vice. But with the realists it becomes a matter of no little sagacity to discern good from evil. Not only are human beings the creatures of heredity and circumstance, but they are constantly overstepping the limits assigned to them and encroaching on their neighbours. Germinie Lacerteux, the drunkard, the thief, and the wanton, is withal a good soul, full of the best intentions. Again the virtuous, moralising bourgeois of Zola's Pot-Bouille are a pack of arrant knaves. All this upset the law and order established by the classical school, and introduced the methods of science into the divine realm of literature.

Unfortunately the realists, stung by resistance, often put themselves in the wrong. Taxed with the vulgarity of their subjects, they had recourse to indecency, and the general public, by their attitude, only fanned the quarrel. They remained faithful to the romantic school, to the very poorest of the classical writers. When they did read the works of the realists, they professed to do so out of mere curiosity, thus putting a premium upon impurity and coarseness. It is a fact that, in spite of the artistic excellencies with which they abound, the most successful productions of the realistic school owed their popularity to scandal. While his purer novels hardly obtained a reading, Flaubert's Madame Bovary sold by the thousand for the sake of the daring scenes it depicts. The Goncourts met with very little appreciation until they published La Fille Elisa, which is far from being their best work, but which deals with the subject of prostitution.

Thus the public and the Académie had their share of responsibility for the immorality of these works. Art has nothing to gain in thus pandering to the unhealthy curiosity of the public. Our very greatest master of style, Jean La Fontaine, has left Fables far more perfect than his licentious tales. And all the talent lavished by Flaubert upon the voluptuous scenes in Madame Bovary does not make these passages the most thrilling, the most life-like, or the most beautiful in his book. No doubt, however, La Fontaine would have been left to starve had he not written his Tales; and similarly, finding themselves subjected to unmerited ostracism, the realists of the latter half of the nineteenth century did not hesitate to call in scandal as a means of attracting the reader. In this way the public were gradually taught to appreciate the wonderful art of a Gautier, a Flaubert, or a Zola. Nor was it long before the feeble productions of the neo-romantic and the neo-classical writers began to appear insipid and intolerable. It is often thus with human progress, evil beginnings eventually making for good. In the long run both mind and heart have everything to gain in building upon truth rather than upon falsehood, however attractive. Leu us hasten to add that the Goncourts made but little use of the VOL. LXXIV. N.S.

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bait of indecency. La Fille Elisa is, it is true, the story of an unfortunate of the lowest type, but the subtlety of the treatment divests the subject almost entirely of its objectionable character. In Germinie Lacerteur the unwholesome impression is completely obliterated by the chasteness of the style and the compassionate tenderness that pervades its every part. The remaining novels of the Goncourts, Charles Demailly, Renée Mauperin, Manette, Salomon, Madame Gervaisais, Chérie, La Faustin, etc., are one and all powerful studies of individual types of modern society, admirable works in which two noble and unselfish men pour forth without stint all the talent nature had bestowed upon them.

It might have been thought that the splendid historical works of the Goncourts would alone have been a sufficient title in the eyes of a company that has admitted to its ranks so many inferior historians. But here again, no doubt, the two brothers were handicapped by their realistic tendencies. History proper, with its conventional symbols, was distasteful to them. They studied the eighteenth century in works of patient erudition, as lovers of art and human individuality. This delightful manner, judiciously as it was applied, was held unworthy of the subject. It did not suit the pompous school of history. The Académie ignored the authors of Marie Antoinette, of the Pompadour, of the Histoire de la Société Française pendant la Révolution et pendant le Directoire, etc., etc.

The divergence must have been fundamental, for, over and above their literary ability, the Goncourts possessed another quality, well calculated to commend them to the choice of the Forty. They were perfect men of the world, of distinguished manners and noble presence, and were full of wit and refinement. It is impossible to question the unerring delicacy of their taste. They got together a collection of curios, examples of Japanese and eighteenth century art, of drawings, prints and bronzes, the sale of which yielded the necessary funds for the endowment of their Academy. Let them be given their due. By the lives they led, by their books, and by the way they disposed of their property, the Goncourts set an example of passionate, distinterested love of art, of unselfish devotion to literature. Strong, handsome and wealthy, they yet sacrificed to their work family joys, the sweetness of leisure hours, and the social advantages they might have reaped in some other field of labour. They neither of them married, and the first rays of dawn frequently found them bending over their work as if they had belonged to those classes which earn their bread with the sweat of their brows. In point of fact, they neither derived, nor sought to derive, any material profit from their unremitting toil.

What then was the motive of so strenuous an effort? Some have

pronounced it an abnormal development of ambition, thus ignoring that love of glory, that confident hope of immortality, that determination not to live and perish entirely in their own time which were unquestionably the principal motives of the two brothers. Should it not rather be termed a noble idealism, and one that preserved them from all sordid temptations and enabled them to pass unscathed through some of the most appalling phases of French history-the Empire, the Franco-German War, the Commune without ever losing faith in humanity, for their conception of art was that of an incorruptible spirit, enduring from generation to generation, and dwelling on high, far above human ills and vicissitudes?

race.

Were it to become general, such an attitude would, no doubt, be productive of evil rather than of good. The future of mankind depends upon the present, and it is not by placing ourselves above our daily round of duties, above our cares and responsibilities as fathers and citizens, that we can further the greatness of our But the Goncourts, at least, redeemed this lack of solidarity by their devotion to work. Not theirs the life of the rich dilettante, usually leading to gentle scepticism. They were upheld by burning enthusiasm. To obtain all the most alluring gifts of glory, they had but to write one or two strictly conventional books, some commonplace history or some creditable play. But they preferred to expend their effort in a score of daring novels, which closed against them the doors of every official institution. Jules, the younger, died in harness, at the age of forty, without even having been made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.

