IV INTRODUCTION

in the events is reproduced. No more delightful and profitable relief from severe studies on the entire Eevoiutionary and Imperial periods can be imagined.''

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

^' Every evening after we have dined, when the bonne has replenished our tankards with ale, we begin our work in common. I read over to Ghatrian what I have written during the day. Ghatrian 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 detail as my hero or heroine. Here Ghatrian interferes. 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 scenes ; I feel a struggle in me, but I submit. He has a remarkable talent for all the nuances of expression ; I do not know his equal in this. Neverthe-