^{Note 1 in page 379} Le Berger Extravagant probably went through at least fifteen editions in French and in translation—cf. p. 139 of T. F. Crane's Introduction to his edition of Boileau's Les Héros de Roman (Boston: Ginn, 1902)—proving to have been more popular in its time than any of the idealistic novels it attacks, including L'Astrée. As for Francion, it was probably the largest-selling novel of the century if we believe Sorel's statement in La Bibliothèque Françoise, 2d ed. (Paris: Libraires du Palais, 1667), p. 194, that it went through over sixty editions in forty years. In any case we know it was tremendously popular among the bourgeoisie, and Emile Roy, in his critical edition, “Société des textes français modernes” (Paris: Hachette et Droz, 1924–31), i, xxij-xxx, lists nearly forty known editions during Sorel's lifetime, to which we must also add its adaptation into a comedy, by Gillet de la Tessonerie, La Comédie de Francion (Paris: Quinet, 1642). In spite of several articles—cf. notably Frédéric Lachèvre, “Théophile de Viau, auteur de Francion?”, in the Bulletin du Bibliophile (1937), pp. 198–204—which have attempted to prove that the earliest version, at least, of Francion, was not by Sorel, we still consider it as his work, in view of the positive assertions of several of Sorel's contemporaries, and for certain other reasons which need not be discussed here. It is to be noted that even if Sorel did not write Francion, his theories studied are in no wise affected, since most of them are found or repeated in later works indisputably his.

^{Note 2 in page 379} For an impression of the abundance and great variety of novels which appeared in France in the seventeenth century, cf. Ralph Coplestone Williams, Bibliography of the Seventeenth Century Novel (New York: The Century Co., for MLA, 1931). For additions and corrections to this work, cf. Frank P. Rolfe, “On the Bibliography of Seventeenth Century Prose Fiction,” PMLA, xlix, no. 4 (1934), 1071–86.

^{Note 3 in page 379} La Bibliothèque Françoise, p. 407.

^{Note 4 in page 379} Le Jugement du “Cid,” composé par un bourgeois de Paris, Marguillier de sa paroisse (Paris, 1637).

^{Note 5 in page 379} Rôle des présentations faites aux grands jours de l' Eloquence Françoise (Paris, 1634).—Cf. also his later Discours sur l'Académie Françoise (Paris: G. de Luyne, 1654).

^{Note 6 in page 380} Sorel's “Lettre aux Grands” in the 1626 edition of Francion begins: “Ce n'est pas pour vous dédier ce Livre que je fais ceste Epistre, mais pour vous apprendre que je ne vous le dédie point.” (Roy ed., i, ix.) In De la Connoissance des bons livres (Paris: Pralard, 1671), p. 34, Sorel also boasts: “C'est une grande satisfaction à un homme de se voir au dessus de ces choses et mesmes d'avoir fait plusieurs volumes sans les dédier.” Because he disdained patrons, Sorel was of course in a certain sense independent. On the other hand he was dependent upon public reception of his works and therefore frequently had to violate his own theories and convictions in order to write the kind of novels which people would buy. This accounts for his apparent inconsistency in writing such works as L'Histoire amoureuse de Cléagnor et de Doristée (1621), L'Orphyse de Chrysante (1626), and others of the very kind he most bitterly attacks in his theories and in his realistic novels.

^{Note 7 in page 380} Attention should be called to the numerous irregularities of spelling found in Sorel's works. Considerable changes in this field took place between his earliest and latest works. The reader should, therefore, not be surprised to see the same words spelled in different ways in his different works. Moreover, Sorel is sometimes inconsistent, or perhaps merely careless, in the same work or same sentence. Consequently, instead of inserting sic for each specific irregularity, this blanket statement is made to indicate that the spelling of all words used in quotations, is, whether correct or not, Sorel's.

^{Note 8 in page 380} A glance at the critical bibliography of Sorel's works prepared by Emile Roy in La Vie et les oeuvres de Charles Sorel, Sieur de Souvigny (Paris: Hachette, 1891) gives one some idea of Sorel's great literary fertility.

^{Note 9 in page 380} Besides the chapters on the novels of Sorel, to be found in the general studies of the seventeenth century novel and the realistic novel, notably those by Reynier, Le Breton, Koerting, Magendie, and those mentioned in footnotes in the present study, the following will also prove of interest for an evaluation of Sorel's works: Ferdinand Brunetière, “Le Naturalisme au XVII^e siècle,” Revue Bleue, v (1883), 449–459. Eugène Baret, Mémoire sur l'originalité de “Gil Blas” de Lesage (Paris: Aubry, 1864). Victor Fournel, La Litttérature indépendante et les écrivains oubliés (Paris: Didier, 1862), pp. 210–250.

