11924 This tumult all, incense and splendor, "And happiness was so near to us, My mother, bathed in tears, adjured me; JULES QUESNAY DE BEAUREPAIRE (1838-) HE writer known in French literature under the pen-name of Jules Glouvet is a noble individuality, in addition to being a well-marked one, in contemporary French fiction. He was born at Saumur, July 2d, 1838; began his career as a magistrate in 1862; was a soldier in active service during the war of 1870; and in 1883 (after filling various important provincial positions, also a position as magistrate) he became the Prosecutor-General at Paris. Since then he has been a marked and honored man in his real profession. He has won peculiar distinction in connection with the efforts to repress the Anarchistic movement, and to punish the Anarchist criminals, in his country. He was a most important factor in the trial of General Boulanger; and was bravery itself in the check of that feeble, rash, and yet dangerous intrigue, which concluded in a tragedy. He has done his duty as a magistrate and lawyer at the risk of his life. M. Quesnay de Beaurepaire has been called the Father of his Country, as was Cicero proud to be styled when he had shattered the conspiracy of Catiline; and there is a likeness in the two careers. From such labors at the bar, severe and even personally dangerous, M. de Beaurepaire has turned to writing stories that express peasant-life in certain districts of France, and certain types of French rural character, as no French novelist has done before him. In these stories it was evidently the intention of the writer to show that a novel of humble life could be produced without the grossness of so many of the French authors. The books were auxiliaries in the new campaign against "naturalism." His scenes of the true rural world of France, his feeling for the relation of human nature and its natural environment, have been exhibited with great fidelity and interest in his books 'Le Forestier' (published in English under the title of 'The Woodman'), and 'Le Berger' (The Shepherd). In each instance, he shows us that he is not only a finished painter of real life, lived in simple conditions, but the possessor of that sort of literary sense which grasps, in part as an artist and in part as a realist, every essential detail of the temperament, course of existence, and scenery to be more or less minutely portrayed. There is something of the quality of Thomas Hardy in the books of M. Quesnay de Beaurepaire; there is something of George Sand; there is something of many novelists whose dramas of every-day out-of-door life are played in books full of a dramatic impressiveness, enhanced by a perfect scenic artist's skill. But there is likewise an inner moral quality and moral suggestiveness in M. Quesnay de Beaurepaire's books distinctly their own. He exhibits with singular beauty and naturalness the countryman in touch with his milieu; the finer elements in imperfect rustic character; the promptings of the heart that beats passionately and warmly in the breast of a humble shepherd, or an uneducated and not too honest woodlander. The author of The Woodman' and 'The Shepherd' does not carry his realism as far as Zola, even when verging on the same territory; and yet he is in much a truer realist. The pathos of the books impresses us, the simple course of their dramas enlists all our attention; and at the same time a sermon is suggested while none is directly preached-a sermon found, not in the stones and trees and running brooks which so exquisitely serve as background for the author's handful of peasant characters, but in their aspirations, their weaknesses, and all that is to them life and feeling and purpose day by day. THE FOREST From The Woodman.' Copyright 1892, by Harper & Brothers HERE is no country more severe and striking in its aspect than the forest range uniting the Department of Maine to that of La Beauce, and extending from Montmirail to Authon. It is an immense extent of wood, intersected by narrow grassy paths, untouched by the hand of man, which have given to the whole region the picturesque name of CheminsVerts (The Green-Road Country). Absolute solitude reigns; the villages are far off, scattered on the ridges of the hills; the principal hamlet is called Grez-sur-Roc (Stone-on-Rock). This name alone suffices to indicate the wild, rugged scenery of this remote district. In the foreground, on the slopes rising one above another, are a few detached cottages crouching amid the golden broom and furze; the paths between them wind upward toward the forest in sinuous lines that look like serpents springing from the hand of a sorcerer. The dense forest begins half-way up, and widens as it reaches the valley on the other side; then climbs