French Literature: A Very Short Introduction (7 page)

Joachim du Bellay, from Les Regrets

Happy the man who, like Ulysses, has travelled well, or like that
man who conquered the fleece, and has then returned, full of
experience and wisdom, to live among his kinsfolk the rest of his
life.

When, alas, will I again see smoke rising from the chimney of
my little village and in what season will I see the enclosed field
of my poor house, which to me is a province and much more
still?

The home my ancestors built pleases me more than the grandiose
facades of Roman palaces, fine slate pleases me more than hard
marble,

My Gallic Loire more than the Latin Tiber, my little Lire more
than the Palatine hill, and more than sea air, the sweetness of
Anjou.

Translated by Richard Helgerson

A precarious peace and the new civility

Politeness, moderation, discretion, self-censorship, irony, and a
great attention to the formal rituals of civil and religious life are
the hallmarks of 17th-century France. Looking back from today,
it is tempting to speak of a very repressed and repressive society.
Seen from the point of view of those who had lived through the
ferocious civil and religious wars of the late 16th century, the
peace and stability, and a modicum of religious tolerance, were
no doubt welcome. The 1594 coronation of the first Bourbon
monarch, Henri IV, brought peace to France through compromise.
Henri, son of the intransigent Protestant Jeanne d'Albret,
converted to Catholicism, while the militant Catholic League,
bane of the late Valois monarchs (accused of being too willing to
coexist with the Huguenots), put down their arms.

In 1598, Henri proclaimed the Edict of Nantes, granting
Protestants the right to worship. Under Henri IV and his
son and successor Louis XIII, Paris grew rapidly in size
and became the habitual home of the royal court. Both the
nobility and a prosperous middle class flocked to the new
neighbourhoods - especially to the Marais (named from the
reclaimed swamp on which it was built) on the right bank of
the Seine slightly upriver from the Louvre. The upper classes of French society became more urban and more urbane, though
not without effort. Many books, plays, and letters attest to
the earnest discussions of how to achieve the proper skill in
witty conversation, letter-writing, and dress. This effort to fit
in and to avoid giving offence, or at least to channel violence
into inventive verbal forms, hints that physical aggression was
lurking just under the surface. Henri IV was assassinated in
1610, as his predecessor Henri III had been in 1589. Repeated
edicts failed to prevent duels - there were as many as four
hundred a year under Henri IV.

Everyone was aware of the precarious peace, and throughout
France there was an effort to promote ways of interacting
politely and to avoid setting off a new round of hostility. In
this climate flourished a literature that promoted an ideal
of moderation, discretion, and even concealment, yet was
fascinated by excess, by the exceptional, and by the superlative.
It is as if the polite and decorous 17th-century French still
dreamed of the martyrdom and the transgressive heroism
of the preceding century and also reflected on the difficulty
of determining a set of norms. There was great emphasis on
avoiding highly visible partisanship and zealotry, and on being
a reasonable person, an amusing, sensitive, and accommodating
companion - in short, an honnete homme. This term is not easily
translated, and it is important to note right away that it does
not mean `honest man' in the sense of someone who speaks
with sincerity and complete frankness. The honnete homme is
someone who `fits in, who is not notably eccentric. On the other
hand, 17th-century readers and authors were captivated by the
stories of protagonists who go far beyond the norm, who do not
`fit in' at all and who are excessive in word and deed.

