Stendhal & French Classicism

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Stendhal and French ClassicismAuthor(s): Colbert SearlesSource: PMLA, Vol. 30, No. 3 (1915), pp. 433-450Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/456944 .

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P-UBLICATIONS

OF

THE

Modern

anguage

ssociationf

America

VOL.

XXX,

3

NEW

SERIES,

VOL.

XXIII,

3

XIII.-STENDHAL

AND

FRENCH

CLASSICISM

In

Rouge

et

Noir,

Stendhal

(Henri

Beyle) defines a

novel as a miroir: qui se promenesur la grande route.

We

may apply

this

figure

o his

Correspondance

which,

less open

to the

suspicion of

pose than

his

other

writings,

reflectsmuchof la

vie

litteraire

f

France

during the

first

four decades of

the

nineteenth

century.

Stendhal

was

brought

up

on

a

classicist

regime,

he

saw

the

passing of

pseudo-classicism,

e

contributed o

the

triumph

f

roman-

ticism and was himself realist,before hetermhad been

invented. In a

letter o

Mr.

StritchofLondon,

written

n

1823 in

the

midst of the

romanticist

bullition, he

de-

clared:

Le

caractere

principal de la

nation

franqaise

est

la mefianceii,

p.

296).

No

onecould offer

more

natu-

ral

qualificationsfor

recognition s the

spokesmanof

his

nation n

this

regard, han this

man,

who,

French bybirth,

wroteundera Germanpseudonym nd had himselfburied

as

a

citizen

of

Milan

under the

Italian

inscription

which

he had

composed for

his own

tombstone.

'Paris,

1908,

3

vols.

433







434

COLBERT

SEARLES

The entirely

classic nature of Stendhal's

early literary

training, uchas it was, is revealed n his early correspond-

ence with

his sister, whose

education

he attempted to

direct. Si

ton

go-ut

est

juste, tu placeras Corneille

et

Racine au

premierrang des

tragiques

frangais,

Voltaire et

Crebillon au

deuxieme

.

. . Je finisen

te recommandant

de lire sans cesse Racine

et Corneille, je suis comme

I'eglise,

hors

de la, point de salut (i, p.

33). She was

to

commit to memory certain roles from the plays of the

French classic authors n

order to form

her language (i,

p. 145), and

he joined example to precept:

Je lis chaque

soir

avant

de me

coucher,

quelque fatigue

que je

sois, un

acte de

Racine

pour apprendre

a

parler

frangais.

Les

jours ofu e

n'ai pas mon

maitre d'anglais, je lis, en

me

levant, une

piece

de Corneille

(i, p. 33). Such was

his

enthusiasmthat: quand je lis Racine, Voltaire, iMioliere,

Virgile,

l'Orlando

Furioso,

j'oublie le reste du monde

(i,

p. 124).

His taste was so severely

lassic that

he could see very

little merit

in the successors

and imitatorsof the classic

French authors.

In 1801, at the age of eighteen,he

as-

sures

his sister

that

she will see: l'immense

distance

qui

sapare Racine de Crebillon et la foule des imitateursde

ce

dernier

i, p. 16).

If,

in

1802,

he is

disposed

to re-

commend

La

Harpe

for: les

premiersprincipes

i,

p.

32),

he recognizes

that his

" taste

is

not

sure,"

and his

con-

tempt

for

him

finally

developed

even unto hatred

(iii,

p. 258).

Le Cours

Analytique

of

Lemercier he

judged:

assez

ridicule

(II, p.

382),

and he characterized

Nisard

as: un fat qui n'a pas une idee

(III,

p. 125). None of

the

pseudo-classic

poet-celebrities

ind

favor in his

eyes.

Delille

is an: amant

tartuffe

e la

nature

(i, p. 32); Ray-

nouard

is

a:

savant

qui

avait de

l'esprit

dans sa

jeunesse

(II,

p.

282);

Lemercier

a fait

douze ou

quinze tragedies









436 COLBERT

SEARLES

tial letters f his. In 1804 he writes to his sister: j'etais

ce qu'on appelle tout cceur. Cette folie me donna quel-

ques momentsde la plus divine illusion (i, p. 130);

in

1807, une

eglise

gothique

environnee

d'arbres

decrepits

et couverte

de

neige

me touche

(i, p. 312);

in

1810,

ce

qui m'a

touche

le plus dans mon

voyage

d'Italie, c'est le

chant des

oiseaux

dans

le

Colisee (i, p. 373);

in

1813,

quand je

suis

seul, je ris et pleure pour un rien, mais les

pleurs sont toujours pour les arts

(i,

p. 406); in 1832,

describing certainman,

he

declares: il aimie ommemoi,

avec

passion, folie,

betise

(iii,

p. 66),

and the character

of this man is: passionne et ombrageux ib., p. 70).

