3

the Italians or the Spaniards.' 99 1 The Mémoires de Trévoux state that France had become "a very good friend to English literature," and express concern at the fact. The Correspondance littéraire remarks that the vogue of translations from English "is lasting longer than such fashions usually last in this country." In 1755 Fréron writes: "Barely forty years ago a man who ventured to speak of English tragedy and comedy would have been hissed in fashionable society. . . . It has been a great surprise to us to find that this nation is the equal of ours in genius, its superior in power, and its inferior only in subtlety and elegance." 4 I may be excused for quoting so much evidence of a revolution of such importance in French

taste.

There was still, according to the point of view which we adopt, either one more step to be taken, or one more error to be committed. Now that curiosity with regard to English works had been thoroughly aroused, it remained to recommend them for imitation.

shrink.

From this consequence Voltaire did not

Of what does the history of literature consist but of imitation and borrowing? Montesquieu borrows from Mariana, Boiardo from Pulci, Ariosto from Boiardo. The English have frequently pilfered from the French without making any acknowledgment. Books are like "the fire on our hearths." from our neighbours, light our own fire to others, and it becomes common property. are those who manage to borrow in season!

We obtain kindling
with it, hand it on
The fortunate ones
Since therefore the

1 Bibliothèque française, vol. vii., p. 189. "Our intercourse with the English, our study of their language, the eagerness of our writers to translate their works, are so many different ways in which a knowledge of the style and genius of their poetry has been rendered easier for us." Cf. Silhouette, Introduction to the translation of Pope's Essay on Man. London, 1741, 4to.

2 October 1749. Cf. L'Esprit des journalistes de Trévoux. Paris, 1771, vol. ii., P. 491: "It may be said that the productions of this country are sowing among us the germs of all the unbridled opinions which have made as many ungodly Christians in England as bad citizens."

3 1st August 1753.

4 Journal étranger, September 1755, P. 4. vol. iii., p. 208.

See also La Harpe, Cours de littérature,

English have profited largely by works in the French language, "we, who have lent to them, ought to borrow from them in our turn."1

Coming, as it did, at the right moment, this advice was followea.

1 Vol. xxii., p. 177, note. In 1756, Voltaire suppressed this passage, feeling, doubtless, that his advice had been followed too faithfully.

Chapter III

THE CAUSES WHICH, BEFORE THE TIME OF ROUSSEAU, PAVED THE WAY FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN FRANCE

I. Circumstances which contributed to the diffusion of the cosmopolitan spirit during the first half of the century-Decline of the patriotic idea-Exhausted state of the national literature.

II. Spread of the scientific spirit, and its literary results.

III. The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in its relation to the influence of England; in him the Latin genius is combined with the Germanic.

I

THE refugees and Muralt, Voltaire and the abbé Prévost had prepared opinion in France for the influence of English literature, and by means of this influence, for that also of other Northern literatures. They all contributed, some with full consciousness and intention, others from simple intellectual curiosity and without any calculation of the consequences their action might entail, to impair the venerable prestige of classical literature by affording the French mind a glimpse of a literature which to all appearance at any rate was absolutely indigenous, was profoundly original, and, instead of being founded on tradition, tended exclusively in the direction of progress.

"It seems," wrote Gottsched in 1739, "that the English are setting themselves to drive the French out of Germany."1 In France the invasion of English literature took place more slowly. Nevertheless, between 1700 and 1760, approximately speaking, a few of those who aspired to educate the masses were promoting

1 Manuscript letter preserved in the Zurich Library and quoted by M. de Greierz, in his Muralt.

66

Many circum

the cross-fertilization of the two literatures. stances assisted them in their endeavour. In the first place, it must be admitted, the decay of the patriotic idea. "The eighteenth century," it has been justly said, was neither Christian nor French."1 That is why, no less in literature than in everything else, it failed to maintain what for two centuries had been regarded as the national tradition. It is curious that the periods of the recrudescence of anglomania should coincide exactly with our most painful defeats or most disastrous treaties. Our admiration of England was never more lively than in 1748 and 1763, or thereabouts, and during the war with America. During the seven years war, it reached fever-heat. In vain did a few patriots raise their voices in denunciation of "that detestable country, the horrible resort of the savages of Europe, where reason, humanity and nature are unable to make their voices heard." 2 In vain did the press pour forth its pamphlets and satires. We read in a poem issued in 1762: "Blood-nurtured tigers! Your Lockes and Newtons never taught you such barbarous lessons as these. From them arose your imperishable renown; they have absolved you from a Cromwell's crimes." 3

4

The author of a Petit catéchisme politique des Anglais, par demandes et par réponses, endeavours to rouse the national sentiment over the Port Mahon affair: "How do we define the science of government?" the English are supposed to be asked. "It is the practical knowledge of everything that is unjust and dishonest. What is natural right'?—It is an ancient code of law implanted in the human heart, which we have just 1 E. Faguet, xviiie siècle, preface.

2 Les Sauvages de l'Europe. Berlin, 1750. (See the Journal encyclopédique, 1st June 1764.)

3 D'Arnauld, A la Nation, 1762.

* 1756. (Journal encyclopédique, September 1756). See also the Adresse à la nation anglaise, a patriotic poem, by a citizen, Paris, 1757, 12mo: "It has been thought permissible," says the author, in language which is highly significant, “to tell the truth boldly to a nation which tells it so frankly to its own kings"; and La difference du patriotisme national chez les Français et chez les Anglais (by Basset de la Marelle. Paris, 1766) in which the author calls attention very decidedly to the decline of the patriotic sentiment.

amended in accordance with patterns only to be found in Barbary... What is a treaty?-The thing for which we care less than for anything else in the world. What are boundaries? We have not the slightest desire to know.What are friends ?-What we shall never possess."

you

“I

Friends they possessed, nevertheless, and very warm ones. Gibbon, who visited Paris in 1763, writes: "Our opinions, our manners, and even our dress were adopted in France ; a ray of his nation's glory illumined every Englishman, and he was always supposed to be a patriot and a philosopher born.” 1 "What did think of the French ?" Voltaire once asked Sherlock. found them agreeable, intelligent and refined,” his guest replied. "I only noticed one fault in them: they imitate the English too much.” 2 Immediately after the conclusion of the disastrous peace which deprived France of her fairest colonies, Favart celebrated the union of the two peoples in his Anglais à Bordeaux : "Courage and honour knit nations together, and two peoples equal in virtue and intelligence throw down the barriers their decrees have raised, that they may be for ever friends." So strangely feeble was the national sentiment that these lines were applauded to the skies, and their author dragged on to the stage and loudly cheered.

We must therefore note, as one of the causes which assisted the diffusion of anglomania, the decline of the patriotic idea.

By a strange inconsistency, the virtues which the French admired in their neighbours were just those in which they themselves were most deficient. They envied the patriotism of the English, with all its fierceness and brutality. Even in 1728, Marivaux expressed his astonishment at these inconsistencies in a 1 Mémoires, ch. xv. 2 Lettres d'un voyageur anglais, p. 135.

The treaty of Paris was concluded in February. The play was produced in March 1763. The author submitted it to the English ambassador, who altered its title, and caused the performance to be preceded by that of Brutus, "a patriotic tragedy in the English style." In consequence of this disgraceful success, the Journal encyclopédique says: "The author formulates the charge that at Paris the English are represented as a great and generous nation which seeks to rival the French in talent and in virtue, an accusation which the public endorses by its applause." (1st March 1763.)

4

• Cf. Bolingbroke's Letters on Patriotism, translated by the Comte de Bissy.