who wish to create an ideal and cannot find one-a very intelligent but a very inartistic generation.

The ideal for which they were looking was, no doubt, Christianity, which possesses always a fascination for them, of which they speak with respect, to which they come back again and again with a persistence which might well carry to their own hearts the conviction that here is what they seek; but its mysteries can only be rightly judged from within, and they remain without. That they are, too, intelligently alive to all influences of literature and art and life, is true: but M. Doumic's negative proposition-that they are inartistic-we venture to doubt.

Of all literary writers surely the French are the most artistic. They can describe trifles so as to surround them with grace; their books are well proportioned, well put together, they have that nameless charm which is the highest art, and when they avoid the undesirable they are certainly now, as they have ever done, contributing some of the most delightful works to literature that any lover of books can desire. And one other charm these authors possess. They are absolutely individualistic: they have each his own style, his own manner, his own plan for carrying out his plot. This individuality is surely a sign of strength, it is certainly something akin to the old definition of genius. They write what they must in their own manner, and no school can be said to have been formed around this writer or that.

We have taken six authors, and six of their chief works, as representative The Church Quarterly Review.

of current French literature. Although all the writers belong to the school - we are now using this word in a wider sense than that in which we used it abovewhich succeeded that of naturalism, the books we have named are of very various types. MM. Margueritte's Le Désastre is an historical novel; and a finer one, one which reflects more credit on the mind of its authors. was probably never written. In M. Boylesve's L'Enfant à la Balustrade we believe we saw a promise of a second Cranford, which promise unhappily has not been realized in the author's later work. M. Paul Bourget's Un Divorce and M. René Bazin's La Terre qiu Meurt. both elucidate or endeavor to elucidate or to state, problems of the hour, and, in their different manners the strong and the graceful

are admirable examples of what such novels should be. Pierre Loti's Pêcheur d'Islande strikes a different note: Loti is the writer of romance pure and simple, and at his best is full of charm. In M. Edouard Rod's Le Sens de la Vie we have problems of the mind rather than those of practical import, stated but not solved. In all these different departures the various authors are far above the average: and the impression left on the mind after a study of contemporary French romance is that it is of a very high order of merit, and that if the French novelist could learn to avoid the unfortunate habit of introducing tacenda into his books there would be many to add to the list we have given, many which would rank deservedly high, not only to-day, but in any future history of French literature.

1.

A ripe chestnut thrown with a will and striking the bridge of the nose has a distinctly unpleasant effect. The old woman, thus struck, winced and shook her head, while the boy who threw the chestnut uttered yells of ecstatic mirth. A rain of chestnuts fell on her and about her, hopping, as if possessed, on the stony ground. The throwers were safely established on a natural buttress that overhung the roadway, and should their victim try to escape to right or left, they had only to keep even with her along the mountain side.

Brought to bay, she stood close under the bank at the road's farther edge, tall, white-haired, and defiantly silent. Her tormentors were anything but silent.

Ugly words came thick and fast from the dozen of urchins, small sunbrowned rascals, active as wild cats, "noble" every one, though their looks conveyed little hint of the fact, and their clothes, mended, darned, shapeless, colorless from the wear and tear of generations and much familiar contact with Mother Earth, none whatever.

"What have you done with your poor old husband?" piped a voice. "What did you put in his soup to make him turn so green?"

"There are no more chestnuts!" lamented another.

"Take a stone, then," suggested a third.

The stone was thrown. It fell short of its aim, but whizzed close before the nose of a horse which had come swinging round a twist of the road. An inclination to shy having been promptly checked by its rider, it stood still. Above the road there reigned a discomfited silence. The rider, looking up. asked coolly, but with extreme

distinctness, "Was it done on purpose?"

"No, vot'e Seigneurie," said a deep harsh voice close beside him; "that stone was meant for a defenceless. helpless old woman. It was the first -I will say that; they have been pelting me with chestnuts, those little good-for-naughts."

"Little cowards!" said M. de Rozède. very disdainfully.

A shrill voice burst out in protest: "Monsieur, she is a sorceress! Monsieur, she is the witch of St. Quenet!"

The young man laughed aloud. "You will never be fit to fight for the King." he pronounced; “you are fit for nothing but to herd swine in the forests. are as stupid as pigs, and were I a sorceress pigs you should be. Be off! fly! vanish!"

You

He rose in his stirrups. There was a great scurry among the dead leaves, a crackling and snapping of branches, a scuffling of small quick feet; then all these sounds grew faint and were lost in the forest's silence.

"I humbly thank vot'e Seigneurie for such goodness to a poor old woman."

