INTRODUCTION

Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve was born at Boulognesur-Mer, December 23, 1804. His father, François de Sainte-Beuve,^ was controller of taxes for the arrondissement of Boulogne. His mother, whose maiden name was Augustine Coilliot, was of English descent. The father died some three months before the birth of his son, and Madame de Sainte- Beuve was left in somewhat straitened circumstances, but still the boy was given good instruction in the school of M. Blériot at Boulogne until his fourteenth year, when he was sent to Paris at his own request. There he studied successively at the Collège Charlemagne and at the Collège Bourbon. He showed great ability during these student days, and in his last year took a first prize in Latin verse. Although his natural inclination was toward a literary career, for the next three years, from 1824 to 1827, he studied medicine, and incidentally the natural sciences and mathematics. This scientific study was probably undertaken at the wish of his mother, who could not appreciate a literary career, and derived little pleasure from her son's success until he became a member of the Academy. .

During his medical studies his mind had been working in

^ The father and several of his ancestors had been designated as de Sainte- Beuve, although they did not claim nobility. Sainte-Beuve never used the particle, however.

yi INTRODUCTION.

Other directions as well. He busied himself with the history and literature of France, and early began his literary work.

In 1824 M. Dubois, who had been one of his teachers for a short time at the Collège Charlemagne founded a newspaper, the Globe^ which stood for advanced political ideas, and also for advanced literary ideas, as it was the organ of the new Romantic movement. Sainte-Beuve became one of the regular contributors to this paper, and through this means was brought into contact with Jouffroy, Ampère, Mérimée, and other literary men of the day. The articles which he contributed to the Globey written upon a variety of literary and historical topics, extend over a period of three years, and while they display no remarkable style or system, his knowledge of books is apparent and his judgment sound. These writings, collected in three volumes after his death, were named Premiers Lundis.

In the course of this series of articles, in 1827 Sainte-Beuve reviewed Hugo's Odes et Ballades. This review brought him to the notice of the poet, who introduced him to the members of the Romantic group, and they soon received him as one of their number. For the next few years, Sainte-Beuve was under the literary influence of these associates, and leaving the field of criticism temporarily he brought out anonymously, in 1829, a volume of poems, entitled. La Vie et Poésies de Joseph^ Delorme^ which was followed the next year by another volume of poetry. Les Consolations. His last collection of poems, Pensées d'Août^ appeared some years later. To complete the list of his works written under the influence of the Romantic school must be mentioned a novel. Volupté^ which appeared in 1834. The poetry was not very successful, and has been very little read, although it possesses decided merit. The novel. Volupté^ is a singular book in a realistic style, which has been described as a connecting link between Rousseau, and Flaubert and Zola,

INTRODUCTION. vii

The same year in which his first volume of poems appeared, 1829, he resumed his critical writing, after a sojourn of two years in the camp of the Romanticists. He now wrote for the Revue des Deux Mondes and Revue de Paris the articles which have since been reprinted in book form under various titles, — such as Portraits^ Portraits Littéraires^ and Portraits Contemporains.

For three years, from 1 831 to 1834, he was associated with Armand Carrel on the staff of the National, a political paper of liberal tendencies. He took no active part in politics, however, and, while supposed to be a Republican, had nothing to do with the July Revolution, and reaped no benefits from it until 1840, when he was made conservateur of the Mazarin Library. Some years before, he had commenced to study the Jansenist movement in the seventeenth century, and in the course of the winter of 1837-8 he delivered an extended course of lectures on the history of Port Royal before the Academy of Lausanne. Later, in i860, these lectures, after being revised, were published in five volumes. They have been republished in six and seven volume editions.

After some opposition, in which Victor Hugo is believed to have participated, Sainte-Beuve was elected to fill the chair of Casimir Delavigne in the Academy in 1844, and the next year he was received by Hugo.

In 1848 he delivered at the University of Liège a course of lectures on French literature, and at the same time gave a series of public lectures on Chateaubriand and his school. The latter were published in book form under the title Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire. Before going to Liège, however, he endeavored to ascertain, through an English friend, whether there was any chance of his being engaged in a similar capacity at the University of Oxford.

After the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon, in 1852, Sainte- Beuve accepted the Empire without protest. His entir<^

viii INTRODUCTION.

apathy on all political questions has caused much comment. It is probable that the very slight consideration shown for his ability by the preceding government had, in this case, increased his natural indifference.

In 1854 he was made professor of Latin poetry at the College de France^ but the students refused to receive him for political reasons, behaving in such a disorderly fashion that he soon abandoned the position.

Before this disappointment, however, Sainte-Beuve had begun the literary work which has been his greatest achievement. He accepted, in 1849, an offer to write a regular iirtt)dy feuilleton on some literary topic for the Constitutionnel^ and on October ist of that year appeared the first of the series of articles which have been known as the Causeries du Lundi, For twenty years, almost without interruption, these articles appeared, and they were published in book form as fast as possible. Appearing in the Constitutionnel until 1852 they were then transferred to the Moniteur Officiel^ the government paper, where they continued to appear, with slight interruptions, until 1 86 1. At a time when most of the literary men were standing aloof from the Empire, this action on the part of Sainte-Beuve is noteworthy. In 1861 he accepted another engagement with the Constitutionnel, which lasted until 1868. The first series was composed of fifteen volumes, and the second, known as the Nouveaux Lundis^ comprising ten volumes at the time of his death, in 1869, was completed later by the addition of three volumes.

The most important event in his later years was his nomination as senator in 1865; but his political career cannot be called successful. In 1867 the minister of Public Instruction was attacked in the Senate for having favored atheism and materialism in the appointment of Renan to a professorship in the Collège de France. Sainte-Beuve instantly rose to protest against this attack, taking his friend's part and defend-

INTRODUCTION. ÎX

îng liberty of thought. Later in the same year he read a carefully prepared speech on liberty of free thought and free inquiry, which was received with favor by the students and the general public, although scoffed at by his colleagues. Aside from this event he was in no way prominent in the Senate.

Sainte-Beuve occupies an interesting place in the literary history of the century. His early attempts ^t poetry and fiction are to be considered as mere episodes in his career, the natural result of the influences which were at work upon him. Hugo was to be the poet of the Romantic school, while the rôle of critic was destined for Sainte-Beuve. Before him few in the field of literary criticism had dared to break away from the narrow and conservative rules which had been handed down by tradition. Villemain had tried in a broad way to attribute the general characteristics of the literature of a country to its social condition. But it remained for Sainte- Beuve to consider each individual in himself, and to seek in each literary work, for the expression, not merely of a society, but of a temperament.

His literary studies, the Causeries, are essays which average about twenty pages in length, and their subjects cover the whole field of French literature. He has succeeded in these articles in writing a series of descriptions of people, which are unparalleled in their accuracy. His judgments are almost always trustworthy and unbiased.

Belonging to no party or sect, influenced during the course of his life by Romanticism, materialism, scepticism, and Saint- Simonianism, and identifying himself with none of these doctrines, he found ample opportunity for a full expansion of his critical powers and for the acquirement of a knowledge of men. Applying great care and diligence to all that he wrote, it is not wonderful that the published volumes of his essays were widely read outside of France. No such array o'