La canne de jonc

"Hélas, je suis, Seigneur, puissant et solitaire, Laissez moi m'endormir du sommeil de la terre."

Even then the poet's thoughts ran on the sufferings of those whom genius or a higher sense of duty separated from their fellow-men, a topic worked out in Slello and in Serviticde et Grandeur Militaires. He was already becoming what he was afterwards named, le Mêlanchthon du Romantisme1.

1 Victor Hugo being, I suppose, its Luther. But the analogy is not a very good one.

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The Classical and Romantic Schools.

The publication of Eloa committed de Vigny to the Romanticists, whose conflict with the Classical School had by that time begun in earnest. The names require a little explanation. In literature and art there are generally two opposite tendencies at work. On the one hand is the severe self-restraint arising from the observance of time-honoured rules and the study of the best models, a self-restraint apt to degenerate into routine. Contrasted with it is the desire to give free play to fancy, and to try and realise the unknown and mysterious, which in its turn may lapse into waywardness and unintelligibility. The one tendency produced the Greek temple, the other the Gothic cathedral. In French literature the conflict was long delayed, and it is therefore easier to follow its history. It raged most fiercely round the drama. The great writers of the 17th century, Racine and Corneille, imitated Greek tragedy, and their example controlled several succeeding generations, as might be expected where literature was not popular, but the amusement of a select few. Chief among the laws to which they conformed was that of the three unities, of time, of place, and of action. It was considered essential that the time covered by the action should not be much longer than that occupied by the drama, that the whole should go on in one place, and that the plot should be single1, bringing in no side interest to distract the audience from the fortunes of the hero. All such rules are entirely disregarded by Shakespeare, the model of the romantic school. He shifts the scene from place to place, often at the shortest intervals ; he extends the action over long periods, in the Winter's Tale, even over half a lifetime ; and lastly he allows several plots to go on side by side, as, for example, in the Merchant of Ve?iice, where the loves of Portia, Nerissa and Jessica are worked into the main story of Shylock

1 "Deux actions dans une pièce c'était un crime de lèse-tragédie."

x INTRODUCTION.

and Antonio1. Again, the classical school insisted on a rigorous exclusion of commonplace words and expressions ; hymen took the place of mariage, immoler of assassiner, and spies were called, not espions, but

' Ces mortels dont l'état gage la vigilance.'

There was, in fact, some risk of approaching the pedantry which Molière ridicules when he makes his Précieuses talk of chairs as commodités de conversation.

The real founder of the romantic school in France was J. J. Rousseau, but it was rather by example than by precept. The doctrines of Romanticism are more definitely traced to Mme. de Staël's famous book de V Allemagne (1813), in which she introduced Goethe, Schiller and the other leaders of the corresponding movement in Germany to the notice of her countrymen. Mme. de Staël was essentially of the 18th century; her contemporary Chateaubriand, welcoming with enthusiasm the revival of Christianity and the restoration of monarchy, sought his inspiration in the feudal and Catholic middle ages rather than in the pagan world of Greece and Rome. Thus from the point of view both of advanced thinkers and of political and religious Conservatives the tide was setting against Classicism.

Cinq-Mars.

Chateaubriand, as has been said, personified in France the reaction against the 18th century and the revived interest in the Middle Ages. A greater writer, Sir Walter Scott, was propagating the same ideas in England, and his influence was strongly felt in France. It inspired de Vigny's first important prose work, Cinq-Mars (1826). His training and associations, like those of his great contemporary Victor Hugo, had been such as to make him a partisan of the ancien régime, and his early studies had given him a great interest in the reign of Louis XIII. It was therefore very natural that he should select for his hero

1 See Moulton's Lectures on the Classical Drama for an arrangement of Macbeth as a classical drama, an illustration which brings out, far better than any description can, the difference of the two schools,:

INTR OD UCTION. xi

an opponent of Richelieu, who did so much to break down feudalism. The hero of the story, which at once achieved considerable success, is Henri d'Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars, one of Louis's favourites in the latter part of his life, and the leader of an unsuccessful conspiracy against Richelieu.

Le Cénacle.

