d above, two others written in
collaboration with Armand d'Artois, and some light pieces of little
importance, Coppee produced _Madame de Maintenon_ (1881), _Severo
Torelli_ (1883), _Les Jacobites_ (1885), and other serious dramas in
verse, including _Pour la couronne_ (1895), which was translated into
English (_For the Crown_) by John Davidson, and produced at the Lyceum
Theatre in 1896. The performance of a short episode of the Commune, _Le
Pater_, was prohibited by the government (1889). Coppee's first story in
prose, _Une Idylle pendant le siege_, appeared in 1875. It was followed
by various volumes of short tales, by _Toute une jeunesse_ (1890)--an
attempt to reproduce the feelings, if not the actual wants, of the
writer's youth,--_Les Vrais Riches_ (1892), _Le Coupable_ (1896), &c. He
was made an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1888. A series of
reprinted short articles on miscellaneous subjects, styled _Mon Franc
Parler_, appeared from 1893 to 1896; and in 1898 was published _La Bonne
Souffrance_, the outcome of Coppee's reconversion to the Roman Catholic
Church, which gained very wide popularity. The immediate cause of his
return to the faith was a severe illness which twice brought him to the
verge of the grave. Hitherto he had taken little open interest in public
affairs, but he now joined the most violent section of Nationalist
politicians, while retaining contempt for the whole apparatus of
democracy. He took a leading part against the prisoner in the Dreyfus
case, and was one of the originators of the notorious Ligue de la Patrie
Francaise. He died on the 23rd of May 1908.

Alike in verse and prose Coppee concerned himself with the plainest
expressions of human emotion, with elemental patriotism, and the joy of
young love, and the pitifulness of the poor, bringing to bear on each a
singular gift of sympathy and insight. The lyric and idyllic poetry, by
which he will chiefly be remembered, is animated by musical charm, and
in some instances, such as _La Benediction_ and _La Greve des
forgerons_, displays a vivid, though not a sustained, power of
expression. There is force, too, in the gloomy tale, _Le Coupable_. But
he exhibits all the defects of his qualities. In prose especially, his
sentiment often degenerates into sentimentality, and he continually
approaches, and sometimes oversteps, the verge of the trivial.
Nevertheless, by neglecting that canon of contemporary art which would
reduce the deepest tr