and its success enabled him to become a frequent contributor to the · Revue des Deux Mondes.

The true value of Sandeau's work lay in a nobility of sentiment which was the spontaneous expression of his own nature. He was always obliged to earn his own living; yet he never allowed mercenary considerations to affect the quality of his work. His novels are models of careful construction. He could not treat overwhelming passions; but his refined nature had an intuitive appreciation of the more delicate emotions acquired by civilized society. He was particularly fond of depicting the inevitable repulsion experienced. by the ancient aristocracy when forced to meet and adapt itself to new and more democratic social conditions. This was the theme of 'Mademoiselle de la Seiglière,' and also of 'La Maison de Penarvan,' —two of his strongest books. That he could also write charmingly for children is shown in La Roche aux Mouettes.'

It was Sandeau's fate to be associated with greater minds, to whom perhaps more than their share of praise was sometimes given. He wrote several plays in collaboration with Émile Augier; notably 'Le Gendre de M. Poirier,' which ranks as one of the best modern French comedies. He did not cater to public taste, and never became widely popular. It was his fellow authors who most respected and admired him.

In spite of his scanty means, he was very generous. During his early struggles he and the great Balzac were friends. It is said that one day Balzac, hard pressed for a small sum, asked Sandeau for it. Sandeau went out, and by pawning his overcoat raised the money, and took it to him. A few days later, Balzac asked the loan of Sandeau's coat. "I cannot give it to you," said Sandeau simply; and Balzac stormed at his meanness until shamed by a discovery of the truth. Another time, feeling sorry for an old, poor, and embittered publisher named Werdet, he presented him with the manuscript of one of his ablest and most popular stories, 'Le Docteur Herbleu.' Naturally he himself never became rich; although he was made comfortable by the proceeds of his writing, augmented by his salary as librarian, first at the Mazarin library, to which position he was appointed in 1853, and later at St. Cloud. Upon the downfall of the second Napoleon this office was abolished; and Sandeau was granted a pension.

His literary activity ceased to write many

Sandeau was elected Academician in 1859. extended over about twenty-five years; and he years before his death on April 24th, 1883. Although he had little. influence in determining the trend of literature, Sandeau was a decided romanticist in the early days of the romantic movement. His tales are pleasant rather than exciting reading; most noteworthy for delicacy of perception and sympathetic delineation of character.

HOW THE HISTORY OF PENARVAN WAS WRITTEN

From The House of Penarvan

[The Marquise de Penarvan, an aristocrat of the old régime, has been actuated all her life by a ruling passion of family pride. She sacrifices her husband to it; and after his death, her greatest interest is the history of the family of Penarvan, which the Abbé Pyrmil, the chaplain and devoted friend of the family, is writing. She does not love her only child,- her daughter Paule, because she cannot perpetuate the family name.

After vainly trying to win her mother's consent to her marriage with Henri Coverley,- a young man who, although not of noble birth, is in every other respect worthy of her,- Paule marries without it.]

F

ROM the day of her marriage Paule was seized with what some would call a natural, others a morbid, self-reproach, the suffering of which was increased by everything which otherwise would have rendered her happy. She had made a desperate effort to secure the bliss so long coveted, and the capacity of enjoying it when attained was denied to her.

Young, beautiful, worshiped by her husband, in the midst of everything this world can offer of comfort and pleasure, she suffered unremittingly, and in secret wept bitterly; loving her husband as much as ever, the wealth and luxury with which he surrounded her she simply hated. Her thoughts were perpetually reverting to the stern mother, and the old château she had forsaken. A strange sort of yearning for its poverty and simplicity took possession of her soul. She turned with loathing from all the magnificence that her sensitive feelings compared with the penury of the home where her early life had been overshadowed and saddened."

For the first time she understood the grand side of her mother's character,- the dignity of her uncomplaining poverty. She was haunted by the thought of the tears she had - for the first time seen in those eyes, the severe or forgiving glance of which she was never again to meet; they seemed to be dropping like molten lead on her heart.

Henri lavished upon her all that the most devoted affection and tenderest care could devise. His patience, his delicacy of feeling, never failed; and she responded to his love with passionate affection.

"Oh, if you knew how I love you!" she would say. "I would suffer far more even than I do suffer, rather than forego the

blessing of being your wife. Yes, I bless the hour when I first saw you; and I thank God morning, noon, and night for the priceless gift of your love. But oh, forgive me if I cannot be happy, if I cannot forget; if I cannot live on in the midst of splendor and gayety, unforgiven and unblest by my mother."

If Henri reminded her of all she had suffered under that mother's roof, she would answer:

"I was not patient enough; I did not wait as I ought to have done, Henri. I think I have thought so ever since that she was beginning to love me when I left her."

They wrote: only the abbé answered, and his letters held out no hope. They still went on writing, and with no other result. They traveled in Italy, in Greece; but in the midst of all the wonderful beauties of nature and art there was always before Paule's eyes the same vision,- her mother growing old in solitude and poverty.

She gave birth to a child; and the joys of maternal love only sharpened the pangs of a remorse which had grown into a malady. The more intensely she cared for her little girl, the more acute became her regrets and her fears. Would that little one abandon her one day as she had abandoned her mother? Had she any claim upon her own child,- she who had disobeyed and defied her only parent?

Once more Paule wrote to the marquise: no answer came. The abbé was obliged to admit that her letters were never opened, that her name was never to be uttered in her mother's

ears.

They spent a year on the banks of the lake of Como. As time went by, Paule found Henri even more excellent, more perfect, than she had ever supposed that any one could be. It was terrible to her to feel that the wife of such a man should be an unhappy woman; that with such a husband and with such a child she should be wasting away with sorrow. They came back to France discouraged and depressed.

People are often more selfish in their sorrows than in their joys; and yet there is no sort of selfishness which those who are conscientious and kind-hearted should more anxiously shrink from. Paule awakened at last to a sense of the fault she was committing by making the weight of her self-reproach sadden her husband's life; and she made up her mind to reappear in society.

The magnificent house of the Coverleys was thrown open to the world; and she did the honors of balls and parties with simplicity and grace. She was as much admired then as the first days she had been seen at Bordeaux, walking arm in arm with the prince. Her dress was always simple: she disliked to wear jewels or trinkets.

But in spite of all efforts to appear happy in Henri's presence, and her pleasure in her little girl, who was a singularly engaging child, he could not help seeing that she was miserable; and so did Madame de Soleyre, who noticed that whereas formerly she seldom spoke of the marquise, and seemed afraid almost of mentioning her name, now she was always anxious to revert to the subject of her mother's past life, and questioned her minutely as to the time when, in the height of her youth and beauty, Renée de Penarvan had acted such a noble and heroic part, and been the admiration of the Vendean nobility. Paule accused herself of the indifference and want of understanding, as she called it, which had made her fail to appreciate the grand side of her mother's nature.

One night when they had returned from a ball, Paule threw herself down on a sofa and burst into an agony of tears.

She

had struggled all the evening with an oppressive sense of contrast between her mother's fate and her own; and at last the overburdened heart gave way, and she could not control herself any longer, even in Henri's presence. He knelt by her side, and she laid her head on his shoulder.

"What is it, my darling?" he tenderly said. to comfort you?"

What can I do

"Henri," she whispered, "I must go and see my mother. Even at the risk of her driving me away,- of her cursing me,I must go to her."

"But, dearest, if she refuses and she will refuse. to see you? »

Then I shall hide myself in the park; I shall catch sight of her in some way or other."

"We shall set off to-morrow," Henri said.

«< Oh, how good, how kind you are, my own love!" she said, throwing her arms round his neck.

Two days afterwards, in the dusk of an October evening, they arrived at the inn at Tiffange with their little girl, then just three years old. It was too late to send for the abbé, and they set out

on foot for the château; Paule leading the way, and Henri carrying the child.

They entered the park through one of the breaks in the wall, and walked along the alleys strewed with dead leaves. As they approached the house, Paule pointed to a window in which a light was visible, and whispered to her husband:"That is her room. She must be sitting there."

It was a strange thing that those young people, who had youth and beauty and mutual love to gladden, their lives, who possessed houses and villas and many a ship crossing the ocean laden with rich merchandise, and whose wealth was every day increasing, should have been standing before that dilapidated building with the one wish, the one desire, to be admitted within those doors, closed to them perhaps forever.

room.

In another window a light gleamed also. That was the abbé's What was he doing? Was he praying for his little Paule? Was he still working at his 'History of the House of Penarvan '? When Paule was a child, she used to stand under the abbe's window and clap her hands together three times to summon him into the garden. She advanced and made the well-known signal. The window opened, and the abbé, looking like a tall ghost, appeared, leaning out of it as if to dive into the outward dark

ness.

"Abbé, my own abbé," Paule cried in a mournful voice.

The ghost disappeared; and a moment afterwards the abbé was clasping Paule, her husband, and her child in his wide arms, and then dragging them like secreted criminals into his room.

"You here, my child, and you, M. Henri, and this darling?" "I am broken-hearted, abbé: I cannot live on in this state. Do, do make my mother see me. Oh, do get her to forgive me." The abbé had taken the little child on his knees, and she was looking up into his face with a pretty smile.

"Oh, M. l'Abbé, do help us!" Coverley said.

The abbé was looking attentively at the little girl. She was so like what Renée had been as a child.

"What does my mother feel? Does she allow you to speak of us? Does she ever mention me?"

The abbé was silent. He could not say yes, he could not bear to say no.

ner.

"I see there is no hope," Paule exclaimed in a despairing man"It is really to her as if I were dead!"