Marion de l'Orme, Le Roi s'amuse, Lucrèce Borgia, Marie Tudor, Ruy Blas and Les Burgraves), was a literary event, and excited the most violent discussion-the author's usual plan being to prefix a prose preface of a very militant character to his work. A still more melodramatic variety of drame was that chiefly represented by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), whose Henri III and Antony, to which may be added later La Tour de Nesle and Mademoiselle de Belleisle, were almost as much rallying points for the early Romantics as the dramas of Hugo, despite their inferior literary value. At the same time Alexandre Soumet (1788-1845), in Norma, Une Fête de Néron, &c., and Casimir Delavigne in Marino Faliero, Louis XI, &c., maintained a somewhat closer adherence to the older models. The classical or semi-classical reaction of the last years of Louis Philippe was represented in tragedy by Ponsard (Lucrèce, Agnes de Méranie, Charlotte Corday, Ulysse, and several comedies), and on the comic side, to a certain extent, by Emile Augier (1820-1889) in L'Aventurière, Le Gendre de M. Poirier, Le Fils de Giboyer, &c. During almost the whole period Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) poured forth innumerable comedies of the vaudeville order, which, without possessing much literary value, attained immense popularity. For the last half-century the realist development of Romanticism has had the upper hand in dramatic composition, its principal representatives being on the one side Victorien Sardou (1831-1909), who in Nos Intimes, La Famille Benoiton, Rabagas, Dora, &c., chiefly devoted himself to the satirical treatment of manners, and Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895), author in 1852 of the famous Dame aux camélias, who in such pieces as Les Idées de Madame Aubray and L'Étrangère rather busied himself with morals and "problems," while his Dame aux camélias (1852) is sometimes ranked as the first of such things in "modern" style. Certain isolated authors also deserve notice, such as Joseph Autran (1813-1877), a poet and academician having some resemblance to Lamartine, whose Fille d'Eschyle created for him a dramatic reputation which he did not attempt to follow up, and Gabriel Legouvé (b. 1807), whose Adrienne Lecouvreur was assisted to popularity by the admirable talent of Rachel. A special variety of drama of the first literary importance has also been cultivated in this century under the title of scènes or proverbes, slight dramatic sketches in which the dialogue and style are of even more importance than the action. The best of all of these are those of Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), whose Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, On ne badine pas avec l'amour, &c., are models of grace and wit. Among his followers may be mentioned especially Octave Feuillet (18211890). Few social dramas of the kind in modern times have attained a greater success than Le Monde où l'on s'ennuie (1868) of Edouard Pailleron (1834-1899). (See also DRAMA.) especially as afterwards developed in the apocalyptic Paroles | each, as it was produced or published (Cromwell, Hernani, d'un croyant (1839) are to be discerned many of the tendencies of the Romantic school, particularly its hardy and picturesque choice of language, and the disdain of established and accepted methods which it professed. The signs of the revolution itself were, as was natural, first given in periodical literature. The feudalist affectations of Chateaubriand and the legitimists excited a sort of aesthetic affection for Gothicism, and Walter Scott became one of the most favourite authors in France. Soon was started the periodical La Muse française, in which the names of Hugo, Vigny, Deschamps and Madame de Girardin appear. Almost all the writers in this periodical were eager royalists, and for some time the battle was still fought on political grounds. There could, however, be no special connexion between classical drama and liberalism; and the liberal journal, the Globe, with no less a person than Sainte-Beuve among its contributors, declared definite war against classicism in the drama. The chief “classical" organs were the Constitutionnel, the Journal des débats, and after a time and not exclusively, the Revue des deux mondes. Soon the question became purely hterary, and the Romantic school proper was born in the famous cénace or clique in which Hugo was chief poet, Sainte-Beuve chief critic, and Gautier, Gérard de Nerval, the brothers Emile (1791-1871) and Antony (1800-1869), Deschamps, Petrus Borel (1800-1850) and others were officers. Alfred de Vigny and Alfred de Musset stand somewhat apart, and so does Charles Nodier (1780-1844), a versatile and voluminous writer, the very variety and number of whose works have somewhat prevented the individual excellence of any of them from having justice done to it. The objects of the school, which was at first violently opposed, so much so that certain academicians actually petitioned the king to forbid the admission of any Romantic piece at the Theatre Français, were, briefly stated, the burning of everything which had been adored, and the adoring of everything which had been burnt. They would have no unities, no arbitrary selection of subjects, no restraints on variety