the "Aventures de M. d'Assoucy." Here he showed good humour, a pleasant talent for narration, spontaneity, ease, an amiable naïveté, and a delightful feeling for nature and for the charms of a walking tour, which, with certain reservations, often reminds one of Rousseau. He was, in truth, the Villon of the seventeenth century; of equally loose morals, theft excepted, for he was more often stolen from than himself the stealer; of less genius certainly, but as free in his style, as picturesquely realistic in his descriptions, and almost as amiable in his pleasant and ingenious habit of talking about himself. No one was more out of his element than he in the polite, aristocratic, and well-regulated society into which he was born. He suffered for this, and was too much despised by the masters of the literature of the period, Boileau and Molière, and this is the excuse for having praised him a little more, perhaps, than he actually deserves.

As to Le Pays, he was well called in his own time Voiture's ape. Possessed of much talent-and this he showed in an astonishingly moderate, skilful, and modest reply to Boileau -he sought, as if for a wager, to exaggerate everything that Voiture did, so that he is admirable in rendering the transition from the "précieux" to the burlesque clear and unmistakable. Often he is quite deliberately burlesque; more often in exaggerating the "précieux" he is burlesque without knowing it, and if that is so in the case of Voiture, it is all the more so naturally in his imitator. Le Pays's best prose work is seen in his accounts of travels (always in the form of letters), and his best piece of poetical work in the amorous poem, pleasant enough, addressed to Madame de Chevreuse, entitled the << Perroquet ressuscité." He possessed an excellent knowledge of literature, and, as an observer and a moralist, certain qualities which were somewhat rare in his own time, and greatly superior to those which Boileau possessed.

CHAPTER VII

THE DRAMA FROM 1630-1660

THE drama, which may be said to have slumbered in the form of pastorals from the beginning of the century, assumed singular activity from about 1630. Cyrano de Bergerac, Scudéry, Tristan l'Hermite, La Calprenède, Du Ryer, Rotrou, all competed for honour, and, greatest of all, there was Pierre Corneille.

Cyrano, whose name has been mentioned in another connection, wrote for the theatre the "Mort d'Agrippine," a tragedy in the style of Gassendi. Badly worked out, and of little value so far as construction and dramatic art are concerned, the piece appears to have been written in order to bring forward in striking fashion one personage, Sejanus, who is represented as a statesman, an Epicurean philosopher, a fatalist, a sceptic, and a scorner of the gods. The influence of Lucretius is continually noticeable, if not in the whole play, yet certainly in this character. The blasphemous lines of Sejanus were often quoted in the seventeenth century :

"Achevons donc le crime ou ce dieu nous astreint :
C'est lui qui le commet puisqu'il nous y contraint .
-Respecte et crains des dieux l'effroyable tonnerre!
-Il ne tombe jamais en hiver sur la terre.

J'ai six mois pour le moins à me moquer des dieux . .
Que sont-ils donc ces dieux? Des enfans de l'effroi,
De beaux riens qu'on adore et sans savoir pourquoi,
Des altérés du sang des bêtes qu'on assomme,

Des dieux que l'homme fait et qui n'ont pas fait l'homme."

The philosophical tragedy, as Voltaire understood it later,

was a singular novelty when this play appeared in 1640. Cyrano may thus at least claim originality; his tragedy contains, moreover, some very beautiful lines, tragic, violent, fierce, and declamatory, but well suited for drama. Such lines are specially to be found in the speeches of Agrippina. Scudéry, who signed the beautiful romances which were written by his sister, was the real author of a number of tragedies or tragi-comedies which were successful enough. These were, "Lygdamon," "Le Vassal généreux," "Orante," "La Mort de César," "L'Amant libéral," "L'Amour tyrannique," "Arminius," &c. His facility, which Boileau laughed at, was not pure verbiage; he possessed real imagination, inventiveness, and dramatic ingenuity, but almost entire absence of taste. He was absolutely lacking in any idea of psychology, as was the case with most of the men of his time, but he had an uninterrupted flow of magniloquence, which was quite in accordance with the style of the epoch, and even went beyond it.

