INTRODUCTION

La coyrse du flambeau, which is on the repertory of the Comédie Française, is almost universally recognized by critics as Hervieu's masterpiece. Doumic calls it "of incomparable grandeur and perfect beauty." ** The structure of the play is excellent ; givert the thesîs, the course of events to the final solution is worked out with almost flawless logic and everincreasing interest. The main characters, the three générations of women, are natural and lifelike, though Sabine has been criticized as being too violent for the "averagehumanity " that the play portrays." The minor characters — Maravon, who gladly sacrifices his modest fortune to his son; Didier, who unhesitatingly accepts it; Gribert and his wife, who toil ceaselessly to accumulate a dowry for their selfish daughter Béatrice; even the strong-willed Stangy, who breaks down utterly at the loss of his child — almost without exception serve the purpose of emphasizing the central thème. In the choice of a thème and of characters to exemplify it, Hervieu is unusually well inspirai. He breaks away from the narrow aristocratie set of idlers that he had portrayed so often, and sets the scène in the great industrious middle class. He leaves aside the trite thème of adultery, the "eternal triangle," that figures ail too frequently in his works and in those of his contemporaries. Nor does he, as 'm La loi de l'homme, base the interest on a man-made law that might easily be aboEshed by législative fiât. Hère the action springs largely from the puisuit of wealth as a.means o£ comfort and power, a subject of interest to nearly every one. But the pursuit of wealth is itself hère closely mterwoven with a greater thème, that of motherlove, "the unreasoning and alï-powerfuï instinct to protect one's

m La course du /tombeau, in Revue des deux mondes, 15 mai, 1901. *° Ho-vteu misht hâve answered thîi charge in Clarkse's words in Act III, svsc. vi of hia O- -"•i-laù "Il y a des énergies qu'on ne trouve