Faret's chief merit was that he brought to the meetings a man of letters who was destined to take a very prominent place, for the time being, both in the French Academy and in literary life – namely, Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin. He was an indefatigable writer, and a man exactly suited to be useful to a group of literary persons, because he had experience of the world, great enthusiasm for the craft of letters, and a wide and humorous outlook on life. Chapelain, glancing back many years later, defined Desmarets as "un des esprits les plus faciles de ce temps," and that is just what he was, an inexhaustible and rapid producer of prose and verse in the spirit and fashion of the age. He was much valued by Richelieu, who forced him, against his will, to collaborate in the composition of tragedies. Desmarets had no dramatic inspiration, but he was able to satisfy the Cardinal. At the time of which we are speaking, probably in 1633, Desmarets was brought to Conrart's house by Faret and received a courteous welcome. It was characteristic of him that, instantly entering into the spirit of the company, he pulled out of his pocket the proof-sheets of his new prose romance Ariane, and asked leave to submit them to discussion.
Desmarets was rich and influential, and he had the true Academic spirit. He became a prominent public character, and Controller-General of the King's Army, but he never lost his close hold upon the Académie, of which he was elected the first Chancellor. In the moment of transition, the dark hour before the dawn, he was eminently useful, for when, in 1633, Conrart married, and it was no longer convenient to meet in his house, Desmarets transferred the whole cluster of bees to a new hive, the sumptuous Hôtel Pellevé, which he had just rebuilt at the corner of the Rue du Roi de Sicile and of the Rue Tison. Then, and not till then, did they begin seriously to think of founding an Academy. Desmarets's numerous writings have stood the test of time very ill. His epic of Clovis was ridiculed by Boileau, and perhaps the only work of his which can be read to-day without boredom is his comedy of Les Visionnaires (1635), a merry piece of literary criticism, in which the various coteries of that day, and the famous salons, are satirized. Nevertheless, it is not beyond the range of possibility that, in these days of revival, somebody may be found to resuscitate Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin.
In that entertaining volume, Le Plaisant Abbé de Boisrobert, the great rival of Desmarets has already found an eloquent resuscitator, M. Magne. François de Metel de Boisrobert is an unedifying figure of a scapegrace priest, whose giggling face is seen peeping round most doors in the scandalous memoirs of the time. No one was more contemptuously insulted, no one more bitterly ridiculed, than Richelieu's supple jackal, the author of Anaxandre et Orazie and of Pyrandre. These heroic works of faded imagination are read no longer, nor the Recueil de Lettres Nouvelles nor Le Sacrifice des Muses. On the other hand, the sarcasms of the epigrammatists and the scandalous tales of contemporaries continue to invest the memory of Boisrobert with a nasty odour. M. Magne, who brings a marvellous erudition to the task, has bravely endeavoured to redeem a talent and a character so deeply compromised. We cannot join in the whole of his white-washing, but we may admit that he has proved the "plaisant abbé" to be neither the dunce nor the blackguard that legend had painted him. Moreover, it is quite certain that he exercised a most useful energy in the foundation of the French Academy.
When the indiscretion of Faret brought Desmarets to the literary meetings in Conrart's house, it had the inevitable result of exciting the jealous curiosity of Boisrobert. He was the great rival of Desmarets in the affection and confidence of Richelieu, and we may be certain that when "le plaisant abbé" found out that Desmarets was attending secret and mysterious assemblies, he plainly intimated to Faret that he also must be taken into the secret or else he would report the plot to the Cardinal. Accordingly, some time in 1633, Boisrobert too was brought to Conrart's house, and instantly conceived a great scheme for his own honour and the glory of French literature. He clung, through every storm, to the robes of Richelieu, who had originally disliked him, but who proved in the long run powerless to resist the devotion and the entertainment which Boisrobert provided. The poet took no snub; on one occasion when Richelieu had rudely ignored him, he flung himself on his knees, crying "You let the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from your table. Am I not a dog?" The Cardinal admitted that he was, and thenceforth Boisrobert occupied an intimate place in Richelieu's household, sometimes as a retriever, more often as a poodle. It is impossible to deny that Boisrobert was a poltroon, but in his lifelong devotion to the Académie he really behaved extremely well. The secret, no doubt, was that with the minimum of regard for purity of conduct, the "plaisant abbé" combined a genuine solicitude for the purity of language.
