The subject of French fiction, its tendencies and its influences, is too long a one to be more than glanced at here. The wit, the brilliancy, the charm of style of About, Octave Feuillet, Cherbuliez, Jules Clarétie, and others of less repute are familiar to most educated men. Not all of them are such pessimists as M. Daudet; yet those who know what _ordinary_ French life is will find only a faint reflection of it in the novels of the above-named writers, unless it be here and there in the pages of the first. It is always best to avoid making statements which, from their very nature, are not susceptible of proof; but, after associating pretty constantly with French people for a matter of twenty years, I will take upon me to say that I doubt very much whether the marriage-vow is broken more frequently in France than elsewhere. That weary old tale of conjugal infidelity, which appears to be as essential to the French novelist as the more legitimate love affair and marriage at the end of the third volume are to his British confrère, might, I believe, be told with as much or as little truth of other countries. There is an old story of an artist who sent a sketch of some Indian scene to one of the illustrated papers, and afterwards complained that it had been tampered with before publication, a group of palms having been introduced into the background, whereas those trees were unknown in the region which he had depicted. “That is very possible, Mr.----,” replied the editor; “but let me tell you that the public expects palms in an Oriental landscape, and _will have them_.” Not being a publisher, I am not in a position to affirm that the French public expects, and will have, a breach of the seventh commandment in its novels; but there is every reason to infer that such is the opinion of French authors.