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F r e nc h L i t e r a r y

S t ud i e s By

T B g U D M O S E B RO W N -

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P r of es s or

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R o ma nc e L a ngu a ges U ni v er s i t y of D u b l i n of

LO N Q O N

D U B L IN

Th e Ta l b o t P re ss Lt d 89 T a l b o t S t r e e t

T F i she r U nw i n Lt d 1 A d e l phi Te r rac e

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PREFATORY NOTE

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ARTS of the Essays on Stuart Merrill and Francis Vie lé Cri fli n are r e printed by permission from S i nn Fe i n part of the Intr oductory Es say from the Ir i s h R e v i e w : some o f the tran slations from R on sard a nd Louise La b é a nd the poem entitled P a s te l i n the Essay on The Poets o f the Eighteen th " C e n tury from TC D l have to than k my frien d Mr Cyril Cre v e que r for innumerable suggestion s : he has read the whole book in MS and i n proo f and has he l ped me far more than any form al a c know le dg Verlai ne ment can indicate The Essay on is almost e n tirely his all the tran slations from Verlaine are from his pen and also the poem quo ted a t the end o f the Essay on The Poets of the Eightee n th " Ce n tury 1 am however entirely responsible for the defects of my work -

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F R E N C H L I TE R A R Y S TU D I E S INTRODUCTORY ES S AY

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THE POINT OF VIEW I HE poets whose profiles I shall attempt to catch a s they bend over their manuscripts or breathe the s cented dawn upon their thresholds are alike in one thing only They lov e d Art with a lov e a s passionate ' ' a s a lo v e r s for his mistress or a mysti c s for his God " " They had no message and desired none Did I s pe a k otherwise o f them S c é v e in some recondite p a radise or on some lonely mountain top united at l ast with his Fernette du CuiIIe t Ronsard e nthroned in the Te m p le of Art Bertin and de c o m us D e l i ll e c onversing with the fair a nd fragile l a dies of some Elysian Versailles Leconte de Lis le on the fields of asphodel Merrill in his supe rnal Fontainebleau would stoop and bl a st me with their everlasting sc orn And how should I mee t ' V i e Ié C r ifhn s passionate eyes averted sorrowfully from ' H e le n of the russet hair or Le Ca r do nne l s lifted re p ro a c hfully from his breviary ! J a mes Elroy Flecker was right The pla c e of poet is not leadership : he shows the t he .

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FRENCH LIT ERARY STUDIES way to no heroi c time to come He may sing of heroes : he doe s n ot create them It is an accident that his record of their prowess is their b es t mon u ment True it is that

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Pindar celebrate Great Hiero Lord of Syracuse O r Theron chief of A c ra ga s These despots wisely may re fuse Re c ord in unenduring bras s if

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But it is tr ue onl y bec a use brass moulders aw a y and ' stone weathers ; while of ol d the poet s words handed from f ather to son and to— day the printed rec ord perpetually renewed are more enduring Pindar celebrated Hiero a nd Theron beca use it pleased him to do so not to stimulate other sovereigns to follow in their footsteps The millenium wil l not c ome a d ay the sooner fo r ' all t he poets in the worl d Art for Art s sake is " just a s me a ningless a formula as Social Art The poet i s not (to quote the defun c t P io nee r) a seer who uses the things of Art f or an ulterior purpose " He ha s no ide a l of servi ce But ne i ther does he sit aloof in impenetrable glory ma king l one l y music amid the ruin o f the world The poet is no longe r disheve ll ed wild eyed ha lf see r a nd ha lf m ua d pointing the road to some imagined Heaven ; nor is he some mad pontiff led in chains imagining the people bow to him—a t the he a d of the Bacchic pro cession of drunken politi c i a ns thinking to lead them like a bejewelled and bed izened soverei gn helpless beneath his t awdry crown He goes no more in ,

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THE PO INT OF VIEW 7 fancy dress to the dan ci n g hall of life He has left his ha lo in t he cloak room an d lo s t the ticket He judges pigs edits papers writes novels te aches French or geography an d make s up prescriptions like the most mundane of mo rtals He aspires to no apocalypt ic onslaught on the p orta ls of Heave n to no spurious demagogic glory : he has forgotten to tear his h a ir and beat his breas t an d acclaim himself the accursed of God Lamartine an d Hugo have had their d ay Prophets an d charl a tan s are no more Chateaubriand and Baudelaire have c ome and gone " ' I will not even admit that Art is for L ife s sake At worst this is the c ry of the propagan dist At b est it only asserts—what is perfectly true a n d quit e meaningl ess —that Art like everything e ls e s ub serves the ultimate purpose of the universe " ' Art has no purpose Art for Ar t s sake ' " So c ial Art and Art for Life s sake a re equally A rt is untrue For Art is a n e ff e c t not a c ause like a sunset or the fl owers of the fi eld Like them of course it may produce results but the results are incident al an d variable Lo vers may kiss the sweeter for a sunset or a meadow of buttercups ; but the sun does not s e t nor the fl owers grow for them Nor are the possible results of Art the reason of its being The sea produces results Earthquakes pro duce results They do not seek to produce results They are the expression of the earth in travail of its bein g No poet if he w a s a real poet ever wrote in order t o prod uce any e fl e ct wha tever upon an y on e at all not even his lady love Art is an inevitable -

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F RENCH LITERARY S TUDIES product of a cert a in set of c ircumst ances : it is one of the flowers of lif e perhaps the fines t The only conc eiv able purpose of existence demands that every unit should come t o i ts full self re a l is a tion No potential value must be lo s t The cla im of every individu ality must be a sserted Every one o f us must strive unflinchingly t o be himself There is but one unpardonab l e sin the re fus a l to accept the destiny we carry within us—the spiritual destiny of c ourse for the body is b ut the transient appearanc e ' o f the s oul the passing show of the world s honour and rewa rd but the p ha nta s m ogor ia of the relative in whi ch f or the moment we live The way to self re al isation l ies ac ross t he ch a sms of tradition an d c on v e nti on l ike the or a nge pathway spread on the sea between us and the sun Both are to everyone of us unique moving as we move ever present At the set of t he earthly s un our road of light is lo s t in d arkness But only if Go d set in our s oul is the way of the spirit obscured leading to the red gates of the ' transc endental d awn ! Like Lord de Ta b le y s Two An cient Kings we must go

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Heroi c hearts upon our lonely way ,

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o f us has his desire or having it is satisfi ed To Leconte de Lis le this meant des pair Horror stri cken a nd projecting himse l f into the consci ousness of the race he he ard \t

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Ie lo ng

rugissement de la Vie Ete rne lle

To us if we would l ive life must be a pilgrimage a journey in search of the fu lfil ment of desire only to be fulfi lled before the throne of God All things ,

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TH E POINT or VI EW 9 are in them selves v a in No desire c an be satisfi ed We make ever for a receding goa l No kiss is worth the getting D espair w a its upon us But we know that throug h disillusion and only through disillusion c a n the ful n es s of li f e come to us Only through de sire an d the van ity of desire f ul fi ll ed can we pass to new and nobler desire The fiery sta ke and the fl am in g crown await us But were the pyre put out the light of Heave n were quenched an d deathless H e pe were d e a d l The poet like an y of us seeks to be c ome himself B ut there is more Every intense individuality wi ll express itself It w ill seek to re alise its approach to " self hood its be coming not only internally b ut ' externally The artist s expression is Art No indi v i dua li ty can escape this law If there is no attempt a t e xte rna l expression there is an inward re fus a l to be oneself a shrinking from life Poetry is the out ' ward expression of the poet s w ill to be himse l f It i s the eff ect of the causes that go to make up the potentiality of the poe t : of circ umstan ces in their widest sense of the epoch in which he liv es and by which he is to some exte nt conditio ned : of the past of the particular art in which he seeks expression ; but far more import a ntl y of the obscure an d unde cipherable impulse s that constitute his personality in its inmost s ense of his w ill to be t hat is of the D rang which pushes him forward o n the road of spiritu a l evoluti o n on the way towards God To check or attempt to check this expression of the poet a s of any o ther potentiality is to set back to commit spiritu al a ls o his i n ward se lf expressio n murder to be gui l ty of sacrilege agai nst God The ,

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FRENCH LITERARY STUD IES ' critic ha s not to ask if a poet s expression his poe tr y is in accordance or n ot with the accep ted conve ntions of the world His duty is to disengage from the ' ' poe t s work the part of the poet s surroun dings the part of his historical p la ce in his a rt and beyond and above these the part of the man expressing him s e lf The poet then e xpresses himse lf becaus e he must Incidentally he makes beauty To the world " if he says anything he says : Tak e i t or leav e it I An d the world mos tl y leaves it afr aid for the littl e house of cards it calls S oc iety the refuge of the Ete rna l No ,

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The great epics and much of the bes t lyric work of the Middle Ages are anonymous : like the spiri n g Cathedral s of France the C ha ns o n dc Ro la nd the Couronneme nt de Loui s and most of the lov e song s and c ha ns ons de ta i ls are the expression of a common aspiration They are the fi ne flowers of medi e val society I do not mean that they spr ang i n to full being without an actua l author I mean th a t we do not k n ow who wrote them an d that it matters n ot who did Even the signed work of indiv idua ls is a social rather I t is of little sign i ficanc e than a personal expression that Ade ne t le Roi wrote the romaunt of Be r tha a ux gra nds pie ds or that Chré tie n de Troyes wrote Le ,

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THE PO INT OF VIEW ll Che v a lie r a u Li on If the Middle Ages in lov e with lo v e itself had written the fi rst part of the Ro ma unt of the R os e it would n ot have been di fferent That Guil laume de Lorris he ld the pen of the lov e r is of no mom ent The dawn an d evening songs of the Troub a d ours their te ns o ns s i r v e nte s c omp la int s and de s c o rts c onform rigorously to a c ommon pattern both in form a nd spiri t The personal note begins with the Renaissance There were no doubt forerunners dissidents from the ' like Charles d orl ean s and c onvention of their ti me Vil l on ; but they were l ate and the dawn had almost begun For the Sixteenth Century it w a s su ffi cient that t he poet pu t ting into words his vision of the world a nd doing his homage to Our Lady Beauty should ex The Renaissance was occupied with p ress himself indiv idual values not with the el abor a tion of a social I t was a time of break up o f clash and pas s ystem The Dé li e of Maurice s ion and of gre a t person a lities S c év e is not the expression of Lyonese society but of S c ev e himself : Ronsard is Ronsard a nd no one e ls e With the Seventeenth Century Art becomes again Society was all im imp e rs o na l a t l east in theory C ourtly France inspired Corneille Moli ere p ortant a n d Ra c ine : they are the blossoming of a social co n The uncompromisi ng c e p ti o n an d a social code Alceste would even praise the verses of Oronte if t he King himself expre ssly required it Boi l eau a n d La But F ontaine urged the poet to be n atural an d true they meant that he must accept the conventions for m a l and i n tri n sic of the C our t of Louis ! IV Nature Reas on di c tated such a nd Tru th were n ot hing else " The Iibertins c o n form ity and usage demanded it .

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LITERARY S TUD IE S it is true survivors of the sixteent h century like Tristan ' rm ite Theophile de Viau Sa in t Amant or incor I He individualists like S carron or the Abbé de r i gible Bois rob e r t or Savinie n de C yran o Bergerac went their own way and incurred the odium of noncon formity The Eighteenth Century accepted the same doc trine Art was sti ll soc ial ; but so c iety had divided All that counted in France was not gathered round the Regent or Pompadour or Du Barry ; the third estat e was coming to its own The Court and the Bour the sought divergent expression Voltaire a n d i e o s i e g minor poets are the product of Versailles ; in Diderot the m i ddle class f ound a voice There was however in Rousse a u a strong protes t of the indiv iduali s t do c trine and he gained the day The poets of Ro ma nti c is m expressed only themselves F RENCH

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I II The distinction of social and personal ar t does no t carry with it a coinc ident distinction of didactic Art ' and Art for Art s s a ke S ocial a rt is n ot nec essarily dida c ti c nor personal art neces sarily an end in itself Hugo persona l to excess is a notable examp l e of Ar t trespassing on every fi e l d moral pol itical religious The best work of the Middle Ages was n o t didacti c The conception of Art as a Teacher arose no doubt out of the mnemoni c use of verse by the me di a v a l moralists The Vie de S a int Léger set a bad example of merely versifi ed l iv e s of saints and other works o f edifi c ation broken it is true here and there by a re ally poetic production such as the wonderfully ha r .

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THE PO INT OF VIEW l3 m o nious Vie de S a int A lex i s with its fl ashes of over whelming passion a nd amid its crudity touches a nd whole stanzas of perfec t artistic mastery ' An eminent c ri tic in his H a m le t ref ers to the popul a r tenden cy which w a s a ls o a Gre e k an d a Renaissan c e tendency to regard Art as h aving a did a c ti c function As rega rds the Renaissance in Fran ce he is cert a i nly in error Nowhere is the sense of Art in a nd for itself a s the expression of the ' poet s being in be a uty more pure of all alloy than i n the work o f the first great Frenc h poet of the Renais s a n ce S c é v e had no did ac ti c purpose Pontus d c Ty a rd had a visitor one d a y who finding him reading ' S c ev e s Dé li e took up the book and threw it down contemptuously af ter reading a verse or two To hi m Ty a r d replied that little would S c ev e ca re whethe r ' fools understood him or not q u aussi se souciai t ' bien peu Ie seigneur M a uri ce que Dé lie ffit vue ni " man iée des veaux Ronsard indeed wrote a series of very noble did a c tic poems But Art never stooped to be the hand maid of religion or politics : it might a ssume as a sacred duty the guidance of nations and of kings The Renaissanc e never los t its nobility of outlook Art could teach because it stood above a ll other manifestati ons of the human mind It had the ri ght to dictate because it knew Later writers used the fo rms of Art to encomp a ss m o r a l ends because to them Art was a mean thing valuable only in virtue of its uses The high conception the Sixteen th Century he ld o f didac ti c a r t ma y be expressed i n the words of the Jesuit Pet e Le moyne an attardé of the Renais ,

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES s a nce who wrote the best epi c poem of the French He m a intai ned in the days of S eventee nth Ce ntury Boile a u a lofty view of Art He protested agai n st the low conception of did ac ti c art which the mean spirits o f the day opposed to the great conception of the Six le te e nth Century and declared that the Poet is c ommis Ie Coop é rateur e t du Ma gistrat é terne l I A ge nt de Dieu Ie Pré c epteur des Rois e t " des Conquéra nts For the Seventeenth Century w a s pettily did ac tic i f a ny thing th a t ministered to the grandiose so c iety The greater o f the Roi So l ei l c a nbe called pet ty — — e n r e epic tragedy a imed at shaping the citizen s g The l esser—c omedy lyri c pastoral— ! either a t a musing him with propriety or at developing his social ae com Indiv idua l values were of little import p l i s hm e nts anc e c ompared with social perfection ; were indeed t o be strenuously diverted into c on f ormity with the s o c ia l ideal His Moli ére might seem to be a n exception Dorante in the Cr i tique de I E c g le de s Fe mm e s de c la re s t hat la régle de t outes les regles is to please But Mol iere a writer of c omedy does not cl aim to mould s o c iety l ike tragic and epic poe ts but onl y to amuse w ith propri ety those who al ready con f orm to the c on d u c t and attitude of all de c ent citizens To aim at p l easing these is in fac t accepting the desirability of a dapting A rt to the needs of polite society He is if ' n ot (in Le moyne s words) a Parfumeur or a Fa is e ur de Ra go ii ts at least little more than a " Bateleur de R éduits and a Pl aisan t de Ruelles H e would have been ineff ably shocked at the bare idea t hat the end of A r t could possibly be the expression of l4

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FRENCH L ITERARY STUDIES a gainst the Seventee nth Ce n tury do c trine of confor mity In ende avouring to guide and mould the polity o f t he State and the conduct of i ts c itizens Lemoyne expressed himself with so great an individuality of a rtisti c utterance as to c onstitute a sin ag ainst the socia l c on c eption o f Art The bourgeois schoo l of the Eighteenth Cen tury was excl usively and militantly didactic Diderot an d the He w riters of his s chool were like Monsieur P oirier A Summer c ou l d s e e nothing in a l andsc a pe entitled " E vening Ca ne dit rien I i s his criti c ism and he instan ces as a perfe c t example o f Art une gravu re qui re p r ése nte un chien a u bord de l a mer aboyan t " d evant un chapeau de matelot Diderot adored the s entimental ity and moral platitudes of Richardson and Li ll o C re uze wa s his ide a l painter he car ed nothi ng for Watteau Bou cher a nd Fra gonard revolted his bourgeois s o ul He woul d have wept in c ontorti ons o f a ttendrissement before Bub ble s or C hr is t a nd the B oy S c o ut Rousseau Berna rdin de Saint Pierre t hough individu al ists in Art were didactic Pa u l e t Vi rgi nie is perhaps the supreme example of the posi t i v e ly indecent morality of the Eighteenth Century De l i ll e t hough not a moral sentimenta l ist like the bourgeois writers insists on parading his professional s toc k i n trade in the very midst o f his l ove l iest pas s ages The Versa il l es School was however in ge ne r a l anything but didactic No one could have less d esire to preach than Bertin o r Cardinal Bernis The Romanti cists revived the grandiose heresy of Lemoyne In Hugo the prophet not to say the c h a rlatan threatened to engulf the poet If Art is a ' g a rden of fl owers Hugo s art is too often a monstrous 16

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THE POINT OF VIEW l7 flo ra l clock or the R oyal monogram i n tulips or a loyal d esi gn in red white and blue ( or sha ll I rather say i n orange whi te and green for Hugo was always a rebel I ) He was n o t con tent that his garde n should deli gh t the se n ses with shape and colour and per fume : he must insist on planting a mo ra l or politi c al ' D ogs Ceme tery of genera an d species He is a P rofessor of B o tan y not a n i nspired garden er like j as mi n who ministered to the Pompadour nor an Odilo n R edo n who painted rose s burni n g like a mid summer n oo n an d Iarkspurs as blue as the n oonday sky and as light and airy as celestial butterflies Musset ha d no dida c tic aim His S ta nce s a la Ma li bra n—the loveliest music in all French poetry are simply an incomparable Hymn to Beauty Musse t had no doctrine He was just a poe t Gautier began the pro test against the Romantic conception of ' Art which led to the Parnassi a n school and the w o r k o f Her edia a nd Leconte de Lisle S ince then French literary art has kept to the true doc trin e : the pro ta happily e ntirely g o nis ts of didacticism have been devoid of an y artisti c gifts they could debase or per vert to their purpose No sc hool of any accoun t has ' ' " ar is en to dispute the sway of I A r t pour l A rt In a ll the diversity an d clas h of poetic cre do s this has re maine d the corn er stone of the fai th D ec aden ts ' s ymbolis ts the j e une s have respected A rt : i n every ca fé i n every ivory tower they have worshipped Our Lady Beauty with u nf alte ring praise a nd unconquerab l e faith The other doctrine is left to the B arbari a n howling wi thou t : to the inept the unclean the m o s que s dan ci n g their obscene carn ival aroun d the s till port icos of A rt : to Silen us outs ide the Garde n of the Rose ,

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II —MAURICE SCEVE AND THE POETIC SCHOOL OF LYONS .

