the drama, but only able to succeed in comedy, wherein he gave his two
charming works, _The Barber of Seville_ and _The Marriage of Figaro_.

ANDRE CHENIER.--Almost on the verge of the Revolution, quite unexpectedly
there emerged a really great poet, Andre Chenier, marvellously gifted in
every way. As the poet of love he recalled Catullus and Tibullus; in
political lyricism he suggested d'Aubigny, though with more fervour; as
elegiac poet he possessed a grace that was truly Grecian; as the poet of
nature he employed the large manner of Lucretius; in polemical prose he
was remarkably eloquent. Struck down whilst quite young amid the turmoil
of the Revolution, he bequeathed immortal fragments. No doubt he would
have been the greatest French poet between Racine and Lamartine.

BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.--In prose, his contemporary, Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre, primarily was a man of genius, since he wrote that immortal
idyllic romance, _Paul and Virginia_; subsequently he became a gracious
and amiable pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, being smitten with the
sentiment of nature in his _Harmonies of Nature_; finally he attained
a great importance in literary history as the creator of exotic
literature through the descriptions he wrote of many lands: Asia,
African isles traversed and studied by him, Russia, and Germany.

THE REVOLUTIONARY ORATORS.--During the revolutionary period may be
pointed out the great orators of the Assembly: Mirabeau, Barnave, Danton,
Vergniaud, Robespierre; the ill-starred authors of national songs:
Marie Joseph Chenier; the author of the _Marseillaise_, Rouget de Lisle,
who only succeeded on the day that he wrote it. And so we reach the
nineteenth century.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--At the commencement of a century which was so