In writing of the great Russian novelist it naturally suggests itself to say a word upon Madame Emile Durand, or "Henri Greville," who has lately achieved so universal a reputation. One of her slightest efforts has just been crowned by the Academy, and one or more of her tales has been translated into all the tongues of Europe, including Dutch and Spanish. The Durands, who are childless, reside in a little _pavillon_, or house with garden behind the main structure which fronts the street, in the not very inviting region of Montmartre. Madame Greville is a comfortable-looking lady of thirty-five with the air of forty, and is a most agreeable talker. In her varied experience she has seen a good deal of the up and downs of life, but has now settled down, as she told me, "to making her three novels a year." I hardly think she will ever again reach the level of the _Expiation de Saveli_. Her husband is the Paris correspondent of a St. Petersburg paper, and incidentally a painter. No sketch of French literary society, however short, should omit mention of that most famous of all periodicals, the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. It is forty-eight years old, and during its long life it has seen perhaps a hundred rivals rise and fall, while it has itself gone on constantly increasing in importance, so that it is now become an institution, like the Academy or the Comedie Francaise. Its offices are located in a fine old hotel not far from the noble faubourg, where M. Charles Buloz (son of the founder of the _Revue_) and his wife give during the winter fortnightly receptions to the contributors and their friends, as well as literary dinner-parties which form, I suppose, the most catholic reunions in Paris; and for the excellent reason that all opinions except blatant radicalism and the dogmatic idiocy of Bishop Dupanloup and his friends are represented by its contributors. By admitting him to its columns the _Revue_ gives a French author a stamp of approval which suffices to make him known and respected (at least as regards talent) in all quarters of the globe. As was the late, so is the present, manager fully conscious of his power, and feels as independent with regard to his authors as does the director of the Theatre Francais toward his. A short time since the most famous of those literary Frenchmen who are not novelists, and a man who rarely writes for periodical publications, sent an important contribution to the _Revue_, but neither the name of the author nor the fact that the contribution was of a character to attract great attention among the public induced M. Buloz to print what seemed to him, from a literary point of view, unworthy of a place in the columns of this journal. The pecuniary rewards of writing for the latter are but slight: a writer receives nothing at all for his first article, and afterward the prices vary--not in proportion to the merit of the production, but in relation to the reputation of the author. Henri