and Bourse ruffian; Ramel, the melancholy and redoubtable publicist, who has made emperors without himself desiring to become one, who will die in the neighborhood of Montmartre and the Batignolles, forgotten but proud, poor, and unsullied by money, true to his ideals, among the ingrates enriched by his journal and who have reached the summit only by the influence of his authority with the public; Denis Garnier, the Parisian workman who has had an experience of the hulks as the result of imbibing too freely of sentimental prose and of lending too ready an ear to the golden speech of some tavern demagogue, who has now had enough of politics and who scarcely troubles to think what former retailer of treasonable language, what Gracchus of the sidewalk may be minister, Vaudrey or Pichereau, or even Granet:  all these types are separately analyzed and vigorously generalized.  Monsieur Claretie designated no one in particular but we elbow the characters in his book every day of our lives.  He has, moreover, written a book of a robust and healthy novelty.  The picture of the greenroom of the Ballet with which the tale opens and where we are introduced in the most natural way possible to nearly all the characters that play a part in the story of Vaudrey is masterly in execution and intention.  It is Balzac, but Balzac toned down and more limpid."_

I will stop here at the greenroom of the Ballet commended by Monsieur J.-J.  Weiss, to give a slight sketch, clever as a drawing by Saint’ Aubin or a lithograph by Gavarni, which Monsieur Ludovic Halevy has contributed to a journal and in which he also praises the romance that the feuilletoniste_ of the Debats has criticized with an authority so discriminating and a benevolence so profound._

It was very agreeable for me to observe that such a thorough Parisian as the shrewd and witty author of Les Petites Cardinal_ should find that the Opera—­which certainly plays a role in our politics—­had been sufficiently well portrayed by the author of Monsieur le Ministre.  And upon this, the first chapter of my book, Monsieur Ludovic Halevy adds, moreover, some special and piquant details which are well worth quoting:_

"That which gave me very great pleasure in this tale of a man of politics is that politics really have little, very little place in the novel; it is love that dominates it and in the most despotic and pleasant way possible.  This great man of Grenoble who arrives at Paris in order to reform everything, repair everything, elevate everything, falls at once under the sway of a most charming Parisian adventuress.  See Sulpice Vaudrey the slave of Marianne.  Marianne’s gray eyes never leave him—­But she in her turn meets her master—­and Marianne’s master is Adolphe Gochard, a horrid Parisian blackguard—­who is so much her master that, after all, the real hero of the romance is Adolphe Gochard.  Such is the secret philosophy of this brilliant and ingenious romance.