of versification, no academically limited vocabulary, no considerations of artificial beauty, and, above all, no periphrastic expression. The mot propre, the calling of a spade a spade, was the great commandment of Romanticism; but it must be allowed that what was taken away in periphrase was made up in adjectives. Musset, who was very much of a free-lance in the contest, maintained indeed that the differentia of the Romantic was the copious use of this part of speech. All sorts of epithets were invented to distinguish the two parties, of which flamboyant and grisâtre are perhaps the most accurate and expressive pair-the former serving to denote the gorgeous tints and bold attempts of the new school, the latter the grey colour and monotonous outlines of the old. The representation of Hernani in 1830 was the culmination of the struggle, and during great part of the reign of Louis Philippe almost all the younger men of letters in France Were Romantics. The representation of the Lucrèce of François Ponsard (1814-1867) in 1846 is often quoted as the herald or sign of a classical reaction. But this was only apparent, and signified, if it signified anything, merely that the more juvenile excesses of the Romantics were out of date. All the greatest men of letters of France since 1830 have been on the innovating side, and all without exception, whether intentionally or not, have had their work coloured by the results of the movement, and of those which have succeeded it as developments rather than reactions. Drama and Poetry since 1830.-Although the immediate subject on which the battles of Classics and Romantics arose was dramatic poetry, the dramatic results of the movement have not been those of greatest value or most permanent char-representative grandiosity, and a fondness for the introduction acter. The principal effect in the long run has been the introduction of a species of play called drame, as opposed to regular comedy and tragedy, admitting of much freer treatment than either of these two as previously understood in French, and lending itself in some measure to the lengthy and disjointed action, the multiplicity of personages, and the absence of stock characters which characterized the English stage in its palmy days. All Victor Hugo's dramatic works are of this class, and ZI 3 Victor In poetry proper, as in drama, Victor Hugo showed the way. In him all the Romantic characteristics were expressed and embodied-disregard of arbitrary critical rules, free choice of subject, variety and vigour of metre, splendour and sonorousness of diction, abundant "local colour," and that irrepressible individualism which is one of the chief, though not perhaps the chief, of the symptoms. If the careful attention to form which is also characteristic of the movement is less apparent in him than in some of his followers, it is not because it is absent, but because the enthusiastic conviction with which he attacked every subject somewhat diverts attention from it. As with the merits so with the defects. A deficient sense of the ludicrous which characterized many of the Romantics was strongly apparent in their leader, as was also an equally of foreign and unfamiliar words, especially proper names, which occasionally produces an effect of burlesque. Victor Hugo's earliest poetical works, his chiefly royalist and political Odes, were cast in the older and accepted forms, but already displayed astonishing poetical qualities. But it was in the Ballades (for instance, the splendid Pas d'armes du roi Jean, written in verses of three syllables) and the Orientales ( of which may be taken for a sample the sixth section of Navarin, a perfect torrent of outlandish terms poured forth in the most admirable | while his style has an exquisite but unaffected strangeness verse, or Les Djinns, where some of the stanzas have lines of hardly inferior to Gautier's. This peculiar and somewhat two syllables each) that the grand provocation was thrown quintessenced style is also remarkable in the Gaspard de la nuit to the believers in alexandrines, careful caesuras and strictly of Louis Bertrand (1807-1841), a work of rhythmical prose separated couplets. Les Feuilles d'automne, Les Chants du almost unique in its character. One famous sonnet preserves crépuscule, Les Voix intérieures, Les Rayons et les ombres, the the name of Félix Arvers (1806-1850). The two Deschamps productions of the next twenty years, were quieter in style and were chiefly remarkable as translators. The next generation tone, but no less full of poetical spirit. The Revolution of 1848, produced three remarkable poets, to whom may perhaps be the establishment of the empire and the poet's exile brought added a fourth. Théodore de Banville (1823-1891), adopting about a fresh determination of his genius to lyrical subjects. the principles of Gautier, and combining with them a considerable Les Châtiments and La Légende des siècles, the one political, the satiric faculty, composed a large amount of verse, faultless in other historical, reach perhaps the high-water mark of French form, delicate and exquisite in shades and colours, but so entirely verse; and they were followed by the philosophical Contempla: neutral in moral and political tone that it has found fewer tions, the lighter Chansons des rues et des bois, the Année admirers than it deserved. Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle terrible, the second Légende des siècles, and the later work to be (1818-1894), carrying out the principle of ransacking foreign found noticed sub nom. We have been thus particular here literature for subjects, went to Celtic, classical or even Oriental because the literary productiveness of Victor Hugo himself has sources for his inspiration, and despite a science in verse not much been the measure and sample of the whole literary productiveness inferior to Banville's, and a far wider range and choice of of France on the poetical side. At five-and-twenty he was subject, diffused an air of erudition, not to say pedantry, over acknowledged as a master, at seventy-five he was a master still. his work which disgusted some readers, and a pessimism which His poetical influence has been represented in three different displeased others, but has left poetry only inferior to that of schools, from which very few of the poetical writers of the the greatest of his countrymen. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), century can be excluded. These few we may notice first. Alfred by his choice of unpopular subjects and the terrible truth of his de Musset, a writer of great genius, felt part of the analysis, revolted not a few of those who, in the words of an Musset. Romantic inspiration very strongly, but was on the English critic, cannot take pleasure in the representation if they whole unfortunately influenced by Byron, and partly out of do not take pleasure in the thing represented, and who thus wilfulness, partly from a natural want of persevering industry miss his extraordinary command of the poetical appeal in and vigour, allowed himself to be careless and even slovenly sound, in imagery and in suggestion generally. Thus, by a in composition. Notwithstanding this, many of his lyrics are strange coincidence, each of the three representatives of the among the finest poems in the language, and his verse, careless second Romantic generation was for a time disappointed of as it is, has extraordinary natural grace. Auguste Barbier his due fame. A fourth poet of this time, Joséphin Soulary (1805-1882) whose Iambes shows an extraordinary command of (1815-1891), produced sonnets of rare beauty and excellence. nervous and masculine versification, also comes in here; and the A fifth, Louis Bouilhet (1822-1869), an intimate friend of FlauBreton poet, Auguste Brizeux (1803-1858), much admired by bert, pushed even farther the fancy for strange subjects, but some, together with Hégésippe Moreau, an unequal writer showed powers in Melanis and other things. In 1866 a collection possessing some talent, Pierre Dupont (1821-1870), one of much of poems, entitled after an old French fashion Le Parnasse greater gifts, and Gustave Nadaud (1820-1893), a follower of contemporain, appeared. It included contributions by many Béranger, also deserve mention. Of the school of Lamartine of the poets just mentioned, but the mass of the contributors rather than of Hugo are Alfred de Vigny (1799-1865) and were hitherto unknown to fame. A similar collection appeared Victor de Laprade (1812-1887), the former a writer of little in 1869, and was interrupted by the German war, but continued bulk and somewhat over-fastidious, but possessing one of the after it, and a third in 1876. most correct and elegant styles to be found in French, with a curious restrained passion and a complicated originality, the latter a meditative and philosophical poet, like Vigny an admirable writer, but somewhat deficient in pith and substance, as well as in warmth and colour. Madame Ackermann (1813-1890) is the chief philosophical poetess of France, and this style has recently been very popular; but for actual poetical powers, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786-1859) perhaps excelled her, though in a looser and more sentimental fashion. The poetical schools which more directly derive from the Romantic movement as represented by Hugo are three in number, corresponding in point of time with the first outburst of the movement, with the period of reaction already alluded to, and with the closing years of the second empire. Of the first by far the most distinguished member was Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), the most perfect poet in point of form that France has produced. When quite a boy he devoted himself to the study of 16thcentury masters, and though he acknowledged the supremacy of Hugo, his own talent was of an individual order, and developed itself more or less independently. Albertus alone of his poems has much of the extravagant and grotesque character which distinguished early romantic literature. The Comédie de la mort, the Poésies diverses, and still more the Emaux et camées, display a distinctly classical tendency-classical, that is to say, not in the party and perverted sense, but in its true acceptation. The tendency to the fantastic and horrible may be taken as best shown by Petrus Borel (1809-1859), a writer of singular power almost entirely wasted. Gerard Labrunie or de Nerval (18081855) adopted a manner also fantastic but more idealistic than Borel's, and distinguished himself by his Oriental travels and studies, and by his attention to popular