her real persons are
brought in, though in an indirect fashion. Finally, the conflict of
flesh and spirit and the general tumult of feeling are too much for
Amaury, and he takes refuge, through the seminary, in the priesthood.
The last event of the book is the death and burial of Madame de Couaen,
her husband and Amaury somewhat melodramatically--and perhaps with a
slight suggestion both of awkward allegory and possible
burlesque--hammering literal nails into her coffin, one on each side.

In addition to the element of passion (both "passion_ate_" in the
English and "passion_nel_" in the French sense) and that of politics,
there is a good deal of more abstract theology and philosophy, chiefly
of the mixed kind, as represented in various authors from Pascal--indeed
from the Fathers--to Saint-Martin.[263]

[Sidenote: Its character in various aspects.]

Now the book (which is undoubtedly a very remarkable one, whether it
does or does not deserve that other epithet which I have seen denied to
it, of "interesting") may be regarded in two ways. The first--as a
document in regard to its author--is one which we have seldom taken in
this _History_, and which the present historian avoids taking as often
as he can. Here, however, it may be contended (and discussion under the
next head will strengthen the contention) that it is almost impossible
to do the book justice, and not very easy even to understand it, without
some consideration of the sort. When Sainte-Beuve published it, he had
run up, or down, a rather curious gamut of creeds and crazes. He had
been a fervent Romantic. He had (for whatever mixture of reasons need
not be entered into here) exchanged this first faith, wholly or
partially, for that singular _un_faith of Saint-Simonianism, which, if
we had not seen other things like it since and at the present day, would
seem incredible as even a hallucination of good wits. He had left this
again to endeavour to be a disciple of Lamennais, and had, not
surprisingly, failed. He was now to set himself to the strange Herculean
task of his _Port-Royal_, which had effects upon him, perhaps stranger
at first sight than on reflection. It left him, after these vicissitudes
and pretty certainly some accompanying experiences adumbrated in
_Volupte_ itself, "L'oncle Beuve" of his later associates--a
free-thinker, though not a violent one, in religion; a critic, never
perhaps purely literary, but, as concerns literature and life combin