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Updated: May 13, 2025
Boileau and Bossuet also defended the Abbé, and when the matter became at last so serious that the King himself was obliged to take cognisance of it, it was understood that his sympathies also were with Furetière. It says: "As to Monsieur Furetière, he no longer puts in an appearance at the meetings of the Academy, but it is not known whether any other Academician is to be elected in his place."
The Academy, in solemn session, appointed Regnier Desmarais, their secretary, to wait on the Chancellor to demand the cancelling of Furetière's privilege. But the Abbé had powerful friends also, and by their help the Chancellor's action was delayed, while Furetière hurried out a specimen of his work.
"I shall tell you," said Furetière, "sincerely and faithfully, several stories or adventures which happened to persons who are neither heroes nor heroines, who will raise no armies and overthrow no kingdoms, but who will be honest folk of mediocre condition, and who will quietly make their way. Some of them will be good-looking and others ugly.
He proved himself an adept in parody and satire, and so long as he contented himself with laughing at people like Charles Sorel, the author of Francion, who had no friends, the Academicians were calm and amused, But Furetière was not merely the author of that extremely amusing medley, Le Roman Bourgeois , which still holds its place in French literature as a minor classic, but he was also a real student of philology, and one of those who most ardently desired to see the settlement of the canon of French language.
Furetière lacked the skill and the insight needful for the satisfactory attainment of the standard he set up, indeed, the attainment of that standard is beyond the power of most novelists even now.
So declares my little book; but it would seem that the officers of the Academy at least a week earlier had their attention drawn to what Furetière was doing. Perhaps it was not until the election of Thomas Corneille that an opportunity occurred of making the members generally aware of it.
It is surprising, in the face of the monopoly which that body had secured, that Furetière was able to obtain a Privilege for his own Dictionary, but in all probability, as he was one of the Forty, the censors supposed that he was acting in concert with his colleagues. Then began a hue and cry with which the learned world of Paris rang for months.
The Academy, in fact, had expressly declined to include in its Dictionary the technical terms of art and science, and it is particularly with these that Furetière is occupied.
The Francion of Sorel and the Roman Bourgeois of Furetière the latter, published in 1666, of especial interest to students of the English novel had prepared the way for the exact opposite to the heroic romance; namely, the realistic story of every-day life. Bunyan and Richard Head, Mrs. Behn and Defoe each had marked a stage in the development of English fiction.
Never was such a scandal, never such a rain of pamphlets and lampoons on one side and the other. One has only to glance at the contemporary portraits of Furetière to see that he was not the man to yield a point; his wrinkled face looks the very mirror of sarcastic obstinacy and brilliant ill-nature.
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