LITERATURE IN FRANCE.*
NOTHING is more remarkable in the French literature of to-day than the freedom, the license even, of its professors. Five years ago a man of letters was forced to acknowledge an allegiance, to fight under a flag. He wore his uniform with the scrupulosity of a German soldier, and all men might know on which side he was ranged before he drew pen from inkpot. Now all is changed ; there is no conflict, because there are no schools. Every man writes for himself, and the world is con- tent to regard him or to disregard him, not for the glory of his associates, but for his own merits.
Opposed in all else, the writers of France are united in their contempt of realism. M. Zola's violence has found its in- evitable reaction, and the master alone survives the complete discomfiture of his pupils. M. Huysmans, once one of the faithful, has betaken himself to mysticism; and, having exhausted in his last performance the possibilities of St. Sulpice, he proposes to pack nothing less than a whole cathedral into his next novel. Doubtless he looks back upon Les &curs Vatard as the indiscretion of a patient youth, and doubtless he finds the superstitions of the Middles Ages more amusing than the squalid intrigues of a Parisian workshop. The rest are scattered, and the infamous descendants of the Rougons and the Macquarts have less influence in the world of letters than Rastignac and Quentin Durward. But the defeat of M. Zola has not only discouraged his school ; it has driven the others to seek their inspiration in a time and a place as remote as possible from modern Paris. As thirty years since observation deposed fancy from her throne, so to-day research and curiosity are esteemed more highly than the Blue-book. At last the hateful doctrine is discredited, that exactitude is the first necessity of creative art ; and they who once grubbed in a common slum betake themselves to the classics, or are busied in the deciphering of hieroglyphics. Everywhere this proper retrogression is visible. .1Eschylas is already advertised at the Odeon; to-day an adaptation of Aristophanes enjoys a run at a theatre on the Boulevards; and still more ancient than either, Dumas' Charles VII. has entered—at the Francais—upon its second childhood.
Meanwhile the masters of fiction are indefatigable in their search after new material. Neither Central Africa nor the very "backward and abysm" of time are too remote for their fancy. Already the two gentlemen who conceal a collabora- tion as close as that of the Gonconrts behind the single name of J. H. Rosny, have chosen for their scene the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, and for their time some six thousand years ago. And their selection grows no less recondite. The heroes of Les Xipehuz, a reprint of which is recently issued, are certain luminous beings, who flashed and shone a thousand years before the civilisation from which sprang Nineveh, Baby- lon, and Ecbatana ! The phantasy is ingenious, and ingeniously developed. The pretence of erudition is as curious as the style is delicate. That verisimilitude may be not lacking the authors have described the speech of the Xipehuz, a genuine language of luminous signs. "Suppose, for example," thus is a conversation carried on, "one Xipehuz would speak with another. It is enough to direct the rays of his star towards his companion, who instantly perceives the sign. He who is summoned arrests his course and waits. The speaker then traces rapidly upon the very surface of his interlocutor—and it matters not upon which side—a series of short luminous
• (1.) Les .71-ipiltuz. Par J. H. Rosny. Paris : Societ4 du Mercure de France. —12.1 Les Prolmideure de Kyamo. Par J. H. Rosny. Paris: Plon.—(3.) Spieilegs. Par Marcel Schwob. Paris: Societe du Mercure de Franee.—(4.) Thedtre Chinarique. Par JA1111 Richepin. Paris: Oharpentier.—(5.) Use 14.11e Trayique. Par Paul Bourget. Paris: Lenaerre.—(6.) Brichanteau. Par Jules Clarctia. Paris Cliarprwier.
characters, and these characters remain fixed for a moment, and then fade away." Here we are face to face with the supernatural, and far, indeed, from that microscopic examina- tion of ugliness which for so long a time has appeared to justify its own tedium. Nor are the MM. Rosny prejudiced in their choice of subject. So long as they do not dip their hands in the trough of a sham reality they are content. The story which gives its name to their latest production—Les Profondeurs de Kyamo—has for its scene the negro village of Ouan-Mahlei, and the hero is a philosopher, with a gentle passion for anthropoid apes. Here again the sentiment is irreproachable ; yet in so strange a milieu you would prefer adventure to reflection, and you are forced to confess that Aglave, the philosopher, is a sorry bore.
