Under the influence of Walter Scott, he wrote a historical romance in 1826, ‘Cinq-Mars, ou une Conjuration sans Louis XIII’.  It met with the most brilliant and decided success and was crowned by the Academy.  Cinq-Mars will always be remembered as the earliest romantic novel in France and the greatest and most dramatic picture of Richelieu now extant.  De Vigny was a convinced Anglophile, well acquainted with the writings of Shakespeare and Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, and Leopardi.  He also married an English lady in 1825—­Lydia Bunbury.

Other prose works are ‘Stello’ (1832), in the manner of Sterne and Diderot, and ‘Servitude et Grandeur militaire’ (1835), the language of which is as caustic as that of Merimee.  As a dramatist, De Vigny produced a translation of ‘Othello—­Le More de Venice’ (1829); also ’La Marechale d’Ancre’ (1832); both met with moderate success only.  But a decided “hit” was ‘Chatterton’ (1835), an adaption from his prose-work ’Stello, ou les Diables bleus’; it at once established his reputation on the stage; the applause was most prodigious, and in the annals of the French theatre can only be compared with that of ‘Le Cid’.  It was a great victory for the Romantic School, and the type of Chatterton, the slighted poet, “the marvellous boy, the sleepless soul that perished in his pride,” became contagious as erstwhile did the type of Werther.

For twenty years before his death Alfred de Vigny wrote nothing.  He lived in retirement, almost a recluse, in La Charente, rarely visiting Paris.  Admitted into L’Academie Francaise in 1845, he describes in his ’Journal d’un Poete’ his academic visits and the reception held out to him by the members of L’Institut.  This work appeared posthumously in 1867.

He died in Paris, September 17, 1863.

                  Charlesde MAZADE
                de l’Academie Francaise.

PREFACE

Considering Alfred de Vigny first as a writer, it is evident that he wished the public to regard him as different from the other romanticists of his day; in fact, in many respects, his method presents a striking contrast to theirs.  To their brilliant facility, their prodigious abundance, and the dazzling luxury of color in their pictures of life he opposes a style always simple, pure, clear, with delicacy of touch, careful drawing of character, correct locution, and absolute chastity.  Yet, even though he had this marked regard for purity in literary style, no writer had more dislike of mere pedantry.  His high ideal in literary art and his self-respect inspired him with an invincible repugnance toward the artificialities of style of that period, which the romanticists—­above all, Chateaubriand, their master—­had so much abused.

Every one knows of the singular declaration made by Chateaubriand to Joubert, while relating the details of a nocturnal voyage:  “The moon shone upon me in a slender crescent, and that prevented me from writing an untruth, for I feel sure that had not the moon been there I should have said in my letter that it was shining, and then you would have convicted me of an error in my almanac!”