By the middle of the century the main springs of Romanticism began to show symptoms of exhaustion. The subjective and personal character of its lyric verse provoked protest. It seemed to have no other theme but self, to be a universal confession or self-glorification, immodest and egotistical. And it began to be increasingly out of harmony with the intellectual temper, which was determined more and more by positive philosophy and the scientific spirit. LECONTE DE LISLE voiced this protest most clearly (cf. _les Montreurs_, p. 199), and set forth the claims of an art that should find its whole aim in the achievement of an objective beauty and should demand of the artist perfect self-control and self-repression. For such an art personal emotion was proclaimed a hindrance, as it might dim the artist's vision or make his hand unsteady. Those who viewed art in this way, while they turned frankly away from the earlier Romanticists, yet agreed with them in their concern for form, and applied themselves to carrying still farther the technical mastery over it which they had achieved. Their standpoint greatly emphasized the importance of good workmanship, and the stress laid upon form was revealed, among other ways, by a revival of the old fixed forms. The young generation of poets that began to write just after the middle of the century, generally recognized LECONTE DE LISLE as their master, and were called _Parnassiens_ from _le Parnasse contemporain_, a collection of verse to which they contributed. They produced a surprising amount of work distinguished by exquisite finish, and making up for a certain lack of spontaneity by intellectual fervor and strong repressed emotion.