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HE Renaissance stoo d for life i n its f ulness — the c ult of nature the development o f the individual and the realization of A ll be a uty It was not a n ti spiritu al through the manifold web of i ts ac tivities is woven the subtle thread of a new and wonderful spiritual intensity—tha t strange neo Platonism whi ch with a ll the rest c oming from It aly mingled with the medi e val conception ' " " of L A m our Courtois and found in Fr a nc e perh aps its c hief exponent in M a rgaret Queen of Nav arre in whose Co mé die a q ua tre pers o nna ges j o uée a u Mo nt de Ma rs a n ( l 547) the Queen of the Love of God pro cl aims the superiority of the neo Platonic i de a l of lov e over Calvinism C a thol icism an d Worldliness Af ter the imprisonment of the Middle Ages the Renaissa nce brought new life to the spirit a breath o f wind se a rching out a ll nooks a nd crann ies o f s chol a sti c ism a nd swee ping them clean with the great cle a nness of life It w a s as if some cataclysm had thrown down the uns c a le a ble w a lls of the prison house and opened a prospect of measure less country beyond Instead of a pleasant val ley (as it had seemed) set in the encircling hills of authori ty men found themselves on a mountain to p with the world stre tching at their ,

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S CEVE

AND PO ETIC SCHOOL OF LYO NS

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feet virgin and splendid for the adventurous trave ller Art was the fine flower of this new more spacious life In the poets of the Renaissa nc e in the French Ronsard for example—this sense of bigness this Iilt of the s o ul untrammelled now toward unsuspe c ted glories is at its full Their song floats golden a nd ' illimitable on the wings of their Spirit s freedom They are men livi ng life to the utmost men in a ll their g l ory ' of intellect and passion a nd emotion no longer i n fa nts swaddled in the ban ds of Chur c h and State and established doctrine ! It i s true that if much had been gained something too had been lost Faith save only in themse l ves had gone The men of the Renaissance were hereti c s in a ll things The Middle A ge s had placed a veto on a ll thought that transcended the dogma of the Church a n d the accepted theories of st a tecraft Unab l e to move beyond a certain narrow range of speculation a specul a tion in which the conclusion w a s given as well a s the premisses and only the syllogism left open like a journey to one city by many roads—the greater minds of the Middle Ages had been forced to concentrate The Art of the Dark Ages had in dep th and intensi ty what it had not in bre a dth D riven inward by the restrictions of Churc h a nd State confined to a narrow choice of possible subjects the poet was forced ba c k on new aspects of old p a ssions new attitudes to old conceptions There is in the medi e v al lyric in the C ha ns o ns dc to i le like ,

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Ve n te l ore

li raim c rolIe nt ' Qui s e ntra ime nt sc ef dorment ’

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FRENCH LIT ERARY STUDIES

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in the D awn Songs like C aite de la tor Gardez e ntor or Or ne haz rien tant com Ie jor Amis qui me depart de vos ,

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' or in Charles d O rléans or Froissart every note of pas ,

sion and of serenit y every moo d an d experience from the copper glories of passion la den sun sets and the hot pe rfume of sti ll dark meadows on summer nights to the fresh wind of Spring sweep ing over the cowslips at d a wn ; and everything stands out with that strange clear cut precision as of ename l led fairy meads and painted roofs which is so much more mysterious and full of suggestion even th a n mist or twilight or rainy woods A uc a ss in c i Nico le ts —is that not Art ! Or the fra il beauty of the R om a unt of the Ros e ' rs ' Ou I art d a m o est t o te encl ose or the story of Tr is trarn and Iseult The low s k y like a st a rred canopy and the tapestried backgroun ds o f medi aeval life m ay have been uncongenial to sc ience and philosophy to state c r aft in a la rge sense to the a ttitude o f him who like F a ust in the Sec ond Part " stan ds before N a ture ein Mann a lle in out o f acc ord with the l arge harmonies and cle a r lines of Gree k art but they were not i n consistent with the develop ment o f a most passionate theory of human rel a tionships w i th the " conception of that Amour Courtois which if it did n ot break t he he a vy clouds of the sultry sky filt ered In to the heart and s oul of the Lover a new intensity ,

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SCEVE

AN D POETIC SCHOOL OF LYONS 2 | like dew upon the fr esh grass and but tercups of a dawn lighte d meadow g ivi ng hi m in stead of the hard finite expanse of the free Pagan world an interior in fini ty recking n othing of outward an d m a te rial trammels : which stirred the dying embers of the old world fi re if n ot to the clear fl ame of spirituality a t leas t to the red smoulder of passion In the shadow of frail poplars on sunset lawns the Middle Age poured i ts c onc entrated passion between the priso n w a lls of a narrow world each line a jewel Ied f ace t of i ntense lig ht blazing with love long pen t and restrained desire The Renaissance burst the dam What the Renaissan ce gained in freedom and Iilt it los t in conc entration No fi xed boundaries subsisting to bar the w a y of the adventurous nothing remained sa c red now but B eauty that dangerous Beauty the Middle Ages had so t erribly feared a s some Siren insidiously callin g beyon d the prison w al ls an d drawi n g men away from the c om But f or ta b le orderline s s of uncont roverted do gma the loss i tself is almost a gain Who can for more than a mome n t regret it ! Now a ll was free men pursued B eau ty whithersoever she led deserting a ll things for her t ravelli n g a lone along perilous roads or away from roads altogether followi ng ever that ' stran ge new wonderful fen light the Jack o Lan thom of A rt—our Lady Beauty a t whose feet they s aw prost rate i n adoratio n all forms of being and a ct ion an d Life itsel f ! And n evermore will this sear ch for B eauty t his ripa c ulte ri o r is a mo r cease to be a mai nspri n g of li fe in the Latin coun tries The ' night of Maurice S cév e s Dé lie ( l 544) is s tre w n with its -

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FREN CH LIT E RARY STUDI E S fire : in him spiritua l passion and the love of b eauty a re made one ; a nd it were a bold critic who would undertake again to separate the worship of the Queen of the Love of God and the Pagan Goddess Beauty in the work of anyone who came after him in Fran ce There will be times when men think they hold the elusive Sprite in their nets of rules and ca n ons of taste there will be times when Art be c omes a con ' s um i ng passion and men talk of Art for A rt s sake as if Art were not inevitably the flo w e r of life splen did when life is full weak and anae mic when l i f e totters and sinks beneath the onslaught of authority or o f the powers of evil But evermore the mysterious an d ine ff ab le touch of t hose supernatural fingers of that in de fina b le vision which we c all Beauty—whi c h in the C r i ffin became Life itself Helen of the eyes of Viele— russet hair—will glorify and destroy coming alas most to those w ho seek it least but all souls bein g tuned to its music and stirred if they will or n ot to the quest of the new C raal ! 22

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M a rot is the f aint b l ush of the daw n : if Art be the touchstone of the Rena issance—l mean the consc ious e ff ort to produc e Beauty— then Marot is sti ll medi aeval He shares however to some extent the ide a s of his p a tron Margaret Queen of Navarre but he achieves Art like all the poets of the Middle Ages outside Provence only by acc ident He loved sincerely—he was not capab l e of passion an d he wro te sincere and moving love poems to his mistress Anne of Al encon nie c e o f Fr anc is 1 and o f Margaret But he had neither the c onc entration o f .

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24

FRENCH LITERARY STUDI E S ' splendour of sunset Into the mou l d of S e ra fi no s epigram he poured the D ia loghi d a mo re of Léo n Hébr ie u and the A ngo is s e s e t re mede s d a m o ur of the grand Rhétoriqueur Jean Bouchet the intimate friend ' G a the r ye o f Rons a rd s fa ther He turned the roses of his Italian mode l to the praise of love un dying but he kept the overwrought preciosity of his mast er And to a ll he added the intensity of a tor ture d a nd sensitive soul the keenness of an ac ute anal yti c al mind and a tran s cending passion for ar tistic form The lov e he c elebrated and in whose flame his verse i s tempered i s no t .

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Ce Cupido aisl é Aveugle enfant nud incertain volage ' Qui tant d amer a s on doux ha mesl e ,

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but the great Love of whi ch Rabelais spoke when he de clared that : Amour ha te l effect ' Qu i l ne p e nl t estre en coeur de fo ll e fe mrne ' ' " Ains en l e s p r i t de l homme p lus p a rfa i c t

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had drunk deep of Margaret of Navarre and o f Plato Petra rch and the Italian P l atonists He like M a rgaret had wished S c ev e

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Mon ame perir e t no ie r Or puisse en c este douc e mer ' ' ' D amour oil n y a point d amer ; ne vie J e ne sens corps ame ' S inon amour e t n ay envie ,

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AND POETIC SCHOOL OF LYONS 25 ' D e paradis ui d enfer c ra inc te Mais que sans fin j e sois e s tr a inc te " A mon amy unye et j o inc te

S CEVE

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The illimitable night of his obs c urity is strown with innumerable stars Never ha s a poet knelt with more passionate worship a t t he feet of our Lady Beauty nor stretched more longing h a nds towards her And here a nd there he ha s succeeded in putting into words of inconceivable ful ness a nd glory t he striving of his incomparable so ul And where the light bl azes through the darkness of his failure not Ronsard him self has attained the immeasur able brightness of his " verse w hic h Love t empered in hi s fl a me S c év e w a s of those who like Petrarch his m a ster have had the intolerable visi on of God an d of Love His Minister : he s a w L ove enthroned in the heart of the cornfield a nd in the depths of the wood ; sunset and sunrise the daffo di l s in the spring dew and the dripping leaves of the f a ll told him o f Love s rule divine and e te rna l in Nature as truly a s in Reve lation And Love to him went accompanied by joy and sorrow both eternal as Life S c ev e was bo rn in l 504 or l 505 in Lyons the Ga te of I taly during the gove rnorship of Caesar Borgia Little is known o f his life M a rgaret of N av a rre turned him to the st udy of Pl a tonism he had already found the reputed tomb of Laura at Avignon He was i ndeed the first scholar of Lyons when in IS44 he took his p la c e as her most admirable poet by the profonde eloquence e t mirable f ac ture of his Dé li e o bj e ct de la p lus ha ute v e r tu (in the Italian a series of 449 dizains in honour of Pe rne tte s ense) .

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FR EN CH LITERARY S TU D I ES du Guillet his mistres s on e of the brilliant group ' Lyonese poetes ses t hat included Louise La b é of ' Clé mence de B ourges and S cév e s own s is te rs CIa udine and S ybille The high imaginin gs of Sc év e found France in travail : her serious moo d accorded with his " do c te gravité the easy c harm of Maro t could not fi ll the aspiration s intelle c tual and emotion al of the men o f l 544 Charles V w a s at the Gates of Paris : Henry VIII in Picardy : Etienne D olet who stands for the individualism of the Renaissan ce w as in prison S c év e achieved a un ivers al reputation S ib ile t writing five years later spea ks of him as a c lassic D élie took her p la c e beside Be a trice a nd Laura It is not easy to give an idea of the charm of Délie o f the passionate relation s of the poe t to Fern ette du Guillet of the di fficult perfection of his verse He is sti ff and mannered often obscure but never care less of a ll poets who ever wrote respec ted o r facile : he his Art and sought only to express co n summately his ' " high desire le haut d ésir qui nuit e t jour m éme ut Fernette du G uillet died in I54 5 a t the age o f 25 an d in the same year appeared her poems Ry mes dc ge nti lle e t v er tue us e (again in the Italian se n se ) da me All she wrote is the P e m e tte da Gu i lle t Lyo nno i s e expression of an intense and unchangeable devotion to the poet an d scholar who with his golde n words had turned her de noire en blanche and filled the night of her ign oranc e with knowledge an d freedom In La Nuic i she tells how in the land of dreams the ki ngdom of silence she saw the dark fi gures of Vain glory Ambi tion an d Shame D awn breaks an d

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SCEVE

AN D POETIC SC H OO L OF LYONS 27 drives away c este tourbe nuis a nte The dawn her cher j our is Mauri c e S c év e ' S c év e s S a uls a ye E g logue de la Vie S o li ta i re a p ' It is the poet s lament for his dead p e a re d i n l 54 7 mistress ca st i n the form of a Pastoral dialogue b e twee n two S hepherds Antonio and File rmo File r mo is too near his sorrow to seek c omfor t He will re main in his rustic solitude seigneur des boys grans " e t e s p a is despite his friend s urging to seek the dis tractions of the town Next ye ar S c év e organ ised the Pageant with which L yons welcomed Henri II He was the undisputed master of the bri ll iant Lyonese s c hool grouped round L ouise Lab e z Pontus ' de Ty a rd the transl ator of Léon H éb r ie u s Dia loghi ' an d a writer of Plat onic dialog ue himself : Ty a rd s cousin Guillaume des Autels the critic of the school Olivier de Magny the most pass ionate of Louise ' Labe s many lovers Peletier du Mans the most curi ous of the many sided figures of the Frenc h Renais san ce mathemati c ian phonetician poet a nd cri tic : Jean de Vauz elles the friend and pub l isher of Hol bein : his brother Mathieu t he husband of Claudine S c ev e a n d many more ' But S c ev e s heart w a s not in the worldly glory he had won We know that he left Lyons and travelled in many countries returning only to write and publish his M ic r oco s m e in I562 After t his there is no trace of him The most famous poet of his day u tterly dis appears He took no part in the wars of Religi on he i s not mentioned as a victim of any of the massacres Huguenot or Catholic of the n ext ten years The date of his death is unk n own n

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FRENCH LIT E RARY STUDIES ' Lege nd however te lls that a fter Rem e tte s death S cév e t ried to liv e his old life the life of a great poet and scholar the friend and favourite of Ki ngs the a d mired of Lyon s and of the world Fair ladi e s threw themse lves a t his feet a nd princes vied for his favour He wandere d the world a pre y But it was all in vain to loneliness an d to a ll the horrors of parti ng for eve r He plumbed the f rom his only possible Beloved deeps of sorrow Ie a m t the meaning of nevermore On e night when weary beyond all belief broke n an d ready to die he lay down on a mountain side in S yria an d the tropic moon lighted his wan face an d whi te hair he slept not having slept for man y days An d there came a vision to him o f F ernette in a ll her beauty and full of her old love Pe m e tte lovelier th a n any He le n an d she b a de him for l ove of her re turn to Lyons writ e the great poem they had plann ed to ge ther and then return on a certai n night to t his S yrian desert and await her at the foot of the moun tain He awoke and full o f new life and wise with n ew wisdom he returned to Lyons an d wrote the Mic ro cos me the epitome of al l his le a rni ng an d all his ' life s im a gining an d knowl edge Then leavi ng Lyons for ever behind him a n d al l earthly hope an d earthly honour he returned to the mount a in in Syria and there Fernette appeared to him and they climbed the mountain together his a rm about her her hair stream i ng in the night air the light of her eyes illumin ing the darkness of the Syrian night for now there was n o moon A shepherd guarding his flock of Syrian goats o n the upper pastures saw them pass an d told his mas ter the following day that a young God had pass ed him leadin g his divine bride and that they had 28

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SCEVE

AND POETIC SC H O O L OF LYO NS 29 walked in brigh tness on the dark slope of the moun tain an d had then passed on beyond his sight round a shoulder of rock he being stri cken with fear and not daring to fol l ow And that was the end of Maurice S c ev e and Pe m e tte d u Gui llet No mortal eye saw them aga in " Through love they did not die For S c ev e was the most passionate Lover of a ll time To D ant e Beatri c e was as Cardu cc i says hardly more than a theological virtue Petrarch in his o l d age was fill ed with shame at the error of his youth : ' ' del mio v a ne gg ia r vergogna é l fr utto e l pentirsi The Lovers of the ancient world and of the Midd l e Ages ' had not his Spiritual ity But S c ev e s love o f Fernette " " a nd we k now he l oved her not wisely but too we ll w a s tr a ns fig ur e d by a wonderful spiritual passion that has fi lled even his most carnal images a nd s e x itself with beau ty and rapture ti l l his mortal tou ch of her mo r tal body trembles and burns in his verse as in life with a more than mortal fire and e c st a sy In him the sensuous a nd the spiritual are so subtly and wonder f ul l y interwoven that the frail beauty of a flow e r the ' gree n and purple bac ks of a celandine s gold petal s are not only a hymn of the spirit to the divine but a love so ng to the rich beauty of some splendid mistress the touch of whose hand the fire of whose lips are not only the fulfilment of desire b ut the very breath of the spirit burning all dross away ,

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IV S c év e celebrated only Re m et te d u Guillet : she is his and his only He has caugh t her fast for ever " But Louise La b é Ia in a tan gle of sweet rhymes .

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FRENCH LIT E RARY STUDIES B elle Cordi ere w a s sung by all the poets of the school of Lyons and wa s the mistress of more than one She was younger than Fernette du Gui ll et by some six years and outlive d her by twenty one Her legend i s quite other than that of the frail and delicate mistress of Maurice S c év e Hers is a coarser fibre her verse ' Pe rn ette du Guille t ' s too is clearer than S c év e s or but not so int ense or so subtle She is passionate ; but hers is the red not the white fire : and the Spiritual note is al most absent She w a s an expert in knightl y exercises she i s said to have fought at the siege of Perpignan when she w a s on ly sixteen But s he fell before another L ord th a n De a th sought other glory tha n on the fie l d of batt l e : her golden head w a s bowed before the Reaper Love and the la nce she had borne so proud l y w a s turned against her poisoned with the venom of Desire It is not as Bra da ma nte ou la haute Ma rp his e Soeur de Roger th a t Lyons knew her but a s the faithless wi fe of le " bon Sire Aymo n the rope maker and a wom a n o f ill repute (even i f some of the tales be untrue) She ' " wa s a Damnée de l Am our Her poems are the apol ogi a o f her li fe Hers is the Ca nzonie r e o f pas sion unche cked the strings an d goads of c a rnal love i ts unc easing an d insatiable desire the cerements and ashes of its ending these are her matter Her verse ' ' rings golden l ike Pe e le s or S o uthw e ll s but it swells with the moan of intolerable pain Like Phedre s he is the victim of Venus Anadyomene a s a proie " a ttach ée J e suis le c orps toy la meilleure part

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—PIERRE DE RONSAR D

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I IERRE D E RONSARD was born at the C astle of L a Poissonniere near Cout ures on the Loir in the Ve nd6 m ois on S a turd ay September 2nd l 525 He became in l 53 6 a page to the Dauphin a nd w a s present at his death bed He then p a ssed into the service o f the Duke of Angouléme now bec ome Duke o f In I53 7 Ronsard Or l eans the third son of Fr a n c is I ' went to Scotland as p age to James V s young wife Madeleine daught er of Franc is 1 He spent tw o years in Scotland with a bre ak of a month or tw o and six months in England finally returning to France in 1540 He was then sent with the great humani s t ' L azare de B ai f on a diplom a tic mission to Germ a ny —to a religious c ongress at Haguenau There he heard Calvin spe ak When he c ame bac k to Fra n ce he was i ll a nd beca me d eaf In l 543 he left the ser vi ce of Charl es o f Valois who had intended him for a dip l om a ti c ca reer but remained at Court a s a squire of the new Dauphin a fterwar ds Henri II In the same year having determined on a n eccl esi a sti c al career he was to nsured a t Le M ans by Bishop René du Bell ay the uncle o f his famous friend and fellow poet in after years Jo a chim du Bell ay His fi rst published work a n Horatian ode Of the Be a uties he wou ld de s i re i n his La dy lo v e appeared in l 54 7 Me a n while he had been s tudying Greek at Paris and in the .

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PIERRE DE

R O NSARD 33 same year as his first poem appe a red be c ame a Master of Arts of the Universit y of Paris During the period of his studies he h a d con c eived the ide a of gr afting the Pind aric Ode a s well as the Horatian on French literature a nd a fter reading S c ev e had revised his conception of poetry Poetry was for him no longer a mechan ical art to be le arned from a book of rules and precepts but it w a s Beauty inc a rn a te clothing a passionate a nd intense attitude towards life .

