A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL
(TO THE CLOSE OF THE 19TH CENTURY)
BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.; HON. L.L.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.; FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY; HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD; LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
VOL. II
FROM 1800 TO 1900
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1919
Solo a veces, con un dejo de zozobra y de ansiedad, timido tiembla en sus labios un viejo y triste cantar, copla que vibre en el aire como un toque funeral: _La Noche Buena se viene, la Noche Buena se va! Y nosotros nos iremos y no volveremos mas._
CARLOS FERNANDEZ SHAW, _La Balada de los Viejos._
COPYRIGHT
PREFACE
"The second chantry" (for it would be absurd to keep "temple") of this work "is not like the first"; in one respect especially, which seems to deserve notice in its Preface or porch--if a chantry may be permitted a porch. In Volume I.--though many of its subjects (not quite all) had been handled by me before in more or less summary fashion, or in reviews of individual books, or in other connections than that of the novel--only Hamilton, Lesage, Marivaux, and the minor "Sensibility" men and women had formed the subjects of separate and somewhat detailed studies, wholly or mainly as novelists. The case is altered in respect of the present volume. The _Essays on French Novelists_, to which I there referred, contain a larger number of such studies appertaining to the present division--studies busied with Charles de Bernard, Gautier, Murger, Flaubert, Dumas, Sandeau, Cherbuliez, Feuillet. On Balzac I have previously written two papers of some length, one as an Introduction to Messrs. Dent's almost complete translation of the _Comedie_, with shorter sequels for each book, the other an article in the _Quarterly Review_ for 1907. Some dozen or more years ago I contributed to an American edition[1] of translations of Merimee by various hands, a long "Introduction" to that most remarkable writer, and I had, somewhat earlier, written on Maupassant for the _Fortnightly Review_. One or two additional dealings of some substance with the subject might be mentioned, such as another Introduction to _Corinne_, but not to _Delphine_. These, however, and passages in more general _Histories_, hardly need specification.
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2
- 2: If not actually a Pisgah sight reversed
- 3: Here the relevance is much greater
- 4: In The Later Nineteenth Century Edinburgh and London
- 5: Addenda and corrigenda for vol
- 6: And Hattige ou Les Amours au Roy de Tamaran Cologne
- 7: And a table of over thirty Histoires
- 8: Shift comma from after to before even
- 9: Who objected to my omission there of Madame de Charrieres
- 10: Le Rouge et le Noir Beyle's masterpiece
- 11: Chapter vithe novel of style gautier
- 12: Chapter xiiinaturalism the goncourts
- 13: In pure chronological order Chateaubriand should come first
- 14: Madame de Stael has cast off not only that drogue
- 15: The whole thing is topsy turvy
- 16: Delphine behaves throughout like a child
- 17: Between Delphine and Corinne Madame de Stael had
- 18: Sidenote An illustrated edition of it
- 19: It is only possible to say here that Nelvil
- 20: Sidenote The character of Nelvil
- 21: Sidenote Compensations Corinne herself
- 22: Have never produced a good novel yet
- 23: Better read nothing but Atala and Rene
- 24: Exactly 2383 folio pages of MSS
- 25: Where Chactas is a though not the chief
- 26: Especially as far as Amelie is concerned
- 27: 28 but in regard to Les Natchez
- 28: Les Natchez is almost the last
- 29: But by an Examen in the old fashion
- 30: Adventures past and future of Eudore
- 31: Even magniloquence and become bombast
- 32: Gardens of delight extend round the radiant Jerusalem
- 33: As well as in' Germany and at Coppet
- 34: They often seem to confuse it with priggishness
