NEW SCHOOL OF HISTORY IN FRANCE. 383 



be promoted if in France and England, during the next thirty years, 

 works like that of M. de Barante could be produced and generally 

 circulated through the political systems of those two countries ! The 

 main point to which the aspirant for historic honours should aim is to 

 give to history all the charm of fabulous narrative without injuring 

 the interests of truth ; and this, be it understood, is not impossible, 

 since our author has fully proved its possibility by his own signal 

 success. 



So long as criticism was unable to enter the field of true history, 

 because it was unaided by the treasures of antiquity that lay buried 

 in the dust of monasteries and churches, the poems and romances of 

 the middle ages necessarily constituted all that then existed of na- 

 tional history ; and the annals of literature in general prove to us that 

 this remark is equally applicable to all European nations possessed of 

 a distinct literature. Nay, from the cautious consultation of these 

 early documents information of the greatest value may be acquired 

 respecting the true manners of those times.f But as soon as history 

 once more appeared on the scene at the revival of letters, romance, 

 which had so long usurped her place, could only be considered as an 

 intruder, a noxious parasite, exercising a very sinister influence on 

 healthy literature, by seducing the reader's time that would other- 

 wise have been devoted to historical study. We should be careful 

 to tear the mask from those works which have no history except in 

 their title-page, whose authenticity, notwithstanding, is ingeniously 

 and playfully defended by their authors with as much seriousness as 

 a droll casuist would eulogize the plague, the better to show off his 

 own talents. And we should stand on our guard equally against 

 works assuming the name of novels, and yet abusing their licence 

 of circulating historic fictions by laying claim to and arguing for 

 their veracity in tedious introductory dissertations. 



Still, without perverting history, without metamorphosing it into 

 fable or romance, without, on the other hand, writing on some system 

 and in defence of a particular set of political and religious prejudices, 

 it is surely possible to describe in a dramatic manner the opinions and 

 deeds of men in past ages, and that too without donning the tragic 

 buskin or sounding the trumpet of the tournament or the war-charge. 



Can we not borrow from romance its method of arrangement and 

 its pleasant, easy, and unaffected style of diction, instead of-adopting, 

 what is too frequent with historians, the musty language of a pedantic 

 professor addressing his scholars, and introducing obscure but erudite 

 commentaries that serve less to enlighten the reader than to flatter 

 the author's sagacity. History has hence become a dry and compul- 

 sory study, whereas it should have been a pursuit full of attractions. 

 Another evil, arising partly from the jejune and over-laboured style 

 of real histories, partly from the immense number of romances with 



* This may, perhaps, be considered as a sufficient answer to the unmeasured attacks 

 so constantly directed by the "Quarterly Review" against the literature of France, 

 especially that very violent one in the last number. We shall refer to, the subject in a 

 separate article. 



t The romances, novelles, and fabliaux of these times often give more exact notions 

 of the manners and political condition of people than one can obtain from consulting 

 the Latin chronicles. See Raynouard : Choix de Poesie originate des Troubadours. 