It was Boisrobert who first conceived the idea that an Academy of Letters might be useful to Richelieu and Richelieu indispensable to an Academy of Letters. For this scheme he deserves great credit, and we gather that it was first to the Cardinal and not first to Conrart's friends that he spoke. It seems probable that the latter had already begun to suggest among themselves that their relation might be permanent. There is a letter dated as early as December, 1632, in which Godeau, writing to Chapelain, seems to speak of the Académie as already a recognized thing. If we may suppose that Louis Giry, the Hellenist, who was not an original member, but whose name is mentioned as that of one of Conrart's friends, was already a visitor, the body now consisted of twelve persons, with all of whom I have endeavoured to make my readers acquainted. It was after one of the meetings in 1633 that, as Pellisson tells us, having observed what kind of books had been examined, and that the conversation had not been a commerce of compliment and flattery, where each person gave praise that in his turn he might receive it, but that faults of style, and even very small ones, had been seized upon boldly and frankly for discussion, Boisrobert was "fulfilled with joy and admiration." It crossed his mind that this was the very toy to enliven the petulant leisure of his Cardinal. When that scheme occurred to "le plaisant abbé" the Académie Française practically started into being.
No small part of the success of the policy of Richelieu came from the brilliant intuition which he had of the importance of regulating intellectual effort. He did not ignore the Press, as had so stupidly been done before his day, but he had no idea of leaving it to follow its own devices. In 1626 he had used a very remarkable expression; he had said "Les faiseurs de livres serviraient grandement le roi et ceux qui sont auprès de lui, s'ils ne se mêlaient de parler de leurs actions ni en bien ni en mal." Literature was to be encouraged and protected, on the understanding that it would attend to its own affairs, and not disturb the King's government with libelles which were none of its concern. Richelieu's genuine enthusiasm for scholarship and poetry is not to be questioned, but with it all he was pre-eminently an ambitious statesman. Public policy was the business of his life, literature his enchanting relaxation and entertainment. But he wished to be master in the temple of the Muses, no less than in the King's palace, and he would only protect the authorship of the day on the terms of being recognized as its absolute tyrant. He was to be the Miltiades of letters, but once acknowledge his authority, and he became literature's "best and truest friend." His lightning intelligence had perceived, in 1631, the importance of journalism, and he had protected the earliest of French newspapers, the Gazette, on the understanding that it proceeded from his own official cabinet. It was his scheme to break the prestige of the nobility, and in carrying out his plans, he was glad of the support of the intellectual classes. He was aided, of course, by the development of public feeling in this direction.
There can be little doubt that it was by Boisrobert rather than by Desmarets that the Cardinal was originally informed of the literary meetings in the house of Conrart. His curiosity was vividly awakened. Knots of persons meeting privately and with regularity were the objects of his lively suspicion, and there is some reason to suppose that his first impulse was to break up the company and forbid the meetings. But Boisrobert, who held his ear, reassured him.
He did not fail [says our earliest authority] to give a favourable report of the little assembly in whose deliberations he had taken a part, and of the persons who composed it; and the Cardinal, whose temper was naturally attuned to great designs, and who loved the French language to infatuation, being himself an excellent writer, after having praised the scheme, asked M. Boisrobert whether these persons would not like to become a corporation, and to meet regularly, and under public authority.
He desired Boisrobert to put this proposition before the next meeting, as from himself.
