Of the actual stories "Daniel Jovard" takes up the cue of the _Preface_ directly, and describes the genesis of a _romantique a tous crins_. "Onuphrius" honestly sub-titles itself "Les Vexations Fantastiques d'un admirateur d'Hoffmann," and has, I think, sometimes been dismissed as a Hoffmannesque _pastiche_. Far be it from me to hint the slightest denigration of the author of the _Phantasiestuecke_ and the _Nachtstuecke_, of the _Serapion's-Brueder_ and the _Kater Murr_--not the least pleasing features on the right side of the half-glorious, half-ghastly contrast between the Germany of a hundred years ago and the Germany of to-day. But "Onuphrius" is Hoffmann Gautierised, German "Franciolated," a _Walpurgisnacht_ softened by Morgane la Fee. "Elias Wildmanstadius," one of the earliest, remains one of the most agreeable, pictures of a fanatic of the mediaeval. The overture and the finale, both pieces in which the great motto "Trinq!" is perhaps a very little abused, nevertheless contain a considerable amount of wisdom, and the last not a little wit.[208] But the central story _Celle-ci et Celle-la_, which fills nearly half the book, is no doubt the article on which one must--as far as this essay-piece is concerned--judge Gautier's tale-telling gifts. It is "improper" in part; indeed, the thing, which is largely dialogic, may be thought to have been a young romantic's challenge to Crebillon. The points of the contest would require a very careful judge to reckon them out. Although Gautier was no democrat, and certainly no misogynist, his lady of quality, Madame de M., is terribly below the Crebillonesque Marquises and Celies in every respect, except the beauty, which we have to take on trust; while, if she is not quite such a fiend as Laclos's heroine, she is also unlike her in being stupid. The hero, Rodolphe, though by no means a cad and possessed of much more heart than M. de Clerval or Clitandre, has neither their manners nor their wit. But Mariette, the _servante-maitresse_, though much less moral, is much more attractive than Pamela; the whole of the story is hit off with a pleasant mixture of humour, narrative faculty, bright phrase,[209] and good nature, of which the first is simply absent in Crebillon and the last rather dubiously present. We may return very shortly to the later, longer, and, I suppose, more accomplished stories before relinquishing Gautier. [Sidenote: Return to _Fortunio_.]