Nevertheless, however she might phrase them, her thanks were not humble. Also her speech had a certain refinement, and she mixed French words with her patois.

M. de Rozède looked curiously at her. To modern eyes she would have seemed the very incarnation of Autumn. Toil-worn, sorrow-worn, ageworn, she kept a remnant of sombre beauty, even as the blackened skeletons of the forest round about her still flaunted a tattered but royal arras. scarlet and orange and gold.

M. de Rozède, as was natural, made other reflections. "Good mother," he said, "the grandfathers of those brats

"Aye, and their fathers too," answered the woman, her face darkening. "And why, since they dub you sorceress, did not you threaten them with a spell? They would have scuttled off like rabbits."

"Vot'e Seigneurie, how could I permit myself such a jest, now when the King's commissioners sit at Clermont, so that, since the Last Judgment is slow in coming, the Great Days' may overtake us in this life?"

"Good mother, you are mistaken. The gentlemen of the Great Days are sent here from Paris for our benefit, to discover and punish the crimes of all great folk who oppress the little ones. And it is a singular thing that just now so many of my friends wish to travel-outside Auvergne and the court's jurisdiction-that soon I shall feel like a late-hatched swallow, which the other swallows have left behind."

Mère Jacquard moved nearer to him, and spoke very earnestly. "Monsieur le Vicomte, I ask your pardon,—would not change of air do you good also?" "You know who I am?"

"You are Claude de Barey, Vicomte de Rozède, Seigneur of Ivay and other places."

"Very well. Am I known to have exacted unjust dues, or usurped the authority and justice of the King? Do I maltreat my dependants, hein?"

"Not so; you have a good heart, and your people love you. Nevertheless the best loved is often the best hated. I take my eggs and vegetables to the town, vot'e Seigneurie, and in the market one hears most things, This time last year the talk was all of you and your marriage, and how, because M. de Précorbin refused you his daughter's

nose."

M. de Rozède laughed gaily. "From under her father's nose, it is true, but not from under her mother's. Never in this life could I have managed the abduction without my excellent motherin-law's help and guidance, not to mention her consent! I and my wife are two feather-pates; Madame de Précorbin was the general who planned that coup de main, sent her husband off to Riom, ordered the coach, had the young lady ready to the moment, and started with her to visit their old friend Madame de Mirambel.

Then,

as the old coach lumbered along through the woods, it was suddenly surrounded by resolute rascals, and the most resolute got on the box, and 'fouette cocher! in ten minutes we were at the church, and in half an hour we were safely married! A small affair after all, and all the honors of it due to my mother-in-law, who drove home alone and faced her hushand. Now, my aunt's abduction was a very different matter, for she was packed off to a convent, to be out of her lover's reach, and my uncle blew a breach in the convent wall, and took her away by force, and with the armed hand. But that was in the good old time. Peste, my good mother, it proves you to be a witch that I should stay here chattering in this manner! It will be black night before I am at Aurillac."

He would have ridden on, but the old woman made an entreating gesture.

"One little moment, vot'e Seigneurie! Tell me, is it true that M. de Précorbin never sees his daughter, never speaks to you or her?"

"Yes, yes, my good soul, it is true, and my wife deeply regrets it; but she has the consolation that her mother often visits her, to which old Précorbin makes no objection. He does not dare to, le pauvre homme! He never

even dared to cross-question his wife's version of his daughter's abduction, man of law though he is. I take his part. I tell my wife that if she walks in her mother's steps, woe betide her! And now-out of the way, my friend, and bon soir!"

The rapid beat of his horse's hoofs had died to silence before Mère Jacquard stooped and picked up the herbs she had been gathering, muttering, just as a witch should mutter: "That Précorbin! if I know him, he is a viper that hides in the grass till he sees a chance to bury his fangs in your foot!"

II.

A gray, breathless November day, misty, not with the dense damp mist that gathers like cotton wool in every hollow, but with a dark haze just thick enough to veil the higher mountain peaks, and chasten the daylight to a tender sadness rather than to gloom.

The stillness had a bitter chill in it. The market-folk felt it, and so did the lackeys who hung about the outer doors of the grim old building in which the King's Justice held its special Assizethe Great Days of Auvergne. When an old woman came by carrying apples and a can of hot chestnuts, the younger among the lackeys crowded round her. She was a tall old woman, whose profile had a classic regularity, whose head the years had not yet bowed.

