628 ' FRENCH EPIC POETRY. 



Ronsard had hoped that his Franciade would brino^ him 

 homeric immortality. Scudery reckoned on his Alaric to crown 

 him with a laureate's glory and make him rich to boot. The 

 opening verse, undoubtedly meant to strike our ear with some- 

 thing- like an echo — a very faint and feeble echo — of Virgil's 

 stately introitus : " Arma virnmque cano Troiae qui primus ab 

 oris," etc., has all the blustering ring in it characteristic of the 

 poet, who was a captain of the guards, and who, in literature, 

 played more or less the part of a Matamoro : " le cJiantc le 

 I'ainqneur des vain'quenrs de la terre!" Boileau has rightly made 

 game of this pompous introduction. Indeed, never has any 

 mountain in travail produced a more disappointing, ridiculous 

 mouse. And yet this Scudery is anything but a worthless poet. 

 His epic contains incontestably interesting episodes, and (\mtt a 

 number of sonorous, well-turned passages. But this is no suffi- 

 cient compensation for its defects, its painful distortion of his- 

 tory, its mawkish preciosity, its lengthy and tedious descriptions. 

 Besides, the author made the mistake of trying to immortalise a 

 foreign hero, in whom there was nothing to flatter in any way 

 the patriotic feelings of the French people. In this respect. 

 /Jlaric was a sheer repetition of Francus. 



Almost contemporary with Scudery's Alaric, Chapelain gave 

 to the world his Pitcellc, which had been advertised beforehand 

 with great fuss. If ever any poet was courted, in his days, to the 

 same extent as Ronsard and Victor Hugo, for instance, were 

 courted in theirs, it was Chapelain. The Italian poet Marino 

 asked him to write a preface to his Adone ; he became one of the 

 most influential members of the Academic Franqaise, and was 

 looked upon as the prominent literary authority of his age. The 

 mainstay of this golden reputation was the pufling announce- 

 ment of his national epic of the Maid of Orleans, the first 12 

 books of which appeared after 20 years of hard work. The 

 Due de Longueville, who was pleased at the idea that his great 

 ancestor Dunois was going to be extolled in print, had promised 

 the poet an annuity of 2,oo(3 livres during the time he should be 

 occupied in writing his poem. Very probably this induced 

 Chapelain to put into useful practice Horace's precept : Festina 

 lente. However, in 1656 delay was no longer possible, and the 

 first part had to be published. Great was the disillusionment 

 ?mong the admirers of this "' king of authors." Even his 

 staunchest friends were obliged to reserve their judgment; 

 and the Duchesse de Longueville exclaimed after a first 

 reading: " Cela est parfaitement beau, mais cela est bien ennuy- 

 eux!"' The poem is romanesque beyond all measure, and the 

 author displays a perfectly unwarrantable disregard for historical 

 truth. Incapable of captivating his readers by a pathetic account 

 of the great deeds of his heroine, he piles fiction upon fiction, 

 and, at the same time, greatly overworks the ordinary epic 

 machinery. France was deeply disappointed after the appear- 

 ance of the first 12 cantos, and Chapelain, very sensibly, never 

 published the remainder. However, in spite of serious and 



