The “Conte Philosophique” Bridging a Century

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Literary studies seem frequently to convey the impression that the conte philosophique, as such, became practically a closed book after Voltaire, and that it is to be taken for granted as an eighteenth-century literary form. True, the conte had grown into prominence during a revolutionary era, when caustic impertinence of style had served to enhance its force. True also, sentiment was growing apace with the latter years of the eighteenth century, and this very quality might necessarily tend to preclude further development of such a formula. However, with full cognizance of this fact that sentiment was gaining favor, and that it would of itself tend to disintegrate a literary form essentially devoid of sympathy, one may still venture to present evidence that the conte was a living form long after the French Revolution, and in fact that it would appear to have continued a rather vigorous existence even into the first years of the nineteenth. A point made by M. Mornet seems pertinent. With reference to Voltairian and Rousseauistic influences which progressed simultaneously throughout an entire period, M. Mornet aptly asserts:L'ardeur des âmes sensibles n'impose jamais silence aux ironies de la critique voltairienne. S'il y a soixante-douze éditions de La Nouvelle Héloïse, de 1762 à 1800, il y en a plus de cinquante de Candide, de 1758 à la Révolution. La pensée française dans la deuxième moitié du xviiie siècle n'est ni rationnelle ou philosophique, ni scientifique ou expérimentale, ni sensible ou mystique. Elie est tout cela à la fois, selon les milieux ou les gens, et parfois dans les memes milieux et chez les mêmes gens.