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II

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' life and d

Four women divide Rons a r s his work : Cassandre Marie Genevre and H elene Cassandre he s a w fi rst when he was nineteen and she a chi l d of fi fteen with black hair and dark eyes s e t in an o l ive face Four ye a rs pass e d before he met her ag a in four years for the poe t of ri c h endeavour in le a rning a nd in art a nd of somewh a t c asual c ourtship of la brune " in his native Ve nd6 m oi s and at Paris e t la blo n de Meanwhi l e Cassandre had married Jean de Peigné ' Lord of P r é a neighbour of the poet s : and he ca me upon her gathering flowers bareheaded in a n autumnal meadow For some time Ronsard s a w C a ssandre f re quent l y In l 552 she visited him at the Chateau of L a Poissonniere where for a time she lay se riousl y ill The intimacy that ensued seems to have m a de the poet over bold : for in the same year he w a s finally dismisse d by her for too great hardihood in c ourtship He did not s e e her for many years and the old relations were never taken up again ; but for the last fifteen years of his life they often met a s old friends She survived him twenty years and died in I6O5 ' D A ub igné courted her niece Di a ne de Tal c y and ,

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FRENCH L IT ERARY

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STUDI E S married a n ances tor

her daughter C a ssandre du Pré of Alf red de Musset ' Ro ns a rd s l ove f or Cassandre was not platoni c That is evident from the sonnets and songs of the Cassandre sequence But it w as not carnal The poems addressed to her do n ot it is true throb with mys tical passion like those of S c ev e to D él ie They are not on the other hand a sultry blaze of red roses ' fullb l own like Louise Lab e s t o her lovers They are like p ale eglantine blown lightly by a spring breeze beneat h a high s k y with scudding clouds But Cassandre would have had them like some snow white l i l y in a convent garden : c andid with pas sionless worship Ronsard was not bloodless enough to please her as a lover : for him the d a rk roses of her che eks were not onl y the earthly garment o f a soul they were also flus he d olive fl esh w a rm with the fire of human love : her perfect lips spoke not onl y wisdom and beauty : they were also a chalice wherein he drank the body and blood of hi s beloved Her touch filled him with ineff able fire the spirit blazed its undeniable way burning up the dross of desire : but it w a s a flame and not the c ol d light of austere and dista nt adoration He desires like a shower of gold to fa ll drop by drop into her la p as she sleeps to be a white bull carrying her through the April meadows a Nar cissus and she a pool that he might plun ge in its c ool ' ing waters for ever Cassandre s inc omprehension drove Ronsard in the sultry summer of his life into the heedless intoxication of ' Marie s kisses From the Sparkling goblet of a rare liqueur he fell to the drunke nness of ordi n ary wi ne and lay rankly and unaspiri n g in the ,

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PIERR E DE RO NSARD 35 comfortab l e assura nce of her plebeian embraces " " Silenus of the swine herds is his name Marie h a d not the aristo c ratic beauty o f C ass a ndre She w a s the daughter of an innkeeper ne a r Bourgueil her c hec k s were red a ussi vermei ll e q u une rose de " mai R onsard s a ys a nd s he had curly c hestnut brown hair Her charms were ample a nd the poet dwells with wearisome c omplacency upon them When he loved C a ssa ndre he aspired too high he declares to Pontus de Tya rd ; now his verse like his dés e nflée love is and se d ément parlant trop " bassement We tire of the perpetual lushness in which the poet wallows we long to get away from these heavy me a dows to the heights from Tess of the ' D Urbe rv i lle s to S e nho us e with San chia in the star s trow n night of her l ast co ming And C a ssa ndre b e comes a wonderful might h ave — been : the sh a dow of her re f usal casts long despair upon the work of her ' poet (for her s in spite of all he remains) as upon his disoriented life For three ye a rs Ronsard remai ned ' M a rie s slave ; then the at t ac hment cooled She had never been f a it hful to him but in l 558 a very serious ' riva l appeared in the poet s cousin Charles de Pisseleu B ishop of Condon and Abbot of Bourgueil with whom Ronsa rd a ppears to have shared her ' favours until his c ousin s death in l 564 Her early death in l 573 or t here abouts w a s the occ asion of a very beaut iful se ries of poems The instan cy of his p a ssion had long sinc e c ooled Genevr e a nd a shadowy Sinope of whom we know nothing had come an d gone an d H elene held the field Small wonder th a t the poems to M a rie dead are entirely platonic : she w a s litt l e more than an id ealized memory of a on c e .

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FR ENCH LITERARY

STUDIE S ' glad summer Rons a r d s grief at her loss is the sorrow of an old man who re alizes his age and the hopele ss dec l ine of his gallant manhood ; s he linked him with a past o f hope and p a ssion and her death was the snapping of a chord in his own soul During the summer t i me o f his l ove fo r Marie Ronsard wrote the noble H ym n to Dea th a p ae an of victory to the great Redeemer H is soul steeped i n the he avy l angour o f mortal ity sought to burst the dull bonds of the flesh that held him a too acquiescent prisoner in the shackles of earthly desire But the b l azing light of white Anjou is in the rolling periods of the hymn the fi ery s ap of summer rises irresistibly a nd eac h l ine is like a gold or purple grape r ipened in the mid d a ys of Bourgueil In a c up of vermi l ion Rons a rd pledges Death the Arch Beloved and swoon ing at her f eet he pours his p assion before her He a sks only to rest in her a rms at peace all ardour that no mortal Bride ca n still c on summated and assu aged in this immortal embrace I Here Ronsard has left Petrarch and Pindar and the new discovered Anacreon an d Spoken his ow n p assion in his own way

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I wi l l go seek some ot her s ac red well When ce Springs an untouched stre a m that murmurs down Within fa ir orchards far from men a nd noise ; A well the s un h a s never known the birds Of He aven h ave left unsullied by their be a ks And whither never shepherd boys have led Their herds of bulls with tramp l ing feet There I Will drink my fill of this inviolate dra ught ,

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PIERR E DE RONS ARD And the n some n ew song I will si ng a song Whose notes will be perhaps so ver y sweet Th a t comi n g cen turies will sing them ye t No robber thieving from the poe t s old My song shall be my own and mine alon e My song shall rise to Heaven by a new way ' Singing the praise of Death that s still unsung

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With Genevre R on sa rd had reached the hard cynic ism o f the roué He cared nothing for her and very little for her favours he took them casually an d then they p arted The dreams and aspirations of spring the achievemen t an d c a reless enjoyme n t of summer were over She w a s the love of his w ordly autum n Ronsard was the C ourt Poet and int imate friend of Ch a rles I! who loaded him with pensions and bene fi c es He was the most celebrated poet in Europe prior of S aint Cos mes le z Tours an d of Cro ixv a l ' (where you may s e e him in Pater s Ga s ton de La tour) Can on of Saint M ar tin of Tours Abbot of Be lloza ne an d incumbent o f many cures Rons a rd met Genevre bathi ng in the S eine Next d a y he passed her doo r and s topped to talk to her She asked him who he w a s an d if he had loved other " women He answered : I am R on sard That is " enough The whole inc ident and all tha t followed (save only this an swer) are pedestrian enough : they lived together for a year and then part ed most p hilos o tual a greement by mu ll i c a h y p With his lov e for Helene de Fonseque R on sard rose aga in a nd shook off the dra g But he could not put aw ay the insistent sorrow He lo ved Helene truly But he l oved her hopelessly as an old man lov e s a young girl .

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FRENCH LIT E RARY STUDI E S pretending th at the bitter real ity of an overwhelming and des pairing love is but the pretty and pre c ious trifling of a grea t poet p l aying at love m aking with a c hild Grey and rac ked with illness he knew that he could not hope to inspire passion in this young beauty o f the Court Her lo v e for him genuine a s f ar as it w ent was partly sin c ere friendship and for the res t a c ompound of aff e c tionate pity a nd overweening pri de a t her m a gnifi c ent c onquest Rons a rd made the bes t o f the S ituation : the M a ster ac ted his self— assumed p a rt with brave dissimul at ion an d she accepted his l ove a s he g a ve it a nd not a s he mean t it unun de r ' s t a nding o f a poet s broken he a rt Another sorrow too had come upon him : Charl es had died I! (

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And they alive or dead torture with equ al grief Whe ther of vain regret or s till more hope less tears " For indistinguishably l ove a nd de a th a re one ,

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sonnet ends referring to the living H e le n and the dead Char l es Soon o l d and broken Ronsard retired to his native ' c ount ry a nd his m any priories Charles successor Henry King of Poland h a d no use f or Ronsard : he already had his Court poet the time server Desportes who h ad fol lowed him to W a rs a w a nd b ack More over Ronsard f elt little sym p at hy for the worst of a ll the Kings of France He was no fla tte rer o f sovereignt y Finding Henry obdurate to his remon he dared urge the new Chancellor to disobey s tr a nc e s " It is better he said to l ose the a nd rule well " ' Sovereign s favour th an be hissed by the people Be a

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FR E NCH L IT E RARY STUDIES his day devoted above a ll things to peac e and free dom of c onsc ience He could aff ord to be just to the Huguenots But Ronsard though naturally moderate and tolerant detested Calvinist puritanism too a rdentl y to maintain the equab l e temper of de ' ' Ronsar d was not religious de I H o s p i ta l I H O S p it a l wa s Being firm ly convinced of the t ruth of Catholic ism he c oul d respec t the sincere convi c tions o f others But Ronsard could not suspect th a t a mong the C al vi nis ts there were really men whose whole being de m a nde d a reasonab l e f aith and whose c onvi c tions woul d not al l ow them to refra in from prop a ganda even at t he pri ce o f martyrdom He did not and c ould not understand Protest a ntism He w a s a Catholic by tradition and habit and for him the claim of the Pro w a s nothing but presumption and s a tan i c te s ta n ts pride To go behind the a uthority of the Church to oppose the re c ognised f aith of his c ountry were sin a g a inst God a nd c rime ag a inst the Stat e And to presumption and sedition the C alvinists added i c ono puritanism and petty tyranny The i nquis i c la s m ti o na l regime of Genev a wit h i ts c ensorship of mor a ls and its vigi l an ce c ommittees th a t m a de al l priv ac y impossib l e w a s utterly detest a ble to him As ceti c ism a nd exa ggerated a usterity he c ou l d not to l era te To de fend the C a thol icism o f IS6O st il l untouched by the Counter Ref orm wa s to de fend his own w ay o f l iving and thinking his who l e a ttitude towards life his Art a nd the Pag a nism he he ld s o de a r And when by I 563 Civil War had al re ady broken out and France wa s p l unged by the ac t of the Huguenots into a c atacl ysm of blood a nd ra v age then the Catholi c ' Church a nd i ts supporte rs stood in Ro ns a r d s eyes

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PIERRE DE RONSARD

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for peace a nd order an d goo d gover n men t ; an d the Calvinists were rebels a nd fomenters of di s c ord—a plague an d curse upon France The year of the two Dis co urs e s o n the m i se r ies of thi s ti me an d of the se c ond version of the E legy to Gui lla ume de s Aute ls was the year of the massacre of P a ssy of the Englis h sei zure of H avre Roue n an d D ieppe of the seige an d fall of Rouen of the Huguen ot att empt U po n Paris an d the Catholic victory of Dreux ' Rons a rd s atti tu de towards life is w e ll shown in his A ns wer to s ome m i n is te rs a nd pr ea che rs of Gene va published in the spring of I563 a reply to a number o f Protestant libels After rec iting his C re do that of the Ca tholic C hurch he goes on to give an acc ount of his way of life : On waking i n the morning be fore doing anythin g I c a ll upon the Etern al the Father of a ll good praying Him humbly to give me H is gra c e a nd that the new day may pass without o ffence to Him then I get up an d when I am dressed I s e t myself to study For four or five h ours I remain at work composing or read ing Then weary of too much read ing I l e a ve my books and go to Church when I c ome b a ck a fter a n hour s pleasant c onvers a tion I dine sober l y a nd give than ks to God The rest of the day I devote " to a museme nt Then he tells of hi s amuseme nts—walking talking with a friend reading or sleeping in a garden or by a stre a m or playing t ennis wrestlin g fe n cing or even exc hanging good stories with a gay companion for .

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDI E S " Too much austerity does not dwell in me Fi nal l y When brown night has set the stars arow Enc urtaining with vei l s the earth and sky Care l ess I go to bed a nd r a ise my eyes And mouth and heart toward the vau l t of He a ven " And m ake my prayer

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That is his Simp l e mode of life ' And then he c ompares the poet s love of be a uty He makes w ith the su ll en fa n a ti c ism of the sect a rian no sec ret o f his love of fair women—seeing i n it no wrong provided it be de c ent and moderate a nd he ends his poem with a picture of Fr a nc e ravaged and destroyed by Civil War and expresses his sorrow a nd indignation a t all this waste and horror But he does not forget even in his a nger to do justi c e to the gr e a t Protestant fa mi l y of Co l igny—his friends a n d p ro te c tors o f whom he thinks no evil and to whom he a ttribute s no i ll desire toward the realm of France His e a rlier poems before the outbreak of Civ il War h a d been singula rl y moder a te Here is a p a ss a ge f rom the D is co urs e to De s A ute ls o f I56O He is spe aking of the Huguenots .

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For they do wrong and we too a re a t fa u l t ; Their fa ul t is wishing to destroy our re al m ' And f orc ib l y resist our sovereign s wi ll And in presumption o f their proud sel f will For an c ient la ws to subst itute new dre ams ; Their f aul t is straying from their f athers road To f oll ow w a ys of f oreign se c t a ries ; Their f au l t is sca ttering seditious prints Slanderous and full of insult and contempt ,

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P IE RRE D E RO NSARD 43 They think they only see they only live We ll ordered lives while we have strayed from God " To follow do c trine man— made and corrupt ,

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But then he immedi a t e ly goes on to castigate the Catholic C hurch for its abuses— no Pope has preached ' since Gregory the Gre a t b e ne fic e s a re given to un educ ated men to boys of fif teen f ops f ools and a re sold to the highest bidder He is particularly ind ig nant at the young prel a tes who care nothing for their poor fl o c k whose w ool they take a nd often thei r " S kin too and who live in profusion idleness and debauchery And he asks What would Saint Pa ul s a y to find the Church founded of old in humble ness of soul in a ll patienc e an d obedie n ce without money consideration strength or power poor naked a n outlaw what would he say to find it to d a y r ich well fed a nd proud well provided wi th coin revenues and lands its ministers swoll en with worldly wealth an d i ts P o p e s even c lothed in splendid vest " ments of silk a nd cloth of gold 3 And Rons a rd replies : He would wish he had never suff ered for the C hurch never been be a ten or stoned or b a nished for " He urges the C atholi c s to reply to the Huguenots it ca nnon and a rmour but by the pen where no t with by they de f end so well their bad cause and whi ch the C a tholi c s as yet use so ill to defend theirs which is just and good Ronsard evidently does not believe that an exhibition of force can prove the justice of any cause for him the victories of the spirit c an o n lv be won by the spiri t ' ' But when in spite of de I H O S p i ta l s e fi or ts seconded ,

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FRENCH LIT E RARY STUDIES by Rons a rd the Civi l Wa r had actu a lly broken out the poet ch a nged his tone He h ad to choose his side ac t ive l y now He even f ought for a while with the He apostrophi ze s the s w o rd as we ll a s the p en Pro te st a nt de Beze

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No longer pre ach in Fra nce a Gospe l armed A pisto lled Christ with powder bl a ckened face A nd m o r i o ne d he a d and be aring in his h a nd A bro adsword dripping with red hum an b l ood ,

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H e i s c onvin ced th at the Protestants a re responsible f or the misery and dis a ster of the Civil War that is destroying Fra nce He is fil l ed with a gre a t pity for the poor a nd humb l e who a re p aying the price of w a r a nd with a grea t indign a tion a gainst the H uguenot di s turbers o f the pe ac e But even now he does not f orget the abuses o f the Catholic Chur ch In the R e m o ns tra nc e to the P e op le of Fra nc e he adjures the prelates a s s emb l ed a t the Counc i l of Trent : .

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Root up a mbition a nd exc e ssive we al th Te a r from your he a rts la sc ivious youth and be Sober a t me als a nd s ober in a ll you say : And seek the we lfare o f your fl oc ks an d not " Your own ,

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And again Put o ff your greatness gl ories honours a ll : Be clothed in virtue not in garb of si lk Be chas te of body simple in your souls And humbly dignified a mong your flocks Combining gentleness with gravity H ave no conc ern with world l y things and fle e " The fi ckle f avours of the Court of Kings ,

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PI ERRE DE RO NSARD 45 And Ronsard appeals to both sides in the na me of G od

For Christ is not a God o f qu a rrel or fight " Christ is just charity c onc ord a nd l ove ,

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He even goe s so far as to confess to the Protestants that Had they rem a ined simp l e as of o l d and been c ontent only to see k to reform the Chur c h and put a n end to the abuses of a greedy pri esthood he woul d h a ve followed them and wou l d not h ave been the " le a st of those who would have listened to them Rons a rd w a s soon to enter on the winter of his li fe I shall not dw e ll on the bitter p aea ns of vi c tory he wrote for the Catho li c triumphs in the Third Civi l W a r For a moment in e a p e ra tion he f orgot a ll his serenity and rejoi c ed in a spirit o f exult a tion over t he defe a t o f hi s enemies — a tempor a ry l a pse that we ca n readily forgive him when we remember the ruin th a t they had m a de o f hi s beloved Fran c e and the hope he never lost that a crushing Catholic vi c tory would put a speedy end to the horror th a t h a d engulfed his n a tive land In l a ter years he returned to his old moderation a n d exhorted Henry III —alas ! in vain t o justi c e and peac e and in the long war th a t ended his symp a thie s o nly with the acc ession of Henry IV were not with the League and the Guises but with Henry of Navarre But he did not live to s ee the vi ct ory of Henry IV He died on the 27th De c ember I5S 5 He di c tated They are his own t w o sonnets the day before he died epitaph Here i s one of the m u

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES I am nothing but bones I seem a skeleton flesh less nerv eless without muscles or he a rt be a t whom the shaft of death has struc k without hope of remission Apol l o god of medicine and his son E s c ula p ius both gre a t m a sters cannot cure me their Ski ll ha s fa iled me ; farewe ll ple a sant sun I my eye is b l inded my he art is about to go down where everything is disintegrated Wh a t friend seeing me so stripped a s this does not ca rry b ac k home a s a d a nd humid eye c onso l ing me in my bed and kiss ing my f ace and wiping my eyes put to sleep by death ! F a rewe ll dear c ompan i ons f arewell my de ar f riends ! I a m going first t o prep a re a place " for you

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He did not h ave hi s due the little s o uls of M alherbe a nd Boi l e a u l ibel led and besmir ched him Rons a rd never dei gned to be other th an himse l f : he c ould proud l y s ay whether to Genevre or to " Henry III I a m Ronsard : that is enough And he knew th a t the l adies of his verse Cassandre M a rie Genevre H elene despite their ri c h beauty their fresh gr ace a nd charm o f youth wou l d l ive only in his verse a nd that the kings he honoured with his f riendship were less than he was and that their gl ory would onl y be t hat he h a d sung of them a s o f the f r ai l be a uties who had l ov e d him with that immortal voice sounding ac ross the c enturies from the great Renaissance to our own hu ckster age .

