290 CHAPTER X. FRANCE. POETRY OF THE LATER RENAISSANCE. THE PLEIADE · RONSARD THE LESSER STARS THE DÉFENSE ET ILLUSTRATION DE LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE'-THE WORK OF RONSARD -HIS PLACE IN POETRY-JOACHIM DU BELLAY-REMI BELLEAU- THE COMEDY 'LA RECONNUE DRAMATIC LITERATURE. THE French literature of the later Renaissance is divided, almost as it were by visible mechanical barriers, from what had gone before, and from what was to come after. The distinction is less marked in prose, but even here it is real, while the poetry of the time is the work of a school, with a creed and a set of formulas all its own. It has ever been much the custom of the French, whether in politics, in art, or in literature, to move altogether, and to make a clean. sweep. Every new school rejects its predecessor with more or less indiscriminate contempt, becomes a tyranny in its turn, and is, in the fulness of time, rebelled against, and destroyed. The process has never been shown more fully and with fewer disturbing elements than in the history of the Pléiade. Exactly in the middle of the century a small body of young writers took possession of French poetry, dismissed the forms of their elders as "grocery" (épiceries), just as the romantic writers of this century labelled the classic style as "wig" (perruque), and ruled without opposition, till one fine day they were scored out by the equally irreverent, though more pedantic, and less generous pen of Malherbe. The poets of the Pléiade are entitled to the respect of the historian of literature for several reasons, and to his gratitude for this, that they formed The Pléiade. a compact body which he need be at no trouble to disentangle, because they stood deliberately apart, or to define, because they did the work for him, by publishing an exhaustive manifesto of their principles. There is nowhere a better example of that situation nette which the French love. The Pléiade knew its own mind, and what it wanted to do. Moreover, if it did not always achieve its purpose, at least it knew how the work was to be done. Some slight doubt exists as to the names of the seven forming the original constellation. The most orthodox list gives Daurat, Ronsard, Du Bellay, Belleau, Baïf, Jodelle, and Pontus de Thyard, but another of less authority replaces the sixth and seventh by Scévole de Sainte Marthe and Muret. It does not matter which of the two is taken, since both include the important names. Jodelle has a notable place in French dramatic literature, but the drama is subordinate in the history of the Pléiade. Pontus de Thyard (1521-1603), though the first-born and the last survivor of the fellowship, is not an essential member, and may pass behind his leaders, Ronsard, Du Bellay, Belleau, and Baïf. All these poets were by birth gentlemen, and several of them were highly connected. Pierre de Ronsard, the master of them all, and the Ronsard. "Prince of Poets" of his century, not only in the opinion of his countrymen, but by the consent of many foreigners, was the son of the maître d'hôtel (steward of the household) of Francis I. He was born at Vendôme in 1524, and entered the service of the Duke of Orleans as page. When James V. brought back his second wife, Mary of Lorraine, to Scotland, Ronsard followed them, and spent thirty months in their service, returning to France by way of England. When hors de page, he was attached to the suite of more than one ambassador. Among them was Lazare de Baïf, whose natural son, Jean Antoine de Baïf, was receiving his education under the care of the humanist, Jean Dorat, Daurat, or D'Aurat (1508-1588). Ronsard showed a taste for reading from his early years, and if he rejected the forms of Clement Marot, it was not without knowing them. An illness, which may have been the result of his sufferings during a shipwreck on the coast of Scotland, left him deaf in 1546. He now, and as it would seem not unwillingly, left the service of the Court, and betook himself to study at the college of Coqueret under the direction of Daurat, and in company of Jean Antoine de Baïf. Remi Belleau was a pupil at the same college. An accidental meeting The lesser stars. between Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay added this latter to the fellowship. The four, Daurat advising and approving, undertook to revolutionise French poetry, and they did it. The later dates in their biographies may be briefly noted. Ronsard enjoyed great favour at Court, earned not only by admiration of his poetry, but by his singularly amiable personal character. On the death of Charles IX., himself a fair verse-writer, Ronsard retired to the Abbey of Croix Val, of which he was lay abbot, and died in 1584. Remi Belleau (1528-1577) passed a peaceful life in the service of the house of Lorraine, and was carried to his grave by brother poets. Joachim du Bellay (1525 ?-1560), member of a very distinguished family of soldiers and statesmen, some of whom made their mark in French memoir literature, accompanied his kinsman the Cardinal du Bellay to Rome, but fell out of favour and returned to France. He was of weak health, and appears to have suffered from family troubles. He died suddenly of apoplexy at the age of thirty-six. Jean Antoine de Baïf (15321589) had a busy life in public affairs, and suffered changes of fortune. Characteristically enough he founded an early French Academy, for which he received a patent from Charles IX. in 1570.1 It lasted for several years. The Défense et Illustration de la Langue Française, which is the manifesto of the school, was written by 1 Sainte- Beuve, Tableau historique et critique de la Poesie Française et du Théâtre Français au XVIme. Siècle. Le Seizième Siècle en France. Par MM. Darmsteter et Hatzfeld. The Défense et la Langue Française. Joachim du Bellay. It was published in February 1550, according to the modern calendar, Illustration de but 1549 in the old, which made the year begin on Lady Day. If Boileau, before dismissing Ronsard and his friends so contemptuously, had taken the trouble to read this treatise, he would have learnt that it was not their intention to speak Latin and Greek in French, or to make a new art after their own fashion. Their purpose was very different. It was their aim to write good French, but to use all the resources of the language in order to reproduce the forms of the great classic literatures-the Epic, the Drama, the Satire, the Ode, and the Italian models-the Canzone and the Sonnet. They held, and not unjustly, that the French verse of Marot's school was poor in rhythm, and "frivolous." It had come to be satisfied with turning out nine insignificant verses, if it can put "le petit mot pour rire" into the tenth. A sham Middle Age was lingering on-the mere remnants and echo of the Roman de la Rose allegory. Du Bellay speaks of the Roman and of its authors Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung-with respect. He was sufficiently an admirer of French medieval literature to quote the stories of Lancelot as fit to be used for epic. But he insists that the prosaic language used by the school of Marot was not adequate for poetry, and that a new poetic tongue must be formed, which could only be done by the ardent study of Greek and Latin. What the student learnt he was to assimilate and make French. There was nothing in this which |