The Epicureanism of writers such as Ninon de Lénclos, Marion Delorme, the Marquise de Sévigné and the Messieurs La Fare, de Chaulieu, de Saint-Evremond—in short of all that charming group which, awakening from the languors of the goddess of Cytherea, began to come around to Buffon’s opinion “that there is naught that is good in love save the physical”—soon changed the tone of the novel.
The writers who emerged thereafter sensed that earlier insipidities would no longer amuse a century perverted by the Regency, a century which had recovered from the follies of chivalry, the absurdities of religion, and the adoration of women, and which, finding it simpler to amuse or to corrupt these women than to serve them or shower fulsome praise upon them, created scenes, situations, and conversations more in keeping with the spirit of the times: they clothed cynicism and immorality in a pleasant, bantering, and sometimes even philosophical style, and at least gave pleasure if they did not edify.
Crébillon wrote Le Sopha, Tanzaï, Les Égarements de coeur et d’esprit, etc.—all novels which indulged vice and strayed from virtue but which, when they were offered to the public, were greeted with great success.
Marivaux, more original in his manner of portraying, and terser in style, at least offered convincing characters, captivated the heart and made his public weep. But how, with all that energy, could anyone possess a style so precious and mannered? He is proof positive that Nature never accords the novelist all the gifts required to perfect his art.
Voltaire’s goal was quite different: having no other purpose in mind than to insert philosophy into his novels, he gave up everything else in exchange. And with what skill he succeeded in attaining his goal! And, despite all the criticisms, Candide and Zadig will always remain pure masterpieces!
Rousseau, to whom Nature had granted in refinement and sentiment what she had granted only in wit to Voltaire, treated the novel in another way altogether. What vigor, what energy in La Nouvelle Héloïse! While Momus was dictating Candide to Voltaire, love was etching with its flaming torch every burning page of Julie, and we can safely assert that this sublime book will never be bettered; may that truth cause the pen to fall from the hands of that legion of ephemeral writers who, for the past thirty years, have continued to pour out poor imitations of that immortal original; let them be made to feel that, in order to equal that work, they would have to possess a fiery soul like Rousseau’s and a philosophic mind such as his—two traits Nature does not bring together in a single person more than once a century.
Athwart all that, Marmontel offered us what he called Moral Tales, not because he was teaching morality (as one esteemed man of letters has said), but because the tales portrayed our customs, albeit a trifle too much in the mannered style of Marivaux. What, in fact, do these tales add up to? Puerilities, written solely for women and children, and indeed ’twould be hard to conceive that they came from the same hand as Bélisaire, a work which in itself would be enough to assure the author’s fame; did he who had written the fifteenth chapter of this book have to aspire to the petty fame of having given us these rosy-hued tales?
Finally, the English novels, the vigorous works of Richardson and Fielding, arrived to teach the French that ’tis not by portraying the fastidious languors of love or the tedious conversations of the bedchamber that one can obtain any success with the novel, but by depicting robust and manly characters who, playthings and victims of that effervescence of the heart known as love, reveal to us both its dangers and its misfortunes; only by so doing can this evolution be shown, this portrayal of passions so carefully traced in the English novels. ’Tis Richardson, ’tis Fielding, who have taught us that the profound study of man’s heart—Nature’s veritable labyrinth—alone can inspire the novelist, whose work must make us see man not only as he is, or as he purports to be—which is the duty of the historian—but as he is capable of being when subjected to the modifying influences of vice and the full impact of passion. Therefore we must know them all, we must employ every passion and vice, if we wish to labor in this field. From these works we also learn that ’tis not always by making virtue triumph that a writer arouses interest; that we most certainly ought to tend in that direction, insofar as it is possible, but that this rule, which exists neither in Nature nor in the works of Aristotle, is simply one that we should like all men to follow for our own sake and happiness, and is in no wise essential in the novel, nor is’t even the one most likely to awaken the reader’s interest. For when virtue triumphs, the world is in joint and things as they ought to be, our tears are stopped even, as it were, before they begin to flow. But if, after severe trials and tribulations, we finally witness virtue overwhelmed by vice, our hearts are inevitably rent asunder, and the work having moved us deeply, having, as Diderot was wont to say, “smitten our hearts in reverse,” must inevitably arouse that interest which alone can assure the writer of his laurels.
