Fromont and Risler | Page 4

to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

FROMONT AND RISLER
By ALPHONSE DAUDET

With a Preface by LECONTE DE LISLE, of the French Academy

BOOK 1.
ALPHONSE DAUDET
Nominally Daudet, with the Goncourts and Zola, formed a trio
representing Naturalism in fiction. He adopted the watchwords of that
school, and by private friendship, no less than by a common profession
of faith, was one of them. But the students of the future, while
recognizing an obvious affinity between the other two, may be puzzled
to find Daudet's name conjoined with theirs.
Decidedly, Daudet belonged to the Realistic School. But, above all, he

was an impressionist. All that can be observed--the individual picture,
scene, character--Daudet will render with wonderful accuracy, and all
his novels, especially those written after 1870, show an increasing
firmness of touch, limpidity of style, and wise simplicity in the use of
the sources of pathetic emotion, such as befit the cautious Naturalist.
Daudet wrote stories, but he had to be listened to. Feverish as his
method of writing was--true to his Southern character he took endless
pains to write well, revising every manuscript three times over from
beginning to end. He wrote from the very midst of the human comedy;
and it is from this that he seems at times to have caught the bodily
warmth and the taste of the tears and the very ring of the laughter of
men and women. In the earlier novels, perhaps, the transitions from
episode to episode or from scene to scene are often abrupt, suggesting
the manner of the Goncourts. But to Zola he forms an instructive
contrast, of the same school, but not of the same family. Zola is
methodical, Daudet spontaneous. Zola works with documents, Daudet
from the living fact. Zola is objective, Daudet with equal scope and
fearlessness shows more personal feeling and hence more delicacy.
And in style also Zola is vast, architectural; Daudet slight, rapid, subtle,
lively, suggestive. And finally, in their philosophy of life, Zola may
inspire a hate of vice and wrong, but Daudet wins a love for what is
good and true.
Alphonse Daudet was born in Nimes, Provence, May 13, 1840. His
father had been a well-to-do silk manufacturer, but, while Alphonse
was still a child, lost his property. Poverty compelled the son to seek
the wretched post of usher (pion) in a school at Alais. In November,
1857, he settled in Paris and joined his almost equally penniless brother
Ernest. The autobiography, 'Le Petit Chose' (1868), gives graphic
details about this period. His first years of literary life were those of an
industrious Bohemian, with poetry for consolation and newspaper work
for bread. He had secured a secretaryship with the Duc de Morny,
President of the Corps Legislatif, and had won recognition for his short
stories in the 'Figaro', when failing health compelled him to go to
Algiers. Returning, he married toward that period a lady (Julia Allard,
born 1847), whose literary talent comprehended, supplemented, and
aided his own. After the death of the Duc de Morny (1865) he

consecrated himself entirely to literature and published 'Lettres de mon
Moulin' (1868), which also made his name favorably known. He now
turned from fiction to the drama, and it was not until after 1870 that he
became fully conscious of his vocation as a novelist, perhaps through
the trials of the siege of Paris and the humiliation of his country, which
deepened his nature without souring it. Daudet's genial satire, 'Tartarin
de Tarascon', appeared in 1872; but with the Parisian romance 'Fromont
jeune et Risler aine', crowned by the Academy (1874), he suddenly
advanced into the foremost rank of French novelists; it was his first
great success, or, as he puts it, "the dawn of his popularity."
How numberless editions of this book were printed, and rights of
translations sought from other countries, Daudet has told us with
natural pride. The book must be read to be appreciated. "Risler, a
self-made, honest man, raises himself socially into a society against the
corruptness of which he has no defence and from which he escapes
only by suicide. Sidonie Chebe is a peculiarly French type, a vain and
heartless woman; Delobelle, the actor, a delectable figure; the domestic
simplicity of Desiree Delobelle and her mother quite refreshing."
Success followed now after success. 'Jack (1876); Le Nabab (1877);
Les Rois en exil (1879); Numa Roumestan (1882); L'Evangeliste
(1883); Sapho (1884); Tartarin sur des Alces (1886); L'Immortel
(1888); Port Tarascon (1890); Rose et Ninette (1892); La petite
Parvisse (1895); and Soutien de Famille (1899)'; such is the long list of
the great life-artist. In Le Nabab we find obvious traces of Daudet's
visits to Algiers and Corsica- Mora is the Duc de Morny. Sapho is the
most