- 35: Portando dentro accidioso fummo
- 36: 35 If one had only been Telemachus at this time
- 37: That Paul de Kock certainly made him laugh
- 38: Sidenote Petits Tableaux de Moeurs
- 39: Juste retour des choses ici bas
- 40: Then arose in France a caricature
- 41: Sidenote Edmond et sa Cousine
- 42: Adolphine is an adored and unhoped for idol
- 43: One Mademoiselle Adelaide Chopard
- 44: One of this book's rather numerous grisettes
- 45: And Nicette might reconcile the veriest sentimentalist
- 46: Sidenote Le Barbier de Paris
- 47: And couci couci one of them
- 48: And few things less unreal than vulgarity
- 49: De Montolieu Caroline de Lichtfield
- 50: After a little time Caroline sees
- 51: Ducray Duminil's Lolotte et Fanfan
- 52: For Ducray Duminil is a sort of Pigault Lebrun des enfants
- 53: Ludovica ou Le Testament de Waterloo
- 54: A third enlevement of the real Ludovica
- 55: And Ducange seems to have left it off
- 56: I have seldom read greater rubbish than Le Solitaire
- 57: And Smarra have been the greatest favourites
- 58: Though he cannot directly punish Trilby
- 59: And this is the history of Xailoun
- 60: But he put Xailoun in a safer place
- 61: Sidenote Smarra and Soeur Beatrix
- 62: She accepts graciously the advances of the amorous Sergy
- 63: Clashing the castanets with a maddening volubility
- 64: In a manner which I hardly remember elsewhere
- 65: Coupling Beranger with Paul de Kock
- 66: It is indeed so late that instead of the jupons
- 67: Ou Les Enfants de Maitre Jacques
- 68: While Nodier had been writing stories
- 69: Has experienced Victor Hugo still
- 70: Of having metamorphosed Hans into Han
- 71: Even the character of Bug Jargal himself
- 72: In fact cheap copies of Le Dernier Jour
- 73: Based on the tricks she has taught Djali
- 74: And sacrament at once of Romanticism itself
- 75: With Quasimodo and Esmeralda as they are presented here
- 76: Some may think better of Claude Frollo
- 77: The Scudery books are infinitely duller
- 78: So absolutely intolerable as Marius
- 79: Where he comes in contact with the Thenardier family
- 80: Sidenote Guernsey at the time
- 81: You see lines of foam stretching from headland to headland
- 82: By enumerating the absurdities of L'Homme Qui Rit
- 83: Baron Clancharlie et Hunkerville
- 84: The intense absurdity of his personified wapentakes
- 85: And with Les Travailleurs de la Mer
- 86: For any critical historian of the novel as such
- 87: As Les Orientales were the poetical
- 88: Broadhead could certainly read
- 89: 110 Really good wines were proportionally cheap
- 90: Indeed Beyle delayed his novel work so long
- 91: Sidenote Beyle his peculiarity
- 92: An incarnation of the bad Beyle
- 93: Sidenote The Waterloo episode
- 94: Sidenote L'Abbesse de Castro
- 95: De Renal himself a gentillatre
- 96: What becomes of Mathilde we are not told
- 97: It can seldom be more in place than with Beyle
- 98: Sidenote The Nouvelles Inedites
- 99: As in many ways like Beyle said of himself on his death bed
- 100: 148 to edit a translation of the entire Comedie
- 101: Sidenote And of Balzac himself
- 102: Sidenote The Oeuvres de Jeunesse
- 103: Made of poisoned fish bones Argow le Pirate
- 104: A competent critic who read Les Chouans
- 105: Sidenote The Contes Drolatiques
- 106: The Scenes de la Vie de Province are richer in magnums
- 107: And recently a critic of less repute than Brunetiere
- 108: 167 Sidenote Its effect on successors
- 109: And with La Peau itself he had crossed Jordan
- 110: Which Balzac makes of that great weapon of the novelist
- 111: Who had met Beyle earlier at Milan
- 112: That Beyle did mean to make the book gai
- 113: 150 Quarterly Review for January 1907
- 114: Even if Balzac did once wish it
- 115: That this famous novelist has not
- 116: Les Beaux Messieurs de Bois Dore
- 117: This annoyed Trenmor very much
- 118: Has never reached the centre about Byron
- 119: The handsome but worthless Anzoleto
- 120: Trenmor first a brute and then a bore