La Calprenède belonged to the same class of writers, but possessed better taste. His tragedies and tragi-comedies are romances in dialogues, often very pleasant, especially in the love scenes. The "Mort de Mithridate," "Bradamante," the "Comte d'Essex," "Belisaire," did not fail to please by their novelty, and greatly added to the success of their author as a writer of romances.

Tristan l'Hermite deserves greater attention than those already mentioned. He was highly gifted in the art of elegiac poetry, and possessed some dramatic talent. He wrote a kind of autobiographical romantic drama called the "Page disgracié," which is very amusing in itself, and is, moreover, interesting as a description of the manners of the period. He wrote verses in the style of the "précieux" school, some of which are exquisite, and give him a right to be ranked with Théophile de Viau. Such are the following lines from the "Promenoir de Deux Amants"

"Crois mon conseil, chère Climène.

Pour laisser arriver le soir,

He took part, so it seems, in the tournament of the "Belles Matineuses," and produced his "Belle Matineuse," which is in no wise inferior to those written by Malleville and Voiture; but, anxious to make the subject interesting again, he wrote as a pendant or reply to the beauty of the morning another vision, which might, perhaps, be called the "Belle Crépusculaire." Readers may care to see the poem

"Sur la fin de son cours le soleil sommeillait,
Et déjà ses coursiers abordaient la marine,
Quand Élise passa dans un char qui brillait
De la seule splendeur de sa beauté divine.

"Mille appas éclatants qui font un nouveau jour
Et qui sont couronnés d'une grâce immortelle,
Les rayons de la gloire et les feux de l'amour
Éblouissaient les yeux et brûlaient avec elle.

"Je regardais coucher le bel astre des cieux
Lorsque ce grand éclat me vint frapper les yeux,
Et de cet accident ma raison fut surprise.

Mon désordre fut grand, je ne le cèle pas :
Voyant baisser le jour et rencontrant Élise ;

Je crus que le soleil revenait sur ses pas."

L'Hermite has a great reputation as a tragic poet. Attention to the study of character and care in making action result from character has caused some of his admirers to describe him as a precursor of Racine, and although there may be a little exaggeration in such a statement, still it is at least to the

honour of l'Hermite that the idea is not considered ridiculous. The "Mort de Sénéque," "Penthée," "La Mort de Crispe," are tragedies which are still readable, and of considerable value. His "Marianne" especially, which was as successful as the "Cid," did not owe its success to a clique, as has been said. This play, in the style of Corneille, by its depth of tragedy and the real eloquence of certain perorations and dialogues, is one of the most powerful works of the second class which the French stage possesses. Tristan l'Hermite has not been awarded a sufficiently high place by posterity; he is, indeed, almost unknown. This is owing to the fact that Boileau does not mention him. Those writers on whom he has cast the greatest contempt are at least known to posterity, which is thus enabled to control and sometimes to revise Boileau's judgment, and in any case to learn something about them. On the other hand, Boileau's silence concerning an author of the seventeenth century almost amounts to a deathsentence, and Tristan l'Hermite was far from deserving this.

Du Ryer was one of those good, intelligent, laborious, and honest writers who possess all the mediocre qualities and defects of their age, and who, during twenty years, did honest literary work. He wrote about thirty tragedies, which were all well received, and two at least of which, “ Alcyonée and "Scévole," show a certain amount of talent, and might well take their place in the secondary drama of Corneille's age. Before 1636 he did not accept Mairet's reforms, and wrote his dramas according to no fixed rules; but directly Corneille submitted to them Du Ryer accepted these famous rules in all their severity. He was a very poor and a very worthy man, who bore his poverty with gentle philosophy and had no conception of the art of making one's way in the world. He was, however, a member of the Academy. He may be almost regarded as the Ducis of the seventeenth century, with slightly less talent.

Rotrou almost possessed genius. very lively imagination and much carefully remembered that he

He was gifted with a originality. It must be

wrote no

really good