A FRENCH NOVELIST AND A POET.

IT is not without reason that France prides herself on such a moralist as Honore de Balzac, but it is to be doubted whether

the elite of French readers have any substantial motive for con- gratulation on the host of petty imitators La Comidie Humaine has hatched, for the greater misfortune of literature and morality,

during the thirty years that followed this great writer's death.

Nay, we may even affirm that Balzac's influence has proved anything but beneficial in this respect, since the clearest result was, and is now, a lamentable invasion of drawing-room cynics, materialists of the Diderot school, pretentious non-entities claiming the faculty of analysing human passions and describing French society such as it is in our days. The Parisian world of letters is pestered with them ; they are a public nuisance ; they offer their ware to the public with such barefaced boldness, that the public is intimidated to the point of taking them for great men. The few works which might purify public taste are all but put down by this overflow of " litterature pourrie." This obvious tendency

to literary degeneration must be viewed with regret, when it is remembered that the first part of the age gave such personalities as Lamartine, George Sand, and Alexandre Dumas, and that the finest manifestation of this period soars no higher than M. Belot, the respectable author of Mademoiselle Giraud, ma Femme._ However, if French readers choose to tolerate the lucubrations of a few literary trades- men, there is nothing to say ; but it is an ominous characteristic of our neighbours' aspirations that a mind above the common run of the herd cannot pen something veritably powerful without breeding a school of servile imitation at a moment's notice. This slavish disposition is but too evident. Great wits are always, more or less, imitated ; but in France imitation has no limit, and in the case of Balzac it has reached alarming proportions. We can- not help classing M. Octave Feuillet in this category, not without some minor restrictions which shall be indicated. Twice a year this Academician stumbles over a phenomenon, a monster with a human face which can be easily traced back to Frederic Soulie's Les Memoires du Diable, picks his incidents out of La Comidie flumaine, clothes the whole in a modern garb, and presents it as a personage of the century. All this is very natural ; Corneille took his ideas from Spanish dramatists ; Voltaire's works were not entirely self-derived ; neither were Shakespeare's ; why should M. Octave Feuillet be over-scrupulous ? M. Feuillet manifests the desire of combining the qualities of &lune and those of Balza° in his own person. To him the world is indebted for Monsieur de Camors. Let the world be grateful ; N. Feuillet has been working for it ; what had been omitted in Monsieur de Camors has found its place in Julia de Trecwizr. So thankful are M. Feuillet's compatriots, that this production has run through four editions within a week of its publication. Sour critics will doubt- less say that the affair is of dubious morality ; but M. Feuillet is an Academician, and the Academic Francaise is virtuous.

The writer has taken the Faubourg Saint Germain for the scene of his novel ; every personage has a " de " before his name, even the lackeys, and there is throughout a savour of good-breed- ing and bon ton. Madame de Trecceur is married to a graceful patrician ; her bliss would be entire (sic) if her husband's rascality was not equal to his immense fortune ; her young daughter Julia evinces unequivocal disposition to take after the ruffianly father ; she is only seven years old, and she can play the piano and break crockery. For the latter talent de social she has especial dis- positions. The one redeeming point of M. de Trecceur is a dear love for the little prodigy. It appears also that he begs his wife for forgiveness now and then, but beats her five minutes after expressing contrition. It is not to be wondered, after this, that Madame de Tremonr should be very jubilant at the death of this "victim of the century," as M. Feuillet qualifies him. The link between the failings of the century and the ill-treatment the defunct was wont to inflict on his better half is not very clearly defined, but the disappointment occasioned by the obscurity of this interesting social problem is soon effaced by Julia de Trecceur's strange behaviour. This young lady is very beautiful and accomplished ; she has no objection to marry, but when her mother suggests that she intends taking a second life-partner her- self, Julia flies at her, and tries to tear her eyes out, in an unduti- ful burst of love for her departed father. A lunatic asylum or a convent shall be the refuge of this poor girl, unless her mother respects her widowhood. Madame de Treco3ur, being afflicted with mental feebleness, gives in, and Julia comes to her senses.

• Julia de Trieteur. Par Octave Fetdllet (de l'Acadelnie Francaise). Pails: Michel Levy.

Emaux et Cones. Par Thdophile Gautier. Paris : Charpentler et Ole.

At this interesting crisis, we are introduced to two gentlemen of equal age and weak brains, but yet withal good-natured and re- spectable, and answering to the euphonic names of De Lucain and De Moras. They are the Siamese twins of friendship. Do Lucain sues the widow's hand ; his suit is accepted ; but Julia steps in more furious than ever, steps out again, and rune away to a convent, in which place she intends remaining to her last day, out of spite against her now married mother. M. de Morse' physical qualities prove, however, sufficient to alter her resolution. This is rather surprising, since M. de Mores bears strong resemblance to a

wax-doll. The mystery is soon to be revealed, when it will be seen that Julia only took De Moras as a pis-aller. " Autant

qu'un autre," is her pathetic acceptance of his pledge ; but De Moras, labouring under a softening of the brain, is the happiest of men ; and affairs go on smoothly enough, until a reconciliation is effected between the two couples. Alas ! it is the signal of new complications. Julia and her husband join M. et Madame de amain in their chateau at the sea-side. There Julia becomes incomprehensible ; the beautiful girl seems to have retained great antipathy for her step-father ; she hates him ; but yet she does not hate him after all, for she loves him intensely, to the utter discomfiture of the luckless De Moras ; she was opposed to her mother's marriage with De Lucain because she adored this gentleman. Julia's behaviour becomes very improper indeed, so much so, that N. de Moras would fain

blow his brains out, and we must pass by her conduct in silence. Suffice it to say that M. de Lucain, professing to be an honest man, sends the heroine about her business. The con- clusion is worthy of the book ; a separation a Vamiable of the two

parties would obviously put an end to this equivocal situation ; but N. Feuillet could not do otherwise than compensate his lady readers for the soporific perusal of this story with something un- commonly moving. Julia, in despair at her step-father's indiffer- ence, rides to a high cliff on the sea-shore; De Lucain and De Mores follow her stealthily. The girl drives her horse over the cliff. The two friends could stop her if they chose, but they think this event an excellent way of removing a difficulty, and Julia de Tracceur is left to her fate.