- 121: Sidenote La Comtesse de Rudolstadt
- 122: Sidenote The making good of Lucrezia Floriani
- 123: 187 Karol falls in love at first sight
- 124: Is no doubt La Petite Fadette
- 125: On the immense and glorious emancipation from feudal tyranny
- 126: Balzac's peasant scenes against her
- 127: La Daniella is a rather long book and a rather dull one
- 128: Sidenote Le Marquis de Villemer
- 129: Oliphant 195 and Miss Braddon as commandresses of the order
- 130: Where Tweed can only manage one
- 131: Sidenote and on Un Hiver a Majorque
- 132: There are several 'most intolerables
- 133: While the first named was a polygraph of the polygraphs
- 134: Sidenote Gautier his burden of style
- 135: And a river of large pearls
- 136: He even tries to renounce his vows
- 137: Romuald attacks his work desperately
- 138: At once I recognised Clarimonde
- 139: Lover in possession of Clarimonde
- 140: And some of it spurted on Clarimonde
- 141: I could not help loving Clarimonde
- 142: Only the next night I again saw Clarimonde
- 143: And could not be divorced from them
- 144: I should claim for La Morte Amoureuse
- 145: But Merimee did not choose to have so many things
- 146: Il se moque de ses emotions a l'instant meme ou il s'y livre
- 147: Musidora and Arabelle are even more faulty in this respect
- 148: Le Capitaine Fracasse and others
- 149: It would be difficult to find a Bowdler for this Madeleine
- 150: As well as the whole part of Jose Navarro
- 151: As to Colomba compared with Carmen
- 152: But Arsene Guillot and L'Abbe Aubain
- 153: Sidenote La Prise de la Redoute
- 154: Sidenote The Dernieres Nouvelles
- 155: 229 Sidenote La Chambre Bleue
- 156: Sidenote The Chronique de Charles IX
- 157: Like La Perichole in Le Carrosse
- 158: Sidenote Frederic et Bernerette
- 159: Sidenote Les Deux Maitresses
- 160: Sidenote Gerard de Nerval his peculiar position
- 161: 241 Their titles are La Boheme Galante
- 162: Sidenote And especially Sylvie
- 163: Sidenote Alfred de Vigny Cinq Mars
- 164: And Vigny makes it justly clear that
- 165: Romanticised effectively enough
- 166: But Stello was quite as clever as the objectors
- 167: Verily thou comest to save this man from his misery
- 168: On being coaxed with the proper medical manner
- 169: Is no more of a regular novel than Stello
- 170: Meets an old friend a certain Captain Renaud who
- 171: Rather than with Merimee or Gautier
- 172: The proem gives us Dominique as after his passion years
- 173: Lafacido Hearn more recently executed another
- 174: You can still buy avanturine wax
- 175: 225 Merimee etait gentilhomme Sainte Beuve ne l'etait pas
- 176: For Baudelaire's still less novelish following of Gaspard
- 177: 242 I may be taken to task for rendering lisiere fringes
- 178: When Dumas himself the one major left
- 179: And Nisard are equally favourable
- 180: The Marquis and Marquise de Couaen
- 181: When Sainte Beuve published it
- 182: Sidenote Jules Sandeau and Charles de Bernard
- 183: Based on Sandeau's Sacs et Parchemins
- 184: And Le Gendre among the short stories
- 185: They do not attempt elaborate analysis
- 186: And the novel of melodrama Le Juif Errant
- 187: But more melodramatic than the former
- 188: Soulie himself was born at Foix
- 189: The Bohemia 285 of which Murger was the laureate
- 190: Sidenote Les Buveurs d'Eau and the Miscellanies
- 191: Sidenote Reybaud Jerome Paturot
- 192: Of the latter of whom Reybaud writing
- 193: Of course this is a parenthesis
- 194: Sidenote Les Nuits Anglaises
- 195: Karr would have high place and large room
- 196: 304 Sidenote Ourliac Contes du Bocage
- 197: And almost of awe There was beef
- 198: Also on the better work of Paul Feval
- 199: In that case results can be attained anyhow
- 200: Some touches of revived interest in Murger
- 201: Of the Oxford edition of Thackeray for the thing
- 202: I learn from the books that there were some other Achards
- 203: Sidenote Plagiarism and devilling
- 204: But plumminess is plumminess still