It appears that at first the idea was not received with enthusiasm. The friends were simple men of letters, not ambitious of power, and timid in the face of such formidable patronage. But the Cardinal consulted Chapelain, and won him over to his views. There can be no doubt that Desmarets and Faret supported a plan from which they could reap nothing but personal advantage. When the ground was ready and the hour was ripe, Boisrobert came down to a meeting, with a definite proposal from the Cardinal, who offered to these gentlemen his protection for their Society, the public compliment of Letters Patent, and also – this was so like the vehement bonhomie of Richelieu – a promise of personal affection "en toutes rencontres" for each of them individually. The friends were, in fact, to be attached in permanence to his personal household.
The meeting at which Boisrobert made this startling announcement was one of which it would be interesting indeed to have a detailed report. Unfortunately, this is wanting. But we know that the friends were smitten with timidity and dismay. Scarcely any one of them but expressed his vexation, and regretted that the Cardinal had done them this most unwelcome honour, that he had come down from his majestic heights to "troubler la douceur et la familiarité de leurs conférences." We can imagine the agitation and the anxiety, the babble of voices which had never before been raised above the tone of scholarly amenity. Those who were pledged to support the scheme doubtless held their peace until the storm had subsided, and until Sérisay and Malleville, who were the most intractable opponents, had done their worst in denunciation of it. Then the voices of the supporters were heard, and someone, doubtless the honey-tongued Boisrobert, suggested that as Sérisay was master of the household to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, and Malleville secretary to the Maréchal de Bassompierre, it would, unjustly but most inevitably, be believed that they were incited by the enmity which their respective patrons were supposed (but how unfairly!) to nourish against the Cardinal. This impressed the company, and Sérisay withdrew his opposition, but Malleville continued to be intractable. It was important, however, that the reply of the infant Academy to the Cardinal should be cordial, and that it should be unanimous.
Chapelain, who had held his arguments in reserve, now came forward with that mixture of tact and force which was his great quality. He was certainly the most eminent man of letters in the assembly, and the others supposed him to be more independent than he really was. As a matter of fact, he had succumbed to the fascination of the Cardinal, who, to put it vulgarly, had Chapelain safe in his pocket. With a great show of impartiality, the poet put before his friends the sensible view that, no doubt, it would have been more agreeable to continue in private their confidential gatherings, but that it was no longer a question of what was agreeable. They had – he would not insist on pointing out how – lost all chance of keeping themselves to themselves. The secret was out, and they had attracted the attention of the most formidable of men, one who was in the habit of being implicitly obeyed, and who was not accustomed to meet with resistance; that this all-powerful statesman would not forgive the insult of their refusing his proffer of protection, and that he would find a way to chastise each individual member. But certainly, the first thing he would be sure to do would be to disperse their assembly and destroy a society which all of them had already begun to hope would be immortal. Nothing more was heard of Malleville's "minority report"; the infant Academy surrendered unanimously. Before the company dispersed, M. de Boisrobert was desired to convey to Monsieur le Cardinal the very humble thanks of the assembly for the honour he designed to show them, and to assure him that, though none of them had ever dreamed of such distinction, they were all of them resolved to carry out the wishes of his Eminence.
Richelieu always responded to this sort of attitude. He expressed to "le plaisant abbé" his great satisfaction, and no doubt they laughed together in private over the oddities of Conrart's guests, for such was their habit, and such the influence of Boisrobert over his master. A doctor once facetiously recommended, when the Cardinal was ill, "two drams of Boisrobert after every meal." But in public, and in fact, Richelieu took the most lively interest in the scheme. One is inclined to believe, that, by a flash of prophetic imagination, this great man saw what a place the Académie Française would take in the French order of things during three coming centuries at least. He urged the friends to meet without delay, now no longer at Conrart's, but in Desmarets's palatial hôtel, "et à penser sérieusement à l'établissement de l'Académie." All this was early in 1634, probably in February.
