period when Alexandre Dumas, fils, wrote to him thrice: "You are the
only author whose books I await with impatience."

The day came, however, when this dominant impassivity became stirred,
when the marble became flesh by contact with life and suffering. And
the work of the romancer, begun by the novelist, became warm with a
tenderness that is found for the first time in Mont Oriol....

But this sentimental outburst that astonished his admirers quickly
dies down, for the following year, there appeared the sober Pierre et
Jean, that admirable masterpiece of typical reality constructed with
"human leaven," without any admixture of literary seasoning, or
romantic combinations. The reader finds once more in his splendid
integrity the master of yore.

But his heart has been touched, nevertheless. In the books that
follow, his impassivity gives way like an edifice that has been slowly
undermined. With an ever-growing emotion he relates under slight
disguises all his physical distress, all the terrors of his mind and
heart.

What is the secret of this evolution? The perusal of his works gives
us a sufficient insight into it.

The Minstrel has been received in country houses; has been admitted to
"the ladies' apartments." He has given up composing those hurried
tales which made his fame, in order to construct beautiful romances of
love and death.... The story teller has forsaken rustics and peasants,
the comrades of the "Repues franches," for the nobility and the
wealthy. He who formerly frequented Mme. Tellier's establishment now