ballads and traditions, @sutler. The first Parnasse had been projected by MM. Xavier de Ricard (b. 1843) and Catulle Mendès (1841-1909) as a sort of manifesto of a school of young poets: but its contents were largely coloured by the inclusion among them of work by representatives of older generations-Gautier, Laprade, Leconte de Lisle, Banville, Baudelaire and others. The continuation, however, of the title in the later issues, rather than anything else, led to the formation and promulgation of the idea of a "Parnassien" or an "Impassible" school which was supposed to adopt as its watchword the motto of "Art for Art's sake," to pay especial attention to form, and also to aim at a certain objectivity. As a matter of fact the greater poets and the greater poems of the Parnasse admit of no such restrictive labelling, which can only be regarded as mischievous, though (or very mainly because) it has been continued. Another school, arising mainly in the later 'eighties and calling itself that of "Symbolism," has been supposed to indicate a reaction against Parnassianism and even against the main or Hugonic Romantic tradition generally; with a throwing back to Lamartine and perhaps Chénier. This idea of successive schools ("Decadents," "Naturists," "Simplists," &c.) has even been reduced to such an absurdum as the statement that "France sees a new school of poetry every fifteen years." Those who have studied literature sufficiently widely, and from a sufficient elevation, know that these systematisings are always more or less delusive. Parnassianism, symbolism and the other things are merely phases of the Romantic movement itself-as may be proved to demonstration by the simple process of taking, say, Hugo and Verlaine on the one hand, Delille or Escouchard Lebrun on the other, and comparing the two first mentioned with each other and with the older poet. The differences in the first case will be found to be differences at most of individuality: in the other of kind. We | M. Maurice Bouchor (b. 1864), who started his serious and shall not, therefore, further refer to these dubious classifications: respectable work with Les Symboles in 1888; while M. Henri de but specify briefly the most remarkable poets whom they concern, Regnier, born in the same year, has received very high praise and all the older of whom, it may be observed, were represented for work from Lendemains in 1886 and other volumes up to in the Parnasse itself. Of these the most remarkable were Sully Les Jeux rustiques et divins (1897) and Les Médailles d'argile Prudhomme (1839-1907), Francois Coppée (1842-1908) and Paul (1900). The truth, however, perhaps is that this extraordinary Verlaine (1844-1896). The first (Stances et poèmes, 1865, Vaines abundance of verse (for we have not mentioned a quarter of the Tendresses, 1875, Bonheur, 1888, &c.) is a philosophical and names which present themselves, or a twentieth part of those rather pessimistic poet who has very strongly rallied the suffrages who figure in M. Mendès's catalogue for the last half-century) of the rather large present public who care for the embodiment reminds the literary historian somewhat too much of similar of these tendencies in verse; the second (La Grève des forgerons, phenomena in other times. There is undoubtedly a great diffu1869, Les Humbles, 1872, Contes et vers, 1881-1887, &c.) asion of poetical dexterity, and not perhaps a small one of poetical dealer with more generally popular subjects in a more sentimental spirit, but it requires the settling, clarifying and distinguishing manner; and the third (Sagesse, 1881, Parallèlement, 1889, effects of time to separate the poet from the minor poet. Still Poèmes saturniens, including early work, 1867-1890), by far the more perhaps must we look to time to decide whether the vers most original and remarkable poet of the three, starting with libre as it is called-that is to say, the verse freed from the minute Baudelaire and pushing farther the fancy for forbidden subjects, traditions of the elder prosody, admitting hiatus, neglecting to but treating both these and others with wonderful command of a greater or less extent caesura, and sometimes relying upon mere sound and image-suggestion. Verlaine in fact (he was actually rhythm to the neglect of strict metre altogether-can hold its well acquainted with English) endeavoured, and to a small ground. It has as yet been practised by no poet at all approachextent succeeded in the endeavour, to communicate to Frenching the first class, except Verlaine, and not by him in its extremer the vague suggestion of visual and audible appeal which has forms. And the whole history of prosody and poetry teaches us characterized English poetry from Blake through Coleridge. that though similar changes often come in as it were unperceived, Others of the original Parnassiens who deserve mention are they scarcely ever take root in the language unless a great poet Albert Glatigny (1839-1873), a Bohemian poet of great talent adopts them. Or rather it should perhaps be said that when who died young; Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), afterwards they are going to take root in the language a great poet always chief of the Symbolists, also a true poet in his way, but somewhat does adopt them before very long. barren, and the victim of pose and trick; José Maria de Heredia (1842-1905), a very exquisite practitioner of the sonnet but with perhaps more art than matter in him; Henri Cazalis (1840-1909), who long afterwards, under his name of Jean Lahor, appeared as a Symbolist pessimist; A. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, another eccentric but with a spark of genius; Emmanuel des Essarts; Auguste de Châtillon (1810-1882); Léon Dierx (b. 1838) who, after producing even less than Mallarmé, succeeded him as Symbolist chief; Jean Aicard (b. 1848), a southern bard of merit; and lastly Catulle Mendès himself, who has been a brilliant writer in verse and prose ever since, and whose Mouvement poétique français de 1867 à 1900 (1903), an official report largely amplified so that it is in fact a history and dictionary of French poetry during the century, forms an almost unique work of reference on the subject. Among the later recruits the most specially noticeable was Armand Silvestre (1837-1901), whose verse (La Chanson des heures, 1878, Ailes d'or, 1880, La Chanson des étoiles, 1885), of an ethereal beauty, was contrasted with prose admirably written and sometimes most amusing, but "Pantagruelist," and more, in manners and morals. This declension from poetry to prose fiction was also noticeable in Guy de Maupassant, André Theuriet, Anatole France and even Alphonse Daudet. Yet another flight of poets may be grouped as those specially representing the last quarter of the century and (whether ParDassian, Symbolist or what not) the latest development of French poetry. Verlaine and Mallarmé already mentioned were in a manner the leaders of these. Perhaps something of the influence of Whitman may be detected in the irregular verses of Gustave Kahn (b. 1859), Francis Viélé Griffin, actually an American by birth (b. 1864), Stuart Merrill, of like origin, and Paul Fort (b. 1872). But the whole tendency of the period has been to relax the stringency of French prosody. Albert Samain (18591900), a musical versifier enough; Jean Moréas (1856-1910) who began with a volume called Les Syrtes in 1884); Laurent Tailhade (b. 1854) and others are more or less Symbolist, and contributed to the Symbolist periodical (one of many such since the beginning of the Romantic movement which would almost require an article to themselves), the Mercure de France. An older man than many of these, M. Jean Richepin (b. 1849), made for a time considerable noise with poetical work of a colour older even than his age, and harking back somewhat to the JeuneFrance and Bousingot " type of early Romanticism-La Chanson des gueux, Les Blasphèmes, &c. Other writers of note are M. Paul Déroulède (b. 1846), a violently nationalist poet; Prose Fiction since 1830.-Even more remarkable, because more absolutely novel, was the outburst of prose fiction which followed 1830. Madame de Lafayette, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire, the Abbé Prévost, Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Fiévée had all of them produced work excellent in its way, and comprising in a more or less rudimentary condition most varieties of the novel. But none of them had, in the French phrase, made a school, and at no time had prose fiction been composed in any considerable quantities. The immense influence which Walter Scott exercised was perhaps the direct cause of the attention paid to prose fiction; the facility, too, with which all the fancies, tastes and beliefs of the time could be embodied in such work may have had considerable importance. But it is difficult on any theory of cause and effect to account for the appearance in less than ten years of such a group of novelists as Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Mérimée, Balzac, George Sand, Jules Sandeau and Charles de Bernard, names to which might be added others scarcely inferior. There is hardly anything else resembling it in literature, except the great cluster of English dramatists in the beginning of the 17th century, and of English poets at the beginning of the 19th; and it is remarkable that the excellence of the first group was maintained by a fresh generation-Murger, About, Feuillet, Flaubert, Erckmann-Chatrian, Droz, Daudet, Cherbuliez and Gaboriau, forming a company of diadochi not far inferior to their predecessors, and being themselves not unworthily succeeded almost up to the present day. The romance-writing of France during the period has taken two different directions-the first that of the novel of incident, the second that of analysis and character. The first, now mainly deserted, was that which, as was natural when Scott was the model, was formerly most trodden; the second required the genius of George Sand and of Balzac and the more problematical talent of Beyle to attract students to it. The novels of Victor Hugo are novels of incident, with a strong infusion of purpose, and considerable but rather ideal character drawing. They are in fact lengthy prose drames rather than romances proper, and they have found no imitators. They display, however, the powers of the master at their fullest. On the other hand, Alexandre Dumas originally composed his novels in close imitation of Scott, and they are much less dramatic than narrative in character, so that they lend themselves to almost indefinite