the thanks and the friendship of Balzac.

The latter induced him to take up his domicile in Paris and initiated him
into the art of novel-writing. Bernard had published a volume of odes:
'Plus Deuil que Joie' (1838), which was not much noticed, but a series of
stories in the same year gained him the reputation of a genial 'conteur'.
They were collected under the title 'Le Noeud Gordien', and one of the
tales, 'Une Aventure du Magistrat, was adapted by Sardou for his comedy
'Pommes du voisin'. 'Gerfaut', his greatest work, crowned by the
Academy, appeared also in 1838, then followed 'Le Paravent', another
collection of novels (1839); 'Les Ailes d'Icare (1840); La Peau du Lion
and La Chasse aux Amants (1841); L'Ecueil (1842); Un Beau-pere (1845);
and finally Le Gentilhomme campagnard,' in 1847. Bernard died, only
forty-eight years old, March 6, 1850.

Charles de Bernard was a realist, a pupil of Balzac. He surpasses his
master, nevertheless, in energy and limpidity of composition. His style
is elegant and cultured. His genius is most fully represented in a score
or so of delightful tales rarely exceeding some sixty or seventy pages in
length, but perfect in proportion, full of invention and originality, and
saturated with the purest and pleasantest essence of the spirit which for
six centuries in tableaux, farces, tales in prose and verse, comedies and
correspondence, made French literature the delight and recreation of
Europe. 'Gerfaut' is considered De Bernard's greatest work. The plot
turns on an attachment between a married woman and the hero of the story.
The book has nothing that can justly offend, the incomparable sketches of
Marillac and Mademoiselle de Corandeuil are admirable; Gerfaut and
Bergenheim possess pronounced originality, and the author is, so to
speak, incarnated with the hero of his romance.