Imagine for a moment: if the immortal Richardson, after twelve or fifteen volumes, had virtuously concluded by converting Lovelace, and by having him peacefully marry Clarissa, would the reader, when the novel was thus turned round, have shed the delightful tears it now wrings from every sensitive soul?
’Tis therefore Nature that must be seized when one labors in the field of fiction, ’tis the heart of man, the most remarkable of her works, and in no wise virtue, because virtue, however becoming, however necessary it may be, is yet but one of the many facets of this amazing heart, whereof the profound study is so necessary to the novelist, and the novel, the faithful mirror of this heart, must perforce explore its every fold.
Learned translator of Richardson, Prévost, you to whom we are indebted for having rendered into our language the beauties of that renowned author, do you yourself not also deserve an equal share of praise for your own work? And is’t not only fair and right that you are called the French Richardson? You alone had the ability to hold the reader’s attention for a long period by complex and intricate fables, by always sustaining one’s interest though dividing it; you alone were sparing enough of your episodes that interest in your main plot waxed rather than waned as they grew more numerous and more complex. Thus that multitude of events wherewith Laharpe reproaches you is not only the source in your work of the most sublime effects, ’tis also what proves most clearly both the quality of your mind and the excellence of your talent. Finally (to add to our own opinion of Prévost what others have thought as well), “Les Mémoires d’un homme de qualité, Cleveland, L’Histoire d’une Grecque moderne, Le Monde moral, and above all Manon Lescaut6 are filled with touching and terrible scenes which invincibly affect and involve the reader. The situations in these works, so beautifully arranged, derive from those moments when Nature shudders with horror,” etc. And this, then, is what is called writing a novel; these are the qualities which will assure Prévost a posterity his rivals can never hope to attain.
Thereafter follow the writers of the middle of the present century: Dorat, as mannered as Marivaux, as cold and amoral as Crébillon, but a more pleasing writer than either of the two with whom we have compared him: the frivolity of his century excuses his own, and he had the ability to depict it vividly.
Will the charming author of the Reine de Golconde allow me to offer him a toast to his talent? We have rarely encountered a more agreeable wit, and the loveliest tales of the century are not the equal of the tale whereby you gained immortality; at once more charming and more felicitous than Ovid, since the Hero-Saviour of France proves, by recalling you to the bosom of your country, that he is as much the friend of Apollo as of Mars: respond to the hope of this great man by adding yet a few more roses to fair Aline’s breast.
D’Arnaud, a disciple of Prévost, can often claim to surpass him; both dip their pens into the waters of the Styx, but d’Arnaud oft tempers his upon the flanks of Elysium. Prévost, more vigorous, never altered the tones wherewith he painted Cleveland.
R***7 floods the public with his works; he needs a printing press at the head of his bed. Fortunate
ly, one press alone will groan beneath the weight of his terrible output; his is a vile, pedestrian style, his adventures are disgusting, inevitably taken from the lowest, meanest milieux; a gift of prolixity his sole merit, for which only the pepper merchants are grateful to him.
Perhaps at this point we ought to analyze these new novels in which sorcery and phantasmagoria constitute practically the entire merit: foremost among them I would place The Monk, which is superior in all respects to the strange flights of Mrs. Radcliffe’s brilliant imagination. But that would take us too far afield. Let us concur that this kind of fiction, whatever one may think of it, is assuredly not without merit: ’twas the inevitable result of the revolutionary shocks which all of Europe has suffered. For anyone familiar with the full range of misfortunes wherewith evildoers can beset mankind, the novel became as difficult to write as monotonous to read. There was not a man alive who had not experienced in the short span of four or five years more misfortunes than the most celebrated novelist could portray in a century. Thus, to compose works of interest, one had to call upon the aid of hell itself, and to find in the world of make-believe things wherewith one was fully familiar merely by delving into man’s daily life in this age of iron. Ah! but how many disadvantages there are in this manner of writing! The author of The Monk has avoided them no more than has Mrs. Radcliffe. Here, there are perforce two possibilities: either one resorts increasingly to wizardry—in which case the reader’s interest soon flags—or one maintains a veil of secrecy, which leads to a frightful lack of verisimilitude. Should this school of fiction produce a work excellent enough to attain its goal without foundering upon one or the other of these two reefs, then we, far from denigrating its methods, will be pleased to offer it as a model.
