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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
As the best method of reading Balzac is to follow, through the course of several novels, the history of some one character, so possibly there is no better way of approaching the modern French novel as a whole than by a study of the Catholic priest as there portrayed. He has appealed to practically every writer of first rank, and, moreover, purely as a character of fiction, quite aside from any significance that he may possess as indicating the faith of the author, or as exhibiting the Church and the work of her clergy. It is, accordingly, exclusively from the point of view of his rôle in literature that he is here treated. I shall take up the main themes in the ecclesiastical novel in an endeavor to indicate their relationship and to discover their general trend—an aspect of the subject that is neglected by Paul Franche in his Le Prêtre dans le roman français. I shall also continue the examination by including novels published since 1902, the date of Franche's study.
1 Lemattre, Les Contemporains, II, p. 297. Renan, Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse. Le petit séminaire Saint Nicolas, I, “Je n'ai connu que de bons prétres.” Cf. Prévost, Le Scorpion, p. 335.
2 Cf. Abbé Renaud, (Feuillet's Sibylle) who was put to eat with the children and treated as an inferior.
3 See page 123.
4 Cf. Lemaître, op. cit., p. 297.
5 Cf. Lemaître, op. cit., séries 6. Also Faguet, Etudes Littéraires du XIX siècle.
6 Although as early as 1822 Balzac wrote Le Vicaire des Ardennes à la Jean Jacques and à la Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, both Joseph and Adolphe were never anything but lovers in spite of the fact that they wore the cassock. Their sorrows were but another brand of the mal du sièle, and were in no way tinged by the soul stress of a true ecclesiastic. For the influence of Jocelyn on feminine susceptibilities see Merimée's humorous and cynical story of L'Abbé Aubain. L'Abbé Daniel by André Theuriet is a bourgeois rendering of much this same theme, but the priest's struggle to renounce his love lacks intensity. Under the date of March 184—he says, “Je fis avec transport le sacrifice de ma volonté.” Never once, however, did his soul cry out in rebellion against this sacrifice. Cf. also L'Abbé Roche in Monsieur, Madame et Bébé by G. Droz. Maupassant in Le Baptême describes admirably the priest in whose heart the paternal instinct still lives.
7 Cf. the park Paradou in La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, the mountain scenery in Le Scorpion and in many of Fabre's novels. Cf. also the descriptions of the tropical forests on the Island of Martinique, and of the romantic castle gardens in France in Le Vicaire des Ardennes.
8 Cf. Marcel Tinayre, Hellé, p. 121, “La femme est par nature idolâtre et mystique. Elle se donne au Dieu chrétien parceque ce Dieu s'est fait homme.” Cf. also Maupassant, Bel Ami, where Madame Walters suddenly sees her lover in the painting of the Christ.
9 See pp. 8, 9, 10; p. 88, “Vous et votre Dieu, vous vous êtes emparés de ma femme, vous me l'avez ravie.” Cf. Mlle. La Quintinie, p. 70, “partage son âme avec le prêtre.” The situation of Colonel La Quintinie resembles that of General Fuster. Cf. also Dupecus by Paul Fraycourt. No doubt Michelet inspired these novels of protest. See Le prêtre, la femme et la famille, pp. 18, 63, and Les Jésuites, Conference VI. Cf. also Un prêtre marié by Barbey d'Aurevilly, p. 262, “Nous avons, vous pour rival, et moi pour ennemi, le dieu de Calixte, le dieu de la Croix.”
10 For protestant asceticism see also André Gide, La porte étroite.
11 Awarded the “Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie Française.
12 Le broyeur de lin, ch. III.
13 Page 110.
14 See pp. 206-209.
15 See p. 340.
16 See pp. 335 ff.
17 See p. 536.
18 See p. 536.
19 See p. 53.
20 See p. 95.
21 Cf. Ma Vocation, p. 423, and also Lucifer, p. 389, “Le prêtre est un être qui s'abandonne, se sacrifie, abdique, et lui [Jourfierl trop entier pour s'oublier lui-même, n'avait su rien faire de cela.”
22 Cf. Ma Vocation, p. 324. See also R. P. Bowen, The Novels of Ferdinand Fabre, p. 18.
23 See p. 203.
24 “See p. 71, ”La vérité est que je suis entré dans l'église sans avoir entendu clairement à mon oreille la voix de la vocation.“
25 See p. 320.
26 Op. cit., p. 297.
27 Abbé Sombreval seems to be another Jean Valjean. The book appeared just three years after Les Misérables.
28 See p. 82.
29 See p. 358.
30 L'Anneau d'améthyste.
31 Op. cit., pp. 15, 308.
32 Cf. Le démon de midi, p. 373, “Les meilleurs de nous ne sont que des hommes, de pauvres hommes.”