Paris of to-day : an intimate account of its people, its home life, and its places of interest . mfortable interior of a man who has ar-rived. His salon is crowded with works ofart brought back from Italy; a head of Christby a primitive painter looks down sadly onthe modern English chairs of polished wood,covered with morocco. M. Bourget is still ahard worker, but his star has paled. Hisbooks are no longer Parisian events. Per-haps, however, this is because of the con-stantly increasing indifference of the public tosociety novels like his, representing only acosmopolitan and artificial world,
Paris of to-day : an intimate account of its people, its home life, and its places of interest . mfortable interior of a man who has ar-rived. His salon is crowded with works ofart brought back from Italy; a head of Christby a primitive painter looks down sadly onthe modern English chairs of polished wood,covered with morocco. M. Bourget is still ahard worker, but his star has paled. Hisbooks are no longer Parisian events. Per-haps, however, this is because of the con-stantly increasing indifference of the public tosociety novels like his, representing only acosmopolitan and artificial world, an un-healthy exception in the life of Paris. Hisfirst books were based simply on his aventnrcsde petit professeur, in which he used to givean animate form to his studies of the con-sciousness. M. Marcel Prevost, another writer who hasdisputed M. Paul Bourgets popularity withthe public, especially the feminine public, andnot without success, is in a period of decideddecline. While M. Bourget always repre-sented rich and elegant society women seek-ing, for perverse sensations, through desoeu-. 0 ^ <j 5s ,^ ^ THE MEN OE LETTERS. 95 vrement and nervosity, M. Marcel Prevostwent still farther, and took as models ac-tresses, dcmi-mondaincs or of these two writers ever madestudies of the real Parisiennc, interested asmuch in her home as in society, and in thingsof the mind as in the elegance of her dressand surroundings. And for that matter, howcould they have studied these? M. Bourgetonly began to go into society after his successas a novelist; M. Prevost, a graduate of theficole Polytechnique, was an engineer in atobacco manufactory in a provincial town inthe Nord, and only came to Paris after hisfirst society novel, le Scorpion, had proveda success. One thing we must remember in thinkingof French writers is the way in which booksare looked upon as a source of fixed incomein France. A man expects a rente from hisnovels. He produces one a year as anotherman wo
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