(1844-)
natole France, whose real name of Thibault is sunk in his literary signature, was born in Paris, April 16th, 1844. His father, a wealthy bookseller, seems to have been a thoughtful, meditative man, and his mother a woman of great refinement and tenderness. Their son shows the result of the double influence. Always fond of books, he early devoted himself to literary work, and made his début as writer in 1868 in a biographical study of Alfred de Vigny. This was shortly followed by two volumes of poetry: 'Les Poèmes Dorés' (Golden Verses) and 'Les Noces Corinthéennes' (Corinthian Revels). Since this work of his youth he has published at least twelve novels and romances, of which the most familiar are: 'Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard' (The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard), 'Le Livre de Mon Ami' (My Friend's Book), 'Le Lys Rouge' (The Red Lily), and 'Les Désirs de Jean Servieu' (Jean Servieu's Wishes). Several volumes of essays, critical introductions to splendid editions of Racine, Molière, La Fontaine, and Le Sage, of 'Manon Lescaut' and 'Paul and Virginia,' numberless studies of men and books for the reviews and journals,—these measure the tireless industry of an incessant worker. In 1876 M. France became an attaché of the Library of the Senate. In December 1896 he was received as member of the French Academy, succeeding to the chair of Ferdinand de Lesseps, whose eulogy he pronounced with exquisite taste and grace.
Anatole France
Like Renan, whose disciple he is, this fine artist was formed in the clerical schools. His perfection of style, clear, distinguished, scintillating with wit and fancy, furnishes, as a distinguished French critic remarks, a strong contrast to the painful and heavy periods of the literary products of a State education. He is an enthusiastic humanist, a fervent Neo-Hellenist, delicately sensitive to the beauty of the antique, the magic of words, and the harmony of phrase.
Outside of France, his best known works are 'Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard' (crowned by the Academy) and 'Le Livre de Mon Ami.' The first of these expresses the author's Hellenism, sentiment, experience, love of form, and gentle pessimism. Into the character of Sylvestre Bonnard, that intelligent, contemplative, ironical, sweet-natured old philosopher, he has put most of himself. In 'Le Livre de Mon Ami' are reflected the childhood and youth of the author. It is a living book, made out of the impulses of the heart, holding the very essence of moral grace, written with exquisite irony absolutely free from bitterness.
It is to be regretted that in some of his later writings this charming writer has fallen short of the standard of these works, though the versatility of talent he displays is great and admirable. In 'Thaïs' he has painted the magnificent Alexandria of the Ptolemies; in 'Le Lys Rouge' the Florence of to-day. In 'La Rôtisserie de la Reine Pedauque' (The Cook-Shop of the Queen Pedauque) and in 'Les Opinions de M. Jérome Coignard,' Gil Blas, Rabelais, Wilhelm Meister, and Montaigne seem to jostle each other. In 'Le Jardin d'Épicure' (The Garden of Epicurus) a modern Epicurus, discreet, indulgent, listless, listens to lively discussions between the shades of Plato, Origen, Augustine, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, while an Esquimaux refutes Bossuet, a Polynesian develops his theory of the soul, and Cicero and Cousin agree in their estimate of a future life.
In his own words, M. Anatole France has always been inclined to take life as a spectacle, offering no solution of its perplexities, proposing no remedies for its ills. His literary quality, as M. Jules Lemaître observes, owes little or nothing to the spirit or literature of the North. His intelligence is the pure and extreme product of Greek and Latin tradition.