The enormous influx of words into the literary vocabulary which the
Romantic Movement brought about had two important effects. In the first
place, the range of poetical expression was infinitely increased.
French literature came out of a little, ceremonious, antiquated
drawing-room into the open air. With the flood of new words, a thousand
influences which had never been felt before came into operation.
Strangeness, contrast, complication, immensity, curiosity,
grotesqueness, fantasy--effects of this kind now for the first time
became possible and common in verse. But, one point must be noticed. The
abolition of the distinction between words that were 'bas' and 'noble'
did not at first lead (as might have been expected) to an increase of
realism. Rather the opposite took place. The Romantics loved the new
words not because they made easier the expression of actual facts, but
for their power of suggestion, for the effects of remoteness, contrast,
and multiplicity which could be produced by them--in fact, for their
rhetorical force. The new vocabulary came into existence as an engine of
rhetoric, not as an engine of truth. Nevertheless--and this was the
second effect of its introduction--in the long run the realistic impulse
in French literature was also immensely strengthened. The vocabulary of
prose widened at the same time as that of verse; and the prose of the
first Romantics remained almost completely rhetorical. But the realistic
elements always latent in prose--and especially in French prose--soon
asserted themselves; the vast opportunities for realistic description
which the enlarged vocabulary opened out were eagerly seized upon; and
it was not long before there arose in French literature a far more
elaborate and searching realism than it had ever known before.

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It was, perhaps, unfortunate that the main struggle of the Romantic