L'Âne vint à son tour, et dit: "J'ai souvenance La faim, l'occasion, l'herbe tendre, et, je pense, Je tondis de ce pré la largeur de ma langue: Un Loup, quelque peu clerc, prouva par sa harangue Ce pelé, ce galeux, d'où venait tout leur mal. D'expier son forfait; on le lui fit bien voir. Selon que vous serez puissant ou misérable, VOLTAIRE (b. Paris, 1694; d. Paris, 1778) FRANÇOIS-MARIE AROUET, dit de Voltaire, the chief literary figure and the greatest prose-writer of the French eighteenth century, wrote also in verse, chiefly dramatic and satiric, and generally attained, if not to lyric flights, at least to clear and elegant expression. EXTRACTS XLIV. The folly of taking oneself too seriously. XLIV L'Amour-propre (Satires, 1760) Qu'as-tu, petit bourgeois d'une petite ville? Réponds donc. — L'univers doit venger mes injures; — L'univers, mon ami, ne pense point à toi, - Ah! j'ai fait un discours, et l'on s'en est moqué Des plaisans de Paris j'ai senti la malice; Je vais me plaindre au roi, qui me rendra justice Va, le roi n'a point lu ton discours ennuyeux; Non, je n'y puis tenir: de brocards on m'assomme. Ainsi, nouveau venu sur les rives de Seine, XLV A Madame du Deffant Eh quoi! vous êtes étonnée Qu'au bout de quatre-vingts hivers, Puisse encor fredonner des vers? Quelquefois un peu de verdure Mais elle sèche en peu de temps. Un oiseau peut se faire entendre Ainsi je touche encor ma lyre PARNY (b. Ile Bourbon, 1753; d. Paris, 1814) EVARISTE-Désiré Desforges, vicomte de Parny, a creole who left his native tropics for Paris as a young man, was an officer and man of letters, living a gay life with the wits of the time. His verse, which gained him admission to the Academy and a great reputation in his day, but is now little admired, is chiefly love-poetry, generally Anacreontic, sometimes tender, as in the extract quoted. XLVI Sur la Mort d'une jeune Fille Son âge échappait à l'enfance; Elle avait les traits de l'Amour. Quelques mois, quelques jours encore, Dans ce cœur pur et sans détour Mais le ciel avait au trépas Ainsi meurt, sans laisser de trace, Le chant d'un oiseau dans les bois. ANDRÉ CHÉNIER (b. Constantinople, 1762; d. Paris, 1794) THE father of André-Marie de Chénier was the French Consul-General at Constantinople, and his mother was a Greek by birth. André was brought to France while still an infant and he received a sound education in Paris at the Collège de Navarre, supplemented by conversation with the cultured people he met in his mother's salon. After a brief and uncongenial stay in the army as a second lieutenant, he was from 1787 till 1790 attached to the French Legation in London. In sympathy with the ideals of the Revolution, he returned to Paris, but, his views being too moderate for Robespierre, he was in 1794 condemned to death on a trumped-up charge, and after two months in prison he was guillotined, only a few hours before Robespierre fell and the Terror ended. Except a few stray pieces, his poems were not published till 1819. Chénier's untimely end makes it difficult to judge his work. His inspiration was almost wholly classical—the result of his education, possibly also of his heredity—and in most of his poems Greek influence is very apparent. Sainte-Beuve described him as notre plus grand classique en vers depuis Racine." But Chénier is sometimes hailed as "le premier des romantiques," because into French poetry which since Ronsard had tended to the artificial and the formal he brought freshness and true poetic |