But

he anticipated Flaubert in his impatiencefor the exces-

sive

mal

de

siecle of

his

contemporaries,

nd no

one

has

characterized

more

picturesquely than he the romantic

sentimentalityf the period. C'est un homme speaking

of

J.

J.

Rousseau) qui

fendant une

racine

de

noyer au

milieu de la cour, s'efforcerait e faire entrer son coin

par

le

gros bout,

ne

parviendrait u' 'a casser sa masse,

et

sur

le

midi, degofute

e

ses

efforts,

rait

pleurer

dans

un

coin

de

la

cour;

bientot l

s'exalterait

a

tete,

se mettrait

a

croire

qu'il y a

de l'honneur

a etre malheureux et, de

suite, qu'il est excessivement

malheureux....

En

general les malheureux de ce genre dans le monde, ne

sont

que

des

sots,

les

trois

quarts

de

ces

me6lancolies

e

sont

que

des

folies.

C'est

malheureusement

a maladie

des jeunes gens

du

siecle et des jeunes femmes i, p. 184).

Instead of seeing

in

Stendhal a deplace, we should

rather

go

to the

opposite

extreme

nd

regard

him

as very

much a man of his period. It was that and nothing lse

that

made him

such

an

ardent

champion

of

the

romantic

movement.

In

1818

he

predicted:

L'invasion

des

idees

lib6rales

va amener

une nouvelle

litterature

II,

p. 86).

Two years

later

he

wrote

to

a friend: Vous

vous

moquiez







STENDHAL AND

FRENCH CLASSICISM

437

de

moi

quand je vous disais que le

romanticisme tait

la racine ou la queue dui liberalisme, il fait dire: exa-

minons et

meprisons l'ancien (ii,

p. 187). L'ancien

synonymous

with

classicism,

had become:

une

vieille

platitude (ii, p. 112); romanticism

offered omething

new: Voil'a le principe du romanticisme

ue vous ne sen-

tiez pas assez. Le merite

est d'administrer

a un

public

le

drogue juste qui lui fera plaisir

(ii, p. 168).3

He

believed that the French nation desired to see upon its

stage tragedies derived

from

its own

national life,

just

as the

English could see their

national life

portrayed

n

the tragedies

of

Henry

VI.

and Richard II.

But: cela

est

impossible en

employant e vers

alexandrin

frangais,

qui, dit La

Harpe, n'admet que le

tiers de la langue (ii,

p.

296).>

But Stendhal was not at all inclined to bow before the

foreign

romanticist nfluenceswhich

were so potent with

his contemporaries. In 1816, he

declared:

Il

faut

bien

separer cette

cause (romanticism) de

celle de ce pauvre

et

tristepedant Schlegel qui sera dans

la

boue au

premier

jour

(ii,

p.

12.) None

of

the Germans pleased him, not

even Schiller,

whom

he almost

admired, but who bored

him because: on voit le rheteur

ii,

p. 187). As for the

English:

Je ne connais

pas de gens plus bavards et plus

froids. Ils

n'ont produit qu'un

grand homme et qu'un

fou. Le

grand homme est Shakespeare.et Milton le

fou

(I,

p. 98). Walter Scott, whom he

presents as the most

$Letter of

1820.

Cf.

Racine et

Shakespeacre,

Paris,

1823. Le

romanticisme

est

l'art

de

pr6senter ux

peuples

des

ceuvres itt6raires

qui,

dans 1'6tat

actuel

de

leurs

habitudes et

de leurs

croyances, sont

susceptibles de leur donner

le plus

de

plaisir

possible.

4In

this

connection

Stendhal

suggests the

subject of Lac

Mort de

Henri Ill,

which,

treated by

Dumas

(1829), was

to

win

the first

great

theatre-triumph

of

the

romanticists.

See,

Le

Roy,

L'Asbe

du

th6dtre

romaentique,

aris,

1904, pp. 72

f.







438

COLBERT SEARLES

popular author in

France

in

1823,5

impresses

him as

being: un peu grossier et un peu brut; ses eternelles

descriptions de

costumes ennuient et fatiguent (ii, p.

393); he is: injuste avec l'amour; il le peint mal, sans

force,

d&colore, sans energie.

