_Fille d'Aeschyle_ created for him a dramatic reputation which he did not attempt to follow up, and Gabriel Legouve (b. 1807), whose _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ was assisted to popularity by the admirable talent of Rachel. A special variety of drama of the first literary importance has also been cultivated in this century under the title of _scenes_ or _proverbes_, slight dramatic sketches in which the dialogue and style are of even more importance than the action. The best of all of these are those of Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), whose _Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermee_, _On ne badine pas avec l'amour_, &c., are models of grace and wit. Among his followers may be mentioned especially Octave Feuillet (1821-1890). Few social dramas of the kind in modern times have attained a greater success than _Le Monde ou l'on s'ennuie_ (1868) of Edouard Pailleron (1834-1899). (See also DRAMA.) Victor Hugo. Musset. Gautier. In poetry proper, as in drama, Victor Hugo showed the way. In him all the Romantic characteristics were expressed and embodied--disregard of arbitrary critical rules, free choice of subject, variety and vigour of metre, splendour and sonorousness of diction, abundant "local colour," and that irrepressible individualism which is one of the chief, though not perhaps the chief, of the symptoms. If the careful attention to form which is also characteristic of the movement is less apparent in him than in some of his followers, it is not because it is absent, but because the enthusiastic conviction with which he attacked every subject somewhat diverts attention from it. As with the merits so with the defects. A deficient sense of the ludicrous which characterized many of the Romantics was strongly apparent in their leader, as was also an equally representative grandiosity, and a fondness for the introduction of foreign and unfamiliar words, especially proper names, which occasionally produces an effect of burlesque. Victor Hugo's earliest poetical works, his chiefly royalist and political _Odes_, were cast in the older and accepted forms, but already displayed astonishing poetical qualities. But it was in the _Ballades_ (for instance, the splendid _Pas d'armes du roi Jean_, written in verses of three syllables) and the _Orientales_ (of which may be taken for a sample the sixth section of _Navarin_, a perfect torrent of outlandish terms poured forth in the most admirable verse, or _Les Djinns_, where some of the stanzas have lines of two syllables each) that the grand provocation was thrown to the believers in alexandrines, careful caesuras and strictly separated couplets. _Les Feuilles d'automne_, _Les Chants du crepuscule_, _Les Voix interieures_, _Les Rayons et les ombres_, the productions of the next twenty years, were quieter in style and tone, but no less full of poetical spirit. The Revolution of 1848, the establishment of the empire and the poet's exile brought about a fresh determination of his genius to lyrical subjects.