Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/283

 RECENT FOREIGN LITERATURE. 271 les Lyonnais viennent acheter les cocons. A 1'Espelunque, on ne peut pas les conduire a 1'Opera, ceux a qui on veut faire politesse, alors, on leur delegue le Monarque. II est la joie, il est la lumiere, il est la musique.' What better career can there be ? And even when, after the wedding at Nimes, he brings Madame Emma home and she learns the truth, she confesses that it is not poverty she fears any- thing, anywhere, with him but what is she to say to her relatives ? Greatly relieved, he said, ' ce n'est que ca ? Est ce que je ne sais pas blaguer ? ' and together they meditate another plot which in the end is, with the help of friendly neighbours, carried through, and when her relatives pay a visit to Espelunque they find the c Monarque ' in the position of the landed proprietor they believe him to be. The ingenuity with which he always gets out of a difficult position is delightful reading. And it is good for a while to get away from the serious and often very uncomfortable world of to- day into an atmosphere of gaiety and light-hearted- ness, and the society of one who could sing with conviction : ' Tout n'est dans ce has monde Qu'un jeu, qu'un jeu ! ' Jules Lemaitre, in his ' Vieillesse d'Helene : nou- veaux contes en marge,' writes with a pleasant wit little tales that have not been told, to be placed in the margins of some of the books of the world's great writers from Homer to Renan. Conclusions unforeseen by them are drawn by Lemaitre with all his mastery of delicate irony. For example,