<SPAN name="XIV"></SPAN>
<h2>XIV</h2>
<h2><b>"THE PRINCE OF FRENCH POETS"</b></h2>
<br/>
<p>It is difficult nowadays to conceive that, within half a century of
his
death, Ronsard's fame suffered so dark an eclipse that no new edition
of
his works was called for between 1629 and 1857. When he died, he was,
as
M. Jusserand reminds us, the most illustrious man of letters in Europe.
He seemed, too, to have all those gifts of charm—charm of mood and
music—which make immortality certain. And yet, in the rule-of-thumb
ages that were to follow, he sank into such disesteem in his own
country
that Boileau had not a good word for him, and Voltaire roundly said of
him that he "spoiled the language." Later, we have Arnauld asserting
that France had only done herself dishonour by her enthusiasm for "the
wretched poetry of Ronsard." Fénelon, as M. Jusserand tells us,
discusses Ronsard as a linguist, and ignores him as a poet.</p>
<p>It was the romantic; revival of the nineteenth century that placed
Ronsard on a throne again. Even to-day, however, there are pessimistic
Frenchmen who doubt whether their country has ever produced a great
poet. Mr. Bennet has told us of one who, on being asked who was the
greatest of French poets, replied: "Victor Hugo, hélas!" And in
the days
when Hugo was still but a youth the doubt must have been still more
painful. So keenly was the want of a national poet felt that, if one
could not have been discovered, the French would have had to invent
him.
It was necessary for the enthusiastic young romanticists to possess a
great indigenous figure to stand beside those imported idols
—Shakespeare, Byron, Goethe, and Dante. Sainte-Beuve, who brought out a
Ronsard anthology with a critical essay in 1828, showed them where to
look. After that, it was as though French literature had begun with
Ronsard. He was the "ideal ancestor." He was, as it were, a
re-discovered fatherland. But his praise since then has been no mere
task of patriotism. It has been a deep enthusiasm for literature. "You
cannot imagine," wrote Flaubert, in 1852, "what a poet Ronsard is. What
a poet! What a poet! What wings!... This morning, at half-past twelve,
I
read a poem aloud which almost upset my nerves, it gave me so much
pleasure." That may be taken as the characteristic French view of
Ronsard. It may be an exaggerated view. It may be fading to some extent
before modern influences. But it is unlikely that Ronsard's reputation
in his own country will ever again be other than that of a great poet.</p>
<p>At the same time, it is not easy, on literary grounds, to acquiesce
in
all the praises that have been heaped upon him. One would imagine from
Flaubert's exclamations that Ronsard had a range like Shelley's,
whereas, in fact, he was more comparable with the English cavalier
poets. He had the cavalier poet's gift of making love seem a profession
rather than a passion. He was always very much a gentleman, both in his
moods and his philosophy. A great deal of his best poetry is merely a
variation on <i>carpe diem.</i> On the other hand, though he never
went very
deep or very high, he did express real sentiments and emotions in
poetry. Few poets have sung the regret for youth more sincerely and
more
beautifully, and, with Ronsard, regret for the lost wonder of his own
youth was perhaps the acutest emotion he ever knew. He was himself, in
his early years, one of those glorious youths who have the genius of
charm and comeliness, of grace and strength and the arts. He excelled
at
football as in lute-playing. He danced, fenced, and rode better than
the
best; and, with his noble countenance, his strong limbs, his fair
beard, and his "eyes full of gentle gravity," he must have been the
picture of the perfect courtier and soldier. Above all, we are told,
his
conversation was delightful. He had "the gift of pleasing." When he
