Paul Bourget has said of him: "Among the young people who have entered literature since 1880 Maurice Barrès is certainly the most celebrated.... One must see other than a decadent or a dilettante in this analyst ... the most original who has appeared since Baudelaire." Bourget said much more about the young writer, then in his twenties, who in 1887 startled Paris with a curious, morbid, ironical, witty book, a production neither fiction nor fact. This book was called Sous l'Œil des Barbares. It made a sensation. He was born on the 22nd of September, 1862, at Charmes-sur-Moselle (Vosges), and received a classical education at the Nancy (old capital of Lorraine) Lyceum. Of good family--among his ancestors he could boast some military men--he early absorbed a love for his native province, a love that later was to become a species of soil-worship. His health not strong at any time, and nervous of temperament, he nevertheless moved on Paris, for the inevitable siege of which all romantic readers of Balzac dream during their school-days. "_A nous deux!_" muttered Rastignac, shaking his fist at the city spread below him. _A nous deux!_ exclaim countless youngsters ever since. Maurice, however, was not that sort of Romantic. He meant to conquer Paris, but in a unique way; he detested melodrama. He removed to the capital in 1882. His first literary efforts had appeared in the _Journal de la Meurthe et des Vosges_; he could see as a boy the Vosges Mountains; and Alsace, not far away, was in the clutches of the hated enemy. In Paris he wrote for several minor reviews, met distinguished men like Leconte de Lisle, Rodenbach, Valade, Rollinat; and his Parisian début was in _La Jeune France_, with a short story entitled Le Chemin de l'institut (April, 1882). Ernest Gaubert, who has given us these details, says that, despite Leconte de Lisle's hearty support, Mme. Adam refused an essay of Barrès as unworthy of the _Nouvelle Revue_. In 1884 appeared a mad little review, _Les Taches d'Encre_, irregular in publication. Despite its literary quality, the young editor displayed some knowledge of the tactics of "new" journalism. When Morin was assassinated by Mme. Clovis Hugues, sandwich men paraded the boulevards carrying on their boards this inscription: "Morin reads no longer _Les Taches d'Encre!_" Perseverance such as this should have been rewarded; but little _Ink-spots_ quickly disappeared. Barrès founded a new review in 1886, _Les Chroniques_, in company with some brilliant men. Jules Claretie about this time remarked, "Make a note of the name of Maurice Barrès. I prophesy that it will become famous." Barrès had discovered that Rastignac's pugnacious methods were obsolete in the battle with Paris, though there was no folly he would be incapable of committing if he only could attract attention--even to walking the boulevards in the guise of primeval man. Far removed as his exquisite art now is from this