an agreeable style. Lastly we must notice the important section
of professorial or university critics, whose critical work has taken
the form either of regular treatises or of courses of republished
lectures, books somewhat academic and rhetorical in character,
but often representing an amount of influence which has served
largely to stir up attention to literature. The most prominent
name among these is that of Abel Villemain (1790–1867), who
was one of the earliest critics of the literature of his own country
to obtain a hearing out of it. Désiré Nisard (1806–1888) was
perhaps more fortunate in his dealings with Latin than with
French, and in his History of the latter literature represents
too much the classical tradition, but he had dignity, erudition
and an excellent style. Alexandre Vinet (1797–1847), a Swiss
critic of considerable eminence, Saint-Marc-Girardin (1801–1873),
whose Cours de littérature dramatique is his chief work, and
Eugène Géruzez (1799–1865), the author not only of an extremely
useful and well-written handbook to French literature before the
Revolution, but also of other works dealing with separate portions
of the subject, must also be mentioned. One remarkable critic,
Ernest Hello (1818–1885), attracted during his life little attention
even in France, and hardly any out of it, his work being strongly
tinctured with the unpopular flavour and colour of uncompromising
“clericalism,” and his extremely bad health keeping
him out of the ordinary fraternities of literary society. It was,
however, as full of idiosyncrasy as of partisanship, and is exceedingly
interesting to those who regard criticism as mainly valuable
because it gives different aspects of the same thing.
Perhaps in no branch of belles-lettres did the last quarter of the century maintain the level at which predecessors had arrived better than in criticism; though whether this fact is connected with something of decadence in the creative branches, is a question which may be better posed than resolved here. A remarkable writer whose talent, approaching genius, was spoilt by eccentricity and pose, and who belonged to a more modern generation, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly (1808–1889), poet, novelist and critic, produced much of his last critical work, and corrected more, in these later days. Not only did the critical work in various ways of Renan, Taine, Scherer, Sarcey and others continue during parts of it, but a new generation, hardly in this case inferior to the old, appeared. The three chiefs of this were the already mentioned Anatole France, Émile Faguet (b. 1847), and Ferdinand Brunetière (1849–1906), to whom some would add Jules Lemaître (b. 1853). The last, however, though a brilliant writer, was but an “interim” critic, beginning with poetry and other matters, and after a time turning to yet others, while, brilliant as he was, his criticism was often ill-informed. So too Anatole France, after compiling four volumes of La Vie littéraire in his own inimitable style and with singular felicity of appreciation, also turned away. The phenomenon in both cases may be associated, though it must not be too intimately connected in the relation of cause and effect, with the fact that both were champions and practitioners of “impressionist criticism”—of the doctrine (unquestionably sound if not exaggerated) that the first duty of the critic is to reproduce the effect produced on his own mind by the author. Brunetière and Faguet, on the other hand, are partisans of the older academic style of criticism by kind and on principle. Faguet, besides regular volumes on each of the four great centuries of French literature, has produced much other work—all of it somewhat “classical” in tendency and frequently exhibiting something of a want of comprehension of the Romantic side. Brunetière was still more prolific on the same side but with still greater effort after system and “science.” In the books definitely called L’Évolution des genres, in his Manuel of French literature, and in a large number of other volumes of collected essays he enforced with great learning and power of argument, if with a somewhat narrow purview and with some prejudice against writers whom he disliked, a new form of the old doctrine that the “kind” not the individual author or book ought to be the main subject of the critic’s attention. He did not escape the consequential danger of taking authors and books not as they are but as in relation to the kinds which they in fact constitute and to his general views. But he was undoubtedly at his death the first critic of France and a worthy successor of her best.
Of others older and younger must be mentioned Paul Stapfer (b. 1840), professor of literature, and the author of divers excellent works from Shakespeare et l’antiquité to volumes of the first value on Montaigne and Rabelais; Paul Bourget and Edouard Rod, already noticed; Augustin Filon (b. 1841), author of much good work on English literature and an excellent book on Mérimée; Alexandre Beljame (1843–1906), another eminent student of English literature, in which subject J. A. Jusserand (b. 1855), Legouis, K. A. J. Angellier (b. 1848), and others have recently distinguished themselves; Gustave Larroumet, especially an authority on Marivaux; Eugène Lintilhac (b. 1854); Georges Pellissier; Gustave Lanson, author of a compact history of French literature in French; Marcel Schwob, who had done excellent work on Villon and other subjects before his early death; René Doumic, a frequent writer in the Revue des deux mondes, who collected four volumes of Études sur la littérature française between 1895 and 1900; and the Vicomte Melchior de Vogüé (b. 1848), whose interests have been more political-philosophical than strictly literary, but who has done much to familiarize the French public with that Russian literature to which Mérimée had been the first to introduce them. But the body of recent critical literature in France is perhaps larger in actual proportion and of greater value when considered in relation to other kinds of literature than has been the case at any previous period.
History since 1830.—The remarkable development of historical studies which we have noticed as taking place under the Restoration was accelerated and intensified in the reigns of Charles X. and Louis Philippe. Both the scope and the method of the historian underwent a sensible alteration. For something like 150 years historians had been divided into two classes, those who produced elegant literary works pleasant to read, and those who produced works of laborious erudition, but not even intended for general perusal. The Vertots and Voltaires were on one side, the Mabillons and Tillemonts on another. Now, although the duty of a French historian to produce works of literary merit was not forgotten, it was recognized as part of that duty to consult original documents and impart original observation. At the same time, to the merely political events which had formerly been recognized as forming the historian’s province were added the social and literary phenomena which had long been more or less neglected. Old chronicles and histories were re-read and re-edited; innumerable monographs on special subjects and periods were produced, and these latter were of immense service to romance writers at the time of the popularity of the historical novel. Not a few of the works, for instance, which were signed by Alexandre Dumas consist mainly of extracts or condensations from old chronicles, or modern monographs, ingeniously united by dialogue and varnished with a little description. History, however, had not to wait for this second-hand popularity, and its cultivators had fully sufficient literary talent to maintain its dignity. Sismondi, whom we have already noticed, continued during this period his great Histoire des Français, and produced his even better-known Histoire des républiques italiennes au moyen âge. The brothers Thierry devoted themselves to early French history, Amédée Thierry (1797–1873) producing a Histoire des Gaulois and other works concerning the Roman period, and Augustin Thierry (1795–1856) the well-known history of the Norman Conquest, the equally attractive Récits des temps Mérovingiens and other excellent works. Philippe de Ségur (1780–1873) gave a history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon, and some other works chiefly dealing with Russian history. The voluminous Histoire de France of Henri Martin (1810–1883) is perhaps the best and most impartial work dealing in detail with the whole subject. A. G. P. Brugière, baron de Barante (1782–1866), after beginning with literary criticism, turned to history, and in his Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne produced a work of capital importance. As was to be expected, many of the most brilliant results of this devotion to historical subjects consisted of works dealing with the French Revolution. No
