stitution of modern science
could prevail against Satan. As a matter of fact, the growth of the
interest in the Devil has been on a level with the development of the
spirit of philosophical inquiry. French classicism, to be sure,
occasioned a setback for our hero. As a member of the Christian
hierarchy of supernatural personages, the Devil could not help but be
affected by the ban under which Boileau placed Christian
supernaturalism. But even the eighteenth century, a period so inimical
to the Supernatural, produced two master-devils in fiction: Le Sage's
Asmodeus and Cazotte's Beelzebub--worthy members of the august company
of literary Devils.

But as if to make amends for its long lack of appreciation of the
Devil's literary possibilities, France, in the beginning of the
nineteenth century, brought about a distinct reaction in his favour.
The sympathy extended by that country of revolutionary progress to all
victims and to all rebels, whether individuals or classes or nations,
could not well be denied to the celestial outlaw. The fighters for
political, social, intellectual, and emotional liberty on earth, could
not withhold their admiration from the angel who demanded freedom of
thought and independence of action in heaven. The rebel of the
Empyrean was hailed as the first martyr in the cause of liberty, and
his rehabilitation in heaven was demanded by the rebels on earth.
Satan became the symbol of the restless, hapless nineteenth century.
Through his mouth that age uttered its protest against the monarchs
of heaven and earth. The Romantic generation of 1830 thought the world
more than ever out of joint, and who was better fitted than the Devil
to express their dissatisfaction with the celestial government of
terrestrial affairs? Satan is the eternal Malcontent. To Hamlet,
Denmark seemed gloomy; to Satan, the whole world appears dark. The
admiration of the Romanticists for Satan was mixed with pity and
sympathy--so much his melancholy endeared him to their sympathies, so
kindred it seemed to their human weakness. The Romanticists felt a
deep admiration for solitary grandeur. This "knight of the doleful
countenance," laden with a curse and drawing misfortune in his train,
was the ideal Romantic hero. Was he not indeed the original _beau
tenebreux_? Thus Satan became the typical figure of that period and
its poetry. It has been well remarked that if Satan had not existed,
the Romanticists would have invented him. The