continuation, and there is often no particular reason why they should terminate even at the end of the score or so of volumes to which they sometimes actually extend. Of this purely narrative kind, which hardly Dumas. younger. even attempts anything but the boldest character drawing, | mentioned Henry Murger (1822-1861), the painter of what is the best of them, such as Les Trois Mousquetaires, Vingt ans called Bohemian life, that is to say, the struggles, difficulties and après, La Reine Margot, are probably the best specimens extant. amusements of students, youthful artists, and men of letters. Dumas possesses, almost alone among novelists, the secret of In this peculiar style, which may perhaps be regarded as an writing interminable dialogue without being tedious, and of irregular descendant of the picaroon romance, Murger has no telling the story by it. Of something the same kind, but of a far rival; and he is also, though on no extensive scale, a poet of great lower stamp, are the novels of Eugène Sue (1804-1857). Dumas pathos. But with these exceptions, the influences of the two and Sue were accompanied and followed by a vast crowd of com- writers we have mentioned, sometimes combined, more often panions, independent or imitative. Alfred de Vigny had already separate, may be traced throughout the whole of later novel attempted the historical novel in Cinq-Mars. Henri de La Touche literature. George Sand began with books strongly tinged with (1785-1851) (Fragoletta), an excellent critic who formed George the spirit of revolt against moral and social arrangements, Sand, but a mediocre novelist, may be mentioned: and perhaps and she sometimes diverged into very curious paths of pseudoalso Roger de Beauvoir, whose real name was Eugène Auguste philosophy, such as was popular in the second quarter of the Roger de Bully (1806-1866) (Le Chronique de Saint Georges), century. At times, too, as in Lucrezia Floriani and some other and Frédéric Soulié (Les Mémoires du diable) (1800-1847). works, she did not hesitate to draw largely on her own personal Paul Féval (La Fée des grèves) (1817-1877) and Amédée Achard adventures and experiences. But latterly she devoted herself (Belle-Rose) (1814-1875) are of the same school, and some of the rather to sketches of country life and manners, and to novels attempts of Jules Janin (1804-1874), more celebrated as a critic, involving bold if not very careful sketches of character and more may also be connected with it. By degrees, however, the taste or less dramatic situations. She was one of the most fertile for the novel of incident, at least of an historical kind, died out of novelists, continuing to the end of her long life to pour forth till it was revived in another form, and with an admixture of fiction at the rate of many volumes a year. Of her different domestic interest, by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. The last and styles may be mentioned as fairly characteristic, Lélia, Lucrezia one of the most splendid instances of the old style was Le Capi- Floriani, Consuelo, La Mare au diable, La Petite Fadette, François taine Fracasse, which Théophile Gautier began early and finished le champi, Mademoiselle de la Quintinie. Considering the shorter late as a kind of tour de force. The last-named writer in his earlier length of his life the productiveness of Balzac was days had modified the incident novel in many short tales, a kind almost more astonishing, especially if we consider that Balzac the of writing for which French has always been famous, and in some of his early work was never reprinted, and that which Gautier's sketches are masterpieces. His only other long he left great stores of fragments and unfinished sketches. He is, novel, Mademoiselle de Maupin, belongs rather to the class of moreover, the most remarkable example in literature of untiring analysis. With Gautier, as a writer whose literary characteristics work and determination to achieve success despite the greatest even excel his purely tale-telling powers, may be classed Prosper discouragements. His early work was worse than unsuccessful, Mérimée (1803-1870), one of the most exquisite 19th-century it was positively bad. After more than a score of unsuccessful masters of the language. Already, however, in 1830 the tide attempts, Les Chouans at last made its mark, and for twenty was setting strongly in favour of novels of contemporary life years from that time the astonishing productions composing the and manners. These were of course susceptible of extremely so-called Comédie humaine were poured forth successively. various treatment. For many years Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The sub-titles which Balzac imposed upon the different batches, a writer who did not trouble himself about Classics or Romantics Scènes de la vie parisienne, de la vie de province, de la vie or any such matter, continued the tradition of Marivaux, intime, &c., show, like the general title, a deliberate intention Crébillon fils, and Pigault Lebrun (1753-1835) in a series of not on the author's part to cover the whole ground of human, at very moral or polished but lively and amusing sketches of life, least of French life. Such an attempt could not succeed wholly; principally of the bourgeois type. Later Charles de Bernard yet the