The first direction which the Cardinal deigned to give to the embarrassed and slightly terrified friends was that they should add to their number, or in his own words that "ces Messieurs grossirent leur Compagnie de plusieurs personnes considérables pour leur mérite." This appears to have been begun at the official sitting of March 20, 1634, and that may be considered as the date of the formation of the Académie. Existing members sat round the table, no doubt, and names were suggested and voted for. It would be a somewhat rough-and-ready choice, and the critical attitude would not be precisely that which would meet with approval at the Institut to-day. But the errors of choice have been abundantly exaggerated by those who have written loosely on this subject. Before the end of 1634 they had added, it seems, twenty-three names to their original list of eleven (or twelve), so that the Académie now consisted of about thirty-five men. Among these, it is perfectly true that there existed many obscurities and some obvious nonentities. But, besides those whom we have already described, the names now appeared of Balzac, Maynard, Gomberville, Saint-Amant, Racan, Vaugelas, and Voiture. All these were writers extremely eminent in the literature of their own age, and not one of them but is interesting and distinguished still. Not to have included them in a French Academy would have been a grave and obvious error.
Some of the accusations brought against the infant Academy are absurd. It has been vilified for omitting to make Molière and Pascal original members; the latter was eleven years of age at the time and the former twelve! Descartes was, of course, already one of the intellectual glories of France, but he was a wanderer over the face of Europe, and still only known as a writer in Latin. Arnauld d'Antilly was elected, but refused to take his place. Like Pascal, Brébeuf was still a schoolboy. Pierre Corneille, who was very little known in 1634, and not a resident in Paris, was elected later, and so was Lamothe le Vayer. Charles Sorel, the author of Francion and Le Berger Extravagant, who was historiographer of France and a satirist of merit, was not invited to join, it is true; but his caustic pen had spared no one, and he was essentially "unclubable." Scarron in 1634 was only a wild young buck about town. There remains unexplained – and I confess there seems to me to remain alone – the strange omission of Rotrou, a tragic poet of high distinction who never formed part of the French Academy. Since 1632 he had been the friend of Chapelain, and the Cardinal was devoted to him. That Rotrou's duties as a magistrate forced him to reside at Dreux is the only reason which I can think of to account for his absence from the list of 1634. If there was one other representative man of letters eligible, and yet omitted from that list, my memory is at fault.
Among those who were invited there was one whose support was absolutely essential to the youthful society. It may be said, without exaggeration, that the Académie Française could not have survived contemporary ridicule if it had failed to secure the co-operation of Jean Louis Guez de Balzac. In 1634 Balzac was thirty-seven years of age and by far the most prominent man of letters in France. The first volume of his famous Lettres– which were not letters in our sense, but chatty and yet elaborate essays on things in general – had appeared in 1624, and had created what the Abbé d'Olivet described as "a general revolution among persons of culture." Balzac immediately took his place as the official leader and divinity of what were afterwards known as the Précieuses; but he was a great deal more than that: he was the enchanting artist of a new French prose. "Le grand Epistolier de France" was to French prose all, and more than all, that Malherbe (who died in 1628) was to French verse. Brunetière has dwelt on Balzac's great service to letters, in the studied cultivation of harmony and lucidity, order and movement. His Lettres ushered in a new epoch in the production of prose, far more sudden and obvious than was brought about half a century later, in English, by the Essays of Sir William Temple, but similar to that in character. The most agreeable present any man of fashion could make to his mistress, says Ménage, was a copy of Balzac's book, and yet the gravest of scholars was not too learned to imitate its cadences.
The objects which the infant French Academy set before itself were the encouragement of grace and nobility of style in all persons employing the French language, and, as a corollary to this, the persistent effort to raise that language, in all particulars, until it should become an instrument for expression as delicate, as forcible and as comprehensive as Latin and Greek had been in their palmiest hours. But these were the very objects which Balzac had first, and most imperiously, impressed upon his readers, and there was a sense in which it could be said that the new body was merely emphasizing and extending, giving legislative authority to, ideas which were the property of Balzac. It was therefore obvious that whosoever was made an original member, the "grand Epistolier" should not be missing. This was obvious to the wise Boisrobert, of whom Balzac himself amusingly said that he was "circomspectissime" in the smallest actions of his life. As early as March 13, 1634, and therefore in all probability before anyone else was approached, Boisrobert took care that Balzac was invited to join the new Académie.
