The history of French literature from the Oath of Strasburg to Chanticler

Front matter

rasa

WM

Hi jbh an

Chapter I Origins Of The French Language And Literature

With the conquest of Gaul by Caesar (58-51 B.C.) there began an intricate process of evolution which, continuing for more than nine centuries, finally gave birth to a French language and literature. The humble Sequence of St. Eulalie —fragment of a Latin church chant— and the historical Oath of Strasburg, sworn in French by Louis the Germanic to make it intelligible to the Franks of Charles the Bald, are but the embryo of what that language and literature came to be. But at the end of the tenth century, when the Capetian dynasty began to establish its sway and to consummate French unity, there arose a French national life, and with it a genuine national language and literature. In France, as elsewhere, poetry preceded prose in the infancy of letters; and we see those poetic beginnings in a brief composition on the Passion of Christ, and in the three hundred verses of the Life of St. Leger, the earliest regularly versified document in French. Our own taste does not find much to admire in this Life. Yet in its meager thread of narration, in its simple, dry precision— like to that of a bare chronicle—we perceive the earliest strivings of that intense creative power which has produced French literature, and has by no means exhausted itself in a thousand pregnant years of production.

When their country was reduced to the status of a Roman province by Caesar, the Gauls, inferior to the Romans in civilization, had the Latin language imposed upon them— just as 2 1

French, by a natural process, is forced upon the Arabs of Algeria.

The Latin brought to Gaul by the Roman soldiers and rustic colonists was not the classic tongue of Cicero and Virgil. At Rome, as in France to-day, there existed two languages, that of the educated and that of the peasant : the literary Latin of writers and scholars, and the vulgar Latin of the people. The popular Latin of the Gauls, the Gallo-Roman, as it was called after having supplanted the Celtic and having been subjected to a strong influence from the idioms brought in by the Germanic conquerors, was a language very different from the classic or literary Latin. It is called Lingua Romana l by present-day philologists in contradistinction to the literary Latin (sermo eruditus). With the Gallo-Roman language, which was spoken but not written, there was evolved a sort of literary Latin written by people more or less ignorant, in which constant grammatical errors are apparent. This was called the low Latin (has latin).

The French language is not a mixture of Gallic and Latin but the popular Latin (sermo plebeius) introduced into Gaul by the Roman soldiers, just as, in the same manner, the Roman language was brought into the various other provinces of Rome, suppressing the indigenous dialects and, with various influences brought to bear upon it, evolving the Romance or neo-Latin languages.

France, Italy, and a large part of Germany were united by Charlemagne. But these three countries were distinct in customs, ideas, and especially in language. So it is not surprising that this vast empire, no longer held together by his genius, soon began to fall apart under his weak successors. Each of his three grandsons— Charles the Bald, Louis the Germanic, and Lothair— took his share, though only after bloody fratricidal wars— thus bringing to pass for the first time the complete political division of France, Germany, and the contested land of Lotharingia. The text of the solemn oath sworn by Louis and Charles, at a critical moment of the conflict, pledging them to mutual aid against Lothair, has

1 Some of the Latin writers of Gaul were: Apollinaris Sidonius, Trogus Pompejus, and Sulpicius Severus.

been preserved. Aside from its historical interest, the final separation of France and Germany, it possesses a very special linguistic value. It was in March, 842, that Louis swore the oath in French, Charles in German, for the understanding of their respective armies. This document, which (not yet French, but no longer Latin) invites the closest scrutiny for the study it affords of a language in transition, is thus quoted by the historian, Nithard : *

Oath of Louis the Germanic

OLD FRENCH MODERN FRENCH

Pro Deo amur et pro Christian Pour l'amour de Dieu et pour poblo et nostro commun salva- le salut commun du peuple chr&- ment, d'ist di in avant, in quant tien et le notre, a partir de ce jour Deus savir et podir me dunat, si autant que Dieu m'en donne le salvarai eo cist meon fradre savoir et le pouvoir, je soutien- Karlo et in adjudha et in cad- drai mon frere Charles de mon huna cosa, si cum om per dreit aide et en toute chose, comme on son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il doit justement soutenir son frere, mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul a condition qu'il m'en fasse plaid nunquam prindrai, qui autant, et je ne prendrai jamais, meon vol cist meon fradre Karlo avec Lothaire aucun arrangein damno sit. ment, qui, par ma volont£, soit au

detriment de mon dit frere

Charles.

