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-
THE FRENCH NOVEL IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
**
By
MARCEL PREVOST
Office of Tºublication:
Rooms 2128-29-30-31, Park Row Building



THE FRENCH NOVEL IN THE NINE-
TEENTH CENTURY."
The endeavor to compress the history of the French novel
during the nineteenth century into the small space of a few
pages in a review would be so chimerical an enterprise that
merely to announce such an intention would suffice to show
its absurdity. Therefore, in reading the following lines, the
reader is requested to consider them simply as the scenario,
so to speak, of an exposition or a lecture about this great sub-
ject. The reader may complete the notes I am about to lay
before him out of the abundance of his recollections and the
preferences of his taste; scratch a name here, insert another
there, and modify the order and conclusions according to his
own pleasure—in a word, make his own exposition or lecture.
So that, if he is satisfied, he will applaud himself; if he is
discontented, he will have the privilege of blaming the in-
sufficient scenario.
The history of the French novel in this century begins with
a woman’s name. Mme. de Stael, whose ability and reform-
ing initiative far surpassed her talent, prepared the way for
the romantic novel. She introduced a cosmopolitan inspira-
tion into our literature; her two most celebrated works,
“Corinne” (1807) and “Delphine” (1812), deal with the
Originally printed in the "Revue Bleue,” April 14, 1900.
3

4. THE FRENCH NOVEL
isolation of woman in inferior or hostile surroundings, and
her struggles against social conventionality. Almost all the
works of George Sand have no other foundation; much more
than this: from her time, the irreconcilability between in-
dividual development and conservative tradition furnishes
subjects to the novelist as well as dramatist, down to Dumas
and Ibsen.
The “Adolphe '’ of Benjamin Constant (1815) appears.
alone, in a “splendid solitude,” outside the contemporary
movement. It is a literary phenomenon, having something in
common with all styles. Styles have an almost continuous evo-
lution,-granted. A geometrician would say, however, that
the representative curve of this evolution occasionally shows
singular points. Constant’s famous novel is one of these
points. Nevertheless, it is connected with its epoch to some
extent. Is not the inability to love, which is its subject, one
of the effects of the lassitude into which a nation falls after
having been exhausted by a long period of activity and faith,
such as the Empire and the Revolution?
It would be superfluous to comment in detail on the part
played by Chateaubriand, who sums up romanticism while
preparing the naturalism of the future. It is true that Cha-
teaubriand preserves several characteristics of the eighteenth
century and of Rousseau. Like Rousseau, he gives the senti-
ment of nature its part in the novel of passion; he perfects it,
and gives it a singularly full expression, adding a variety of
tones to the somewhat monotonous fluidity of Jean-Jacques.

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 5
But, especially joining, as he himself says, “the aspirations
of love to the remorse of Christian consciences,” he creates
a new form of passion, both disturbing and deep, in which two
infinites are united,—Desire and Faith. A real discovery in
material for the novel, afterwards to be taken up and again
employed by Sainte-Beuve in “Volupté; ” to give “Mme.
Gervaisais,” by the Goncourt brothers, its greatest charm; to
inspire Paul Bourget in many of his works, and sometimes
Huysmans as well (“En Route’”).
Like Mme. de Stael, but with an eloquence quite otherwise
effective, Chateaubriand exalts individual energies in their
rebellion against commonplace collectiveness. This worship
of personality, as it appears in René, and is magnified in
‘‘ Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe,” is perhaps the essential
characteristic of romanticism, the one Carlyle defined and
systematized somewhat later in his theory of the hero-leaders
of mankind. Finally, let us notice a weird attraction which
was exercised on Chateaubriand by certain mysterious and
vaguely criminal complications of the heart and senses, for
instance, the incestuous passion of René. Later, in the
romanticists and naturalists, we shall see the reappearance of
this haunting “monster” (Hugo, Baudelaire, Barbey d’Aure-
villy, Th. Gautier, Huysmans).
Is not Paul-Louis Courier, when his neo-pagan fancy lingers
over the study of “Daphnis et Chloé,” according to Longus
and Amyot, an isolated reactionist undertaking the fruitless
work of an artist, or rather of a dilettante? Not at all. His
graceful Pompeiian ideal will inspire Gérard de Nerval, and