^{Note 10 in page 380} “Il me sembloit que comme Hercule, je ne fusse né que pour chasser les monstres de la terre,... chastier les sottises,... rabbaisser les vanités ... et me mocquer de l'ignorance des hommes.” (Francion, ii, 136 passim).

^{Note 11 in page 381} Sorel's attitude toward the evils of society and education is well illustrated by the following: “N'est-ce pas ... une misère estrange de voir tant de querelles et de procès parmy les gens de toutes sortes de conditions? Ne sont-ils pas plus cruels l'un à l'autre que de farouches animaux, puisqu'ils se tuent sans aucune pitié, soit en des combats particuliers, soit en de grandes batailles? Les voluptez auxquelles (sic) ils s'adonnent ne leur sontelles pas aussi fort funestes puisqu'elles leur causent une infinité de maladies, dont il y en a de cruelles, de sales et de honteuses? Leur feneantise (sic) ne leur est-elle pas dommageable, puisqu'elle leur fait perdre le temps qu'ils ne peuvent reparer? ... Pour ce qui est des gens d'estude ... la pluspart s'employent plustost à charger leur mémoire qu'à fortifier leur judgement.” (La Science universelle, 2nd ed. [Paris: Nicolas le Gras, 1668], i, 25–26).

^{Note 12 in page 381} Le Tombeau des Romans (Paris: Claude Morlot, 1626), p. 3. The guiding spirit and probably the actual writer of this work, signed by a friend of Sorel's, Fancan (i.e. François Langlois, chantre de Saint-Honoré), is now conceded to have been Sorel himself, although Fancan and le Comte de Cramail may also have contributed to it. In any case all it contains has been repeated by Sorel elsewhere in works indisputably his own.

^{Note 13 in page 381} La Science universelle, i, 23.

^{Note 14 in page 381} De la Connoissance des bons livres, p. 141.

^{Note 15 in page 381} Francion, iv, 18.

^{Note 16 in page 382} De la Connoissance des bons livres, pp. 126–127.

^{Note 17 in page 382} Ibid., p. 131.

^{Note 18 in page 382} Ibid., pp. 97–98.

^{Note 19 in page 382} Le Berger Extravagant, 2nd ed. (Rouen: Osmont, 1646), 4 tomes in 2 vols., Tome i, 15. All references to this work will be to the tome rather than to the volume.—Elsewhere Sorel shows how such reading “nuyt à leurs estudes (et) ... les destourne encore de faire choix de quelque profession utile.” (De la Connoissance des bons livres, p. 96).

^{Note 20 in page 382} Le Berger Extravagant, Préface, i, iv.

^{Note 21 in page 382} De la Connoissance des bons livres, p. 104.

^{Note 22 in page 383} Ibid., p. 109.

^{Note 23 in page 383} Ibid., pp. 321–322.

^{Note 24 in page 383} Ibid., p. 117.

^{Note 25 in page 383} Ibid., pp. 95–96.

^{Note 26 in page 383} Ibid., p. 115.

^{Note 27 in page 383} Ibid., p. 96.

^{Note 28 in page 384} Le Berger Extravagant, i, 15.

^{Note 29 in page 384} De la Connoissance des bons livres, p. 94.

^{Note 30 in page 384} Francion, i, 180.

^{Note 31 in page 384} He does this notably in Le Berger Extravagant which presents surprisingly plagiaristic resemblances to Don Quixote, Sorel's repeated statements to the contrary notwithstanding. Hortensius, one of the characters in Francion, is also unbalanced by romantic readings.

^{Note 32 in page 384} La Science universelle, i, 13–22.

^{Note 33 in page 385} It is to be noted that Sorel does not attack the medical profession, probably out of respect for his best friend, Dr. Guy Patin. Also, except rarely and in moderation, he avoids attacking the church, first of all because, in spite of its own many evils, the church was, like himself, trying to drive vice from the world, and secondly, because extremely painful and unfortunate things usually happened to those who dared to criticize its evils too openly. In Francion (iii, 15), when one of the characters begins to speak of the licentiousness of a priest, Raymond stops him saying: “... il ne faut point parler de ces gents là, ... si vous en medisiez, vous seriez excommunié ...” Sorel also indicated the necessity of disguising his attacks on all men of authority in general, saying: (Francion i, xiv) “... il se faut taire quelquefois afin de parler plus long temps, ... de peur que les Grands ne vous mettent en peine et ne vous fasse condamner a un eternel silence.”