On

voit qu'il

a etudie

I'amour dans les

livres

et non dans son propre

eceur

ii,

p. 272). He

considered Byron: le plus grand poete

vivant. When

he met

him

for the first ime he

confesses:

Si j'avais ose, j'aurais baise la main de Lord Byron en

fondant en

larmes (ii, p. 501).

But

this

enthusiasm

passed upon closer acquaintance: Les plaisanteries

de

Lord Byron sont

ameres dans Childe Harold

.

.

.

au

lieu

de

gaiete

et

d'insouciance, a haine et le malheur sont

au

fond. Lord

Byron n'a jamais su peindre qu'un

seul

homme:

ui-memei, p. 502).

He manifested the same sort of discontentwith the

French romanticists f his day: La poetique de Madame

de Stael est

plus mauvaise que celle de La lHarpe ou de

l'Edinburgh

Review (i, p. 117). He saw in

Rene:

la

plus belle

peinture de ces sentimentsvagues et melan-

coliques (ii, p.

373) which

were the

essence

of

romanti-

cism. But

his

general attitude

towards Chateaubriand

s

summed up in a sentencefrom a letter of 1834: J'ai

horreur de la

phrase a la Chateaubriand (iii, p. 135).

As

for

Benjamin

Constant: C'est de la bouillie pour les

enfants

ii, p.

63);

and

in

1840,

when

Sainte-Beuve

was

greetingwith

enthusiasmthe publication of the collected

works of

Xavier

de Maistre, Stendhal declared point

blank:

je

ne

puis souffrir

M.

de Maistre (III, p.

258).

As for the poets of the period, a letter of 1825 makes

this rather

startling

choice: Lamartine

est

le second

ou

le

premierpoete

de

la

France,

selon

qu'on voudra mettre

5f acine

et ShakeRpeare,Paris, 1823, . 6.







STENDIAL AND

FRENCH CLASSICISM

439

M. de

Beranger

avant ou

apres

lui

(ii, p. 373). Here

is

the explanation of Stendhal's rather exaggerated appre-

ciation ofBeranger: On voit que

M.

de Beranger, e plus

grand

poetepeut-etre

ue la France

possede,

ne laisse echap-

per aucune grande circonstance, ucune grande emotionde

l'opinion publique, sans exprimerdans ses vers,

ce

que

le monde de Paris exprime de vive voix. Ses Chansons

sont donc

exactement des

odes

nationales;

elles s'adres-

sent au sens intime des Frangais

(ii,

p. 358). As for

Lamartine, Stendhal recognized his gift of self-revela-

tion: Au contraire de nos autres poetes

frangais,

il

a

quelque chosea

dire

ii, p. 295);

iM.

de Lamartine end

avec

une

grace

divine

les sentiments qu'il

a

eprouves

(II, p. 373). But at the same time he was very keenly

alive to

Lamartine's

limitations:

Mais des qu'il

sort

de

1'expression e l'amour, il est pueril, il n'a pas irnehaute

pensee de philosophie

ou

d'observationde I'hoinme, c'est

toujours et

uniquement

un

coeur

tendre

au

desespoir de

la mort

de

sa maitresse ii, p. 282). Victor Hugo was

less likely than any other o appeal to Stendhal. In 1823

he wrote this

appreciation, the concluding sentence

of

which has been the cause of so many exclamationpoints:

Ce Al. iHugoa un talentdans le genre de Young, I'auteiir

des

Night Thoutghts;

l

est toujours

exagere

a froid; son

parti

lui

procure

un

fort

grand succes.

L'on

ne peut nier,

au

surplus,qu'il

ne

sache

fort

bien faire

des vers

frangais;

malheureusement,

l

est somnifere (ii, p. 284). He

never contests

Victor

Hugo's ability

in

the art of versifi-

cation

(ii, p. 363);

as

for

the

rest, he judged him much

as posterityhas judged: IM. Victor Hugo n'est pas un

homme

ordinaire, mais

il

veut etre

extraordinaire

IT,

p. 518).

Most of the

romanticistbattles

in

the theatre were

fought

out

during

Stendhal's

absence from Paris. He







440 COLBEUT

SEARLES

would hardly have been satisfied

with the efforts f

those

whose cause he had so noisily adopted. A letterof 1829

announces the Henri III et sa cour

of

Dumas,

with

this

characterization:Ceci est encoreHenri

III

"a

a

Marivaux

(II, p. 493).

He

seems

to have

preferred

cribe

among

all

the dramatists

f his

time, and

for

reasons

quite

simi-

lar to those which made him esteem so highly the

Chan-

sons

of Beranger.

