d, constantly probes you, reading him, to the inmost quick of your
conscience. Rousseau, notably in the "Confessions," and in the Reveries
supplementary to the "Confessions;" Chateaubriand, echoing Rousseau; and
that wayward woman of genius, George Sand, disciple she to both,--were
so far from being always light-heartedly gay, that not seldom they
spread over their page a sombre atmosphere almost of gloom,--gloom
flushed pensively, as with a clouded "setting sun's pathetic light." In
short, when you speak of particular authors, and naturally still more
when you speak of particular works, there are many discriminations to be
made. Such exceptions, however, being duly allowed, the literary product
of the French mind, considered in the aggregate, will not be
misconceived if regarded as possessing the general characteristics in
style that we have now sought briefly to indicate.

French literature, we have hinted, is comparatively poor in poetry. This
is due in part, no doubt, to the genius of the people; but it is also
due in part to the structure of the language. The language, which is
derived chiefly from Latin, is thence in such a way derived as to have
lost the regularity and stateliness of its ancient original, without
having compensated itself with any richness and sweetness of sound
peculiarly its own; like, for instance, that canorous vowel quality of
its sister derivative, the Italian. The French language, in short, is
far from being an ideal language for the poet.

In spite, however, of this fact, disputed by nobody, it is true of
French literature, as it is true of almost any national literature, that
it took its rise in verse instead of in prose. Anciently, there were two
languages subsisting together in France, which came to be distinguished
from each other in name by the word of affirmation--_oc_ or _oil_,
yes--severally peculiar to them, and thus to be known respectively as
_langue d'oc_, and _langue d'oil_. The future belonged to the latter of
the two forms of speech,--the one spoken in the northern part of the
country. This, the _langue d'oil_, became at length the French language.
But the _langue d'oc_, a soft and musical tongue, survived long enough
to become the vehicle of lyric strains, mostly on subjects of love and
gallantry, still familiar in mention, and famous as the songs of the
troubadours. The flourishing time of the troubadours was in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. Provencal is an alternat