s rather than by his voice in public assemblies.

Beranger was kind and generous, and ever ready to help all who applied
to him. He had a pension given to Rouget de l'Isle, the famous author of
the 'Marseillaise,' who was reduced to poverty, and in 1835 he took into
his house his good aunt from Peronne, and gave hospitality also to his
friend Mlle. Judith Frere. In 1834 he sold all his works to his
publisher, Perrotin, for an annuity of eight hundred francs, which was
increased to four thousand by the publisher. On this small income
Beranger lived content till his death on July 16th, 1857. The government
of Napoleon III. took charge of his funeral, which was solemnized with
great pomp. Although Beranger was essentially the poet of the middle
classes, and was extremely popular, care was taken to exclude the people
from the funeral procession. While he never denied that he was the
grandson of a tailor, he signed _de_ Beranger, to be distinguished from
other writers of the same name. The _de_, however, had always been
claimed by his father, who had left him nothing but that pretense
of nobility.

For forty years, from 1815 to his death, Beranger was perhaps the most
popular French writer of his time, and he was ranked amongst the
greatest French poets. There has been a reaction against that
enthusiasm, and he is now severely judged by the critics. They say that
he lacked inspiration, and was vulgar, bombastic, and grandiloquent.
Little attention is paid to him, therefore, in general histories of
French literature. But if he is not entitled to stand on the high
pedestal given to him by his contemporaries, we yet cannot deny genius
to the man who for more than a generation swayed the hearts of the
people at his will, and exerted on his countrymen and on his epoch an
immense influence.

Many of his songs are coarse and even immoral; but his muse was often
inspired by patriotic subjects, and in his poems on Napoleon he sings of
the exploits of the great general defending French soil from foreign
invasion, or he delights in the victories of the Emperor as reflecting
glory upon France. Victor Hugo shared this feeling when he wrote his
inspiring verses in praise of the conqueror. Both poets, Beranger and
Hugo, contributed to create the Napoleonic legend which facilitated the
election of Louis Napoleon to the presidency in 1848, and brought about
the Second Empire. What is more touching than 'The Reminiscences of the
People'? A