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDI ES I saw her cl ose her fan coquettishly And go with feigned reluctanc e down the gra ss Between broad par terres edged with ye llow box And ma rble satyrs laughed to s e e them p a s s And m any a f aun chased nymph in verdigris Glinted between the paint ed ho llyho c ks ,

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Dim a re her patches a nd her powdered hair And dim the lace and bu ckles of her f riend The flowered gauze upon her si l ken skirt No l onger bre a thes its fa int and precious blend Of rose and essen ces and lave n der No lover now s ha ll t a ke the sl ightest hur t ,

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From h e r c o l d breast or from her ivory c heek The amber witch c ra ft of her eyes is sti l l The wine of heady kisses spi l t : a nd he ' Who onc e had bent her to his lover s will H a s shed his gol d brocade and musked perruque " In the etern al night of Ninety Three I ,

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That is the spirit of the Eighteenth Century The poets of whom I s ha ll speak if they did not all shed their l iv e s in Ninety— Three at least a ll shed their bro ca de a nd powder a nd lost all th a t they he l d dear If they survived they lived on only a s strangers in an ugly worl d where bree ches a nd wigs were forgotten With the horrid yel p of the C a rm a gnole a round them they dreamed li ke my friend of th a t bright day when long ago they spoke with some powdered Be a uty in the Gardens of the King a t Versa i ll es or S a int— Germain at S aint Cl oud or Marly Ie Roi The story of the Eighteenth Century is of the gra dua l .

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POETS OF EI GHTEENTH CENTURY 49 decline of the purely French school before Englis h and German innovations The Revolution a nd ' Roman ti c ism are in R ousseau s C o nfe s sions and his ' C ontr a t S oc ia l B ut they are just as much in Diderot s plays and in his dramati c theory Dancourt and M ar iv a ux are French Diderot and B eaumarc hais are English Richardso n Lillo and Edward Moore w in the b a ttle over the successors of Moliere ; S hakespeare beats R ac ine Nature ceases to be the appropri a t e setting of well ordered lives : she bec omes a Pro p he te s s with dishevelled hair and w ild eyes be ckon i n g to a n impossible Paradise Le N6 tr e is dispossessed by Kent And the whole system o f L ouis ! IV in life and govern ment de ca ys an d fal ls b e fore the demo c rati c ideas of Englan d I do not propose to weary you wi th the cold a nd pompo us writers of O des B Rousseau Le Fr a nc de Pompignan H ouda r de l a Motte Le brun and the rest E ven t he best of them B Rousse a u is stiff and brist l es with unne cessary mythology Pompign a n h a d it is true a lighter a nd even playful touch when he liked b ut that was not often unless he w a s dis coursing t o some fair l a dy of Nectar an d Ambrosi a after some Italian model Thomas w a s an hones t m a n and dull to exti nc tion He is the R evolution in b a d verse His only and th a t a more than dubious cl a im is that Lamartine pi lfered from him Le Brun known a s Pindar by his admirers an d enemies is even d ulle r inspired no one but Victor Hugo at his worst a nd was not even an honest man It is they a nd their likes that have brought the Eighteenth Century into d is credit Nor do I propose to speak of the writers of the earlier part of the century The R egency and the .

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FRENCH LIT ERA RY S TUD IES years that immediately followed it are the de c adence of the Seventeenth Century rather than the flower of the Eighteenth The epi c urean s o f Ve nd6 me wore the full wig and p l umed hat of the Seventeenth Century a nd they knew not the deep b l ue velvet an d powdered h a ir of Pompadour nor the di aphanous rose pink o f frivolous b are foot du Barry Else had I f ain dwe l t lovingl y on Gui ll a ume A mfrye de Chaulieu the mil l ionaire i ntendan t of the Princes o f Ve nd6 me Abbot o f Aumale Poit iers Che ne l a nd Saint Etienn e spiri tual ' and temporal Lord o f Saint Georges e n l lle ' ' d oleron Voltaire s m a ster and one of the most harmonious o f Frenc h poets an d a studen t of the theory of v e rs i fic a tion And there are so me of later d ays I h ave not in my heart to pr a ise : Fontene lle whose criti c ism is so muc h be tter th a n his prosa i c verse where solemn shepherds m ake c old lo v e to posturing shepherdesses Piron who spent his l a st ye a rs like Gresset doing penit e nce for the work of his youth and who is remembered only for a bad ' c omedy little bet ter than Cresset s masterpiece and without the redeeming pend a nt of the n aughty story of Ver Vert the pious parrot For Piron sleeps and ' Gres set is wit h God —Piron s e ndo rt Gresse t est tout en Dieu —said Gentil Bernard towards I75O ' And there are dozens more d A m a uld Dora t Co la r deau—I will not c atalogue them And of course I sh all stop a t I7S9 With the Revolution R ousse a u and Diderot came to their own and D a vid in p a inting brought the note of austerity proper to Republican v irtue With M a rie Ant oi ne tte the gaiety and easy gr a ce of the Eightee nth Century went to its death Nor shall I sp e a k of Voltai re although the whole Ei ghteenth 50

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PO ETS

OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 5| Ce n tury is in him Whether at Versailles or from B erlin or in his royal state at Ferney he dominates everything : his clai m is not disputed I wish rather to interest you if I can i n the minor poets o f the seco nd half of t he cen tury the Abb é Le Blan c Cardinal ( l entil B ern ard Be m is Saint Lambert the Abb é D el ille Leonard the C hevalier Be rt in and Eva riste Vicomte de Farny They are little known perhaps in spit e of much perfunctory allusion to their ins i gni fi cance the least known of all French poets No one reads D elille Bertin the bes t of them all the author of one or tw o of the finest lyrics in French is not even dismissed with contemp t by Lanson He is simp l y not mentioned Le Blan c is n ot in the No uv ea u La ro us s e Bernis a nd Ge ntiI B ernard sell as E ro tica to collectors who if they ever read their fi rst editions will be g rievously d isappointed Le onard ha s advanc e d to a cheap sele c tion by an acknowledged authority : but I have editions not ment ioned in his bibliography ' Fa rny is only known because he was La m a rtine s ' master Saint Lambert because he w a s Voltaire s rival in love You c an buy Delille for a penny on t he quays He was once famous and he lived beyond the Re v olu tion a nd profited by the cheap s tereotypes and the sumptuous editions of the Empire But Bertin is rare He died with the Old Regime He is best re a d in the two l i ttle morocco bound Cazin volumes of I7S 5 and if you can find those in any penny dip be gladder than if you had found the Lyrical Ballads or the first volume of Mr Yeats I would n ot sell mine for a ransom For I say advisedly that if D elille is the purest and cle a rest of Fre nch poets since Ra c ine Bertin h a s softnes s and music and colour and passion .

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FRENCH LITE RARY STUDIES more than any be fore or since Take the others if Leave them to their undeserved oblivion yo u will but give me these two the c l a ssical and the exoti c for they sound between t hem the gamut of French verse ln Bertin before Be m a r din de S a int Pierre b ef ore Chateaubriand is all t he heat of the South and in him it is real he is quite without pose or aff ect at ion and quite without sh a me or se l f c onsc iousness He is not steeped like them in the sentimentality and sophistries of Rousseau He is a cl assic not a Rom antic They a re al l minor it is true But Go d whispers His truth to t he drunken poet sl eeping on the highway a s we ll as to Voltaire on the throne of thought or Ch a te a ubri and on the ruins of the world The great have not a monopoly of inspiration Perhaps the minor appeal to us more They have dreamed our dreams a nd have desired and failed w ith us : their joys a re such a s we can sh a re : their verse with a little good fortune we m ay hope to write The Seventeenth Ce ntury is studded with immort al n a mes Even a minor poet suc h a s Pé r e Lemoyne wr iting his Epi c o f Saint Louis felt himsel f the prophet a nd c oadjutor of God Vo l t a ire spoke to Go d a s to an equ al But the poets o f whom I sh al l spe a k wal ked on dewy eves on dusk en fo l ded lawn s or hid from mid d a y under overa rching t rees lord s of nothing and caring to be l ords of nothing but some e l usive or some re a dy mistress gl ad to rest with them in the sh ade o f some cut spindle bower or on the soft turf of a st a tue studded l awn In the opening or fal ling of a rose they s a w birth and doom : in the patches and p owder of a panniered sweetheart the art of Mi c hel 52

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POETS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 53 A ngelo an d Claude Lorrain The Eighteenth Century is not devoid of po etry The movement in pai nting of Watteau a nd his suc cessors was boun d to h ave its c ou n terpar t in verse While the moralists sought s alva tion in sentimen tality or in the grave wisdom of anti q ui ty the poe ts heedless of doctrine lived their own lives and san g their ow n emotions Like Vo l taire ' they had le a rned wisdom from Ninon de l Enc los and had left morals to Rousse a u howling in his Swiss desert a nd Diderot moved to tears at the spe c tacle of virtue rewarded They lived and loved and sang a nd asked no more from the golden sunset of the old re gi me They are not great poets but they are true poets They loved gardens a nd fair women and the delicate broidery of a n artifi c ial life Their work is all in p a stel sh a des there is no riot or profusion but there is taste and refi nement Their feeling is no less real be c ause it is gentlemanly in conception and ex pression a tou ch or a hint s uffic ing where a Rom an ti c would have exhausted the di c tionary in violenc e a nd c r udity To them the world— their world—i s a g arden , c arefully laid out by Le N6 tre in beds and lawns and ho m b e a m avenues every flower in i ts right place blending colour a nd per fume exquisitely with the broc a de a nd t a ffeta of c omely Lords and Ladie s the sp r ing or autumn tints of we l l g roomed trees and hedges and noonday or sunset envelopi ng all in its appropriate r a in of light They loved Versailles and are its expression Patched and powdered are the ladies of their verse : bewigged and musked them selves Courtly priests diplomatists and soldiers they are before all gentlemen They break the De calogue with an easy grace an d a laugh there is n o i n si s tence .

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F RENCH L ITERARY

STUDIES

heir touch even in their sins is l ight Far f rom them is the earnestness in virtu e or in wrong— doing of a later d a y or of Rousseau and Diderot in their o w n All was i n the man ner nothing in the thing itself Their love was much as love always is ; but they loved wi thout remorse or regret or self analysis And a s they loved they lived their lives of which love formed so great a part wit hout a backw a rd glance or a fear for the future excellently courageously like men of taste honour unshamed before the gra ndeurs and a nd pride and great tr a dition of Vers a i lles and unabashed in their respectful worship of Louis the Well Beloved a nd Louis the Sixteenth O utside Rousse a u and Diderot might howl and weep a nd the evening sky grow red with the torches of Revolution But here in Vers a i ll es were peace and gr ac ious gallan try an d we ll ordered repose l l ike to pl ace them among the box borders and cut hedges o f Versa illes mingling with the nymphs ' a nd fa uns they understood so well on Le N6 tre s Parterre des Fleurs or be fore the Labyrinth guarded by Esop and Love or strol ling t hrough the innum e r ab l e Gods a nd Heroes o f the Pet i t Parc or along the Gre a t Avenue of the Cloth o f Green— Bertin in si l k and go l d with sword and p l umes with his Eu c h a ris or his Ca tilie in flowered bro ca de of p ale rose ; Leona rd with his Egl e or his Doris tri cked out in the expensive rusti city of the shepherdesses he sa ng w ith beribboned c rooks a nd silken hose a nd high heeled red shoes ; Bernard with the bevy of the m any ladies of his Epistles going f rom one to the other in polygamous gallan try Daphne Claudine Olympe Corinne Laure t

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES Wa tte a us : he forgets his Art of Love an d even his B reviary to perorate from his Chair in the Co llé ge de Fra nc e It is I75O The lawns of the Orangerie agains t the ' background of Mansard s Tusc a n masterpiece are gay among laure l s an d myrtles with satin an d velvet and brocade beneath the more than life size white marble st a tue of the Gre at Louis as a Roman Emperor There is Boucher in brown vel vet bowing low to Pom He is her Court painter and the dis p a do ur hersel f Young Baudouin c i p le of Watteau Pater and Lancret soon to be his so n in Ia w is with him There too is the chubby Abb é Bernis Count of Lyons the ' Court poet of the King s mistress He like no other ca n p a y a delicate compliment make a dimp l e on a powdered cheek a perfec t masterpiece of m a n nered verse as fragile as coloured and as graceful a s the work of the poets o f the Roman decadence Claudian or Rutilian Wi th him is Gentil Be m a rd ' his friend an d Vol taire s a sking only in wit ty verse ' To please the fancy of great Pompadour He l ooks absurd l y ta ll beside the l ittle Abb é who is like nothing so much a s a Cupid in a Pompadour group a s he fusse s al ong beside Bernard In a ll the S al ons of the time these two a re found toge ther Bernis the writer of madrigal s and Bern a rd the f amous author of an unpub l ished Art of Lo v e Everyone knows his Epis tle to C la udi ne and his H y mn to a Ros e and remembered fragments of his masterpiec e ' are on everyone s lips There too is Saint Lambert the poet of a few grace ful and highly coloured lyrics E v e ning an d Mo rn ing 56

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POETS OF EIGHTEENTI I C ENTURY 57 and a couple o f lov e poems to his Phyllis He ha s newly returned to P a ris from the death bed of his ' mistr ess Madame du Chatele t once Voltaire s f riend He has not read Thomson yet ; nor written his S e a s o ns That b ig fat man is the Abbe Le Bl a nc his to rio gr a p he r of t he R oyal Pala c es and prece tor to p ' t Pompadour s bro her He is a disc reet a dmirer o f Eng lis h literature an d i n s ti tu tions a nd has ju s t pub lis he d his Le tters o n E ngla nd But he is a poet too His E le gies of I73 4 are not yet quite forgotten Voltaire from Berlin where Frederick knows not Po mpadour dominates Fran ce A year or two ago he had dominated Versailles a lord in wait ing and the old a nd intimate friend of Pompadour Jean Jacques R ousseau is still un known save for a few verses in the manner of the time S ylv ia s A ve nue a nd such like Didero t is known only as the author of a n inde c en t novel I t is I7 7O Let us stand on the Great Terrace of Vers ailles by the four br onze stat ues of Silenus Antinous Apollo and B acchus and watch those who pass up and down the grand perron between the vases of white m a rble and the bronze Loves horseback o n marble Sphinxes Du Barry reigns in pink and gos samer That old man is Boucher on c e Court Pai n ter now past his prime Fragonard is wit h him b ut Baudouin is dead Gentil Be m a rd is not there though his Art of Lo v e is still unpublished He is an old man a nd insane now Cardin a l Bernis is Ambas sador at Rome You w ill not see him here His worldly suc c ess ha s been complete alt hough he is an honest man But instead of him you will see the youn g Chevalier Bertin in the full habil l ement of a -

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FRENCH LITERARY STU D IES soldier an d his friend the Vicomte de Farny a soldie r too both C reoles both in t he spri ng of life one IS the other l 7 an d convi nced of the truth of B ern ard 8 line " ' ' C est a vingt a ns qu on a tous Ie s plaisirs 58

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They a t least never were seen nor w ill be " Pres d une belle assis nonchalamment

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There too is Lé on ard the young diplomatist a Creole l ike Bertin and F arny soon to go on his mission to the Prince Bishop of Liege He has wri tten his Mo ra l He is talking with the most Idy lls and is fa mous illustrious poet of the time the great Abb é Delille ' or himself the tran slator of Virgil s Ce gics They are discussing Thomson Goldsmi th an d Gessner For the l iter a ture of England an d Germany is penetratin g ' France Young s Ni ght Tho ughts have just bee n ' translated and D ucis adaptation of H a m le t is but a ye a r old And what is worse Rousse a u and ' Diderot have made some stir in France Vol t a ire s royal ty is waning at Ferney Be a umarch ais has written his Eugénie The m o ra l canvasses of Greuze from the earlier P a terfa mi lia s and Vi lla ge Br ide to the later Bro ke n P itche r and Dea d Bi rd where the didactic intention is l ess obvious but the suggesti on o f impropriety more b la tant have at tr acted mu ch atten tion in the Salons from I7S9 to I776 and l atterly in his own private exhibitions Diderot delighted at the pa thos of these sermons in oil has lauded Greuze to the skies at the expense of the fa r gre a ter Boucher a nd F ragonard Diderot does not understand reserve and repose he mistakes the non moral of the great painters ,

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POETS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 59 of the French school for the immoral and is blind to ' the re a l immoralit y of Gre uze s professed l y m o ra l sen timent alities Greuze h a s a heavy touch : he in ' sists That Boucher never did and Fra g ona rd s e ro ti c is m is wit hout o ffence and as light as a ir For they are Fre n ch an d Greuze is like Diderot a disciple of the English school S a i nt Lambert has become a n ' A c ademi c ian an d has adapted Thomson s S e a s o ns He too is turning to England He has los t his l ight ness and gra ce Gone long since are the days of Madame du Chfite le t and the black eyes of Phyl l is D elille is talking t o B ertin who has said to him his latest poem Me r i dia n ,

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The sultry noon is still The air is close and warm My Ca tili e where will You lie an d rest t o day ! The cloudy sky is red With lightning a nd the storm Cannot be far awa y " Where shall we find our bed ! ,

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" ' To De l ille s young scapegrace I he has retorted '

by a reminder of a little piece of the Abb é s own writte n long ago an d almost forgo tte n I n some dim garden or dark wood Astray before the point of day I a s k : why is she far away ! Upon these velve t lawns we could Lie happily : or I could lead Her through some dusk enfolded mead " Or coppices at dawn bedewed I -

FRENCH LITER A RY STUDIES It is I7S3 The War with Englan d has e nded i n the Peace of Versail les Ameri c a is free and Fr a nc e vi c The Ga rde ns of Delille a nd the Lo ve s of to r i o us Be rtin are full of the humbling of proud Al bion then in process now Louis is Conqueror and the Pax Ga l Iic a na is a b a lm upon the worl d But as of old Greece conquered conquered Rome so now England ' is Vi c tor at her Victor s feet The material gai n is the spiritual loss Volt aire is de ad and nemesis has overtaken him for Ducis the a d aptor of Shakespeare has succeeded him at the Academy a nd Le to um e ur has published his c om ple te prose translation of the Barb a ri a n Wi l d nature su ffi c iently sophisticated to ple a se Ver sailles is the mood of t he d ay Ossian ha s be en tr anslated and Gessner Bernardin de Saint Pierre is c omposing his S tu di es and P a ul a nd Vi rg in ia We had best c ross the Park to Tri a non For at Petit Tri anon ' M a rie Antoinette a vi c tim to Rousseau and Gessner spends her days in rustic simplicity a panniered and hi gh he e le d dairymaid Here a re her farm yard and orchard a nd vegetable garden and her Englis h Park Quincunxes and cut box and ye w a re no l onger the fa shion paths winding a mong forest trees and dewy l awns h ave taken the p l a c e of noble avenues and Le N6 tre has f allen before Kent It is the day o f the ldyll But thank He aven enough a r ti fic i a l i ty ha s remained in the c ult of N a ture We need h a rdly regret the gre a t m anner of Pompadour nor the mincing frivolity of du B a r ry Boucher is dead a nd Fr a gonard reigns in his ste a d Bertin in paint But the domesti c ities of the virtuous ' Madame Vi gée Lebrun are more to the Queen s taste

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POETS OF E IGHTE E NTH CE NTURY 6 | Bertin h a s published his Lo v es Léonard has returned Pa m y has loved and lo s t Eléono re from Li ege Delille ha s long been Professor of Latin in the Col lege o f Franc e an d an Academi c ian He has just published his Ga rde ns and is the most famous poet in the world To come here he has c rossed the clearing made by the devastation of I77S : saplings planted English wise repla c e the great trees of the gre a t time And a passage of his Ga rdens runs in his mind ,

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Versailles al a s ! the lost charm of your woods The mas ter work of Louis a nd the Gods ' Le Notre s craf t is undone crue lly Those trees whose tops rose to the amber sky Of sunset now Ii e smit ten by the axe And their once sh a dy branches strew the tracks ' They shaded Louis laurel circled brow : They saw the pride of Montesp a n l a id low : There sweet La Valliere to her Royal Lord Lo vely and frail scar ce hoping her reward " Whispered her timid secret fearfully ,

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B e sides Rouc he r a disciple of Rousseau has d a red to fores tall his Ga rde ns with a turgid romantic poem of the Mo nths after Saint Lamber t and Thomson I t is true that it i s of lit tle account The Ga r de ns ' are gay and smiling in the sunshine of De lille s art ' Ro uc he r s poem is fo r mless and threatening like a cloudy sky over weary uplands and deserted marshes Bertin is still a soldier and a courtier but he is no longer twenty and his dead Eucha ris a nd f a ithless Ca til ie have left a note of melancholy in his v olup tu There is a plai n tive un dercurrent in some ous ne s s ,

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FRENCH LIT ERARY STUDIES last poems written since the Lo ve s were pub a year or two ago ,

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The shadows lengt hen he cries

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hasten : why be wise !

