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ever repentant, to rise ; * and Gàbrielley a eulogy of quiet home life and domestic affection, the exact opposite of the romantic idéal, was followed by a romantic drama of Richelieu* s time {Diane). La Pierre de touche is also romantic in tone ; it is a tedious story of a talented young German pianist who inherits an enormous fortune from an admirer of his music and then goes to pièces like a wrecked ship in a storm. Hère, however, we begin to see the influence of the realistic prose comedy of manners which Dumas the younger had successfully transported from fiction to the stage : the comedy is written in prose and money is its central thème. A dainty Cinderella story (Philiberie) intervenes, and then Augier follows steadily in the path pointed out by Dumas. He describes the influence of wealth, particularly the pursuit of wealth, on the society of his time : M. Poirier's son-inlaw sells his name for a dowry ; opulent bankers try in vain to forget and to make others forget the shady origin of their fortune {Ceinture dorée , les Effrontés) ; the fight for wealth blunts the sensitive honor of youth {la Jeunesse, la Contagion, Jean de Thommeray), and blinds men to the distinction between law and equity {Maître Guérin) ; the restless craving to make a show dégrades women {les Lionnes pauvres) and wrecks the family fortunes {les Fourchambault) .

Un Beau Mariage shows how hard it is to span the gulf separating the idle life of the rich from the scholar's life of toil. Not only the ' correct ' Marquis de Laroche-Pingoley , but the young heroine as well, divide men into two classes : those who look first at the fortune, then at the woman, and those who look first at the woman and then at her fortune.

* In a later play, là Mariage d'Olympe^ recently adapted by Clyde Fitch as The Marriage Game^ he showed that such women were often incapable of rising.

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And if a young man belonging to a third class, really in love, marries money, his motives are apt to be misjudged, and he is likely to lose much of his dignity and independence.

Augier*s dramatic prose style — he wrote practically nothing but plays — is perhaps the best of his time, clear, concise and vigorous, but his verse does not deserve the praise of its enthusiastic admirers. For he was not a poet. He was a sane, solid, talented bourgeois, whose strongest characteristic was common sensé. Eleven years before his death (1889) he withdrew from the théâtre at the height of his success : ** Quittons-nous bons amis,*' he says to his *'cher public,'* *'et sache-moi gré de me condamner au silence de peur de t* ennuyer."