Frenchmen are not, as is frequently asserted by their Anglo-Saxon critics, totally unfit to appreciate humor, when it is mingled with the study of man's nature and seasoned with that high-spiced irony of which they have been so fond at all times, from the days of Villon to those of Rochefort. Still, Daudet would never have acquired such a complete mastery over the general public in his own country, if he had not been able to gratify their taste for that graphic and faithful description of manners and characters, which in other centuries put the moralists into fashion. Realism never disappears altogether from French literature: it was at that moment all-powerful. Zola was coming to the front with the first volumes of the well-known 'Rougon-Macquart' and Daudet in 1874 entered on the same path, though in a different spirit, with 'Fromont Jeune et Risler Ainé.' The success was immediate and immense. The French bourgeoisie accepted it at once as a true picture of its vices and its virtues. The novel might, it is true, savor a little of Parisian cockneyism. Fastidious critics might discover in it some mixture of weak sentimentalism, or a few traces of Dickensian affectation and cheap tricks in story-telling. Young men of the new social school might take exception to that old-fashioned democracy which had its apotheosis in Risler senior. Despite all those objections, it was pronounced a masterpiece of legitimate pathos and sound observation. Even the minor characters were judged striking, and Delobelle's name, for instance, occurs at once to our mind whenever we try to realize the image of the modern cabotin.
'Jack,' which came next, exceeded the usual length of French novels. "Too much paper, my son!" old Flaubert majestically observed with a smile when the author presented him with a copy of his book. As for George Sand, she felt so sick at heart and so depressed when she had finished reading 'Jack,' that she could work no more and had to remain idle for three or four days. A painful book, indeed, a distressing book, but how fascinating! And is not its wonderful influence over the readers exemplified in the most striking manner by the fact that it had the power to unnerve and to incapacitate for her daily task that most valiant of all intellectual laborers, that hardest of hard workers, George Sand?
The lost ground, if there had been any lost at all, was soon regained with 'Le Nabab' (The Nabob) and 'Les Rois en Exil' (Kings in Exile). They took the reader to a higher sphere of emotion and thought, showed us greater men fighting for greater things on a wider theatre than the middle-class life in which Fromont and Risler had moved. At the same time they kept the balance more evenly than 'Jack' had done between the two elements of human drama, good and evil, hope and despair, laughter and tears. But a higher triumph was to be achieved with 'Numa Roumestan,' which brought Daudet's literary fame to its zenith.
'Tartarin' had not exhausted all that the author had to say of meridional ways and manners. The Provençal character has its dramatic as well as its comic aspect. In 'Numa Roumestan' we have the farce and the tragedy blended together into a coherent whole. We have a Tartarin whose power over man and woman is not a mockery but a reality, who can win love and sympathy and admiration, not in little Tarascon, mind you, but in Paris; who sends joy abroad and creates torture at home; a charming companion, a kind master, a subtle politician, a wonderful talker, but a light-hearted and faithless husband, a genial liar, a smiling and good-natured deceiver; the true image of the gifted adventurer who periodically emerges from the South and goes northward finally to conquer and govern the whole country.
As Zola has remarked, the author of 'Numa Roumestan' poured himself out into that book with his double nature, North and South, the rich sensuous imagination, the indolent easy-going optimism of his native land, and the stern moral sensitiveness which was partly characteristic of his own mind, partly acquired by painful and protracted experience. To depict his hero he had only to consult the most intimate records of his own lifelong struggle. For he had been trying desperately to evince Roumestan out of his own being. He had fought and conquered, but only partially conquered. And on this partial failure we must congratulate him and congratulate ourselves. He said once that "Provençal landscape without sunshine is dull and uninteresting." The same may be said of his literary genius. It wants sunshine, or else it loses half its loveliness and its irresistible charm. 'Roumestan' is full of sunshine, and there is no other among his books, except 'Tartarin,' where the bright and happy light of the South plays more freely and more gracefully.
The novel is equally strong if you examine it from a different standpoint. Nothing can be artistically better and more enchanting than the Farandole scene, or more amusing than Roumestan's intrigue with the young opera singer; nothing can be more grand than old Le Quesnoy's confession of sin and shame, or more affecting than the closing scene where Rosalie is taught forgiveness by her dying sister. Other parts in Daudet's work may sound hollow; 'Numa Roumestan' will stand the most critical scrutiny as a drama, as a work of art, as a faithful representation of life. Daudet's talents were then at their best and united in happy combination for that splendid effort which was not to be renewed.
In 'Sapho' Daudet described the modern courtesan, in 'L'Évangéliste' a desperate case of religious madness. In 'L'Immortel' he gave vent to his feelings against the French Academy, which had repulsed him once and to which he turned his back forever in disgust. The angry writer pursued his enemy to death. In his unforgiving mood, he was not satisfied before he had drowned the Academy in the muddy waters of the Seine, with its unfortunate Secrétaire-perpetuel, Astier-Réhu. The general verdict was that the vengeance was altogether out of proportion to the offense; and that despite all its brilliancy of wit and elaborate incisiveness of style, the satire was really too violent and too personal to give real enjoyment to unbiased and unprejudiced readers.
At different periods of his career Daudet had tried his hand as a dramatist, but never succeeded in getting a firm foot on the French stage. Play-goers still remember the signal failure of 'Lise Tavernier,' the indifferent reception of 'L'Arlésienne,' or more recently, of 'L'Obstacle.' All his successful novels have been dramatized, but their popularity in that new form fell far short of the common expectation. As an explanation of the fact various reasons may be suggested. Daudet, I am inclined to think, is endowed with real dramatic powers, not with scenic qualities; and from their conventional point of view, old stagers will pronounce the construction of his novels too weak for plays to be built upon them. Again, in the play-house we miss the man who tells the story, the happy presence—so unlike Flaubert's cheerless impassibility—the generous anger, the hearty laugh, the delightful humor, that strange something which seems to appeal to every one of us in particular when we read his novels. Dickens was once heard to say, on a public occasion, that he owed his prodigious world-wide popularity to this: that he was "so very human." The words will apply with equal felicity to Daudet's success. He never troubles to conceal from his readers that he is a man. When the critic of the future has to assign him a place and to compare his productions with the writings of his great contemporary and fellow-worker Émile Zola, it will occur to him that Daudet never had the steady-going indomitable energy, the ox-like patience, the large and comprehensive intellect which are so characteristic in the master of Médan; that he recoiled from assuming, like the author of 'Germinal' and 'Lourdes,' a bold and definite position in the social and religious strife of our days; that he never dreamt for a moment of taking the survey of a whole society and covering the entire ground on which it stands with his books.
Such a task—the critic will say—would have been uncongenial to him. The scientist is careful to explain everything and to omit nothing; he aims at completeness. But Daudet is an artist, not a scientist. He is a poet in the primitive sense of the word, or, as he styled himself in one of his books, a "trouvère." He has creative power, but he has at the same time his share of the minor gift of observation. He had to write for a public of strongly realistic tendencies, who understood and desired nothing better than the faithful, accurate, almost scientific description of life. Daudet could supply the demand, but as he was not born a realist, whatever social influences he had been subjected to, he remained free from the faults and excesses of the school. He borrowed from it all that was good and sound; he accepted realism as a practical method, not as an ultimate result and a consummation. Again, he was preserved from the danger of going down too deep and too low into the unclean mysteries of modern humanity, not so much perhaps by moral delicacy as by an artistic distaste for all that is repulsive and unseemly. For those reasons, it would not be surprising if—when Death has made him young again—Alphonse Daudet was destined to outlive and outshine many who have enjoyed an equal or even greater celebrity during this century. He will command an ever increasing circle of admirers and friends, and generations yet unborn will grow warm in his sunshine.