Such is M. Feuillet's "roman de mcears," a work which has pretensions to "realism." The interest of the volume turns on the unnatural passion of the heroine for her mother's husband.

The story is told in a soft, uninteresting way, and we wish the style could afford us an opportunity of recommendation. IL Feuillet is considerably below himself, however lame his previoon publications of the same character may be ; the small number of personages whose actions are recorded a apace of 310 pages, might have been compressed into twenty. And yet N. Octave Feuillet has real merit, his theatrical contributions are numerous, and in several instances of great power. His comedies are witty,

and his dramas bear the stamp of a strong conception ; but when N. Feuillet abandons the stage, and takes to manufacturing novels

supposed to picture the life of a certain class of French society, his qualities become imperceptible. But for this strange mania, he might claim an honourable place among his literary colleagues.

Noblesse oblige, and we shall not wrong him so far as to believe that he was admitted to the Academie Francaise for a few ridiculous stories, in comparison with which M. Dumas fits' tales are works of genius. It is always painful to see a man of talent sink down from a standing reputation to the sphere of common feuilleton- writers, and the best advice which can be given to the author of Julia de Trecceur is to write pieces like Dalila, and eschew for ever

a branch of literature for which he is totally unfit.

M. Theophile Gautier has reprinted Emaux et Cantles, with

numerous additions and a preface :—

" Comma Goethe our son divan A Weimar s'isolait des choses Et d'Hafiz effeuillait les roses, "Sans prendre garde a l'onragan Qui fouettait moo vitres fermdes, Moi, j'ai fait Emaux et Camees."

M. Theophile Gautier fears not to couple his name with the greatest of German dramatists, but this may be forgiven as

a poetical licence. This most graceful of modern French writers is a raffine; a delicat ; he has the reputation of being one of the three Frenchmen who can write French ; he is the chief of a new school which numbers several dis- tinguished poets. Emaux et Camies is a brilliant collection of gems, couched in a language which has the grace of Ron- sard's sonnets without their tedious simplicity. But then IL Theophile Gautier is remarkable for an originality sui generis

which ensures him a place among those who have purified and enriched the French language. On the whole, we cannot say that BL Theophile Gautier is our ideal of a poet ; there is much in his works which is meagre and narrow ; he has voluntarily limited his poetical aspirations to the strict delineation of sensual love ; he poses himself as an artist, a dilettante ; his field of observation is skin-deep. M. Gautier must, however, be credited for frankness in proclaiming that his dearest ambition is satisfied with an ele- gant sonnet or a languid invocation to Venus Astarte. No one can be blind to the fact that, in the comparatively narrow sphere cosigned to himself by himself, Theophile Gautier is a master of his art. He ought to be regarded rather as a dialectician of marvellous resource than as a poet, in the full meaning of the term ; he is undoubtedly the most vivid and coloured of living French writers. Indifferent details are trans- formed under his pen, acquire deep interest, and are presented with a brilliancy and originality of thought for which he is uu- rivalled. There is, in a score of his verses, more grace, more real elegance and refinement, than would be found in the whole of Masset's works ; and if the poet's disciples would only take his

incomparable language and look elsewhere for great ideas, the French muse might breed something better than the" Parnasse litt6raire." Etnaux et Camies, as a collection of mignardises, of delicate miniatures, is perfect, and in many respects preferable to Victor lingo's Chansons des Rues at des Bois. This is a fair specimen of M. Gautier's style : — " Tandis qu'h lours o3uvres perverses Lea hommes courent haletants, Mars qui rit Emigre lea averse,. Prepare en secret le printemps.

"Pour lea petites paquerettes, Sournoisernent lorsque tout dort, Ii repasse des collerettes Et ciaele des boutons d'or.

"Dana le verger at dans In vigne II s'en va, furtif perruquier, Avec Imo houppe de cygne Poudrer a frimas l'amandier.

"La Nature au lit se repose; Lui descend an jardin desert, Et lace des boutona de rose Dana leur corset de velours Tort.

"Pula lorsque as besogne eat faite, Et qua son regne vs finir, Au seuil d'Avril tournant la tete, II flit, 'Printemps tu pour venir

The hook abounds in delightful fantasies of this kind, and excepting two or three objectionable pieces, can be read through-

out without fatigue. Would that M. Theophile Gautier were always as well disposed, and that he had many titles to fame like Emaux at Came:es. It is the only book of his devoid of the

revolting egotism which he allows but too often to transpire in

his prose compositions. The writer of Mademoiselle de Maupin is a different person from the one whose work we analyse, and if H. Gautier has many such productions as Erna= at Came'-es to give to

his numerous admirers, the French are to be congratulated on their good fortune.