al life, which, from the great size of
France and its diversity in scenery and local character, has been a
remarkably fertile subject to French novelists. These novels are
remarkable for their accurate and dramatic construction (which is such
that they have lent themselves in more than one instance to theatrical
adaptation with great success) and their pure and healthy morality.

[Sidenote: Octave Feuillet.]

[Sidenote: Murger.]

[Sidenote: Edmond About.]

[Sidenote: Feydeau.]

[Sidenote: Gustave Droz]

Next in order of birth may be mentioned Octave Feuillet, who began, as
has been mentioned, by officiating as assistant to Alexandre Dumas. His
first independent efforts in novel-writing, _Bellah_ and _Onesta_, were
of the same kind as his master's; but they were not great successes, and
after a short time he struck into an original and much more promising
path. His first really characteristic novel was _La Petite Comtesse_,
1856, and this was followed by others, the best of which are _Le Roman
d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_, 1858; _Sibylle_, 1862; _M. de Camors_, 1867;
and _Julia de Trecoeur_, 1872: the two last being perhaps his
strongest books, though the _Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_ is the most
popular. M. Feuillet wrote in a pure and easy style, and exhibited in
his novels acquaintance with the manners of good society, and a
considerable command of pathos. He was more studious of the proprieties
than most of his contemporaries, but has indulged in a somewhat
unhealthy sentimentalism. Henry Murger had a very original, though a
somewhat limited, talent. He is the novelist of what is called the
Parisian _Boheme_, the reckless society of young artists and men of
letters, which has always grouped itself in greater numbers at Paris
than anywhere else. The novel, or rather the series of sketches,
entitled _La Vie de Boheme_ is one which, from the truth to nature, the
pathos, and the wit which accompany its caricature and burlesque of
manners, will always hold a position in literature. Murger, who
experienced many hardships in his youth, was all his life a careless and
reckless liver, and died young. His works (all prose fiction, except a
small collection of poems not very striking in form but touching and
sincere in sentiment) are tolerably numerous, but the best of them are
little more than repetitions of the _Vie de Boheme_. Edmond About, a
very lively writer, whose liveliness was not always kept sufficiently in
chec