subjects, contributed to newspapers and
periodicals, and a novel, 'La Lorette,' which had a large sale and
marked the beginning of their success from a financial point of view.
"This makes us realize," they wrote in their Journal, "that one can
actually sell a book."

Their reputation as men of letters was established by the publication in
1854-5 of 'Histoire de la Societe Pendant la Revolution' and the same
'Pendant le Directoire' the aim of which, they said, was "to paint in
vivid, simple colors the France of 1789 to 1800." This object they
accomplished, so far as it concerned the society of which they
themselves were descendants; but the reactionary spirit in them was too
strong for an impartial view of the struggle, and their lack of true
philosophic spirit and broad human sympathy led them to make a picture
that, interesting as it is, is sadly distorted. Their vivid colors are
lavished mainly on the outrages of the rioters and the sufferings of the
aristocrats. But for wealth of detail, the result of tireless research,
the history is of value as a record of the manners and customs of the
fashionable set of the period. Of the same sort were their other
semi-historical works: 'Portraits Intimes du XVIIIieme Siecle,' separate
sketches of about a hundred more or less well-known figures of the age;
'L'Histoire de Marie Antoinette,' and 'La Femme au XVIIIieme Siecle,' in
which the gossip and anecdote of former generations are told again
almost as graphically as are those which the authors relate of their own
circle in their memoirs. Their most important contribution to literature
was their 'L'Art au XVIIIieme Siecle,' monographs gathered and published
in seventeen volumes, and representing a dozen years' labor. This was
indeed a labor of love, and it was not in vain; for it was these
appreciative studies more than anything else that turned public
attention to the almost forgotten delicacy of the school of painters
headed by Watteau, Fragonard, Latour, Boucher, Debricourt, and Greuze,
whose influence has ever since been manifested on the side of sound
taste and sanity in French art.

A volume entitled 'Idees et Sensations,' and their Journal and letters,
complete the list of the more important of their works outside the field
of fiction. The Journal will always be valuable as an almost complete
document of the literary history of France in their time, made up as it
is of impressions of and from the most important writer