Classic French Course in English

Accompanying, and in some sort complementing, the "Confessions," are often published several detached pieces called "Reveries," or "Walks." These are very peculiar compositions, and very characteristic of the author. They are dreamy meditations or reveries, sad, even sombre, in spirit, but "beautiful exceedingly," in form of expression. Such works as the "Réné" of Chateaubriand, works but too abundant since in French literature, must all trace their pedigree to Rousseau's "Walks." We introduce two specimen extracts. The shadow of Rousseau's monomania will be felt thick upon them:—

It is now fifteen years since I have been in this strange situation, which yet appears to me like a dream; ever imagining that, disturbed by indigestion, I sleep uneasily, but shall soon awake, freed from my troubles, but surrounded by my friends....

How could I possibly foresee the destiny that awaited me?… Could I, if in my right senses, suppose that one day, the man I was, and yet remain, should be taken, without any kind of doubt, for a monster, a poisoner, an assassin, the horror of the human race, the sport of the rabble, my only salutation to be spit upon, and that a whole generation would unanimously amuse themselves in burying me alive? When this strange revolution first happened, taken by unawares, I was overwhelmed with astonishment; my agitation, my indignation, plunged me into a delirium, which ten years have scarcely been able to calm: during this interval, falling from error to error, from fault to fault, and folly to folly, I have, by my imprudence, furnished the contrivers of my fate with instruments, which they have artfully employed to fix it without resource....

Every future occurrence will be immaterial to me; I have in the world neither relative, friend, nor brother; I am on the earth as if I had fallen into some unknown planet; if I contemplate any thing around me, it is only distressing, heart-rending objects; every thing I cast my eyes on conveys some new subject either of indignation or affliction; I will endeavor henceforward to banish from my mind all painful ideas which unavailingly distress me. Alone for the rest of my life, I must only look for consolation, hope, or peace in my own breast; and neither ought nor will, henceforward, think of any thing but myself. It is in this state that I return to the continuation of that severe and just examination which formerly I called my Confessions; I consecrate my latter days to the study of myself, and to the preparation of that account which I must shortly render up of my actions. I resign my thoughts entirely to the pleasure of conversing with my own soul; that being the only consolation that man cannot deprive me of. If by dint of reflection on my internal propensities, I can attain to putting them in better order, and correcting the evil that remains in me, these meditations will not be utterly useless; and though I am accounted worthless on earth, shall not cast away my latter days. The leisure of my daily walks has frequently been filled with charming contemplations, which I regret having forgot; but I will write down those that occur in future; then, every time I read them over, I shall forget my misfortunes, disgraces, and persecutors, in recollecting and contemplating the integrity of my own heart.

Rousseau's books in general are now little read. They worked their work, and ceased. But there are in some of them passages that continue to live. Of these, perhaps quite the most famous is the "Savoyard Curate's Confession of Faith," a document of some length, incorporated into the "Émile." This, taken as a whole, is the most seductively eloquent argument against Christianity that perhaps ever was written. It contains, however, concessions to the sublime elevation of Scripture and to the unique virtue and majesty of Jesus, which are often quoted, and which will bear quoting here. The Savoyard Curate is represented speaking to a young friend as follows:—

I will confess to you further, that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible, are they, compared with the Scripture! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the Sacred Personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity, in his manners! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind, what subtilety, what truth, in his replies! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live and die, without weakness and without ostentation? When Plato described his imaginary good man loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest reward of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the resemblance was so striking that all the Fathers perceived it.

What prepossession, what blindness, must it be to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the Son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion there is between them! Socrates, dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practice; he had only to say what they had done, and reduce their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas gave up his life for his country before Socrates declared patriotism to be a duty; the Spartans were a sober people before Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. But where could Jesus learn, among his compatriots, that pure and sublime morality of which he only has given us both precept and example? The greatest wisdom was made known amidst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on the earth. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, cursed by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed indeed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without removing it; it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero.

So far in eloquent ascription of incomparable excellence to the Bible and to the Founder of Christianity. But then immediately Rousseau's Curate proceeds:—

And yet, with all this, the same gospel abounds with incredible relations, with circumstances repugnant to reason, and which it is impossible for a man of sense either to conceive or admit.

The compliment to Christianity almost convinces you,—until suddenly you are apprised that the author of the compliment was not convinced himself!

Jean Jacques Rousseau, in the preface to his "Confessions," appealed from the judgment of men to the judgment of God. This judgment it was his habit, to the end of his days, thanks to the effect of his early Genevan education, always to think of as certainly impending. Let us adjourn our final sentence upon him, until we hear that Omniscient award.

XVII.

