English ways, as was--somewhat strangely--evidenced by her wearing a
green veil, orange-colored gloves, and silver-rimmed spectacles. As she
passed the promenaders, she turned to look at a water-mill near the ford,
where there were bags of grain, geese, and an ox in harness, and she
exclaimed to her governess, "_Voilà un site romantique_."

This mysterious sentence roused the flagging curiosity of MM. Dupuis and
Contonet, and they renewed their investigations. A passage in a
newspaper led them to believe for a time that romanticism was the
imitation of the Germans, with, perhaps, the addition of the English and
Spanish. Then they were tempted to fancy that it might be merely a
matter of literary form, possibly this _vers brisé_ (run-over lines,
_enjambement_) that they are making so much noise about. "From 1830 to
1831 we were persuaded that romanticism was the historic style (_genre
historique_) or, if you please, this mania which has lately seized our
authors for calling the characters of their novels and melodramas
Charlemagne, Francis I., or Henry IV., instead of Amadis, Oronte, or
saint-Albin. . . From 1831 to the year following we thought it was the
_genre intime,_ about which there was much talk. But with all the pains
that we took we never could discover what the _genre intime_ was. The
'intimate' novels are just like the others. They are in two volume
octavo, with a great deal of margin. . . They have yellow covers and
they cost fifteen francs." From 1832 to 1833 they conjectured that
romanticism might be a system of philosophy and political economy. From
1833 to 1834 they believed that it consisted in not shaving one's self,
and in wearing a waistcoat with wide facings very much starched.

At last they bethink themselves of a certain lawyer's clerk, who had
first imported these literary disputes into the village, in 1824. To
him, they expose their difficulties and ask for an answer to the