As

for

the

novels,they

ack

force,

ike

those of Picard

(ii,

p. 370); or, like those of Madame

Cotin, they are so sentimental hat: ils sont difficiles

a

lire pour des gens agees plus de vingt-cinq ns (ii, p.

394); or, they

are absurd

in

their

attempts

t

a resusci-

tation

of

the

past:

ce

qu'il y

a de

plaisant,

c'est

que

ces

grossiers hevaliersdu

treizieme

iecle

ne disentpas vingt

paroles sans faire une allusion pleine

de

grace a

la

my-

thologie recque

ii,

p.

356).

There will be a strong nclinationto see in these sharp

criticisms

of

Stendhal so many more evidences

of

his

misanthropy, f his notoriouslyrecalcitrant disposition.

But surely that is not the whole explanation.

If

the

exaggerationand sentimentalism

f

the romanticists

rri-

tated his

critical faculties, heir abuse

of

the personal ele-

mnent ffendedhis finer sensibilities, nd he was not as

deficient

n

sensibilityas one is often tempted to think.

One finds

ample proof of this throughout is

Correspon-

dance,

but

nowhere

so

convincingly s

in

his admirable

letterof protestwritten, s it were involuntarily,n 1830,

to

Sainte-Beuve, after reading

"

in

a single sitting," the

latter's collection of verse, entitled Les Consolations.

Je suis choque que vous autres qui croyez en Dieu, vous

imaginez que, pour

etre

au

desespoir

trois mois de cc

qu'une

maltresse vous a

quitte,

il

faille croire en Dieu.

. . .

Vous parlez trop de

la

gloire. On aime

a

travail-

ler.

.

. . Qui diable sait si la gloire viendra? Mais







STENDIAL

AND

FRENCH CLASSICISM

441

pourquoi

parler

tant

de ces

choses-la?

La

passion

a

sa

pudeur; pourquoi revelerces choses intimes . . . Voila

Monsieur, ma

pensee

et

toute ma

pensee.

Je crois

qu'on

parlera de

vous

en

1890.

Mais

vous ferez

mieux

que

Les

Consolations,

quelque

chose

de plus fort et de

plus

pur

(II, pp.

531

f.).

From

this

rapid

review

it is

apparent

that Stendhal

was

quite as much

dissatisfiedwith

the romanticism

s

withtheclassicism,or ratherthe pseudo-classicism f his

time.

What was this

"

something

trongerand

purer

"

demanded of

Sainte-Beuve?

Let us

seek

to

piece

together

the answer from

this

Correspondance,

ust

as

literary

his-

torians have

long

since

pieced

together

nd

clearly

de-

finedthe

literary

systemof

Malherbe

from

the

marginal

notes on

the

poems

of

Desportes and

the

scattering

pre-

cepts preserved forus by his disciple,Racan. We shall

try to

prove

that

Stendhal,

like

Malherbe, like

Boileau,

represents

hat

national

French

trait

which

demands in

intellectual

nd

aesthetic

roducts,

fidelity o

that

which s

in

the

thought,

nd

logical

precision

n the

expressionof

it;

qualities

which,in

his

time,

were

being lost

sight of

in

the

midst of

the

ardent

discussions

which

divided the

literarymen of France into two hostile camps. And

since

these

qualities are

the

essenceof

French

classicism

we

shall

go a

step

farther n

concreteness

nd

say that

what

Stendhal

desired

and

fought

for, n

his

fashion,was

a

return

to

classicism;

that is

to

say, an

adaptation to

modern

ubjectsof

the

processesof

Boileaun,

Moliere, and

Racine.

Much confusionhas resultedfromthe failure to dis-

tinguish

between

Stendhal's

literary

and

his

personal

attitude. An

officer

f

Napoleon,

considerably

affected

by

the

democratic

nthusiasm

f the

period, he

saw

much

in

the social

relationsof

the

seventeenth

entury o

make







442 COLBERT SEARLES

him

impatient. In 1804 he writes to

his

sister:

J'ai

etudie Lo-uis XIV ces jours-ci, nomme le grand par les

bas coquins Voltaire et compagnie, t

bassement

flattepar

Boileau,

Moliere,

etc., 'ai

ete etonen

de sa bassesse

et de

sa betise

(i,

p. 125). Three years later

he

writes

to her

fromBerlin, from he entourageof Napoleon: Je

meprise

sincerement

Racine; je vois

d'ici toutes

les platitudes

qu'il faisait a

la

cour

de Louis XIV. L'habitude

de

la

cour rend incapable de sentir ce qui est veritablement

grand

(i,

p. 298). He always maintained this

personal

attitude which is quite characteristic

f him.