But it was one thing to whistle to Balzac, and quite another for him to come at the call. His character was not an agreeable one; he was excessively proud, painfully shy, quivering with self-consciousness, ever ready to take offence. Tallemant des Réaux, putting the universal opinion into an epigram, said that if ever there was an animal gloriæ it was Balzac. He was a finished hypochondriac, with his finger ever on his own pulse; before he was thirty he described himself as more battered than a ship that has sailed three times to the Indies. He was a hermit, hating society, and scarcely ever leaving that garden of amber and musk within the walls of his castle of Balzac which hung above the mingling waters of the Charente and the Touvre. But Balzac, whose character and temperament had many points of likeness to those of Pope, knew the value of friendship, though he was capable of amazing disloyalty under the pressure of vanity. Conrart, Boisrobert, Chapelain, and even perhaps the magnificent Cardinal himself – for there is talk of a pension – brought simultaneous pressure to bear, and Balzac consented to let his name appear in the list of original members of the Académie. This did not induce in him much zeal for the works or deeds of his nominal colleagues, upon whom, from his far-away garden-terraces, he looked down with great contempt. Still, the Académie Française was in existence, for Balzac was of the number.
Among the other original members, Voiture and Gomberville, the author of Polexandre, have never lost their little place in the crowded history of French literature. Saint-Amant and Maynard, who sank out of sight for a long time, are now regarded with more honour than ever before since their death. Honorat de Beuil, Marquis de Racan, is one of the minor classics of his country. A dreamy, blundering man, innocent and vague, his whole outlook upon life was that of a pastoral poet. He had "no common sense," we are told, but walked in a cloud conducting an imaginary flock and murmuring his beautiful Virgilian verses. Racan took the Academy more seriously than any other member; he never missed a sitting. But he could not be depended on. Once, the Academy met to listen to an address by the Marquis de Racan, who entered, holding one torn sheet of paper in his hand. "Gentlemen," he said, "I was bringing you my oration, but my great greyhound has chewed it up. Here it is! Make what you can of it, for I don't know it by heart, and I have no copy." The story of how old Mlle. de Gournay was gulled by successive impostors who pretended to be Racan, and then at length spurned the real poet, as an obvious idiot, is too long to be told here in detail. At the close of his life, Racan had allowed himself to retain no friends except his fellow academicians, so completely had he become absorbed in the Académie.
These illustrious names, however, are not sufficient to prevent the eye which runs down the list of original members from being startled by the obscurity of at least half the names. It must be remembered that in 1635 it was no envied distinction or disputed honour to form part of this new and untried corporation. The labours of the academicians were disinterested, for the Académie was not yet endowed, and there was little or no reward offered, besides the favour of the Cardinal, for the zealous labours of scholarship. Moreover, it was necessary to silence opposition and disarm ridicule. The general feeling of the public, as reflected in the action of parliament, was hostile. Louis XIII himself, although he had passed the Letters Patent, was far from favourable to his Minister's literary project, as we learn from a letter of Chapelain. But Richelieu was passionately bent on its success, and we see from Tallemant that whenever the Académie made a step in advance, the Cardinal was at no pains to conceal his lively satisfaction. But there were more seats than eminent men of letters to fill them, and consequently almost anyone who would consent or could be inveigled was elected. Scarron says the only thing that some of the original Immortals were fit for was to snuff candles or to sweep the floor. There was a class of academicians who were styled "the children of the pity of Boisrobert," because the "plaisant abbé," in filling up the fauteuils, was merciful to needy men of letters without talent, and fetched them in so that they might eat a piece of bread. They were buoyed up with the hope that Richelieu would bring in an age of gold for scribblers.