6 THE FRENCH NOVEL
perhaps give Anatole France the first idea for his pictures of
the antique world; and, later, we shall find his distant in-
fluence in the work of Pierre Louys, at once so modern and so
Greek. -
A great writer’s true literary family does not always con-
sist of his contemporaries, but rather of his intellectual pos-
terity. This is the case with Stendhal (1783–1842), who had
scarcely anything in cómmon with his own epoch,--that of
early romanticism, but seems to reign over ours. As Brune-
tière observes, he was the first to proclaim the equivalence of
the arts, -that is, the right to mutually borrow and lend their
respective resources and habitual means of expression. Is
it not the manner of the Goncourts, and of the Daudets, to
treat literature as if they were painting? Another specialty
of Stendhal's was that he did not subordinate the study of the
characters to the progress of the action, but, on the contrary,
gave this study a preponderant importance, even making it
the subject of the book. This is the principle of the psycho-
logical school. Finally, by his enthusiasm for the miracles
of energy, this contemporary of Napoleon gave to the litera-
ture of this century its adoration of conscious and active will
(Balzac, Maurice Barrès, Paul Adam). Therefore, Stend-
hal’s work is one of those sowing for the future, and for which
the future assures a marvellous renewal. Few minds have
been more comprehensive and more creative as well, since he
is the common master of writer-artists, of devotees of analy-
sis, and of theorists on the will.
From Stendhal to Balzac, George Sand, and the elder Dumas

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 7
the French novel has no supreme master. It is sometimes
signed by great names, but they are not the names of novel-
ists. In truth, the novels of Victor Hugo are really magnifi-
cent prose-poems. Those of Lamartine, and also the tales of
Musset, in spite of differing qualities, show the distinctive
stamp of poetic romanticism—the hypertrophy of personality.
As to the fanciful novel by Alphonse Karr (1832), “Sous les
Tilleuls,” I hope I may be permitted to condemn it as detest-
able. In Musset we notice an element of dandyism and fan-
tasy which, becoming distorted and commonplace under the
pretext of aristocracy, will give us the elegance of Feuillet.
In “Volupté '' (1834) Sainte-Beuve unites a vaporous sen-
suality with a most delicate melancholy, and makes us think
of the morose delectation of the theologians. Later we shall
again find this sadness of the restless flesh in Paul Bourget.
Like Feuillet, Henry Mürger is a continuator of Musset;
but this Fantasio of the Latin Quarter, instead of becoming
chastened and moderate, deviates toward a dishevelled and ex-
cessive farce, fortunately tempered by a certain sentimental
grace. Besides, his is a false Bohemia, being nothing but a
series of adventures in a brewery (“Scènes de la Vie de
Bohème,” 1849).
George Sand is a romanticist of the purest type, as much by
the sometimes splendid and often indiscreet lyricism of her
style as by her favorite theme, borrowed, I have already
said, from Mme. de Stael,-the emancipation of the feminine
individuality. This is the incontestable character of

8 THE FRENCH NOVEL
“Indiana” (1831), “Valentine” (1832), and “Lélia’’
(1833). Nevertheless, this must not prevent us from recog-
nizing one result of George Sand’s work with which, perhaps,
she is too seldom credited.
After the first effervescence of her talent had been appeased,
she advanced the novel toward reality. Through her it often
became objective, and ceased to be solely the glorification of
passion. She has given us an example of the religious, his-
torical, philosophical, social, artistic, rural, and descriptive
novel, and all in a renewed and very modern form. Certainly
the highest quality of George Sand is her incomparably
beautiful and fluent style. It is not less just to say that she
is a great novelist by invention and observation. By the
side of the charming romanticism of “L’Homme de Neige''
and “Jean de la Roche,” with what truth, what certainty,
are the minor characters sketched, those least deformed by
the theory! To prove this, I recommend “Jeanne,” one of
Sand’s most important books and one of the least famous.
In it one can admire types of provincial noblemen of the
period after the Restoration, which will bear comparison with
the Cabinet des Antiques.
The long and laborious life of George Sand filled half of
this century. Nevertheless, in spite of her immense reputa-
tion, she cannot be said to have created a school, as did
Flaubert, Dumas, and Balzac. Cherbuliez and Mme. Henry
Greville sometimes borrow something of her sovereign grace.
Her most complete heir is André Theuriet, the sober and
tasteful writer of many family novels and many beautiful and