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For sweet illusion passes with young days And wisdom whispers low Tha t I have see n the snows of thirty years

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He is reading to Delille a poem addressed to him Both h ave in common at least a real lov e of Roman antiquity even if the Abbé tends to Virgi l an d the soldier to C atullus Delille is about to start for Italy and Bertin wishes that he too might s e e the ruins of that Rome .

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Where Ti tus lived the D arling of the World At Tibur s till they say on sum mer eves Horace still rose c rowned follows Lal age " Who still escapes him on elusive feet ,

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is the l ast of the gay and care free crowd the He to the l ast beautiful tri fl er of the Old Regime e nd ignored the storm wi thout the old order chang ing Rousseau and D iderot howling and B eauty a nd C omeliness dragged in the mire He saw but refused t o reco gn ise the day when all he held dear should be forgo tten a nd -

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ECONTE

DE LISLE was undoubtedly a great master of verse and within a narrow range a very great poet His limitations are evident He was not one of those whose ,

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hasten through a fairy field Thither where underneath the rainbow lurk Spirits of youth and life and gold concealed ,

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He missed n i ne tenths of the world s me a ning : he denied all virtue to the Middle Ages : he s a w no be a uty in a Gothic c athedral ; in gr ay cloisters and en closed gardens ; i n red roofs among the trees He missed the more delicate and fragile side of things : the more int ima te a n d subtl e emotions the e te rn a l in the fi nite : the spirit informing a ll ma tter His Gods are Gods o f light and harmony : but their light is the crudenes s o f s un on white m a rble and t heir h armony ha s no p lace f or the subtl e and d angerous and pene tr a ti ng c hords of Debussy or Moussorgsky His c olour is go l d and p urp le : without shading There are no pastel eff ects no b l ues and greens fa ding o ff into one another in the infi nite c ool varie ty of Nature But he unfli nc hingly loved Justi c e and Freedom a nd re udi p ated with unswerving purpose a ll those who in the -

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65 LECONTE DE L ISLE n ame of God or of the State have restri c ted or at tempted to res tric t the free deve l opment of the indi vidual his ina lienable r ight to free dom of conscience thought and spee ch a nd within the measure made possible by human relations of action He followed an d honoured Beauty and hated a ll tho se who blas p he m e d or denied her He refused to bend his knee to an y Master high or low a mong the Kings of Earth or the Gods imagined in their im a ge Other Gods had lived it is true he believed who had been each in his time divi ne and " as Louis M en a rd said Ie s a ffi rmations succ essives ' d un besoin et e rne l He cries not with j oy but " sorrowfull y a nd pitifully : Te voil a donc blessé comme nous G alil éen te voi la s e rr bla ble a nous T a ' ' splendeur s est s é te in te e t les lyres se sont tues in the words put by J a mes Da rm e s te te r into the mouths of the An c ient Gods And fi n ally he asserted with the white he a t of passion that Art has no purpose but itself a nd refused to debase it to the purposes high or low of a ny propaganda wh a tever whether o f Truth or of the p a ssing can t of the day ,

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II Baude laire in his arti c le on Leconte de Li s le made an unw a rra ntable assertion and s e t a bad fashion The ' former was to the e ffe c t that Le c onte de Lisle s work did not betray his C reole origin : the latter was the ' fashion of singling o ut for pr aise the poet s desc riptive verse Leconte de Lis le owed to his birth and early life in Reunion not only his predile c tion for Greece and Greek life— il aima dans Bourbon une terre — o nception of the East recque Gr ce his c m e e m l a g .

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FR E NCH LITERA RY STUDIES and his leaning towards Buddhism an d his lov e for the old Earth Gods and the Golden A ge when in some Edenic Bourbon

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' a I aurore premi ere La jeune Eve sous ,

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walked in hope and innocence an d joy b ut—what is more fundamental still— the sensuous appercep ti on of life whi ch fills a ll his work for he was not a prof ound thinker and the burden of his cri ticism of his own day of modern civilisation is ,

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Nous avons reni é la volupté divine

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The increasing urgency moreover of his longi ng to steep himself in the oblivion of Nirvan a which coun ter bal anced a nd threatened to eclipse his p a n theism and his hellenism w a s only possible to a mysti c steeped in this sensuous Oriental quietism ' Leconte de Lisle s merely descriptive poems are not his best The anthologies British and Ge rman are ful l of them They may be dismissed if Le c ont e de Lisle h a d not been more than a pain ter of dogs an d e l ephants and c ondors a Lan dseer in verse he would have had no mention here It is true that Le conte de Lisle i s a master of description : but only when the descripti on serves instead of bei ng the ma in c once p tion of the poem a s in the perfect Le Mo nc hy which no praise can overvalue o ne of the most exquisite ' elegies i n French the poe t s tribute to the C reole l o st Iove of his youth : or i n L I llus ion s upreme his no s talgic cry to the lan d of his bir th ,

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LECONTE DE L ISLE 67 I might p ra ise his love poems f or despite hi s restr aint and reserve t he passion of Le c onte de Li s le bl azes from time to time in su ch lyrics a s Le Pa rfum Impér i s s a ble a n d Le S a cr ifice a nd fl a shes through m a ny other poems like l ightning on a dark night over a troubled se a But I prefer the exquisite Greek a nd Lati r ca meos in the P oé me s A nti que s and the E astern Iang uor o f La Vera nda h with their appe al of Art f or a nd in itself without the least suggestion of do c trine or intention other than such as a potter ha s in mould ing the c ontour of a v a se for some God to drink f rom In them his p a ssion for the f orm and c olour and beauty for the sh apeliness and wonder o f lovely m a te r i a l things glows like t he love of a grown m a n for some ' r a diantly lovely gi rl like the touch of a n artist s fi ngers on ve l vet or raw silk or the smell of a herb ga rden or; a sun baked midday between enclosing w a lls The a ir quivers with undying des ire and the bright youn g beautiful Gods w a lk abroad in the etern al sunshine Myriad formed they throng holding a mbrosial c ups to ' the re a der s lips He drinks the heavy opiate and for gets the clear light of the hil l s the eyebright on the mount a in meadows and the co l dness of a severe land a nd sinks willingly intoxic a ted numb into the pantheistic dream of Le c onte de Lisle fa lling in a dora tion before the imm a nent Gods of his paganism rest ing divinely on rose leaf cou ches above an orderl y and beautiful world -

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I II ' I do n ot propose to dwell on Leconte de Lisl e s political and social opinions He had dreamed a dream of a well ordered world in which each man and .

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FRENCH L IT ERA RY STUDIES wom an would fulfil an appointe d part His S ta te So ci al ism does not appe al to me we know what ex c es s es of tyranny the pretext of the common goo d may ' c over But in Le conte de Lisl e s time the predomin a nt c onc eption of so c ial a nd e co nomi c organization was ' individual istic D a rwin s theories of the struggle for existence and the survival of the fi ttest with of c ourse an imp l ication th a t the fi ttest were the best were eagerl y seized and twisted to justify t he f a miliar pro c esses of c apitalism But to day t he predominant c onception has a ltered The ma sse s a re exp l oited in the n a me of a new shihh o l eth the St a te The ruling c astes have changed their pretext th at is all Individu alism h a s been succ ee ded " by Prussianism Le conte de Lis le protesting ag ainst an in dividualist regime protested in the name of the Communi ty : a Lecont e de Lisle o f to d ay would a ssured l y protest in the n ame o f the Indiv idua l against an organized State tyranny He woul d repudi a te the ideal of servi ce a nd s ay with Thore a u There i s nothing s o important to be done t hat I would not l e ave it to he a r this l oc ust " sing He woul d de c la re with Royce Arise t hen ' freema n st and f orth in thy world It is God s world It is a ls o thine ! L ec onte de L is l e w a s what the practi c al m an of to d ay woul d call a f ut i l e ide al ist an imprac ti c abl e dreamer a m aker of Utopias We must remember however that the ide a ls and drea ms and Utopias of one generation become the accepted do c trines a nd soc i al order of the next the inviol able and impresc riptible truth in the n a me of which new dreamers an d idealists and utopists a re

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LECO NTE DE L ISLE 69 persecuted tortured and martyred It is true that they have become in the pro c ess only emp ty husks void of ' a ll be a uty a nd truth a s Christ s dream be c ame the faith o f Hildebr a nd o f Innoc ent the Great of Alex ander VI an d John ! ! III a s the passionate indiv i du al ism o f the French Revol ution be c ame the liberty to exploit o f industrialism as the dreams o f th e Socialists have beco me the tyranny of State Socialism Men like Le c onte de Li s le a re Rebels ag a inst the Social order an d acc epted doctrine of the age in whi ch they live they are the leaven of the world like the religions we profess but do not practice But if on ce their ideas win a nd take a firm hold on the world they lo s e interest in them They c anno t be on the side of the m ajority : for if on c e an idea has been accepted by the m ajority it must have bee n wrested an d twisted into some sordid and petty travesty capable of univers a l appre c iation Le conte de Lisl e found this o ut in the Revolution of IB4B He cast himself into th a t young and enthusiastic fi red by high ideals and noble dreams He soon found that the nation ready enough to revolt w a s not re a dy to carry out the ideas a nd dreams in the name of which i t revolted — d i he wrote te que les masses sont stupi es s d e J to Louis M enard La gr o s s iere té de leur sentiments la pl a titude e t l a vulgarité de Ieurs id ées a ppalled him He would give his life for his ideals : but he cou l d not sacrifi ce his soul When the Third Republic ended in the tyranny of L ouis Napol eon Le c onte de Lisle ceased to t a ke any p a rt in politics And he w a s wise and consistent ' The part these Rebels play is th a t like Qai n or Nio bé of eternal a nd ever rec urring protest in the name of ,

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDI E S humanity an d of God a gainst the self s uffic ie nc y of established po l iti ca l soci al moral and economi c t yrannies They do not succeed For spiritu al ends cannot be won by ma te ria l means They fail a n d win by failure They keep the light of the s oul alive their blood keeps red the sunset a nd the lilies are whiter and purer the way they h ave passed They are the blossoming of the race : dre a mers poets teachers sa ints and sc hol a rs They wi thdr a w c l oistered from a crude age : or go forth carrying Be a uty and the Idea like a t orch lighting an unwilling world and blazing in red splendour on their o wn m a rtyrdom 70

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O s ang mystérieux O splen dide b a p téme ,

Leco nte de Lisle cried in his Va ea S up reme .

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Puisse j e a ux cris hideux du vulgaire héb é té " E ntrer c eint de ta pourpre en mon é ternité I -

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Leconte de Lisle unlike the Roman tics did n ot t ake his own emotions as the matter of his Art : he took Beauty Legend and the clash of Rac es and their " Ie s mani et es diverses Gods said B a udelaire ' suivant Iesquelles l homme a adoré Dieu e t " cherché Ie beau Leconte de Lis le regrets tha t Vi gn y whom he admired as a true poet had not been able to s e p é n é trer a son gré des sentiments e t des passions " propres aux époques et aux races disparues He has no individual heroes unless the monstrous and cynical Raven of Le Cor bea u c an be considered as one but he too is little e ls e than a mocking spectator of the history of the world playing the par t of a jeer ,

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FRENCH LITERARY STUD IES tests agai ns t the Huxleyan conception of Nature as the fi eld of eterna l struggle of Nature

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S al ut oubli du monde e t de la multitude ! Reprends nous 6 Nat ure entre tes bras s ac ré s ,

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He soon however revised his attitude to the Gods of Gree ce they a re ,

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divins Amis de la Race choisie ' Les Immortels subtils en qui coulait l Ikh6 r H éro is me Beauté Sagesse e t Poésie ' Autour du gran d Kro nide a ssis a u Pavé d or ,

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He sees in a ll the Gods that Man h a s made tous ' les Dieux morts a nc iens songes de I H om me the dei fied ideal s fe ars a nd p a ssions of hum anity ; and these are the deified ideal s of the noblest r ac e th a t ever lived (even i f it never lived a s B a rr es suggests ' outside his own and Louis M enard s ima gination I ) In a series of poems Lec onte de Lisl e has de al t with the first c omings of Christianity and it s clash with ' Greek Finnish and Celti c i de a ls Le R uno ia tells o f the a rrival in Finland of Ie Roi des derniers " ' temps the last b o m of the Gods Christ te lls Wai n a m o ine n the High God of the Fir ms th a t his hour is '" c ome Art thou ready to die King of the Pole 9 He asks For the brave strong barbarism o f Finla nd has de clined : she is ready to accept Christianit y together ,

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LEC ONTE DE LI S LE 73 with the Russian yoke He sums up his mission .

I bring to man in terror of his sin Contempt for life an d beauty an d desire Throug h Me man hood

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The O ld God protests appealing to Nature ; but Christ retorts ' ' J ai pris l ame du monde e t s a force e t s a grac e " La nature divine e s t morte sans retour ,

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The minor G ods of the Finnish Pan theon r a nged ' round their High God fell into C hrist s burning H e ll Wa i namo ine n himself the e te rnal Runoi a s e t sail in si l ence ac ross the darkness of the Polar Sea into the Unknown hurli n g a prophetic de fi ance at Christ : ,

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Thou too wil t die I Here Chris t is ide ntified with the Medi aev al Church ' the obje c t of Leconte de L isle s most violent a nd nu alterable hatred B ut usually the last of all the Gods is trea ted with t he utmost sympathy ' " The figure aux che veux roux d ombra e t de p a ix voilée was to him the last of the bright young be a uti ful Gods of Greece born out of his due time a re b e l ag a i nst e s ta blished tradition an d a m a rty r who to o ,

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES died to s ave the world from the self c omplac ent ' hypocrisy and the tyranny of Rome s bl a tant power Even the o ld b a ttered Raven who appears to Abbot Serapion in Le Co r be a u telling of the de a d Christ on the Cross is c ert ain th a t He w a s more than a m a n

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The obscene bird de c la re s that he had never seen any one s o beautif ul a mong all the Kings of Earth and the Gods II é tait

jeune e t beau s a tete a ux cheveux roux ' Dormait p a isibl ement sur l ép a ule inclinée ' E t d un mysté rieux sourire i lluminée S ans regrets s ans orguei l sa ns trouble e t s a ns e ff ort ' " Semb la it s e réjouir d ans I op p ro b re e t la mort ,

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L e c onte de L isle lov e s the dre am of the youn g " a s he ca lls him E s senian but he re coi l s in abhor renc e f rom the medi e v al tr avesty of this dre a m In the Medi aeval Churc h he thinks one more God had died a nd been denied He sees no hope no new G od w ill bring L ove and Pe a ce a nd J usti c e into this H e ll o f industrialism int o this w a r ridden worl d o f hate ,

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Where ignorant armies cl a sh by night

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LECONT E DE L ISLE 75 ' In ruined Churches Thou can st he a r and s e e High orgy of the impious herd flower girt And wan run riot a nd its laughter mock In o bscene insu l t Thy divine distress ! Thou sittest now be tween Thine Ancient Peers With russet head against a pure blue sky ; And souls like swarms of mystic doves fly up ' To drink the divine dew at Thy God s lips A s in the haughtiest days of Rom a n Power So in this sinking and rebellious world Thou h a s t not lied while m a nkind s ha ll e ndure " Weeping in time and in eternity I ,

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V In the awful series of medi e val poems the Church i s the Church of the Inquisition of the stake of perse It is c u tion and torture ,

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and t he pa l e figure of Christ appears only to repro ach some dying Pope with his excesses " Regarde mon royaume est plein de te s victimes I

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I w ill not dwell on this a spe c t of Le c onte de Lisle s work He did not understand the Middle Ages : the great work of the Church is obscured by the smoke of the holo c aust the sky of faith lighted o nly by the " r e fle t sangl a n t des b u chers Le s E ta ts da Dia ble la Béte E c a r la te H i é ro ny m us and the rest are to me intensely displeasing Their violenc e sins against the restraint of a r t : t heir prejudi c e is unworthy of a great poe t In these centuries of égorgeurs de l aches e t .

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES others no less great than Leconte de Lisle de br utes h ave seen the highe st effort an d attainment of human ity : the Dark Ages for them have shone with ex c e e ding splendour and Saint Thomas Aquin a s has been a new Aristot le Leconte de Lisle could see nothing of value between the fa ll of Rome an d the d awn of the Renaissan ce Tout c c qui constitue ' I a rt la morale e t la science é tait mor t avec le Polythé isme Tout a revé cu a s a ren a issa nce ' En meme temps que l A phro di te An adyomene du Correge sort pour la seconde f ois de l a mer le senti ment de l a dignité humai ne v eri t a b le base de l a morale an tique entre en Iutte cont re le prin c ipe h i éra tique e t f éod al That i s the expl a n a tion o f his h a tred of the Middle Ages The joys and splendours and be a uties and viri l i ty of t he o l d doctr ines a n d the o l d li fe were dead and the new intensity did not c om pens a te him for the l oss of the wide horizons of the paga n world He cou l d not forgive Christi an ity for having m ade littl e of Brother A s s the Bo dy He le sou ffl e de Platon d a ns le c orps would have ' " d A p hr o d i te He c ould s ee no virtue in renunc iation c ould not extr ac t be auty f rom sorrow a nd s ac rifice Desire not Love w a s his ide al a nd Christ had given Love to a si ck worl d weary of C a rn al Beauty an d the Desire of the Flesh VI Lec onte de Lis le regarded his own epoch with sca rc e less dis fa vour th a n the Mi ddle Ages

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LECO NTE DE LISL E II " The har mony of Greek li f e is no more : S l eep he ca lls to Hypatia the vi c tim of Cyril and his horde o f mo n ks ,

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A ll minds a re occupied he de c la re s in his article on ' B eranger with Ia fi evre de I uti le Ie s convoitises ' " d a rgent and regard the Ideal with contempt or a t ' best indiff eren ce Les imaginations s éte igne nt Ie s supremes pressentiments du Beau se " d issipen t And in his article on Baudelaire he naively enough I suppose on the well known p r inc ip le that the ne a rest enemy is the worst singles out Fran c e f o r espe c ial abuse a s a n a tion routiniere e t prude ' e nn emie n ée de l ar t e t de la po ésie déiste grivoise e t moraliste for t i gnare e t van iteuse a u ,

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upreme degré His poems on modern civilisation are not his best : l ike most o f the medi e v al series they sin a gainst his o w n canon of art : they show a hatred a nd contempt too violent to be repressed even in t he cause of th a t Art to whi ch he rem a ined faithful like Vigny ' absorb é par l a contempl a tion de s choses im ' p é rissables e t qui s est endormi fidele a la religion du " B eau I t may indeed be true that s

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L id ole a u ventre d or Ie ' S a s s i e d Ia pourpre a u dos ,

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the form of st a tement suggests a So c ialist tract In t he s a me poem A na theme however a re some of t he loveliest verses in all his works

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FRENCH LIT E RARY STUDIES Nous avons reni é la p a ssion divine

he cries in his despair "

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' Pour quel dieu d é so rm ais bruler l orge

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But he knows no hope Never more will the slave of m achinery judge hi s ac tivities by the st a ndard of be auty the prac t ic al m a n ha s won and all that makes lif e worth living is l ost beyond recall An d so he c a ll s upon a new deluge to engulf a fu tile an d an ugly worl d Thus we leave the hollow splendour of Leconte de Lis le : he looked at God and Lo ve an d Death through the smoked gl ass a nd pes ti lenti al f umes of mid c entury material ism a nd agnosticism and the in c redulity and fou l ness of his hopelessly c orrupt a nd sel fish epo ch blinded him to the hope and glory that shone upon his path He l ooked b ackward to a dead beauty that he cou l d not bring to l i fe a ga in an d died bowed bef ore a memory when be f ore him had he only eyes to see Be a uty immortal w al ked the E arth a s of ol d an d the Soul o f M a n b lazed its impresc riptib l e way despite Kings and Priests to the Heaven of the steep a n d tr ifid God he denied .