amount of success attained is astonishing. Balzac has, (1804-1850) (Gerfaut) with infinitely greater wit, elegance, however, with some justice been accused of creating the world propriety and literary skill, did the same thing for the higher which he described, and his personages, wonderful as is the classes of French society. But the two great masters of the accuracy and force with which many of the characteristics of novel of character and manners as opposed to that of history humanity are exemplified in them, are somehow not altogether and incident are Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) and Aurore human. Since these two great novelists, many others have Dudevant, commonly called George Sand (1804-1876). Their arisen, partly to tread in their steps, partly to strike out indeinfluence affected the entire body of novelists who succeeded pendent paths. Octave Feuillet (1821-1890), beginning his them, with very few exceptions. At the head of these exceptions career by apprenticeship to Alexandre Dumas and the historical may be placed Jules Sandeau (1811-1883), who, after writing novel, soon found his way in a very different style of composition, a certain number of novels in a less individual style, at last made the roman intime of fashionable life, in which, notwithstanding for himself a special subject in a certain kind of domestic novel, some grave defects, he attained much popularity and showed where the passions set in motion are less boisterous than those remarkable skill in keeping abreast of his time. The so-called usually preferred by the French novelist, and reliance is mainly realist side of Balzac was developed (but, as he himself acknowplaced on minute character drawing and shades of colour sober ledged, with a double dose of intermixed if somewhat transin hue but very carefully adjusted (Catherine, Mademoiselle de formed Romanticism) by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), who Penarvan, Mademoiselle de la Seiglière). In the same class of showed culture, scholarship and a literary power over the language the more quiet and purely domestic novelists may be placed inferior to that of no writer of the century. No novelist of his X. B. Saintine (1798-1865) (Picciola), Madame C. Reybaud generation has attained a higher literary rank than Flaubert. (1802-1871) (Clémentine, Le Cadet de Colobrières), J. T. de Saint- Madame Bovary and L'Éducation sentimentale are studies of conGermain (Pour en épingle, La Feuille de coudrier), Madame Craven temporary life; in Salammbô and La Tentation de Saint Antoine (1808-1891) (Récit d'une sœur, Fleurange). Henri Beyle (1798- erudition and antiquarian knowledge furnish the subjects for 1865), who wrote under the nom de plume of Stendhal and belongs the display of the highest literary skill. Of about the same date to an older generation than most of these, also stands by himself. Edmond About (1828-1885), before he abandoned novel-writing, His chief book in the line of fiction is La Chartreuse de Parme, an❘ devoted himself chiefly to sketches of abundant but not always exceedingly powerful novel of the analytical kind, and he also refined wit (L'Homme à l'oreille cassée, Le Nez d'un notaire). composed a considerable number of critical and miscellaneous and sometimes to foreign scenes (Tolla, Le Roi des montagnes). works. Of little influence at first (though he had great power Champfleury (Henri Husson, 1829-1889), a prolific critic, over Mérimée) and never master of a perfect style, he has exer- deserves notice for stories of the extravaganza kind. During the cised ever increasing authority as a master of pessimist analysis. whole of the Second Empire one of the most popular writers was Indeed much of his work was never published till towards the Ernest Feydeau (1821-1873), a writer of great ability, but morbid close of the century. Last among the independents must be and affected in the choice and treatment of his subjects (Fanny, " Sylvie, Catherine d'Overmeire). Emile Gaboriau (1833-1873), | quality they carried, and the elder of them after his brother's During the last decade of the Second Empire there arose, verse. The Naturalists proper chiefly developed or seemed to develop one side of Balzac, but almost entirely abandoned his Romantic element. They aimed first at exact and almost photographic delineation of the accidents of modern life, and secondly at still more uncompromising non-suppression of the essential features and functions of that life which are usually suppressed. This school may be represented in chief by four novelists (really three, as two of them were brothers who wrote together till the rather early death of one of them), Emile Zola (1840-1903), Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897), and Edmond (1822-1897) and Jules (1830-1870) de Goncourt. The first, of Italian extraction and Marseillais birth, began by work of undecided kinds and was always a critic as well as a novelist. Of this first stage | Contes à Ninon (1864) and Thérèse Raquin (1867) deserve to be specified. But after 1870 Zola entered upon a huge scheme (suggested no doubt by the Comédie humaine) of tracing the fortunes in every branch, legitimate and illegitimate, and in every rank of society of a family, Les Rougon-Macquart, and carried it out in a full score of