^{Note 34 in page 385} De la Connoissance des bons livres, p. 163.

^{Note 35 in page 385} “Lettre à Francion” (1633), Francion, i, xxv.

^{Note 36 in page 385} La Bibliothèque Françoise, p. 195.—If readers would like to see a good example of a novel “où il n'y a rien à reprendre pour la liberté du Discours, il ne faut que voir ... Polyandre.” (Ibid., p. 196.)

^{Note 37 in page 385} La Science universelle, i, 23.

^{Note 38 in page 386} There seem to have been three reasons why Sorel continued to call the essentially realistic novel like Francion a “roman comique,” besides the fact that he used a term already adopted by earlier writers. The first is to attract readers by disguising its seriousness. The second is because, like “comédie” (as Molière understood it, for example) it satirizes various vices and evils of the time. And the third is that, like Shakespeare, Sorel, “ne considère la vie que comme une comédie,” (cf. note 76) in which the actors simply play the rôles assigned to them. He presents all of them with equal rights in a broad tableau of swarming humanity. Could Balzac have been influenced by these considerations as well as the title of Dante's Divina Commedia in deciding to call his great work La Comédie humaine?

^{Note 39 in page 386} “Advertissement” to 1623 ed., Francion, i, iv.—In Le Tombeau des Romans (pp. 58–59) Sorel gives Socrates as his authority for saying: “... il y a des choses ... qu'il ne faut pas descouvrir nüement au vulgaire, mais plustost les cacher sous le voile de la Fiction.”

^{Note 40 in page 386} Francion, i, iii.

^{Note 41 in page 387} “Lettre aux Grands,” Francion, i, x.

^{Note 42 in page 387} Francion, iv, 52.

^{Note 43 in page 387} Polyandre (Paris: La vefve Nicolas Cercy, 1648), 2 vols., “Advertissement,” i, 15th (unnumbered) page.

^{Note 44 in page 387} In Polyandre, for example, Sorel describes a quiet bourgeois party: “où le pere de famille va au bal en robe de chambre et en pantoufles, et y prend plaisir à voir danser ses enfans” (i, 190) while the elderly “bourgeoises” sit around the outside gossiping and discussing the behavior of the younger generation. In Francion, Sorel also presents such familiar domestic scenes as a wife wheedling a new dress out of her husband, a group of neighbor women gossiping on their front stoops, or a landowner giving a party for his farmhands and their families.

^{Note 45 in page 387} Charles Gidel, in his Histoire de la littérature française (Paris: Lemerre, 1877), 2 vols.; ii, 423, reflects the opinion of such critics as Abel Lefranc when he calls Francion “l'image la plus vive de la société d'alors.” Unfortunately Polyandre, which contains far more actual information on bourgeois daily life than either Francion or Le Berger Extravagant, had the misfortune to be published during the Fronde, hence aroused little interest, and resulted in Sorel's decision never to write another novel, nor even to finish this one which he considered his best and most perfect example of the kind of novel he outlined. Although very few modern critics seem to have read Polyandre, there is abundant evidence, some of which is presented by Emile Roy (op. cit., pp. 99–110, 137–147, 386 passim) to prove that it was well known and extensively plundered by Molière, Cyrano de Bergerac, and other contemporaries of Sorel.

^{Note 46 in page 388} Le Berger Extravagant, iv, 564.

^{Note 47 in page 388} De la Connoissance des bons livres, p. 127.

^{Note 48 in page 388} Cf. note 24 above.

^{Note 49 in page 388} Besides such statements in his novels as “D'ailleurs j'estois infiniment aise d'entendre les discours de quelques bonnes vieilles assises aupres de moy. Elles disoient que... etc.” (Francion, ii, 180), one frequently encounters such evidence as, in Les Visions admirables du Pelerin de Paris (Paris: 1635), p. 245 passim, a list of over thirty cabarets of Paris, with their specialties, their clientèle, etc.

^{Note 50 in page 388} Emile Roy (op. cit., pp. 78–79; 189–193, passim) gives a fairly exhaustive list of “personnages déguisés” found in Francion.

