FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311  
312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323   324   325   326   327   328   329   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   >>   >|  
such a history as this, or in any history of French literature. For it is a notable instance of the coming and, indeed, actual invasion, by fiction, of regions which had hitherto been the province of more serious kinds; and it is a link, not unimportant if not particularly meritorious, in the chain of the eccentric novel. Lucian of course had started it long ago, and Rabelais had in a fashion taken it up but a century before. But the fashioners of new commonwealths and societies, More, Campanella, Bacon, had been as a rule very serious. Cyrano, in his way, was serious too; but the way itself was not one of those for which the ticket has been usually reserved. * * * * * [Sidenote: Mme. de la Fayette and _La Princesse de Cleves_.] But the last of this batch is the most important and the best of the whole. This is _La Princesse de Cleves_, by Marie Madeleine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de la Fayette, friend of Madame de Sevigne and of Huet; more or less Platonic, and at any rate last, love of La Rochefoucauld; a woman evidently of great charm as well as of great ability, and apparently of what was then irreproachable character. She wrote, besides other matter of no small literary value and historical interest, four novels, the minor ones, which require no special notice here, being _Zaide_, _La Comtesse de Tende_, and (her opening piece) _Madame de Montpensier_. Their motives and methods are much the same as those of the _Princesse de Cleves_, but this is much more effectively treated. In fact, it is one of the very few highly praised books, at the beginnings of departments of literature, which ought not to disappoint candid and not merely studious readers. It begins with a sketch, very cleverly done, of the Court of Henri II., with the various prominent personages there--the King and the Queen, Diane de Poitiers, Queen Mary of Scotland ("La Reine Dauphine"), "Madame, soeur du Roi" (the second Margaret of Valois--not so clever as her aunt and niece namesakes, and not so beautiful as the latter, but, like both of them, a patroness of men of letters, especially Ronsard, and apparently a very amiable person, though rude things were said of her marriage, rather late in life, to the Duke of Savoy), with many others of, or just below, royal blood. Of these latter there are Mademoiselle de Chartres, the Prince de Cleves, whom she marries, and the Duc de Nemours, who completes the usual "tri
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311  
312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323   324   325   326   327   328   329   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Cleves

 

Madame

 
Princesse
 

history

 

apparently

 

Comtesse

 

Fayette

 

literature

 

prominent

 
Scotland

Poitiers
 

personages

 

disappoint

 
treated
 
praised
 

highly

 

effectively

 
Montpensier
 

motives

 
methods

beginnings

 
begins
 
sketch
 

cleverly

 

readers

 

studious

 
departments
 

Dauphine

 

candid

 
Mademoiselle

Nemours
 

completes

 

marries

 

Chartres

 

Prince

 

marriage

 

opening

 

namesakes

 

beautiful

 
clever

Valois
 
Margaret
 

person

 

things

 

amiable

 
Ronsard
 

patroness

 

letters

 

century

 

fashioners