eroic little monkey who braved
his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that
old baboon who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph
his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs,--as from a savage who
delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices
infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no
decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not
through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and
the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally
placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the
distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only
with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have
given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge,
as it seems to me, that Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy
which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not
only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his godlike
intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of
the solar system,--with all these exalted powers, Man still bears in his
bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

ALPHONSE DAUDET

(1840-)

BY AUGUSTIN FILON

[Illustration: ALPHONSE DAUDET.]

Forty years have now elapsed since a lad of seventeen, shivering under
his light summer dress in a cold misty morning, was waiting, with an
empty stomach, for the opening of a "dairy" in the Quartier Latin. Young
as he was, he looked still younger: a pale, eager, intellectual face,
with flashing eyes, delicately carved features, and a virgin forest of
dark hair falling low on his brow. He had been an usher for a
twelvemonth at a small college in the South of France, and he had just
arrived in Paris after a two-days' journey in a third-class railway
carriage, during which time he had tasted no food and no drink except a
few drops of brandy from the flask of some charitable sailors. And there
he was, with two francs left in his pocket, and an unlimited supply of
courage, cheerfulness, and ambition, fully determined to make the whole
world familiar with the obscure name of Alphonse Daudet.

We all know how well he has succeeded in winning for himself a foremost
place in the ranks of French contemporary literat