- 205: As there had been in the Vicomte de Bragelonne
- 206: Dumas had Memoirs on to which
- 207: It seems to me to be melodrama infinitely superior
- 208: D'Artagnan and Chicot are doubtless great
- 209: D'Artagnan and Chicot are again the best
- 210: How mere recit dominated fiction
- 211: And take up Les Trois Mousquetaires or Les Quarante Cinq
- 212: And the novels would certainly bear traces of the exploit
- 213: It was only after this time that Dumas fils
- 214: Despite a great deal of brag and swagger
- 215: And still more in Chateaubriand
- 216: Whether it be sufficient to establish primacy or not
- 217: Or with Dumas as story tellers
- 218: Though sometimes belittled by foolish criticism
- 219: Sidenote The Novel of Romanticism generally
- 220: The historical romanticism of Vigny and Merimee
- 221: Let us take Panurge with Laclos' Valmont
- 222: Valmont according to prescription
- 223: With the possible exception of Beyle
- 224: Was shocked long ago at my writing Mazar in Library
- 225: And the usual methods of Dumas fils himself
- 226: 352 Sidenote La Dame aux Camelias
- 227: Camellias have gone out of fashion
- 228: So conventionally inconsistent with her bad
- 229: And of diablerie even more than reason
- 230: But Tristan has the single word Non
- 231: Antonine loves her husband frantically
- 232: Sidenote Aventures de Quatre Femmes
- 233: When the wicked Joseph le Mendiant
- 234: 373 Nor does her school friend Marceline Delaunay who
- 235: Le Docteur Servans is more substantial
- 236: Sidenote Contes et Nouvelles
- 237: Despite its discomfortable matter
- 238: And the irresistible Iza seduces Constantin himself
- 239: Iza is ill natured and Manon is not
- 240: For Crebillon pere was a most respectable man
- 241: He was not quite so complimentary about Renan
- 242: Bretagne tells him what has happened since the Maid's death
- 243: Sophie Printemps is the history of a good girl
- 244: Over the Fils Naturel I confess that even I
- 245: And I find none in Dumas fils
- 246: Sidenote The books Madame Bovary
- 247: 397 Salammbo herself is shadowy
- 248: Sidenote L'Education Sentimentale
- 249: But La Tentation de Saint Antoine
- 250: Flaubert suffered from no monotony of faculty
- 251: Sidenote Bouvard et Pecuchet
- 252: While in other respects he is romantique a tous crins
- 253: Suggested that if Emma had married Homais
- 254: Other than Flaubert and Dumas fils
- 255: As a thirdsman to Flaubert and Dumas fils
- 256: Or even Valmont superior to scruple
- 257: Julia de Trecoeur is a wilful and wayward girl
- 258: Though not ceasing to love Aliette
- 259: Sidenote Alphonse Daudet and his curious position
- 260: But none of these is so saturated with personality as Daudet
- 261: But he can be both extremely amusing and really pathetic
- 262: Le Roi des Montagnes and Tolla
- 263: Lello Manuel Coromila finds out the plot too late
- 264: Is fortunate for the nincompoops
- 265: Diderot said and though some people believe him not
- 266: Sidenote Ponson du Terrail and Gaboriau
- 267: But Ponson du Terrail bores me
- 268: 432 Sidenote Feydeau Sylvie
- 269: The actual final letter of the name of Gustave Droz
- 270: Chocolate with whipped cream on it
- 271: Cherbuliez became one of the Deux Mondains
- 272: Le Comte Kostia is sometimes considered his best novel
- 273: Two of them much extolled by some Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly
- 274: Sidenote Leon Cladel Les Va nu pieds
- 275: 447 while the last Diabolique
- 276: By the meeting of Harry Bertram and Dandie Dinmont
- 277: And so does Rose Marius Sardat
- 278: Decided that meat is of itself atheistical
- 279: Is almost throughout imitation Balzacian
- 280: Separately considered from its curve and its nostrils
- 281: Let the supernatural remain as it is
- 282: By Edmond de Goncourt for himself and his brother Jules
- 283: In Cherie there is nothing exactly improper
- 284: For this is what it really comes to in the Goncourts
