remarkable contribution of the century to criticism of the
periodical kind was the Feuilles de Grimm, a circular sent for
many years to the German courts by Frédéric Melchior Grimm
(1723–1807), the comrade of Diderot and Rousseau, and containing
a compte rendu of the ways and works of Paris, literary
and artistic as well as social. These Leaves not only include
much excellent literary criticism by Diderot, but also gave
occasion to the incomparable salons or accounts of the exhibition
of pictures from the same hand, essays which founded the art
of picture criticism, and which have hardly been surpassed since.
The prize competitions of the Academy were also a considerable
stimulus to literary criticism, though the prevailing taste in
such compositions rather inclined to elegant themes than to
careful studies of analyses. The most characteristic critic of
the mid-century was the abbé Charles Batteux (1713–1780)
who illustrated a tendency of the time by beginning with a treatise
on Les Beaux Arts réduits à un même principe (1746); reduced it
and others into Principes de la littérature (1764) and added in
1771 Les Quatres Poétiques (Aristotle, Horace, Vida and Boileau).
Batteux is a very ingenious critic and his attempt to conciliate
“taste” and “the rules,” though inadequate, is interesting.
Works on the arts in general or on special divisions of them
were not wanting, as, for instance, that of Dubos before alluded
to, the Essai sur la peinture of Diderot and others. Critically
annotated editions of the great French writers also came into
fashion, and were no longer written by mere pedants. Of these
Voltaire’s edition of Corneille was the most remarkable, and his
annotations, united separately under the title of Commentaire
sur Corneille, form not the least important portion of his works.
Even older writers, looked down upon though they were by the
general taste of the day, received a share of this critical interest.
In the earlier portion of the century Nicolas Lenglet-Dufresnoy
(1674–1755) and Bernard de la Monnoye (1641–1728) devoted
their attention to Rabelais, Regnier, Villon, Marot and others.
Étienne Barbazan (1696–1770) and P. J. B. Le Grand d’Aussy
(1737–1800) gathered and brought into notice the long scattered
and unknown rather than neglected fabliaux of the middle ages.
Even the chansons de geste attracted the notice of the Comte
de Caylus (1692–1765) and the Comte de Tressan (1705–1783).
The latter, in his Bibliothèque des romans, worked up a large
number of the old epics into a form suited to the taste of the
century. In his hands they became lively tales of the kind
suited to readers of Voltaire and Crébillon. But in this travestied
form they had considerable influence both in France and abroad.
By these publications attention was at least called to early
French literature, and when it had been once called, a more
serious and appreciative study became merely a matter of time.
The method of much of the literary criticism of the close of this
period was indeed deplorable enough. Jean François de la
Harpe (1739–1803), who though a little later in time as to most
of his critical productions is perhaps its most representative
figure, shows criticism in one of its worst forms. The critic
specially abhorred by Sterne, who looked only at the stop-watch,
was a kind of prophecy of La Harpe, who lays it down distinctly
that a beauty, however beautiful, produced in spite of rules is
a “monstrous beauty” and cannot be allowed. But such a
writer is a natural enough expression of an expiring principle.
The year after the death of La Harpe Sainte-Beuve was born.
18th-Century Savants.—In science and general erudition the 18th century in France was at first much occupied with the mathematical studies for which the French genius is so peculiarly adapted, which the great discoveries of Descartes had made possible and popular, and which those of his supplanter Newton only made more popular still. Voltaire took to himself the credit, which he fairly deserves, of first introducing the Newtonian system into France, and it was soon widely popular—even ladies devoting themselves to the exposition of mathematical subjects, as in the case of Gabrielle de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet (1706–1749) Voltaire’s “divine Émilie.” Indeed ladies played a great part in the literary and scientific activity of the century, by actual contribution sometimes, but still more by continuing and extending the tradition of “salons.” The duchesse du Maine, Mesdames de Lambert, de Tencin, Geoffrin, du Deffand, Necker, and above all, the baronne d’Holbach (whose husband, however, was here the principal personage) presided over coteries which became more and more “philosophical.” Many of the greatest mathematicians of the age, such as de Moivre and Laplace, were French by birth, while others like Euler belonged to French-speaking races, and wrote in French. The physical sciences were also ardently cultivated, the impulse to them being given partly by the generally materialistic tendency of the age, partly by the Newtonian system, and partly also by the extended knowledge of the world provided by the circumnavigatory voyage of Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811), and other travels. P. L. de Moreau Maupertuis (1698–1759) and C. M. de la Condamine (1701–1774) made long journeys for scientific purposes and duly recorded their experiences. The former, a mathematician and physicist of some ability but more oddity, is chiefly known to literature by the ridicule of Voltaire in the Diatribe du Docteur Akakia. Jean le Rond, called d’Alembert (1717–1783), a great mathematician and a writer of considerable though rather academic excellence, is principally known from his connexion with and introduction to the Encyclopédie, of which more presently. Chemistry was also assiduously cultivated, the baron d’Holbach, among others, being a devotee thereof, and helping to advance the science to the point where, at the conclusion of the century, it was illustrated by Berthollet and Lavoisier. During all this devotion to science in its modern acceptation, the older and more literary forms of erudition were not neglected, especially by the illustrious Benedictines of the abbey of St Maur. Dom Augustin Calmet (1672–1757) the author of the well-known Dictionary of the Bible, belonged to this order, and to them also (in particular to Dom Rivet) was due the beginning of the immense Histoire littéraire de la France, a work interrupted by the Revolution and long suspended, but diligently continued since the middle of the 19th century. Of less orthodox names distinguished for erudition, Nicolas Fréret (1688–1749), secretary of the Academy, is perhaps the most remarkable. But in the consideration of the science and learning in the 18th century from a literary point of view, there is one name and one book which require particular and, in the case of the book, somewhat extended mention. The man is Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1717–1788), the book the Encyclopédie. The immense Natural History of Buffon, Buffon. though not entirely his own, is a remarkable monument of the union of scientific tastes with literary ability. As has happened in many similar instances, there is in parts more literature than science to be found in it; and from the point of view of the latter, Buffon was far too careless in observation and far too solicitous of perfection of style and grandiosity of view. The style of Buffon has sometimes been made the subject of the highest eulogy, and it is at its best admirable; but one still feels in it the fault of all serious French prose in this century before Rousseau—the presence, that is to say, of an artificial spirit rather than of natural variety and power. The The Encyclopédie. Encyclopédie, unquestionably on the whole the most important French literary production of the century, if we except the works of Rousseau and Voltaire, was conducted for a time by Diderot and d’Alembert, afterwards by Diderot alone. It numbered among its contributors almost every Frenchman of eminence in letters. It is often spoken of as if, under the guise of an encyclopaedia, it had been merely a plaidoyer against religion, but this is entirely erroneous. Whatever anti-ecclesiastical bent some of the articles may have, the book as a whole is simply what it professes to be, a dictionary—that is to say, not merely an historical and critical lexicon, like those of Bayle and Moreri (indeed history and biography were nominally excluded), but a dictionary of arts, sciences, trades and technical terms. Diderot himself had perhaps the greatest faculty of any man that ever lived for the literary treatment in a workman-like manner of the most heterogeneous and in some cases rebellious subjects; and his untiring labour, not merely in writing original articles, but in editing the contributions of others, determined the character of the whole work. There is no doubt that it had,
