VI INTRODUCTION

Ma Tante Giron (1886) is a story of provincial life of somewhat the same type as PAbbé Constantin. It was followed in 1888 by Une Tache d'encre which marks a decided advance in literary workmanship, though in tone it resembles Ma Jante Giron. Les Noëllet followed in 1889. Hère, Bazin goes deeper. The opening chapters give a very exact reproduction of the life of a tenant farmer. Noëllet, the father, loves only the soil and intends that his sons shall pursue his occupation. But one of them becomes dissatisfied and déclares that his intention is to obtain an éducation in order to enter the service of the church. The members of the family acknowledge his right to follow his vocation and they make great sacrifices in order to aid him during his theological course. Then he returns and confesses that he has deceived them, that he has sought an éducation simply that he may become a fine gentleman.

The story is very well worked out, each character is in its place and every détail shows the author's power of exact and patient observation and his intimate knowledge of things and of people. Bazin is hère, as Doumic says, equally far removed from the idyll and from caricature; he is in the full tide of realism, in the best sensé of the word ; he reproduces the exact, undistorted image of the thing pictured.

De toute Son Ame (1897) is a study of class feeling in a large manufacturing town. M. Lemarié, a rich manufacturer, has in his employ an honest laborer of the better class, Uncle Eloi, who has

INTRODUCTION Vil

adopted an orphaned nephew and nièce, Antoine and Henriette. Antoine is idle and vicious, but Henriette is a model of industry and virtue. Antoine is instrumental in burning down Lemarié's factory and the latter, on learning the news, dies of a stroke of apoplexy.

His widow, a deeply religious woman, résolves to give her life to good works, while Henriette, who proves to be the illegitimate daughter of Lemarié, dismisses her lover, Etienne, that she may dévote herself de toute son âme to aiding Madame Lemarié. Thus absorbed, she leaves no place for her own Personal happiness.

De toute son Ame was followed in 1899 by La Terre qui meurt, a strong and pathetic story, dealing with the problem of the struggle of the farm against compétition with foreign products and against the attractive power which the towrî exerts upon country boys and girls.

Then came Les Oberlé, 1901, followed by Donatienne in 1902. This story most strikingly exemplifies Bazin's methods and ideals. Donatienne, the wife of Jean Louarn, the tenant farmer, under the stress of increasing poverty goes to Paris as a nurse, finds vicious associâtes and falls. Instead of tracing her downward course in ail the minute détails which delight the thorough-going realist, Bazin turns toward the deserted husband and shows him struggling against poverty and dégradation, yet still keeping fast hold upon those attributes which make him a man.

Vlll INTRODUCTION

Les Oberlê however, is justly regarded as Bazin's masterpiece ; to it, more directly than to any other of his works, h owes his élection to the Académie Française.

Ferdinand Brunetière, admittedly the foremost French literary critic of to-day, one who is, moreover, in full sympathy with the ideals for which Bazin stands, was chosen to deliver the address of welcome upon his réception into the Academy, April 28,

"At the beginning of Bazin's literary career," (1886), says Brunetière, "we were in the very thick of the battle against naturalism, which was then at the height of its power and influence. Naturalism believed; or at least pretended to believe that we were attacking it, whereas we were striving to défend it against its own excesses. We were far from reproaching it for its close study of nature or for its interest in the lives of the humble, or for its disdain of improbable plots. What we did reproach it for was its perversion of a great doctrine of art and for its assumption of superiority over the characters which it created. No human father ever treated more cruelly his helpless progeny. How the author berates them, how dearly he makes them pay for their crime of not being 'artists', and, without stopping to think that he is himself perhaps a little to blâme, — how he scorns them for owing their birth to him! That is the great error of the naturalistic school! It did not love the créations of its own