See also:

• FRENCH
• FRENCH, DANIEL CHESTER (1850– )
• FRENCH, NICHOLAS (1604-1678)

The See also:

• OLDEST

Whether they originated in the See also:

• NORTH
• NORTH, BARONS
• NORTH, MARIANNE (1830—1890)
• NORTH, ROGER (1653-1734)
• NORTH, SIR THOMAS (1535?-16o1?)

To the first only is the term chansons de geste in strictness applicable. The See also:

• DEFINITION (Lat. definitio, from de-finire, to set limits to, describe)

By this See also:

• JOINT (through Fr. from Lat. junctum, jungere, to join)

But for a time they reigned supreme, and no better instance of their popularity can be given than the fact that manuscripts of them exist, not merely in every French dialect, but in many cases in a See also:

• STRANGE, SIR ROBERT (1721-1792)

In Aliscans the part of the Countess Guibourc is both prominent and heroic, and is seconded by that of See also:

• QUEEN
• QUEEN (O.E. cwen, wife, related to "quean," O.E. cwene, a hussy; cf. Gr. yvvi7: from root gan-, to produce; cf. genus, " kin," &c.)

The most remarkable of the chansons are Roland, Aliscans, Gerard de Roussillon, Amis et Amiles, Raoul de See also:

• CAMBRAI

The gentix ber contradicts, jeers at, and execrates his See also:

• SOVEREIGN

What we are at present concerned with, however, is a See also:

• BODY

The See also:

• ORDINARY (med. Lat. ordinarius, Fr. ordinaire)

The authorities consulted for these poems were, as may be supposed, none of the best. Dares Phrygius, Dictys Cretensis, the pseudo-See also:

• CALLISTHENES (c. 360–328 B.C.)

In the first place, they connect the early literature of France, however loosely, and with links of however dubious authenticity, with the great history and literature of the past. They show a certain amount of See also:

• SCHOLAR, SCHOLARSHIP

See also:

• HUGUES, CLOVIS (1851-1907)

The latter, 'sties of indeed, sometimes presumed to compose for himself, early and was denounced as a troveor batard by the indignant narrative. members of the superior See also:

• CASTE (through the Fr. from Span. and Port. casta, lineage, Lat. cast us, pure)

The epic and the See also:

• DRAMA (literally "action," from Gr. Snail, act or do)

There is no limit to the variety of these lively verse-tales, which are invariably written in eight-syllabled couplets. Now the subject is the misadventure of two Englishmen, whose See also:

• IGNORANCE (Lat. ignorantia, from ignorare, not to know); want of knowledge, a state of mind which in law has important consequences. A well-known legal maxim runs: ignorantia juris non excusat ("ignorance of the law does not excuse")

The fabliaux are so numerous and so various that it is difficult to select any as specially representative. We may, however, mention, both as See also:

• GOOD, JOHN MASON (1764-1827)

The French poems which we possess on the subject amount in all to nearly roo,000 lines, independently of mere See also:

• VARIATIONS
• VARIATIONS, CALCULUS
• VARIATIONS, CALCULUS OF

Here the personification, of which, in noticing the Roman de la rose, we shall soon have to give extended mention, becomes evident. Instead of or at least beside the lively personal Renart who used to steal sausages, set Isengrim fishing with his tail, or make use of Chanticleer's See also:

• COMB (a word common in various forms to Teut. languages, cf. Ger. Kamm, the Indo-Europ. origin of which is seen in yoµros, a peg or pin, and Sanskrit, gambhas, a tooth)

Paulin Paris was able to enumerate some hundreds of French chansonniers between the See also:

• FIRTH, CHARLES HARDING (1857– )
• FIRTH, MARK (1819-1880)

(1201-1253), who See also:

• UNITED

These two sinister figures pervade the fabliaux, tales and fantastic literature generally of the time. M. Lenient, the historian of French satire, has well remarked that a romance as long as the Renart might be spun out of the separate short poems of this period which have the Devil for hero, and many of which form a very interesting transition between the fabliau and the mystery. But the Devil is in one respect a far inferior hero to Renart. He has an adversary in the Virgin, who constantly upsets his best-laid schemes, and who does not always treat him quite fairly. The abuse of See also:

