himself to the gowned devils"? He had no faith to which to testify in the flames. He was no more Protestant than Catholic, and if he had been burnt at Paris or Geneva it would only have been due to an unfortunate misunderstanding. Fundamentally, and M. Stapfer explains this very clearly, Rabelais was neither a theologian nor a philosopher; he was unaware of any of the beautiful ideas since discovered in his works. He had a sublime zeal for science, and so long as he was left undisturbed to study science, botany, cosmography, Greek, and Hebrew, he was perfectly satisfied, praised God, and hated no one, except the gowned devils. At that time the zeal for knowledge inflamed the most noble minds. The treasures of ancient literature, exhumed from the 'dust of the cloisters, were brought into the light of day, explained by scholarly editors, and multiplied by the presses of Venice, Basle, and Lyons. Rabelais' share was the publication of some Greek manuscripts. Like his contemporaries, he admired all the work of the ancients indifferently. His head was a barn in which were stored Virgil, Lucian, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides, the high classics and the low. But he was principally a doctor, a wandering doctor, and a maker of almanacs. Gargantua and Pantagruel held no more place in his life than did Don Quixote in that of Cervantes ; Rabelais constructed his masterpiece unknowingly, which is the usual means by which masterpieces come into being. Genius alone is required; forethought is entirely superfluous. In these days, when there exists a literature and literary canons, we live to write, when we do not write to live. We take great pains, and while we are trying to do well our intuitive grace evaporates. The best chance one has of creating a masterpiece is―and I admit it is small-to make no previous preparation, to be entirely lacking in literary vanity, and to write for the muses and oneself. Rabelais unconsciously wrote one of the world's greatest books. It afforded him much amusement. He started off without any sort of plan or idea. His original intention was to write the continuation of a popular story which amused the servant-maids and footmen. He failed completely, and what he had prepared for the vulgar was food for the finest intellects. This is very puzzling to human sagacity, which, however, is continually being puzzled. Rabelais was, unknown to himself, the miracle of his age. In a century of refinement, coarseness and pedantry, he was incomparably exquisite, coarse and pedantic. His genius is very disturbing to those who search him for faults: as he has them all, it is very reasonably doubted whether he has any. He is wise and foolish, natural and affected, refined and trivial; he gets muddled and confused, and contradicts himself unceasingly. But he makes everything clear and lovable. His style is that of a prodigy, and although he often falls into the strangest aberrations no writer is his superior in the art of choosing and marshalling words. He loves and adores words. His trick of stringing them together is marvellous. He simply cannot check himself. This exhibitor of giants is immoderate in all things. He has an immense litany of nouns and adjectives. For instance, when the bakers have an argument with the shepherds, the latter will be described as: "Trop diteux, breschedens, plaisans rousseaux, galliers, chienlicts, averlans, limes sourdes, faitnéans, friandeaux, bustarins, traînegaînes, gentilz flocquets, copieux, landores, malotrus, dendins, beaugars, tezés, gaubregeux, gogelus, claquedens. . . et autres telz épithètes diffamatoires." Please note that I have left out some of these epithets. Sometimes it is the mere sound of the words that amuses and excites him, like a mule that runs to the sound of bells. He revels in puerile alliterations; "Au son de ma musette mesuray les musarderies des musards." So great a craftsman in his mother tongue, whose speech smacks of his native soil, he will sometimes break out into Greek and Latin, like the Limousin scholar whom he had laughed at while perhaps admiring him in secret, for it was one of this great jester's characteristics to love what he jeered at. He described a bitch on heat as a lycisque orgoose, and a one-eyed mare as an esgue orbe. So far as I know, our symbolists, M. de Régnier, and M. Jean Moréas himself, have not imagined rarer terms. But Rabelais impregnates them with such humour, and uses them in such a way that one is bound to laugh with him. In his happy moments, he has the most magnificent and charming style. Where will you find a more pleasant phrase than the following, taken at random from Book III, which refers to the policy that should be pursued with recently conquered peoples? "Comme enfant nouvellement né, les fault alaicter, bercer, esjouir. Comme arbre nouvellement planté, les fault appuyer, asseurer, défendre de toutes vimères, injures et calamités. Comme personne sauvée de longue et forte maladie et venant à convalescence, les fault choyer, espargner, restaurer." Is not that a simple sentence? Just like Perrette in a short skirt. There is nothing more sprightly than the lamentations of Gargantua bewailing the death of his wife Badbec. Rabelais is like Nature. Death does not affect his immense joy. "Ma femme est morte. Eh bien! par Dieu, je ne la ressusciteray pas par mes pleurs; elle est bien, elle est en paradis pour le moins, si mieulx n'est; elle prie Dieu pour nous; elle est bien heureuse; elle ne se soucie plus de nos misères et calamités; autant nous en pend à l'œil. Dieu gard le demourant! Il me fault penser d'en trouver une autre." To conclude, here is the adventure which closed the life of the priest Tappecu. It will never be surpassed in the art of story-telling. "La poultre, tout effrayée, se mit au trot, à petz, à bondz et au gualop; à ruades, fressurades, doubles pédales et pétarrades ; tant qu'elle rua bas Tappecoue, quoy qu'il se tint à l'aube du bast de toutes ses forces. Ses estrivières estoient de cordes; du cousté hors le montonoir son soulier fenestré estoit si fort entortillé qu'il ne le put oncques tirer. Ainsi estoit traisné à escorchecul par la poultre, toutjours multipliante en ruades contre luy, et fourvoyante de peur par les hayes, buissons et fossés. De mode qu'elle luy cobbit toute la teste, si que la cervelle en tomba près la croix Osanière, puis les bras en pièces, l'un ça, l'autre là, les jambes de mesmes; puis des boyaux fit un long carnaige, en sorte que la poultre au couvent arrivante, de luy ne pertoit que le pied droit et soulier entortillé" (IV, 13). How well that is described, and what a vast joy is suffused over this scene of carnage; the very exaggeration destroys its horror. Let us then, with M. Stapfer, love the "learned and gentle Rabelais," let us forgive his parson's jokes, and agree that, taken all in all, he was a kindly, worthy man. BARBEY D'AURÉVILLY T would, indeed, be difficult for me to form an unprejudiced judgment of Barbey d'Aurévilly. I cannot remember the time when I did not know him by sight. He is one of my most youthful recollections, like the statues on the Pont d'Iéna, at whose feet I used to play with my hoop, and the time when one used still to gather mullein, clover, and cowslips on the wild and flowery slopes of the Trocadéro. I had no special opinion concerning those statues; I saw vaguely that they were men controlling stone horses with reins. I had no idea whether they were beautiful or ugly, but I felt their enchantment, like that of the light of heaven, in which I delightedly bathed myself, of the fresh air which I joyfully breathed, of the trees on the deserted quays, of the smiling waters of the Seine, and of the whole world. Yes, I felt all these things; but I never guessed that the enchantment lay within myself, that it was my little self that filled the vast world with radiant happiness. I should explain that when I was nine years old the subjectivity of impressions meant nothing to me. I tasted the world's charm without an effort. There is a great truth in the myth of the Terrestrial Paradise, and I am not surprised |