When Abel Herman's book, _Le Cavalier Miserey_, a military novel of some ability which criticised the army, was forbidden to soldiers, France wrote: "I know only a few lines of the famous order of the day published by the colonel of the Twelfth Regiment of Chasseurs at Rouen. They are as follows: 'Every copy of _Le Cavalier Miserey_ which is confiscated shall be burned on the dunghill, and every soldier in whose possession a copy is found shall be punished with imprisonment.' It is not a particularly elegant sentence, and yet I would rather have written it than the four hundred pages of the novel." It was a crime in those days to utter a word against the army. Those who know what France has written about it since, know what a change has taken place in his views. When the crisis came, it showed that in this man dwelt not merely, as in certain others, intellect and ability, but a determined will, and that in his inmost soul he was not such a doubter but that he had preserved one belief and one enthusiasm--belief in the justification of the great spiritual revolt of the eighteenth century, and enthusiasm for it. As author he owns two main elements of effectiveness. The first is the ingenuousness which prevents his characters ever being--what Voltaire's often are--marionettes; they move freely on their own legs, and lead a life independent of their author and undisturbed by him. Their naïveté makes them natural. [Illustration: manuscript of a letter.] The second element is art. France has what he himself calls the French writer's three great qualities--in the first place, lucidity; in the second, lucidity; in the third and last, lucidity. But this is only one fundamental quality of his art. He has proved himself possessed of moderation and tact, in which for him, as the true Frenchman (and to use his own words), "all art consists." His detestation of Zola as a novelist was due to that Italian's utter lack of moderation as an artist. He himself as narrator is always subdued. He lacks passion, and he is never wanton; his eroticism is only Epicureanism. There is sensuality in his writing, and there is intellectuality--a good deal of the former, an overpowering amount of the latter. He is, taken all in all, more the artistic and philosophic than the creative author. Delacroix has said that art is exaggeration in the right place. France's exaggeration lies in the wealth of ideas with which he endows his characters, a wealth which the books can hardly contain (_vide Thaïs_ and _Balthasar_), and for which place must be made in whole additional volumes, such as _Les Opinions de M. Jérôme Coignard, Le Jardin d'Épicure_, and a part of _Pierre Nozière_. He has more ideas than feelings. He has ideas upon every subject, criticises everything--not only human prejudices and institutions, but nature herself.