: mais j'avais encore, outre leur place, celle-ci vide dans mon ame." And the soul of Hylas, like Nature herself, abhorred a vacuum! (This approximation is not intended as "new and original": but it was some time after making it that I recovered, in _Notre Dame de Paris_, a forgotten antic.i.p.ation of it by Victor Hugo.)

Another early point of interest was that the frontispiece portrait of Astree (the edition, see _Bibliography_, appears to be the latest of the original and ungarbled ones, _imprimee a Rouen, et se vend a Paris_ (1647, 10 vols.)) is evidently a portrait, though not an identical one, of the same face given in the Abbe Reure's engraving of Diane de Chateaumorand herself. The nose, especially, is hardly mistakable, but the eyes have rather less expression, and the mouth less character, though the whole face (naturally) looks younger.

On the other hand, the portrait here--not of Celadon, but admittedly of Honore d'Urfe himself--is much less flattering than that in the Abbe's book.

Things specially noted in the second reading would (it has been said) overflow all bounds here possible: but we may perhaps find room for three lines from about the best of the very numerous but not very poetical verses, at the beginning of the sixth (_i.e._ the middle of the original _third_) volume:

_Le prix d'Amour c'est l'Amour meme._ Change d'humeur qui s'y plaira, Jamais Hylas ne changera,

the two last being the continuous refrain of a "villanelle" in which this bad man boasts his constancy in inconstancy.

P. 265, _note_ 1.--It ought perhaps to be mentioned that Mlle. de Lussan's paternity is also, and somewhat more probably, attributed to Eugene's elder brother, Thomas of Savoy, Comte de Soissons. The lady is said to have been born in 1682, when Eugene (b. 1663) was barely nineteen; but of course this is not decisive. His brother Thomas _Amedee_ (b. 1656) was twenty-six at the time. The attribution above mentioned gave no second name, and did not specify the relations.h.i.+p to Eugene: so I had some difficulty in identifying the person, as there were, in the century, three Princes Thomas of Savoy, and I had few books of reference. But my old friend and constant helper in matters historical, the Rev. William Hunt, D.Litt., cleared the point up for me.

Of the other two--Thomas _Francois_, who was by marriage Comte de Soissons and was grandfather of Eugene and Thomas Amedee, died in the same year in which Thomas Amedee was born, therefore twenty-six before Mlle. de Lussan's birth: while the third, Thomas _Joseph_, Eugene's cousin, was not born till 1796, fourteen years after the lady. The matter is, of course, of no literary importance: but as I had pa.s.sed the sheet for press before noticing the diversity of statements, I thought it better to settle it.

P. 267. Pajon. I ought not to have forgotten to mention that he bears the medal of Sir Walter Scott (Introduction to _The Abbot_) as "a pleasing writer of French Fairy Tales."

Page 453.--Choderlos de Laclos. Some surprise has been expressed by a friend of great competence at my leaving out _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_.

I am, of course, aware that "persons of distinction" have taken an interest in it; and I understand that, not many years ago, the unfortunate author of the beautiful lines _To Cynara_ wasted his time and talent on translating the thing. To make sure that my former rejection was not unjustified, I have accordingly read it with care since the greater part of this book was pa.s.sed for press; and it shall have a judgment here, if not in the text. I am unable to find any redeeming point in it, except that some ingenuity is shown in bringing about the _denouement_ by a rupture between the villain-hero and the villainess-heroine, M. le Vicomte de Valmont and Mme. la Marquise de Merteuil. Even this, though fairly craftsmanlike in treatment, is ba.n.a.l enough in idea--that idea being merely that jealousy, in both s.e.xes, survives love, shame, and everything else, even community in scoundrelism--in other words, that the green-eyed monster (like "Vernon"

and unlike "Ver") _semper viret_. But it is scarcely worth one's while to read six hundred pages of very small print in order to learn this. Of amus.e.m.e.nt, as apart from this very elementary instruction, I at least can find nothing. The pair above mentioned, on whom practically hangs the whole appeal, are merely disgusting. Their very voluptuousness is accidental: the sum and substance, the property and business of their lives and natures, are compact of mischief, malice, treachery, and the desire of "getting the better of somebody." Nor has this diabolism anything grand or impressive about it--anything that "intends greatly"

and glows, as has been said, with a black splendour, in Marlowesque or Websterian fas.h.i.+on. Nor, again, is it a "Fleur du Mal" of the Baudelairian kind, but only an ugly as well as noxious weed. It is prosaic and suburban. There is neither tragedy nor comedy, neither pa.s.sion nor humour, nor even wit, except a little horse-play. Congreve and Crebillon are as far off as Marlowe and Webster; in fact, the descent from Crebillon's M. de Clerval to Laclos' M. de Valmont is almost inexpressible. And, once more, there is nothing to console one but the dull and obvious moral that to adopt love-making as an "occupation" (_vide_ text, p. 367) is only too likely to result in the [Greek: techne] becoming, in vulgar hands, very [Greek: banausos]

indeed.

