Chapter 35
XIV. It had come out of the sixteenth century more disturbed and less formed than prose. Ronsard and his friends had received it from the hands of Marot, quite young, unsophisticated and undecided.
They attempted at the first effort to raise it to the level of the great classic models of which their minds were full. The attempt was bold, and the Pléade did not pretend to consult the taste of the vulgar. Quote,
The obscurity of Ronsard, says M. Guiseau, in his Corneille et son Tint, is not that of a subtle mind torturing itself to make something out of nothing. It is the obscurity of a full and a powerful mind which is embarrassed by its own riches, and does not learn to regulate the use of them.
Furnished by his reading of the ancients with that which was wanting in our poetry, Ronsard thought he could perceive in his lofty and really poetical imagination what was needed to supply it. He cast his eyes in all directions with the view of enriching the domain of poetry.
Thou wilt do well to pick dexterously, he says, in his abridgment of the French poetry, and adopt to thy work the most expressive words in the dialects of your own France. There is no need to care whether the vocables are Gascogne or Poitain or Norman or Mancès or Léonèse, or of other
districts, provided that they are good, and properly express what thou wouldst say. Ronsard was too bold in extending his conquests over the classical languages. It was that exuberance of ideas that effervescence of a genius not
sufficiently master over its conceptions which brought down upon him in aftertimes the contempt of the writers who, in the seventeenth century, followed with more wisdom and taste the road which he had contributed to open. He is not, said Balzac, quite a poet.
He has the first beginnings and the making of a poet. We see in his works nascent and half-animated portions of a body which is in formation but which does not care to arrive at completion. This body is that of French poetry. Ronsard traced out its first lineaments, full of elevation, play of
fancy, images and a poetic fire unknown before him. He was the first to comprehend the dignity which befits grand subjects and which earned him in his day the title of Prince of Poets. He lived in stormy times, not much adapted for poetry, and steeped in the most cruel tragedies.
He felt deeply the misfortunes of his country rent by civil war when he wrote, quote, A cry of dread, a din, a thundering sound Of men and clashing harness roars around. People against peoples furiously rage, Cities with cities deadly battle wage.
Temples and towns one heap of ashes lie, Justice and equity fade out and die. Unchecked the soldier's wicked will is done, With human blood the outraged churches run. Bedridden age, disbedded, perisheth, And over all grins the
pale face of death. End quote. There was something pregnant, noble and brilliant about Ronsard in spite of his exaggerations of style and faults of taste. His friends and disciples imitated and carried to an
extreme his defects without possessing his talent. The unruliness was such as to call for reform. Peace revived with Henry IV. and the court, henceforth in accord with the nation, resumed that empire over taste, manners and ideas which it was destined to exercise so long and so supremely under Louis XIV.
Malel became the poet of the court, whose business it was to please it, to adopt for it that literature which had but lately been reserved for the feasts of the learned. Quote. He used often to say, and chiefly when he was reproached with not
following the meaning of the authors he translated or paraphrased, that he did not dress his meat for cooks, as if he had meant to infer that he cared very little to be praised by the literary folks who understood the books he had translated, provided that he was understood by the court folks.
End quote. A complete revolution in the opposite direction to that which Ronsard attempted appeared to have taken place, but the human mind never loses all the ground it has once won. In the verses of Malherbe, often bearing the imprint of beauties
borrowed from the ancients, the language preserved, in consequence of the character given to it by Ronsard, a dignity, a richness of style, of which the times of Marot showed no conception. And it was falling, moreover, under the chastening influence of an elegant correctness.
It was for the court that Malherbe made verses, quote unquote, striving, as he said, quote, to degasconize it, end quote, seeking there his public and the source of honor as well as profit. As passionate and admirer of Richelieu as of Henry IV, naturally devoted to the service of the order established in the state as well as in
poetry, he, under the regency of Mary de Medici, favored the taste which was beginning to show itself for intellectual things, for refined pleasures and elegant occupations. It was not around the queen that this honorable and agreeable society gathered.
It was at the Hôtel Rambouillet, around Catherine de Vivanne, in rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre. Literature was there represented by Malherbe and Rackin, afterwards by Balzac and Voiture, Gombeau and Chaplain, who constantly met there, in company with the Princess de Condé and her daughter, subsequently
Duchess de Langueville, Mademoiselle de Vigien, Madame et Mademoiselle de Parnon, and the Bishop of Lucan himself, quite young as yet, but already famous. Quote, All the wits were received at the Hôtel Rambouillet, whatever their condition, says Monsieur Cousin.
