The Novels, Romances and Writings of Alphonse Daudet
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fyxmll Uttivmitg ptavg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Stletirg W. Sage X891 4,.4ifcy4j.i iirnliL The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088382761 Alphonse Daudet and his Secretary. THE NOVELS, ROMANCES AND WRITINGS OF ALPHONSE DAUDET THIRTY YEARS IN PARIS ULTIMA • NEW YORK THE ATHENAEUM SOCIETY Copyright, 1899, 1900, By Little, Brown, and Company. AU righis reserved. CONTENTS. P»BB INTRODUCTORY NOTE ii Pages from My Life and My Books; I. The Arrival t II. Villemessant . 15 III. My First Coat 29 IV. History of My Books. — " Little What's-His- Name" 42 V. The Literary Salons 57 VI. My Drummer 74 VII. History of My Books. — Tartarin of Tarascon . 90 VIII. History of My Books. — Letters From My Mill . 103 IX. My First Play 117 X. Henri Rochefort 125 XI. Henry Monnier 143 XII. The End of a Mountebank and of Murger's Bohemia 149 XIII. History of My Books. — Jack 165 XIV. lie des Moineaux. — A Meeting on the Seine . 186 XV. History of My Books. — Fromont and Risler . 192 XVI. Turg^nieff 207 Ultima. Ultima ^^3 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. When this volume of fugitive articles, mainly reminiscent, was given to the public, in 1888, almost exactly thirty years had passed since the epoch-marking incident in Daudet's life to which the opening article is devoted. Ernest Daudet fixes for us the time of his brother's arrival in Paris as the early part of November 1857, when he ^ was about seventeen and a half years old ; and his first appearance in print — the publication of Les Amoureuses, the volume of verses many of which he had brought with him from the provinces — did not take place until the following year. His journey to Paris and his arrival Daudet had already described in the first chapter of the second part of Little What's-His-Name — the chapter called Mes Caoutchoucs, with which the quasi-auto- biographical part of that story ends. If we read Ernest Daudet's affectionate and admiring tribute to his brother in connection with the " history " of Little What's-His-Name in this volume, and with that story itself, we cannot fail, it seems to me, to be convinced that there have been few auto- i My Brother and I, Chap. XVL ; X Introduction. biographies in the guise of fiction in which the general outline of the narrative is so closely in accord with actual fact, as in this case of Daniel Eyssette and Alphonse Daudet ; and the result is that we have —^the three supplementing one another — an extremely full and satisfactory biog- raphy of the novelist down to the beginning of his literary career. The first few years in Paris are described very briefly by the older brother, who has almost nothing to say of his brother's life after his marriage ; and, as his little book was published in 1 88 1, the last sixteen years of Alphonse Daudet's life are left untouched by him. He feels bound, he says, not to forestall the account which Alphonse may give for himself, either in his memoirs or in the story of his works. It is to be regretted that he exercised this self-restraint, for the only memoirs which his brother has left behind, so far as appears, are contained, with the histories of his books, in this volume and its companion — Memories of a Man of Letters, — and, vastly entertaining as these reminiscences are, and most illuminating as to his character and temperament and methods of work and though they are written, as has been said, with infinite talent and with his unfailing humor, they are sadly lacking in material for anything like an adequate biography of the man. Les Amoureuses, already referred to, was pub- lished in 1859, when Daudet was not yet twenty years of age, and many of the poems had been written long before; his next volume, La Double Introduction. xi Conversion, a "tale in verse," appeared in 1861. These, with the exception of some fugitive pieces, published in newspapers or written in albums, were his only ventures in the field of poetry, and the volumes are principally sought by collectors. During the interval between the publication of Les Amoureuses and that of La Double Conversion, a very marked change had taken place in Daudet's position and prospects ; he was no longer the timid, diffident Little What 's-His-Name ; he had become acquainted with Villemessant, had made his mark in the columns of Le Figaro, which, says M. Ernest Daudet, " was a sort of consecration for an author, a brevet accorded to