Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/24

xvi called La Jacquerie, and in the next year—dropping the dialogue arrangement and adopting that of the regular historical novel which Scott had made popular—the Chronique du Régne de Charles IX. Of these, as of all or most of the works to be mentioned, we shall take proper notice hereafter, but for the present we must be mainly biographical. Whether by accident or not, Mérimée's appointment to his Inspectorship coincided with an apparent determination of his taste and enterprise away from works of any length and toward the short story. In this he achieved, during the next ten years, a reputation which for a full half century was never questioned. And though some changes of fashion have caused recent critics to attempt reservations as to this, there is very little doubt that his fame will be completely re-established by a later posterity. In 1844 he was elected to the Academy, in very suitable succession to Charles Nodier, who had practically shown him the way (though with far less art and style and especially with far less concentration and unity) to this very class of story.

The coup d'etat, and the Second Empire which followed, made a very great difference in Mérimée's fortunes. He was by no means a Bonapartist; indeed, though he had a strong