ly which reveal the intimate side of French social
life-works in which are discussed the moral problems that affect most
potently the life of the world at large. If inquiring spirits seek to
learn the customs and manners of the France of any age, they must look
for it among her crowned romances. They need go back no farther than
Ludovic Halevy, who may be said to open the modern epoch. In the
romantic school, on its historic side, Alfred de Vigny must be looked
upon as supreme. De Musset and Anatole France may be taken as revealing
authoritatively the moral philosophy of nineteenth-century thought. I
must not omit to mention the Jacqueline of Th. Bentzon, and the "Attic"
Philosopher of Emile Souvestre, nor the great names of Loti, Claretie,
Coppe, Bazin, Bourget, Malot, Droz, De Massa, and last, but not least,
our French Dickens, Alphonse Daudet. I need not add more; the very names
of these "Immortals" suffice to commend the series to readers in all
countries.

One word in conclusion: America may rest assured that her students
of international literature will find in this series of 'ouvrages
couronnes' all that they may wish to know of France at her own
fireside--a knowledge that too often escapes them, knowledge that
embraces not only a faithful picture of contemporary life in the French
provinces, but a living and exact description of French society in
modern times. They may feel certain that when they have read these
romances, they will have sounded the depths and penetrated into the
hidden intimacies of France, not only as she is, but as she would be
known.

GASTON BOISSIER

SECRETAIRE PERPETUEL DE L'ACADEMIE FRANCAISE

GEORGES OHNET

The only French novelist whose books have a circulation approaching the
works of Daudet and of Zola is Georges Ohnet, a writer whose popularity
is as interesting as his stories, because it explains, though it does
not excuse, the contempt the Goncourts had for the favor of the great
French public, and also because it shows how the highest form of
Romanticism still ferments beneath the varnish of Naturalism in what is
called genius among the great masses of readers.

Georges Ohnet was born in Paris, April 3, 1848, the son of an architect.
He was destined for the Bar, but was early attracted by journalism and
literature. Being a lawyer it was not difficult for him to join the
editorial staff of Le Pays, and later Le Constitutionnel. This was soon
after the Franco-German War