talent; " and he had, in i860, accepted a position in the office of the Due de Morny, President of the Corps L6gislatif, then and until his death one of the most powerful men in France. Although Daudet had not then seen the last of his Bohemian days, he had gone beyond the point where, if ever, he was in danger of falling to the level of many of those with whom he was thrown in contact; he had passed among them and come forth unscathed, " having lost none of his talent, having left behind none of the bloom of his youth, the freshness of his soul, the uprightness of his heart." "• The publication of Les Amoureuses called forth an extremely eulogistic article in Le Moniteur by M. !l£douard Thierry, and may be said to have 1 My Brother and J, Chap. XVI. xii Introduction. opened the columns of the newspapers to !ts author. It was not long after that Le Figaro (November 24, 1859) published his first article as chroniqueurfantaisiste, a study entitled Les Gueux de Province, in which he described the miseries of provincial school ushers. " This page, glowing with reminiscences of his personal experience and written with great emotion," says an anonymous writer in Larousse, "placed Daudet in full com- munication with the public." ' In 1862, Daudet's third volume was issued by the house of Michel L6vy Freres. It contained, under the general title of The Romance of Red Riding Hood, Scenes and Fancies, six sketches : The Romance of Red-Riding-Hood, The Souls of Para- dise, The Trumpet and the Trumpeter, The Eight Mrs. Bluebeards, An Examination for Charenton, The Nightingales of the Cemetery. In some subse- quent editions, the Adventures of a Butterfly and a Beetle ^ was included with these sketches. " What other than that incorrigible poet Little What 's-His-Name would be capable of writing stories so chimerical, so intangible as The Adven- tures of a Butterfly, etc.. The Romance of Red-Rid- ing-Hood, and The Souls of Paradise? " asks M. Jules Lemaitre ; and, after a very brief r/sum/ of the last-named sketch, he continues: " There you have a mystery which smells a little of heresy ; for the Church teaches not only that the elect will forget the damned, but that the » From LMe What't-His-Name, Part 2, Chap. VIII. ; Introduction. xiii damned will abhor the elect (I do not commend this as an amiable dogma). But there is in this heterodox fantasy, so compromising to St. Peter, an altogether appetizing mixture of ingenuousness, grace and passion." ^ It was in the office of the President of the Corps Ldgislatif that Daudet met M. Ernest I'Epine, who " managed M. de Morny's office," and in collabora- tion with whom he wrote the next of his published works, in a hitherto untried field. In 1862 Michel L^vy Freres issued the " Last Idol, drama in one act, in prose, by MM. E. I'Epine and A. Daudet." The play, was first performed at the Od^on Feb- ruary 4, 1862, and the occasion is described by M. Ernest Daudet.^ Alphonse had been compelled to leave Paris because of the condition of his health, and had passed the winter in Algiers, where, as he tells us in this volume,^ he received the news of the first performance and was so stirred thereby that he forgot health and prudence in his longing to see Paris once more. While the play was not an absolute failure, it achieved no marked success a succh de douces larmes is the most emphatic ex- pression I have seen applied to it, and the douces larmes of the masqueraders on their way to Bullier seem to have impressed the author most vividly at the performance he witnessed on the night of his arrival in Paris: Mardi Gras, 1862. 1 Les Contemporains, £tudes et Portraits Littiraires, 2d Series. » My Brother and I, Chap. XVIII. » Chapter entitled " My First Play." — xiv Introduction. In 1863 The Absent made its appearance from the press of Dupray de la Mah^rie. This thin volume of 43 pages is very rare, and is highly valued by collectors. A copy presented by the author is inscribed: " This is the copy of Paul Arfene, my little Abbd Galiani. " Alphonse Daudet." In 1865 The Absent, which in its original form was called a proverb, was published by L6vy as a comic opera in one act, words by M. Alphonse Daudet, music by M. Ferdinand Poise. There are divers variations between the two, and the denoue- ment is not the same. The opera was first performed at the Op6ra- Comique, October 26, 1864. The second of the plays written by Daudet and I'Epine in collaboration was published by L6vy in 1865, under the title of The White Carnation, comedy in one act, in prose.