went
to Scotland in 1537 with Madeleine, the King's daughter, to attend as
page her tragic marriage with James V, James was so attracted by him
that he did not allow him to leave the country for two years. With
every
gift of popularity and success, with the world apparently already at
his
feet, Ronsard was suddenly struck down by an illness that crippled his
whole life. He became deaf, or half-deaf. His body was tortured with
arthritis and recurrent attacks of gout. His career as a courtier lay
in
ruins before him.</p>
<p>Possibly, had it not been so, his genius as a poet would have spent
itself in mere politeness. The loss of his physical splendour and the
death of more than one of his companions, however, filled him with an
extreme sense of the transitoriness of the beauty of the world—of youth
and fame and flowers—and turned him both to serious epicureanism and to
serious writing. By the year 1550 he was leading the young men of
France
in a great literary renaissance—a reaction against the lifeless jingle
of ballades and punning rhymes. Like du Bellay, he asked himself and
his
contemporaries: "Are we, then, less than the Greeks and Romans?" And he
set out to lay the foundations in France of a literature as individual
in its genius as the ancient classics. M. Jusserand, in a most
interesting chapter, relates the story of the battles over form and
language which were fought by French men of letters in the days of La
Pléiade. In an age of awakenings, of conquests, of philosophies,
of
discussions on everything under the sun, the literature of tricksters
was ultimately bound to give way before the bold originality and the
sincerities of the new school. But Ronsard had to endure a whole
parliament of mockery before the day of victory.</p>
<p>Of his life, apart from his work in literature, there is little to
tell. For a man who lived in France in days when Protestantism and
Catholicism were murderously at one another's throats, he had a
peculiarly uneventful career. This, too, though he threw himself
earnestly into the battle against the heretics. He had begun by
sympathizing with Protestantism, because it promised much-needed
reforms
in the Church; but the sympathy was short-lived. In 1553, though a
layman, he was himself filling various ecclesiastical offices. He drew
the salaries of several priories during his life, more lowly paid
priests apparently doing the work. Though an earnest Catholic, however,
Ronsard was never faithless to friends who took the other side. He
published his kindly feelings towards Odet de Coligny, the Admiral's
cardinal brother, for instance, who had adopted Protestantism and
married, and, though he could write bloodily enough against his
sectarian enemies, the cry for tolerance, for pity, for peace, seems
continually to force itself to his lips amid the wars of the time. M.
Jusserand lays great stress on the plain-spokenness of Ronsard. He
praises especially the courage with which the poet often spoke out his
mind to kings and churchmen, though no man could write odes fuller of
exaggerated adulation when they were wanted. He sometimes counselled
kings, we are told, "in a tone that, after all our revolutions, no
writer would dare to employ to-day." Perhaps M. Jusserand
over-estimates
the boldness with which his hero could remind kings that they, like
common mortals, were made of mud. He has done so, I imagine, largely in
order to clear him from the charge of being a flatterer. It is
interesting to be reminded, by the way, that one of his essays in
flattery was an edition of his works dedicated, by order of Catherine
de
Medicis, to Elizabeth of England, whom he compared to all the
incomparables, adding a eulogy of "Mylord Robert Du-Dlé comte de
l'Encestre" as the ornament of the English, the wonder of the world.