But another element must not be forgotten. There was a great temptation to turn poachers into gamekeepers, and a certain number of the original members of the Académie Française were wits whose bitterness Richelieu himself, or Chapelain, or Boisrobert, dreaded. Maynard was one of these, but perhaps the most curious example was a man called Bautru. He was no writer, for one scurrilous piece in the Cabinet Satirique represents his complete works. But he was a savage practical joker, whose tongue was universally dreaded. His wit seems to have been ready. He was a "libertine" in the sense of that day, and openly irreligious. One day, he was caught taking his hat off to a crucifix as he passed in the street. "Ah! then," said his friends, "you are on better terms with God than we supposed?" "On bowing terms; we don't speak," Bautru replied. In 1642, he called our Charles I "a calf led from market to market; and presently they will take him to the shambles," he prophetically added. His was an evil tongue with a sharp edge to it, which it was safest to have inside the Académie, and there were others of the same sort among the false celebrities, les passe-volans or dummies, whose presence in the original list is at first so disconcerting.
In order to give dignity and discipline to their assemblies, the Academicians now created three offices, those of Director, Chancellor, and Perpetual Secretary; these were held by Sérisay, Desmarets, and Conrart respectively. They appointed the famous printer, Jean Camusat, their librarian and typographer, meeting sometimes at his house for easier correction of the press. On the 20th of March, 1634, they settled on their all-important name, and thenceforth were to the world "l'Académie françoise." Two days later, in a very long letter, they detailed to the Cardinal the objects and functions of their body, not failing to begin with the request that he would permit them to publish his own tragedies and pastorals. This document is very interesting to-day. In it the new Academy proposes to cleanse the French language from all the ordure which it has contracted from vulgar and ignorant usage; to establish the exact sense of words; seriously to examine the subject and treatment of prose, the style of the whole, the harmony of periods, the propriety in the use of words. Moreover, the Academicians undertook to examine the books of one another with a meticulous attention to faults of style and grammar. This "Projet," which was drafted by Faret, was submitted to Richelieu, and printed in an edition of thirty copies, in May, 1634.
In this first manifesto, which was kept extremely secret, nothing was said about the plan of a Dictionary. But Chapelain's heart had been set upon that from the first, and he did not forget to bring it forward. He insisted, in season and out of season, on the necessity of labouring in unison "for the purity of our language and for its capacity to develop the loftiest eloquence." On the 27th of March he brought forward his idea of a Dictionary. Balzac supported him by letter, Vaugelas offered his invaluable grammatical services, and at last the Academy so far accepted the idea as to instruct Chapelain and Vaugelas to report on the subject. But this was not until 1637, so that we must realize that the French Academy had existed three years before it finally settled down to the work with which its early existence is most popularly identified. But for the persistency of Chapelain this might never have been commenced.
On the other hand, the Academicians were very busily engaged over their statutes, which were drawn up by one of the latest of the original members, Hay du Chastelet, a learned lawyer of high repute. They were passed and accepted by the Cardinal, before the close of 1634. It was, very properly, Conrart himself who drafted the Letters Patent, a very long and dignified document, which Louis XIII signed in Paris on the 29th of January, 1635. But now came the first difficulty which beset the primrose path of the young Académie. It was not enough for the King to sign the Letters Patent; they had to be vérifiées by Parliament; and this was not done until the 10th of July, 1637. There has been much discussion as to the cause of this delay, which was intensely irksome to the Cardinal and threatened the existence of the infant association. It was early thought that the Parliament suspected Richelieu of having a design in creating the Académie which was much more directly political than appeared on the surface. If so, the placid and modest demeanour of the Academicians ultimately disarmed hostility, and they obtained their Letters Patent.
At this point we must draw our inquiry to a close, since the foundation of the Académie Française was completed by this action on the part of the Parliament. It will be seen that eight years had gone by since the first meetings of selected men of letters had taken place in Conrart's house, and that many tedious formalities had to be completed before the body was in a position even to begin its work. The humble nature of the origin of the Académie Française, the surprising and painful adventures of its youth, and the glories of its subsequent existence, should make us indulgent to the slow growth of any similar institution. Rome is not the only corporation which was not built in a day.