All that was asked of them was to have good manners. But the aristocratic tone was established there without any effort, the majority of the guests at the house being very great lords, and the mistress being at one in the same time, Rambouillet and Vivanne. The wits were courted and honoured, but they did not hold the
dominion. End quote. At that great period which witnessed the growth of Richelieu's power and of the action he universally exercised upon French society, at the outcome from the moral licentiousness which Henry IV's example had
encouraged in his court, and after a certain roughness, the fruit of long civil wars, a lesson was taught at Madame de Rambouillet's of modesty, grace and lofty politeness, together with the art of forming good ideas and giving them good expression, sometimes with rather too much of far-fetched and affected cleverness, always in good company and
with much sweetness and self-possession on the part of the mistress of the house. In 1627 Cardinal Richelieu, having become minister, sent the Marquis of Rambouillet as ambassador to Spain. He wanted to be repaid for this favour.
One of his friends went to call upon Madame de Rambouillet. At the first hint of what was expected from her, quote, I do not believe that there are any intrigues between Cardinal Valette and the princess, said she, and even if there were, I should not be the proper person for the office it is intended to put upon me.
Besides, everybody is so convinced of the consideration and friendship I have for his eminence that nobody would dare to speak ill of him in my presence. I cannot, therefore, ever have an opportunity of rendering him the service as you ask of me," end quote.
The Cardinal did not persist and remained well disposed towards Hôtel Rambouillet. He occupied in laying solidly the foundations of his power in checkmating and punishing conspiracies at court and in breaking down the party of the Huguenots he had no leisure just yet to think of
literature and the literary. He had nevertheless in 1626 begun removing the ruins of the Sorbonne with the view of reconstructing the buildings on a new plan and at his own expense. He wrote in 1627 to Monsieur Saint-Ton, quote, I thank him for the care
he has taken of the Sorbonne, begging him to continue it, assuring him that though I have many expenses on my hands I am as desirous of continuing to build up that house as of contributing to the best of my little ability to pull down the fortifications of La Rochelle," end quote.
The works were not completely finished at the death of the Cardinal, who provided, therefore, by his will. At the same time that he was repairing and enriching the Sorbonne, the Cardinal was helping Guy de la Brosse, the king's physician, to create the Botanic Gardens or le Jardin des Plantes.
He was defending the independence of the College of France against the pretensions of the University of Paris and gave it for its grand almaner his brother, the Archbishop of Lyon. He was preparing the foundation of the King's Press or Imprimerie Royale, definitively created in 1640, and he gave the Academy or King's
College or Collège Royale of his town of Richelieu a regulation code of studies which bears the imprint of his lofty and strong mind. He prescribed a deep study of the French tongue, quote, It often happens, unfortunately, that the difficulties which must be surmounted and the long time which is employed in learning the dead
languages before any knowledge of the sciences can be arrived at have the effect, at the outset, of making young gentlemen disgusted and hasten to betake themselves to the exercise of arms without having been sufficiently instructed in good literature, though it is the fairest ornament of their profession.
It has, therefore, been thought necessary to establish a Royal Academy at which disciplines suitable to their condition may be taught them in the French tongue, in order that they may exercise themselves therein, and that even foreigners who are curious about it may learn to know its riches and the graces it hath in unfolding the secrets of
the highest discipline, end quote. Herein is revealed the founder of the French Academy, skillful as he was in divining the wants of his day, and always ready to profit by new means of action and to make them his own whilst doing them service. Associations of the literature were not unknown in France.
Ransard and his friends, at first under the name of the Brigade and then under that of the Pléade, often met to read together their joint productions and to discuss literary questions, and the same thing was done subsequently in Malherbe's rooms, quote, Now let us speak at our ease, Balzac would say when the sitting was over and without fear of
committing solicisms, end quote. When Malherbe was dead and Balzac had retired to his country house on the borders of the Charentes, some friends, quote, men of letters and of merits, very much above the average, says Pélisson in his Histoire de l'Académie Française, quote, finding that nothing was more inconvenient
in this great city than to go often and often to call upon one another without finding anybody at home, resolved to meet one day in the week at the house of one of them. They used to assemble at Monsieur Conrars, who happened to be the most conveniently quartered for receiving them, and in the very heart of the
city, Rue Saint Martin. There they conversed familiarly as they would have on an ordinary visit and upon all sorts of things, business, news and literature. If any one of the company had a work done, as often happened, he readily communicated its contents to all the others, who freely gave him their
opinion of it, and their conferences were followed sometimes by a walk and sometimes by a collation which they took together. Thus they continued for three or four years, as I have heard many amongst them say. It was an extreme pleasure and an incredible gain, insomuch that when
they speak nowadays of that time and of those early days of the Academy, they speak of it as a golden age during which, without bustle and without show, and without any other laws but those of friendship, they enjoyed all that is sweetest and most charming in the intercourse of intellects and in rational life, end quote.