Elizabeth was delighted, and gave the poet a diamond for his pretty
book.</p>
<p>But Ronsard does not live in literature mainly as a flatterer. Nor
is
he remembered as a keeper of the conscience of princes, or as a
religious controversialist. If nothing but his love-poems had survived,
we should have almost all his work that is of literary importance. He
fell in love in the grand manner three times, and from these three
passions most of his good poetry flowed. First there was Cassandre, the
beautiful girl of Florentine extraction, whom he saw singing to her
lute, when he was only twenty-two, and loved to distraction. She
married
another and became the star of Ronsard's song. She was the irruptive
heroine of that witty and delightful sonnet on the <i>Iliad:—</i></p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza"><span>Je veux lire en trois jours l'Iliade
d'Homère,<br/>
</span><span>Et pour ce, Corydon, ferme bien l'huis sur moi;<br/>
</span><span>Si rien me vient troubler, je t'assure ma foi,<br/>
</span><span>Tu sentiras combien pesante est ma colère.<br/>
</span></div>
<div class="stanza"><span>Je ne veux seulement que notre
chambrière<br/>
</span><span>Vienne faire mon lit, ton compagnon ni toi;<br/>
</span><span>Je veux trois jours entiers demeurer à recoi,<br/>
</span><span>Pour folâtrer après une semaine
entière.<br/>
</span></div>
<div class="stanza"><span>Mais, si quelqu'un venait de la part de
Cassandre,<br/>
</span><span>Ouvre-lui tôt la porte, et ne le fais attendre,<br/>
</span><span>Soudain entre en ma chambre et me viens accoutrer.<br/>
</span></div>
<div class="stanza"><span>Je veux tant seulement à lui seul me
montrer;<br/>
</span><span>Au reste, si un dieu voulait pour moi descendre<br/>
</span><span>Du ciel, ferme la porte et ne le laisse entrer.<br/>
</span></div>
</div>
<p>Nine years after Cassandre came Marie, the fifteen-year-old daughter
of
an Angevin villager, nut-brown, smiling, and with cheeks the colour of
a
May rose. She died young, but not before she had made Ronsard suffer by
coquetting with another lover. What is more important still, not before
she had inspired him to write that sonnet which has about it so much of
the charm of the morning:—</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza"><span>Mignonne, levez-vous, vous êtes
paresseuse,<br/>
</span><span>Ja la gaie alouette au ciel a fredonné,<br/>
</span><span>Et ja le rossignol doucement jargonné,<br/>
</span><span>Dessus l'épine assis, sa complainte amoureuse.<br/>
</span></div>
<div class="stanza"><span>Sus! debout allons voir l'herbelette perleuse,<br/>
</span><span>Et votre beau rosier de boutons couronné,<br/>
</span><span>Et vos oeillets aimés auxquels aviez donné<br/>
</span><span>Hier au soir de l'eau d'une main si soigneuse.<br/>
</span></div>
<div class="stanza"><span>Harsoir en vous couchant vous jurâtes
vos yeux<br/>
</span><span>D'être plus tôt que moi ce matin
éveillée:<br/>
</span><span>Mais le dormir de l'aube, aux filles gracieux,<br/>
</span></div>
<div class="stanza"><span>Vous tient d'un doux sommeil encor les yeux
silléee.<br/>
</span><span>Ça, ça, que je les baise, et votre beau
tetin,<br/>
</span><span>Cent fois, pour vous apprendre à vous lever matin.<br/>
</span></div>
</div>
<p>Ronsard was old and grey—at least, he was old before his time and
grey—when he met Hélène de Sorgères, maid of
honour to the Queen, and
began the third of his grand passions. He lived all the life of a young
lover over again. They went to dances together, Hélène in
a mask. Hélène
gave her poet a crown of myrtle and laurel. They had childish quarrels
and swore eternal fidelity. It was for her that Ronsard made the most
exquisite of his sonnets: <i>Quand vous serez bien vieille</i>-a
sonnet of
which Mr. Yeats has written a magical version in English.</p>
<p>It is in referring to the sonnets for Hélène that M.
Jusserand calls
attention to the realism of Ronsard's poetry. He points out that one
seems to see the women Ronsard loves far more clearly than the heroines
of many other poets. He notes the same genius of realism again when he
is relating how Ronsard, on the eve of his death, as he was transported
from priory to priory, in hope of relief in each new place, wrote a
poem
of farewell to his friends, in which he described the skeleton horrors
of his state with a minute carefulness, Ronsard, indeed, showed himself
a very personal chronicler throughout his work. "He cannot hide the
fact that he likes to sleep on the left side, that he hates cats,
dislikes servants 'with slow hands,' believes in omens, adores physical
exercises and gardening, and prefers, especially in summer, vegetables
to meat." M. Jusserand, I may add, has written the just and scholarly
praise of a most winning poet. His book, which appears in the <i>Grands
Ecrivains Français</i> series, is not only a good biographical
study, but
an admirable narrative of literary and national history.</p>
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