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES Only one thing c ould ha ve helped him to figh t against this influence m a ligne an d this w a s a ' wom an s subtle a nd underst a nding f riendship l ove For him Eros of the b a nd a ged eyes he ld no divinity He needed a l over who possessed the wise peac e giving qual ities he w a s to attribute to and find la ter " in his M ere Marie and who at the same time woul d give him the comp a nionship of sympathetic intel lec tu al f ee l ing ; who wa s in fac t a comrade soul understanding a nd he lp ing the psyc ho l ogical c om In his youth his cousin p le xi ty of his own spirit El isa watched over him lovingly until s he died an d her memory is one o f the most be a utiful things in an existence in whi ch there were a ll too few beautiful memories of women She was like a medi e v al saint ' but h a d none of a medi e val saint s rigidity recognising the wayward loveliness and extraordin a ry genius of Verl aine She paid for the pub l ication of his first book of p oems At a most crit ical point i n his l i fe when the lure o f Bohemia seemed most fasc in a ting to him and when the evil green viper absinthe had alre a dy begun to feed on his soul he fe ll in love for the first time an d m a rri ed M a thi l de Maute de Fleurvil l e who a fter a few months of roman ti c illusion about her husban d be came a se c ond Ophe l ia to this sorely tempted an d temporari l y m addened H a m le t of the Qua r tie r Like the Prince o f Denm ark he had his Horatio Le p elle tie r gave him a s strong a loyalty and aff ection a te friend ship a s ma n c an give m an and was a squ a re tower o f sanity al ways ready to shelter and c onsole But both Haml et a nd Verl a ine needed more than Horatio ' A woman like Brutu s Porti a might h ave s aved either

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PAUL VERLAINE 8I Certainly neither Ophelia of the stupid gentle fawn like temperament nor Mathilde with her essentially limited bourgeo is o utlook c ould he lp their lov e rs in the slightest Understanding lov e this is what Ie pauvre Léli a n wept for an d sought af ter a ll through his li f e It is true that he f ound muc h sympathy among temperament ally feminine men but Rimbaud was " s on mauvais génie and ultimately played him f a lse and Lucien Lé tino is died after a few months friendship It i s this intense need of a love that w ill not return ' upon itself th a t makes Verlaine turn to Christ s Virgin Mother— the Rosa Mys ti c a in whom he found a ll the qu a lities he looked for in vain in his c ruel l y dense c hi l d wife and his m a ny amies of later l ife— and c rou c h like a weary chi l d bene a th her wondrous b l u e man tle In his wistful penitent moods he Ioathes sensu ality the terrible beast that would clut ch and tear hi s i m ' mortal spirit with its ugly claws a nd over whi ch he has s o little c ontrol and wom a n was never so divine to him a s when her an imal n a ture was latent and all her gentle flower like qu a lities in evidence ' " ' L a mante he says doit avoir I a b a ndon " paisible de la soeur He sought only too often the I n finite in the Finite b y bitterly bought experien c e learn ing that he could find no mortal wom an to give him what he desired an d only in the Turris Eb um e a shadowed by the wo nderful blue half lights of the Catholic faith c ould the poor out — worn pilgrim find rest for his tired and dust stained soul ,

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FRENCH LIT E RARY STUDI E S Verl aine kneeling bef ore the a lta r is unfortunately a ll too o f ten su c c eeded by Verlaine wallowing in the lowest depths of debauchery an d even c rime He is " his o w n Pierrot gamin .

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Créa ture toujours prete " A s ofile r chaque app é tit .

As he grew ol der the ch arming ga mi ne r ie so de lightf u l in Pierrot young be c ame a hard and bitter c ynicism a nd knowled e of his own utter fai l ure I t g is the Pierrot of this period who sad l y sings the S éré na de so terrible in i ts inevi tabi l ity— the song o f one who k nows so w e ll that satisfied desire will eventual ly k ill his soul and yet who cannot s ave him s e lf even i f he wil l It is this Pierrot who sighs in S p le e n .

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Du houx a la feui l le v e m ie E t d u Iuis a nt buis j e suis l a s Et de la campagne infi nie " Et de tout fors de vous hé las I ,

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In his o l d age he is the Pierrot of Ia di s e t Na gué re a morbid and hollow eyed cari c ature of his real s e lf : -

Now is the moon struck dreamer vanished quite He who l ooked down in painted mimi c ry ' From o er their state l y doors and mo c kingly L aughed at our an c estors Ala s ! tha t bright ' F l ame dancing mirth like his poor c andle s light Is de ad To day we glimpse him shadowy And spectre thin H is mouth gapes mournfull y ' ' As if he wept beneath the worm s c rue l r ite -

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PAUL VER LAINE 83 H i s tunic floats out shroud like on the cold Ni ght win d its white sleeves rustling f old on fo ld Like passi n g birds seem aimlessly to trace Vague sign s that be c kon to the world in vain ' His sunke n eyes co l d phosphorescen t pain " Shines in the deathly pallor of his face -

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Last and saddest st a ge of a ll nothing to hope for now s ave the final torture of Death Yet the f a uv e p l anete did not entirely c onquer i ts unfortunate vi c tim an d al though his work might have been gre a ter if everything i n his life h a d not conspired so effe c tively to hurry him to the worst of which he w a s capable he ha s left behind him some of the finest lyri c s in the French language one vo l ume of which at least m a y be placed beside the Ode s of Ronsard and the best of Alfred de Musset His verse is more akin to music than to poetry He i s a ble with words to express the most subt l e and s ca rc ely perceptible moods of both extern al nat ure a nd his own extremely mobile temperament ; moods that treated by any of his Parnassian predecessors wou l d have been like f aded an d torn butterflies c rushed beneath he avy jewel led chains of rhetori c In his hands words be c ame flexible harmonious plastic each o n e of them a n Ar ie l to his Prospero Not for him the pompous eloquence of a Hugo nor the carved and e n amel led e ffects of Gautier an d Banville beautiful though they were He did not work in precious stones but i n the most delicate shades of colour imaginable colours that are shadows of colours eve n as a soft grey blue and silver twilight ,

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES is the shadow of a radiant spring day of green a nd gold ' He too knew Whistler s se c ret of impression s rather t han cle a r c ut outl ines an d in m a ny o f his best poems lyrics such as the famous La lune blanc he l uit dans l es bois and R oma nces s a ns P a ro les the words and rhythm combine imperceptibly with ' each other to leave in the reader s soul emotions as de l i ca te l y ephemeral and vague l y elusive a s those left by the me l odies of a Moussorgsky or a R ave l In this subtl e inevitabi l ity of skilful p a s te lizing lies the power o f Pa ul Verlaine By it he not onl y avoids the " " imp a ssivity of the Parnassians as I have s a id but a ls o by a certain ski ll and clearn ess does not f al l into the horror o f i nc oherency of his fol lowers the symbo l ists An eminent c riti c h a s likened him to a butterfly tired o f the materi alism of cosmos but hesit a ting on the brink o f the dull aiml ess disorder of c haos ! With Verlaine more than with most poets the man and his work a re inextri c ably bound up His poems " are always the instantaneous notation of himself P o é me s S a turni e ns is the most objective of a ll his books a s opposed to the intense subjectivity of the ' average beginner s e a rly work whi ch may or may not develop into l a ter object ivity Al though young when he wrote this his first volume even then he rea l ised the extreme import anc e of form with whi ch his absorption of E ma ux e t Ca me e s and the work of B a nville and Baudel a ire had much to do and in these poems perf ection of met rical struc ture combines with a cert ain youthfulness and freshness of feeling not un touched b y the essential melancholy trend of his tem

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PAUL VERLA INE 85 Wom a n is s till an ide a l to him a goddess p e r a me nt in whose cool han ds lies a ll wisdom and understand i n g Na ture is wonderful and mysterious to Verlai ne always but in P a ys a ge s Tr is tes he draws her in her most elusively subtle moods With what Iucidity a nd precision he expresses the most exquisite sensa tions mys tical correspondenc es an d m e nta l affini ties ! With what marvellous c r aftsmanship he recaptures an au tumn twilight in L he ure da Be rger ! .

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' On the horizon through a mist w o v n v e il -

The moon h a ngs glowing red a quivering haze S hrouds drowsy meadows ; through the sedges plays ' A little breeze be a ring a f rog s thin wail .

Now the p a le water lily closed lies A nd the s lim ranks of distant poplars seem Arboreal ghosts seen vaguely a s in dream A n d flickering round the bushes flit fire flie s -

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Now bats awake—circling in noiseless flight They beat the dar kness with strong leathe rn wi n gs While Ven us clad in skiey glimmerings " Glides forth the dazzling courier of Nigh t ,

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Every mood of n ature is seen through the mood of his own temperament In P rome na de S e ntimenta le i t is de grands né nuphars parmi Ie s roseaux gleami n g palely in the dusk that seem to respon d to him symbols of a spiritual hope almos t lost be neath ' the enshroudin g veils of the night of the soul s melan choly ; and in Cha ns o n d Auto-mna the .

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FRENCH L ITERARY STUDIES languorous and long sobbing o f the violins seems played on the too sensitive strings o f his own person ality Again in the deli c iously Wa tte a ue s que Nui t de Wa lpurgis C la s s i que the poet asks if these danc ing wra iths these formes diaphan es of his favourite century Sont c c donc Ia pensée Du poete ivre on s on regret o n son remords Ce s spectres agité s en tourbe c adencée ! 86

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S ont c e donc ' rr r L ho e u ou

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ton remords o re v a s s e ur qu m v xte ton regret ou ta pensé e ! In his second book of poems Fé te s Ga la nte s the muse of Verlaine no l onger bears the semblance of a daughter of the dawn an d dusk s li m changeling girl ste al thi l y stealing through autumn woods like a dryad listening to the songs of the fa lling leaves or like a naiad wat ching the wind ruffling the silver surface of some still twilight veiled l ake ; but masked and rouged dances so f tly through the gardens of Versaille s some times pausing behind the high yew hedges to over hear a conversa tion between Harlequin and ' Columbine sometimes h alting behind a bronze satyr s pedestal to s e e a great lady rustling past sti ff in s a tin and jewell ed brocade f ollowed by her little negro page a s in Co r tege ; and often at night when the g a rdens are lit with Chinese l a ntern s tho se coloured pasquins " of the moon sitting amid the dark sapphire shadows of some spind l e bower weeping at the he a rt rending s a dness behind all the surface gaiety of this gorgeousl y artificial carniv al The inspiration of these poems is utterly di fferent from that of P oé me s a s I have said A

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FRENCH L ITERARY STUDI E S would otherwise entirely re c apture the spi rit of Eighteenth Centu ry lyricism That perfect little poem A mo ur pa r Te r re is impregnated with the same vague sadness — a mournfulness that seems to veil so ' lightly the weary s oul s desire for the Infinite In ca rpe diem Le Fa une too beneath its apparently subject there is the same restlessness of spirit

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An aged faun maliciousl y ' Poised terra— c ott a o er the green Lawns laughs a s if he can foresee III fo ll owers of these serene Moments th a t led us t rustful l y (As we h a d sad eyed pi l grims been) To this hour that elusive l y " Whirls to a dist ant t a mbourine ,

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How di fferent is this to the re a l p a ga nism of Bertin and Pa r ny who s a w be auty and perfe c t joy in the fragi l e gl ass of golden wine he ld in a b e ruff led ivory finge re d hand and death and eternity in the c rushing of a d a isy bene a th the red heel of the mistress of the moment ! This deca dent note of modernity is how ever s o succ essful l y conce aled in some of the poems b eneath an app a rent objec tivity that the g irl in L a llée seems to be a Fr a n c ois Bou cher to the li fe ' one of the Pomp a dour s I a dies in waiting doubtless a perfe c t example of her type ,

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Like a rouged heroine in a p a s to ra l Fragile beneath great ribbon knots she goes ' ' Along the alley neath the branches sh a de By old grey moss grown se a ts Affectedly ,

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PAUL VE RLAINE 89 She gestures in a thousand consc ious ways As if s he played with some pet parakeet Her long brocaded train is b l ue Her fan (H e ld lightly in her slender fi ngers gemmed With heavy jewels) a p a s te l fantasy Of strange vague shadowed dreams at whic h s he smiles A gold hai red child—with delicate nose and mouth Crimson and p outing in unconsc ious scorn She is more dainty than the patc h that mak es " More bright her sparkling eyes vapidity .

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And what c ould be more like a Watte a u symphony in silver and blue and rose than Ma ndo li ne Here bene a th the sighing leaves Seren a ders softly pl a y Faded airs to l ovely thieves Who have stolen their hearts away ,

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' Here s Aminta and Ti rc is

With Clita n dre the evergreen ; ' Here s the pleading voi c ed Damis Teased by m a ny a c ruel queen ,

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Silken coats that bril l iantly Flash long trains of flowered brocades Patched and powdered gaiety Dancing azure stained shades ,

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Whirled i n dainty madness these ' Flit twixt rose and grey moonbeams Towards them on an erran t breeze ' Float the mandolin es faint dreams

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FRENCH LIT E RARY STUDI E S La Bo nne C ha ns on is composed of poems written to his wife before marriage It is a transition from objective descriptive plastic verse to personal e xpres sion the confessions of the soul ; and the substitution of one method of art for another as the re s ul t of feel ing loving and suff ering All his best qualities subtlety tenderness harmony a nd d e l i c acy of form " unite to make these o cc asional verse s a wreath o f s un kissed wind fl ow e rs f or the brown gold h a ir o f his Ii t jewe l s fo r her be l oved—a nec klace of moonbe a m— ivory neck ' A s I have said Verlaine s work w a s always the vi c tim of the vi c issitudes through whi ch its author w a s passing and when he wrote these poems circ um st anc es combined to bring out the best that w a s in him He lov e d and w a s lov e d for a s yet no m is understanding had arisen between him a nd his m is tress He had given up absinthe the atro c ious " green sorceress whose wiles were eventua ll y to ' wre ck his character and turn his child l ike na i v e té an d tenderness into cyni c ism a nd brut al ity qu al ities that are only too evident in Ia dis e t Na gué re a nd P a ra llé le m e nt although both these books c ontain m any fi ne poems S a ge s s e his gre a test book and one of the gre a test books of re l igious verse in the worl d was written after his c onversion in prison at Mons Verlaine wa s one o f those who entered the King dom of He aven as a little child and his mysti c ism ha s all the charming simpli c ity and un c onsciousness ' of a chi l d s religion That Christ and the Imm ac u l ate Virgin are very real personal entities to him is obvious to anyone reading the sonnet cycle beginning Mo n 90

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PAUL VERLAINE 9| ' ' " Di eu m a dit Mon fiIs il faut m aimer or that e ne veux plus aimer que ma beautiful poem J " Mér e Marie This boo k is full of a serene and quiet be a uty whi ch is not co nfined to the obviously re l igious poems Verlaine had become rul er of the best in his own s oul duri n g those prison years and every lyric in S a ge s s e whatever its subject is tou c hed with the flaming white light of his ecstatic communion with his new found God Poems such a s Le c iel est pardessus Ie toit and " Un grand sommeil noir are on l y riv a lled in tender “ m us ic a l beauty by the verse of Do w s on f Huysmans ha s said that Verlaine w a s truly him " s e lf only in hospital and in prison The f our grey walls of his cell had protected him and helped him to forget the terrible devils that lay in wait for his soul as soon a s he resumed his old l ife and against whi ch he seemed quite incapable of fighting his sword of will po we r on c e bright and sharpened by Love being now dull and blunted and useless All that rem a ined to him w a s a so rrowful memory of the possibilities of his own torm e n ted s oul S a ge s s e was his last great work , although Ia dis et Na gué re contains many sonnets and poems of great beauty elevated philosophy and superb workman ship There are in this book poems written ' in acc ordance with each of Verlaine s styles and some " A la m a nié re de plusieurs obviously much influ ,

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D e l a m us i que d i n Ve r l a i ne s cre d o a nd t r a ns l a te d mu ch o f hi s m a s t e r s w o r k a v a nt t out e ch os e ' wi t h t h e s ens t i v e ness t h a t o nl y a n a r t i s t i c t emp er a m ent o f t he ’ V e r l a i ne s c ould a c hi e v e s a me ps y ch ologi ca l f a mi ly a s D ows on t o o b eli ev

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDI E S e nc e d by Hugo Lecont e de Lisle a nd others Included in it there is a little play Le s Uns e t le s A utr e s a ' poeti c a nd grac eful lov e r s quarrel like an e cho of " De Musset a nd Mo l iere s e t in a scene by B a nville a fé te ga la nte a dapted for the stage He wrote a gre a t deal in his old age but most of his late work is of no acc ount being discoloured by a du ll and mediocre obscenity His greatest poem P a rs ifa l which seems to me to epitomise a ll th a t Ie P a uvre Léli an aspired to be the st a r of st a rs of which he never quite lo s t sight .

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P a rsifal a vainc u le s Fil les leur gentil B abil e t la l uxure a mus a nte—e t s a pente Vers Ia Chair de ga rcon vierge que c e Ia tente ' D a i m e r le s seins Iége r s e t c e gentil b a b iI ; II a vaincu Ia Femme b e lle an coeur subtil Eta la nt s e s br a s frais e t s a gorge excitan te ; ' II a vain c u I Enfe r e t rentré sons la tente Ave c nu lourd trophée a s o n bras pué ril ,

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Ave c l a l ance qui perca Ie Flanc s up rém e l II a gueri Ie roi le voi c i roi lui meme Et pretre du tres s a int Tr ésor essentiel ' En robe d or il adore gloire e t symbole Le v a se pur o il resplendit le sang réel ' Et 6 c e s voix d e nfa nts chantan t dans Ie coupol e ! -

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VII — STUART MERRI L L .

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HE early work of Stuart Me rrill be longs to the De c adence It is infini tely pre c ious arabesqued and filigre e d excessively overwrought with rare ornament set with unwonted jewels Féte a u Pa re and F i n de Féte in Le s Ca mme s have a wistful tenderness : a ll Versailles dies in them an d lives its tra gic dream life of dimly remembered loves Le s Ga mm e s pro c eed ' from Verl aine s Fetes Ga la ntes and lead to Comte ' Robert de Montesquiou Fe ze nza c s P e r le s R o uge s ' and Henri de Regnier s Ci té de s Ea ux O nly Merrill Montesquiou Fe ze nza c and Regnier after Verlaine h ave rendered the peculiar charm of Versailles autumn evenings heavy with d a ngerous memories of exquisite f o ll ies and sins become attra c tive in the f aint arom a they have left These p aeonies blee ding in the coppered sunset these hollyho cks sc reening the amber s ky along avenues where on c e w alked the dainty c a rnival of forbidden loves need a De c adent to c atch their troubled se c ret and sip drop by drop the perilous wine of their ra re vintage In Le s Fa s te s Me rrill like Louis I I of Bavaria fle e s .