But this aversionfor what he considered he

sycophancy

of the

classic writers

does not seem to have affected

his

literary judgment. He asks his sister if she

perceives

the

sens

profond

of the Fables

of

La

Fontaine;

he

urges

her to get La Bruyere and " read him"

(i,

p. 68). He

instructs

her

to read often

L'Art

Poetique

of

Boileau

(i, p. 68), and many years later he refers o that:

homme

de

sens,

un

nomme

Boileau

(iii,

p. 96). Moliere

he

characterizes

as:

le

poete qui

a

le

mieux connu le cmur

humain

(i,

p. 131). La Princesse de Cl eves is

"

divine

"

(III, p. 258).

In 1838

he writes to a young

poet who

has soughtcounsel: Je vous dirai franchement,Monsieur,

que pourfaire

iin

livre

qui

ait

la

chance

de

trouver

uatre

mille

lecteurs,

l

faut etudier deux ans le

frangais

dans

les ceuvres composees

avant 1700.

Je n'excepte que le

Marquis

de

Saint-Simon iii, p. 209). According

to Fa-

guet (op. cit., p. 49)

Stendhal ne

pouvait souffrir

Ra-

cine; buit,

we

repeat, this is

true

only in the

personal

sense. To be sure he speaks somewhatdisdainfullyof:

I'amour

fade peint de Racine dans Hippolyte, dans Ba-

jazet, dans Xiphares (ii, p. 296), but that

conforms ery

well with the

judgment of modern standard

literary his-







STENDHAT

AND

FRENCH CLASSICISM

443

torians;

6

and

he

concludes the outbreak

against

Louis

XIV, cited above: c'est le grand roi des sots comme

Iphigenie de Racine-

est leur belle tragedie

(i, p. 125),

wherein again he

conformswith modern

critics.7 On the

other

hand,

Stendhal

uses

Racine

currently

as a stan-

dard

by

which

to

measure his favorite

modern

poets.

In

1817 he thus characterizes

Monti: C'est le Racine

dl'Italie,

du

genie

dans

l'expression II, p. 65).

In

1824,

one year afterthe publication of Racine et Shakespeare,

he declares: La Francesca da

Rimini

est

ce que la langue

italienne a produit

de plus ressemblant

Racine....

Pellico a su peindre

l'amour italien de

la maniere a plus

vraie,

la

plus

touchante, t en vers dignes de Racine (ii,

p. 339). And

as for the Corsair of Lord Byron,

"

the

greatest living poet

": Le style est beau

commeRacine

(II,

p. 12). Nor was it merely the style or the verses

of Racine that enlisted Stendhal's admiration.

In

1801,

he wrote to his

sister: Peut-etre Voltaire te plaira-t-il

d'abord autant comme

eux

(Corneille

and

Racine);

mais

tu sentiras bientot

combien son vers coulant,

mais vide,

est inferieur u

vers plein de choses du

terndre acine et

du majestueux Corneille

(i, p. 24). And he remained

true to that opinion,as we can see in his letterof 1840 to

Balzac: Le demi-sot

tient par-dessus

tout aux vers de

Racine.

.

.

.

Mais tous

les j ours le

vers

devient une

moindre

partie

du merite de Racine.

Le public, en se

faisant

plus

nombreux,moins mouton,

veut un plus grand

8

Cf.

Lanson,

Histoire de

la

Littcrature

FranQaise,

Paris, 1908, p.

541: Les hommes sont

plus

faibles, les

amoureux aim6s sont

des

galants

agr6ables,

et rien de

plus.

I

Cf. J.

Lemaltre,

J. Racine,

Paris, 1908, p. 224:

Mithridate et

surtout

Iphige6nieme semblent les deux

pikces oit

le pokte

s'est

le

plus

pli6,

sciemment

ou non aux

meurs de

son temps, et A

l'idde

que ce

temps se

faisait de la beaute.







444 COLBERT

BEARLES

nombrede petits

faits vrais sur

une

passion,

ur

une

situ-

ation de la vie

(iii,

p. 260). In this last passage, of

which

the

italics are

Stendhal's,it seems

clear

that,

n

his

opinion, it is the

realism

(les

petits faits

vrais)

of Ra-

cine

that is

gradually

winning

a

deserved

though

long

delayed

recognition.

