Huard has done for the denizens of the godly, deadly dull French villages and provincial towns of France what Steinlen has done for Paris--and he has done it exceedingly well. It is difficult to conceive how these worthy people, so fully convinced of their own importance, so proud of their deviltries and or their little wickednesses, and so full of tittle-tattle about their neighbours could have been better introduced to us. Huard’s collection of one hundred sketches, published in book form, and entitled “Province,” should prove a valuable document to future writers on the manners and customs of a section of French provincials at the commencement of the twentieth century. He interests himself mainly with the local official and _petit commerçant_ (or tradesman) classes, deviating occasionally to draw within his net a few stray soldiers, or some dignified member of the old nobility of France. A man of healthy mien and fine physique, Huard is excessively reserved and retiring, seeking the companionship of very few, and entirely engrossed in his work. Moreover, he is most modest, and has in no wise been spoilt by the lasting success and renown his work has earned for him, at an age when others are but commencing to hammer at the door of Fame. [Illustration] Huard was born in Paris, but brought up in a provincial town. His schooldays, we are told, were marked by indomitable diligence in the successful finding of means of evading the tedium of one school after another. It is a ludicrous fact that although none of his humorous sketches are actual portraits, his own townspeople have taken such dire offence at what appeared to them as hits at themselves, that they have so far boycotted the satirist that he willingly banishes himself from the town in which he passed his youth. It is even reported that one old lady said, quite seriously, that if he ever dared to draw her she would disfigure him for life with vitriol. Possibly this is the marvellous person, in a good temper, whose physiognomy appears on the cover of the Huard number of “L’Album.” Of course it is not to be denied that Huard has “made game” of the provincials; and, knowing the inherent pettiness of the classes he has held up to ridicule, it is small wonder that they resent fun poked at their expense by one who to them can appear to be no less than a traitor. Huard, however, is never spiteful or malicious; he sees better and further than his neighbours, and he knows how to tell the truth about what he has seen, without being warped by local influences. A perusal of “Province,” and other works to be mentioned, will, I am sure, prove the truth of these remarks.