X INTRODUCTION

triflingf with herself, and of Perdican's trîflîng with Rosette, is disastrous to ail of them. The simple peasantgirl Rosette cornes clearly before us in the few words she speaks. At the last, her silence is pathetically éloquent. The other characters, though.slightly caricatured from well-known types, are by no means conveotional. In the Baron, even that familiar figure the " stage father" has a distinct individuality of his own. The chorus of peasants, a novel device in a play of this kind, suggests the methods of the opéra rather than those of classical tragedy. In quaintly comical language it comments on the varions personages as they appear. On the stage, the part of the chorus is divided between two actors. The place and period of thèse peasants who talk in poetry is left undefined. The play on the whole shows more thoroughly than any other Musset's distinguishing qualities : originality and sincerity, — gaiety mingled with sadness, son rire trempé de larmes, as Gautier has it, — profound inner truth underlying a poetically fanciful exterior. The dramatic construction is excellent; few changes had to be made for the stage-production in 1861. At the beginning the comic éléments prédominât e, gradually becoming less prominent as the passionate intensity of feeling increases with irrésistible force to the tragic conclusion.

A work on a larger scale is Lorenzaccio, conceived, and perhaps written, while Musset was in Italy. For once historically accurate, he lays his scène in Florence in 1537. Lorenzo de' Medici, called in hatred Lorenzaccio, purposing to free Florence from the domination of his cousin Alessandro, becomes his companion in vice and crime; only to find, however, that when he has murdered the tyrant a successor is immediately proclaimed, and that, moreover, he cannot shake off the character he has assumed. Whether consciously or not.