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 9
rural studies, -one of the best contemporary novel-writers, and
one of the most certain to survive, and surely resembling
George Sand in his choice of subjects and in his elegant
diffusiveness.
It is to George Sand that in 1862 a novel—the only one by
its author—was dedicated in a few modest lines. But the
historical importance of this novel is considerable; for, ac-
cording to the expression I used a short time ago, it consti-
tutes a “singular point ’’ in the curve. Fromentin’s “Domi-
nique '' is, with “Adolphe,” one of the ancestors of the
psychological novel; but the professional mastery of the artist
who wrote it is apparent in its many picturesque qualities.
The style is different from that of Flaubert and from that of
the Goncourts; it is not without carelessness, but it is supple,
living, airy, and, above all, charming. The analysis is
marvellously shaded; the restrained passion imparts a warmth
rarely found in psychologists. . . . For all these reasons
-
“ Dominique'' not only was an event in the contemporary
history of the novel, but has remained one of the best
** 10ved ’’ books of this century, and one of the most deserving
of love.
The novel of adventure, as revived by the elder Dumas,
reaches proportions almost Homeric. If temperament is equal
to genius, it is not too much to say that the author of the
“Trois Mousquetaires” had genius. He had the genius of
invention. His works are a sort of coarse Iliad, and have
aroused the enthusiasm of several generations. They are in-

10 THE FRENCH NOVEL
finitely romantic in their wealth of characters and truculence
of action. -
In our age, which imagines itself disillusionized, Dumas
has come to life again in disguise. Who is Cyrano, if not
D’Artagnan P. Frédéric Soulié and Eugène Sue are not so far
away from us as they may at first appear. The form which
they created—the feuilleton—has lost none of its vitality, or
of its influence on plebeian imaginations. We must not de-
spise the powerful, although vulgar, qualities which caused
the triumph of the “Mystères de Paris” (1842–1843) and
the “Juif Errant.” In our days Eugène Sue has a numerous
posterity, Richebourg, Demesse, Montépin, Jules Mary,
d'Ennery, -in short, a whole family of novel-writers whose
imagination has often accomplished marvellous feats in a form
demanding at least vigorous qualities in creation and composi-
tion, and which cannot be handled except by clever workmen.
With careful choice of expression, and a picturesque poetry
derived from the fields of Brittany and the marine loneliness
surrounding Mont Saint-Michel, Paul Féval is allied to this
race of story-tellers. Allied to it also is Paul de Kock, who
reigned over the imagination of students, and merited the
gratitude of Pope Gregory XVI. for certain agreeable hours
due to the idyls of Romainville and Montfermiel. “Come va
iſ nostro caro figlio, Paolo di Kock ’’’ the gentle pontiff asked in-
genuously, addressing the pilgrims from France.
A more substantial claim to glory for Paul de Kock is to
have given something of his wholesome and frank joyousness
to Guy de Maupassant, especially to the Maupassant of

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 11
those earlier works which evoke the pleasures of love under
the green arbors in the suburbs of Paris.
Now comes the master work of the century, -the Comédie
Humaine. The historian of the modern French novel can
never write that title without a thrill of admiration and
respect.
The unique power of evocation which we admire in Balzac
(1799–1850) does not suffer in the least from the defects in
his style. Balzac falls short of continual perfection, of that
severe criticism of words which watches every sentence and
never permits a lapse. But, instead of these qualities, -for
that matter, very easily acquired,—he had, on the other hand,
in a degree surpassed by none, and in style itself, those rare
qualities which cannot be acquired, those gifts of birth which
make the master. Balzac's style, while not essentially good,
is nevertheless a great style. Oftentimes its slowness, devia-
tion, and hesitation serve the writer, preparing the effect by
delaying it. And occasionally a verb, happily placed in the
very midst of a dull or dry paragraph, shines like a precious
jewel in a casket of common wood.
An admirer of Walter Scott, Balzac owed to him his scrupu-
lous regard for historical accuracy. But, instead of dealing
exclusively and accurately with the past, Balzac was the first
of the French novelists, and of novelists in general, to treat
modern subjects historically, just as if he were dealing with
the middle ages or the renaissance. He understood that his
own epoch offered a picturesque charm equal to that of past
epochs; he reproduced its color.

