THE ‘GLOBE’—CHARLES DE RÉMUSAT, VITET, J. J. AMPÈRE—SAINTE-BEUVE: HIS TOPOGRAPHY— THE EARLIER ARTICLES—3‘PORTRAITS LITTÉRAIRES’ AND ‘PORTRAITS DE FEMMES’— THE ‘PORTRAITS CONTEMPORAINS’—HE “ARRIVES”— PORT-ROYAL, ITS LITERARY EPISODES—ON RACINE— ‘CHATEAUBRIAND ET SON GROUPE LITTÉRAIRE’— FAULTS FOUND WITH IT—ITS EXTRAORDINARY MERITS, AND FINAL “DICTA”— THE ‘CAUSERIES’ AT LAST—THEIR LENGTH, ETC.— BRICKS OF THE HOUSE—HIS OCCASIONAL POLEMIC— THE ‘NOUVEAUX LUNDIS’— THE CONCLUSION OF THIS MATTER— MICHELET AND QUINET—HUGO—‘WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE‘— ‘LITTÉRATURE ET PHILOSOPHIE’—THE ‘CROMWELL’ PREFACE, AND THAT TO THE ‘ORIENTALES’— CAPITAL POSITION OF THIS LATTER—THE “WORK”— NISARD: HIS ‘ÆGRI SOMNIA’—HIS ‘ESSAIS SUR LE ROMANTISME’— THEIR “CULPA MAXIMA”—GAUTIER—HIS THEORY: “ART FOR ART’S SAKE,” ETC.— HIS PRACTICE: ‘LES GROTESQUES’—‘HISTOIRE DU ROMANTISME,’ ETC.— UBIQUITY OF FELICITY IN HIS CRITICISM—SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN— PLANCHE— WEIGHT OF HIS CRITICISM—MAGNIN—MÉRIMÉE. [Sidenote: _The Globe._] It is well known, even to not very careful students of French literature, that the famous term which has been taken as the title of this chapter is something of a misnomer,—that the still more famous “representation of _Hernani_” was in effect the shouting after the battle, not the battle itself. The pains which have been spent above on the Empire Critics, greater and smaller, must have been most ill-bestowed if they have not shown that the working of the world-spirit had done already much of what had to be done—that the _i_'s only had to be dotted and the _t_'s crossed, by the end of the third decade of the nineteenth century. The crossing and dotting was done, as usual, with some violence, and it attracted corresponding attention; but the letters had been shaped long before. Dubois and Pierre Leroux had founded the famous _Globe_—object of the admiration of Goethe and cradle of the talent of Sainte-Beuve and others—in 1824. It furnishes comfort and support to those who believe that criticism is nothing if not philosophical, by the very strong philosophical colour which it took on. Jouffroy was one of its chief pillars; and attention has often been drawn to his tractate in it, _Comment les dogmes finissent_ (as to which it can only be remarked that no dogma has ever died yet, and that every dogma, as a natural product of something in human nature, is immortal till human nature perishes), as a symptom and symbol of its literary as of its other doctrines. [Sidenote: _Charles de Rémusat, Vitet, J. J. Ampère._] We are here, however, only concerned with its strictly (if not merely) literary contributors, Sainte-Beuve himself, Charles de Rémusat, J. J. Ampère, Vitet, and the rest. Of Sainte-Beuve we shall have plenty to say presently; the rest need not delay us long. The extraordinarily brilliant talents of Charles de Rémusat[565] were always touching