THE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS

A cenotaph is a monument erected to the memory of one dead, but not marking the spot in which his remains rest. The present chapter is a cenotaph to the French Encyclopædists. It is in the nature of a memorial of their literary work, but it will be found to contain no specimen extracts from their writings.

Everybody has heard of the Encyclopædists of France. Who are they? They are a group of men who, during the eighteenth century, associated themselves together for the production of a great work to be the repository of all human knowledge,—in one word, of an encyclopædia. The project was a laudable one; and the motive to it was laudable—in part. For there was mixture of motive in the case. In part, the motive was simple desire to advance the cause of human enlightenment; in part, however, the motive was desire to undermine Christianity. This latter end the encyclopædist collaborators may have thought to be an indispensable means subsidiary to the former end. They probably did think so—with such imperfect sincerity as is possible to those who set themselves, consciously or unconsciously, against God. The fact is, that the Encyclopædists came at length to be nearly as much occupied in extinguishing Christianity, as in promoting public enlightenment. They went about this their task of destroying, in a way as effective as has ever been devised for accomplishing a similar work. They gave a vicious turn of insinuation against Christianity to as many articles as possible. In the most unexpected places, throughout the entire work, pitfalls were laid of anti-Christian implication, awaiting the unwary feet of the reader. You were nowhere sure of your ground. The world has never before seen, it has never seen since, an example of propagandism altogether so adroit and so alert. It is not too much to say further, that history can supply few instances of propagandism so successful. The Encyclopædists might almost be said to have given the human mind a fresh start and a new orbit. The fresh start is, perhaps, spent; the new orbit has at length, to a great extent, returned upon the old; but it holds true, nevertheless, that the Encyclopædists of France were for a time, and that not a short time, a prodigious force of impulsion and direction to the Occidental mind. It ought to be added that the aim of the Encyclopædists was political also, not less than religious. In truth, religion and politics, Church and State, in their day, and in France, were much the same thing. The "Encyclopædia" was as revolutionary in politics as it was atheistic in religion.

The leader in this movement of insurrectionary thought was Denis Diderot. Diderot (1713-1784) was born to be an encyclopædist, and a captain of encyclopædists. Force inexhaustible, and inexhaustible willingness to give out force; unappeasable curiosity to know; irresistible impulse to impart knowledge; versatile capacity to do every thing, carried to the verge, if not carried beyond the verge, of incapacity to do any thing thoroughly well; quenchless zeal and quenchless hope; levity enough of temper to keep its subject free from those depressions of spirit and those cares of conscience which weigh and wear on the over-earnest man; abundant physical health,—gifts such as these made up the manifold equipment of Diderot for rowing and steering the gigantic enterprise of the "Encyclopædia" triumphantly to the port of final completion, through many and many a zone of stormy adverse wind and sea, traversed on the way. Diderot produced no signal independent and original work of his own; probably he could not have produced such a work. On the other hand, it is simply just to say that hardly anybody but Diderot could have achieved the "Encyclopædia." That, indeed, may be considered an achievement not more to the glory, than to the shame, of its author; but whatever its true moral character, in whatever proportion shameful or glorious, it is inalienably and peculiarly Diderot's achievement; at least in this sense, that without Diderot the "Encyclopædia" would never have been achieved.

We have already, in discussing Voltaire, adverted sufficiently to Mr. John Morley's volumes in honor of Diderot and his compeers. Diderot is therein ably presented in the best possible light to the reader; and we are bound to say, that, despite Mr. Morley's friendly endeavors, Diderot therein appears very ill. He married a young woman, whose simple and touching self-sacrifice on her husband's behalf, he presently requited by giving himself away, body and soul, to a rival. In his writings, he is so easily insincere, that not unfrequently it is a problem, even for his biographer, to decide when he is expressing his sentiments truly and when not; insomuch that, once and again, Mr. Morley himself is obliged to say, "This is probably hypocritical on Diderot's part," or something to that effect. As for filthy communication out of his mouth and from his pen,—not, of course, habitual, but occasional,—the subject will not bear more than this mention. These be thy gods, O Atheism! one, in reading Mr. Morley on Diderot, is tempted again and again to exclaim. To offset such lowness of character in the man, it must in justice be added that Diderot was, notwithstanding, of a generous, uncalculating turn of mind, not grudging, especially in intellectual relations, to give of his best to others, expecting nothing again. Diderot, too, as well as Voltaire, had his royal or imperial friends, in the notorious Empress Catherine of Russia, and in King Stanislaus of Poland. He visited Catherine once in her capital, and was there munificently entertained by her. She was regally pleased to humor this gentleman of France, permitting him to bring down his fist in gesture violently on the redoubtable royal knee, according to a pleasant way Diderot had of emphasizing a point in familiar conversation. His truest claim to praise for intellectual superiority is, perhaps, that he was a prolific begetter of wit in other men.