^{Note 51 in page 389} Cf. the dictionaries and special works of Oudin, Furetière, Richelet, Leroux, and others on seventeenth century language, for the number of times Sorel's works are referred to in illustration of the use or meaning of words then current. Unfortunately Littré, although he occasionally refers to Sorel for illustrations of such expressions as “couvrir un momon,” “donner de la tablature,” “un pain de chapitre,” and numerous others, seems to have been unaware that Sorel, before the writers he cites, used such terms as “bisque,” “le je ne sais quoi,” “rire sous cape,” “tirelaine,” “tiresoie,” and many others, for many of which Littré refers to Scarron's later works as the first to illustrate their usage.

^{Note 52 in page 389} Le Roman Bourgeois, Jannet ed. (Paris: Picard, 1868), 2 vols., ii, 24–25.

^{Note 53 in page 389} It is interesting to note what a large percentage of realists have been nearsighted. Perhaps this is one reason for their predilection and gift for minute details, frequently at the expense of broad perspectives. Guy Patin, Furetière and other contemporaries of Sorel referred to him as a scholarly, stout, little man “qui regardait de près.”

^{Note 54 in page 389} Le Berger Extravagant, iii, 561–562.

^{Note 55 in page 389} Francion, iv, 34.

^{Note 56 in page 390} Ibid., “Advertissement” to 1623 ed., i, vi.—The lack of style and composition in Sorel's realistic novels is one of the principal reasons for his lack of popularity today. However, we must remember that of all the conclusions submitted to the unfinished Polyxène of François de Molière (Paris: Antoine de Sommaville, 1634), Sorel's was the one chosen by the Académie Française for the clearness and correctness of its style, which made it suitable for school use. Other more valid reasons for Sorel's oblivion today probably include his too frequent demonstrations of supreme egoism and his tendency to sermonize.

^{Note 57 in page 390} Ibid., i, xvii.

^{Note 58 in page 390} Le Berger Extravagant, iii, 45.

^{Note 59 in page 390} De la Connoissance des bons livres, p. 326.

^{Note 60 in page 390} Ibid., p. 346.

^{Note 61 in page 390} Ibid., pp. 323–324.

^{Note 62 in page 390} Francion, “Advertissement” of 1626 ed., i, xv.

^{Note 63 in page 390} Ibid.

^{Note 64 in page 391} Le Berger Extravagant, iv, 554.

^{Note 65 in page 391} De la Connoissance des bons livres, pp. 328–329.

^{Note 66 in page 391} Ibid., p. 158.

^{Note 67 in page 391} Sorel's literary ideals, in fact, seem to have had a more immediate application and illustration in the drama than in the novel. Besides numerous scenes in Molière's plays and the comedies of Cyrano de Bergerac, which seem unquestionably to be taken from Sorel's novels, especially his little-known and unfinished Polyandre, their general method of satirizing certain classes, presenting scenes from ordinary life realistically, and attacking social evils, is usually much the same. Besides Lesage and Marivaux, eighteenth century writers of the “comédie de mœurs,” “comédie de condition,” “comédie larmoyante,” and “drame bourgeois,” following the lead of Diderot and his “genre sérieux,” which shows great similarities to Sorel's theories, especially in “Dorval et moi,” also definitely illustrate in the drama most of Sorel's basic literary ideas of a realistic nature. And finally, the “comédie sociale” and “drame à thèse” of Augier and Dumas, fils, and the realistic depiction of such daily life as is accurately presented by Henri Becque and other modern realists, likewise fulfil in the drama nearly every requirement of Sorel's general literary theories except form. In Sorel's mind the distinction between the task of the drama and the novel was not yet as clearly defined as it has since become.

^{Note 68 in page 391} Boileau, in his Les Héros de Roman (cf. note 1), also wrote a critique of the novel, in which he shows general agreement with many of Sorel's theories.

^{Note 69 in page 392} Professor Abel Lefranc has called Francion “... le premier grand roman de mœurs. Il domine toute la lignée réaliste comme l'Astrée la lignée idéaliste.” (“Charles Sorel, sa vie et son caractère,” Revue des Cours et Conférences, 4 janvier 1906, p. 353.)

^{Note 70 in page 392} Léon Lévrault in Le Roman, évolution du genre (Paris: Delaplane, 1902), p. 35, asserts: “Ceux qui ont cru au XIX^e siècle inventer le naturalisme, devraient saluer dans le sieur de Souvigny (Sorel) un précurseur en même temps qu'un maitre.”

