THE FRENCH CONVULSIVES, 



WITH A SPECIMEN. 



The popularity of those French writers who form what has been 

 termed the Convulsive School of Romance, shows that the public 

 mind of France is affected with a morbid craving for the contempla- 

 tion of physical horrors. The old Revolution gave birth to the 

 school of Davide, whose proffered civilities the merciful and tender- 

 hearted Flaxman repelled with disgust, the painter having filled his 

 portfolio with sketches made during the dying agonies of those whom 

 he had aided in condemning. To the three days of July 1830 may 

 be attributed the production of numerous French works, recently 

 published, which display, most daringly, the convulsions of human 

 agony, the poverty, degradation, and criminal propensities of the 

 lower classes. Conscious that a familiarity with the terrible in fact 

 has rendered the generality of the French reading public callous to 

 all ordinary condiments, the authors in question, rouze, excite, and 

 gratify it by the strongest stimulants which art can supply. They 

 depict scenes of violence and atrocity, of crime and bloodshed, with 

 their adjuncts, horror and despair, and misery of the deepest shade. 

 The dismal Morgue, the hospital, the prison, and the scaffold, all 

 are depicted with painful force and accuracy. Their delight is to 

 dwell upon the dark side of humanity, to exhibit the leprosy of the 

 heart as equalling, if not surpassing that of the body in hideousness. 

 It would seem as if they had pared their pens with a scalpel, and had 

 mingled blood with their ink. 



Such is the school which ranks Jules Janin among its disciples. 

 His first performance, the Dead Ass and Guillotined Woman is a 

 singular little work, and, on its appearance, gave rise to much specu- 

 lation in the literary circles at Paris. It was generally imagined 

 and the jocular allusions of the work itself abundantly countenanced 

 the conjecture that it was merely meant as a burlesque on Victor 

 Hugo's Dernier Jour d'une Condamnee, and an attempt to beat 

 that author at his own weapons, while the deep earnestness and con 

 amore style of the execution seemed to identify it with the author's 

 personal feelings and to stamp it with his own image. His next 

 work, La Confession, was an additional confirmation of the latter 

 opinion, and decided his adherence to the Convulsives. L'Ane mort 

 et la Femme Guillotinee is a little work of great power, emulating the 

 simplicity of plot and poverty of incident of the Greek drama, and 

 depending for its effect on the novelty of its manner, and the skill 

 and power of the author in the management of his materials. It is 

 understood to have literally fulfilled the prediction hazarded by him 

 in his preface ; " that it was such a book as the reader would, twenty 

 times, throw down in disgust, and feel himself compelled, as if by a 

 spell, to take up again." It contains a forcible sketch of a young 

 peasant girl's career. Of the scene in which he introduces his he- 

 roine, in all the freshness and vivacity of untainted youth and beauty : 

 the following is a hasty translation : 



M.M. No. 86, S 