English : For the love of God and for the common salvation of the Christian people and our own : from this day on, in so far as God give me knowledge and power, I shall save (support) my brother Charles, by assistance and in each thing (on all occasions), as one ought by right save his brother, in so far as he will do the same thing to me; and from Lothair shall I never take a pledge which may, by my will, be a damage to this my brother Charles.

The declaration of the soldiers of Charles's army furnishes another interesting document of incipient French in its unsettled orthography:

1 Grandson of Charlemagne and one of the oldest French chroniclers'.

OLD FRENCH MODERN FRENCH

Si Lodhuwigs sagrament que Si Louis tient le serment qu' a

son fradre Karlo jurat conservat, son frere Charles il jure et Charles

et Karlus meos sendra de sua mon seigneur de sa part ne le

part non lo stanit, si jo returnar tient pas, si je ne Ten puis

non lint pois, ne jo, ne neuls d^tourner, ni moi ni nul que j'en

adjudha contra Ludowig nun li contre Louis ne lui y serai, iv er.

English: If Louis keeps the oath which he swears to his brother Charles, and Charles, my lord, on his part, does not keep it, and if I cannot turn him from it, neither I nor any other can turn him from it, I shall give no aid to him against Louis.

This language, crude and imperfect as it still was, represents a gradual evolution through nine centuries. The Cantilene or Sequence de Sainte-Eulalie, the oldest poetic monument of the French (from a manuscript of the Convent Saint Armand in Valenciennes), written only fifty years later, already shows a striking contrast to the Oath, because it is entirely French in character, and contains the fully developed article. It speaks of the martyrdom of Saint Eulalie of Merida, in 304, who under Maximianus, co-ruler of Diocletian, died for her faith :

But, as in the various regions of the vast Roman Empire, various languages were evolved from the Latin amongst the different peoples, owing to the imperceptible influence of clime and race, perhaps even through the subtle variations in structure of the vocal organs— so in France a variety of dialects found their way from the Pyrenees northward, and from the Alps to the sea— each one having points of contact

x A virtuous maiden was Eulalie, beautiful of mind and body; the enemies of God wished to vanquish her and make her serve the devil.

with, and divergences from, its neighbor. These dialects fall into two general groups or languages— the langue d'oc or language of Southern France usually designated as south of the Loire, and the langue d'o'il, language of Northern France, north of the Loire. Thus the original Roman province of Gaul, and the large basin of the Garonne— almost one half of France, in fact, did not speak French, and did not in the Middle Ages produce any French literature. Hence the rich and interesting literary expressions of the langue d'oc, flourishing though it did on French territory, has no place here ; only in so far as those productions exercised a marked influence upon French literature proper are we concerned with them. Beyond this they have been afforded a separate literary treatment in a succeeding chapter.

The bizarre names, oc and oil, originated in a custom of the Middle Ages, which designated languages by the particle of affirmation. The people of Southern France used oc (from the Latin hoc), and those of Northern France oil (from the Latin hoc Me, which was contracted into oil), to express " yes." Thus also the Italian was called the language of si, and the German the language of ja. Dante in his Be vulgari eloquentia sive idiomate, says that the language of oil puts forward its claim to be ranked above those of oc and si (Provencal and Italian).

The language of the North, the langue d'o'il, was in the eleventh century divided into five groups, or principal dialects, the boundaries of which were not accurately defined : the dialects of the Northeast, the Picard and the Wallon; of the Northwest, the Normand; of the East, the Bourguignon, the Franc-Comtois, the Lorrain, and the Champenois; of the West, the Poitevin, the Angevin, and the Saintongeais; of the Centre (in the He de France) the Frangais (French). Originally all these dialects might have been of equal standing, each sovereign in its own domain. As a literary instrument no one of them was inherently superior to any other: the employment of a certain one in a literary work or document might reveal simply the origin of the writer. This equal power and influence remained as long as there was no single center of Government— no capital of the nation to impose upon the whole country the need of a paramount language.

