INTRODUCTION XXV

tion of Herodotus into archaic French. A fragment of this translation appeared in 1833 with a very curious préface (see pp. 158-169), which deserves to be better known among thc author's works.

His literary tastes were very exclusive. In French he cared only for the great sixteenth and seventeenth century classics, from whom he forged his own style, 'cette prose si méditée et si savante.'^ He abhorred the windy rhetoric and sloppy sentiment of the eighteenth century (see p. 86, 1. 2731, and Note). He hardly mentions, except derisively, the founders of Romanticism in the early nineteenth century (Chateaubriand, Mme de Staël, Lamennais, Lamartine, etc.) : ' M. de Lamartine, dont vous louez les ouvrages, me semble avoir pris dans nos lois une bonne partie de son style, ou bien nos lois ont été faites en style de M. Lamartine. ** Outrager la morale publique " est une phrase tout-à-fait dans le goût des Méditations? 2 One performance, no doubt badly travestied, of Shakespeare was enough for him (see p. 8), and the great romantic actor Talma is damned with faint praise (see p. 8).

His one litefary passion was his love of Greek, and there seems to be no doubt as to his scholarship in that language. And in Greek what he cherished was style. Although he carried a pocket Homer (p. 33), his préférence seems to hâve been for the orators and historians, not for their subject matter, for he had little receptivity for ideas and scoffed at history (see p. 31), but for their perfection of expression. The fact that he seldom quotes Greek may be explained by his désire to reach a wider public, but his prose is as saturated with Latin and Greek réminiscences as Chénier's verse, though he usually quotes from memory, and seldom with verbal accuracy.

The text given hère is that of the édition published in 1834 by Paulin-Perrotin, successors to Sautelet, the original pub-

^ Sainte-Beuve, op, cit. p. 352.

^ Lettre au rédacteur de la Quotidienne^ Nov. 3, 1823.

Hsher (1828) of the Mémoires, Correspondance et Opuscules inédits de Paul-Louis Courier (sce Bibliography, p. 226). It represents, for the Lettres, the final remaniement on which the author was engaged at the time of his death, and which apparenlly was not available for the eariier édition ; but a comparison with the latter shows that in some cases unauthorized changes hâve been made {e.g, p. 2, 1. 56), while in others grotesque blunders hâve been perpetrated (e,g. p. 48, 1. 15 11), which hâve persisted in modem reprints. I hâve coUated the two States of the text, and restored the eariier reading wherever the later appears to hâve been accidentally or intentionally corrupted.^ The footnotes, no doubt the work of Courier, are retained. For the Pamphlets I hâve also compared the édition of F. de Caussade (1880), which claims to represent the text of the actual brochures circulated during Courier's lifetime.

French éditions usually arrange the works under headings such as Pamphlets politiques. Pamphlets littéraires. Correspondance, etc., putting last in order the Lettres, which constitute Courier's most consummate literary achievement. This arrangement dates from the édition of 1834, a period at which the Pamphlets had still enough actualité to cfause them to be regarded as the author's chief title to famé. In the présent sélection the chronological order is strictly observed, the Lettres coming first. The actual process of sélection has been difficult, and some critics may think that the space accorded to the Lettres is unduly generous. My own conviction has always been that they hâve in them much more of immortality than the Pamphlets, The latter deal chiefly with political incidents and Systems which are now only of antiquarian interest. The former touch ever, though lightly and superficially, on thèmes of etemal interest, such as art, literature, the beauty of

^ The différences are considérable in the eariier letters up to the year 1806, after which the two texts become practically identical. We may thus infer that Courier's death interrupted the revision. Several of the répétitions which occur (e.g. p. 32, 1. 995, p. 44, 1. 1410) would probably hâve disappeared if his task had been completed.

INTRODUCTION XXVll

nature, the ironies of life. Still, both as letter-writer and pamphleteer, Courier will always remain the joy of cultivated readers. *A défaut d'une popularité compromettante, le culte des lettrés doit suffire à Courier. Qu'on préfère ses Lettres ou qu'on goûte davantage ses Pamphlets^ il "restera dans la littérature française comme un type d'écrivain unique et rare," ^ car tout ce qui est sorti de sa plume offre le caractère de la perfection.' ^

* Sainte-Beuve, op. cit. p. 360.

^ Gaschet, Paul-Louis Courier et la Restauration^ p. 273.