tyranny. In his Contemplations other qualities are shown, symbolic and even mystic brooding over religion, love, and destiny.1 The Roman novelists The chief followers of Hugo were the poets, Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863) and Alfred de Musset (1810–57) and the novelists, Théophile Gautier (1811–72) and tic poets and Alexandre Dumas (1803-70). De Vigny's poetry is at times idealistic and full of delicate imagery; at other times, it is melancholy to the point of pessimism. It was said of him that he was like a beautiful angel who had drunk of vinegar. Brilliant, vivacious, and sentimental was Alfred de Musset, the "poet of love," whose poems and plays have a high place in French literature. His most famous work is Les Nuits, a series of philosophic poems in the form of dialogues. Théophile Gautier, novelist, essayist, and poet, was an ardent Romanticist, whose sensational appearance at the first performance of Hernani, with his long hair disheveled and his person adorned with a flaming red waistcoat, aroused much hilarity. Master of a style which was almost flawless in its perfection, his themes are often trivial and, according to some critics, his work is lacking in ideas. The best-known Romantic novelist of the day, next to Victor Hugo, was Alexandre Dumas, whose tales have been described as "cloak-and-sword" romances because they deal with daring adventures, wicked conspiracies, and romantic loves. Dumas is the great favorite among boys, few of whom have not read his famous novels, the Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo. The chief contribution of the Romantic movement to French literature was a revival of lyric poetry, particu Romanti radicals larly in the work of Hugo, whose enduring fame cists become rests on his greatness, not as a novelist, but as a lyric poet. It also created a new type of prose which profoundly influenced later French literature. In politics, unlike the German Romanticists, who became reactionaries, the French Romanticists became radical democrats, "contemners of kings and laws," despite their 1 For further account of Hugo, see p. 165. love for the Middle Ages. Hugo and his disciples were too close to the great Revolution, and too much inspired by its ideals, to welcome the return of medievalism; what they did was to fuse the themes of the Middle Ages with the spirit of the French Revolution. Lamartine Alphonse Prat de Lamartine (1790-1869) is the unique example of a poet turned statesman. Lamartine was a philosophic poet, and might be described as the French Wordsworth. His volume of Méditations consists of philosophic elegies written in a beautiful, melodious style on such themes as Religion, Love, and Nature. His famous History of the Girondins is less a history than an eloquent tribute to the ideas of the Girondins of the French Revolution, whom he greatly admired. Lamartine was a sincere lover of freedom, and he threw himself into the revolutionary movement of 1848 with ardor, hoping to establish true democracy on the ruins of the bourgeois monarchy. He proved himself a remarkable orator, and becoming a popular idol, he was elected a member of the Provisional Government. But his popularity was shortlived, as both socialists and monarchists opposed him and he was compelled to retire from politics. Aurore Dupin (1804-76), better known by her pseudonym, "George Sand," is the representative of the Idealist school in French literature. Her novels of counGeorge Sand try life, written in a clear, flowing style, have an idyllic charm which has endeared her to thousands of readers. She effected something like a revolution in literature by introducing peasants and common laborers as heroes. Later in life she became a warm advocate of the rights of women and of workingmen, and an ardent adherent of utopian socialism. Balzac In the novels of Honoré Balzac (1799-1850) the problems of the middle classes for the first time become the leading themes in literature. His famous Comédie Humaine, in which about five thousand characters pass and repass through a series of one hundred novels, constitutes a veritable storehouse of "human documents" illustrating the social life of France during the first half of the nineteenth century. The virtues and vices of the middle classes are analyzed and portrayed with wonderful power and insight in this bourgeois epic, in which money, not love or war, is the theme, the moral, and the tale. Balzac's attitude toward human beings is almost that of a naturalist toward animals; he analyzes them as objectively, classifies them as emotionlessly, and judges them as dispassionately. He loves to ferret out the hidden motives for human action, and to expose mercilessly the secret springs and hidden trapdoors of society. In the opinion of many literary critics Balzac is the greatest of all the French novelists.1 1 His chief novels are Eugénie Grandet, Le Père Goriot, Le Cousin Pons, La Cousine Bette, and Grandeur et Décadence de César Birotteau. CHAPTER VII CENTRAL EUROPE 1815-50 INTRODUCTION nationalism SINCE the dissolution of the ancient Roman Empire two great problems have constantly confronted the Western, European people, nationalism and democracy. Problem of Throughout the chaos of the feudal period a solved by national consciousness was slowly developing France and in France and England which found expression England in the growing power of the king; and by the end of the fifteenth century the feudal barons, who had been practically independent monarchs in their own domains, were forced to give up their political independence and become courtiers or servants of the king. Furthermore, as a result of the Protestant Revolution, the Church was shorn of most of her secular authority and was also reduced to a position of subservience to the king, who was thereupon acknowledged by all his subjects as their supreme ruler. By the seventeenth century France and England had solved one problem, nationalism, which grew stronger as the people became more homogeneous, the laws more uniform, and the language and culture more common. It was quite otherwise in Germany. By a curious irony of circumstances those forces which made for nationalism in France and England produced the opposite Not solved effect in Germany. During the Middle Ages the by Germany Holy Roman Emperor, who claimed absolute dominion, not only over Germany, but over Italy as well, was unable to enforce his authority over the feudal barons and the independent towns that often rebelled against him. The great struggle between the Papacy and the Empire resulted in the triumph of the former and in the consequent weakening of the latter. Moreover, the Imperial Crown was elective, not hereditary; hence those great lords known as the "Electors," who controlled the election of the Emperor, were in a position to bargain with prospective candidates for their own advantage at the expense of the monarchy and therefore of the nation. Instead of gradually increasing and consolidating his authority by reducing the feudal barons to submission, the Emperor gradually lost much of his power and became a figurehead, for the Holy Roman Empire was but a shadowy union, "neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire," in Voltaire's witty description. The Protestant Revolution had a disastrous effect on German national unity. As Germany was the battleground between the contending parties, she found herself in a state of almost complete ruin at the end of the Thirty Years' War. The result being a victory for the Protestants, the Emperor, who had championed the cause of Catholicism, lost whatever little power and prestige he had had, and Germany was now more disrupted than ever before. A map of Germany during the eighteenth century had the appearance of a crazy-quilt. There were fully three hundred independent states, the "Germanies' The "Germanies" as they were then called by the French, varying in size from a large kingdom like Prussia to a tiny territory of a knight of the Empire, each with its own flag, system of government, tariff, and army. More confusing still was the fact that some states lay wholly or partly within the boundaries of other states like scattered strips on a medieval farm. Among the Germans of that day love for the Fatherland did not exist; there was none to love. Those who emigrated from Germany to other lands readily became assimilated with other nationalities and quickly forgot their native language and customs. At home the Germans were apt to be narrow and provincial, cherishing a strongly developed spirit of "particularism," or love of their state, and an affectionate regard for their princes. This is humorously described by the poet, Hein Heine's description of Germany rich Heine, in the following manner: |