• USURY

It might be described as an Ars amoris crossed with a Quodlibeta. This mixture exactly See also:

• HIT

Accounts of the origin of See also:

• LOYALTY

Indeed the general tendency of the 13th century is to satire, fable and farce, even more than to serious or sentimental poetry. We should perhaps except the laic, the chief of which Lets. are known under the name of Marie de France. These See also:

• LAYS

The hero Audigier is a model of cowardice and disloyalty; his father and mother, Turgibus and Rainberge, are deformed and repulsive. The exploits of the hero himself are coarse and hideous failures, and the whole poem can only be taken as a counterblast to the spirit of chivalry. Elsewhere a trouvere, prophetic of Rabelais, describes a vast battle between all the nations of the world, the See also:

• QUARREL

Hitherto such poetry had chiefly Artif cia/ been composed osed in the melodious but unconstrained formsse. of forms of the romance and the pastourelle. In the 14th century the writers of northern France subjected themselves to severer rules. In this age arose the forms which for so long a time were to occupy French singers,—the See also:

• BALLADE

He has See also:

• LEFT

There is no doubt that the mysteries (subjects taken from the sacred writings) and See also:

• MIRACLE (Lat. miraculum, from mirari, to wonder)

See also:

• DANTE

Religious handbooks and commentaries on the scriptures were common in the 13th and following centuries, and, under the title of Castoiements, Enseignements and Doctrinaux, moral See also:

• TREATISES

The occasional festive outbursts, such as the Feast of See also:

• FOOLS, FEAST OF (Lat. festum stultorum, fatuorum, follorum, Fr. fete des fous)

In See also:

• ORDER
• ORDER (through Fr. ordre, for earlier ordene, from Lat. ordo, ordinis, rank, service, arrangement; the ultimate source is generally taken to be the root seen in Lat. oriri, rise, arise, begin; cf. " origin ")
• ORDER, HOLY

But their general character appears to be gravity, not to say dullness. The Enfans sans Souci, on the other hand, were definitely satirical, and nothing if not amusing. The chief of the society was entitled Prince des Sots, and his See also:

• CROWN

Patelin itself has an immense number of versions and See also:

• EDITIONS

In the loth century there are some charters and muniments in the verna- cular; of the firth the laws of William the Conqueror are the most important document; while the Assises de See also:

• JERUSALEM (Heb. ^S0-r, Yerushalaim, pronounced as a dual)
• JERUSALEM, SYNOD OF (1672)

Villehardouin was continued by Henri de See also:

• VALENCIENNES

French critics have indeed been scarcely See also:

• FAIR

Feudality died with Froissart and Eustache Deschamps. The modern spirit can hardly be said to arise before Rabelais and See also:

• RONSARD, PIERRE DE (1524-1585)

But though Jean le Houx may have written the poems published under Basselin's name two centuries later, it is taken as certain that an actual Olivier wrote actual vaux de vire at the beginning of the 15th century. About Christine de Pisan (1363—1430) and Alain Chartier (1392-c. 1430) there is no such doubt. Christine was the daughter of an Italian astrologer who was patronized by Charles V. She was born in Italy but brought up in France, and she enriched the literature of her adopted country Alain with much learning, good sense and patriotism. She c artier. wrote history, devotional works and poetry; and though her literary merit is not of the highest, it is very far from despicable. Alain Chartier, best known to modern readers by the story of See also:

• MARGARET
• MARGARET (1283–1290)
• MARGARET (1353-1412)
• MARGARET (1489–1541)
• MARGARET, ST (c. 1045–1093)
• MARGARET, ST (SANCTA MARGARITA)

He is the best-known and perhaps the best writer of the graceful poems in which an artificial versification is strictly observed, and helps by its recurrent lines and modulated rhymes to give to poetry something of a musical See also:

• ACCOMPANIMENT (i.e. that which " accompanies ")

The artificial See also:

• MEASURES

The disputes of the Bien Public and those between Louis XI. and Charles of See also:

• BURGUNDY

It is no longer Renart with his cynical gaiety, or the curiously travestied and almost amiable Devil of the Middle Ages. Now it is Death as an incident ever present to the See also:

• IMAGINATION

See also:

