In the heady atmosphere of aesthetic ferment that characterized the end of the 1820s, many an optimistic young student aspiring to join the ranks of the intellectual elite neglected or abandoned his studies or scorned a professional career in order to frequent the literary and artistic circles of Paris. In the wake of the flamboyant victory of Romanticism over the vestiges of Neoclassicism in 1830, some would achieve minor successes, but relatively few were to be hailed as masters. Auguste Brizeux can be counted among the latter; he was acclaimed by the leaders of the Romantic movement, celebrated by the critics, and admired and imitated by many lesser luminaries. His delicately drawn idylls of peasant life in the provinces were strikingly bold in the early 1830s, coming as they did a decade or more before George Sand began to explore related themes in her novels.

Julien-Auguste-Pélage Brizeux...