the
enemy of the banker Hemerlingue through the social rivalry of their wives.
He is elected _depute_ from Corsica. The legality of the election is
questioned. Jansoulet is supported by the prime minister, the duc de Mora,
but the latter dies suddenly, Jansoulet's election is declared invalid,
and he dies from a stroke of apoplexy.

Despite the protest of the author, contemporaries found originals for a
number of the characters of this novel. The duc de Mora is Morny, and
several others have been identified with greater or less certainty.
Felicia Ruys is perhaps Sarah Bernhardt.

The purely romantic element of the work is found in the story of Paul de
Gery and the Joyeuse family, a secondary plot having no vital connection
with the main story.

In "Les Rois en exil" (1880) Daudet explores a new vein in contemporary
society. He explains that the idea of the work occured to him one October
evening when, standing in the Place du Carrousel, he was contemplating the
ruins of the Tuileries. The wreck of the Empire brought to his mind a
vision of the dethroned monarchs whom he had seen spending their exile in
Paris: the Duke of Brunswick, the blind King of Hanover and the devoted
Princess Frederica, Queen Isabella of Spain, and others. "This is the work
which cost me most effort," Daudet says, and the reason is not far to
seek. He had always painted "from life," and the difficulties incident to
gaining an entrance into the intimacy of even dethroned monarchs were
almost insurmountable. The novelist's acquaintances were appealed to, from
house-furnishers to diplomats. The story of the composition of "Les Rois
en exil" is an interesting study of Daudet's methods, his inexorable
insistence on truth, even to the most minute details.

As usual, the characters are sharply contrasted. Christian, the exiled
king of Illyria, is detestably weak; Frederique, his wife devoting herself
completely to the interests of her son, Zara, struggles with the aid of
the faithful preceptor, Meraut, to prepare the prince for a throne which
he is never to ascend. Of all the characters that appear in Daudet's
novels it is perhaps Frederique whose appeal to the reader is strongest,
and Frederique is almost entirely the product of the author's imagination.
We cannot but regret the many visions such as Frederique which were
refused admittance to Daudet's essentially romantic mind by the
uncompromising laws of a realism which he had mistakenly accepted a