14. FRENCH LITERATURE. Life is rhythm and movement. It advances in waves. The centuries dash to a flood-climax with ebb and flow. Human thought, as expressed in literature, follows this law. The year 1800, from this point of view, represents a climax achieved and a new departure. The revolution was not completed, but it was confirmed. Its effects flow on to the infinite, becoming diver sified, complicated, forever extending. That which seemed but a crisis,—was an advent. Its acute period came to an end ceding the place to new activities. The ground had been worked and the time seemed ripe for fresh con quests. The old world shook off its lethargy and with curiosity one sought to read the fu ture and discover what new surprises it re served. Aristocratic society so-calied no longer existed. Henceforth the people were the dominant factor. Their voice commenced to be heard, their grievances were championed in the press. But in such an innovation entail ing a proper preparation and a certain cuture the masses were as yet but amateurs translat ing their thoughts into phrases lightly copied from the works of the orators of the old Roman epoch. It was the beginning of a jour nalism emanating from a gossip loving public and disseminated through the medium of pam phlets of a semi-serious and trivial character. They monopolized the power of the old aris tocracy and substituted the judgment of the people for that of the Elite. Accordingly, in 1800, Bonaparte having pacified the intellec tuals, dissipated and defined the revolutionary formulae, one awaited for a new style to be launched from the residue of so much chaos. Now from out the soil of France is perceived the growth of a mighty tree the roots of which deeply embedded bloom forth into powerful branches rising -majestically as an emblem in the land. In this way is pictured the intellec tual vitality of the country. At the root of this tree is seen a genius serving both as a solid link to tradition and a bold forerunner of the future. This genius, by origin and tem perament, is admirably suited to serve as tran sitory agent between two civilizations destined to progress without opposition to their detri ment. That genius is CHATEAUBRIAND.
Chiteaubriand was to dominate the century. His mind stimulated it. Through him sprang up all those currents of ideas, all those modifi cations of rhythms. His satellites whatever their qualifications merely followed in his foot steps. He was born at Saint Malo at a time when the old regime was toppling, but not too late for him to comprehend it. He was of noble birth and of refined upbringing. The aristocrat blood in his veins was the basis of his genius, entirely dominating his mind. Born by the seaside in country adjacent to wild land his infancy was spent in solitary roaming, re turning timidly to the famous Château de Corn bourg where the figure of a maniacal father was apt to create a mysterious and gloomy atmosphere. His education corrected and com
pleted his birth, his was a domineering mind as it was imaginative. For these two reasons he found himself solitary - and realized that the only remedy was escape and travel. He en larged his mind by voyages to America, visit ing Niagara and Florida, returning from these countries with ineffaceable memories. Through intimate contact with the growing republic of the United States his political conceptions be came modified. The life led by the savages of Ohio showed him a simplified humanity. He quite understood the events which recalled him to France. He took side with those of his caste as a matter of though his sym pathies were with the newcomers. He could feel that the cause for which he was fighting was a forlorn one. The day of Royalty was past. With the fall of the Bourbons he read the sign of the times resulting in the probable downfall of all the thrones of Europe. This idea obsessed him, making him highly melan choly, and consumed with a feverish curiosity. He has revealed to us this dual sentiment, with which is intermingled a superior scepticism and an irony which shield him. He was solitary, egoistic, independent —a lover of self. He was devoted but knew that his devotion was sterile, and practised it merely in an ornamen tal way. He was an observer of people and allowed himself to be observed. His memoirs teem with portraits resembling in a remarkable degree those of Saint Simon. He judged events and did more than merely understand them by admitting them; he concealed his conclusions — we live them in the present times — he was unquestionably a man of the moment, gifted with foresight, to which much of his success was due. He transferred Christianity from an active domain to an artistic realm, realizing that it was the only means of safeguarding and reviving it. He revered antiquity but did not forget to portray for us other beauties; he was the discoverer of artistic America and all other countries came under his spell. In Chauteau briand we have a belated classiciit, a budding romanticist, a symbolicist in embryo and even the sophistry of a decadent school. To him is due the nostalgia of foreign words of which we are not yet cured: Onondagas, gulyve,— all the nostalgia of unfamiliar rhythms; in his description of the dance of the ants he has reduced to a state of lassitude the style which Chrysothome calls Athutnia or "marque d'ame? He has said of himself, "Je suis un pinible songe" am a troubled dreare). How true is his motto 9e seine sow golds). His followers have merely to draw on this inestimable legacy: Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Sand, Barris and others, all are indisputably his disciples. When expressing himself he expressed the century in its most liberal moods, its most perverse periods and its moments of depression, in a language so fascinating that it constitutes one of the gems of French literature.