The dukes of Normandy or Burgundy, equal to the Capetian Kings, humble lords of the He de France, used in their official acts the dialects of their respective provinces.

But early in the twelfth century, the petty kings of the He de France began to profess the doctrine of " manifest destiny ' ' by benevolently assimilating their neighbors. Gradually, they annexed Berry (1101), Picardy (1200), Touraine (1203), Normandy (1204), and Champagne (1361). x Into these provinces they took the dialect of the He de France, which being the language of kings, was presently adopted as a model by cultivated society. Only the common people, averse to such invasion, refused to accept French, and clung to their old dialects. Thus the dialects of Picardy, Burgundy, and Normandy, fell from their high estate as the medium of literature to the lowly one of patois — that is to say, an idiom neither written nor spoken by educated people, and the end of the century found the French dialect of the He de France predominating, strengthened by the definite establishment of royal supremacy over the feudal lords and the fixation of Paris (owing to its university) as the intellectual center of the country. But it was not until the fourteenth century, when dialect after dialect had given way to the dominant one —the French of the He de France— thai its triumph was complete and the French language took its place in history. The patois still spoken in Normandy, Picardy, and Burgundy, are not, therefore — contrary to popular belief — literary French corrupted in the mouths of peasants, but simply the remnants of the ancient provincial dialects.

Meanwhile, at the south of the Loire, the langue d'oc also had become almost extinct. The terrible crusade against the Albigenses (so called from Albi, in Languedoc, where the antisacerdotal sects were dominant), was not only a remarkable religious and political occurrence, but one of great literary significance as well. With one stroke it carried the French language clear to the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean; for when the Albigenses (Albigeois) revolted against the Church of Rome, they were so vigorously opposed that, as

1 These dates are not, of course, those of final annexation to the French crown.

sects, they disappeared in great part at the end of the thirteenth century. A crusade against them was preached by Pope Innocent III, in 1208, and was led by Arnold of Citeaux and Simon de Montfort. This war of extermination, lasting for several years, was one of the bloodiest in history.

In 1272 Languedoc was incorporated in France, and the langue d'oc ceased to be written, and degenerated into patois. The Limousin, Provencal, Languedocien, and Gascon patois, persisting to-day in the respective provinces of Southern France, are merely the fragments of that glorious language which shone so bright at the time of the troubadours. The dialect of Catalonia was nearly identical with the langue d'oc —a similarity so complete indeed, that Catalonian, though spoken beyond the Pyrenees assumed the name of Limousin (Lemosi). The language of the South was more sonorous than that of the North. The very names of the poets— in the South, troubadours; in the North, trouveres (relating to the same French verb trouver) — indicate the characteristic variations in the two chief idioms.

The study of French origins takes us into the Middle Ages. 1 To estimate aright their value with respect to this period, we may profitably consider the opinions put forth by the eminent Romance scholar and critic, Gaston Paris. "We have outgrown," he says, "our attitude of disrespect for the Middle Ages. Time was when French scholarship sought its sources only in antiquity, or from its own more immediate learning; and when the 'Dark Ages' were significant simply as a stage of transition— essential to continuity, perhaps, but merely as a ring of lead that binds two chains of gold. But nowadays, science repudiates no period of history. Wherever it finds facts and laws, it pauses. It holds that all things that have existed deserve its attention ; as far as possible, it strives to imitate the vast and serene impartiality of nature."

During this period of fermentation and social reconstruction, a new state had sprung up by the combination of Roman, German, and Christian institutions. The feudal system pre-

1 From the Fall of the Roman Empire, 475, until the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II, 1453, may be conveniently and with reason regarded as such.

vailed and the two great powers of western Europe were the pope and the emperor.