novels during more than as many years. He followed this with a shorter series on places, Paris, Rome, Lourdes, and lastly by another of strangely apocalyptic tone, Fécondité, Travail, Vérité, the last a story of the Dreyfus case, retrospective and, as it proved, prophetic. The extreme repulsiveness of much of his work, and the overdone detail of almost the whole of it, caused great prejudice against him, and will probably always prevent his being ranked among the greatest novelists; but his power is indubitable, and in passages, if not in whole books, does itself justice. MM. de Goncourt, besides their work in Naturalist (they would have preferred to call it "Impressionist ") fiction, devoted themselves especially to study and collection in the fine arts, and produced many volumes on the historical side of these, volames distinguished by accurate and careful research. This death continued to carry, into novel-writing (Renée Mauperin, Germinie Lacerteux, Chérie, &c.) with the addition of an extraordinary care for peculiar and, as they called it, "personal diction. On the other hand, Alphonse Daudet (who with the other three, Flaubert to some extent, and the Russian novelist Turgenieff, formed a sort of cénacle or literary club) mixed with some Naturalism a far greater amount of fancy and wit than his companions allowed themselves or could perhaps attain; and in the Tarlarin series (dealing with the extravagances of his fellow-Provençaux) added not a little to the gaiety of Europe. His other novels (Fromont jeune et Risler aîné, Jack, Le Nabab, &c.), also very popular, have been variously judged, there being something strangely like plagiarism in some of them, and in others, in fact in most, an excessive use of that privilege of the novelist which consists in introducing real persons under more or less disguise. It should be observed in speaking of this group that the Goncourts, or rather the survivor of them, left an elaborate Journal disfigured by spite and bad taste, but of much importance for the appreciation of the personal side of French literature during the last half of the century. In 1880 Zola, who had by this time formed a regular school of disciples, issued with certain of them a collection of short stories, Les Soirées de Médan, which contains one of his own best things, L'Allaque du moulin, and also the capital story, Boule de suif, by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), who in the same year published poems, Des vers, of very remarkable if not strictly poetical quality. Maupassant developed during his short literary career perhaps the greatest powers shown by any French novelist since Flaubert (his sponsor in both senses) in a series of longer novels (Une Vie, Bel Ami, Pierre et Jean, Fort comme la mort) and shorter stories (Monsieur Parent, Les Sœurs Rondoli, Le Horla), but they were distorted by the Naturalist pessimism and grime, and perhaps also by the brain-disease of which their author died. M. J. K. Huysmans (b. 1848), also a contributor to Les Soirées de Médan, who had begun a little earlier with Marthe (1876) and other books, gave his most characteristic work in 1884 with Au rebours and in 1891 with Là-bas, stories of exaggerated and "satanic" pose, decorated with perhaps the extremest achievements of the school in mere ugliness and nastiness. Afterwards, by an obvious reaction, he returned to Catholicism. Of about the same date as these two are two other novelists of note, Julien Viaud ("Pierre Loti," b. 1850), a naval officer who embodied his experiences of foreign service with a faint dose of story and character interest, and a far larger one of elaborate description, in a series of books (Aziyadé, Le Mariage de Loti, Madame Chrysanthème, &c.), and M. Paul Bourget (b. 1852), an important critic as well as novelist who deflected the Naturalist current into a "psychological channel, connecting itself higher with Stendhal, and composed in its books very popular in their way-Cruelle Enigme (1885), Le Disciple, Terre promise, Cosmopolis. As a contrast or complement to Bourget's "psychological" novel may be taken the "ethical" novel of Edouard Rod (1857-1909)-La Vie privée de Michel Tessier (1893), Le Sens de la vie, Les Trois Cœurs. Contemporary with these as a novelist though a much older man, and occupied at different times of his life with verse and with criticism, came Anatole France (b. 1844), who in Le Crime de Silvestre Bonnard, La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque, Le Lys rouge, and others, has made a kind of novel as different from the ordinary styles as Pierre Loti's, but of far higher appeal in its wit, its subtle fancy, and its perfect French. Ferdinand Fabre (1830-1898) and René Bazin (b. 1853) represent the union, not too common in the French novel, of orthodoxy in morals and religion with literary ability. Further must be mentioned Paul Hervieu (b. 1857), a dramatist rather than a novelist; the brothers Margueritte (Paul, b. 1860, Victor, b. 1866), especially strong in short stories and passages; another pair of brothers of Belgian origin writing under the name of "J. H. Rosny' Zolaists partly converted not to religion but to science and a sort of non-Christian virtue; the ingenious and amusing, if not exactly moral, brilliancy of Marcel Prévost (b. 1862); the |
