EMILE AUGIER

Guillaume- Victor-Emile Augier was bom in Daupiiîné in 1820. His father, a lawyer, was able to move to Paris and put son through collège (where he took honors) and the law-school. But the young man soon tired of law-office work and gave it up to write for the stage, a calling for which he had shown peculiar aptitude in his collège days. Success came soon. His la Ciguë (1844)^ describing the rédemption of a profligate young Greek by love for a well-bom slave, had quite a run at the Odéon Théâtre. The pièce was well timed, since the public was tired of the romantic drama and ready to hail a disciple of Ponsard, whose neo-classic Lucrèce had just received the plaudits refused to Hugo' s les Burgraves, But Augier, who was ever alert to catch and reecho the drift of public opinion, was not yet convinced that romanticism, the romantic drama, at least, would not again find favor with the public, " ce juge en dernier ressort, puisqu'en somme c'est à lui qu'il s'agit de plaire." For l'Aveniurière is a romantic play, although Augier* s common sensé impels him to show therein, contrary to the theory of the romanticists, that society will not permit a fallen woman, how-

* A more extended notice of Augier's work is giyen by way of préface to Le Gendre de M, Poirier, éd. Holt, 1899.