If as a poet we contemplate him, Coppee belongs to the group commonly called “Parnassiens”—­not the Romantic School, the sentimental lyric effusion of Lamartine, Hugo, or De Musset!  When the poetical lute was laid aside by the triad of 1830, it was taken up by men of quite different stamp, of even opposed tendencies.  Observation of exterior matters was now greatly adhered to in poetry; it became especially descriptive and scientific; the aim of every poet was now to render most exactly, even minutely, the impressions received, or faithfully to translate into artistic language a thesis of philosophy, a discovery of science.  With such a poetical doctrine, you will easily understand the importance which the “naturalistic form” henceforth assumed.

Coppee, however, is not only a maker of verses, he is an artist and a poet.  Every poem seems to have sprung from a genuine inspiration.  When he sings, it is because he has something to sing about, and the result is that his poetry is nearly always interesting.  Moreover, he respects the limits of his art; for while his friend and contemporary, M. Sully-Prudhomme, goes astray habitually into philosophical speculation, and his immortal senior, Victor Hugo, often declaims, if one may venture to say so, in a manner which is tedious, Coppee sticks rigorously to what may be called the proper regions of poetry.

Francois Coppee is not one of those superb high priests disdainful of the throng:  he is the poet of the “humble,” and in his work, ‘Les Humbles’, he paints with a sincere emotion his profound sympathy for the sorrows, the miseries, and the sacrifices of the meek.  Again, in his ’Grave des Forgerons, Le Naufrage, and L’Epave’, all poems of great extension and universal reputation, he treats of simple existences, of unknown unfortunates, and of sacrifices which the daily papers do not record.  The coloring and designing are precise, even if the tone be somewhat sombre, and nobody will deny that Coppee most fully possesses the technique of French poetry.

But Francois Coppee is known to fame as a prosewriter, too.  His ’Contes en prose’ and his ‘Vingt Contes Nouveaux’ are gracefully and artistically told; scarcely one of the ‘contes’ fails to have a moral motive.  The stories are short and naturally slight; some, indeed, incline rather to the essay than to the story, but each has that enthralling interest which justifies its existence.  Coppee possesses preeminently the gift of presenting concrete fact rather than abstraction.  A sketch, for instance, is the first tale written by him, ‘Une Idylle pendant le Seige’ (1875).  In a novel we require strong characterization, great grasp of character, and the novelist should show us the human heart and intellect in full play and activity.  In 1875 appeared also ‘Olivier’, followed by ’L’Exilee (1876); Recits et Elegies (1878); Vingt Contes Nouveaux (1883); and Toute une Jeunesse’, mainly an autobiography, crowned by acclaim by the Academy.  ‘Le Coupable’