INTRODUCTION XIX
became, Renan having died, the recognized leader of intellectual Frenchmen. His books were as many literary events and no one could any longer afford to ignore him.
In 1896 the French Academy gave him, on the first ballot, the seat of the great and unfortunate Ferdinand de-Lesseps, whose eulogy he delivered with tact and eloquence on the day of his reception into that assembly, December 24, 1896.
… With the publication of /’Orme du Mail in 1897 in which we see for the first time his now immortal ‘M. Bergeret, Anatole France entered a new field and'extended his influence far beyond the circle of Zitérati, who up to then swore by him. This Æisfoire contemporaine, now composed of four volumes, he carried on in the columns of Parisian papers from 2897 to 1901. It is the most witty, profound and redoubtable arraignment*of "the present social and political condition of the French bourgeoisie, and ‘it is not without reason that a young writer describing recently the Revolutionary elements scattered in the different classes of French society counted Anatole France among the new apostles that are presently at work for the preparation of a better state of things and the building up of a new social order.’ …-It is while Anatole France was writing this series that a political crisis broke out, and suddenly at the end of the year 1897, to the amazement of every one, this refined and quiet dilettante came forward
: 1 Alyan Francis Sanborn: Paris and the Social Revolution, 1QÔ5. D. 324-327:
xx INTRODUCTION
with a few other brave citizens called the “Intellectuals ” who performed with admirable courage à great duty. In the courts of justice, on the platform of popular meetings and in the press they protested against a judicial error committed by an incompetent and prejudiced court martial and henceforth blindly accepted and stubbornly sustained by the combined and brutal forces of the government, the army, and the mob.
Since then M. Anatole France has been a new man. Now this delicate Pyrrhonist whose piquant and scholarly paradoxes have delighted the most refined intellects of his generation is seen to leave in the evening his elegant mansion in the Villa Saïd near the Bois de Boulogne and to go out to the ‘faubourgs” to speak before an audience of a Université populaire, to preside over a mass meeting, protesting against war, against tsarism, militarism, clericalism. He no longer is satisfied with the subtle irony with which he used to undermine the foundation of modern society and rail at traditions, beliefs and prejudices. He now attacks directly in strong and bold utterances what he deems the errors, abuses, and crimes of this twentieth century civilization. The arguments and ideas he so deftly insinuated in the elegant dissertations under the cover of some fanciful story, he now expounds in plain direct language, and prints in small ten cent pamphlets. He has not ceased to address the intellectuals: Crainguebille, Sur la Pierre blanche are for them. But he speaks and writes also for the masses; for them he has
INTRODUCTION xxi
written the admirable speeches on Emile Zola, on Diderot, on peace, church and state, on all the social and religious problems that at this hour beset the French people.
The son of the royalist bookseller, the little boy whom his parents entrusted to the priests of Stanislas, the tolerant, easy going and sceptical dilettante so often accused of annibilating the will, of discouraging action and spreading a doctrine of selfish pleasure, stands to-day as the most brilliant free lance that Socialism can boast of and a defender of proletariat such as the #em»”os rarely ever found.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(From this bibliography the classical or school editions published by Anatole France are omitted,)
Alfred de Vigny, étude, 1868.
Les Poèmes dorés, 1873.
Les Noces corinthiennes. Leuconoé. La Veuve. La Pia. La
prise de voile. L'auteur à un ami, 1876.
Poésies, containing the preceding two books. Lemerre, 1896.
Jocaste et le Chat maigre. 1879.
Le Crime de Silvestre Bonnard, 1881.
Les Désirs de Jean Servien, 1882.
Abeille, conte, 1884.
Nos enfants, scènes de la ville et des champs, with illustrations by Boutet de Monvel, 1886; 2d edition, 1900.
PBalthasar, 1889.
Thaïs, 1890.
L'Étui de nacre, 1892
xxii INTRODUCTION
La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque, 1893. ” y Les Opinions de Jérôme, Coignara, 1893. sr biti L'Elvire de Lamartine, étude biographique, 1893. Lucile de Chateaubriand, 1894.
Le Jardin d'Épicure, 1894.
Le Lys rouge, 1894.
Le: Puits dé Sainte-Claire, 1895...
L'Orme du Mail, 1897.
La Vie littéraire, 1re série, 1888.
— 2me série, 1890.
— 3me série, 1891.
By 4me série, 1892. TE Le rontégihr d'osier, 1898. Iniate Au petit bonheur, comédie en un acte, 50 copies. printed, 1898. L'Anneanu d'améthyste, 1890.
Pierre Nozière, 1890.
Monsieur Bergeret à Paris, 1901.
Opinions soctalistes, 2 vols. pamphlet, 1902. Histoire comique, 1903.
Crainquebille, Putois Riquet et PE autres récits PRES Le Parti noir, introduction to the book € E. ‘Combes, Uni campagne laïque, pamphlet, 1904.
Sur la Pierre blanche, 1905.
L'Eglise etla République, pamphlet, 1905.
Vers les temps meilleurs, pamphlet, 1906: 16