12 THE FRENCH NOVEL
In the same way, while others sought the philosophy of
history, he sought that of his own time. He explained the
evolution of which he was a witness, showed the logic of
events, made their concatenation perceptible after the lapse of
years, and presented his characters to the reader, not isolated,
but as part of the forward movement of humanity.
Moreover, it was Balzac who introduced the realism of the
race for wealth into the narrative of the struggles of passion.
The race for wealth adds itself to psychological data as an
inevitable element powerfully influencing their development;
the too idealistic novel, the novel based on insufficient obser-
vation, had mistakenly neglected it. Balzac does not inquire
simply whether the lover will carry off his mistress, but
whether he will be able to pay for the coach and the
postilions.
In the same way Balzac was the first to show the wheelwork
of chicanery; to sketch the features of such vulgar, but com-
plicated and interesting, physiognomies as those of notaries,
business men, money-lenders, and bankers. This care for
the material side of existence led him to give us a picture of
contemporary life studied in all its bushy multiplicity. Each
personage is a tree in a forest; we cannot see the tree without
seeing the forest; we cannot separate the individual from his
social reactions. . . . Even when isolated, a character in Bal-
zac appears to us in his civil state and engaged in the fulfil-
ment of his duties. He is not simply a lover or an ambitious
man, but something more; he is a professional man of letters,
politics, or industry. He is real.

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 13
There is no need to emphasize the influence of Balzac.
All novelists, without exception, have felt it, and almost all
acknowledge it. Much more: just as Goethe did with his
“Werther,” so Balzac forced life to shape itself according to
the lines of his work; the types which he created became men,
and we know full well that the France of the second empire
was governed by these men. So that this visionary, whose
supernatural acuteness of intuition was reproached as madness
by his contemporaries, really seems a collaborator with fate
and a maker of souls.
In Hector Malot, at the beginning of his career, Taine saw
a new-born Balzac.; and very often that admirable novelist,
Ferdinand Fabre, has been called the Balzac of the clergy—
although in very many respects he recalls Sand rather than
Balzac. The truth is that Balzac had very few immediate
imitators. As long as he wrote, he was sufficient in himself
to sustain his ‘‘ manner.” Instead, he aroused contradictors,
—imitators reversed; I mean that, at the time when the Bal-
zacian genius was spreading, or shortly afterwards, there ap-
peared a group with retrogressive and restrictive tendencies.
This phenomenon is the consequence of a law; each time that,
with a violent effort, literary art breaks out of its traditional
limits, it returns with a certain elasticity. Hegel’s formula
—thesis, antithesis, synthesis—is applicable to the life of
literature as well as to that of the universe.
Therefore, while Balzac is building the Monument of his
work layer on layer, we see Vigny seated in his legendary

14 THE FRENCH NOVEL
ivory tower, writing novels which restrict individual life to
the practice of a haughty stoicism. The collective law im-
poses a servitude in which, nevertheless, the proud soul is able
to grow. In this, as in everything else, the poet of “Des-
tinées' places himself in hostility to the romanticism which
he first served. In the meantime Sainte-Beuve confines him-
self to the culture of a stormy and almost hypochondriac in-
dividuality, and Mérimée, limited to the precise and poor
vocabulary of the eighteenth century, takes the isolated place
which Taine very justly defined as “narrow and high.” At
Molinchart, Champfleury, influenced by Henry Monnier, dis-
covers realism, without knowing how to use the realistic
method.
Oh, the admirable irony of literary destinies! This
is, on the
Champfleury, the first singer of the “Bourgeois,”
other hand, the forerunner of the greatest artist who has
given new life to our prose during the second half of this cen-
tury. While Leconte de Lisle mocks the sentimentality of
Musset and Lamartine, Gustave Flaubert founds the realistic
novel on the ruins of conventional idealism. However, he is
far from having broken every tie with romanticism, for he re-
tains too much of Chateaubriand in his style to do that. He
knew the ‘‘ Martyrs’’ by heart, and once, when persecuted by
a pianist, revenged himself by shouting through the open win-
dow the most sonorous tirades of the viscount. What is
-
“Salammbo,” with its opera-like pomp, its lyricism, its con-
trivance, if not an admirable spectacular prose poem in a
hundred pictures.

