TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES In the plain text version words in Italics are denoted by _underscores_ and text in bold like =this=. The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added to the public domain. A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept. Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected. * * * * * TWENTIETH CENTURY FRENCH WRITERS _Frontispiece_ [Illustration: =Mary Duclaux=] TWENTIETH CENTURY FRENCH WRITERS (REVIEWS AND REMINISCENCES) BY MADAME MARY DUCLAUX NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1920 Printed in Great Britain PRE-WAR PREFACE I meant this book to be an image, a reflection, of the Twentieth Century in France, so far as it is shown in literature during the first fourteen years of its course. But my book is small, the subject is vast: an actual, living movement, a growing generation, is a difficult thing to copy--it will not keep still! And it branches out so wide: there are so many French writers of the younger sort! I am overcome with remorse when I think of the gifted beings whom I have left out! I remember that child whom Saint Augustine saw, trying to gather the sea into his little shell; like him, I see the waters stretching illimitably: I have only brought away a sample. Yet those who taste it may have some faint idea, if not of the breadth and the numerousness of the literary movement in France, at least of its savour and its quality. Given the limits of my little volume, I was compelled to make a choice; and there is always some injustice in a selection. Why should some be taken and others left? Why accept Rostand and reject Bataille? Why give Madame de Noailles and say nothing of Fernand Gregh? Why gather up Boylesve and André Gide, neglecting Estaunie, and Sageret, and Paul Adam? If I have Marie Lenéru, why not Sacha Guitry? Choosing Madame Colette, what reason have I for eliminating Madame de Régnier or Madame Delarue-Mardrus? I especially mourn the absence of the Brothers Tharaud, those perfect artists, who preserve the tradition of Flaubert. And there is a great gap in my fabric where I should have put the colonial novel (that flourishing Euphorion, born of the union of Loti and Kipling). Why have I not a line for Henry Daguerches, for Claude Farrère? All these are names to remember. At least I lay this unction to my soul: if I have not always chosen the most perfect, I have faithfully gone in for the most characteristic.