CHRONOLOGICAL CONSPECTUS OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRENCH FICTION NOTICED IN THIS VOLUME

11th Century

Vie de Saint Alexis (probably).

Roland and one or two other Chansons (possibly).

12th Century

Most of the older Chansons.

Arthurian Legend (in some of its forms).

Roman de Troie, Romans d'Alexandre (older forms).

13th Century

Rest of the more genuine Chansons.

Rest of ditto Arthuriad and "Matter of Rome."

Romans d'Aventures (many).

Early Fabliaux (probably).

Roman de la Rose and Roman de Renart (older parts).

Prose Stories (Aucassin et Nicolette), etc.

14th Century

Rehandlings, and younger examples, of all kinds above mentioned.

15th Century

Ditto, but only latest forms of all but Prose Stories, and many of the others rendered into prose.

Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. First edition, 1480, but written much earlier.

Petit Jehan de Saintré, about 1459, or earlier.

Jehan de Paris. Uncertain, but before 1500.

16th Century

Rabelais. First Book of Pantagruel Second of the whole, 1533; Gargantua, 1535; rest of Pantagruel at intervals, to the (posthumous) Fifth Book in 1564.

Marguerite de Navarre. Heptameron. Written before (probably some time before) Marguerite's death in 1549. Imperfectly published as Les Amants Fortunés, etc., in 1558; completely, under its permanent title, next year.

Bonaventure Despériers. Cymbalum Mundi, 1537; Contes et Joyeux Devis, 1558, but written at least fourteen years earlier, as the author died in 1544.

Hélisenne de Crenne. Les Angoisses, etc., 1538.

Amadis Romances. Date of Spanish or Portuguese originals uncertain. Herberay published the first part of his French translation of Amadis itself in 1540.

Many of the small pastoral and adventurous stories noticed at the beginning of Chapter VIII. appeared in the last fifteen years of the sixteenth century, the remainder in the first quarter of the seventeenth. But of the Greek and Spanish compositions, which had so great an influence on them and on the subsequent "Heroic" School, the work of Heliodorus had been translated as early as 1546, and the Diana of Montemayor in 1578.

17th Century

Honoré d'Urfé. L'Astrée, 1607-19. (First three parts in Urfé's lifetime, fourth and fifth after his death in 1625.)

"Heroic" Romance, 1622-60, as regards its principal examples, the exact dates of which are given in a note to p. 176. Madame de Villedieu wrote almost up to her death in 1683.

Fairy Tales, etc. The common idea that Perrault not only produced the masterpieces but set the fashion of the kind is inexact. Madame d'Aulnoy's Contes des Fées appeared in 1682, whereas Perrault's Contes de ma Mère L'Oye did not come till fifteen years later, in 1697. The precise dates of the writing of Hamilton's Tales are not, I think, known. They must, for the most part, have been between the appearance of Galland's Arabian Nights, 1704, and the author's death in 1720. As for the Cabinet and its later constituents, see below on the eighteenth century.

Sorel, Ch. Francion, 1622; Le Berger Extravagant, 1627.

Scarron, P. Le Roman Comique, 1651.

Cyrano de Bergerac. Histoire Comique, etc., 1655.

Furetière, A. Le Roman Bourgeois, 1666.

La Fayette, Madame de. La Princesse de Clèves, 1678. Her first book, La Princesse de Montpensier (much slighter but well written), had appeared eighteen years earlier, and Zaïde or Zayde in 1670, fathered by Segrais.

Fénelon. Télémaque, 1699.

18th Century

Cabinet des Fées, containing not only the authors or translators mentioned under the head of the preceding century, but a series of later writings down to the eve of the Revolution. Gueulette's adaptations and imitations ranged from the Soirées Bretonnes, published in 1712 during Hamilton's lifetime, to the Thousand and One Hours, 1733, the other collections mentioned in the text coming between. It may be worth mentioning that, being an industrious editor as well as tale-teller and playwright, he reprinted Le Petit Jehan de Saintré in 1724 and Rabelais in 1732. Caylus's tales seem to have been scattered over the middle third of the century from about 1730 to his death in 1765. Cazotte's Diable Amoureux (not in the Cabinet) is of 1772—he had written very inferior things of the tale kind full thirty years earlier. Mme. Le Prince de Beaumont (who was long an actual governess in England) wrote her numerous "books for the young" for the most part between 1757 (Le Magazin des Enfants) and 1774 (Contes Moraux).

Lesage. Le Diable Boiteux, 1707; Gil Blas de Santillane, 1715-35.

Marivaux. Les Effets Surprenants, 1713-14; Marianne, 1731-36; Le Paysan Parvenu, 1735.

Prévost. Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité, 1728-32, followed by Manon Lescaut, 1733; Cléveland, 1732-39; Le Doyen de Killérine, 1735; Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne, 1741.

(It may not be impertinent to draw attention to the fact that Prévost, like Defoe—though not quite to the same extent, and in the middle, not towards the end of his career—concentrated the novel-part of an enormous polygraphic production upon a few years.)

Crébillon fils. Lettres de la Marquise, 1732; Tanzaï et Néadarné, 1734; Les Égarements, 1736; Le Sopha, 1745; La Nuit et le Moment, 1755; Le Hasard au Coin du Feu, 1763; Ah! Quel Conte! 1764.

Voltaire's Tales were distributed over a large part of his long and insatiably busy life; but none of his best are very early. Zadig is of 1747; Micromégas of 1752; Candide of 1759; L'Ingénu and La Princesse de Babylone of 1767 and 1768 respectively.

Rousseau. La Nouvelle Héloïse, 1760; Émile, 1762.

Diderot. Les Bijoux Indiscrets, 1748. Jacques le Fataliste and La Religieuse were posthumously published, but must have been written much earlier than their author's death in 1784.

Marmontel. Contes Moraux appeared in the official or semi-official Mercure de France, with which the author was connected from 1753-60, being its manager or editor for the last two of these years. Bélisaire came out in 1767.

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Paul et Virginie, 1787; La Chaumière Indienne, 1790.

"Sensibility" Novels:—

Madame de Tencin. Le Comte de Comminge, 1735; Les Malheurs de l'Amour, 1747.

Madame Riccoboni. Le Marquis de Cressy, 1758; Lettres de Julie Catesby, 1759; Ernestine, 1762.

Madame Élie de Beaumont. Le Marquis de Roselle, 1764.

Madame de Souza. Adèle de Senanges, 1794.

Madame de Genlis. Mlle. de Clermont, 1802.

Madame de Duras. Ourika, 1823; Édouard, 1825.

Xavier de Maistre. Voyage autour de ma Chambre, 1794; Le Lépreux de la Cité d'Aoste, 1812; Les Prisonniers du Caucase, La Jeune Sibérienne, 1825.

Benjamin Constant. Adolphe, 1815.

Restif de la Bretonne. Le Pied de Fanchette, 1769; Adèle, 1772; Le Paysan Perverti, 1775-76; Les Contemporaines, 1780-85; Ingénue Saxancour, 1789; Monsieur Nicolas, 1794-97.

Pigault-Lebrun. L'Enfant du Carnaval, 1792; Les Barons de Felsheim, 1798; Angélique et Jeanneton, Mon Oncle Thomas, La Folie Espagnole, 1799; M. Botte, 1802; Jérôme, 1804; Tableaux de Société, 1813; Adélaïde de Méran, 1815; M. de Roberval, L'Officieux, 1818.