• NICHOLAS
• NICHOLAS (1841– )
• NICHOLAS (or NICLAES), HENRY (or HENDRIK) (c. 1501-C. 158o)
• NICHOLAS, SIR EDWARD (1593-1669)
• NICHOLAS, ST

But the most important divisions of medieval See also:

• ENERGY (from the Gr. ivipyela; iv, in, ipyov, work)

The memoir and chronicle writers, who were to be of so much import- ance in French literature, also begin to be numerous at this period. See also:

• JUVENAL (DECIMUS JUNIUS JUVENALIS) (c. 60-140)

The Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles is undoubtedly the first work of prose belles-lettres in French, and the first, moreover, of a long and most remarkable class of literary work in which French writers may See also:

• CHALLENGE (O. Fr. chalonge, calenge, &c., from Lat. calumnia, originally meaning trickery, from calvi, to deceive, hence a false accusation, a " calumny ")

Of the fifteen joys of See also:

• MARRIAGE

Antoine de la Salle. till the extreme end of „..c period that a great literature was forthcoming—in France almost the whole century was marked by the production of See also:

• CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
• CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

The series of prose writers from Calvin to Montaigne, of poets from Marot to Regnier, elaborated a language yielding to no modern tongue in beauty, richness, flexibility and strength, a language which the reactionary purism of succeeding generations defaced rather than improved, and the merits of which have in still later days been triumphantly vindicated by the See also:

• CONFESSION (Lat. confessio, from confiteor, acknowledge, confess)

Around Marot arose a wb*e school of disciples and imitators, such as See also:

• VICTOR
• VICTOR, GAIUS JULIUS (4th cent. A.D.)
• VICTOR, SEXTUS AURELIUS

Their ideal of a separate poetical language distinct from that intended for prose use was indeed a doubtful if not a dangerous one. But it is certain that Marot, while setting an example of elegance and grace not easily to be imitated, set also an example of trivial and, so to speak, pedestrian language which was only too imitable. If France was ever to possess a literature containing something besides fabliaux and farces, the tongue must be enriched and strengthened. This See also:

• ACCESSION (from Lat. accedere, to go to, to approach)

In a See also:

• SKETCH (directly adapted from Dutch schets, which was taken from Ital. schizzo, a rough draft, Lat. schedium, something hastily made, Gr. oxE&os, sudden, off-hand, axeb6v, near by; Ger. Skizze and Fr. esquisse are from the same source)

1530-1585), and Jean de la See also:

• TAILLE (from Fr. tailler, to cut or divide; late Lat. taliare, said to come from talia, talea)

Regnier. poetry of the century. A descendant at once of the older Gallic spirit of Villon and Marot, in virtue of his consummate acuteness, terseness and wit, of the school of Ronsard by his erudition, his command of language, and his scholarship, Regnier is perhaps the best representative of French poetry at the See also:

• CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

One morality by itself, L'Homme juste et l'homme mondain, contains some 36,000 lines. But in 1548, when the Confraternity was formally established at the Hotel de Bourgogne, leave to play sacred subjects was expressly refused it. Moralities and soties dragged on under difficulties till the end of the century, and the farce, which is immortal, continually affected comedy. But the effect of the Renaissance was to sweep away all other vestiges of the medieval drama, at least in the capital. An entirely new class of subjects, entirely new modes of treatment, and a different kind of performers were introduced. The change naturally came from Italy. In the close relationship with that country which France had during the early years of the century, Italian translations of the classical masterpieces were easily imported. Soon French translations were made afresh of the See also:

• ELECTRA ('HMKTpa)

There appears also the grandiose and smooth but See also:

• STILTED

While tragedy thus clings closely to See also:

• ANTIQUE (Lat. antiquus, old)

The romances, ballads and pastourelles, signed and unsigned, of medieval France were not merely the origin, but in some respects the superiors, of the lyric poetry which succeeded them. Thibaut de Champagne, Charles d'Orleans and Villon need not See also:

• VEIL (O.Fr. veile, mod. voile, from Lat. velum, cloth, awning, sail)

With an immense erudition representing almost the whole of the knowledge of his time, with an untiring faculty of invention, with the judgment of a philosopher, and the common sense of a man of the world, with an observation that let no characteristic of the time pass unobserved, and with a tenfold portion of the special Gallic See also:

• GIFT (a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. die Gift, gift, das Gift, poison, formed from the Teut. stem gab-, to give, cf. Dutch geven, Ger. geben; in O. Eng. the word appears with initial y, the guttural of later English is due to Scandinavian influence)

The joint influence gives us some admirable work. Nicholas of Troyes, a saddler of Champagne, came too early (his Grand Parangon des nouvelles nouvelles appeared in 1536) to copy Rabelais. But See also:

• NOEL, RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY (1834-1894)

The Tales of des Periers are shorter, simpler and more homely; there is more wit in them and less refinement. But both works breathe, more powerfully perhaps than any others, the peculiar mixture of cultivated and poetical voluptuousness with a certain religiosity and a vigorous spirit of action which characterizes the French Renaissance. Later in time, but too closely connected with Rabelais in form and spirit to be here omitted, came the See also:

• MAYEN

16th-Century Historians.—As in the case of the tale-tellers, so in that of the historians, the writers of the 16th century had traditions to continue. It is doubtful indeed whether many of them can See also:

• RISK

1550), the secretary of the marshal de Vielleville, composed some memoirs abounding in detail and incident. The Lettres of See also:

• CARDINAL (Lat. cardinalis)

Brant6me, on the other hand, is quite free See also:

• BRANTOME
• BRANTOME, PIERRE DE BOURDEILLE, SEIGNEUR AND ABBE DE (c. 1540-1614)

Jean Calvin's Institution of the Christian Religion is a book equally remarkable in matter and in form, in circum- were characteristic of the time. This doubt assumes the form stances and in result. It is the first really great composition in argumentative French prose. Its severe See also:

• LOGIC (Xoy1K7, sc. rixvrt, the art of reasoning)

Towards the end of the century a more decent war was waged with Philippe du Plessis See also:

• MORNAY, PHILIPPE DE (1549-1623)

Other philosophical works are few, and chiefly express the doubt and the freethinking which of See also:

• POSITIVE (or PORTABLE) ORGAN

The revolutionary and innovating instinct which showed itself in the 16th century with reference to church See also:

• GOVERNMENT
• GOVERNMENT (0. Fr. governement, mod. gouvernement, O. Fr. governer, mod. gouverner, from Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, guide, rule; cf. Gr. xv(3epvav)

In the last quarter of the century political animosity knew no See also:

• BOUNDS, BEATING THE

It gives an account of the procession of opening, and then we have the supposed speeches of the principal characters—the duc de See also:

• MAYENNE
• MAYENNE, CHARLES OF LORRAINE

But in France, as in other countries, the study of the classics led to a vast number of translations, and it so happened that one of the translators deserves as a prose writer a rank among the highest. Many of the authors already mentioned contributed to the literature of translation. Des Periers translated the Platonic dialogue Lysis, la Boetie some works of See also:

• XENOPHON

On the other hand, Claude See also:

• FAUCHET, CLAUDE (1530-1601)
• FAUCHET, CLAUDE (1744-1793)

The only other writers who require special mention are Olivier de See also:

• SERRES, OLIVIA (1772-1834)

But it is difficult to avoid ascribing in great measure to his influence the origin of the chief faults of modern French poetry, and modern French in general, as compared with the older language. He pronounced against " poetic diction " as such, forbade the overlapping (enjambement) of verse, insisted that the middle pause should be of sense as well as sound, and that rhyme must satisfy See also:

• EYE
• EYE (O. Eng. edge, Ger. Auge; derived from an Indo-European root also seen in Lat. oc-ulus, the organ of vision (q.v.)