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 15
But the work of Flaubert is, nevertheless, a sturdy batter-
ing-ram against idealism, suspect on account of its com-
promises with the fiddle-faddle of sentimentality. Seeking
sentimental adventures, Mme. Bovary and Frédéric (in “Edu-
cation Sentimentale”) come to grief as unfortunately as did
the hidalgo of “La Mancha” in quest of knightly adven-
tures. Equally pitiful, and constantly deceived in their as-
pirations toward intellectuality, are Bouvard and Pécuchet,
two ridiculous and bourgeois Fausts.
After Flaubert the French novel takes two directions. The
author of “ Mme. Bovary” rallies around his name and work
all those for whom “artistic writing ” is the most precious
prerogative of the novelist, and who disdain the very sub-
stance of the novel,-story, composition, psychology, or social
bearing. The others maintain above everything else that the
novel must be a narrative, carried forward according to rules
analogous to those of the theatre, and according to certain
special conventionalities.
Among the representatives of the older school we must es-
pecially mention Octave Feuillet, adding that the romantic
tendencies inherited from Musset gave way in the long run to
traditional ethics. (“La Morte” pronounces at once
against love and against modern science.) In the meantime,
with marked literary talent, Victor Cherbuliez continued the
novel of manners and customs in the style of Charles de Ber-
nard, various and deceiving by his very accomplishments—
happily romantic in “Comte Kostia,” and showing in
** Meta Holdenis’’ that he knew how to create a living being
—to make real life.

16 THE FRENCH NOVEL
The novels of the Goncourt brothers are the triumph of
artistic writing. Strictly speaking, the Goncourts are more
artists than novelists, and their work has had more influence
on the development of literary art than on that of the novel
itself. Instead of being individuals and characters, their per-
sonages are simply complacent supports for any state of mind
or nervous condition that they may be tempted to describe.
According to their own sweet will they lead their personages
into surroundings capable of artistic treatment. In “Soeur
Philomène’’ these are the sensations of a hospital; in
‘‘ Mme. Gervaisais,” the sensations of Rome. Therefore
their influence on the evolution of the contemporary novel is
restricted to style, which they have undoubtedly modified, ac-
cording to the Stendhalian principle of the equivalence of the
arts. Their style is more pictorial than literary; it sacri-
fices to color, and gives no thought to syntax. They think in
pictures, and their psychology is restricted to what pictures
can express. They do not compose their works as much as
decorate them.
Alphonse Daudet was a writer-artist in the same manner as
the Goncourts; but he was something else. The influence of
Dickens had a deep effect on him from the beginning of his
literary career, and caused him to perceive the bits of com-
plicated poetry found scattered through the details of the
most humble existence. He understood how to reproduce these
thousand fragments of the truth, and consequently was better
able to depict truth itself. At the present day one might

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 17
say his art was somewhat cinematographic. I may add that he
was the first to understand that peculiar elegance, so frail and
frivolous, of the Parisian woman, that “ doll with steel
springs,”—the expression is his. He understood how to paint
the streets of Paris, full of busy, chatoyant life. He sketched
with one stroke the wry faces of various actors who are not
all found in the theatre. And all this, perhaps, without ex-
treme psychological refinement, and more for the sake of its
picturesqueness—but with what charm! And then is he not.
the author of “Sapho,” that Manon Lescaut of the nineteenth
century; and of the “ Evangéliste,” that bitter study so
strong and true, and as bare as a Protestant church?
The beautiful Latin qualities of fluency, freedom, and sim-
ple grace, arouse admiration in all his works. Nevertheless
this should not prevent us from perceiving another quality—
Latin also-the logical strictness of the composition. Some-
times it has not been recognized, because hidden under a
fantastic exterior of graceful elegance. It is none the less
real and predominating. It is carried to such a degree that
in ‘‘ Numa Roumestan,” for instance, it seems excessive.
One feels a little embarrassed under the constraint of this
rigorous method, which plans with precision the minutest de-
tails, and causes one sometimes to regret the more natural
spontaneity of “Fromont Jeune et Risler Ainé.”
The triumph of the naturalistic novel with Emile Zola is
one of the great literary events of this century. The factors
in this evolution are easy to determine. The first, the very

