k by good taste, oscillated between fiction and journalism, latterly
inclining chiefly to journalism. In his younger days he was better known
as a novelist, and some of his works, such as _Tolla_ and _Le Roi des
Montagnes_, were very popular. More characteristic perhaps are his
shorter and more familiar stories (_L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee_, _Le Nez
d'un Notaire_, etc.). In this same group of novelists of the Second
Republic and Empire ranks Ernest Feydeau, a morbid and thoroughly
unwholesome author, who, however, did not lack power, and once at least
(in _Sylvie_) produced work of unquestionable merit. His other novels,
_Fanny_, _Daniel_, _La Comtesse de Chalis_, are chiefly remarkable as
showing the worst side of the society of the Empire. Among writers of
short stories Champfleury, a friend and contemporary of Murger (who has
more recently betaken himself to artistic criticism of the historical
kind), deserves notice for his amusing extravaganzas, and Gustave Droz
for the singularly ingenious and witty series of domestic sketches
entitled _Monsieur_, _Madame et Bebe_, and _Entre Nous_. The range of
subject in these is wide and not always what is understood by the
English word domestic. But the fancy shown in their design and the
literary skill of their execution are alike remarkable and worthy of the
ancient reputation of France in the short prose tale. Nor have they
lacked followers.

[Sidenote: Flaubert.]

The greatest of the Second Empire novelists is unquestionably Gustave
Flaubert, who was born in 1821. Having a sufficient income he betook
himself early to literature, which he cultivated with an amount of care
and elaborate self-discipline rare among authors. In 1848 he contributed
to the _Artiste_ newspaper, then edited by Gautier, some fragments of a
remarkable fantasy-piece on the legend of St. Anthony, which was not
published as a whole till nearly a quarter of a century later. In 1859,
being then nearly forty years old, he achieved at once a great success
and a great scandal by his novel of _Madame Bovary_, a study of
provincial life, as unsparing as any of Balzac's, but more true to
actual nature, more finished in construction, and far superior in style.
It was the subject of a prosecution, but the author was acquitted. Next,
M. Flaubert selected an archaeological subject, and produced, after long
study, _Salammbo_, a novel the scene of which is pitched at Carthage in
the days of the mercenary war. This b