M. Ludovic Halevy held a place in the French civil service until 1858, when he resigned to devote his whole time, instead of his spare time, to the theatre.  As the son of a dramatist and the nephew of a popular composer, he had easy access to the stage.  He began as the librettist-in-ordinary to M. Offenbach, for whom he wrote Ba-ta-clan in 1855, and later the Chanson de Fortunio, the Pont des Soupirs and Orphee aux Enfers.  The first very successful play which MM.  Meilhac and Halevy wrote together was a book for M. Offenbach; and it was possibly the good fortune of this operetta which finally affirmed the partnership.  Before the triumph of the Belle Helene in 1864 the collaboration had been tentative, as it were:  after that it was as though the articles had been definitely ratified—­not that either of the parties has not now and then indulged in outside speculations, trying a play alone or with an outsider, but this was without prejudice to the permanent partnership.

This kind of literary union, the long-continued conjunction of two kindred spirits, is better understood amongst us than the indiscriminate collaboration which marks the dramatic career of M. Eugene Labiche, for instance.  Both kinds were usual enough on the English stage in the days of Elizabeth, but we can recall the ever-memorable example of Beaumont and Fletcher, while we forget the chance associations of Marston, Dekker, Chapman and Ben Jonson.  And in contemporary literature we have before us the French tales of MM.  Erckmann-Chatrian and the English novels of Messrs. Besant and Rice.  The fact that such a union endures is proof that it is advantageous.  A long-lasting collaboration like this of MM.  Meilhac and Halevy must needs be the result of a strong sympathy and a sharp contrast of character, as well as of the possession by one of literary qualities which supplement those of the other.

One of the first things noticed by an American student of French dramatic literature is that the chief Parisian critics generally refer to the joint work of these two writers as the plays of M. Meilhac, leaving M. Halevy altogether in the shade.  At first this seems a curious injustice, but the reason is not far to seek.  It is not that M. Halevy is some two years the junior of M. Meilhac:  it lies in the quality of their respective abilities.  M. Meilhac has the more masculine style, and so the literary progeny of the couple bear rather his name than his associate’s.  M. Meilhac has the strength of marked individuality, he has a style of his own, one can tell his touch; while M. Halevy is merely a clever French dramatist of the more conventional pattern.  This we detect by considering the plays which each has put forth alone and unaided by the other.  In reading one of M. Meilhac’s works we should feel no doubt as to the author, while M. Halevy’s clever pictures of Parisian society, wanting in personal distinctiveness, would impress us simply as a product of the “Modern French School.”