D'Alembert (Jean le Rond, 1717-1783) was an eminent mathematician. He wrote especially, though not at first exclusively, on mathematical subjects, for the "Encyclopædia." He was, indeed, at the outset, published as mathematical editor of the work. His European reputation in science made his name a tower of strength to the "Encyclopædia,"—even after he ceased to be an editorial coadjutor in the enterprise. For there came a time when D'Alembert abdicated responsibility as editor, and left the undertaking to fall heavily on the single shoulder, Atlantean shoulder it proved to be, of Diderot. The celebrated "Preliminary Discourse," prefixed to the "Encyclopædia," proceeded from the hand of D'Alembert. This has always been esteemed a masterpiece of comprehensive grasp and lucid exposition. A less creditable contribution of D'Alembert's to the "Encyclopædia" was his article on "Geneva," in the course of which, at the instance of Voltaire, who wanted a chance to have his plays represented in that city, he went out of his way to recommend to the Genevans that they establish for themselves a theatre. This brought out Rousseau in an eloquent harangue against the theatre as exerting influence to debauch public morals. D'Alembert, in the contest, did not carry off the honors of the day. D'Alembert's "Éloges," so called, a series of characterizations and appreciations written by the author in his old age, of members of the French Academy, enjoy deserved reputation for sagacious intellectual estimate, and for clear, though not supremely elegant, style of composition.

Diderot and D'Alembert are the only men whose names appear on the title-page of the "Encyclopædia;" but Voltaire, Rousseau, Turgot, Helvétius, Duclos, Condillac, Buffon, Grimm, D'Holbach, with many others whom we must not stay even to mention, contributed to the work.

The influence of the "Encyclopædia," great during its day, is by no means yet exhausted. But it is an influence indirectly exerted, for the "Encyclopædia" itself has long been an obsolete work.

There is a legal maxim that the laws are silent, when a state of war exists. Certainly, amid the madness of a Revolution such as, during the closing years of the eighteenth century, the influence of Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Encyclopædists, with Beaumarchais, reacting against the accumulated political and ecclesiastical oppressions of ages, precipitated upon France, it might safely be assumed that letters would be silent. But the nation meantime was portentously preparing material for a literature which many wondering centuries to follow would occupy themselves with writing.

XVIII.

EPILOGUE

In looking backward over the preceding pages, we think of many things which we should like still to say. Of these many things, we limit ourselves to saying here, as briefly as we can, some four or five only.

To begin with, in nearly every successive case, we have found ourselves lamenting afresh that, from the authors to be represented, the representative extracts must needs be so few and so short. We have, therefore, sincerely begrudged to ourselves every line of room that we felt obliged to occupy with matter, preparatory, explanatory, or critical, of our own. Whatever success we may have achieved in fulfilling our purpose, our purpose has been to say ourselves barely so much as was indispensable in order finally to convey, upon the whole, to our readers, within the allotted space, the justest and the fullest impression of the selected authors, through the medium of their own quoted words.

In the second place, it was with great regret that we yielded to the necessity of omitting entirely, or dismissing with scant mention, such literary names, for example, as Boileau, of the age of Louis Quatorze, and, a little later than he, Fontenelle, spanning with his century of years the space from 1657 to 1757,—these, and, belonging to the period that ushered in the Revolution, Bernardin St. Pierre, the teller of the tale of "Paul and Virginia," with also that hero of a hundred romantic adventures, Beaumarchais, half Themistocles, half Alcibiades, the author of "The Barber of Seville." The line had to be drawn somewhere; and, whether wisely or not, at least thoughtfully, we drew it to run as it does.

A third, and a yet graver, occasion of regret was that we must stop short on the threshold, without crossing it, of the nineteenth-century literature of France. With so many shining names seen just ahead of us, beacon-like, to invite our advance, we felt it as a real self-denial to stay our steps at that point. We hope still to deal with Chateaubriand, Madame de Staël, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, Sainte-Beuve, Victor Hugo, and perhaps others, in a future volume.

