THE CROSS OF BERNY

OR

IRENE'S LOVERS

BY MADAME EMILE DE GIRARDIN
MM. THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
JULES SANDEAU AND MERY




PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.


Literary partnerships have often been tried, but very rarely with
success in the more imaginative branches of literature. Occasionally two
minds have been found to supplement each other sufficiently to produce
good joint writing, as in the works of MM. Erckman-Chatrian; but when
the partnership has included more than two, it has almost invariably
proved a failure, even when composed of individually the brightest
intellects, and where the highest hopes have been entertained. Standing
almost if not quite alone, in contrast with these failures of the past,
THE CROSS OF BERNY is the more remarkable; and has achieved the success
not merely of being the simply harmonious joint work of four individual
minds,--but of being in itself, and entirely aside from its interest as
a literary curiosity, a _great book_.

A high rank, then, is claimed for it not upon its success as a literary