There is even a legend--although how solid a foundation it may have in fact I do not dare to discuss--there is a legend that the lady-superior of a certain convent near Paris was so fascinated by _The Abbe Constantin_, and so thoroughly convinced of the piety of its author, that she ordered all his other works, receiving in due season the lively volumes wherein are recorded the sayings and doings of Monsieur and Madame Cardinal, and of the two lovely daughters of Monsieur and Madame Cardinal. To note that these very amusing studies of certain aspects of life in a modern capital originally appeared in that extraordinary journal, _La Vie Parisienne_--now sadly degenerate--is enough to indicate that they are not precisely what the good lady-superior expected to receive. We may not say that _La Famille Cardinal_ is one of the books every gentleman's library should be without; but to appreciate its value requires a far different knowledge of the world and of its wickedness than is needed to understand _The Abbe Constantin_. Yet the picture of the good priest and the portraits of the little Cardinals are the work of the same hand, plainly enough. In both of these books, as in _Criquette_ (M. Halevy's only other novel), as in _A Marriage for Love_, and the twoscore other short stories he has written during the past thirty years, there are the same artistic qualities, the same sharpness of vision, the same gentle irony, the same constructive skill, and the same dramatic touch. It is to be remembered always that the author of _L'Abbe Constantin_ is also the half-author of "Froufrou" and of "Tricoche et Cacolet," as well as of the librettos of "La Belle Helene" and of "La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein." In the two novels, as in the twoscore short stories and sketches--the _contes_ and the _nouvelles_ which are now spring-like idyls and now wintry episodes, now sombre etchings and now gayly-colored pastels--in all the works of the story-teller we see the firm grasp of the dramatist. The characters speak for themselves; each reveals himself with the swift directness of the personages of a play. They are not talked about and about, for all analysis has been done by the playwright before he rings up the curtain in the first paragraph. And the story unrolls itself, also, as rapidly as does a comedy. The movement is straightforward. There is the cleverness and the ingenuity of the accomplished dramatist, but the construction has the simplicity of the highest skill. The arrangement of incidents is so artistic that it seems inevitable; and no one is ever moved to wonder whether or not the tale might have been better told in different fashion.