INTRODUCTION W

escapes them. The common people are more sane; love is with them an incident in life, not the whole of life. The English, he continues, hâve grasped this fact, and so has Victor Hugo in Les Misérables.

Bazin advocates a novel which shall hâve two fundamental characteristics : it must first of ail be éducative. By this he does not mean that it shall hâve a distinctively moral tendency, but it must, at least, recreate the soûl by bringing before it visions of beauty, and it must lighten the burden of life. Such a work fulfils its whole destiny when it makes man better, when it leads him to valor, to sacrifice and to God. It must never debase man. The naturalistic novel does not and cannot meet this demand.

In the second place, ail literature that would merit the name "popular" must be inspired by genuine love of the common people, not by half contemptuous pity or by haughty condescension. In ail his Works, Bazin acts consistently upon this principle. His earlier novels are perhaps too rose-colored, but his later ones show deep sympathy intelligently directed.

His first novel. Ma Tante GiroUy passed almost unnoticed. It found, however, at least one reader capable of appreciating it in the person of Ludovic Halévy. Halévy was not acquainted with Bazin, but he was so impresséd with the purity and freshness of the story that he urged the editor of the journal des Débats to engage Bazin as a contributor. The latter joined the staff of Xht/outnal in 1887, and has eyer since written for that paper and for the Correspondant,

▼i INTRODUCTION

Ma lante Giron (1886) is a story of provincial life of somewhat the same type as VAbhé 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 Tante Giron, Xes 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 )iis intention is to obtain an éducation in order to enter the service of the church. The members of the family acknowledge his right to foUow 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 fuU 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 labarer pf %h^ \>ç%ttx clas^ Uncle Eloi, who Jia3

INTRODUCTION Vil

adopted an orphaned nephew and nièce, Antoine and Henriette. Antoine is idle and vicions, 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 religions 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 ^7 ^^ Terre qui meurty 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 town 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 vicions 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 jtbo3e jattributes which make hiqi a man*

vin INTRODUCTION

Les Oherli however, is justly r^^ded as Bazin's masterpiece ; to it, moie directiy than to any other of his Works, he owes his élection to the Académie Française.

Ferdinand Branetière, 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 scoms them for owing their birth to himl That is the great error of the naturalistic school! It did not love the créations of its own