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Down strange paths lit by an inner moon

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES Le Cent a ure e u poil rouge e t la Licorne blanche clash in her al di c comb a t in the l ists of some faun haunted forest and strange nightmares brood on the Le s P e tit: troubled sleep of a King dethroned P o é me s d A uto mne are exquisite with the sorrowful musi c o f l ove hopel ess a nd the too red roses of desire past joy an d peace that c annot come The poet has plucked from laden trees holdi ng o ut their too delightful f ruit the pomegranates and ne c t a rines of dream and desire He ha s drunk the aphrodisiac wine : a nd Love is poisoned Thought and wi l l are plunged i n narcotic sleep 94

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The earl y Me rrill is decadent But that is a state ment of attitude not a criti c ism For why should not a man w alk on bye paths if he will ! Cod whispers the truth to the dreamer by the sedge girt pool s equally with the pioneer marching he ad — high to vi c tory O ne man wi ll sail the seas a nother wi ll row leisure l y up some forgotten or undis covered c reek Why should we not cultivate a garden exquisite with f ragrant and deli c ate bloom i f we ca nnot f el l trees in some virgin forest ! There are moments when it is w e ll that a poet if it be not his province to seek out the intensity of life in the very p l aces o f death an d dise a se turning darkness into l ight and c a sting a glory of be a uty over the tur moil of our c ities shoul d look in his own s oul a nd find in the dre ams born within it some c ompensation an d redemption for the c orruption of a shallow and a hollow world and averting his eyes from our shame .

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FRENCH LIT E RARY STUDI E S sc orn The poetes maudits were adopted : Corbiere d runken with bizarre beauty blending the of Montmartre and the fore ca stle in a O bs c enities torrent of clumsy p a radox through whi ch flash the ' lightn ings o f a tipsy splendour : Rimb a ud Verlaine s evi l genius brutal violent sensual in whose few ' ' poems d une qual ité peu commune d infa m ie e t de b la spheme his unrestrained passions were expressed be fore he found his life work as a slave deal er in Afri ca a nd the Ea st un Stendha l d é s équilibré " méch a nt e t f éroce The minor poets of the De c ad enc e took al l this seriousl y and their work i s a welter o f s tr a nge passions and strange sins of la luxure de ' ' " I e s p r i t e t I inte lle c tua lis me de la passion ' Verl aine s most f amous sonnet 96

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J e suis I Emp ire a l a fin de la Dec a de nce whi c h was at most the expression of a moo d was made the emblem of a sc hool and n a ture became an e te r na l apres midi de septembre chaude e t t rist e ' ' épandant s a jaune mé l ancol ie sur l a p a thi e f auve d un ' paysage languissant de m a turité J aime le mot " de dé c adence he w a s reported to have said tout ' miroit a nt de pourpres e t d ors Le mot suppose ' de s pensé es ra ffinée s d e x tréme c ivi l is a tion une ' haute c ul ture Iittéraire une ame capable d inte ns iv e s ' ' Il est fait d un mélange d esprit vol uptés charnel e t de chair triste e t de toutes l es splendeurs ' ' vio l entes du b a s empire C est I art de mourir " en beaut é ' In Verl aine s s oul the world made havoc and musi c and he sang be cause he must but the Decadents m a de him the mast er o f a school and the sl ightest ripple on the sti ll lake of his soul was hailed a s the expression ’

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of a c r e do The De caden c e found its incarnation in the exquisite Comte de Monte s quiou Fe ze nz a c the supreme virt uoso of form gone m a d the arch disec otor ' " of rare emo tio n s an d sensations insolites the in c omparable conn oisseur of subtle depravity whom Huysmans it is said took as the model of the hero of A u R e bours—the Duc des Esseintes The fi rs t appe a l of the French Decade nts when I ' made their acquain tance in Le me rre s four volume anthology w as i n their unrea l ity their remoteness : they drif ted i n a world of vague dream a nd vague velleity : they o ffered a narc oti c an esc ape from the hard Nor th blighting an d witheri ng wi th sleety East wind in J une I read them at sun set i n the beech gl a des of a hollow l a ne while the winds passed high over the t ree tops be aring the awful purity of snow topped mountains and the spray of a cleansing sea I fled from the clear air of the pe aks a nd the bleakness of the wind swept uplan ds an d with some passage of M allarme in my memory a la mb i c a te d precious melting like some over ripe sun steeped grape o n a far secluded vine I wan dered slow l y betw een the copper lighted green of the youn g satiny le a ves and the gold on the An d to me then a s ta ll h o le s of the secul a r bee c hes ' to Ma ll a rmé the mellowness of S ai n t Mar ti n s summer a nd the dyi n g rays of the se tting sun were de a r De m éme Ia li ttérature a laquelle mon esprit demande une " volupté Ma lla rmé had said sera la po ésie agoni sante de s derniers moments de R ome tan t cependan t ' ' qu el l e ne respire aucunement l a pp roc he rajeunissan te des Barbares e t ne bégaie point Ie Iati n e nfanti n des " premi eres proses chréti e n nes .

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FR EN CH LITERARY S TUDIES I read Claudian and Rutilian an d the P e rv igi li um ' l Vene r is : Gérard de Ne rv a l s S y v ie his Chimeres his Vers Dorés an d his

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Aloysius Bertrand who said Sainte Beuve had worn away his youth i n chisel li ng out of a rich mate rial a thousan d li ttle cups of ' infinite delicacy I even heard Wagner s Lohe ng ri n I c opied out pages of Ma lla rmé in the d us ty files of ' the Na ti ona l O bs er v er and Henri de R egnier s H éléne dc S pa rte (the fi rst I h a d read of him) from the ' R e v ue de s De ux Monde s : Verlaine s Lec ture at ' Bernard s I nn from the S a v oy a nd many of his poems ' in a dozen magazines : I read D a wson s Vers es and De co ra ti ons i n their fi rst editions : all Pater an d a ll De T abley Then I went to France and met Merrill now writing his Q ua tre S a i s o ns an d Vic lé Crifli n of whom I had as yet known little or n othin g I foun d that the Decadence was over an d that Poetry in France had left les lys I anguides e t le s Ioint a ines " prin c esses an d that at Marlotte Merrill breathe d the pure air of the forest and drank the wine of s un rise after the strange l iquors and miasmic e ffluv i ae ' of the stagnant night Now no longer at Ma lla rmé s -

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Les rhé teurs solennels en leur stérilité " Trona ie nt e t discutaient la vie impérieuse I ,

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FRENCH L IT E RARY S TU D IES tend like most American s of wealth an d fashion to " d escend from the Conqueror After dinner that evening long ago we walked through the still ness of the Monc eau quarter to some ca f é on the B oulevards a nd there Me rrill t alked to me of his friend Oscar Wi l de But i t is no t wi th the R ive Droite that my memories of Merrill are bound up I saw him most o f ten in his a ppa rte ment among the tree tops of the Quai Bourbon on the quiet lle d e Sain t Louis There Verlaine in bronze presid e d and the enamel masterpie ces of Armand Point made a setting for our talk while a c ouple of monstrous Persian cats purred pleasant accompanime n t He is to me however essentially the poet of the Forest of Fontainebleau : not of tourist haunted Barbi zon still less of Royal Fontainebleau itse l f but of Marlotte s e c luded on the wildest edge of the Forest an d Mon t igny straggling with red roo f s dow n to the slow Seine If I think of him in any other setting the blazing sun light o f Provence her gray o l ive groves and t he red c li ffs of her passionate shores and the burn t mountains o f her backgrou n d and the b l ue s e a set with white sails frame my memories of him I w a s a tramp in those d ays : and it was to me a s h e knew me then that in I908 he dedicated his longest poem Le Va ga bo nd I remember a meet ing at C annes I had c ome to lunc h with him from G re noble over the snows o f Mont Cenis down the a wful valleys of Piedmont to Napole on ic Turin : p a using in Genoa h ard and c ruel in its splendour of Renaissance palaces : then along a blaze of blue s e a a nd orange groves to the d a rk gorges of Vinti mi lle a nd a tumble of f a l l ing streams and under bare gray IOO

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in a man tl e o f gray olives to red Agay an d fashion a ble Cann es A few weeks before my letters to Merrill had come ' from Brown ing s A solo : from Ve netian valleys roll i n g with sunset clouds and pealing with the many v oiced Angelus of a hundred villages bene a th the red glow of the Dolomites in their caps of snow I had a wakened to sun rise f a r over the plain stretching with po plars and c ypress orderly like the backgroun d of a n early Master to the blue hori zon of the Euga ne a n hills : and one day I had walked down the C ollino Asolan o with the blue Adriatic dotted with white sails below me an d the mountains of Istria beyond and ' had come to Ve n ice silent and frozen on a New Year s Da y And a few months later I wrote to him from Copenhagen red and c omely on her isles and lakes among the green flats of wooded Denmark : from Lund sunk in everlas ting peace in the c ool shadow of her Roman Cathedral amid the roll ing untidy uplan ds and ragged c o rnfie lds an d dark fores ts of Scan ia My letters Merrill used to say spran g on him fro m the ends of Europe and wherever he happened to be (and he too w a s a tramp ) he would get a telegram f rom five hundred miles away to announ c e one of my rare visits We met a ls o I remember in B russels and i n D over I s a w him for the las t time I enticed him as far a s Canterbury b ut further he would no t go an d we returned to Dover The las t years of his life he spe n t I never saw him there some brooding a t Versailles s orrow I never fathomed had come over him an d the m ost I could get was a letter occasion ally and the n his set

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FRENCH L ITE RARY STUDI E S letters too stopped One of the last w a s to te ll me o f the visit of Lord a nd L ady Dunsany whom I h ad sent to him : he had liked them very much But he woul d not see me ag a in He died as he had lived a Poet and in opinion (if the opinions of a Poet matter) a Revolutionary So c ialist He had no traffic with p la c e or power : no ambitions : a nd when the Wd Asses of the Devil broke Ioo s e he g ave no cry o f encour a gement Like ' e n ai his friend Mo r é a s he might have said : J " ' j a m a is rien fait qui ffi t indigne d un poete But he was unl ike Morea s tot a lly un a ssuming He w a s f ull of generosity and hum a nity hating onl y those who degra ded the f unction o f the Artist or dishonoured hum a nity with ca nt hypo c risy greed or violence A l ett er Of his to me dated De cember 26th I9O6 m ay serve to give some idea of his a ttitude How I fee l and understand your despera tion in industri al Leeds I fe l t the s a me chi ll in b rain and he a rt during my five e te rn a l year s spent in New York Huma nity is going through a nightm are The ol d Rhine that I have just visited i s spoi led by f ac tories and in f ac t all G e r m a ny is satura ted with the indus tr ia l spirit T ake Schweinfurt It was a quiet and qu a int mediae v al c ity with picturesque ramp a rts It is now surrounded by factories the r a mp a rts have been destroyed nobody knows why and the moats filled up It is now a hid e ous mel ancholy and unwhole some c ity with a minorit y filling their money b a gs a nd a majority s tup e fie d by work and drink a nd voting like sheep for the Socialistic ti cket instead of giving what lo2

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FR ENC H LITERARY STU D IES Pour avoir voulu 6 mon ame affol ée ' Monter vers Dieu par l arc-e n c re l Tu pleures a u fond de la vall ée

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I mean that dreams avail nothi n g that we can only advance step by step that drudgery tr iv i al cares an d little duties are on the way of spiritual regen eration There is no short cut to God Merrill looking round him at the m a sses in bo ndage spiri tu al and temporal is to masters high an d lo w fi lled with passionate revolt a gainst Church an d S tate The God of the Rulers obsesses him : an d he like Le con te de Lis le pours out his hatred of this false D ivinity i n poems of overwhelming violen ce The false so obscur e d his vision th a t he c ou l d not s ee the t rue In the Church ,

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' ' D ont I ombre ne 3 é claire ' Que des trois cierges allum é s a l a ute L Devan t leque l Ie pretre solit a ire Murmure Ia supp l ique éternelle ‘

he cries

to

d u p ré tre I

"

Ce

his Bel oved

Oublie Ie s blasphemes

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' tes fleurs qu il faut

sont p as A l a féroce idole des pretres Mais le sacrific e de tout ton é tre ' ' C e n est c ertes p as ici q u ha b i te D ieu ne

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The Mother of God "

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is la vierge cruelle des Vie Ié-Gr i ffin heard a hym n of

douleurs and where love and death and resurre c tion Merrill heard only the ,

STUART MERRI LL pretr e qu i marmonne t rois cierges s a litanie monotone C.

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Sous Ie s

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And yet the spi rit of Le s Qua tre S a is o ns is in the best sense Christian the world must be born ag ain utterl y renoun c ing its past of shame and sin : a nd for this end each man and woman must sac rifice a ll things freely without an afterthought The whole p a st theo ry of your life and a ll conformity to the liv e s " around you would have to be abandoned ' " he cries Le t us go on toward to morrow s dawn in Ve r s la Vi lle Inco nnue for only ,

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En oubliant Ie nom de la ville d ounous sommes Nous a p p re ndro us celui de la ville o il nous allons

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The hero of Merrill s conte La Ro ute dies because ' he turned ba c k Mal heur a ceux qui p a rtent e t s en repentent Quan d on est parti i I ne faut ui regretter Ie s j amais reg a rder en a r r iére " jours qui sont a jamais enfuis Le s P o i ng s a la P o r te in Le s Q ua tre S a i s o ns i s the s upreme expression of the faith he shared with William Morris It is wi nter an d midnight Here the l a mp i s A ll thing s have f aile d dyin g with my hope him The CU p of dream is empt y He hears a knoc ki ng at the door If it be his friends c ome ' bringing h olly to de c k his room dont j ai banni l a " Folie qui me fut trop belle he will n o t open his doo r to the noise of their steps

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Ca r E t du ,

mon am e tu e s Iasse de s ch a nts e t des danse s ' r u e de s V i olons parm i Ie s tenebres ,

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FRENCH LIT ERARY STUDIES If it be a tramp of the Forest c ome begging a c rust of stal e bread and a jug of sour wine he wi l l ligh t his fire that the outca st may w arm himse lf and he will pour him wine and break him bread For a D ieu fou ha s smitten him But i f it be the Son o f M an Him s e lf c ome in re Splendent white with all his tr a in of si ck and h alt madmen a nd children to c al l him 106

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Vers Ie s

sur la route s ans fin ' villes qu on me voit p a s encore

' a l horizon

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m aking in the night le geste immense du p a rdon then indeed he will take his sti ck and go h appy to believe at last ,

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Détruire pour le s reb atir les remparts trop vieux " Oil s e d éf erleront demain l e s é tendards de Dieu I ,

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IV ' In Merrill s later work the sac rifice of the individual to the worl d becomes the sacrific e of the individual to himself a nd the lines .

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O nl y by l ef t S ha ll we

forgetting the name of the town we have

learn the n a me of the town to which we are going

acquire a new meaning no longer of an ideal of ser vi ce but of a n ide al of sel f re alisation through sa cri ,

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Let us go in spite of

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' toward to morrow s -

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FRENCH LITERA RY STUDIES and the moonless mere of sighs lies the fulness o f body and s oul that we seek I t is w e ll indeed that Nora Murray in he r passi onate need for self real isation should send Ire h n d to H e ll sooner than lose herself but it is nec essa ry also to take an examp l e from another Irish play th a t Mi chae l should f orget his bride and fol l ow Ka thleen the daughter of sorrows F i rs t t hen the message of the Va g a b ond i n song He t urned not b ac k to dream over the o l d way A servant o f the future he was burdened with no memories nor remorse " " Art thou not cries the poet t he far o ff child o f the Wi se Men who followed the star a nd found God ! Or art thou not perh a ps the unknown prophet le a ding the peop l es t hrough the ages toward the promised l and of orchards a nd flowe rs where o ne day af ter sorrow without end lovers em brace d wi l l sing giving their lips to one another ! 0 va gabond friend of foxes and hares Messiah or criminal awa it me ! I have understoo d the mean ing of your c a ll I have shut my ' door on peace and lov e without regret Ti s not by sleeping in o l d dwellings that we Ieam to build upon the new wa ys O my mouth bite deep ti ll hunger be appe a sed a t the f a ir forbidden f ruits of the tree of life ! Destroy O my fists by fire and by sword the temples ra ised to fal se Gods a n d thou my heart 0 my hear t be pitiless whe n th people breaking chains and crosses sha l l send a ll priests and soldiers an d judges a nd kings t o die on the scaff old dripping blood in the d awn ! O v a gabond I hear in thy c lea r loud song the fa ll of the towers o f .