Stendhal

was

an

admirer

of

his time.

Far

from

re-

gretting or

ridiculing the

existing

social

and political

conditions,he welcomed them as a real progress: Les en-

richis

donnent de

l'energie a

la

bonne

compagnie.

...

Nous

sommes bien

loin de

la fadeur

du siecle

de

Louis

XVI

(iii, p. 209).

In

face of

the cool

contempt f

the

classicists

for

the

philistinism

of

the

bourgeois,

Stendhal

asserted: Des

gens

qui

ont

agi mettront

lus

de pensees

en

circulation

que des gens

de

lettresuniquement

occupes

pendant toute leur jeunesse, a peser un hemistichede

Racine,

ou A chercher

a vraie

mesure

d'un vers de Pin-

dare

(ii,

p. 271).

Instead

of

adopting the

robustious

attitude of the

romanticist

brethren

toward these

same

philistines,

Stendhal declared:

Un

banquier qui a

fait

fortune a

une partie du

caractWre

equis pour faire

des

decouvertes

en

philosophie:

c'est-h-dire oir

claire

dans

ce qui est; ce qui est un peu different e parler eloquem-

ment

de

brillantes

chimeres ii,

p. 515).

To meet

these

conditions t

was

necessary to apply

once

more the pri-

mary

precept of

Boileau:

N'offrez

rien

au

lecteur

que

ce

qui peut

lui

plaire.

To

satisfy

this

eminently

French desire

of

"seeing

clearly in thatwhich is ": il faut faire ressemblant

iii,

p. 181). A

letter

of 1804

presents

Stendhal's earliest

conception

f

literary

realism n

regardto

natural

things:

Une

veritA

aussi

complete

que

possible

est une

description







STENDUAL

AND FRENCH

CLASSICISM

445

complete d'une chose. Par exemple: la ve6rit6 ompl6te

sur tout ce qui est vivant 'a Grenoble (la maison, les

arbres, etc.), serait celle d'apres laquelle

un dieu

tout-

puissant pourrait batir un nouveau Grenoble exactement

semblable et

egal au

Grenoble

oiu

tu es

(i,

p. 100).

The

same letter suggests how characters must be painted:

Envoie-moi vite trois

ou

quatre caracteres peints par

les

faits: raconte-les

xactement

i,

p. 101).

He

complains

that his sister's letters: manquent toujours de details

physiques,

necessaires

pour bien entendre les r6flexions

sur les choseset les sensations u'elles donnent

i,

p. 189).

But he had no patience with the exuberant descriptions

undertakenby contemporary omanticists n the interest

of

a

much

bespoken

ocal color.

He

ridicules the fashion,

prevalent, ccording to him, in the novel of

1830,

when:

on etait sur de succes en employantdeux pages a d6crire

la vue que l'on avait de Ia fenetre

iu etait

le heros,deux

autres

a

reproduire on habillement, t encore deux

pages

a

representer a formedu fauteuil sur lequel il

etait pose

(iii,

p. 91). It was precisely the criticism of

Boileau:

Un auteur, quelquefois trop plein

de

son

objet,

Jamais sans

P'6puiser

n'abandonne

uIl

sujet:

S'il rencontreun palais, il m'en d6peint la face, ete.

Boileau attributedthe success of his own writings to

the fact that: mon vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque

chose. That was

precisely

what

was

lacking

in

the

works

of

the

period, accordinag

o Stendhal.

Faire

correctement

des vers

est

devenu

un

metier, he

complains,

e mal

est

qu'a peinae

n

a-t-on

u

quinze ou

vingt,

'on se sent une

tresgrandeenvie de bailler

(ii,

p. 284). And as for the

style

of

Chateaubriand and

Villemain,

it seems

to

him

to

say:

1.

Beaucoup

de

petites choses

agreables,

mais

inutiles 'a dire;

2.

Beaucoup

de

petites fausset6s agr&







446

COLBERT

SEABLES

ables 'a entendre

iii, p.

259).

To

those

rare individuals

who sought his advice, Stendhal insisted: En decrivant

un

homme,

une

femme, un

site, songez

toujours

a

quelqu'un,

a

quelque

chose

de

reel

(iii,

p. 114);

1.

Dans

un roman,

des la

deuxieme

page,

il

faut

dire

du

nouveau,

ou,

du

moins, de

l'individuel sur

le

site

oiu se

passe

l'action; 2.

Des la sixieme

page, ou, tout

au plus,

la

huitieme,

l

faut des

aventures

iii, p.

209).