^{Note 71 in page 392} Several of Sorel's ideas were expressed by other novelists whose works appeared at approximately the same time as Francion, which would lead us to believe that these tendencies were “in the air.” Those whose ideas are most similar to Sorel's include: 1. Théophile de Viau, Fragments d'une histoire comique, first published as “première journée” in Œuvres de Théophile (Paris: Billaine, 1623). Ed. used: Œuvres complètes (Paris: Jannet, 1855–56), 2 vols., ii, 11–36. 2. Jean de Lannel, Le Roman Satyrique (Paris: Toussainct du Bray, 1624). 3. Bishop Jean Pierre Camus, Palombe, ou la femme honorable (Paris: Chappelet, 1628), and numerous other novels of middle-class, family life. 4. André Mareschal, La Chrysolite ou le secret des romans (Paris: Toussainct du Bray, 1627).

Many essentially realistic novels also followed Sorel's vigorous campaign against the “grands romans,” notably Paul Scarron's Le Roman Comique (First part: Paris: Quinet, 1651; second part: Paris: Luynes, 1657), and Antoine Furetière's Le Roman Bourgeois (Paris: Denis Thierry, T. Jolly, L. Billaine, etc., 1666). The latter illustrates many of Sorel's theories more perfectly than does Sorel himself, and is based on essentially the same level of actions, setting, and life, as Sorel's Polyandre (1648), which is probably the first true “roman bourgeois,” though unfinished. It is interesting to note the lack of popularity of both these “romans bourgeois” which perhaps too perfectly restrict themselves to ordinary bourgeois life, and show the dullness into which true realism, thus conceived, is likely to lapse.

^{Note 72 in page 392} It is interesting to compare Lesage's pretensions to morality in “Gil Bias au lecteur” (“Si tu lis mes aventures sans prendre garde aux inscriptions morales qu'elles enferment, tu ne tireras aucun fruit de cet ouvrage; mais si tu les lis avec attention, tu y trouveras, suivant le précepte d'Horace, l'utile mêlé avec l'agréable.”) with Sorel's earlier claim:

“Il m'a falu confesser ... que j'avois meslé l'utile avec l'agreable, et qu'en me moquant des vicieux je les avois si bien repris qu'il y avoit quelque esperance que cela leur donneroit du desir de se corriger, estans honteux de leurs actions passées. Je dirai ... que je monstre un beau Palais qui par dehors a apparence d'estre remply de liberté et de delices, mais au dedans duquel l'on trouve neantmoins lorsque l'on n'y pense pas, des severes censeurs, des Accusateurs irreprochables, et des Juges rigoureux. La corruption de ce siecle où l'on empesche que la verité soit ouvertement divulguée me contraint de faire cecy.” (“Advertissement” to 1626 ed., Francion, i, xii–xiii.)

^{Note 73 in page 393} “Le Roman de mœurs au XVII^e siècle,” Revue Indépendante (premier février, 1848), p. 291.

^{Note 74 in page 393} For a partial acknowledgement of the debt of later realists to the “romans comiques,” “satiriques,” and “bourgeois,” cf. Ernest Courbet, “Plan d'une histoire du roman français au XVII^e siècle,” Le Chasseur Bibliographe (Paris: Léon Roudiez, no. 3 [mars 1867], 72–80). It will be remembered that Courbet was one of the earliest of the theorists and protagonists of realism in painting.

^{Note 75 in page 393} Champfleury (i.e., Jules-François Félix Husson Fleury) was one of the most important contributors to Le Réalisme, of which only six numbers (16 pp. in -4°) ever appeared, on the fifteenth of each month (15 novembre to avril-mai, 1857). This periodical had as its three editors Edmond Duranty (editor-in-chief and owner), Jules Assézat (later editor of Les Débats), and Henri Thulié (distinguished physician and later “président du conseil municipal à Paris”). For an understanding of the earliest theories of nineteenth century realism, the following works by Champfleury should also be consulted: Le Réalisme (Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1857), Souvenirs el portraits de jeunesse (Paris: Dentu, 1872), and his prefaces to Aventures de Mariette, Contes domestiques, and other novels. Prefaces to the novels of Duranty, Feydeau and other contemporary so-called realists will also prove useful for an understanding of the earliest conception of “le réalisme” in the nineteenth century, before Balzac's and Taine's influence had profoundly affected it.

^{Note 76 in page 393} Sorel has often repeated in essence this declaration: “... je ne regarde le Monde que comme une Comedie, et ... je ne fay estat des hommes qu'entant qu'ils s'acquittent bien du personnage qui leur a esté baillé. Celuy qui est paysan et qui vit fort bien en paysan, me semble plus loüable que celuy qui est nay Gentilhomme en n'en faict pas les actions. ...” (“Aux Grands,” Francion, i, ix–x.)

^{Note 77 in page 393} De la Connoissance des bons livres, p. 158.