In 1880 Zola, who had by this time formed a regular school of disciples, issued with certain of them a collection of short stories, _Les Soirees de Medan_, which contains one of his own best things, _L'Attaque du moulin_, and also the capital story, _Boule de suif_, by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), who in the same year published poems, _Des vers_, of very remarkable if not strictly poetical quality. Maupassant developed during his short literary career perhaps the greatest powers shown by any French novelist since Flaubert (his sponsor in both senses) in a series of longer novels (_Une Vie_, _Bel Ami_, _Pierre et Jean_, _Fort comme la mort_) and shorter stories (_Monsieur Parent_, _Les Soeurs Rondoli_, _Le Horla_), but they were distorted by the Naturalist pessimism and grime, and perhaps also by the brain-disease of which their author died. M. J. K. Huysmans (b. 1848), also a contributor to _Les Soirees de Medan_, who had begun a little earlier with _Marthe_ (1876) and other books, gave his most characteristic work in 1884 with _Au rebours_ and in 1891 with _La-bas_, stories of exaggerated and "satanic" pose, decorated with perhaps the extremest achievements of the school in mere ugliness and nastiness. Afterwards, by an obvious reaction, he returned to Catholicism. Of about the same date as these two are two other novelists of note, Julien Viaud ("Pierre Loti," b. 1850), a naval officer who embodied his experiences of foreign service with a faint dose of story and character interest, and a far larger one of elaborate description, in a series of books (_Aziyade_, _Le Mariage de Loti_, _Madame Chrysantheme_, &c.), and M. Paul Bourget (b. 1852), an important critic as well as novelist who deflected the Naturalist current into a "psychological" channel, connecting itself higher with Stendhal, and composed in its books very popular in their way--_Cruelle Enigme_ (1885), _Le Disciple_, _Terre promise_, _Cosmopolis_. As a contrast or complement to Bourget's "psychological" novel may be taken the "ethical" novel of Edouard Rod (1857-1909)--_La Vie privee de Michel Tessier_ (1893), _Le Sens de la vie_, _Les Trois Coeurs_. Contemporary with these as a novelist though a much older man, and occupied at different times of his life with verse and with criticism, came Anatole France (b. 1844), who in _Le Crime de Silvestre Bonnard_, _La Rotisserie de la reine Pedauque_, _Le Lys rouge_, and others, has made a kind of novel as different from the ordinary styles as Pierre Loti's, but of far higher appeal in its wit, its subtle fancy, and its perfect French. Ferdinand Fabre (1830-1898) and Rene Bazin (b. 1853) represent the union, not too common in the French novel, of orthodoxy in morals and religion with literary ability. Further must be mentioned Paul Hervieu (b. 1857), a dramatist rather than a novelist; the brothers Margueritte (Paul, b. 1860, Victor, b. 1866), especially strong in short stories and