A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 Read online

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  A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL

  MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

  LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS MELBOURNE

  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

  NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGODALLAS SAN FRANCISCO

  THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. LTD.TORONTO

  A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL

  (TO THE CLOSE OF THE 19TH CENTURY)

  BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY

  M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.; HON. LL.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.;FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY; HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD;LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OFEDINBURGH

  VOL. I

  FROM THE BEGINNING TO 1800

  MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1917

  COPYRIGHT

  PREFACE

  In beginning what, if it ever gets finished, must in all probability bethe last of some already perhaps too numerous studies of literaryhistory, I should like to point out that the plan of it is somewhatdifferent from that of most, if not all, of its predecessors. I haveusually gone on the principle (which I still think a sound one) that, instudying the literature of a country, or in dealing with such generalcharacteristics of parts of literature as prosody, or such coefficientsof all literature as criticism, minorities are, sometimes at least, ofas much importance as majorities, and that to omit them altogether is torisk, or rather to assure, an imperfect--and dangerouslyimperfect--product.

  In the present instance, however, I am attempting something that I havenever, at such length, attempted before--the history of a Kind, and aKind which has distinguished itself, as few others have done, bycommunicating to readers the _pleasure_ of literature. I might almostsay that it is the history of that pleasure, quite as much as thehistory of the kind itself, that I wish to trace. In doing so it isobviously superfluous to include inferiorities and failures, unless theyhave some very special lesson or interest, or have been (as in the caseof the minorities on the bridge of the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies) for the most part, and unduly, neglected, though they areimportant as experiments and links.[1] We really do want here--what thereprehensible hedonism of Mr. Matthew Arnold, and his submission to whatsome one has called "the eternal enemy, Caprice," wanted in allcases--"only the chief and principal things." I wish to give a fullhistory of how what is commonly called the French Novel came into beingand kept itself in being; but I do not wish to give an exhaustive,though I hope to give a pretty full, account of its practitioners.

  In another point, however, I have kept to my old ways, and that is theway of beginning at the beginning. I disagree utterly with any Balbuswho would build an absolute wall between romance and novel, or a wallhardly less absolute between verse- and prose-fiction. I think theFrench have (what is not common in their language) an advantage over usin possessing the general term _Roman_, and I have perhaps taken acertain liberty with my own title in order to keep the noun-part of itto a single word. I shall extend the meaning of "novel"--that of _roman_would need no extension--to include, not only the prose books, old andnew, which are more generally called "romance," but the verse romancesof the earlier period.

  The subject is one with which I can at least plead almost lifelongfamiliarity. I became a subscriber to "Rolandi's," I think, during myholidays as a senior schoolboy, and continued the subscriptions duringmy vacations when I was at Oxford. In the very considerable leisurewhich I enjoyed during the six years when I was Classical Master atElizabeth College, Guernsey, I read more French than any otherliterature, and more novels than anything else in French. In the late'seventies and early 'eighties, as well as more recently, I had to roundoff and fill in my knowledge of the older matter, for an elaborateaccount of French literature in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, for along series of articles on French novelists in the _Fortnightly Review_,and for the _Primer_ and _Short History_ of the subject which I wrotefor the Clarendon Press; while from 1880 to 1894, as a _SaturdayReview_er, I received, every month, almost everything notable (and agreat deal hardly worth noting) that had appeared in France.

  Since then, the cutting off of this supply, and the extreme and constanturgency of quite different demands on my time, have made my cultivationof the once familiar field "_parc_ and infrequent." But I doubt whetherany really good judge would say that this was a serious drawback initself; and it ceases to be one, even relatively, by the restriction ofthe subject to the close of the last century. It will be time to writeof the twentieth-century novel when the twentieth century itself hasgone more than a little farther.

  For the abundance of translation, in the earlier part especially, Ineed, I think, make no apology. I shall hardly, by any one worthhearing, be accused of laziness or scamping in consequence of it, fortranslation is much more troublesome, and takes a great deal more time,than comment or history. The advantage, from all other points of view,should need no exposition: nor, I think, should that of pretty fullstory-abstract now and then.

  There is one point on which, at the risk of being thought to "talk toomuch of my matters," I should like to say a further word. All my books,before the present volume, have been composed with the aid of alibrary, not very large, but constantly growing, and always reinforcedwith special reference to the work in hand; while I was able also, onall necessary occasions, to visit Oxford or London (after I left thelatter as a residence), and for twenty years the numerous public orsemi-public libraries of Edinburgh were also open to me. This present_History_ has been outlined in expectation for a very long time; and hasbeen actually laid down for two or three years. But I had not been ableto put much of it on paper when circumstances, while they gave megreater, indeed almost entire, leisure for writing, obliged me to partwith my own library (save a few books with a reserve _pretiumaffectionis_ on them), and, though they brought me nearer both to Oxfordand to London, made it less easy for me to visit either. The LondonLibrary, that Providence of unbooked authors, came indeed to my aid, forwithout it I should have had to leave the book alone altogether; and Ihave been "munitioned" sometimes, by kindness or good luck, in otherways. But I have had to rely much more on memory, and of course in somecases on previous writing of my own, than ever before, though, except inone special case,[2] there will be found, I think, not a single page ofmere "rehashing." I mention this without the slightest desire to begoff, in one sense, from any omissions or mistakes which may be foundhere, but merely to assure my readers that such mistakes and omissionsare not due to idle and careless bookmaking. That "books have fates" isan accepted proposition. In respect to one of these--possession ofmaterials and authorities--mine have been exceptionally fortunatehitherto, and if they had any merit it was no doubt largely due to this.I have, in the present, endeavoured to make the best of what was notquite such good fortune. And if anybody still says, "Why did you notwait till you could supply deficiencies?" I can only reply that, afterseventy, [Greek: nyx gar erchetai] is a more insistent warrant, andwarning, than ever.[3]

  GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

  [_Edinburgh, 1914-15; Southampton, 1915-16_] 1 ROYAL CRESCENT, BATH, _May 31, 1917_.