Even after the intervention and regulationizing of Cardinal Le Chilieu, the French Academy still preserved something of that sweetness and that polished familiarity in their relations which caused the regrets of its earliest founders. They were M. Godot, afterwards Bishop of Grasse, Conrad and
Gombeau, who were Huguenots, Chaplain, Girry, Habère, Abbé de Cerissie, his brother, M. de Cerisey, and M. de Malville. The secret of the little gatherings was not so well kept but that Boil Robert, the Cardinal's accredited gossip, ever on the alert for news to divert his patron, heard of them and begged before long to be
present at them, quote, There was no probability of his being refused, for besides that he was on friendly terms with many of these gentlemen, the very favor he enjoyed gave him some sort of authority and added to his consequence. He was full of delight and admiration at what he saw and did not fail
to give the Cardinal a favorable account of the little assembly, so much that the Cardinal, who had a mind naturally inclined towards great things and who loved the French language, which he himself wrote extremely well, asked if those persons would not be disposed to form a body and assemble regularly and under public authority, end quote.
Boil Robert was entrusted with the proposal. Great was the consternation in the little voluntary and friendly academy, quote, There was scarcely one of these gentlemen who did not testify displeasure, end quote. M. de Cerisey and M. de Malville, who were attached to the households
of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld and Marshal Bassanpierre, one in retirement on his estates and the other a prisoner in the Bastille, were for refusing and excusing themselves as best they might to the Cardinal. Chaplin, who had a penchant from his eminence, represented that,
quote, In good truth he could have been well pleased to dispense with having their conferences thus brooded abroad. But in the position to which things were reduced it was not open to them to follow the more agreeable of the two courses. They had to do with a man who willed in no half-hearted way
whatever he willed, and who was not accustomed to meet resistance or to suffer it with impunity. He would consider as an insult the disregard shown for his protection, and might visit his resentment upon each individual. He could at any rate easily prohibit their assemblies, breaking up by
that means a society which every one of them desired to be eternal, end quote. The arguments were strong. The members yielded. Bois-Raber was charged to thank his eminence very humbly for the honor
he did them, assuring him that they were all resolved to follow his wishes. Quote, I wish to be of that assembly the protector and the father, said Richelieu, giving at once diverse proofs that he took a great interest in that establishment, a fact which soon brought the Academy
solicitations from those who were most intimate with the Cardinal, and to being in some sort of repute for wit, gloried and being admitted to a body which he regarded with favor. In making of this little private gathering a great national institution Cardinal Richelieu yielded to his natural yearning for government and
dominion. He protected literature as a minister and as an admirer. The admirer's inclination was supported by the minister's influence. At the same time, and perhaps without being aware of it, he was giving French literature a center of discipline and union whilst securing for
the independence and dignity of writers a supporting point which they had hitherto lacked. Whilst recompensing them by favors nearly always conferred in the name of the State, he was preparing for them afar off the means of withdrawing themselves from that private dependence, the yoke of which they nearly
always had to bear. Set free at his death from the weight of their obligations to him, they became the servants of the State. Ere long the French Academy had no other protector but the King. Order and rule everywhere accompanied Cardinal Richelieu.
The Academy drew up its statutes, chose a director, a chancellor, and a perpetual secretary. Conrad was the first to be called to that honor. The number of academicians was set down at forty by letters patented from the King.
As soon as God had called us to the conduct of this realm, we had for aim not only to apply a remedy to the disorders which the civil wars had introduced into it, but also to enrich it with all the ornaments suitable for the most illustrious and the most ancient of the monarchies that are at this day in the world.
Although we have labored without ceasing at the execution of this It hath been impossible for us hitherto to see the entire fulfillment thereof. The disturbances so often excited in the greater part of our provinces and the assistance we have been obliged to give to many of our allies
have diverted us from any other thought but that of war, and have hindered us for a long while from enjoying the repose we procured for others. Our very clear and very much beloved cousin, the Cardinal Duke of Richelieu, who hath had the part that everybody knows in all these
things, hath represented to us that one of the most glorious signs of the happiness of a kingdom was that the sciences and arts should flourish there, and that letters should be in honor there as well as arms, that after having performed so many memorable exploits we had nothing further to do but to add agreeable things to the necessary and
ornament to utility, and he was of the opinion that we could not begin better than with the most noble of all the arts, which is eloquence, that the French tongue which up to the present hath only too keenly felt the neglect of those who might have rendered it the most perfect of the day is more than ever capable of becoming so, seeing the number
of persons who have knowledge of the advantages it possesses. It is to establish fixed rules for it that he hath ordained an assembly whose propositions were satisfactory to him. For these reasons, and in order to secure the said conferences, we will that they continue henceforth in our good city of Paris under the name of French Academy, and that
letters patent be in register to that end by our gentry of the Parliament of Paris. End of section 35.