The victims and _compa.r.s.es_ of the story do nothing to atone for the princ.i.p.als. The lacrimose stoop-to-folly-and-wring-his-bosom Mme. de Tourvel is merely a bore; the _ingenue_ Cecile de Volanges is, as Mme.

de Merteuil says, a _pet.i.te imbecile_ throughout, and becomes no better than she should be with the facility of a predestined strumpet; her lover, Valmont's rival, and Mme. de Merteuil's plaything, M. le Chevalier Danceny, is not so very much better than _he_ should be, and nearly as much an imbecile in the masculine way as Cecile in the feminine; her respectable mother and Valmont's respectable aunt are not merely as blind as owls are, but as stupid as owls are not. Finally, the book, which in many particular points, as well as in the general letter-scheme, follows Richardson closely (adding clumsy notes to explain the letters, apologise for their style, etc.), exhibits most of the faults of its original with hardly any of that original's merits.

Valmont, for instance, is that intolerable creature, a pattern Bad Man--a Grandison-Lovelace--a prig of vice. Indeed, I cannot see how any interest can be taken in the book, except that derived from its background of _tacenda_; and though no one, I think, who has read the present volume will accuse me of squeamishness, _I_ can find in it no interest at all. The final situations referred to above, if artistically led up to and crisply told in a story of twenty to fifty pages, might have some; but ditchwatered out as they are, I have no use for them. The letter-form is particularly unfortunate, because, at least as used, it excludes the ironic presentation which permits one almost to fall in love with Becky Sharp, and quite to enjoy _Jonathan Wild_. Of course, if anybody says (and apologists _do_ say that Laclos was, as a man, proper in morals and mild in manners) that to hold up the wicked to mere detestation is a worthy work, I am not disposed to argue the point.

Only, for myself, I prefer to take moral diatribes from the clergy and aesthetic delectation from the artist. The avenging duel between Lovelace and Colonel Morden is finely done; that between Valmont and Danceny is an obvious copy of it, and not finely done at all. Some, again, of the riskiest pa.s.sages in subject are made simply dull by a Richardsonian particularity which has no seasoning either of humour or of excitement. Now, a Richardson _de mauvais lieu_ is more than a bore--it is a nuisance, not pure and simple, but impure and complex.

I have in old days given to a few novels (though, of course, only when they richly deserved it) what is called a "slating"--an _ereintement_--as I once had the honour of translating that word in conversation, at the request of a distinguished English novelist, for the benefit of a distinguished French one. Perhaps an example of the process is not utterly out of place in a _History_ of the novel itself.

But I have long given up reviewing fiction, and I do not remember any book of which I shall have to speak as I have just spoken. So _hic caestus_, etc.--though I am not such a c.o.xcomb as to include _victor_ in the quotation.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For the opposite or corresponding reasons, it has seemed unnecessary to dwell on such persons, a hundred and more years later, as Voisenon and La Morliere, who are merely "corrupt followers" of Crebillon _fils_; or, between the two groups, on the numerous failures of the quasi-historical kind which derived partly from Mlle. de Scudery and partly from Mme. de la Fayette.

[2] That of the minor "Sensibility" novelists in the last chapter.

[3] I have once more to thank Professors Ker, Elton, and Gregory Smith for their kindness in reading my proofs and making most valuable suggestions; as well as Professor Fitzmaurice-Kelly and the Rev. William Hunt for information on particular points.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

[Sidenote: The early history of prose fiction.]

Although I have already, in two places,[4] given a somewhat precise account of the manner in which fiction in the modern sense of the term, and especially prose fiction, came to occupy a province in modern literature which had been so scantily and infrequently cultivated in ancient, it would hardly be proper to enter upon the present subject with a mere reference to these other treatments. It is matter of practically no controversy (or at least of none in which it is worth while to take a part) that the history of prose fiction, before the Christian era, is very nearly a blank, and that, in the fortunately still fairly abundant remains of poetic fiction, "the story is the least part" (as Dryden says in another sense), or at least the _telling_ of the story, in our modern sense, is so. Homer (in the _Odyssey_ at any rate), Herodotus (in what was certainly not intentional fiction at all), and Xenophon[5] are about the only Greek writers who can tell a story, for the magnificent narrative of Thucydides in such cases as those of the Plague and the Syracusan cataclysm shows all the "headstrong"

_ethos_ of the author in its positive refusal to a.s.sume a "story"

character. In Latin there is nothing before Livy and Ovid;[6] of whom the one falls into the same category with Herodotus and Xenophon, and the other, admirable _raconteur_ as he is, thinks first of his poetry.