the opposite height, and stretches itself at its ease over the vast plateau of La Beauce toward Chapelle Guillaume, where, reduced to brushwood, it follows the vast undulations of the plain, and is finally reflected in the stagnant waters of the surrounding marshes. A stream, rising in the hills, falls into the ravine, and winds. at its own sweet will among the trees; some of which, thrown across from one bank to the other, under hanging festoons of bryony and traveler's-joy, serve as bridges to the dwellers in the forest. These are a robust, shy, and taciturn race. At the close of day some return to their homes on the distant plain, while others seek their cabins built among the brushwood. Charcoal-burners encamp near their work, the light of the smoldering fires playing over their dark faces; the makers of wooden sabots lie among the shavings in front of their workshops; the wood-cutters, bent with fatigue, hang up their wallets on the branches, trample the wild flowers with their sabots, and settle themselves comfortably on the sloping ground;-all these people live and work together without noise or outward expression. The wind sobbing in the high branches, the sun piercing at rare intervals the leafy roof and shedding a pale ray on the grass beneath, are the only tokens of life and light in the gloom of this vast crypt. Singing is not in fashion among the foresters; none but the birds ever raise their voices in this solemn silence, and it is remarkable that even their song is sad. The forest is unique in its aspect; but it may be compared with the sea in its grandeur, its infinitude, its rolling waves, its deep murmurs, and its wild tempests. Look at those venerable oaks: the tallest peasant is less than an ant at their feet. If a water-spout discharges on the Chemins-Verts, its progress is marked by a frightful disruption of these enormous trees, overthrown as easily as a bundle of twigs. Thus, in its calm and in its wrath, the forest lords it over man, and man in this imposing wilderness is driven to silence and contemplation. The inhabitants live exactly as their ancestors lived before them. It is not poverty, but contempt of comfort: their maxim is that the forest ought to provide all they want. Theft is considered lawful; the feeling of mine-and-thine does not exist: they do not steal, they take. These strange notions of ownership, due to ancient tradition, seem justified by the astonishing fertility of these leafy regions. The father carries on his back a sack filled with wild plums to make his drink, or loads his barrow with acorns for the pig,— the great resource in winter; the son brings home a block of ashwood, out of which in the long winter evenings he carves cups and basins for the family; the mother returns with a load of fagots. Do they want an extra bed? she takes her sickle and cuts withes from the willows near the brook. That tall, barelegged girl gathers mushrooms, with which her little sister fills. the basket made over-night. The little boys are employed, after their dinner of nuts, in cleaning moss; and the old grandfather, with tottering step, hobbles towards the copse to cut a stick for his crutch. The Chemins-Verts is so vast that all these people have elbowroom without disturbing its solitude. From time to time a faint tinkling of bells in the distance announces the arrival of a band of small horses belonging to the charcoal-burners, ambling along with bent knees and backs worn by the loads they carry. The noise of their shoes is muffled by the leafy carpet. No other sound is heard. As for the busy gatherers of the spoils of the forest, they are nowhere to be seen. The inhabitants are in love with their forest an unconscious but incurable passion. They can breathe freely only under the shade of their woods. It is true the men are willing to spend a few weeks every year during the harvest in La Beauce, to enable them to lay by a little sum sufficient for their frugal needs,enough to buy a new blouse, and tobacco to last till the next summer. The forester's work in the plains is scarcely finished. before he hastens to hide his money in a corner of his handkerchief, suspend his whetstone from his waistband, throw his scythe merrily over his shoulder, and return in all haste to his forest. As soon as he catches a glimpse of the tall trees he pauses; he is happy, he knows not why. "Ha! here's the boy as has finished his August," says his old neighbor as soon as he sees him. "Yes; I have done with La Beauce," he replies, looking slowly round him. "Here I am no less." "No less" is the regular expletive used as a superlative on all occasions. This intense love for the forest is hereditary; it is instinctive in the child, grows with his growth, and never leaves him when |