But the vigour, not to say the licence, of the 16th century could not thus See also:

• DIE
• DIE (Fr. de, from Lat. datum, given)

And indeed it cannot be denied that even the epics, especially Saint Louis, contain flashes of finer poetry than France was to produce for more than a century outside of the drama. Some of the lighter poets and classes of poetry just alluded to also produced some remarkable verse. The Precieuses of the Hotel Rambouillet, with all their absurdities, encouraged if they did not produce good literary work. In their society there is no doubt that a great reformation of manners took place, if not of morals, and that the tendency to literature elegant and polished, yet not destitute of vigour, which marks the 17th century, was largely developed side by side with much scandal-mongering and anecdotage. Many of the authors whom these influences inspired, such as Voiture, Saint-Evremond and others, have been or will be noticed. But even such poets and wits as Antoine Baudouin de Senece (1643-1737), Jean de Segrais (1624-1701), Charles Faulure de Ris, sieur de Charleval (1612-1693), Antoine Godeau (1605-1672), Jean Ogier de Gombaud (1590-1666), are not without interest in the history of literature; while if Charles Cotin (1604-1682) sinks below this level and deserves Moliere's See also:

• CARICATURE (Ital. caricatura, i.e. "ritratto ridicolo," from caricare, to load, to charge; Fr. charge)

It led also to perhaps the most remarkable non-dramatic poetry of the century, the Contes and Fables of Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695). No French writer is better known than la Fontaine, and there is no need to dilate on his merits. It has been Well said that he completes Moliere, and that the two together give something to French literature which no other literature possesses. Yet la Fontaine is after all only a writer of fabliaux, in the language and with the manners of his own century. All the writers we have mentioned belong more or less to the first half of the century, and so do Valentin See also:

• CONRART (or CONRARD), VALENTIN (1603-1675)

In 1588 mysteries had been prohibited, and with the See also:

• PROHIBITION (Lat. prohibere, to prevent)

From Hardy to Rotrou is, in point of literary interest, a great step, and from Rotrou to Corneille a greater. Yet the theory of Hardy only wanted the genius of Rotrou and Corneille to produce the latter. Jean de Rotrou (1610-165o) has been called the French See also:

• MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER (1564-1593)
• MARLOWE, JULIA [SARAH FRANCES FROST] (1870– )

But the fertility of France at this moment in dramatic authors was immense; nearly too are enumerated in the first quarter Corneille. of the century. The early plays of Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) showed all the faults of his contemporaries combined with merits to which none of them except Rotrou, and Rotrou himself only in part, could lay claim. His first play was Melite, a comedy, and in Clitandre, a tragedy, he soon pro- duced what may perhaps be not inconveniently taken as the typical piece of the school of Hardy. A full account of Corneille xi. 5may be found elsewhere. It is sufficient to say here that his importance in French literature is quite as great in the way of influence and example as in the way of intellectual excellence. The See also:

• CID, THE

Yet before many years had passed the examples which Corneille had set in tragedy and in comedy were followed up by unquestionably the greatest comic writer, and by one who long held the position of the greatest tragic writer of France. Beginning with mere farces of the Italian type, and passing from these to comedies still of an Italian character, it was in Les Precieuses ridicules, acted in 1659, that Moliere (1622-1673), in the words of a spectator, hit at last on " la bonne comedie." The next fifteen years ~Eo. era. comprise the whole of his best known work, the finest expression beyond doubt of a certain class of comedy that any literature has produced. The tragic masterpieces of Racine (1639-1699) were not far from coinciding with the Racine. comic masterpieces of Moliere, for, with the exception of the remarkable aftergrowth of See also:

• ESTHER

Even the Cid was formally censured for irregularity by it. But it is fair to say that Francois Hedelin, abbe d'See also:

• AUBIGNAC, FRANCOIS HEDELIN, ABBE

There is yet a third class of prose writing which deserves to be mentioned. It also may probably be traced to Spanish influence, that is to say, to the See also:

• PICARESQUE

17th-Century Prose.—If, however, this was the case, it cannot be said that French prose as a whole was unproductive at this time. On the contrary, it was now, and only now, y t} de that it attained the strength and perfection for which See also:

• BALZAC, HONORS DE (1790-1850)
• BALZAC, JEAN LOUIS GUEZ DE (1594-1654)

Quinault and Campistron wrote fair comedies. Florent Carton See also:

• DANCOURT, FLORENT CARTON (1661-1725)

As we have already hinted, the nearest ancestry which can be found for them is the romances of the Amadis type. But the Amadis, and in a less degree its followers, although long, are long in virtue of incident. The romances of the Clelie type are long in virtue of interminable discourse, moralizing and description. Their manner is not unlike that of the Arcadia and the Euphues which preceded them in England; and they express in point of style the tendency which simultaneously manifested itself all over Europe at this period, and whose chief exponents were Gongora in Spain, See also:

• MARINI (or MARINO), GIAMBATTISTA (1569-1625)

It has been well said of him that he " ecrit pour ecrire "; and such a man, it is evident, if he does nothing else, sets a valuable example to those who write because they have something to say. Voiture seconded Balzac without much intending to do so. His prose style, also chiefly contained in letters, is lighter than that of his contemporary, and helped to gain for French prose the tradition of vivacity and sparkle which it has always possessed, as well as that of correctness and grace. zyth-Century History.—In historical composition, especially in the department of memoirs, this period was exceedingly rich. At last there was written, in French, an entire history of France. The author was Francois Eudes de See also:

• MEZERAY, FRANCOIS EUDES DE (1610—1683)

These three works, whose similarity of subject and successive composition at short intervals leave little doubt that a certain amount of intentional rivalry animated the two later authors, are among the earliest and best examples of the monographs for which French, in point of grace of style and lucidity of exposition, has long been the most successful vehicle of expression among European languages. Among other writers of history, as distinguished from memoirs, need only be noticed Agrippa d'Aubigne, whose Histoire universelle closed his long and varied See also:

• LIST (O.E. lisle, a Teutonic word, cf. Dut. lust, Ger. Leiste, adapted in Ital. lista and Fr. lisle)
• LIST, FRIEDRICH (1789-1846)

The last half of the century produced crowds of similar but inferior writers. The memoirs of Roger de Bussy-Rabutin (1618-'693) (author of a kind of scandalous chronicle called Histoire amoureuse des Gaules) and of Madame de See also:

• MAINTENON

The '7th century, on the contrary, was to produce in Rene Descartes (1596-1650), at once a master of prose style, the greatest of French philosophers, and one of the greatest metaphysicians, not merely of France and of the 17th century, but of all countries and times. Even before Descartes there had been considerable and important developments of metaphysical speculation in France. The first eminent philosopher of French birth was Pierre Gassendi (1592- 1655). Gassendi devoted himself to the See also:

• MAINTENANCE (Fr. maintenance, from maintenir, to maintain, support, Lat. manu tenere, to hold in the hand)

consecutiveness of thought, is equally admirable for its elegance of style. Malebranche cannot indeed, like his great master, claim absolute originality. But his excellence as a writer is as great as, if not greater than, that of Descartes, and the Recherche remains to this day the one philosophical treatise of great length and abstruseness which, merely as a book, is delightful to read—not like the works of Plato and Berkeley, because of the See also:

• ADVENTITIOUS (from Lat. adventicius, coming from abroad)

But his great See also:

• DICTIONARY

In theology they adopted Jansenism, and were in consequence soon at daggers drawn with the Jesuits, according to the polemical habits of the time. The most distinguished champions on the Jansenist side were Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbe de St Cyran(r 581–1643), and Antoine Arnauld (1560-1619), but by far the most important literary results of the quarrel were the famous Provinciales of Pascal, or, to give them their proper title, Leltres ecrites d un provincial. Their literary importance consists, not merely in their pascal. grace of style, but in the application to serious discussion of the peculiarly polished and quiet irony of which Pascal is the greatest master the world has ever seen. Up to this time controversy had usually been conducted either in the mere bludgeon fashion of the Scaligers and Saumaises—of which in the vernacular the Jesuit Francois Garasse (1585–1631) had already contributed remarkable examples to literary and moral controversy—or else in a dull and legal style, or lastly under an envelope of Rabelaisian buffoonery such as survives to a considerable extent in the Satire Menippee. Pascal set the example of combining the use of the most terribly effective weapons with good See also:

• HUMOUR (Latin humor)

To the latter Nicole also contributed Les Visionnaires, Les Imaginaires and other works. The studious recluses of Port Royal also produced a large quantity of miscellaneous literary work, to which full justice has been done in Sainte-Beuve's well-known volumes. 17th-Century Preachers.—When we think of Gallican theology during the 17th century, it is always with the famous pulpit orators of the period that thought is most busied, Nor is this unjust, for though the most prominent of them all, Jacques Benign See also:

• BOSSUET, JAQUES BENIGNE (1627-1704)