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S TUA R T MERRILL

l o9

the cities of night and I hear the blare of the red trumpets of r e v ol t and I wel c ome the banner o f gold of that great day of purifi ca tion when men leaving blasphemous c ities s ha ll cry loud to t he eternal vault of heaven the pride of life now " free at last from tyrant s and from Gods I And s o the po et starts out his soul filled with the fierce passion of life to fol l ow the Vagabond But he has disappeared and his song is heard no more F or there is more nee ded than mere progress to a glorious g oa l The poet must sacrifi ce a ll he ho l ds dear without any c ertain or definite promise without a leader along the unknown lonely road O Vagabond having le a rned the secret meaning of thy Song I learn now th a t of thy sile nce I t is that I must seek alone a n d without sinking of heart ' the road thou fo llow e s t t ow a rd to morrow s d awn I must go al one t oward the re ceding g o a l the fair country which I s ha ll never know I shall go a lo ne whither destiny le a ds me Old me n seated at c ottage doors w ill hurl insult s after me Even little children with lovely eyes will follow me spitting and throwing stones a t me And in summer as with dust lade n eyelids I pass like one demented near the wells by the gr a ss banks beside the road I flee upon no woman will hold out to me the p ai l of cool water where f rom the labourer drinks as he drops his sp a de and rests from work Then I shall go toward the Town whither a ll roads lead O Vagabond over tombs a nd nights raising up my dark hands toward the dawn I follow thee So for Me rrill the procession of life takes the semblance of a river flowing past cities and gardens ,

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDI E S once glorious desires and c ast off splendid o ut worn of Godhe a d f urther i de a ls toward the shore 1 IO

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where quintessential stands In over lord ship of a ll mysti c l ands " The burning es s en ce of divinity -

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FRENCH LITERARY STUDIES bac kward not knowing that each one of us l ike the race must live from day to day What is truth tod ay wil l be untrue to morrow not be ca use there is no ' truth but be c ause the realisation o f the race as of o urselves is progress ive towar ds a n unknown goal We cannot s um it up in a complete and final selfhood that l a sts for ever and is now and eternally s a tisfying The fulfil ment of desire is pale af ter desire itse lf We must go on to new desires and break new glitter " ing g a tes The joy is in the journey and in the break ing of the ga tes And the last gate we break is Death E ach time we put behind us our past desire and l ay down a ll our former dreams o ur p a st gate a nd aspirations Tha t is the only way to live f or any m a n And for the race it h a s made and throw n a side innumerable theogonies o f Gods a nd who s ha ll s ay even if the God of to day grows p a le and fi lls our s o uls no l onger th a t He was not true a nd that Who s ha ll te ll what c ountless new t here i s no truth ! pantheons shal l rise and rule and be a dored and f a ll a nd pass into nothingness and rot on the rubbish heap o f worn out Gods nor wh a t the end sh all be i f there b e an end when the ultim a te God emerges and we w ith Him shall have evol ved and won to fina l an d a bso l ute being through the p a rtia l reve l ations and s truggles o f un c ounted myri a ds o f ye a rs ! That is wh a t Vie l e G r i ffin knows and what the poets of the mid nineteenth century did not and could n ot know On the one side we have the s tagn atio n on the other the infinite promise of life o f desp a ir And Vie Ié G riffin has sung the fulness of this in violable hope with a passion and intensity o f c on v ic ti o n that h a s never been eq ualled in a ll the history ,

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FRANCIS VIEL E GRIFFIN I I3 o f verse H is is in a se nse that transcends even the more l i te ra l i f less esse ntially re a l meaning of su ch wor ds in the burning s o ul o f Fran c is Thompson a hymn of lov e a n d death and resurre c tion glorious wit h the tremor a nd l ight of invin c ible belie f There lies the diff erence the essential an d unbr i dge a ble gulf be tween the poets o f yesterday and those o f t o— day A spiritual renaissance separates them Leconte de Lisle sorrowed and denied Gri ffin and M errill be lieve a n d rej oi c e in t he midst of sorrow knowing its meaning And if Viele Gr i ffin sings above al l of the joy of l ife of the ecstasy o f the ultimate revelation and Me r ri ll sings rather of the sa c rific es on the way of t he inevitab l e and irrevo c able good byes both h a ve c onceived of life a s a pi l grimage towards a goal and have read its meaning in terms of an ultimate end -

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II At a moment perhaps the lowest t hat moder n ' Ia thought ha s seen when in Moc k e l s words d ouleur semblait plus a r tis tis que que la joie la pureté " ' ‘ when Ie vi c e la m aladie n o ff ra i t gutere d i ntér ét alone were beaut iful when Ia souff rance e t la mort the supreme e ffort of art w a s to p a int moral an d physical perversion by the pen o f a Rodenbach or a Huysman s a new wave of n a tural feeling swept through poetry cleansed all forms o f art and without denying either vi c e disease suff ering or death —for thes e too have their place—turned the artist once m ore t o the glory of li fe It w a s time S c ienc e once justified like Art in its search for truth a lone in its wish to s e e things as the y ,

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FRENCH L ITERARY STUDIES are had begun to forget that the ul timate end of such ' ' a S cience for S c ience s sake a s of Art for Art s sake coul d only be a clearer vision and an intenser sense of l i fe itself in its ma nifold a spe c ts The me a ns h ad become an end the Holy Gr a al of l i fe h a d been f or ' gotten The ma n of science be come in Renan s words a mere l ooker— sav a it que le o n a t the universe 'tud " monde ne l ui apparten a it que comme sujet d é e His ima gina tion a nd his symp a thy by whi ch a l one he c ou l d hope to tr ansfo rm fa c ts into truth and see t hrough the vei l to the reality behind had been a l l owed to die out a s something unworthy In Art similarl y all idea of u l timate value in terms of l i fe ' ha d been f orgotten The doc trine o f Art f or Art s sake had h a d its just ifica tion in that it c ou l d save Beauty and through Be auty Truth from the ill con s i d e r e d ons la ughts o f prea c her and p artisan who with no sight beyond t he c rude unreal ities of Se c t or Party o f Fac tory or Barrack h ad sought to prosti tute Art to the prop a ga tion not of a personal vision o f Truth but of prejudi ces garnered on the rubbish heap o f moul dering c ants and c reeds But very di fferent f rom this re f usal to serve Fac t is the re fus a l to serve Truth itse lf the assertion that Be a uty has its roots in dream or form a nd not in the ebb and flow of life f rom which it rises to return a ga in in passion and fire in joy and pain and shame a nd lov e Now th a t truth no longer the precious vision to be preserved f rom the f al se believers and charl a t a ns of did ac ti c ism of sec tarian a n d se c ular dogma o f poli ti cal c ant and rant w a s cl a ssed b ut as another if somewh a t lesser heresy to be avoided like the others by the tr ue artist now that the Holy Nam e was ,

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H6

FRENCH L IT E RARY STUDIES is hard and severe but greater than all things else ' La C he va uchée d Ye ldis is one of Viele G ri fli n s finest poems Ye ldis daughter of a mysterious gray beard was loved by five young men Phila rc h rich and of noble birth l e a rned in all wisdom Luke foppish and self c onta ined a drunkard his brother Martial Claude pale f a ced and smiling loving Ye ldis like a wondering c hild a nd another who tells the story ' One evening a fter her fa ther s death at sunset Ye ld is set out The five l overs f ollowed her across the plains through strange c ities over rivers an d mountains Phila rc h and Luke l ost courage one day turned ' their horses heads and we a ri l y went back Ye ldis smiled and spurred on the fa ster Claude a t one of their halts sat down to p la y the flute and sing He went to sleep and woke no more Ye ldis and her two remaining lovers started a g a in over the boundless plain One day as they were drinking at a spri ng Martial who kn ew his mind and dar ed a ll thi ngs spoke sayin g : .

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On my soul 1 love you And I will die if it be your will " But tell me whither we go ,

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Ye ldis

turn ed

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Martial we n t up to her an d took her hand Like a m an and frank l y S he bowed her head l ike a child .

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FRANCIS VIE L E CRIFF IN I I7 And suddenl y in the full beauty of his youth And wi l l a nd lo v e Unhesit a tingly Ca l m l y si l ent l y without a c ry He took her in his arms -

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And they rode

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M a rtia l won Ye ldis f or he a l one knew how to give himse l f utterly to her throwing down a ll hopes a nd dreams be f ore her The disappointed l over who w a s left f a ith f ul and gentle h a d lo s t her But from h aving fol l owed her Y e ldi s in c arnate Desire the living Ideal—he had won and kept ever fresh in his soul the joyous emotion and intensity o f li f e a nd knew that ,

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H

La

b e I ES p o ir !

Vie est be ll e de

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This poem belong s to IS93 The seri e s of poems entitled A u To m be a u d H é lé ne ( I89 I) gives another rendering o f the s a me conc eption The poet is seek ing Helen The road i s long th a t le a ds to her He regrets .

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The so rrow a nd the b l asphemy a nd lie " O f m a king ever f or a re ceding goa l .

He yearns to s e e this Helen of t he matchless eyes towards w hom runs l ong and str a ight over the p l ain the great ro a d leading through the dusk With de a th less hope and invincible f a ith in his heart he goe s on hi s lonely journey At last Helen draws ne a r The poe t knows that a ll ,

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I 18 FRENCH LITE RARY STU DI ES things but one are vain—vain lov e vain the i neff ab le lov e of our springtime vain the kiss we dream divine va in a II poetry a nd gl ory All there is is to wo rship Hel e n in si l ence ,

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To ma ster our dream an d keeI3 silence for ever H e le n appe ars

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But the glory of her form is veiled The poet knows he s ha ll not s e e her sp l endour un vei le d sh all not gaze r apt at the ineffable Absolute of G o d " she de c l a re s queen of Spart a and queen I am o f Troy All li f e ye a rns t o me I am Helen whom If I thre w a ll poets lo v e d and wise men worshipped o ff my v e i l tha t s ta nds between thee a nd thy desire the fire of my unveiled form would bur n all li fe " awa y For who are H e le n and Y e ldi s but the fulness of life f or whi ch men l ive a nd endure a ll sorrows and a ll illusions that joy ;which be ckons them an instant in the eyes of the Bel oved not her but f or the moment dwel l ing in her ) .

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The touc h of gl ory in the sunset west The ind e fina b le ess enti al thing ' The poet s dream the ha lo round a Go d The hope upra i sing m a n to deity The f r agra nce o f all flowers a nd the l ight Th a t shines on morn ing seas the quietude Of night bestrewn with points o f fire the joy Tha t rises l eaping in a l iving he art The blood within the chali c e a nd the bread The priest ha s b l essed vi c e re ge ntly for G o d — All these you a re and you are more th a n these -

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F RENCH L I TERA RY STU DI ES upon the opening road " Toward the wide green sea

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He d ied the irrevocable and irredeemable dea th—in time a nd eternity for he refused to be himself refused to follow life whithersoever it led F or he who would live who would be fully him self gaze o n the naked gl ory of He l en look on G o d in t he fa ce of H is light must lay down all old and dis used ideals a nd outworn desires for ever— times without number I And that is why Vie lé Gri ffin has written the stories of S a int Julia and S aint Dominan tia and the other virgin martyrs who loved life so well and s o in ti ma te ly f e l t its true me a ning th a t they fo ll owed it joyfull y in t he fulness of lov e an d beauty even to death a nd the burning c rown Not be c ause Life is nothing to them a s to some sour as c etic brooding like the Preacher on the vanity of all t hings blaspheming God in the hol iest of his works but because Life i s the only thing that is or can be a nd the very a ll breath of creative energy itself they follow it whither it leads and in the ine ffab le call to martyrdom hear the c la rions of hO p e undying and beyond the flame s the go a l of self hood to be won a t l a st Dom i na ntia daught er of a king riding on her white palfrey to the c ourt of her betrothed laughing an d sin ging a s she goes reaches Saragossa her fi rst h a lt at nightfall She finds the town drunken with the blood of Chri s ti ans victims of R oma n justice admin is te re d by a brut al Praetor ' Without a moment s hesit a tion young and frail a nd lovely the Princ ess rides through the yelling crowd ,

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F R AN C I S V I ELE G R IFF IN

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p a st the exe c utioners proudly a nd c almly till she ' stops bene a th the Praetor s throne and beseeching and reproaching by turns calls on him in the n a me of G od in the n a me of the Roman Peace to desist threatens c omm a nds implores a nd suddenly stops short terrified at her o w n audacity The obs cene Pr aetor Ieering and sneering con dem us Do m inan tia a s penalty for her insu l t to the majesty of Rome to kiss him And a s the c rowd brutal like its m a ster l a ughing c rowds to s e e the Princess without a a n d c heering word raising her arm brings down her riding whip ' full in the Praetor s fac e te aring his flesh with its thong She w a s burned with all her es c ort a t the st ake he r pride and her c oura ge unshaken and her soul i t i s s a id rose to He a ven on a fiery charger The story of S a int Juli a i s put in the mouth of her lover who having bought her at Carthage f ro m the Van dals and c oming to love her day by day with ,

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some sweet

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was t a king her home on his ship Her martyrdom a t the hands of ,a band of d r unken mer c hants at Cy rnos on the feast day of Cybe l e is told so c onvinc ingly a nd beauti f ull y that we see her for ever standing .

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C rave with Between the ,

Her lover tells the asks

brown hair flowin g burning torches and the moon t a le

to a priest and ,

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F RE N C H L I TERA RY STU DI ES

| 22

You who call upon her on your knees What do you know of her ! What did you ever know ! Only that they killed her like c owards That she wit nessed to Ch rist beneath the l a sh Ti ll de a th That is enough for you For your hym ns sung To p al e a scetic virgins flo a ting on unsubstantial c louds ; But I I saw her live ! I kissed the cheek they struck Do you think I am mad ! Do you think I w ill pr a ise Christ for her death ! But let me be a Christian in my way For I lo v e d her t rul y Day by d ay and hour by hour ! I pr ay to her and love her without s ac rilege " I pray to her and weep ,

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IV " This believer this C a tholi c is no les s the fervent apostl e o f pas sionate life in i ts intensity of energy and Ia w ill th a n the a theist Me r r ill who ha s curse d " fé roce idole de s p r étre s or Rette who s aw in his ' unreg enerate days l es brasiers nourris d or de s é gl ises " en flammes The throb of reality is bene a th the v a ri ous g arments of their thought ; the wind of li fe b l ows f ree behind the ar ra s o f their verse an d al l and m any others with them have sh aken free from the trappin g o f de a th a nd desp a ir the gorgeous or the wist ful or the burn ing burden o f their song Conversion acc ep ta nce f a ith he ads bowed to the B abe of Be thle .

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F RE N C H L I TERA RY STU DI ES

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And yet what So ci al ist could inveigh more ferventl y with more burning e l oquenc e ag a inst t he hideous squalor a nd horror of industri a lism th a n this same Vie l e C r i ffin who te ll ing of the suicide of a f ac tory boy dec la re s ,

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Best die a s thou diest I be l ieve Best turn a side f rom our shame Take death rather Know how to die without fe a r Tremb l e not be strong In thy disd a in " And spurn the l ife they off er st a rving child I ,

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No revo l utionary cou l d have thrown more c on tume l y upon the so c iety o f to d a y with it s venal patriotism o f the ba nk and the exch a nge th a n this re ac tion a ry this cleri cal who with c onsuming s c orn te l ls us th a t this poor f ac tory boy died for hi s c ountry " est mort pour la p a trie for the fatherlan d of al l gre a t Spirits f or l ife itsel f and God the fount a in head o f l ife -

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For l i fe is fa ir and hol y L i fe is joy and p a in a nd mystery And to die as thou die ds t without fea r We must lo v e the dream o f l i fe They l ied who s aid l i fe w a s O nl y a l itt l e mortal bread and wine ; They kil led thee thrice denying Love a nd God and thy hum a nity ; But if they made thy li fe acc ording to their shame Refusing the life they off er thou c onque re s t them ,

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F R AN C I S V I ELE G R IFF IN -

As sure l y a s swords a nd tor ches Brandished at pal ac e g a tes Better th a n the harvest of hate —Corn t r a mp l ed in the furrow Crowds sta mped by the feet of the horses Better than the sea of te a rs Thy death is a protest a tremor of dawn Ri s en over Golgotha still bleeding -

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A ll Vie le C r i ffin

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work is a hymn to life an d the this

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Croyez s a chez c r i ez a ple i ne v orx ' ' Que l A m o ur est vainqueur e t que I Es p o ir est roi ,

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Life i s a c up full to the brim without lees a sacramental chalice fil l ed with more than mort al wine We a nd all life with us are bound up f or ever ' with God and we hear in Gri ffin s verse no l onger " the long ro a ring of etern al life no longer desp a ir but the pae a n of hope and a n d shame and horror vi c tory a nd of ultimate self re a lisation in the absolute of Go d ,

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V I met Vie lé C r i ffin for

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first time i n I9OZ in ' S tuart Merrill s study high up among the tree t ops of the Ile de Saint Louis Through the open window came the points of light danc ing on the Seine a nd the subdued gay hum of the great city We were all Gri ffin t alking : our voi c es rose higher and higher was sitting a lo ne in a com er by the window looking Perhaps his eye s loo ked on Saint o ut over the town -

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226

FRE N C H L I TE RA RY STU DI ES "

Do m ina ntia in Barce l on a or S a int j uli a betwee n the burning tor ches a nd the moon Perh aps lost in the sp lendour of her tre s s e s h is passion a te l ips were laid ' on Helen s He w a s with us but he w a s di ff erent f rom any of us He had no part even outwardly in the S yr‘h b olis t Bohemia Indeed he ra re l y appeared in the h a unts of the poets Paul Fort might be seen in al most a ll the cafés of t he q ua rt ie r any evening above ' all a t the C los e r ie de s Li la s opposi te Bulli e r where he did his best to drown his unique genius in b a d al c ohol between Moreas and the Norwegian Di r ik s Merrill h a d not yet withdra wn f rom the fe ll owship He did not do so at a ll till I906 and not al together till his se cond marriage in I908 But Gri ffi n al re a dy in I9OZ lived a l i fe apart in his flat on the Qu a i de P a ssy a nd in his Chate a u near Poitiers He w a s a gra nd s e i g ne ur and a m a nuf ac turer of motor cars a pillar of the Churc h a nd a devoted husb and a n d fa ther He l ived in some mysti c sunlit gar den his high serious ness a nd intensity were attr ac ted by no other intoxi c a tion th an th a t of joy a nd be l ief For him as for Francis Thompson -

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On

Golgotha there grew a thorn " Round the long p r e figure d Brows .

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first re ad Ye ldis and H e len under the gre a t trees of the I l e Verte a t Grenob l e looking out over the shining river a t the mounta ins o f the Grande Cha r te us e white and d azzling in the sun l ight c rowned with forests a nd be a ring in their depths green v al l eys f u ll of flo w ers I took them with me through the infinite fields of myriad bloom heavy with the hot perfume of exoti c ,

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F RE N C H L I TER A RY STU DIES

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one who understood me and ha s rem a ined to this day my friend a nd master w a s Georges Dumesnil—whom I mention with a ll honour a nd respe c t and re verenc e the Professor of Phi l osophy and Edu ca tion a Conser v a tiv e o f the best tradition a f ervent and who l e hearted C a tholi c who w alking with me al ong the infinite avenues of Grenob l e spoke with s adness unspe a k able o f the ruin t hat h a d come over Fran c e with the ex pulsion o f the monks a nd the perse c ution of the Church a nd likened the brown l eaves fal ling from the trees to the true c onc eption of l ife le aving Fr an c e bare o f all virtue and honour and hope H i s were a true he a rt and a gre a t soul I cannot ref use to him the distinc tion o f 'being amidst a R adi cal a nd unbelieving Facul ty the one man of real underst an ding an d o f unflinching conv i c tion and nobility una b l e to stoop or to dream of stooping to a ny a c t or thought unworthy o f wh a t he believed to be the high herita ge of the C a thol i c Church a nd of the Frenc h r ac e He understood and yet he knew where I w a s m is taken ; he knew th a t my conc eption of li fe w a s too m a teri al He knew wh a t I did not discover ti ll I9O9 ' in Gri ffin s own c ountry th a t I had misread in one e s sential f eature the attitude of my favourite poet Vi c lé Cr iffin l oves li f e : loves it with intensity : but the fire th a t burns his soul is t he white fire o f the spirit not the red fire o f youth aglow w i th passionate acceptance o f the b lazing South The poems of Vie Ié C r i ffin are f ull o f sunlight and the scent of flowers brimming with the joyous li f e o f Fran ce his mother overflowing with all the lovel iness o f her smiling c ountrysides The flowers the burning noons a nd nights of France white ro a ds and forests ,

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GR IFF IN F R AN C I S VI ELE—

I 29 a nd sleeping hamlets and mist l etoe in the apple trees songs borne on the night wind a n d l aughter on the gay lips o f the beloved— al l th a t is in them Whoever has learnt to l ove the sunlight a nd the shadow of the Fren c h la n ds the sorrow and joy of their c hi l dren will turn ever a nd a g a in to the p ages o f Vi e lé Cr i ffin s o that he may look into the deep eyes of Fr a n ce a nd s e e her smiling s a d and dist a nt under the branches of her c hes tnut trees But that i s not a ll The l i fe he sings with which his who l e being trembles is no t the uprising of the vi c torious b l ood under the s un of Provence or Da up hiny in a c rude gorgeous setting of a sphodel on mount a in fields and gentian on white limestone ro cks and a t night the moon f ull on pe a ch and pomegran ate blossom a nd the song of the children of joy ' I did not understand until I went to Gri ffin s own c ountry a n d looked on the sunset through the stained gl a ss windows of To urs C a thedra l a nd s a w the broad Loire flow towards the west on the pl ain p a st a pure white c it y I sank myse lf in the clear spiritual ity of Notre D a me de N a ntilly silent a nd white amid the peace and austerity of Saumur : a nd then I k new that for the life whi c h Gri ffin knew princes would give their c rowns a nd poets their laurels and th a t a ll beauty a nd praise o f E a rth are but o fferings c a st at the feet o f the ine ffable and in vincible Beauty of the He le n the poet sang ,

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