culduddery, the book may be read. It
contains, in particular, one of the most finished of its author's
sketches, of a type which he really did something to introduce into his
country's literature--that of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic _routier_
or professional soldier--brave as you like, and--at least at some times
when neither drunk nor under the influence of the garden god--not
ungenerous; with a certain simplicity too: but as braggart as he is
brave; a mere brute beast as regards the other sex; utterly ignorant,
save of military matters, and in fact a kind of caricature of the older
type, which the innocent Rymer was so wrath with Shakespeare for
neglecting in Iago.

[Sidenote: The redeeming points of these.]

It may seem that too much space is being given to a reprobate and often
dull author; but something has been said already to rebut the complaint,
and something more may be added now and again. French literature, from
the death of Chenier to the appearance of Lamartine, has generally been
held to contain hardly more than two names--those of Chateaubriand and
Madame de Stael--which can even "seem to be" those of "pillars"; and it
may appear fantastic and almost insulting to mention one, who in long
stretches of his work might almost be called a mere muckheap-raker, in
company with them. Yet, in respect to the progress of his own
department, it may be doubted whether he is not even more than their
equal. _Rene_ and _Corinne_ contain great suggestions, but they are
suggestions rather for literature generally than for the novel proper.
Pigault used the improperest materials; he lacked not merely taste, but
that humour which sometimes excuses taste's absence; power of creating
real character, decency almost always, sense very often.[431] But all
the same, he made the novel _march_, as it had not marched, save in
isolated instances of genius, before.

[Sidenote: Others--_Adelaide de Meran_ and _Tableaux de Societe_.]

[Sidenote: _L'Officieux._]

Yet Pigault could hardly have deserved even the very modified praise
which has been given to him, if he had been constant to the muckheap. He
could never quite help approaching it now and then; but as time went on
and the Empire substituted a sort of modified decency for the Feasts of
Republican Reason and ribaldry, he tried things less uncomely. _Adelaide
de Meran_ (his longest single book), _Tableaux de Societe_,
_L'Officieux_, and others, are of this class; and witho