In the hands of Augustin Thierry and his successors the history of the Middle Ages has become alive. These centuries are an epoch essentially poetic, that is to say, everything is spontaneous, original, unforeseen. The men of that time do not give to reflection the place it occupies in modern life. They do not observe themselves; they live naively, like children with whom reflected life developed by civilization has not yet stifled the free expansion of natural vitality. They have neither in the physical nor in the social world that idea of prearranged regularity which our reasoning power has given us. Undoubtedly, reason is the sovereign and ruling faculty, and its possession must be the highest aim of our efforts. But it is not poetry; it is too often its negation. Pure reason is an elevated region, serene and cold, like those grand summits where an eternal whiteness reflects a sun without clouds; life, with its forms and its colors, its songs and fragrances, its powerful and joyous disorder, is in lower regions. The older we grow, men or nations, the more does reason expel the imagination within us. A great critic of our days (Villemain) has said, "There exists in three fourths of men a poet who died young, and whom the grown man survives. ' '

Taken as a whole and compared with ours, life in the Middle Ages appears eminently poetic. Literature was the image of this life. It has the same liberty, frankness, variety. It is not, like ours, hedged in by laws, restrained by prejudices or proprieties, or directed by classical examples ; nothing prevents it from saying plainly and entirely what it wants to say. Above all, it is true ; and that is its great merit. Unpreoccupied with rules, theories, questions of form, it expresses simply the emotions of the soul, the real sentiments and ideas of all. The public accepts it as the poet sings it. One does not criticise; one does not seek to discern whether a poem is well composed, original, correct in its versification —or whether a play ("mystery") conforms to the rules of dramatic art, whether a farce is kept within the limits of good taste and decency. The only question is whether the poet has made people admire, think, weep or laugh more than other poets; whether people have been moved by his productions; whether he has left in the soul the clear and living picture of his characters, the remembrance of his recitals, the imprint of his sentiments. The beliefs, the passions, the prejudices of the people are reflected naively and without coloring in this literature. There is not yet arisen between the learned and the unlearned that terrible distinction— the outcome of different instruction— which to-day separates people into two classes, almost foreign to each other: a class almost beyond the pale of literature, another class that disdains and ignores all that which does not conform to the rules set by its doctors. Neither in Greece nor in the Middle Ages did this distinction exist. The same poetry pleased all— the prince as well as the burgher, the knight as well as the peasant.

All this, however, is entirely true only of the first period of the Middle Ages, the period almost wholly consecrated to the epic. We do not speak here of the clerics, of those who knew Latin, and who wrote and spoke it among themselves. These remained without influence upon popular poetry, which they despised. The fusion of their science with the popular language and poetry occurring, almost simultaneously in France and in Italy toward the end of the thirteenth century marks the beginning of a new period. But from the second half of the twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth century, there is a tendency to a separation analogous to that of the learned and unlettered. Then arises, by a natural and ordinary process, that more restrained society which seeks to distinguish itself from the rest by the elegance of its life, the refinement of its customs, the conventional politeness of its manners. This elite is grouped naturally at the courts of the kings and princes; the term courtesy {court oisie) is employed to designate its ideal. From that time on men are divided into two classes— the polite world and the vilains: * those who make up elegant society, who know its usages, share its ideas ; and those who are excluded from it, and are ignorant of its refinements.

In this formation of a polite society the important role

1 Vilain was used for rustic (noun). 9 belongs to the women. They introduce superficially at least, if not really, into the manners a certain sweetness and urbanity, and infuse the rude and narrow bravery of the feudal lord with the sentiment of galanterie. The tournaments are changed into gallant feasts over which the women preside, or they replace by social games and pleasures the too virile amusements of the eleventh century. Thus inspired, the rude barons who knew only the chase and war are transformed into the gallant knights of the time of St. Louis (1226-1270)— knights who pass a part of their lives in feasting and assemblies, who vie with each other in the richness of their costume, in luxurious modes of living, who carry proudly on their helmets, when going to battle, the symbol of their lady's love. This incessant influence refines, ennobles, purifies, and perhaps also weakens, character. The virtues and graces of this chivalrous society have been singularly exaggerated; but it has done much for our education, and, in developing its traditions, France, its true fatherland, has become and remained the most social and polite nation of Europe. This new world needed a poetry distinct from that of the people, a poetry courtly as the society for which it was destined. And this poetry appeared, on the one hand, in the versified romances of the Round Table, 1 and, on the other, in the greatest lyric works of the Middle Ages.