In his youth,when he had his first isions of " literary

glory,"

Stendhal was

convinced

that:

II

ne

faut

ecrire

que

lorsqu'on

a

des choses

grandes ou

profondement

elles

'a dire, mais alors il

faut les dire

avec le

plus

de

simplicite

possible,

comme si

l'on

prenait a

tache

de les

empecher

d'etre

remarquens

i, p.

179).

When

he

became a writer

he

remai4ed

true to

this

ideal,

imitating

the

style of

Le

Code Civil and the Causes Celebres

(iii,

pp. 103,

135).

Je

dirai

comme es

enfants,8

e writes to

Balzac in

1840,

je

ne

veux

pas

par des

moyens

factices, fasciner

l'ame

du

lecteur. . .

. Je

cherche

a

raconter

avec

verit6 et

avec clarte

ce

qui

se

passe dans

mon

cmaur.

Je

ne vois

qu'une

regle:

etre clair.

Si je

ne suis pas

clair,

tout

mon

monde

est

aneanti (iii, p.

258).

In this

constant

insistenceupon the principle that the writermust first

have

something o

say and

then

say it in

the

simplest

and clearest

way possible, Stendhal

renews

the

traditions

of

AMalherbe,

oileaiu,

and

their

successors,

who had

formed

the:

genie

de la

langue

frangaise,

qui,

naturelle-

I

Cf.

Boileau,

Epftre

ix,

vv. 81

ff.:

La simplicitdplait, sans dtude et sans art.

Tout

charme

en

un

enfant,

dont

la

langue sans

fard,

A

peine du

filet

encor

d6barrass6e,

Sait

d'un

air

innocent

b6gayer sa

p6nsee,

etc.







STENDHAL

*'AND FRENCH CLASSICISM 447

ment, st ennemie uree des grandes phrasesa

la Chateau-

briand

ii,

p. 290)Y9

The analogy betweenthe position

of

Stendhal

and

that

of Maiherbe has

been

touched upon.

iAalherbe found

French diction

in

a state

of

anarchy resulting

from

an

excess of enthusiasm

on

the

part

of

the Pleiade

and

its

successors.

Stendhal

found

a

very

similar state of

things,

a

literary battlefield, n

which

the

two

opposing

forces

of the pseudo-classicists nd the romanticistswere con-

tending: the one, to

hold French

literature

within its

old consecrated hannels,

the

other tryingto break down

the barriers

and

let

it flow

wherever

t

listed.

While

Malherbe

"

forged the instrumentwhich the genius of

the seventeenth

entury

was to use with success

"

(Brune-

tiere), Stendhal opened the way at least for Balzac,

Flaubert, and iMaupassant. If he did not succeed in

"

reducing the AMuse o the rules of duty" as fully as

Malherbe succeeded, it was because, or largely because,

the times

no

longer permitted

a

man

like Stendhal,

or

Mlalherbe, o assume a power in the domain of letters o

absolute as that wielded

by the seventeenth-centuryritic

and poet.

Had

the conditions been similar, it is quite

possiblethat the tyrandes petits faits vrais10would have

taken

the

place

of

the

tyrandes sillabes in the talk of men

of letters.

Finally Stendhal's conception of

6,tyle

was that of

9Cf.

also

his criticism

of Xavier

de

Maistre:

"

l'auteur

n'ose

jamais

Etre

simple

. . .

par

exemple,

a-t-il

A

parler

de

Newton,

il

ne

dit

pas

simplement:

Newton;

cela

sera

trop plat

k

Turin,

il

faut

dire

l'immortel Newton. Pour approcher de l'esprit francais il faudrait

commencer A

Otre

soi-meme,

n'imiter

personne

(II,

p.

390).

Cf.

Boileau:

Ce

n'est

que

l'air d'autrui

qui

peut

d6plaire en moi.

Des

faits,

morbleu

des faits

(m, p. 90).







448

COLIBERT

BEARLM

Malherbe nd

Boileau;

it was

based on

"

the

power

of

a wordput n itsplace." In

1804,

hewrote ohissister:

Coligny es

suivait

pas

precipit6s,

u, a

pas

pr6cipitks,

Coligny

es

suivait,

ontdeux choses

differentes

our

une

ame

sensible i,

p.

124).

Two

years

ater he

declared:

Le

style

est une

pens&.

.