18 THE FRENCH NOVEL
essence of naturalism, is of pure-Balzacian origin: it is the
representation of the individual, not as a psychological ab-
straction, but as a concrete being, possessing a particular
civil state, connected with the social organization by his
family, his profession, his hereditary tendencies, and by all
those necessary or casual points of contact which place a man
in relation with the humanity of his age. The principle of
heredity is one which has occupied Zola most intensely, so
that he boldly entitled his work “ Histoire Naturelle et So-
ciale d’une Famille sous le Second Empire.” He has been
reproached with having exaggerated the thoroughness of his
system in an entirely factitious manner, by giving it the posi-
tive character of a scientific theory. But, had it been less
mercilessly systematic, would not Zola's method have lost the
greater part of its efficacy? He himself felt the need of be-
lieving in it as in a dogma, and could not present it to the
public except as a dogma. The triumph of naturalism is due
partly to its refusal to compromise.
The care for psychological reality in the novel, and the
materialization of love, connect Zola with Michelet. We
know what importance the great historian attached to the
petty household troubles of Louis XIV., and how they com-
plicated for him all the splendors and the griefs of our his-
tory during the reign of “ King Sun.” We remember the
boldness of his investigations in the most mysterious regions
of feminine sensibility, when he wrote his beautiful book,
“La Femme.” Zola's audacity is excused and warranted in
advance by Michelet's. Certainly I fully concede that cer-

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 19
tain temperaments may be wounded by Zola's customary
violence of expression and imagery. The cold-blooded critic
will distinguish especially one external sign of the reform ac-
complished by the author of “L’Assommoir,” in the direction
of naturalistic truth. Victor Hugo wrote that he who frees
words frees thoughts as well. Before Zola the modesty of
the French novel, and its fear of true but brutal expression,
seemed exaggerated. While he himself sometimes oversteps
the limits of necessary boldness, the master of Médan has at
least permitted his successors to attain them. The sincerity
of the modern novel can only gain by this emancipation.
From romanticism, and more particularly from Chateau-
briand and Victor Hugo, Zola has borrowed, and sometimes
amplified to an extraordinary degree, the artistic process of
imparting an almost human life to nature. (Read the poems
of René in the solitudes of the New World, and the reveries
of Quasimodo in the little cell of the cathedral of Paris.)
The magnificent idyl of Paradou, through which Serge and
Albine stray, initiated in love by the flowers more conscious
than themselves of their own agitation, reveals an inspiration
once called pantheistic. A work of absolutely literal observa-
tion would exclude such lyricism—real life is rarely lyric.
Zola's temperament leads him to “see lyrically ” subjects
which before his day had never been considered in that light,
—markets, coal-mines, and railways. And, as this lyrical
vision is sincere, it plays its part in the originality of the
Master.
It has been stated often that Zola is the poet of crowds.

20 THE FRENCH NOVEL
It is very true that no one else has ever depicted their thrill
and tremendous life. In this his naturalism borders on ro-
manticism. Was Chateaubriand the first to put the crowd in
books, when in his “ Martyrs’’ he made the warlike masses
invoking Pharamond rumble and rustle before the wind of
heroism?
Therefore Emile Zola has accomplished the synthesis of
romanticism and naturalism, and has given to this powerful
system a scientific support. By the extraordinary impetus of
his work he has extinguished the last efforts of the conven-
tional novel to survive.
This triumph of naturalism has not been accomplished
without some attempts at reaction. The frankly traditional
writings of Georges Ohnet endeavored to oppose the audacity
of its progress. This is not the place to reopen the discussion
concerning the style of the author of the “Maitre des
Forges,” but it is fitting to recognize his qualities of composi-
tion, no less appreciable and necessary in the novel than in
the theatre, and also a talent which is decidedly rare, -
namely, the invention of characters; the famous Madame
Desvarennes being a proof of this. The school of Médan
(Léon Hennique, Paul Alexis, Huysmans, Céard) had as an
ally Flaubert’s admirable pupil–Guy de Maupassant. Of
the two writers the first will receive the preference of exclu-
sive artists; nevertheless, Maupassant’s talents as a story-
teller, pure and simple, surpass those of Flaubert. The author
of “Un Coeur Simple'' was able to give to the author of
“Bel Ami’’ his first idea of the style in which he would ex-

