Main Currents In Nineteenth Century Literature

The literature produced in France between the years 1824 and 1828 is important and admirable. After the upheavals of the Revolution, the wars of the Empire, and the lassitude of the reign of Louis XVIII., there arose a young generation that applied itself with eager enthusiasm to those highest intellectual pursuits which had so long been neglected. During the Revolution and the wars of Napoleon the youths of France had had other vocations than the reformation of literature and art. The best energies of the nation had been diverted into the channels of politics, military enterprise, and civil administration. Now a great volume of intellectual force which had long been confined was suddenly set free. The period of the restored Bourbon kings and the Monarchy of July may be defined as that of the decisive appearance of the bourgeoisie on the historical stage. With the fall of Napoleon the industrial period of history begins. Confining our attention to France, we observe that the new division of the national property which had been made during the Revolution, and which it had been Napoleon's economic mission to vindicate to the rest of Europe, now began to produce its natural consequences.