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Rh even attempts anything but the boldest character drawing, the best of them, such as Les Trois Mousquetaires, Vingt ans après, La Reine Margot, are probably the best specimens extant. Dumas possesses, almost alone among novelists, the secret of writing interminable dialogue without being tedious, and of telling the story by it. Of something the same kind, but of a far lower stamp, are the novels of Eugène Sue (1804–1857). Dumas and Sue were accompanied and followed by a vast crowd of companions, independent or imitative. Alfred de Vigny had already attempted the historical novel in Cinq-Mars. Henri de La Touche (1785–1851) (Fragoletta), an excellent critic who formed George Sand, but a mediocre novelist, may be mentioned: and perhaps also Roger de Beauvoir, whose real name was Eugène Auguste Roger de Bully (1806–1866) (Le Chronique de Saint Georges), and Frédéric Soulié (Les Mémoires du diable) (1800–1847). Paul Féval (La Fée des grèves) (1817–1877) and Amédée Achard (Belle-Rose) (1814–1875) are of the same school, and some of the attempts of Jules Janin (1804–1874), more celebrated as a critic, may also be connected with it. By degrees, however, the taste for the novel of incident, at least of an historical kind, died out till it was revived in another form, and with an admixture of domestic interest, by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. The last and one of the most splendid instances of the old style was Le Capitaine Fracasse, which Théophile Gautier began early and finished late as a kind of tour de force. The last-named writer in his earlier days had modified the incident novel in many short tales, a kind of writing for which French has always been famous, and in which Gautier’s sketches are masterpieces. His only other long novel, Mademoiselle de Maupin, belongs rather to the class of analysis. With Gautier, as a writer whose literary characteristics even excel his purely tale-telling powers, may be classed Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870), one of the most exquisite 19th-century masters of the language. Already, however, in 1830 the tide was setting strongly in favour of novels of contemporary life and manners. These were of course susceptible of extremely various treatment. For many years Paul de Kock (1793–1871), a writer who did not trouble himself about Classics or Romantics or any such matter, continued the tradition of Marivaux, Crébillon fils, and Pigault Lebrun (1753–1835) in a series of not very moral or polished but lively and amusing sketches of life, principally of the bourgeois type. Later Charles de Bernard (1804–1850) (Gerfaut) with infinitely greater wit, elegance, propriety and literary skill, did the same thing for the higher classes of French society. But the two great masters of the novel of character and manners as opposed to that of history and incident are Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) and Aurore Dudevant, commonly called George Sand (1804–1876). Their influence affected the entire body of novelists who succeeded them, with very few exceptions. At the head of these exceptions may be placed Jules Sandeau (1811–1883), who, after writing a certain number of novels in a less individual style, at last made for himself a special subject in a certain kind of domestic novel, where the passions set in motion are less boisterous than those usually preferred by the French novelist, and reliance is mainly placed on minute character drawing and shades of colour sober in hue but very carefully adjusted (Catherine, Mademoiselle de Penarvan, Mademoiselle de la Seiglière). In the same class of the more quiet and purely domestic novelists may be placed X. B. Saintine (1798–1865) (Picciola), Madame C. Reybaud (1802–1871) (Clémentine, Le Cadet de Colobrières), J. T. de Saint-Germain (Pour en épingle, La Feuille de coudrier), Madame Craven (1808–1891) (Récit d’une sœur, Fleurange). Henri Beyle (1798–1865), who wrote under the nom de plume of Stendhal and belongs to an older generation than most of these, also stands by himself. His chief book in the line of fiction is La Chartreuse de Parme, an exceedingly powerful novel of the analytical kind, and he also composed a considerable number of critical and miscellaneous works. Of little influence at first (though he had great power over Mérimée) and never master of a perfect style, he has exercised ever increasing authority as a master of pessimist analysis. Indeed much of his work was never published till towards the close of the century. Last among the independents must be mentioned Henry Murger (1822–1861), the painter of what is called Bohemian life, that is to say, the struggles, difficulties and amusements of students, youthful artists, and men of letters. In this peculiar style, which may perhaps be regarded as an irregular descendant of the picaroon romance, Murger has no rival; and he is also, though on no extensive scale, a poet of great pathos. But with these exceptions, the influences of the two writers we have mentioned, sometimes combined, more often separate, may be traced throughout the whole of later novel literature. George Sand began with books strongly tinged with the spirit of revolt against moral and social arrangements, and she sometimes diverged into very curious paths of pseudo-philosophy, such as was popular in the second quarter of the century. At times, too, as in Lucrezia Floriani and some other works, she did not hesitate to draw largely on her own personal adventures and experiences. But latterly she devoted herself rather to sketches of country life and manners, and to novels involving bold if not very careful sketches of character and more or less dramatic situations. She was one of the most fertile of novelists, continuing to the end of her long life to pour forth fiction at the rate of many volumes a year. Of her different styles may be mentioned as fairly characteristic, Lélia, Lucrezia Floriani, Consuelo, La Mare au diable, La Petite Fadette, François le champi, Mademoiselle de la Quintinie. Considering the shorter length of his life the productiveness of Balzac was almost more astonishing, especially if we consider that some of his early work was never reprinted, and that he left great stores of fragments and unfinished sketches. He is, moreover, the most remarkable example in literature of untiring work and determination to achieve success despite the greatest discouragements. His early work was worse than unsuccessful, it was positively bad. After more than a score of unsuccessful attempts, Les Chouans at last made its mark, and for twenty years from that time the astonishing productions composing the so-called Comédie humaine were poured forth successively. The sub-titles which Balzac imposed upon the different batches, Scènes de la vie parisienne, de la vie de province, de la vie intime, &c., show, like the general title, a deliberate intention on the author’s part to cover the whole ground of human, at least of French life. Such an attempt could not succeed wholly; yet the amount of success attained is astonishing. Balzac has, however, with some justice been accused of creating the world which he described, and his personages, wonderful as is the accuracy and force with which many of the characteristics of humanity are exemplified in them, are somehow not altogether human. Since these two great novelists, many others have arisen, partly to tread in their steps, partly to strike out independent paths. Octave Feuillet (1821–1890), beginning his career by apprenticeship to Alexandre Dumas and the historical novel, soon found his way in a very different style of composition, the roman intime of fashionable life, in which, notwithstanding some grave defects, he attained much popularity and showed remarkable skill in keeping abreast of his time. The so-called realist side of Balzac was developed (but, as he himself acknowledged, with a double dose of intermixed if somewhat transformed Romanticism) by Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880), who showed culture, scholarship and a literary power over the language inferior to that of no writer of the century. No novelist of his generation has attained a higher literary rank than Flaubert. Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale are studies of contemporary life; in Salammbô and La Tentation de Saint Antoine erudition and antiquarian knowledge furnish the subjects for the display of the highest literary skill. Of about the same date Edmond About (1828–1885), before he abandoned novel-writing, devoted himself chiefly to sketches of abundant but not always refined wit (L’Homme à l’oreille cassée, Le Nez d’un notaire), and sometimes to foreign scenes (Tolla, Le Roi des montagnes). Champfleury (Henri Husson, 1829–1889), a prolific critic, deserves notice for stories of the extravaganza kind. During the whole of the Second Empire one of the most popular writers was Ernest Feydeau (1821–1873), a writer of great ability, but morbid and affected in the choice and treatment of his subjects (Fanny,