SOURCE: "Vallès and the Pathos of Rebellion," in his The Intellectual Hero: Studies in the French Novel, 1880-1955, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1961, pp. 43-51.

In the following excerpt, Brombert contends that despite Vallès's often misunderstood humor, his works viscerally communicate the tragic circumstances of Leftist intellectuals who were not accepted by existing institutions or by the revolutionary workers they wished to support.

Jules Vallès' disheveled exuberance was not confined to literature. Son of a provincial schoolteacher who sent him to Paris to prepare for the Ecole Normale, he despised diplomas, preferred the more hot-blooded bohemian life, launched into revolutionary activities, gained experience in street fights and in the editorial rooms of militant papers, participated in the 1870 Commune, got a taste of jails and exile, and played until the end the dangerous game of revolt for revolt's sake. His colorful life, however, and even his role...