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 21
cel—the short story. But Maupassant owes only to himself
the extraordinary intensity of action and life which animates
his heroes. "Let us add that he discovered the method of
concentrating, to a surprising extent, the complete evolution
of a subject into the limits of a story, compressed for the
newspapers to less than three hundred lines. It is he who,
thanks to a power of abridgment undreamed of up to that
time, created the style of tale with which our great dailies
grace their first pages. He prepared the triumph of literary
journalism, making of certain of our periodicals crumbed De-
camerons offering daily nourishment for the artistic instincts
of the crowd. -
Maupassant’s realism is of a peculiar kind; precise and
sober, he never insists. This concentration appears in his
style also; his vocabulary, always exact, is not embroidered
with the wealth of a Gautier, and of the literary qualities of
Flaubert he appropriated the least brilliant, solidity and
distinctness, but the most necessary. Occasionally his
somewhat dry vigor recalls the best pages of Mérimée, and,
although a pupil of Flaubert and a contemporary of Zola, he
would appear to be one of those restrictives who have taken
the author of “Colomba '' for their master, did he not have,
in addition, that gift of the fantastic which relates him very
closely to Russian writers.
- A plastic imagination, a fantastic imagination, and an ad-
mirable power of realization—Maupassant possessed all these.
It was only in the domain of pure intellectuality that he did
not emphasize the triumph of his vigorous art. He did not

22 THE FRENCH NOVEL
care to be a writer of ideas, nor did any among the pupils of
Flaubert and Zola dream of becoming one. The somewhat
problematical reconstructions of banished epochs, the some-
what puerile reproductions of the minutest contemporary
realities, absorbed the cerebral activity of them all.
And now a literary event took place, equal in historical
importance to the advent of naturalism. Paul Bourget re-
newed the psychological novel. The intellectual needs of a
numerous public demanded this renaissance. Many of them,
thoroughly satiated with the picturesque and with naturalistic
lyricism, felt a real hunger for ideas. The new novel satis-
fied it opportunely, and consequently its fortune was rapid
and triumphant. Bourget himself, with great modesty, has
always stated that he merely took up the thread of tradition.
As the principal branches of his genealogical tree he men-
tions Madame de La Fayette, L’Abbé Prévost, Laclos,
Constant, and Fromentin (see the preface to “ Gladys’ by
Hugues le Roux). We should add to this list the names of
Stendhal, Balzac, and Feydeau (“Fanny”), and also (on ac-
count of the sensual mysticism with which “Cruelle Enigme,”
“Crime d’Amour,” and “Mensonges” are impregnated)
those of Chateaubriand and Sainte-Beuve. Balzac's method
of painting the largest frescoes of contemporary history with
an infinite succession of tiny touches is also that of Paul -
Bourget. The resemblance continues in inspiration. Baron
Desforges belongs to the family of Baron Hulot; René Vinci
is a new Rubempré, less active and more sensitive. Around

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 23
them, as around Balzac's characters, one feels the swarming
life of the world of their contemporaries.
But Paul Bourget owes only to himself, to his comprehen-
sion of the intellectual necessities of his age, the formula by
which he has succeeded in influencing almost all the young
writers. He has placed in the centre of his work, as an es-
sential principle, what was only a tendency in Stendhal—the
subordination of the moral and the picturesque to the psycho-
logical. He has done it, and he succeeded in making it clear
that he was doing it. The result was more than an evolution;
it was an instantaneous revolution; and nevertheless it seems
as if its consequences must last indefinitely. For the public,
accustomed by the psychological novel to strong intellectual
nourishment, will hardly accept again the insufficient food
with which it formerly put up. The novel of adventure, the
novel of customs, the descriptive novel, and even the romantic
novel, will not cease to exist, on this account, but henceforth
they will be obliged to give some attention to the cerebral
demands of the reader. One of the most magnificent ex-
amples of this influence, and one which must have been most
flattering to Paul Bourget, was that it had an immediate effect
on one of his great contemporaries, Guy de Maupassant.
Bourget can say that, but for him, the author of the “Maison
Tellier’’ would never have written “Pierre et Jean.”
Not at all “bookish,” without any other literary ties than
those which bind him to Flaubert and to the Chateaubriand
of “ Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe,” Pierre Loti is essentially