. j

t'aime

veitablement

et

veritablement

e

t'aime,

ne sont

pas

la

meme

chose

(I,

p. 246). When

Merim'e's

Chroniqw

de

Oharles X

appeared 1829), Stendhalwrote:Je serai tropsevere

pour votre

tyle

que

je

trouve

un

peu

portier:

'ai

eu

du mal

a

faire

etc.,

pour:

j'ai

eu

de

la

peine

a

faire

(II, p.

509).

In

1840 he

wrote

o

Balzac:

Souvent e

reflchis

un

quart

d'heurepour

placer

un

adjectif

vant

ou

apres

son

substantif

iii,

p.

258).

Like

Boileau,

Stendhal

was

convinced

f

the

necessity

of takingpains; it was one of his grievanceshat: Les

gens de

lettres e

se

donnent

as

le

tempsde

travailler

(II, p.

360).

La

haine

de

details

est

ce

qui

perd notre

litterature

ii,

p.

521). And

Boileau's

famous

verses

which

might

erveas the

epitome

f

the

Art

poetique:

Avant

done

que

d'crire,

apprenez

A penser;

Selon que

notre

idWe st plus oU

moins

obscure,

L'expression la suit, ou moins nette, ou plus pure,

are

repeated

n

the

prose

of

Stendhal's

etters:

Tous

les

jours nous

voyons ans

a vie,

que

l'homme

ui

comprend

bienune

chose

'explique lairement

ii,

p. 513).

Les

pensees de

tout le

monde

dans

les paroles

de

quelques-uns

s

a

trite

definition

f

French

lassic

itera-

ture.

That definition

uggests,

nd

rightly,

he

idea of

somethinghosen,omethingristocratic. twasthatdeal

that

tendhal

wished o see

restored;

moreover,

e

believed

it

was

to

be restored

s a

result

f the

convulsions

nd

the

invasion

f

new

deas

through

hich

France

had

passed.







STENDRAL'

AND FRENCH

CLASSICISM

449

Le

jour

immortel

oiui

M.

I'abbe6

Sieyes

publia

son

pam-

phlet:Qu'

est-ce ue le tiers-etat?

.

.

il croyaitttaquer

1'aristocratie

politique;

il

creait

sans

le savoir

l'aristo-

cratie

litteraire.

Celle-ci

ose

encore

aimer

les

phrases

simples

et

les

pensees

naturelles

(iii,

p.

184).

Hie

was

enough a man of

his

time to

realize that this

literary

aristocracy

must adapt

itself to

the

spirit

and needs

of

the time.

Because: Nous avons

infiniment

lus

d'idees

qu'on avait du Vempsde

Plutarque.

. .

La Bruyere

a

bien

peint

les

mceurs

de

la bonne

compagnie

de

son

temps:

le

tableau

serait

bien

different

ujourd'hui

(i, pp.

130 f.).

Les

gens

qui

croient

avoir

raison

ne

sauraient

etre

trop

claires et

trop

lucides;

ils cherchent

ecrire

avec

les mots et

les

tours

de

phrases

employes par

La

Bruyere,

Pascal et

Voltaire.

Mais

cependant,

quand

il

se presenteune idee nouvelle l faut bien un motnouveau

(II, p.

425).

The

citations

given

above,

chosen

from

a very

large

number

of

similar

import,

give a

fair

presentation

of

Stendhal's

literary

point of

view

as

manifested

by

his

Correspondance.

Whatever

boutades he

may

have in-

dulged

in,

in

writings

destined for

the

public,

we

find

him here quite consistentand sincere: Je desire pour

mon

compte

la

verite toute

entiere et

la

verite

la

plus

apre

(ii,

p.

363).

The

conclusion that

he

represents

o

a

certain

and

rather

importantextent

a

persistence of

French

classicism

would

probably

have

greatly

surprised

his

contemporaries,

while

completely

staggering

him.

And

the

conclusionis

very

likely

absurd,

unless

one is

prepared to admit that French classicism is, par excel--

lence,

the

manifestationof

what

Lemailtre

calls in

hia

book

on

Racine:

le

genie de

notre

race,

which

he

defines

as the

striving

for:

ordre,

raison,

sentiment

mesure

et

2







450

COLBERT

5EARLES

force sous

la

grace.

It

has at least

appeared

fromthe

foregoingpages that Stendhal was constantly nsistIng

on tb

first wo

of these four

qualities,

that

the sentimental

exces-es

of the

romanticists

no

less than

the

aridity

of

the pseudo-classicists

rritatedhim;

that,

finally,

he de-

manded

of a recognized

eader

of thenew

school:

quelque

chose

de plus

fortet de p7lus

ur.

COLBERT SEARLES.

Documents

Stendhal & French Classicism