Chapter II

WRITERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH

INFLUENCE: MURALT, PRÉVOST, VOLTAIRE

I. Prévost and Voltaire were themselves preceded by the Swiss, Béat de Muralt, the author of the Lettres sur les Anglais et les Français (1725)—Muralt's character— Wherein he carried on the work of the refugees, wherein he went beyond them-His illusions-His opinions on English literature and the English intelligence-Great success of his book: Muralt and Desfontaines-His influence on Rousseau.

II. Admiration of the abbé Prévost for English ideas; he assists in diffusing them— His two journeys to England-His translations-His cosmopolitan novels: the Mémoires d'un homme de qualité and l'Histoire de Cléveland-His magazine, La Pour et Contre (1732-1740): the author's aim and method-England occupies a large share of its space.

III. Voltaire and the Lettres anglaises (1734)—Importance of the book in Voltaire's life-His intercourse with men of letters during his stay in London—Knowledge of the language-His efforts to awaken interest in English mattersOrigin of the Lettres philosophiques: they consist of two books.

IV. Insufficiency of Voltaire's information; his wilful inaccuracy―The pamphleteer injurious to the critic-Why his book is nevertheless of the highest importance in the history of the influence of England-Voltaire encourages imitation of English works.

BETWEEN 1725 and 1740 three men were responsible, in varying degrees, for the work of directing the attention of the French public, aroused by Protestant criticism during the early part of the century, towards England.

One of them, now entirely forgotten, the author of a lively and agreeable collection of letters which made some stir in its day, was Béat de Muralt, a Protestant of Berne, who carried on, if he did not anticipate, the work of the refugees, and is very closely connected with them. Another, much more celebrated, became, through his novels, his journal, and certain famous translations, one of the warmest champions of the new literature

then being introduced into France. This was the abbé Prévost. The third, and by far the greatest, has given an account of his work in the following words: "I was the first to make Frenchmen acquainted with Shakespeare; I translated passages from him forty years ago, as well as extracts from Milton, Waller, Rochester, Dryden, and Pope. I can assure you that before my time there was not a man in France who had a knowledge of English poetry, while Locke had scarcely been heard of." 1 And certainly the author of the Lettres anglaises is entitled to claim such credit as may be due to one who, by dint of his own genius and notoriety, imbued Frenchmen with a veneration for the philosophy, the political science and the literature of England. But he has no excuse for forgetting or concealing what he owes to those who preceded him. For if the Lettres anglaises or philosophiques were published in 1734, Muralt's Lettres sur les Anglais et les Français had appeared in 1725, while the most important of Prévost's novels, as well as the first volume, at any rate, of Le Pour et Contre are likewise anterior to them. Voltaire, in short, provided "a brilliant summary," as Sainte-Beuve expressed it, of what had been said of England by other writers before him. But, besides drawing freely upon the works of his predecessors, he neglects to mention that others had already aroused the attention of the public and had prepared the way.

I

"Now that we are reprinting everything," wrote SainteBeuve, "we certainly ought to reprint the letters of M. de Muralt they deserve it. He was the first to say many things which have since been repeated less plainly and less frankly." 2

J Voltaire to Horace Walpole, 15th July 1768.

"2

2 On Muralt see the excellent monograph by M. de Greierz: Beat Ludwig von Muralt (Frauenfeld, 1888, 8vo); an article by M. E. Ritter in the Zeitschrift für neufranzösische Sprache und Literatur (1880), and various documents published by same author, especially an account of Muralt's religious ideas, in the Étrennes chrétiennes for 1894. See also the histories of French literature in Switzerland by M. Godet and M. Virgile Rossel (the latter of which contains a complete bibliography). Lastly, I may venture to refer the reader to an article in the

Plain, frank, and withal somewhat eccentric: such, in truth, was this atrabilious Swiss,' as he was called in his own day."

A Bernese of Protestant family, by education half French, half German, and born on the border line between two civilizations, he was well qualified thoroughly to understand them. both. Employed as a soldier in the French service, he became tired of the military profession, and, crossing over to England, noted down his impression of the country, during 1694 and 1695, for the benefit of a friend. Returning to Switzerland he embraced pietistic ideas of a very exalted type, and having provoked his expulsion first from Berne and then from Geneva, took shelter at Colombier, where, after his mysticism had involved him in an extraordinary adventure, he died. "You read Muralt," St Preux writes to Julie: "remark his end, lament the extravagant errors of that sensible man." 1

To these "extravagant errors" we owe certain religious works, now, deservedly it would seem, forgotten.2

Muralt's reputation, however, rests not on these works but on his Lettres sur les Anglais et les Français et sur les voyages, 3 frequently reprinted during the eighteenth century, and even under the Revolution. There are six letters on England and as many on France; both groups are written from a somewhat Protestant standpoint, but with a shrewd pen, and one a hundred times more vivid than those of Basnage de Beauval and Van Effen. When he wrote these charming pages, Muralt was not yet under the influence of the ideas which so entirely altered the course of his life during its later years, and almost Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France (January 1894), in which I have spoken of Muralt more at length. Since the publication of the first edition of this book, two fresh editions of Muralt's Lettres have appeared (Berne and Paris, 1897), one with notes in French by M. E. Ritter, the other with notes in German by M. de Greierz.

