VI INTRODUCTION

the most of the only opportunitîes left to them. In the same family thèse two irreconcilable éléments will not in< frequently be found, and when they are, tragedy ensues.

It is the triumph of René Bazin that he bas made the portrayal of thèse fundamental oppositions, still profonnd after thirty years of conquest in a prominent family of Alsace, a thoroughly représentative as well as vivid picture. His characters are not accidentai: they are types. The old fighter, Philippe Oberlé, his daughter-in-law and her brother, on one side, stand for unrelenting, though passive/opposition to the présent, for the uncompromising refusai to grant even one hair's breadth more than the iron law of the conqueror demands. On the other side, Joseph Oberlé, the strenuons man of business, craving for a wider field of action than passive opposition can ever afford him, imwilling to sacrifice his own lif e and the lives of his two children to the idle yeaming after a past that can never be restored, has graduai! y edged toward the ruïing powers, and now is f rankly becoming reconciled. His daughter Lucienne, brought up in a German school, where she has leamed to consider the Alsatian regret for the rule of France old-fashioned and behind the times, bnlliant, ambitions to live the life to which her attractions and her wealth entitle her, throws in her lot with her father. Between the two opposing camps there can be nothing but ceaseless war. In vain does her brother Jean hope to reconcile them. ' His task is doomed to failure. He is soon cornpelled by his own nature to take sides, and the inévitable becomes the irréparable.

It is impossible to read the book without being impressed with the skill which the author has displayed in the delineation of thèse characters. The latest French critic, Victor Guiraud, writes: "Did Mr. Bazin paint his characters from nature, or does imagination enter largely into his painting? He alone can tell. But the fact remains that it would be impossible better to 'catch' and better to express the moral