protector of justice appeared to him to be endangered during a crisis in public morality; but, in the absence of some instigation from without, he might quite possibly have remained inactive. The person who influenced him more than any other at this time was a lady in whose house he has for years been the most welcome of daily visitors—whose house is, indeed, his second home.

France did not hesitate to bring the whole weight of his influence publicly to bear when it came in France to a trial of strength between a few chosen spirits on the one side, and the army, the Church, those in authority, and the misled masses on the other.

In his capacity as combatant France has written the last two volumes of his Histoire Contemporaine, published his speeches in the Cahier de la Quinzaine, spoken at the unveiling of Renan's statue and at Zola's grave, and written the Introduction to Combe's collected speeches It is one of the signs of the times that he should now be the man to whom the Prime Minister of France applies to have his utterances placed before the French reading public. It shows what a degree of influence is ascribed to him, and how definitely he has espoused a cause.

France has at times introduced himself into his books. He takes the retiring and wise element in his nature, and out of it creates Monsieur Bergeret. He takes the serene sensualism, and of it constructs Trublet, the doctor of the Histoire Comique. He takes his intensely beauty-loving ego, and we have the sculptor Dechartre in Le Lys Rouge. He introduces himself into this same novel in the person of the author Paul Vence, almost with the mention of his name—this, of course, to prevent its being observed that Anatole France is also the principal character, the sculptor; just as Mary Robinson is named in the book to conceal her identity with Miss Bell, the English authoress in it, and Oppert is referred to to prevent its being said that he is Schmoll, the antiquarian, as he undoubtedly is.

When Vence is introduced to us in the heroine's drawing-room we are told: "She considered Paul Vence to be the one really clever man who came to her house. She had appreciated him before his books had made him famous. She admired his profound irony, his sensitive pride, his talent, ripened in solitude."

And to such an extent is Paul Vence France himself that when, towards the end of the book, he remarks: "He was a wise man who said, 'Let us give to men for their witnesses and judges Irony and Compassion'"—an utterance to be found in more than one of France's books—Madame Martin-Bellême answers: "But, Monsieur Vence, it was yourself who wrote that."

Profound irony is, then, the first quality which he attributes to himself.

We have seen how this irony, unlike Renan's, is indirect; we only catch a glimpse of it through the naïveté of another person.

We are told, for instance, in Thaïs, of the heroine, a Grecian courtesan: "This woman showed herself at the festival games, and did not hesitate to dance publicly in such a manner that her excessively agile and artful movements suggested the most dreadful passions and excited to them." This is felt and spoken from the standpoint of a monk.

Pafnucius, in the same book, sees the devil torturing souls. The narrator of the occurrence expresses no doubt or incredulity; it is nowhere remarked that this was a vision, not reality. No! "Small green devils pierced his lips and his throat with red-hot irons."

This naïveté is a rare quality in French literature, the literary art of the French being (in spite of Lafontaine) as a rule not naïve, but even in Molière, and throughout his whole century, as well as the next, perfectly self-conscious. Yet naïveté is a powerful means of producing artistic effects—the indirect process which requires the reader's own co-operation being undoubtedly always more effective than the direct communication, which does not impart the useful little impetus to the intellect.

France, in his historical tales, writes ingenuously, as a contemporary would have spoken and thought. We are most conscious of this in the series collected and published under the title of Clio. Simple tales they are, yet this book, which bears the name of the goddess of history, concerns itself with some of the greatest historical personages—Homer, Cæsar, Dante, Joan of Arc, Napoleon. Of these only Homer and Napoleon are directly presented to us.

When the tale, The Singer of Kyme, first appeared, its seemingly arbitrary invention displeased many. Why take up this legend of the blind or half-blind old man? Why give this insignificant figure, this poor creature going from place to place earning his bread by his songs, the awe-inspiring name of Homer? But upon maturer reflection we acknowledge how correctly France has seen, and what wisdom there is in his view of the matter. The singer of his tale is unmistakably akin to the bards described in the Homeric poems; and it is only natural that his house should have been cramped and low in comparison with that of his neighbour, the wealthy soothsayer.

The secret of the art of France's historical style is, as already said, that he thinks and speaks in the spirit of the age which he is portraying, seems to share its views, to accept its beliefs and superstitions, its prejudices and ideas, without a trace of irony or of fatuity, but with an artistic skill which forcibly brings out the contrast between the spirit of those ages or countries and ours.

Take, for instance, in the story just mentioned, the way in which he communicates to the reader, by means of his description of the old singer's methods, his own conception of the genesis of the Homeric poems. When a king requests the old man to sing, but to let it be the truth that he sings, he answers: "What I know of the heroes I have from my father, who learned it from the Muses themselves; for of old the Muses were wont to visit the divine singers in caves and woods. I shall mingle no lies with the old histories." And the author adds: "He spoke thus from prudence. For to the songs which he had learned in his childhood he was in the habit of adding verses which he had taken from other songs or found within himself. But he did not confess this, fearing Jest he should be blamed for it. The chieftains almost always asked for the old tales, which they believed to have been dictated by a divinity, and mistrusted the new songs. Therefore he carefully concealed the origin of those which he had composed himself. And as he was a very good poet, and carefully observed the established customs, his verses were in no wise distinguishable from those of his forefathers; they resembled them in form and beauty, and from the moment of their conception were worthy of immortal fame." The singer is, we observe, praised, in the spirit of the age, for the quality which, according to modern ideas, detracts from his worth.

In precisely the same manner is the dialogue entitled Farinata degli Uberti thrown into relief. With his unerring critical instinct France has selected the most interesting of all the figures in Dante's Inferno. And this figure has for us one element of interest in addition to those which it possessed for Dante? namely, the diametrical opposition between Farinata's views and ours. In our days it is a very honourable thing to fight for one's countrymen against foreign troops, and an abominable thing to stir up civil war. When Farinata is justifying himself for having fought on the side of Siena against his Florentine fellow countrymen, he says: "Undoubtedly it would have been better for us Florentines to have fought out the quarrel amongst ourselves. Civil war is such a fine and noble thing, a thing of such delicacy, that the implication of foreigners in it ought, if possible, to be avoided.... I do not maintain the same of wars with other States. They are useful, at times necessary, enterprises, undertaken to defend or to extend the frontiers of a country or to further its commerce. But as