The period immediately after the publication of Cinq-Mars was that of de Vigny's greatest literary activity. In 1828 a small society, known as le Cénacle, gathered round Victor Hugo. It included, besides de Vigny, the two Deschamps, Emile and Alfred, the great critic Ste-Beuve, then known chiefly as a poet under the pseudonym of Joseph Delorme, and Alfred de Musset, together with a sculptor David (d'Angers), and a painter, Joseph Boulanger. They spent their evenings together, and studied the chronicles and the architecture of the Middle Ages, and everything that threw light upon them. It was the time when Victor Hugo's wonderful poems, les Orientales, were written, and when he was meditating still bolder flights.

Dramatic Works.

In 1829 Victor Hugo offered Hernani, the first great romantic French drama, to the Théâtre Français, but it was not performed till the memorable night of Feb. 25, 1830. Meantime de Vigny prepared the way for it by a translation of Ot/icllo, which was acted in 1829. Its appearance, he tells us, created as much scandal as if the Moor had committed sacrilege in a church. One amusing bit of literary history, illustrating the pedantry of the Classicists, is given in a letter of his to an English nobleman, written just after the performance. Twice, he says, in 1732 and in 1792 had a handkerchief vainly attempted to appear on the French stage. In the first instance it was replaced by a billet-doux, in the second by a tiara of diamonds. In 1820, in a French version of Schiller's Maria Stuart, the handkerchief had actually been seen in the hands of the heroine ; but it was called either tissu or don; it was not till 1829 that the dreaded word

xii INTRODUCTION.

mouchoir had been heard by a French audience. What must have been the feelings of the Classicists when they heard the famous lines in Hernani,

" Serait-ce l'écurie où tu mets d'aventure Le manche de balai qui te sert de monture?"

De Vigny's other dramatic works were an adaptation of the Merchant of Venice, written in 1828, but never acted, La Maréchale d'Ancre (1830), an episode of the reign of Louis XIII., with which he was so familiar, a comedy, Quitte pour la Peur (1831), and Chatterton (1835), an extension of the story of the unhappy young English poet related in Stcllo.

Other Prose Works.

Perhaps his greatest successes were the two groups of short tales entitled Stello ou les Diables Bleus (1832) and Servitude et Grandeur Militaires (1835). Stello, containing several stories, including those of Chatterton and André Chenier, strung together on a slight thread, is intended to show the sufferings of the poet, misunderstood or unappreciated by his contemporaries. The other book, from which La Canne de Jonc is taken, brings out the hard fate of the soldier, out of place in a peaceful and civilized society, yet capable of an elevation of character and a high sense of duty rarely found in any other profession.

Admission to the Academy.

After 1835 de Vigny wrote but little. He was naturally sensitive and retiring ; his mother's long illness took up much of his time and thought, and his own health was far from good. He felt, too, that his ideal was not easily attainable.

" Vigny, plus secret Comme en sa tour d'ivoire avant midi entrait."

It was not till 1845 that he received the honour so dear to a French man of letters, a seat in the French Academy. On such occasions it is usual for the récipiendaire, the new member, to pronounce an eulogium of his predecessor and for the President

INTR OD UCTION. xiii

to reply. M. de Vigny was unfortunate in his predecessor. M. Etienne, whose funeral oration he had to pronounce, had been known first as a writer of comedy, chiefly of light comedy, and then as a journalist and placeman, and had been quite out of sympathy with the romantic movement. De Vigny's speech, finished and graceful as it was, was somewhat too elaborate, and dwelt unnecessarily on the contrast between men of thought and men of action, and on the literary conflict in which he had borne a part in earlier life. He thus, to a certain extent, laid himself open to the unkind reply of M. Mole, the President, a statesman who had served three successive governments, and whose literary sympathies had never been with the romantic school. Some of the points of M. Mole's speech are mentioned in the notes.

De Vigny died in 1863. After his death were published a small collection of poems, Les Destinées, and a selection from his note-book, Le Journal d'un Poète. Those who want to extend their knowledge of his works and his literary position should read J. S. Mill's Essay on him in Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. 1. Further ideas about both de Vigny and the Romantic movement may be gained from an interesting book by a distinguished French schoolmaster, M. Charles Gidel's Histoire de la Littérature française depuis 18 15. To both books I am much indebted.