Our eye is caught with the antithetical terms, "classicism" and "romanticism," occurring here and there; and the observation is forced upon us, that these terms, in their mutual relation, are nowhere by us defined. The truth is, they scarcely, as thus used, admit of hard and fast definition. It is in a somewhat loose conventional sense of each term, that, in late literary language, they are set off, one over against the other. They name two different, but by no means necessarily antagonistic, forces or tendencies in literature. Classicism stands for what you might call the established order, against which romanticism is a revolt. Paradoxical though it be to say so, both the established order, and the revolt against it, are good things. The established order, which was never really any thing more or less than the dominance in literature of rules and standards derived through criticism from the acknowledged best models, especially the ancient, tended at last to cramp and stifle the life which it should, of course, only serve to shape and conform. The mould, always too narrow perhaps, but at any rate grown too rigid, needed itself to be fashioned anew. Fresh life, a full measure, would do this. Such is the true mission of romanticism,—not to break the mould that classicism sought to impose on literary production, but to expand that mould, make it more pliant, more free. A mould, for things living and growing, should be plastic in the passive, as well as in the active, sense of that word,—should accept form, as well as give form. Romanticism will accordingly have won its legitimate victory, not when it shall have destroyed classicism and replaced it, but when it shall have made classicism over, after the law of a larger life. To risk a concrete illustration—among our American poets, Bryant, in the perfectly self-consistent unity of his whole intellectual development, may be said to represent classicism; while in Lowell, as Lowell appears in the later, more protracted, phase of his genius, romanticism is represented. The "Thanatopsis" of Bryant and the "Cathedral" of Lowell may stand for individual examples respectively of the classic and the romantic styles in poetry. Compare these two productions, and in the difference between the chaste, well-pruned severity of the one, and the indulged, perhaps stimulated, luxuriance of the other, you will feel the difference between classicism and romanticism. But Victor Hugo is the great recent romanticist; and when, hereafter, we come to speak somewhat at large of him, it will be seasonable to enter more fully into the question of these two tendencies in literature.

We cannot consent to have said here our very last word, without emphasizing once again our sense of the really extraordinary pervasiveness in French literature of that element in it which one does not like to name, even to condemn it,—we mean its impurity. The influence of French literary models, very strong among us just now, must not be permitted insensibly to pervert our own cleaner and sweeter national habit and taste in this matter. But we, all of us together, need to be both vigilant and firm; for the beginnings of corruption here are very insidious. Let us never grow ashamed of our saving Saxon shamefacedness. They may nickname it prudery, if they will; but let us, American and English, for our part, always take pride in such prudery.

INDEX

[The merest approximation only can be attempted, in hinting here the pronunciation of French names. In general, the French distribute the accent pretty evenly among all the syllables of their words. We mark an accent on the final syllable, chiefly in order to correct a natural English tendency to slight that syllable in pronunciation. In a few cases, we let a well-established English pronunciation stand. N notes a peculiar nasal sound, ü, a peculiar vowel sound, having no equivalent in English.]

Ab'é-lard (1079-1142), 6.

Academy, French, 10, 12, 75, 156, 287.

Æs'chy-lus, 94, 152, 166, 168.

Æ'sop, 85.

Al-ci-bi'a-des, 289.

Alembert. See D'Alembert.

Al-ex-an'der (the Great), 5, 131.

Al-ex-an'drine, 5, 86, 153.

Am-y-ot' (ä-me-o´), Jacques (1513-1593), 8.

An'ge-lo, Michel, 156.

Ariosto, 245, 247.

Ar'is-tot-le, 50.

Ar-nauld' (ar-nō´), Antoine (1612-1694), 119.

Ar'thur (King), 5.

Au'gus-tīne, St., Latin Christian Father, 83.

Au'gus'tus (the Emperor), 131.

Ba'con, Francis, 48, 63.

Ba'ker, Jehu, 226.

Bā´laam, 154.

Băl´zac, Jean Louis Guez de (1594-1654), 10, 11.

Beau-mar-chais´, de (bō-mar-shā´), Pierre Augustin Caron (1732-1799), 287, 289.

Benedictines, 29.

Boi-leau´-Des-pré-aux´ (bwä-lō´-dā-prā-o´), Nicolas (1636-1711), 9, 12, 14, 83, 84, 167, 168, 171, 289.

Bolton, A. S., 69.

BOS-SU-ET´(bo-sü-ā´), Jacques Bénigne (1627-1704), 11, 12, 77, 127, 166, 170, 182-188, 205, 206, 224, 225.

BOUR-DA-LOUE´, Louis (1632-1704), 3, 12, 77, 143, 148, 182, 185, 188, 189-197, 198, 201, 202.

Brook Farm, 38.

Bry´ant, William Cullen, 290, 291.

Buckle, Henry Thomas, 234.

Buffon (büf-foN´), Georges Louis Leclerc de (1707-1788), 287.

Bur´gun-dy, Duke of (1682-1712), 177, 207, 208, 209, 214, 216.

Burke, Edmund, 48, 75.

Bussy (büs-se´), Count, 135.

By´ron, Lord, 48.

Cæsar, Julius, 56, 131.

Calas (cä-lä´), Jean, 253.

Calvin, John (1509-1564), 7.

Carlyle, Thomas, 251, 255.