Two important events in the life of our author took place respectively in 1896 and 1897. In the former year he was elected on the first ballot to a seat in the French Academy—the seat occupied by Ferdinand de Lesseps, and on the occasion of his séance de réception M. France delivered a tactful and altogether admirable eulogy upon the unfortunate genius whom he succeeded.
This distinction coming after more than fifty years of life would have been enough to mark an epoch in his career, but one year later he issued L’Orme du Mail, a series of notable comments upon contemporary literary and social life. This may be regarded as the outgrowth of the social, political, and literary notes which he had been contributing to the newspapers, and which have been gathered in several volumes, forming probably the most brilliant commentary upon things French which is available to-day.
Doubtless this daily observation of the current trend gave birth to a new man, for now Anatole France is no longer the satirical and lightly ironical dilettante making excursions into the field of speculation, but a robust devotee of the rights of the people. His powerful arraignments of the social and political condition of the French common-people are not the only proofs of a new birth in M. France. Trenchant, witty, and apostolic as are his social sermons—for now and then a sermon may ring true to its word-origin and be a thrust—they were not so amazing and, happily, not so significant, as his brave championship of the cause of Captain Dreyfus when there were few who dared to lift voice against rampant militarism and a prejudiced, Jew-baiting military tribunal.
From this courageous stand it was only a single step to a propagandum to abolish the many abuses which he feels weigh heavily upon the masses—war, plutocracy, clericalism, militarism. I have said that it was only a single step, yet it represents a long journey for the son of a monarchist, a boy educated by priests, the smiling literary experimenter, the speculative pupil of Rénan, to have mounted the Socialistic rostrum and produced anti-military and anti-clerical papers of no doubtful sound. Such is M. France to-day; and though he still fails not in his literary appeal to the intellectuals, the cry that deeply stirs his being is that of the proletariat in need of intelligent, vigorous leadership. Whether or not one agrees with his propagandum, one cannot ignore its significance.
Anatole France has attained distinction in several literary forms. His early poems are not of sufficient merit to make him famous, but they consist of a piquant combination—humor, history, and philosophy. His critical introductions to delightful editions of famous books are charmingly done and sufficiently discriminating. His tractates on questions of the times are earnest, direct, and vigorous. But it is to his novels and stories that we must look to find his most characteristic writings.
To the English reader, his best-known novel is The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), which was crowned by the Academy. Like all of M. France’s novels, it is practically plotless—a fictional framework for the skeptical observations and good-natured ironies of the old philosopher, whose name gives the book its title. A second novel of distinction, if novel it may be called, is The Book of Friendship (le Livre de Mon Ami). It is made up of two parts—The Book of Peter and The Book of Suzanne. The former owes its interest not alone to charm of style, childlikeness of recital, and subtle beauty, but also to its autobiographical character—which M. France has frankly admitted. Three other works immediately rise up for comparison when one reads this keen, sympathetic, and understanding story—Dickens’s David Copperfield, Daudet’s Little What’s-His-Name (le Petit Chose), and Loti’s The Story of a Child; and the very fact of such inevitable comparisons may sufficiently suggest its ingenuous charm, its pseudo-naïvete, and its mingled humor and pathos. No Frenchman, except Victor Hugo, quite entered into child-life as did M. France in this notable compound of fiction and fact, and I am not forgetting either Alphonse Daudet or Gustav Droz in making this assertion.
The inheritance of his mother’s love for fantasy is beautifully illustrated in M. France’s Abeille, a fairy story of perhaps twenty-thousand words. The author’s name will vouch for its style; the simple outline will show the pretty framework for the fictional conception.
La Duchesse des Clarides brings up her daughter Abeille, together with Georges, the only son of la Comtesse Blanchelande, who at her death had confided him to the care of her friend.
The two children one day set out secretly to find the distant lake which they have seen from the high tower of the castle of Clarides. The lake is the home of the Ondines, and the woods surrounding it the realm of the Gnomes. Georges, seeking water and food for Abeille, is seized by the Ondines. Abeille, waiting for Georges’ return, falls asleep, to be wakened by the Gnomes, who carry her to their King Loc. They keep Abeille in order to teach her the wisdom and secrets of their race and they make her their Princess. Loc loves Abeille and offers her all the treasures of his kingdom if she will become his wife. She refuses, asking only to be sent back to her mother, whom she is allowed to see each night in a dream, as her mother also sees her. Loc finally learns that Abeille loves Georges, but that he has disappeared. The Gnome king discovers that the youth is with the Ondines, held prisoner because he wishes to leave the Ondine queen—who also loves him—in order to seek Abeille. Loc magnanimously rescues Georges and sends him to Clarides, but still cannot bring himself to free Abeille. The youth learns of the fate of Abeille from his mother and his serving man, and goes to the Gnome kingdom to rescue her.
Loc cannot keep Abeille longer because of a law allowing mortals, prisoners of the Gnomes, to return to the world after seven years, so he betroths Georges and Abeille and gives them rich gifts, among which is a magic ring having power to bring Abeille and Georges at any time to visit the Gnome realm, where they will be always welcome.