ite in the
other sex, than a real story. The little _Histories Vraies_, which he
wrote with a friend for the _Moniteur_ in 1864, are fairly good. For the
formally entitled _Contes et Nouvelles_ and the collection headed by
_Ilka_, _v. inf._

[375] He represents himself as suffering forty-eight hours of very easy
imprisonment for not mounting guard as a "National," and writing the
story to pass the time.

[376] The author has shown his skill by inducing at least one very old
hand to wonder, for a time at least, whether Dr. Servans is a quack, or
a lunatic, or Hoffmannishly uncanny, when he is, in fact, something
quite different from any of these.

[377] The other, Clementine (who is not very unlike a more modern Claire
d'Orbe), being not nearly so "candid" as her comrade Marie, continues
honest.

[378] _V. sup._ Vol. I. p. 204.

[379]

[Sidenote: _Revenants. Sophie Printemps._]

Two early and slight books (one of them, perhaps, the "bad" one referred
to above) may find place in a note. _Revenants_ is a fantasy, in which
the three most famous pairs of lovers of the later eighteenth century,
Des Grieux and Manon, Paul and Virginie, Werther and Charlotte, are
revived and brought together (_v. sup._ p. 378). This sort of thing, not
seldom tried, has very seldom been a success; and _Revenants_ can hardly
be said to be one of the lucky exceptions. _Sophie Printemps_ is the
history of a good girl, who, out of her goodness, deliberately marries
an epileptic. It has little merit, except for a large episode or
parenthesis of some forty or fifty pages (nearly a sixth of the book),
telling the prowess of a peremptory but agreeable baron, who first foils
a dishonest banker, and then defends this very banker against an
adventurer more rascally than himself, whom the baron kills in a duel.
This is good enough to deserve extraction from the book, and separate
publication as a short story.

[380] It is constantly called (and I fear I have myself sinned in this
respect) _L'Affaire Clemenceau_. But this is not the proper title, and
does not really fit. It is the heading of a client's instruction--a sort
of irregular "brief"--to the advocate who (_resp. fin._) is to defend
him; and is thus an autobiographic narrative (diversified by a few
"put-in" letters) throughout. The title is the label of the brief.

[381] This is probably meant as the first "fight" on the shady side of
Iza's character; not that, in this instance, she means