romances of modern French life on which the reputation of Alphonse
Daudet as a novelist is mainly built. They placed him, for the moment at
all events, near the head of contemporary European literature. By this
time, however, a physical malady, which Charcot was the first to locate
in the spinal cord, had begun to exhaust the novelist's powers. This
disease, which took the form of what was supposed to be neuralgia in
1881, racked him with pain during the sixteen remaining years of his
life, and gradually destroyed his powers of locomotion. It spared
the functions of the brain, but it cannot be denied that after 1884
something of force and spontaneous charm was lacking in Daudet's books.
He continued, however, the adventures of Tartarin, first with unabated
gusto in the Alps, then less happily as a colonist in the South Seas. He
wrote, in the form of a novel, a bitter satire on the French Academy,
of which he was never a member; this was "L'Immortel" of 1888. He wrote
romances, of little power, the best being "Rose et Ninette" of 1892, but
his imaginative work steadily declined in value. He published in 1887
his reminiscences, "Trente Ans de Paris," and later on his "Souvenirs
d'un Homme de Lettres." He suffered more and more from his complaint,
from the insomnia it caused, and from the abuse of chloral. He was
able, however, to the last, to enjoy the summer at his country-house, at
Champrosay, and even to travel in an invalid's chair; in 1896 he visited
for the first time London and Oxford, and saw Mr. George Meredith. In
Paris he had long occupied rooms in the Rue de Bellechasse, where Madame
Alphonse Daudet was accustomed to entertain a brilliant company. But in
1897 it became impossible for him to mount five flights of stairs any
longer, and he moved to the first floor of No. 41 Rue de l'Universite.
Here on the 16th of December, 1897, as he was chatting gaily at the
dinner-table, he uttered a cry, fell back in his chair, and was dead.
The personal appearance of Alphonse Daudet, in his prime, was very
striking; he had clearly cut features, large brilliant eyes, and an