general savagery the differences which undoubtedly existed then, as now, between society as a whole and single individuals, are overlooked. The separate personages in his _Chronique du Règne de Charles IX._ stand out much more clearly from the background. They have strongly marked characteristics without on that account being modern (except perhaps George Mergy); indeed Mérimée has bestowed such attention on details that each chapter in its graphic coherence forms a little whole, and the work in its entirety produces the effect of a mosaic design of character portraits and pictures of society. In the last of his semi-historical works, _Les Débuts d'un Aventurier_, we observe that what attracts him in the false Demetrius is the primitive cunning, the rough, vigorous Cossack character, and not those mental conflicts, ensuing on the fraud, which fascinated Schiller. Mérimée may be said to leave off where Schiller begins. The manners and customs of a definite group of human beings at a definite period are of far more interest to him than what these human beings have in common with universal humanity; hence here as elsewhere in his historical fiction, it is not the intellectual or emotional side of life which he shows us, but its character side--the results of strong, concentrated will-power. When he writes of modern times, he describes gipsy or brigand life, as in _Carmen_, a vendetta, as in _Colomba_, a horrible murder on the wedding-night, as in _La Vénus d'Ille_ and _Lokis_. Or if he lays his plot within the pale of modern society proper, he either describes peculiarities of those classes which labour under social disadvantages--the bold language and irregular ideas of young ballet-dancers and actresses, the erotic temptations of Catholic priests; or contents himself with anything in the life of the upper classes that means character--a passionate love-affair terminated by a duel, a case of adultery which leads to the suicide of one of the parties concerned, any thoroughly scandalous story which it delights him to cast in the teeth of the effete, hypocritical society of the day. He feels himself in his element amidst merciless strokes of fate, terrible vicissitudes, violent passions which, when they are fortunate, override the conventions of society, and when unfortunate, are called crimes. Hence it was that modern Russian literature was so sympathetic to him. The works of Pushkin which he translated, _La dame de Pique_ and _Les Bohémiens_, have themes closely akin to those which he treated himself.