III. THE ORIGIN OF THE GONCOURT ACADEMY.

The Goncourts were not alone to find their labour unrequited. Throughout the Second Empire, art and literature as a whole suffered a most trying eclipse. The Parisian salons, those havens of refuge for French artists and writers, were closed to all manner of intellectual life, and became wholly engrossed with politics or the pursuit of pleasure. It was the reign of mediocrity, both in society and at Court. A young relative of the Emperor's, Princess Mathilde, was alone daring enough to receive into her intimacy men of the worth of Gautier, Flaubert, and the Goncourts. Not that she appears to have had any special predilection for literature. Her interest lay rather in the direction of painting, and it was the painter Giraud who introduced to his generous friend and patroness the whole pleiad of realistic writers, of whom Gautier was then the leading spirit. But, whether direct or indirect, the kindly sympathy of the Princess somewhat alleviated the unjust severity of society and the public at large

towards writers of such remarkable talent. She it was who caused Flaubert and the elder Goncourt to be appointed to the Legion of Honour. The second of these always remained faithful to the Princess. Up to the very last he used to visit her at her country seat at St. Gratien, near Paris, where he spent a few weeks as her guest every summer. This explains his leaving her all his property, to be applied for charitable purposes, in case his other dispositions could not be fulfilled.

Another great resource of both Jules and Edmondlater on of Edmond alone-was the Dîner de Magny. Here they met admirable conversationalists such as Berthelot, Renan, Gautier, Ste. Beuve. and here

every great conception that was formed in the world of science or literature found its echo. It may be doubted, perhaps, whether the Goncourts always thoroughly understood what Berthelot said to them, and whether they did not take Renan's words too literally, as he subsequently taxed them with doing. However that may be, they derived the greatest enjoyment from this intercourse of which the salient features are faithfully recorded in the frequent allusions to the Dîner de Magny that occur in their diary. Hence the clause in the statutes of the Goncourt Academy, prescribing that its members shall meet at dinner five times a year. Besides these Magny dinners, there was the Dîner des Cinq, comprising Flaubert, Tourguéneff, Zola, Daudet, and Edmond de Goncourt, all of whom except, of course, the last, were to be members of the future Academy.

At the death of Flaubert, in 1880, Edmond de Goncourt opened what was called the Grenier, to continue the Sunday receptions of the illustrious author of Madame Bovary. The said Grenier consisted in a spacious apartment, obtained by removing the wall separating two rooms. On the floor Goncourt laid down a rich carpet, with a blue ground relieved here and there by a dainty red flower. He hung the walls with antique tapestries, with drawings by Gavarni and Kakimonos, by Japanese masters. At the far end of the room stood a broad divan, upon which the writer has often seen Daudet and Goncourt seated together. A glass cabinet full of books and curios was placed against the wall on the side nearest the door. Opposite, more cabinets, and, in the place of honour, the rocking-chairs in which the two brothers used to sit and smoke together. In this Grenier would assemble all who possess to-day, or who have left behind them, a name in literature or in art: Zola, Daudet, Guy de Maupassant, Bourget, Bonnetain, the painters. Carrière and Raffaëli, the sculptor Rodin, and with these, all the present Goncourt Academy, except, perhaps, Bourges.

The Goncourts looked forward to a time when their Academy

should have a place of its own in which to hold its assemblies. Meantime, and until some generous patron shall have made this possible, they have expressed the desire that their Academicians shall meet at dinner five times a year. The Dîner de Magny, and the Dîner des Cinq were surely in Edmond de Goncourt's mind when he wrote this clause of his last will and testament.

IV. THE WILL, THE MEMBERS OF THE NEW ACADEMY. The will of the Goncourts was a literary document of considerable length. It was written with the utmost care, but, in spite of this, it gave rise to litigation. Yet its clear and precise wording, the pains at which the writer had been to prune and polish his style so as to render it more exact and more harmonious, could not have a decisive influence upon the final issue. In the preamble to the judgment finding for the defendants, a special clause was inserted, pointing out the unequivocal character of the intentions of a testator who had dwelt at such length and with such perfection of style upon the organisation of his future Academy.

The principal clauses of the will are well known. After a few words of introduction, setting forth that he possessed no near relation in straitened circumstances, Goncourt left his entire property to Alphonse Daudet and Léon Hennique, stipulating that they should solicit official sanction for a literary society comprising ten members. If sanction were refused, the estate was to revert to Princess Mathilde, who was instructed to make it over to a charitable institution, bearing the name of “Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows," and consisting mainly in an orphan-school for girls.

Goncourt died during the night between the 15th and 16th of July, 1896, at Champrosay, in the country house of his friend, Alphonse Daudet. When the will was read, it was found to give the names of eight Academicians out of ten: Alphonse Daudet, J. K. Huysmans, Léon Hennique, Octave Mirbeau, the two brothers J. H. Rosny, Gustave Geffroy, and Paul Margueritte. These were designated by the testator to succeed the ten original members, Théophile Gautier, Louis Veuillot, Gustave Flaubert, Paul de St. Victor, Fromentin, Barbey d'Aurévilly, Théodore de Banville, Jules Vallès, Emile Zola,and Alphonse Daudet, all dead but the last two. Daudet's name occurs again in the new list; as for Zola, he had been struck off the list in 1888, when he came forward as a candidate for the Académie. The eight Academicians named in the will were empowered to fill up the two remaining vacancies.

Apart from a few unimportant legacies, among which was an