entably dragged out in length. The trail of the class among which
M. Houssaye spends his days is visible in every page. M. Houssaye is
possessed with a passionate desire to become a member of the French
Academy. Well, why should he not sit where Taine does not and where
Sardou does? His _History of the Forty-first Fauteuil_, one of the
brightest and wittiest of his works, will probably avail, not to open
the doors to him, but to bar them against him.

L. H. H.

FRANCOIS BULOZ.

The man whose fortunes were to be during nearly half a century connected
with the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ was born in 1804 at Vulbens, a village
in French Savoy. Without becoming anything of a savant, M. Buloz
received the fair education then obtainable at the College Louis le
Grand. After leaving school he was forced to take a situation at some
chemical works in Sologne, but soon returned disgusted and without means
to Paris. There we find him passing his days in a printing-office, and
his evenings--and often, too, his nights--in miscellaneous reading. In
all that he did he displayed that indomitable energy which characterized
his entire subsequent career.

The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ had been started in 1829. It was a sickly
bantling, and had to change its name the following year to the _Journal
des Voyages_. The new name, however, brought no fresh subscribers, and
the _Journal_ was dragging on a dreary existence when M. Auffray, the
printer, bought it, and engaged his former schoolfellow, Francois Buloz,
as editor of the new series of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. His yearly
salary was twelve hundred francs, and two francs for every subscriber.
There were then but three hundred and fifty of these, but in 1834 the
three hundred and fifty had become one thousand; in 1838 five hundred
more had been added; in 1843 there were two thousand; in 1846, two
thousand five hundred; and in 1851, five thousand. Long before this the
_Revue_ had become a power. Buloz remained as a partner, but M. Auffray
had long since given up his interest in it: he had been succeeded by
Alexander Bixio, and the latter by Messrs. Florestan and Felix Bonnaire,
the owners of the _Revue de Paris_. Messrs. Bonnaire in 1845 proposed to
buy out Buloz for a sum exceeding one hundred thousand francs. After
consulting with Merimee, Sainte-Beuve and others, Buloz declined the
proposal, and with the aid of his friends bought o