FRANÇOIS FABIÉ.
1846.
The son of poor peasants, he has perpetuated the scenes and the simple life of his boyhood and the poverty and rude toil of his country home in verse of deep, pure, and tender feeling.
Works: La Poésie des Bêtes, 1886; le Clocher, 1887; la Bonne terre, 1889; Voix rustiques, 1892; these are collected in the edition of Poésies, 2 vols., 1891-94. 293. LES GENÊTS. From le Clocher.
PAUL DÉROULÈDE.
1846.
Politician, as well as man of letters, he is known especially for his war lyrics, which have achieved a wide popularity. They are recommended more by the vigor of their patriotic sentiment than by their technical qualities.
Works: Chants du Soldat, 1872; Nouveaux Chants du Soldat, 1875;
Marches et Sonneries, 1881; Refrains militaires, 1888; Chants du
Paysan, 1894.
For reference: G. Larroumet, Études de littérature et d'art vol. iii.
296. LE BON GÎTE. From Nouveaux Chants du Soldat.
GEORGES BOUTELLEAU.
1846.
He has won the attention of the smaller public of men of letters by the finish and delicacy of the short poems, which justify the titles of the volumes in which they have been collected by suggesting the art of the miniature painter and the worker in stained glass.
Works: Poèmes en miniature, 1881; le Vitrail, 1887; _les
Cimes_, 1893.
297. LE COLIBRI. From Poèmes en miniature.
298. LES DEUX OMBRES. From le Vitrail.
LOUIS TIERCELIN.
1849.
His work is distinguished by sentiment that is usually pure and sweet, sometimes deep and tender.
Works: Les Asphodèles, 1873; l'Oasis, 1880; les Anniversaires, 1887; les Cloches, 1891; Sur la Harpe, 1897.
298. LE PETIT ENFANT. From l'Oasis. For the form of the triolet see the remarks on versification.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT.
1850-1893.
This famous master of the short story began his literary career, like Daudet, Theuriet, and Bourget, with a volume of verse. Des Vers, 1880.
PAUL BOURGET.
1852.
Like Maupassant, he early forsook poetry for the novel, and for literary criticism. His verse, like his prose, is the work of a psychologist, who observes and analyzes his own experiences. He is never so far possessed by his emotion as to cease to inspect it curiously. In the restlessness of his spirit, the unsettled currents of his moral atmosphere, his doubts and longings, he represents a large fraction of his generation.
Works: La Vie inquiète, 1874; Edel, 1878; les Aveux, 1882; collected in two volumes with the title Poésies, 1885-87.
For reference: J. Lemaître, les Contemporains, vol. ii, 1887; A. N. van Daell, Extraits choisis des oeuvres de Paul Bourget, Boston, 1894 (introduction and lettre autobiographique).
302. PRAETERITA is from la Vie inquiète; the other poems here given are from les Aveux. 13, 14; the second of November, jour des Trépasses, is in the church calendar the day of the special commemoration of the dead.
ABEL HERMANT.
1862.
Another who seems to have been won from poetry to the novel, in which field he has achieved some striking successes. His one volume of verse is les Mépris, 1883. See G. Pellissier, Nouveaux essais de littérature contemporaine, 1895.
305. L'ÉTOILE. 17. LE CHALDÉEN; see St. Matthew ii, i-ii.