IV INTRODUCTION

in the events is reproduced. No more delightful and profitable relief from severe studies on the entire Revolutionary and Impérial periods can be imagined."

S. Baring-Gould quotes from an interview with Erckmann the following account of the way in which the two authors worked and lived together at Raincy, a few miles to the east of Paris, on the Strasburg line : " Chatrian goes every morning at nine to Paris and returns home every evening at six. I, however, am hère day by day, from early till late, without leaving the house. You know the resuit. You will be disposed to undervalue the importance of Chatrian and his significance for myself and our labors when I tell you that since we hâve worked together Chatrian has not once put pen to paper. There you hâve the whole secret of the unity of our style. There is, there can be, no différence in style, for the style of ail our united compositions is exclusively mine.

" Every evening af ter we hâve dined, when the bonne has replenished our tankards with aie, we begin our work in common. I read over to Chatrian what I hâve written during the day. Chatrian possesses, in the highest degree, what may be termed the talent of composition. He has almost invariably some corrections to make in my work. I, naturally a colorist, fall too readily into the fault of inaccurate perspective — for instance, I paint a subsidiary character with as much détail as my hero or heroine. Hère Chatrian interfères. He has the critical faculty in him so keen and so correct that I am often amazed at it, and though he proceeds ruthlessly to work, slashing, arranging, recasting my work, I sit by without resentment, knowing that he is right and I am wrong. He points out the weak pages and tears them up. I must rewrite them. He lowers the tone of my vigorous scènes ; I feel a struggle in me, but I submit. He has a remarkable talent for ail the nuances of expression ; I do not know his equal in this. Neverthe-