2-> S. VII. Aprii, 1G. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



327 



Artists who have been Scene-painters (2"'^ S. iii. 

 46. 477. ; iv. 398.) — Among our eminent scene- 

 painters, we ought not to forget Inigo Jones, who 

 so ably contributed to the success of the Masques 

 of Ben Jonson, Daniel, and Chapman. 



CUTHBERT BeSE. 



MONTHLT FEUILLETON ON FRENCH BOOKS. 



"La Societe FraiKjaise au XVII» Sil'cle d'aprfes Le 

 Grand Cyrus de Mile, de Scuddry, par M. Victor Cousin." 

 2 vols. 8» Paris, Didier. 



What would Boileau say if he were to return amongst 

 us? The victims of his pen are now almost candidates 

 for public favour; Theophile and Saint Armand have 

 become classics, and the Scudery family attracts more 

 attention at the present day than the writings of the 

 critic who fondly imagined that he had struck the death- 

 blow of Le Grand Cyrus. 



We must not, however, ascribe to M. Cousin the rash 

 desire of exalting the long-winded productions of Sappho 

 (cf. Somaize, Diet, des precicuses) into either an amusing 

 book or a monument of literarj' beautj- ; it is, generally 

 speaking, imsafe to appeal from the verdict passed by 

 posterity, and M. Cousin himself expressly disclaims all 

 intention of impugning the authority of Boileau: " Ce 

 n'est pas," he says, " le cote litteraire du Cyrus qui nous 

 occupe; ce ne sont pas des lemons de politesse, de bon 

 gout, et meme d'e'le'vation morale que nous y cherchons ; 

 nous le considerons ici par un tout autre endroit : en nous 

 fournissant des lumiferes nouvelles sur la plus belle epoque 

 de la socie'te Fran(;aise, il accroit I'admiration qui lui est 

 due, etpar la il se rattaclie k I'objet g^ne'ral de nos tra- 

 vaux historiques." 



Our readers are aware that for the last few years M. 

 Cousin, taking leave of his former metaphysical studies, 

 has devoted the whole of his time to researches connected 

 with the history of French society during the first half of 

 the seventeenth century. These researches, enthusiasti- 

 cally pursued amidst the dust of public and private 

 libraries, have brought to light an extraordinary number 

 of documents hitherto altogether unknown ; in their turn, 

 the documents thus exhumed from the obscurity in which 

 they lay, then put together, commented on, illustrated, 

 and explained, have elicited from the eloquent pen of the 

 eclectic philosopher a series of volumes or monographies 

 which now occupy a permanent and conspicuous place in 

 every well-selected library. The two octavos we pur- 

 pose noticing here are the natural sequel of this series ; 

 M. Cousin in his preface informs us that whilst incapaci- 

 tated by a serious illness from pursuing all work, he took 

 up by way of amusement Le Grand Cyrus, and began mak- 

 ing extracts from it as he went on. He then compared 

 the result of his reading with a MS. kej' to the romance 

 which he had found at the library of the Arsenal in 

 Paris, and was thus led gradually to deduce froni Le 

 Grand Cyrus a striking and interesting picture of French 

 society towards the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. 

 This kind of commentary on Mile, de Scudery's work 

 first appeared in the Journal des Savants; it is now pub- 

 lished in a consecutive form with a few additions, a preface, 

 and an appendix of original pieces justijicatives, and is 

 well worthwhile the consideration of our readers. 



The important fact for us ma}' thus be stated: — Le 

 Grand Cyrus is not merely a work of imagination, a con- 

 catenation of extraordinary and complicated events put 

 together to astonish by their wildness, and to charm by 



their high-flown character: no, it is a true record of 

 things that were actually done, and of personages who 

 actually lived ; under an allegorical form it corroborates 

 the details furnished by contemporary memoirs, and it 

 may be easily deciphered with the help of a key, just as 

 much as the caracteres of La Brnyfere, or the Latin novels 

 of Barclaj'. 



In the "appendix to the first volume, M. Cousin gives 

 us that key, such as he found it in the Arsenal library. 

 From the document thus unexpectedly discovered, we 

 gather, amongst other items, the following most import- 

 ant identities : — 



3Iandane is the Duchess de Longueville ; Cyrus — the 

 Prince de Conde; the city of Artaxate — Paris; the siege 

 of Cumes — the siege of Dunkirk, "exactement d^crit selon 

 la veritd"; the history of the Princess Talmis and of 

 Cleander is in part an account of what took place be- 

 tween the Queen of Poland and Cinq-Mars, the favourite 

 of Louis XIII. ; Cleomire is the Marchioness de Rambouil- 

 let; Megabates — the Duke de Montausier; £'/jse — Ma- 

 demoiselle Paulet, &c., &c. 



It will be easily seen that, viewed in so novel a light, 

 Le Grand Cyrus becomes doubly interesting ; we forget 

 the tediousness of the descriptions to think only of their 

 accuracy ; and if the various plots interwoven throughout 

 the book strike us as improbable, the characters them- 

 selves are essentially true. 



But we must not disregard an objection which has 

 been opposed to those who would lay too much stress 

 upon keys similar to the one discovered by M. Cousin. 

 It is certain, for instance, that the accuracy of the various 

 explanations given to La Bruyfere's characters is still a 

 matter of doubt: "Quand I'ind&ision et la contradic- 

 tion meme," says M. Auger, " d'un certain nombre de 

 de'signations ne les feroient pas soup9onner toutes de 

 faussete, il v auroit encore lieu de rejeter ces pretendues 

 revelations du secret de I'auteur." In the present case, 

 the great problem, therefore, was to take up the most 

 authentic narratives of contemporary events, — histories, 

 memoirs, correspondence?, autobiographies, to compare 

 them carefully with the tale of Mademoiselle de Scudery, 

 and thus to arrive, from a constant parallel study of the 

 fiction and the truth, at satisfactory conclusions respect- 

 ing the merit or worthlessness of the explanations sug- 

 gested by the kej-. Now, no one could undertake such a 

 task who was not thoroughly conversant with the poli- 

 tical and social history of the seventeenth century ; and 

 that is the reason why no one perhaps was better quali- 

 fied for this dutv than M. Cousin himself. Our readers 

 will find, we befieve, that the result is extremely satis- 

 factory. 



Vol. L Chap. I. contains an interesting account of the 

 connexion which existed between the Scude'ry family 

 and Madame de Longueville. Le Grand Cyrus was dedi- 

 cated to the sister of the Prince de Conde', and M. Cousin 

 takes the opportunity of putting in their true hght the 

 excellent qualities of George de Scudery, who, although 

 somewhat ridiculous by his intense vanity and his brag- 

 ging propensities, had the very great quality of gratitude 

 and faithfulness to his friends. When the events of the 

 Fronde naturally issued in the disgrace of the Condes, 

 Scude'rv stuck fast to his former protector: it is well 

 known' also that he defended to the last the poet Theo- 

 phile de Viaud, accused of the foulest crimes, and he 

 refused the present of a gold chain which the Queen of 

 Sweden intended to bestow upon him, rather than etfacing 

 from his poemof^fanc the panegyric he had made of 

 Count La Gardie. 



Chaps. IL— IV.— Conde. — In this part of the work M. 

 Cousin proves the accuracy of Mademoiselle de Scudery's 

 descriptions by constant references to historical works, of 



