FRENCH EPIC POETRY. 6^1 



Louis Veuillot, the author of Route ci Lorcttc and Parfuyns Je 

 Rome, and a boisterous defender of ultramontanism. This made 

 him ex atictoritate naturae, a deadly enemy of Voltaire : 



Un hachis de centons, tries de mille ecrits, 

 Vingt auteurs imites, viiigt auteurs appauvris ; 

 Aucune invention nullepart; point de style, 

 Mais le cours clapotant d'une veine futile 

 Qui, sur tous le terrains jasant du meme ton, 

 S'ouvre et flue aussitot qu'un touche le piston ; 

 Bref, des vers de bureau; je crois que c'est tout dire. 



The epics which now remain to be considered belong^ to the 

 19th century, and consequently are in no connection with the 

 verdict of Malezieux and Voltaire, to which I took exception. 

 Before proceeding with this final chapter of my paper, I would 

 like to propose the following conclusion, which I venture to 

 base on what I stated above. From the very beginning, the 

 French have been passionately fond of heroic tales about great 

 exploits and noble, beautiful actions, and if we take that into 

 account, they ought, de jure, to have their great epic. The 

 Middle Ages, in spite of their being replete with the loftiest 

 inspiration, failed to bring it because of the almost absolute lack 

 and absence of art. Meanwhile the Chanson- de Roland will for 

 ever be a glorious monument amongst a host of minor epics. 

 Between the Middle Ages and the period of Romanticism in the 

 beginning of the 19th century, French poets have repeatedly 

 endeavoured to produce an Iliad or an Acneid," or a De Nahira 

 Rerum-. Their intentions were of the noblest, their efforts 

 unflagging, of the best and most honest, but the forbidding 

 tyranny of the rules, to which the authors obstinately clung, their 

 servility in the imitation of the classics and other adverse circum- 

 stances, proved fatal to the accomplishment of their design. In 

 the i8th century, Voltaire achieved a creditable success with his 

 Henriade, which though superior to what had been produced 

 before, ranks as an epic, most decidedly below the Chanson dii 

 Roland. Reverting to my argument. I wish to add that the 

 verdict mentioned above with regard to the epic in France and 

 the alleged incapacity of the French, has no foundation in truth.* 

 This closes at the same time the controversial part of my paper. 

 What now remains tO be said will, I hope anrl trust, corr<;]jorate 

 and substantiate my conclusion. 



One often wonders how it is that the period during which 

 Napoleon and his .soldiers were dazzling the world with aristeiai, 

 in comparison with which the perennial glories of Achilles, Ajax, 

 and Hector, ^naeas, Roland and Olivier wax dim and pale, that 

 this period of unparalleled military glory, so often alluded to 

 as I Epopee dh I'Aiglc, should have failed to bring France its 

 great epic. But could the victorious coiuiueror of .\usterlitz 

 and Jena become the hero of an epic, so shortly after his death ? 

 Evidently not ; for Edgar Ouinet made an essay in epic with 



* Let us remember that in the Middle Ages France supplied epic poetry 

 to the whole of Europe 