Moliere's comedy of character

As the ideal of the polite society reached its peak, theatre showed
that politeness and heroism were an uneasy fit. Take Moliere's comic hero Alceste in The Misanthrope (1666, called in French Le
Misanthrope, on lAtrabilaire amoureux). The full title refers to
the medical doctrine that character was based on substances in the
blood, the `humours'. Hence, Alceste is a man with too much black
bile who is in love. The role of Alceste, performed by the playwright
himself in the first production, was certainly played for laughs.
Moliere was known for his comic stagecraft, and there is much
to laugh about. The hero, who insists that one should speak one's
mind fearlessly in all matters, falls in love with a woman who is his
complete opposite, a flirtatious young widow. Celimene carefully
cultivates a number of suitors by making each think that he is the
exclusive object of her affection. Alceste also refuses to conform to
many ordinary social norms. He will not condescend to flatter the
judge in an important legal matter involving his entire fortune,
and he even refuses to utter the usual formulas of polite approval
when an amateur poet shows him a sonnet. He recognizes that
he is a misfit in the court where an important quality is the gift to
`hide what is in one's heart' (as Alceste's friend Philinte says). For his sincerity, Alceste faces three risks: losing Celimene's love, losing
his fortune, and losing his life or his reputation in a duel. These
risks seem to be of quite unequal importance, and it is probably
Moliere's comic intent to show the bizarre disproportion between
various gestures of frankness and their results. The possible duel,
a serious matter and reflective of the brittle civility that could
pass in minutes from witty repartee to drawn swords, leads to the
intervention of the Marechaux de France, a high tribunal charged
with settling conflicts of honour and thus avoiding bloodshed.
Despite Alceste's repeated proclamations that he will not conform
to society and that he will eventually run away to live in solitude, he
seems to need society - if for no other reason than for the pleasure
of his own indignation. In this respect, he differs from such other
contemporary outsiders as the wolf in Jean de La Fontaine's fable,
`The Wolf and the Dog' (Le Loup et le chien, in Fables, 1668). The
wolf, despite the many material advantages that the dog enjoys
in captivity, really prefers to remain entirely outside society. The
misanthrope, on the other hand, seems only to be able to exist
within proximity to those he distains.

3. Chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, designed by Louis Le Van, in an
engraving by Perelle (1660)

It is tempting to think that Alceste is entirely ridiculous, an
unstable individual with too much bile, no social skills, and no
sense of proportion. Yet the play dispels that view by having
the other characters in Le Misanthrope admire Alceste and vie
for his friendship, love, and approval. Some of these characters
may themselves be lacking in judgement, like Oronte, author
of the sonnet, but others, like Alceste's friend Philinte and
Celimene's cousin Eliante appear to be good judges of character.
Philinte is a fine example of the 17th-century honnete homme:
he never advances any particular achievement of his own (La
Rochefoucauld said just this in his 1664 Maxims: `The true
honnete homme is the one who does not attach his pride to
anything in particular'), he views human imperfections with
tolerance and detachment, saying that `there is no greater
madness than to try to set the world straight'. Alceste describes
Philinte as phlegmatic (another imbalance of the humours), meaning that he is too placid. And this may be a key to Alceste's
attractiveness for those around him, men and women alike: they
are spellbound by his vigorous, unbending candour, reflected in
his physical agitation: he seems to be constantly in motion, with
the others running after him. They may well find it refreshing to
see someone free of the self-consciousness and dissimulation that
is their daily lot.

4. Engraving by Francois Chauveau (1668) for La Fontaine's fable Le
Loup et le ehien

Corneille's outsized heroes

This ambivalence about heroism in the Misanthrope may be a
comic example, but it is not isolated. The pattern we see there,
of a society that is spellbound, yet appalled, by the energetic,
dissenting hero, appears in other, more serious forms. We can see
that the 17th-century insistence on politeness - the expectation of conformity to what fits the situation (in French, convenance
or bienseance) - is based on the fear that people who stand out
and who say heroically what they think could so easily cross over
into the explosive violence of the still-recent civil wars. In Horace
(1640), based on Livy's account of the ancient combat between the
three Roman champions, the Horatii, and the three champions of
the nearby city of Alba Longa, the Curiatii, Corneille presents the
moral dilemma of one of the three Romans, who must fight his
best friend and brother-in-law, Curiace. The fight will be limited
to three warriors from each city, in the interest of a quick and
relatively bloodless decision about political dominance. Unlike the
reluctant Curiace, Horace claims to be so completely focused on
his duty that from the moment when he learns the identity of his
adversary he no longer `knows' Curiace: Alba named you, I know
you no more'. So far, this may be no more than a case of doing
what it takes in the line of duty - a bit cold-hearted, perhaps, and
not very polite, but the way to victory. Indeed, Horace does win for
the Roman side, for he is the last man standing of the six.