A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL

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TORONTO

A HISTORY

OF THE

FRENCH NOVEL

(TO THE CLOSE OF THE 19TH CENTURY)

BY

GEORGE SAINTSBURY

M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.; HON. L.L.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.;FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY; HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD;LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OFEDINBURGH

VOL. II

FROM 1800 TO 1900

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1919

Sólo á veces, con un dejo
de zozobra y de ansiedad,
timido tiembla en sus labios
un viejo y triste cantar,
copla que vibre en el aire
como un toque funeral:
La Noche Buena se viene,
la Noche Buena se va!
Y nosotros nos iremos
y no volveremos más.

Carlos Fernandez Shaw,

La Balada de los Viejos.

[Pg v]

PREFACE

"The second chantry" (for it would be absurd to keep "temple") of thiswork "is not like the first"; in one respect especially, which seems todeserve notice in its Preface or porch—if a chantry may be permitted aporch. In Volume I.—though many of its subjects (not quite all) hadbeen handled by me before in more or less summary fashion, or in reviewsof individual books, or in other connections than that of thenovel—only Hamilton, Lesage, Marivaux, and the minor "Sensibility" menand women had formed the subjects of separate and somewhat detailedstudies, wholly or mainly as novelists. The case is altered in respectof the present volume. The Essays on French Novelists, to which Ithere referred, contain a larger number of such studies appertaining tothe present division—studies busied with Charles de Bernard, Gautier,Murger, Flaubert, Dumas, Sandeau, Cherbuliez, Feuillet. On Balzac I havepreviously written two papers of some length, one as an Introduction toMessrs. Dent's almost complete translation of the Comédie, withshorter sequels for each book, the other an article in the QuarterlyReview for 1907. Some dozen or more years ago I contributed to anAmerican edition [1] of translations of Mérimée by various hands, a long"Introduction"[Pg vi] to that most remarkable writer, and I had, somewhatearlier, written on Maupassant for the Fortnightly Review. One or twoadditional dealings of some substance with the subject might bementioned, such as another Introduction to Corinne, but not toDelphine. These, however, and passages in more general Histories,hardly need specification.

On the other hand, I have never dealt, substantively and in detail, withChateaubriand, Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Beyle, George Sand, or Zola [2]as novelists, nor

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