That fascinating philosopher and friend of Remy de Gourmont--who practically introduced him--must not be overlooked, for he had genuine influence. I refer to brilliant Jules Gaultier, who evolved from Flaubert's Madame Bovary the idea of his Bovarysme--which, succinctly stated, is the instinct in mankind to appear other than it is; from the philosopher to the snob, from the priest to the actor, from the duchess to the prostitute. Of the influence of politics upon art and literature--which happily are no cloistered virtues in France--we need not speak here. M. Florian-Parmentier does so in his admirable and bulky book, of which we have only exposed the high lights. Since Jules Huret's Enquête sur l'Evolution Littéraire (1890), followed by similar works of Vellay, Jean Muller, and Gaston Picard (1913), we recall no such pamphlet as Emile Henriot's, mentioned above. He put the questions: "Where are we? Where are we going?" in _Le Temps_ of Paris, June, 1912, to a number of representative thinkers and poets, and reprinted between covers their answers in 1913. The result is rather confusing, a cloud of contradictory witnesses are assembled, and what one affirms the other denies. There are no schools! Yes, there are groups! We are going to the devil headlong! The sky is full of rainbows and the humming of harps celestial! Better the extravagances of the decayed Romanticists than the debasing realism of the modern novel, cry the Symbolists. A plague on all your houses! say the Unanimists. One fierce Wolf (Loup) admitted that at the banquets of his cénacle he and his fellow poets always ate in effigy the classic writers. Or was it at the Symbolists'? Does it much matter? The gesture counts alone with these youthful "Fumistes"--as Leconte de Lisle had christened their predecessors. Verlaine, in his waggish mood, persisted in spelling as "Cymbalists" the Symbolists, his own followers. Gongs would have been a better word. A punster speaks of Theists as those who love "le bon Dieu and tea." The new critical school, at its head Charles Maurras, do not conceal their contempt for all these "arrivistes" and revolutionary groups, believing that only a classic renaissance will save Young France. Barnums, the entire lot! pronounces in faded accents the ultra-academic group. Three critics of wide-reaching influence are dead since the war began: Emile Faguet, Jules Lemaître, and Remy de Gourmont. They leave no successors worthy of their mettle. III