Before broaching our third and final question (“What are the rules one must follow in order to succeed in perfecting the art of the novel?”), we must, it would seem to me, reply to the constant objection of certain melancholy minds who, to give themselves a gloss of morality wherefrom their hearts are often far distant, persist in asking: “Of what use are novels?”
Of what use, indeed! hypocritical and perverse men, for you alone ask this ridiculous question: they are useful in portraying you as you are, proud creatures who wish to elude the painter’s brush, since you fear the results, for the novel is—if ’tis possible to express oneself thuswise—the representation of secular customs, and is therefore, for the philosopher who wishes to understand man, as essential as is the knowledge of history. For the etching needle of history only depicts man when he reveals himself publicly, and then ’tis no longer he: ambition, pride cover his brow with a mask which portrays for us naught but these two passions, and not the man. The novelist’s brush, on the contrary, portrays him from within . . . seizes him when he drops this mask, and the description, which is far more interesting, is at the same time more faithful. This, then, is the usefulness of novels, O you cold censors who dislike the novel: you are like that legless cripple who was wont to say: and why do artists bother to paint full-length portraits?
If ’tis therefore true that the novel is useful, let us not fear to outline here a few principles which we believe necessary to bring this kind of literature to perfection. I realize full well that it is difficult to accomplish this task without supplying my enemies with ammunition they can use against me. Shall I not become doubly guilty of not writing well if I prove that I know how one must proceed in order to write well? Ah! let us put these vain conjectures aside, let us offer them up as sacrifices to the love of art.
The most essential requirement for the novelist’s art is most certainly a knowledge of the human heart. Now, every man of intelligence will doubtless second us when we assert that this important knowledge can only be acquired through an intimate acquaintance with misfortune and through travel. One must have seen men of all nations in order to know them well, and one must have suffered at their hands in order to learn how to judge and evaluate them; the hand of misfortune, by ennobling the character of him whom she crushes, places him at that proper perspective from which it is essential to study men; from this perspective, he views them as a traveler perceives the wild waves crashing against the reefs whereon the tempest has tossed him. But no matter what the situation wherein Nature or destiny has placed him, let the novelist, would he know the hearts of men, be sparing of his own conversation when he is with them. One learns nothing when one speaks; one only learns by listening. And that is why the garrulous and the gossips are generally fools.
O you who wish to venture upon this difficult and thorny career, bear ever in mind that the novelist is the child of Nature, that she has created him to be her painter; if he does not become his mother’s lover the moment she gives birth to him, let him never write, for we shall never read him. But if he feels that burning need to portray everything, if, with fear and trembling he probes into the bosom of Nature, in search of his art and for models to discover, if he possesses the fever of talent and the enthusiasm of genius, let him follow the hand that leads him; once having divined man, he will paint him. If his imagination is held in check, let him yield to it, let him embellish what he sees: the fool culls a rose and plucks its petals; the man of genius smells its sweet perfume, and describes it. This is the man we shall read.
But in counseling you to embellish, I forbid you to stray from verisimilitude: the reader has a right to become incensed when he observes that the author is asking too much of him. He can see that he is being deceived, his pride is hurt, he no longer believes anything he reads the moment he suspects he is being misled.
