ALFRED DE MUSSET
Paris, 1810--Paris, 1857
De Musset at an early age became a member of the cénacle or inner circle of the Romantic writers, with whom he is intimately connected. In 1829 he published a volume of verse of great merit; this and the Spectacle dans un Fauteuil made him famous at once. He had an extremely excitable, poetic temperament and a weak will, which rendered him incapable of entering any useful employment, such as a position in the French Embassy at Madrid, or writing regularly for periodicals, both of these positions having been offered him. He was elected to the French Academy in 1852 and did little work thereafter. His best work was done in verse and in the drama, but his short stories are of extraordinary merit. His poems (especially the Nuits) possess preëminently the lyric quality, genuineness, originality and passion; his dramas, having usually some proverb as a title, show great delicacy, grace, ingenuity and wit; his short stories are exquisite. His style, in contrast to that of Gautier, shows little care for form, and in many respects he may be compared with the English poet Byron.
Important works: Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie (1829), Spectacle dans un Fauteuil (1829), Rolla (1833), Nuits (1835 ff.); Lettre à Lamartine (1836), Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle (1836), Poésies Nouvelles (1840), Comédies et Proverbes (1850-1851, about fifteen), besides several Nouvelles and Contes (1837-1854), such as: Emmeline, Frédéric et Bernerette, Fils du Titien, Margot, Le Merle Blanc, Croisilles (published in 1841), etc.
Edition: Charpentier, in 9 vols.; Lemerre, in 10 vols.
CROISILLES
[250.]--29. et quand je l'aurais. The apodosis (qu'est-ce que je ferais) is omitted and only the protasis is expressed.
[251.]--13. que penserait-on de vous. Distinguish between penser à, to think of, and penser de, to have an opinion of.
[252.]--29. fermes royales. The old monarchy, which existed in France before 1789, used to farm out the taxes to private individuals or to a company, on condition that a certain sum should be turned over to the Government, anything above this sum being the profit of the fermier.
[257.]--9. de la sorte. Preservation of the old demonstrative use of illam; the French article is the weakened Latin demonstrative.
[259.]--1. à peine... que. Notice that que, not quand, is used after à peine; the inversion with à peine has already been mentioned (note to p. 136, l. 4).
[260.]--10. n'avoir pas diné. Both parts of the negative are usually placed before the infinitive.
17. Monsieur aime-t-il. The third person is generally used by French servants in addressing their masters.
[263.]--24. un Turc. De Musset has in mind the Turkish custom of sending sélams (see this word in the vocabulary).
[266.]--4. Mademoiselle. Cher, chère in the salutation of a French letter expresses much greater intimacy than the corresponding English word; it is omitted in formal letters.
[268.]--10. si on lui. Si on and not si l'on is used when the letter l immediately follows.
[269.]--18. plus d'une. Notice that, while the subject contains a plural idea, the verb is singular because of the influence of un.
[270.]--16. profondément. Not an exception to the rule that French adverbs are derived by adding -ment to the feminine adjective; adverbs of this type go back to past participles ending in -ée, the final e having been lost (aveuglément, commodément, conformément, etc.), or are formed on analogy with adverbs that are so derived (see Darmesteter, Historical French Grammar, p. 382).
[277.]--26. grand'chose. See note to p. 87, l. 17 (cf. also grand 'peine, l. 8).
[279.]--7. épouser... marier. Distinguish words.