ability, but morbid and affected in the choice and treatment of his subjects (_Fanny_, _Sylvie_, _Catherine d'Overmeire_). Emile Gaboriau (1833-1873), taking up that side of Balzac's talent which devoted itself to inextricable mysteries, criminal trials, and the like, produced _M. Le Coq_, _Le Crime d'Orcival_, _La Degringolade_, &c.; and Adolphe Belot (b. 1829) for a time endeavoured to out-Feydeau Feydeau in _La Femme de feu_ and other works. Eugene Fromentin (1820-1876), best known as a painter, wrote a novel, _Dominique_, which was highly appreciated by good judges. During the last decade of the Second Empire there arose, continuing for varying lengths of time till nearly the end of the century, another remarkable group of novelists, most of whom are dealt with under separate headings, but who must receive combined treatment here; with the warning that even more danger than in the case of the poets is incurred by classing them in "schools." Undoubtedly, however, the "Naturalist" tendency, starting from Balzac and continued through Flaubert, but taking quite a new direction under some of those to be mentioned, is in a manner dominant. Flaubert himself and Feuillet (an exact observer of manners but an anti-Naturalist) have already been mentioned. Victor Cherbuliez (1829-1899), a constant writer in the _Revue des deux mondes_ on politics and other subjects, also accomplished a long series of novels from _Le Comte Kostia_ (1863) onwards, of which the most remarkable are that just named, _Le Roman d'une honnete femme_ (1866), and _Meta Holdenis_ (1873). With something of Balzac and more of Feuillet, Cherbuliez mixed with his observation of society a dose of sentimental and popular romance which offended the younger critics of his day, but he had solid merits. Gustave Droz (b. 1832) devoted himself chiefly to short stories sufficiently "free" in subject (_Monsieur, madame et bebe_, _Entre nous_, &c.) but full of fancy, excellently written, and of a delicate wit in one sense if not in all. Andre Theuriet (1833-1907) began with poetry but diverged to novels, in which the scenery of France and especially of its great forests is used with much skill; _Le Fils Maugars_ (1879) may be mentioned out of many as a specimen. Leon Cladel (1835-1892), whose most remarkable work was _Les Va-nu-pieds_ (1874), had, as this title of itself shows, Naturalist leanings; but with a quaint Romantic tendency in prose and verse.