Hossuet. The characteristics of all these were different. Bossuet, the earliest and certainly the greatest, was also the most universal. He was not merely a preacher; he was, as we have said, a controversialist, indeed somewhat too much of a con- troversialist, as his battle with Fenelon proved. He was a philosophical or at least a theological historian, and his Discours sur l'histoire universelle is equally remarkable from the point of view of theology, philosophy, history and literature. Turning to theological politics, he wrote his Politique tiree de l'ecriture sainte, to theology proper his Meditations sur les evangiles and his Elevations sur les mysteres. But his principal work, after all, is his Oraisons funebres. The funeral sermon was the special oratorical exercise of the time. Its subject and character in- vited the gorgeous if somewhat theatrical commonplaces, the display of historical knowledge and parallel, and the moralizing analogies, in which the age specially rejoiced. It must also be noticed, to the credit of the preachers, that such occasions gave them an opportunity, rarely neglected, of correcting the adulation which was but too frequently characteristic of the period. The spirit of these compositions is fairly reflected in the most famous and often quoted of their phrases, the opening " See also:

• MES

In pure literature he is not less remarkable than in theology, politics and morals. His practice in matters of style was admir- able, as the universally known Telemaque sufficiently shows to those who know nothing else of his writing. But his taste, both in its correctness and its audacity, is perhaps more admirable still. Despite of Malherbe, Balzac, Boileau and the traditions of nearly a century, he dared to speak favourably of Ronsard, and plainly expressed his opinion that the practice of his own contemporaries and predecessors had cramped and impoverished the French language quite as much as they had polished or purified it. The other doctors whom we have mentioned were more purely theological than the accomplished archbishop of Cambray. Flechier is somewhat more archaic in style than Bossuet or Fenelon, and he is also more definitely a rhetorician than either. Mascaron has the older fault of prodigal and somewhat indiscriminate erudition. But the two latest of the series, Bourdaloue and Massillon, had far the greatest repute in their own time purely as orators, and perhaps deserved this preference. The difference between the two repeated that between du Perron and de Sales. Bourdaloue's great forte was vigorous argument and unsparing denunciation, but he is said to have been lacking in the power of influencing and affecting his hearers. His attraction was purely intellectual, and it is reflected in his style, which is clear and forcible, but destitute of warmth and colour. Massillon, on the other hand, was remarkable for his pathos, and for his power of enlisting and influencing the sympathies of his hearers.

Of minor preachers on the same side, Charles de la See also:

• RUE (Fr. rue, Lat. ruta, from Gr. pur)

Both classes, however, were more or less tempted by the cast of their thoughts and the genius of the language to adopt the tersest and most epigrammatic form of expression possible, and thus to originate the " pensee " in which, as its greatest later writer, See also:

• JOUBERT, BARTHELEMY CATHERINE (1769–1799)
• JOUBERT, JOSEPH (1754–1824)
• JOUBERT, PETRUS JACOBUS (1834–1900)

His Memoires La See also:

• ROCHE, SIR BOYLE, BART

The latter, of which our own See also:

• CLARENDON, CONSTITUTIONS OF
• CLARENDON, EDWARD HYDE, 1ST EARL OF (1609-1674)
• CLARENDON, GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK VILLIERS, 4TH EARL OF (in the Villiers line) (1800-r87o)
• CLARENDON, HENRY HYDE

But all or almost all this sort of work was done in Latin, so that it contributed little to French literature properly so-called, though the translations from the classics of Nicolas See also:

• PERROT, SIR JOHN (c. 1S27–1592)

But Fleury is only the last and the most popular of a See also:

• RACE

18th-Century Poetry.—The dispiriting signs shown during the 17th century by French poetry proper received entire fulfilment in the following age. The two poets who were most prominent at the opening of the period were the abbe de See also:

• CHAULIEU, GUILLAUME AMFRYE DE (1639-1720)

His Odes and his Cantates are perhaps less destitute of that spirit than the work of any other poet of the century excepting See also:

• ANDRE, JOHN (1751-178o)

The first of these descriptive performances was the Saisons of Jean Francois de Saint-Lambert (1716-1803), identical in title with its model, but of infinitely inferior value. Saint-Lambert was followed by Jacques See also:

• DELILLE, JACQUES (1738–1813)