What is more, let no barrier restrain you; exercise at will your right to attack or take liberties with any and all of history’s anecdotes, whenever the rupture of this restriction demands it in the formation of the pleasures you are preparing for us. Once again, we do not ask that you be true, but only that you be convincing and credible. To be too demanding of you would be harmful to the pleasure we expect from you. None the less, do not replace the true by the impossible, and let what you invent be well said; you shall be forgiven for substituting your imagination for the truth only when this is done for the express purpose of adorning or impressing; one can never be forgiven for expressing oneself poorly when one has complete freedom of expression. If, like R***, you write only what everyone already knows, were you, like him, to give us four volumes a month, better not to put pen to paper at all. No one obliges you to exercise this as your profession; but if you undertake it, do it well. Above all do not choose it merely as a crutch to your existence; your work will reflect your needs, you will transmit your weakness into it; it will have the pallor of hunger: other professions will offer themselves to you: make shoes, but refrain from writing books. We shall not think any the less of you, and since you will not be a source of annoyance to us, we may even like you all the more.
Once you have your outline down on paper, work zealously to enlarge and improve upon it, without however respecting the limitations it seems initially to impose upon you: were you to adhere strictly to this method, your work would be cold and lack breadth. We want outbursts from you, flights of fancy rather than rules. Transcend your drafts, vary them, elaborate upon them: work is the surest source of inspiration. What makes you believe that the inspiration you receive while working is any poorer than that dictated by your outline? Basically, all I ask of you is this one thing: to sustain interest throughout, to the very last page. You shall miss the mark if you punctuate your tale by incidents either repeated too often or which stray too far afield from the main subject. Let those you do make so bold as to indulge in be as well polished as the main plot. You must make amends to the reader when you oblige him to leave something which interests him in order to begin a secondary plot. He may allow you to interrupt him, but he will not forgive you if you bore him or tax his patience. Therefore let your side plots derive from and return to the main plot. If you make your heroes travel, be familiar with the country whereto you take them, carry your magic to the
point of identifying me with them; remember that I am walking close beside them in every region to which you take them. Remember too that I may be better informed than you; I shall not forgive a lack of verisimilitude with what regards customs or a slip with what regards dress, and even less an error in geography: as no one compels you to embark upon these escapades, ’tis essential that your local color be exact, else you must remain back home by your fireside. ’Tis the only case in your work when we will not tolerate the make-believe, unless the country you take me to be imaginary; and even in that case, I shall always demand verisimilitude.
Avoid the affectation of moralizing: it has no place in a novel. If the characters your plot requires are sometimes obliged to reason, let them always do so without affectation, without the pretension of doing so. ’Tis never the author who should moralize but the character, and even then you should only allow him to do so when forced by the circumstances.
When you arrive at the denouement, let it occur naturally, let it never be stiff or contrived, but always born of the circumstances. I do not require of you, as do the authors of the Encyclopédie, that the denouement be in accordance with the wishes of the reader: what pleasure is there left to him when he has divined everything? The denouement must be the logical result of a threefold demand: the events that lead up to it, the requirements of verisimilitude, and the imagination’s inspiration. And if, then, with these principles wherewith I charge your mind, and with your tendency to elaborate, you do not write well, you will at least perform better than we.
For we must confess, in the stories that you are about to read, the audacious effort we have been so bold as to make does not always adhere strictly to the rules of the art. But we trust that extreme verisimilitude of the characters will perhaps compensate for it. Nature, even stranger than the moralists portray it to us, continually eludes the restricting limitations which their policy would like to impose. Uniform in her framework, unpredictable in her effects, Nature’s constantly troubled bosom resembles the depths of a volcano, whence there rumble forth in turn either precious stones serving man’s needs or fire balls which annihilate them; mighty when she peoples the earth with such as Antonius and Titus; frightful when she spews forth an Andronicus or a Nero; but always sublime, always majestic, always worthy of our studies, of our brush strokes, and of our respectful admiration, because her designs are unknown to us, because ’tis never upon what those designs cause us to feel that we, slaves to her whims or needs, should base our feelings toward her, but upon her grandeur, her energy, no matter what the results may be.