s abounding sympathy, which is one
reason of his great attractiveness, cannot fairly be said to be a great
character creator, he had sufficient flexibility and force of genius to
set in action interesting personages. Part of the early success of _The
Nabob_ was due to this fact, although the brilliant description of the
Second Empire and the introduction of exotic elements, the Tunisian and
Corsican episodes and characters, counted, probably, for not a little.
Readers insisted upon seeing in the book this person and that more or
less thinly disguised. The Irish adventurer-physician, Jenkins, was
supposed to be modelled upon a popular Dr. Olliffe; the arsenic pills
were derived from another source, as was also the goat's-milk hospital
for infants. Felicia Ruys was thought by some to be Sarah Bernhardt,
and originals were easily provided for Monpavon and the other leading
figures. But Daudet confessed to only two important originals, and if
one does not take an author's word in such matters one soon finds one's
self in a maze of conjectures and contradictions.

The two characters drawn from life in a special sense--for Daudet, like
most other writers of fiction, had human life in general constantly
before him--are Jansoulet and Mora, precisely the most effective
personages in the book, and scarcely surpassed in the whole range of
Daudet's fiction. The Nabob was Francois Bravay, who rose from poverty
to wealth by devious transactions in the Orient, and came to grief in
Paris, much as Jansoulet did. He survived the Empire, and his relatives
are said to have been incensed at the treatment given him in the novel,
an attitude on their part which is explicable but scarcely justifiable,
since Daudet's sympathy for his hero could not well have been greater,
and since the adventurer had already attained a notoriety that was not
likely to be completely forgotten. Whether Daudet was as much at liberty
to make free with the character of his benefactor Morny is another
matter. He himself thought that he was, and he was a man of delicate
sensitiveness. Probably he was right in claiming that the natural son
of Queen Hortense, the intrepid soldier, the author of the _Coup
d'Etat_ that set his weaker half-brother on the throne, the dandy, the
libertine, the leader of fashion, the cynical statesman--in short, the
"Richelieu-Brummel" who drew the eyes of all Europe upon himself,
would not have been in the least disconcerted could he have kno