Contes choisis

Je doute du soleil, je ne crois plus aux roses, Et je vais le front bas comme un homme hanté.

xviii Contes Choisis

Fais ce que dois, a dramatic épisode in one act in verse, acted at the Odéon on October ai, 1871, was inspired by fervent patriotism. The poet showed not only talent, but remarkable courage in speaking the sad truth about the war to his fellow-countrymen at such a time.

In L'Abandonnée there is not sufficient action, and the two acts are not properly connected, but Le Rendez- Vous (1872) gave promise of better things. This promise was realised on the appearance of Le Luthier de Crémone (1876). In this play, which is one of his masterpieces, Coppée was happy in the choice of his subject, and more than happy in his interprétation of it. The characters live and move, the action is full of life and energy, and the situations are well contrived.

La Guerre de Cent Ans, a drama in five acts with Prologue and Epilogue, written in collaboration with M. Armand d'Artois, was never acted. It is epic as well as dramatic in style, full of patriotic inspiration, of real value as a work of art, but in exécution inferior to its conception.

Le Trésor is an anecdotic comedy with three characters, first acted in 1877. This was followed by two slight dramatic pièces, La Bataille d'Hernani and La Maison de Molière. Then cornes Coppée's first great dramatic effort, first called Le Psautier, and then Madame de Maintenon (1881). The attempt to depict so sphinxlike a character as that of Madame de Maintenon was more honourable to Coppée as a poet than fortunate to him as a dramatic author. It sufïïced, however, to prove to him that lie was capable of managing a play in five

Introduction xix

acts in verse, and it was followed by his crowning success on the stage, Sevcro Torelli (1883). The scène is laid in the Italy of the Renaissance, and the action takes place in Pisa in 1494. Severo Torelli is one of the masterpieces of contemporary dramatic literature, its only fault in exécution being a certain lack of cohésion between the acts. The language is powerful, energetic, and brilliant.

Ali the poet's generous sentiments and noble ideals were expressed in Les Jacobites (1885). From the dramatic point of view this play is inferior to Severo Torelli, which it perhaps surpasses in its splendid poetry, on which account it holds a distinctive position in contemporary literature. The heroic, typical, fateful characters remind us of the créations of Victor Hugo.

Le Justicier, afterwards called Pour la Couronne, describes the manners of Eastern Christendom in the fifteenth century. This play has been adapted for the English stage by Mr. John Davidson, but the verse of the original has been rendered partly in prose and partly in blank verse.

Olivier, 1874, is the only long poem Coppée has written. It is the story of the psychological state of a young man, full of disillusion and disappointment, who seeks to renew his life in the quiet scènes of the country. The elegiac portions hâve a finished charm of their own, but the lyrical parts are somewhat cold and constrained.

Les Récits et les Elégies is dedicated to his sister Annette. In thèse short pièces he exhibits his double inspiration as a narrator and as an idealist. They must be compared with Victor Hugo's La Légende des Siècles

xx Contes Choisis

and Leconte de Lisle's Poèmes Antiques) but his clearjiess of thought and conciseness of expression are ail his own.

From 1880 to 1884 Coppée was employed as dramatic critic on the staff of the journal called La Patrie. His sympathies naturally went out to the idealistic, romantic school, but he always showed great freedom from shibboleths, together with the most refined taste in his literary judgments.

From 187 1 to 1887 Coppée wrote his prose Romans et Contes parisiens. His first attempt in this style was Une Idylle pendant le Siège, first published in the Moniteur Universel in 1872. His Contes en Prose are like the most délicate miniature paintings, a few lines contain a finished picture or a complète drama. The effect obtained is always vivid and in just proportion, the observation exhibited is exquisitely fine and minute. But in his prose, as in his poetry, a distinct évolution can be traced ; his youthful recollections and descriptions of simple scènes or single émotions gradually lead to such dramatic and touching épisodes as Les Vices du Capitaine, Le Remplaçant, Mon A?ni Meurtrier, etc. ; and in Vingt Contes Nouveaux the author appears as a perfect master of his style.

Contes e?i vers et Poésies diverses and JO Arrière- Saison et les Paroles Sincères (1886-90) give us the flowers and fruit of his vigorous maturity.

Amongst Coppée's most récent works may be men-

tioned Aux Français à Alger and Le Coup de Tampon,

1891 ; Contes Rapides (a further séries of taies in the style

of his earlier Contes en Prose), Henriette, Toute une

Jeunesse, and Les Vrais Riches, 1892 ; Les Rivâtes and

Introduction xxi

Longues et Brèves, 1893; Les Contes de Noël and Mon Franc Parler ; 1894. Coppée's last collections of stories are distinguished by perfection of form, sureness and lightness of touch, délicate and just feeling, and expérience in handling his tools. Several of thèse stories are slightly ironical in tone, but never sarcastic, and the tinge of pessimism which is occasionally perceptible never becomes too marked.

Le Coupable, 1897, differs in character from the foregoing. It is written in prose, but is in the form of a novel. It again reveals Coppée's tenderness for les Humbles and his dramatic instincts, but ail traces of pessimism hâve vanished.

In 1876 Coppée became a member of the Légion d'Honneur. On February 21, 1884, he was elected a member of the Académie Française, in the place of the late Victor de Laprade. On December 18, 1884, he took his seat in the Académie. At this time he was bibliothécaire -archiviste of the Comédie -Française, but after his élection to the Académie he found it impossible to continue to hold this post, and sent in his résignation on January 25, 1885.

The three most notable characteristics which distinguish François Coppée as a writer are his marvellous artistic skill in the choice and manipulation of words ; his thorough modernité, that is to say, love of the concrète, the précise, the personal ; and thirdly, his really remarkable power of appealing to ail classes of society.

Note. — Further particulars as to Coppée's life and works may be found in M. de Lescure's François Coppce, L'homme, la vie et

xxii Contes Choisis

Pauvre, Paris, 1889, which has been taken as the basis of thc above sketch. Also in Charles Gidel's Histoire de la Littérature française, deuxième partie, vol. v. pp. 330-7, and 419-205 Paris, 1891. See also the critical article by Jules Lemaître in Les Contemporains, première série, 1890, pp. 83, 84, and Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, tome viii. pp. 32-41.