1 Nouvelle Héloïse, vi. 7. Eloisa (published by Hunter, Dublin, 1761), letter 159. 2 L'instinct divin recommandé aux hommes, 1727; Lettres sur l'esprit fort, 1728; Lettres fanatiques, 1739. Muralt also left some fables, and collaborated with Marie

Huber.

3 (Geneva) 8vo. Possibly the book was on sale as early as 1724. (Cf. Bibliothèque française, vol. iv., part ii., pp. 70-82).

led him to withhold his book from publication for conscientious reasons.1 He was fond of observing, and of recording what he saw with all the charm he could command. "Immediately a Frenchman enters another country," he writes, "he cannot contain himself for amazement at the spectacle of a whole nation differing from himself, and flees from the sight of so many horrors." Muralt endeavours not to be a Frenchman in that respect. He is no less distrustful of his countrymen's insatiable relish for intellectual smartness, whereby the nation is made "the perpetual subject of ridicule." He would have solidity, of the Bernese or even of the English type, without pedantry: "I think I had rather be a worthy Englishman than a worthy Frenchman; but it would perhaps be less uncomfortable to be a worthless Frenchman than to be a worthless Englishman. I had also rather meet a deserving Frenchman than a deserving Englishman, just as it would give one more pleasure to find a treasure in gold pieces, which could be turned to immediate account, than to find it in ingots, which would first have to be converted into coin." 2 A discerning mind withal, keen and incisive, and strangely curious with regard to everything except trifles"-by which must be understood whatever is merely a source of gratification, and does not contribute in any way to the inner life. If he happens to speak of comedy, it is to say that "grave people have even been seen, not only to derive amusement from it, but even to speak of it as seriously as though it were a matter of importance." Behold him therefore supported by excellent authority, and entitled to laugh without too many scruples. But it was because there was no French "levity" about him that he was able, in 1694, to form an admirable estimate of the English genius, such as had never before been formed in the French language.

It is true that he carried courtesy a little too far in his praise of English "liberty" and British "virtue"-those generous

1 Muralt was sixty years old when the entreaties of his friends induced him to consent to its publication. But his letters had almost attained celebrity before they were printed, and one of them had appeared in the Nouvelles littéraires at the Hague (May 1718).

2 Letter IV.

1

illusions of the eighteenth century. "His mind is French," said the abbé Le Blanc, referring to him, "but his heart is English." But whatever Le Blanc may say, it was because his mind as well as his heart was somewhat English that Muralt gave so flattering a definition of the moral and intellectual temperament of Englishmen. He gives a careful statement of their origins-Saxon, Norman and Latin. He observes their manners, their sports and even their vices from a close standpoint, and as a man of caution and experience. He investigates their arts and manufactures. He is captivated by their ingenuousness and their fidelity, and even by the savage element in their character. "May we not venture to say that a nation requires some fierceness in order to guard itself against slavery, just as one must be born a misanthrope in order to keep himself an honest man? Reason alone cannot have great influence over men; it needs, I think, a touch of fierceness to sustain it." 2 How attractive this fierceness" and "misanthropy" were shortly to appear to the frivolous French nature, and how far Muralt is here in advance of his age, the age of Jean-Jacques, who, moreover, was his convinced admirer! The French spirit "consists mainly in the art of making much of trifles." The English spirit is more precise, more solid, more free, and more simple. "England is a country of reserve and composure."

Muralt, like the refugees, is a modern, though timid and of narrow tastes. He speaks cleverly of Boileau, and considers that the French know scarcely anything of great poetry. He professes to despise "genius of an inferior order," and believes that to clothe common thoughts in beautiful language is to give us the semblance of poetry, but not poetry itself." Unfortunately he has not made it sufficiently clear that the English are more 1 Lettres, vol. i., p. 87. 2 Edition of 1725, P. 55.

3 Cf. p. 65. "The epithet 'good man' is never taken in bad part among the English, whatever the tone in which it is pronounced: so far from it that when they wish to praise their own nation highly they mention their 'good-natured people,' people of a pleasant disposition, of whom they maintain that neither the name nor the reality is to be met with elsewhere." Rousseau appropriated this observation from Muralt (Émile, 1. ii. note 26).