"Beyond these souvenirs of Octave Feuillet as a young man," continued his widow, "I have nothing but a drawing by Dantan, made at the time of the great success of the Sphinx at the Comedie Française, that is to say, about ten years before his death, and a large canvas by Hirch, a full-length, painted after 1880. But isn't it too dark for reproduction?"
To these portraits of the author of "Julia de Trécoeur" we may add a number of photographs, all of them taken after 1860. First, the large full-length portrait published by Goupil about 1869 in the "Galerie Contemporaine." In spite of the defects inherent in all photographs, this is the most like him of all his portraits: it is reproduced as the frontispiece of this volume. We have given several others, among them one from Monciau's drawing, which shows us an Octave Feuillet of thirty-five, who is nevertheless somewhat morose-looking, and various presentments of the quinquagenarian Academician, with the white hair and grey beard of a man still in his prime, which offer a much nobler and more attractive semblance of the writer who has been called "The family Musset."
OCTAVE FEUILLET The last photograph taken in 1889
After the death of the famous novelist and playwright, the sculptor Crauck executed a fine bust of him with the aid of instructions given him by one of the author's sons, Richard Feuillet. Another bust, of little interest and a poor likeness, is at the Hôtel de Ville of St. Lo, where Feuillet was born, and where he often came to rest at his property during the summer.
OCTAVE FEUILLET Sketch by Dantan, about 1878
Octave Feuillet's iconological record certainly does not arrest attention by any curious, startling, or hitherto unpublished elements. We have no childish or youthful portraits, nothing but the cold countenance of the man who had already "arrived;" no whimsical artistic sketch, not even any satirical caricature, to compromise, enliven, or give a Bohemian touch to the dignified attitude and severe correctness of the writer of the Revue des Deux Mondes. It is, we think, to be regretted. Octave Feuillet remains an over-official figure for us, bearing too obviously the stamp of the photographer's solemn poses, and sacramental "Quite still, please."
OCTAVE UZANNE.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN ***