INTRODUCTION IX

Opinion of the German Lindau and of some French writers, those who can appreciate fancy at its best must agrée with the more sympathetic critics like M. Doumic, who says: "Je ne vois rien dans toute la littérature de ce siècle qui puisse être comparé à la conversation de Fantasio avec Spark." In 1851 Musset proposed to arrange Fantasio for the stage, expanding the last scène into a third act. He did not carry out the plan; his brother made varions changes for the performance in 1866, when Fantasio was played by Delaunay — said to resemble Musset strikingly, — and the Prince by Coquelin. Fantasio has not been so successful on the stage as some of the other comédies.

While Musset was living in seclusion and idleness after his séparation from George Sand in 1834, his friends urged him to occupy his mind by writing a dramatic proverb. Accepting the suggestion, he produced On ne badine pas avec l'amour, which appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes on July i, 1834. This is generally regarded as his finest play. Hère we find the beauty of his style in its perfection, and at the same time an unequalled power, délicate but pitiless, of laying bare the depths of the human heart. Although the subject was one that he had begun to work upon some time before, the play as we now hâve it is fuU of the memory of his récent expériences. In the coldly reasonable, self-possessed Camille it is not hard to see a resemblance to George Sand, while the impulsive, heedless Perdican is Musset to the life. Hère, as elsewhere, Musset shows his amour de l'amour, To his mind Camille, who doubtless means to be sincère, does a great wrong to herself and to Perdican when she resists love. She has learned her lesson from the taies of others, not from her own expérience; she does not really know her own heart until it is revealed to her by jealousy. The resuit of her