- 285: Sidenote Emile Zola to be treated differently
- 286: It must surely be obvious that insistence on the lesion
- 287: It must be evident that Heredity
- 288: Anticipated Furetiere in not a few points
- 289: Sidenote Les Rougon Macquart
- 290: Even beyond L'Assommoir and Nana
- 291: Of more than Zolaesque brilliancy
- 292: That Emile Zola had the root of the Art of Fiction in him
- 293: And so marks an essential differentia
- 294: It is as round and smooth as Boule de Suif herself
- 295: To these persons Bel Ami was a sweet content
- 296: The character of Madeleine Forestier
- 297: Not above Maupassant premier bourgeois
- 298: The line of ascent was continued in Pierre et Jean
- 299: 497 and she by no means jilts or threatens jilting
- 300: Ends with Les Dimanches d'un Bourgeois de Paris
- 301: Which is a sort of tragic Boule de Suif the tragedy being
- 302: When Maupassant reached the Elysian Fields
- 303: Some oddments 508 may deserve addition
- 304: Falls short in the latter respect of Boule de Suif
- 305: That Maupassant's pessimism is most obvious
- 306: In reference to the apologies for Maupassant's pessimism
- 307: Had no hold whatever on Maupassant
- 308: Et vient mourir au bord de notre eternite
- 309: Elle trouva naturel de faire les autres heureux
- 310: And it has been urged for Edmond that good men liked him
- 311: Though a remarkable human document itself
- 312: 485 Maupassant could draw gentlemen and ladies
- 313: 496 Not that I wish to blaspheme Circe
- 314: Fay ce que dois may require a little enlarging
- 315: Sidenote Ferdinand Fabre L'Abbe Tigrane
- 316: 524 A very pleasant volume full is Norine
- 317: Except L'Abbe Tigrane itself
- 318: A sort of duplicate of the hero of L'Abbe Tigrane
- 319: Taillevent ends with two murders
- 320: By Baptistin and by a much interrupted journey in snow
- 321: Denise herself is very near the first rank
- 322: Le pere Maugars is a banker who
- 323: Sidenote General characteristics
- 324: Six years later Fromentin's Dominique
- 325: Who jilts his cousin Claire de Beaulieu
- 326: La Grande Marniere does not aspire to such heights
- 327: I have quite a lively remembrance of the advent of M
- 328: La Vie Privee de Michel Teissier
- 329: And admitting that the legal crime may be excusable
- 330: Nor can I think highly of La Haut
- 331: Many people have tried to write about waltzing
- 332: 554 Sidenote Le Menage du Pasteur Naudie
- 333: Sidenote Scenes de la Vie Cosmopolite
- 334: And Jules Valles of the Commune
- 335: 524 He had actually been intended for the Church
- 336: Ohnet was probably not much among the Sentences
- 337: But I hope they waltzed to the mazurka
- 338: At the actual meeting of eighteenth and nineteenth
- 339: In less idiosyncratic writers than these
- 340: The level of artistic excellence was correspondingly lowered
- 341: As does all democratisation inevitably
- 342: To be wildly unhistorical and uncritical
- 343: Declined is still essentially Romantic
- 344: 567 and quite likely to prove as readable as I found M
- 345: Ohnet is a sort of vulgarised Sandeau
- 346: Vi comtesse de Saint Mars and M
- 347: Part of Clara Gazul originally
- 348: L'Ane Mort et la Femme Guillotinee
- 349: La Vie Privee de Michel Teissier
- 350: 226 Adventures de Quatre Femmes et d'un Perroquet
- 351: 318 Beaux Messieurs de Bois Dore
- 352: 65 68 Carrosse du Saint Sacrement
- 353: 451 Crime de Silvestre Bonnard
- 354: 298 Dernier Jour d'un Condamne
- 355: 403Eccelino da Romano Ezzelin
- 356: 501 502 Frederic et Bernerette
- 357: 167 Histoire du Lieutenant Valentin
- 358: 453 Japhet in Search of a Father
- 359: 251 L'Homme aux Trois Culottes
- 360: 236 Mademoiselle Giraud ma Femme
- 361: Louis Charles Alfred de 1810 1857
- 362: Jean Charles Emmanuel 1780 1844
- 363: 172 note Quatre Vingt Treize
- 364: 385 Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre
- 365: Servitude et Grandeur Militaires
- 366: 556 Tentation de Saint Antoine
- 367: 282 288 Voyages Chateaubriand's