24 THE FRENCH NOVEL
an enchanter. The charm of his melancholy, the magic of
his descriptions filled with the sea-green tremor of the At-
lantic waves and reflecting the luminous solitudes of the
Orient, tend to found on the enamored admiration of his
readers the glory of a poet, rather than the reputation of a
modern story-teller. It is especially the poet who inspires
the fervor of all those who practise the religion of Pierre
Loti. An almost ecstatic perception of picturesque reality
and a marvellous gift of style—that style made of one knows
not what, and which is, therefore, the best—assure the author
of “Mon Frère Yves” and of “Spahi’’ a place of his own
in French literature, sheltered from the fluctuations of fashion
and the infatuations of school.
As much may be said of Anatole France. This heir of
Voltaire and Renan; the poet of the “Noces Corinthiennes,”
worthy of Goethe: the conjurer of the phantom of Thais; the
moralist who inspired the indulgent wisdom and delicate
epicureanism of the Abbé Jérome Coignard, –is he, strictly
speaking, a novelist? His universal curiosity now contem-
plates the eternal beauty of thought and of the universe, now
takes pleasure in following, as in “L’Orme du Mail,” the
evolutions of the little familiar world which converses with
Monsieur Bergeret. But even in the novel Anatole France
keeps his personality, his incommunicable talents of philoso-
pher and artist. By the latter, he in turn has greatly in-
fluenced the literary generation of the last fifteen years. He
has refined the reasoning and the style of whoever has sub-
mitted to his amiable discipline. Happy are those whom the

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 25
admiration for Anatole France has not swept into the error of
trying to imitate him! He is essentially inimitable. As
Virgil said of Homer, as well try to steal the club of Her-
cules. His imitators have given us only reflections,—with-
out life, without color. The charm of Anatole France’s tales
emanates precisely from his personality, which is constantly
revealed in them and, so to speak, forms their plot. This
personality is incommunicable. The grace of inspiration,
the philosophically ingenious use of erudition, and an ex-
tremely well-bred wit, form a unique whole. The extreme
rarity of such gifts condemns Anatole France to an isolation
in which his work shines like Thais in the desert.
The name of Anatole France closes the list of writers
whose evolution may be considered as having been accom-
plished at the present day, and whose talent is settled in its
definite expression. Coming later, other talents are growing,
which it would be impertinent to judge, or even to define,
while they are still in full evolution. For instance, two of
the best novels published in the last ten years are unquestion-
--
ably “Le Calvaire * and “ Peints par Eux-Mémes.” But
since “Le Calvaire’’ M. Mirbeau has done brilliant work as
a polemic and a dramatist; since writing “ Peints par Eux-
Mēmes” M. Paul Hervieu has made remarkable progress with
“Les Tenailles’’ and “La Loi de l’Homme.” What will be
the next novels of these two novelists whom life so stirs to
violence? This question will have to be answered by the
critic who, toward the year 2000, shall be intrusted with the

26 THE FRENCH NOVEL
duty of critically summing up the literature of the twentieth
century. And, however singular it may appear to us, he will
class them legitimately as authors of the twentieth century,
because the major part of their literary efforts will have really
belonged to the twentieth century.
This same critic—who will be born about 1965–will
praise, with the independence permitted by the flight of time,
the ironical grace of the social satires of Henri Lavedan,
the intense creative power of Paul Adam, the intellectual sup-
pleness and distinction of Abel Hermant, the emotion and
strength of the brothers Margueritte, the artistic power of
Léon Daudet and the Rosnys, the vibrant sincerity of Lucien
Descaves, the somewhat grave charm of Edouard Rod, the
fine sensitiveness of René Bazin, and the artistic intelligence
of Fernand Vandérem. Jules Renard, Edouard Estauniè,
Gustave Toudouze, and Lucien Muhlfeld will each require a
long analysis. Although he has been a novelist only by fits
and starts, the history of the novel will not forget the great
poet, Catulle Mendès. A few of René Maizercy's delicately
voluptuous pages will be mentioned. Finally, among those
who, still very young, are watching the brilliant literary sun-
set of this century, -Michel Corday, Camille Vergniol, Louis
de Robert, Gaston Volnay, Louis Bertrand, Rémi Saint-
Maurice, Maxime Formont, René Boylesve, etc., -the critic
of the year 2000 will doubtless be able to salute the master
of to-morrow, the renewer of the incomparable French novel
so gloriously alive throughout the nineteenth century.

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