Could any reaction be more complete ? The worst is that the reaction is a trifle obvious ; the reader is certain that the MM. Rosny would not have wandered so far afield had they not been moved by a natural disgust for the neighbouring gutter. It is rather a horror of the real than a veritable love of romance that has persuaded them to this distant research. But all are not such hardy travellers. Many are satisfied with medimval France, with ancient Greece or modern England. The one necessity is erudition, and the work which best exemplifies the modern tendency is not a novel but a book of essays. M. Marcel Schwob's Spicilige might, in fact, be taken for a perfect specimen of the recent eclecticism. For M. Schwob is of those who have never bowed the knee to accuracy, and who have always respected a brave romance more highly than a flat reality. He can appreciate Shakespeare and Robert Louis Stevenson. "Pieces of eight ! Pieces of eight !" still echoes in his ear. He has translated Defoe, and (rare achievement in France !) he has the classics at his finger-ends. There are few English- men who have a closer acquaintance with Meredith than he, and his essay on Villon, which has the place of honour in his latest book, is the best that a man of letters has ever given us. But the work's chief interest is, as we have said, its frank eclecticism. Here you have French literature (so to say) in the making. The materials are gathered from every quarter of the globe, for to be original you must now first scrape acquaintance with your predecessors of every age and clime. When M. Schwob discusses love, he compels Rodion Raskolnikoff and Sir Willoughby Patterne to take part in the dialogue. When he expresses his views concerning anarchy, he appears not in his own person, but lets Phaedo and Cebes fight it out. In brief, to-day " invention " lags behind knowledge. And you are glad of the respite, for " in- vention " was long since confounded with plagiarism, and until another Balzac arrives, the novel in France, as in England, will recede further and further from literature.
And it is not only upon the younger writers that the new influences are falling. Not even M. Richepm, the author of Les Blasphemes, is superior to the tendency of to-day; and his Thecitre Chimgrique is an open return to an archaic simplicity. There is not one of these delicate parables which a schoolgirl might not read, if she had the understanding ; there is not one but carries you far away from the brutality and outspokenness which have weighed so heavily upon French literature. Did you expect the chan- sonnier des gueux to invent a dialogue between a poet and a Christmas-tree ? No, you did not ; and the disappointment is agreeable. The poet tells the Christmas-tree that the children will come and carry off the sweetmeats, and trumpets, and boxes of soldiers in their pockets. "Let them come, let them come, and rob me," exclaims the Christmas-
tree. "How happy shall I be in their happiness What does it matter so long as there remains to me the glory of my multicoloured candles ?" But, argues the poet, "the candles will only last till the end of the party. And the children will forget your toys, or will compare you with last year's Christmas-tree, and as next year approaches, they will think only of your successor." And thus the moral is drawn that the poet and the Christmas-tree have each his lights and his shades ; and, simple as is the ancient fancy, you wonder that it should have come from modern France, and from a poet, who has played his part in the battle of the schools.
But when you turn from the new to the old, you are aghast at the hackneyed motives which still seem to please. M. Bourget's Idylle Tragique, for instance, has been written again and again on both sides of the Channel.
The author himself adds for a description : " Mceurs Cos- mopolites." And how well you know it, this novel of the steamboat and the wagon-lit ! Nothing is easier than to imagine & contrast between the scions of an old civilisation and the ingenues of America. But it was done once and for always in Daisy Miller, and M. Bourget's persistent repetitions are little better than guide-book or journalism. They contain no surprise, and their " psychology " has attained the con- tempt of familiarity. Bat they are wrapped round with the rags of realism, their personages are deemed possible by their names and appearances, and their author does not hesitate to describe for the thousandth time the "professional beauty" of America. All of which goes to prove that the novel is tired, and that the old formulw have lost their significance.
Yet when you turn from Une Idylle Tragique and con- template, for example, M. Claretie's Brichanteau, you are thankful even for M. Bourget's psychology, since this last novel of the theatre belongs to the school that was before the flood. It is nothing else than an article de Paris, and has merely an accidental relationship with art. Our hopes of the future are, indeed, with the new-born romance ; and now that the materials of literature are thrown back into the crucible, it needs but genius to fashion from the ancient dements a fresh and abiding masterpiece.
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