She spoke the broadest Auvergnat patois, and the lackeys, being fine gentlemen from Paris, laughed at her, mocked her, mimicked her barbarous jargon, only to find the jest made pointless by her stony incomprehension. They reverted to their usual preoccupation, the gossip of the Assize Court. A tall young man joined the group. They asked him how the trial was goIng.

"Finished," he answered, with. deliberation. "The sentence has been delivered. As I expected, M. le Vicomte

will lose his head; but, on the other hand, his castles will not be razed to the ground, his woods will not be cut down, his lands will not be confiscated, owing to the Court's consideration for his excellent and truly Roman father-in-law."

Laughter, and a buzz of interest. The tall lackey became the centre of attention; the old woman and her chestnuts were wholly forgotten.

"He has no luck, that poor Vicomte," protested one. "I call it hard that he should suffer for doing what so many have done before him."

"Can one be so ignorant of first elements of justice!" the tall lackey made answer. "Why, it is precisely because so many men have done this thing and done it with insolent impunity, that our great King Louis has determined to make an example which shall raise his authority to its proper place in the eyes of these lawless barbarians. And the droll part of it is that the case has been so hurried on, so promptly disposed of, that the Vicomte, you may be sure, knows nothing about it, and at this moment counts upon a lengthy procedure, and is perhaps just thinking of finding some obliging witnesses; and the first he will hear of the whole affair is from the archers who will presently arrive at Ivay to arrest him.”

The talk was checked suddenly by a movement among the lackeys nearer the door, who divided into rows, bowing low. With presence of mind the tall young man hustled the old market woman round the nearest corner. Once out of sight, she stood still, leaning heavily against the wall. He was condemned, she told herself, De Rozède was condemned. She could see him. with the priest beside him, ascending the scaffold in the Place before the cathedral doors; could see the packed square, the projecting house-fronts alive with curious faces; and for one minute was a mere bewildered, de

Death should She, such as

spairing old woman. Then all the force latent in her revolted. not have him so easily! she was, would fight him for his prize. It was one thing to enter Clermont with the market carts in the twilight of morning, when every petty official at the gate was on his mettle to weigh and measure, question and hector; and another to leave it at an hour when all good citizens were forgetting their labors and their dignity over a savory meal. The keeper of the gate that led towards the mountains required no persuasion to permit the egress of an old peasant woman, riding a small trim brown donkey. He complimented the old lady on her mount, and listening to the quick patter of the small hoofs under the echoing gateway, meditated harmlessly on the ways of donkeys, who start well but are soon overtaken by their habitual laziness.

But Jolivette, possibly because she was a witch's donkey, still quickened her pace, a fast-dwindling speck upon the empty road.

At first it was a pleasant road, almost level between gently sloping fields; then a steady ascent overhung by rough, untilled ground, which fell away from the mountain's gaunt feet. Jolivette needed persuasion, and got it. Half-way past a gap in the rocky bank she was sharply reined in. She turned with reluctance towards the gap. Perhaps she knew what lay before her. Her rider eyed the steep path that climbed and climbed close above a brawling stream, and (presumably) asked herself whether her beast and she could ever master it, ever thread their way between thicket and boulder, and survive the precipitous descent into the valley beyond. And here contemporary evidence as to what took place becomes sharply contradictory, question being, did the witch of St. Quenet and her Jolivette become a pair of ravens, and spreading strong wings

the

sail off over the tree-tops? or did Mère Jacquard merely trust herself to Jolivette's stout legs and the devil's casual help?

However confidently individuals differed on this point, they were perfectly, agreed upon one aspect of it. Since Mère Jacquard reached Ivay when M. de Rozède was still at dinner, she could only have got there by means more or less supernatural.

The servant who received her saw only a small brown donkey, dark with sweat, and an old woman who seemed half distraught.

M. le Vicomte, sitting at dinner, was told that an old Commère wished to speak to him. "Very well," he said "let her wait," and learnt that the astonishing old person objected to waiting. "Very well, then - let her go-to the devil!"

Madame la Vicomtesse, who was listening with her elbows on the table, a charming picture of eager curiosity, laughed suddenly like a child. Her husband rose up and went into the outer hall, to find an old bent woman huddled in a chair. In answer to his questions she stared blankly. It was Madame la Vicomtesse who ran for a glass of wine, and held it to Mère Jacquard's trembling lips.

Three mouthfuls were enough. The witch of St. Quenet threw back her head, her eyes once more aglow like smouldering fires. "Votre Seigneurie," she said, "the case against you has been tried. It is over-ended. You are con demned."

M. de Rozède's eyebrows rose incredulously. "To pay a fine?" he asked. "To die on the scaffold."

"She is mad!" cried Madame la Vicomtesse.