Tartarin de Tarascon | Page 2

was subjected at the hands of the bullies of this school.[1] After a year of martyrdom he set out on his terrible journey to Paris. Here he was welcomed by his brother Ernest.
[Footnote 1: See "Le Petit Chose," "Little What's-His-Name."]
The two brothers had always felt and always continued to feel the closest sympathy for each other. Ernest believed in Alphonse's genius more than in his own, and bestowed on his younger brother the motherly devotion which Alphonse so gratefully and tenderly acknowledges in "Le Petit Chose," his romantic autobiography, where Ernest appears as "ma m��re Jacques."
The first years in Paris were the darkest in the brothers' lives. They could earn scarcely enough to satisfy their most pressing needs, but both were happy, since they were in Paris. Before Alphonse's arrival Ernest had secured regular employment on a newspaper. Alphonse was longing for recognition as a poet, but to earn his living he was forced to turn to prose. His contributions to Le Figaro and other newspapers soon made him known. He wrote little and carefully, nor did he forget his literary ideals even when poverty might have excused hurried productions in the style best calculated to sell. His literary conscience was as strong under the trying circumstances of his debut as later when success brought independence.[2]
[Footnote 2: See E. Daudet, "Mon Fr��re et moi," pp. 151-152. Daudet frequently says of himself that he was by nature an improviser, that the labor of meticulous composition to which he forced himself was a torture, yet he remained always true to his ideal.]
During this period he lived among the Bohemians of the Parisian world of letters; but, though he shared their joys and sorrows, he seems to have emerged unscathed from the dangers of such an existence. Zola met Daudet at this time and has left us an attractive picture of him: "He was in the employ of a successful newspaper, he used to bring in his article, receive his remuneration, and disappear with the nonchalance of a young god, sunk in poetry, far from the petty cares of this world. He was living, I think, outside of the city, in a remote corner with other poets, a band of joyous Bohemians. He was beautiful, with the delicate, nervous beauty of an Arabian horse, an ample mane, a silky divided beard, large eyes, a thin nose, a passionate mouth, and, to crown all that, a certain flash of light, a breath of tender voluptuousness, which bathed his whole face in a smile that was both roguish and sensual. There was in him something of the Parisian Street gamin and something of the Oriental woman."[1]
[Footnote 1: "Les Romanciers naturalistes," pp. 256-257.]
Daudet's first volume was a collection of verse, "Les Amoureuses" (1858, published by Tardieu, a Proven?al). These simple poems are charming in their freshness and na?vet��, and established Daudet's reputation as a writer of light verse. The whole volume, and especially "Les Prunes," attracted the attention of the Empress Eug��nie. At her solicitation Daudet was made one of the secretaries of the powerful Duke of Morny, president of the corps l��gislatif (1860). His duties were purely nominal. He now had money enough to keep the wolf from his door and was free to devote himself to literature.
It was at this time that the stage began to attract him. His first play, "La Derni��re Idole," was produced at the Od��on in 1862. Almost every other year between 1862 and 1892 a new play, on untried themes, or adapted from one of his novels and usually written in collaboration, appeared at a Parisian theater. Of all these only one, "L'Arl��sienne" (1872), is worthy of its author.
Already in 1859, as a result of the suffering of the preceding years and lack of precautions, his health had begun to fail. He spent the winters of 1861-1864 in Algeria, Corsica, and Provence. These voyages were of vital importance in his development. He learned something of the world and became better fitted to study conditions in his own narrow sphere; at the same time he acquired the power of vigorous description and collected material for some of his finest short stories and for the Tartarin series.
A portion of the summer of 1861 he dreamed away in an abandoned mill[1] near Fontvieille, between Tarascon and Arles. From here he sent to the Parisian newspapers L'Ev��nement and Le Figaro those delightful stories and sketches which were gathered and published in 1869 under the title "Lettres de mon moulin." Of all the many volumes of Daudet's collected works this is the most satisfying: it is here that the distinctive products of his genius are to be sought; and it is on these stories, with a few from later collections, and on "Tartarin de Tarascon," that his claim to immortality will finally rest. It