FRANCE
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FRANCE
and in which, in spite of a peculiar method of narration,
borrowed from Spain, tlie manners and the society of
the time are drawn to the life. Thus "Gil Bias" in-
augurates in French literature the romance of manners.
The most original of the writers of comedy in this
period, however, is Marivaux, who, between 1722 and
1740, produced his charming works, "La surprise de
Tamour", "Le jeu de I'amour et du hasard", "Le
Legs", "Les fausses confidences", etc. The utmost
refinement in the analysis of love — a love that is timid
and scrupulous — propriety in the settings of his works,
a subtile wit bearing the stamp of good society, grace
and delicacy of feeling— these are the distinguishing
characteristics of Marivaux.
But if the great classical types are exhausted or fall to pieces in giving birth to new forms, literature is compensated by the enlargement of its tlomain in some directions, absorbing new sources of inspiration. Writers turn away from the consideration of man as a moral unit; on the other hand, they devote them- selves to the study of man regarded as a product of the changing conditions of the State, political, social and religious. In fact, this new direction of literary activ- ity is favoured by the birth of what has been called "the philosophic spirit". After the death of Louis XIV, the severe restraint imposed upon men's intel- lects was at an end. Respect for authority and for the social hierarchy, submission to the dictates of religion — these were things never questioned by any of the seventeenth-century writers. From the earliest years of the eighteenth century, on the contrary, an aggres- sive movement against every form of autliority, spiri- tual as well as temporal, becomes perceptible. This two-fold disposition — curiosity about human idiosyn- crasies as they vary with times, places, environments, and governments, and a spirit of unfettered criticism — is met with in Montesquieu, chronologically the first of the great writers of the eighteenth century. Montesquieu, indeed, does not manifest any destruc- tive inclination in regard to government and religion; nevertheless, in the "Lettres persanes" (1721), there is a tone of satire previously unknown. Montesquieu shows himself the disciple of La Bruyere, but does not hesitate to discuss sulijects from which his master would have been obliged to refrain: social problems, the royal power, the papacy. The " Lettres persanes" is a pamphlet rather than the work of a moralist. They make an epoch in the history of French literature, marking the first appearance of the political satire. But the two truly great works of Montesquieu are the "Considerations sur la grandeur et la decadence des Remains" (173-1), and the "Esprit des Lois" (1748). In the "Consid(5rations", Montesquieu, by undertaking to explain the succession of events by the power of ideas, the character of the people, the action and re- action of cause and effect, inaugurated an historical method unknown to his predecessors — certainly not to Bossuet, who was the most illustrious of them. From the "Considerations" the whole movement of modern historical study was to draw its inspiration lateron. In the " Esprit des Lois ", he studies how laws are evolved under the influences of government, climate, religion, and manners. On all these subjects, in spite of cer- tain errors of detail, he threw a light that was alto- gether new.
With Montesquieu, jurisprudence, politics, and sociology made their entrance into literature. With Buffon, science has its turn. Already Fontenelle, in his " Entretiens sur la pluralitc des Mondes", had pop- ularized the most didicnlt astronomical tlieories. Buf- fon, in his "Ilistdire nutuiclle". the first volumes of which appeared in 17 l!t, si't fortli the ideas of his time on geology ami biological species in a style that is brilliantand highly oolouriMl, l)ut somewhat studied in its magnificence. No<Ioubt Buffon's descriptions are written in a pompous, ambitious style ill suited to the severity of a scientific subject, and they are too often
interlarded with commonplaces. It is none the less
true that in introducing natural history into literature
he exercised a considerable influence; from Buffon,
who set forth nature in its various aspects, a number
of writers were to issue. The consequence of this
broadening of literature was the loss of the purely
speculative and disinterested character which it dis-
played in the seventeenth century, when the sole aim
of the writer had been production of a beautiful work
and the inculcation of certain moral truths. The
writers of the eighteenth century, on the contrary,
wish to spread in society the philosophical and scien-
tific theories they have adopted, and this diffusion is
effected in the salons. From the beginning of the
century, the salons, formed from the debris of Louis
XIV's court, had assumed a considerable importance.
First, it was the little court of the Duchesse du Maine,
at Sceaux, and the salon of the Marquise de Lambert,
at Paris. Later on, other salons were opened, those
of Mme Geoffrin, Mme du Deffand, Mile de Lespinasse.
These salons in their day represented public opinion,
and authors wrote to influence tlie views of those who
frequented them. Moderately perceptible in the first
half of the century, this tendency of literature to be-
come an instrument of propaganda and even of con-
troversy, becomes bolder in the second.
From 1750 to 1789. — ^Voltaire is one of the first to mark the character of this period. Of the writers who flourished about the middle of the eighteenth century, the greatest glory surrounds Voltaire (1694-177S). The kind of intellectual sovereignty which he enjoyed, not only in France, but tliroughout Europe, is attrib- utable to his great talent as a WTiter of prose as well as to his great versatility. There is no literary form — tragedy, comedy, epic poetry, tales in prose, history, criticism, or philosophy — in which he did not practise with more or less success. It has been said of him that he was only " second in every class " , and again that he is the "first of mediocrities". Though paradoxically expressed, these verdicts are partial truths. In no branch of literature was Voltaire an originator in the full sense of the word. A man of varied gifts, living at a time when thought extended its domain in every direction and took hold of every novelty, he is the most accomplished and most brilliant of popularizers. In the early part of his career, from 1717 until 1750, he confines himself almost entirely to purely literary work ; but after 1750, his writings assume the militant char- acter which henceforth distinguishes French literature. In his historical works, such as the "Siccle de Louis Quatorze" (1751) and the "Essai sur les Moeurs" (1756), he becomes a controversialist, assailing in his narrative the Church, her institutions, and her influ- ence on the course of events. Finally, the " Diction- naire philosophique " (1764) and a number of treatises dealing both with philosophy and exegesis, which Vol- taire gave to the world between 1763 and 1776, are W'holly devoted to religious polemics. But, while Voltaire shows his hostility to religion, he attacks neither political authority nor the social hierarchy; he is conservative, not revolutionary, in this respect. With Diderot and the Encyclopedists, however, litera- ture becomes frankly destructive of the estaiilished order of things. Like Voltaire, Diderot is one of the most prolific WTiters of the eighteenth century, pro- ducing in turn romances, pIiiloso]iliical treatises tend- ing towards atheism, essays in art-criticism, dramas. But it is only in productiveness that Diderot can be compared with Voltaire, for he has none of Voltaire's admirable literary gifts. lie is above all an improvi- satore, and, with the exception of some pages that are remarkable for movement and colour, his work is con- fused and uneven. His principal production is the "Encyclopedia", to which the author devoted the greatest part of his life; the first two volumes ap- peared in 1751. The aim of this bulky pulilication was to give a summary of science, art, literature.