In the primitive times of all countries, poetry is anonymous ; it belongs to no one in particular, and the entire people take part and reflect themselves in it. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, before the separation of the courtly and vilains, before the creation of an artificial literature, when the jongleurs {troubadours; Greek: rhapsodes), loved and understood equally by all, were the sole historians, the sole poets and scholars, the Middle Ages found expression in their greatest power and variety. Even later, in spite of the separation of the people in two classes, in spite of the introduction of popular literature, there lived a poetry which addressed itself to the whole nation: the poetry of the theater. In the four-

1 This will be treated later in detail. In Arthurian legend the table was made by the magician Merlin for Uther Pendragon, who gave it to the father of Guinevre, from whom, in turn, Arthur received it, together with one hundred knights, as a wedding gift.

teenth and fifteenth centuries the mystery plays were what the epic songs had been before them. Their exclusively religious subjects gave them equal rights and claims to the sympathy and respect of all, and in spite of their slight literary value, they are one of the most original and powerful creations of the middle ages ; and if the individual drama has been substituted for these great national representations, these logically and spontaneously developed mysteries have inspired some of the religious plays and autos by Calderon, 1 and the historical plays by Shakespeare. So the poetry of the Middle Ages, in its principal aspects, was epic, lyric, and dramatic.

But all these branches of French literature during the Middle Ages vary according to the differences of spirit of all the stages of society that participate in them, and especially according to the local and racial characteristics of the territories from which they spring. Gustave Lanson, the admirable literary historian of France, says that ' ' each one of those regions furnishes its part in the literature of the Middle Ages. Normandy and France proper apply themselves to the editing of their chansons de geste ('songs of heroic deeds'), as Burgundy in its century of separate existence creates an epic of its own. In Champagne bloom romance, lyrical idealism, and personal memoirs. The noisy communes of Picardy rejoice in dramatic poetry. Paris is the center : she produces all, avails herself of all; everything flows to her. Rutebeuf leaves his Champagne, Jean de Meung his Orleanais, and both transfer their great talents to the capital. Then, during long centuries, the provinces, one by one, as they enter upon national unity, receive the one French language, and mingle their original genius with its central spirit : crude and dreamy Brittany, reinfusing French literature with Celtic melancholy; inflexible and reasoning Auvergne; Lyons, mystic and passionate city despite the superficial agitation of material interests; the entire South, so varied and so rich, in one place more Roman, in another still marked by the passage of the Arabs or the Moors, preserving under all the alluvial

1 Pedro Calderon de la Barca (Madrid, 1600-81), one of the most celebrated of the Spanish dramatists and poets.

strata with which history has successively covered it, its primitive layer of Iberian population ; hot and vibrating Provence, all charm or all fire ; Gascony, scintillating with vivacity, light and delicate; and strong and powerful Languedoc, perhaps the one country of France where forms and tones of poetry are best felt in their special beauty. ' •

197*7

Chapter II

Epic poetry — "poetic narrative which precedes the ages when history is written" — is, in the natural order of development as admitted by most critics, posterior to lyric and anterior to dramatic poetry. The first form of song was the hymn originating with the ceremonies of the sanctuary. Then men turned to the description of nature, of love, of death, and this poetry usually sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, was called lyrical poetry. The epic was born when men began to narrate the lives of their heroes and to sing their praises.

The beginnings of the national epics are lost in the prehistoric times of nations f and the true epic is first found with the peoples of the Aryan race. The source of the epic is the oral transmission of the national history of a people, usually centered around one personage in the time when the military nobility was considered the flower of humanity. This oral information of the historical facts, at first legendarized, then greatly exaggerated, finally became fantastic and was perpetuated in writing. Thus arose the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey of Greece, the Mdhdbhdrata and the Rdmdyana of India, the Nib dung en of Germany, the Poema del Cid of Spain, and the Chanson de Roland, the greatest of French epics, in France.

Pio Rajna, an Italian scholar, has established the Germanic origin of the French epic : ' ' romane dans son developpement,

1 The triumph song of Deborah (1300 b.c.) and the twelve adventures of the Shimshon (Samson) saga show traces of epic songs. Pentaur, poet and priest of the court of Egypt, sang the heroic deeds of King Rameses II in the Battle of Kadish (twelfth century b.c). Schi-King is a collection of heroic songs of the Chinese collected by Confucius (sixth century B.C.).

elle etait germaine dans son origine." All the nations who inhabited Gaul from the sixth to the seventh centuries contributed something toward the future French epic: the Celts, however, only furnished the characteristics of some of its heroes, the Romans gave the epic its form in language (vulgar Latin) and in versification, the church gave its faith, but the Germanic tribes brought the greatest influence to bear, for it is owing to them that the epic was born in France. When these tribes invaded Gaul they introduced their custom, inherent with them for several centuries, of singing in popular verse their origins, their victories, their gods, and their heroes, 1 and they did not lose their taste for these epic recitals which exalt courage and charm the imagination, but communicated them to the Gallo-Romans. Their ideas of war, of royalty, of government, of family, of woman and of law, then entered the French national poetry and gave it the epic form, triumphing over the popular songs of lyrical and narrative character, sung by the Gallo-Romans. These popular songs were called Cantilenes and were sung both in the old German 2 of which an example is the Cantilene Saucourt (ninth century) ; and in the vulgar Latin or Gallo-Roman (Lingua Romana), as the Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie (ninth century) which was the first monument of French national poetry.

Epic composition on the soil of France may run back for its origins to the poetic history of the Merovingians, where traces of old French poems may be found; in the chansons de geste, certain recitals, certain personages, moral traits, customs civil and military, are the manifest residuum of the most ancient poetry and the most ancient civilization of France. In the fifth century, songs on Clovis were probably sung, and in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries poems on Dagobert, Charles Martel and Pepin le Bref may have existed. Of particular interest is the epic of Floovant 3 taken

1 Tacitus (first century), in his history of the Germans, states that the Germans had an epic poetry whose hero was Sigofred.

2 The Ludwigslied is supposed to be the last type of cantilene sung in German on French soil.

•Published by Michelant and Guessard: Les anciens poetes de la France.

from a chronicle of the eighth century, the Gesta Dagoberti, and which tells that Floovant is really Dagobert, the name Floovant signifying "descendant of Clovis." But of this period there is little preserved, and of the fragments which remain it is difficult to define their characteristics. There is a tradition that Charlemagne caused the epic treasures to be collected, and that his ascetic son, Louis the Pious (814-40), who had been coerced in his childhood to learn them by heart, had no sooner ascended the throne than he ordered them all destroyed— by way of compensation for the ennui he had suffered in memorizing them. However this may be, nearly all have melted from sight with the snows.

During several centuries these national and religious poems were orally transmitted from generation to generation until Charlemagne became the principal hero, his legend absorbing all others, and in the tenth century was born the chanson de geste of truly French character. A number of these chansons de geste were inspired by the oral traditions circulating daring the Merovingian period, others were inspired by the old Cantilenes. * ' Our chansons de geste, therefore, 7 ' says Leon Gautier, "are military and not clerical, and owe nothing to certain Latin chronicles from which it is believed by some they have arisen/ ' He tells us that the Chronique de Turpin is posterior to the first chansons de geste. ' * The Chronique de Turpin and most of the analogous legends are the works of some rhetorician of the monasteries who copied without intelligence and without animation our first chansons de geste.' ' F. Scholle, also asserts that the poems had for a long time been preserved by oral tradition before having been written, and that the various readings of the different compilations are due partly to the intervention of the jongleurs and not solely to the copyists.