

IAUKT. AL1'11< 



repeated, apparently from the best ant): 

 alleged refusal of tho army in i.U-\ an order fora 

 second assault at Cold Harbor ithe'mo-t damaging 

 nereis wh..U- military ca- 

 reer), Mr. Dene prompt 1> it in tin- 

 and wrote on the margin. YV,I. . /' //<"." His 

 last illness was painful, and ..niin. d hitn 

 country home for several months. The funeral was 

 . large delegation from New York, 

 'i included many men of eminence and nearly 

 all that remained of hi- associates of earlier days. 



.;-pUce is in the cemetery that 

 hill ba.k -f the Protestant Episcopal Church in 



nu nrr. Ai.i'iiovsi . '. was 



boni e. May 18, 1840; died in I 



Dee. 16. 1897. He was the son of a poor trades- 

 man. wh<> cave him the best (duration he could 

 afford. His boyhood was spent chiefly at I 

 where he attended the lycJf. whirl, he l.-ft to be- 

 come usher in a school at r about a 

 he did the drudgery of that humble calling, the 

 butt of the scholars, who ridiculed him for his near- 

 sirhtedness, and who also played all sorts of cruel 

 tncks upon him. The misery of his life at Alais 

 left a last me impression on hi- mind, and lie said 

 long afterward that hi- -unVriiii;s there fn 1 

 Deeded any that he experienced later in i 



kl.l-H'.XSE DAfDBT. 



Leaving Alais w h u but seventeen years old, he set 

 iri- with hi- brother Kr'nest. hoping to 

 earn a livelihood by the aid of his pen. < >n their 

 arrival in the French capital b.-th found ein; 

 mem with the Comte de Morny (sometimes style-,! 

 at that time president of the Corps 

 Legislatif. whom Alphonee Daudet was accused of 

 lempponing somewhat later in his novel "I. 

 bab. The book created such heated discussions 

 in r r ry journals on account of this that 



Daudet wisely silenced th.- clamor by declaring in 

 a new edition that he had not attempted to pas- 

 quinade any prominent character "f the empire. 



Daudet 's first lit. rary effort was a vohm 

 Terse, "Lee AmoureuM**'' (1KV<). wind, contained 

 An exquisite /OM&UU . ntitled - Prune*." The book 

 was well received, and several of the newspapers 

 threw open their columns to his contributions. 



t'nder the title he. de- 



scribed vividly, in " Figaro." the unhappy experi- 

 ences of the li-hers in the provincial Schools, and 

 Howvd tin- by a pein. "La Double Coiiver- 

 . published " Le Roman 



lu ( i olleriinii of nrticli- that 



: contributed t< 



. and although 



hi- fume : . !iiell\ from hi- novel-. I 



came well known a- a diiim.-iii^t. In iMi-j. in eol- 

 ation \vitt, i.iiie. he ! ,t the 



blole." \\hieh \\a- 



followi-il by ' I^es Absent ;dly written lor 



1 produced a) the 



Comi'pie. Hi- in-M i-rodiiciioii. oritrinallv nam. d 



was brought 'Ui in the Con 



caise ; .:,iler the lei I'.lai..-. 1 ' 



and was follow, -d by "I.. I 

 " I^e ^ lodrama. wa> put on at the 



Vaudeville in I860, and wee uniformly praised b\- 



the jire.-s. Ainonj.' his less luccessful play> 

 I.' Arle-ienne." produced at the \'auile\ ille Thea- 

 ter, for which he wrote incidental music, and 



nier" at the Ambi^u in ls?'J. Sub.-iMjm-nt ly 

 he dramati/ed two of hi> imv,-!-, " Nunia EtoUfflee- 

 tan " and "Sapho." The latter, in which Mine, 

 lu'jalie played a leading part.wa- iinin-n>cly p.,|,u- 

 lar. These were followed by * L'ObeUole ' and 

 La Lutte iioiir lu \ 



Much of Daudet's best work lir-t appeared in the 

 . and he contributed regularly 

 ."the Moiiitenr rniver-i'l." the M Monoe 

 Illustree." and " I/Illustratio,,." hi IMJII he col- 

 lected and published hi- " Lettns de MOD Moulin." 

 a masterpiece of pathos and irony, when the L'ath- 



war cloud*, interrupted hitwork, DuriiiL: the 



.-f Paris by the (n-rmaii- in !*?< he wa- 



B in forming companies to take part in the de- 



f- 'ii-e of the city, and was als< en^ap'l with the 



troops in several sorties. In 1 s ! 1 Be i u-d " Let- 



" Helmnnt." and " Contes 



du Lundi." the latter having' appean-il in " Ki- 

 under the pen name ( iaM..n- Mat i. . He signed his 



for hi- journal Jehan Froi art. Subsequent- 

 ly he |iiibli-hed several novel-, -hort -t.rie>. and 

 collec-tions either under his own name or under the 

 pen name liaptistet. His charmim: BZtl 

 "Tartarin de Tarascon." which exhibits hi- li.u'htc-t 

 and gayest humor. wa> i-sued in 1 S 7::. an<l was fol- 

 lowed bv I..- Petit Chose " (reiniiii-cent of hi- day- 

 at Alais), "Tartarin mr leeAlpes." ".lack: Histoin- 

 d'uii Ouvrier," and " Les Femme- d'Art i-te-." I'.nt 

 his best work. " I-'roniont .leuneet Kisl<-r A in,'. "saw 

 light the following year. For this he received the 

 Jouy prize of the Aoedefl tise, a body for 



which, in . . he showed supreme contempt 



time in l v ; aim- one of the editors of 



the ".Journal Ofliciel," a sinecure that pive him 

 Miiiple time to pur-ue his ht, rary labors. In 1^7? 



he published - and " I. 



bab: Mrur> I'an-ienne-." Le- |;.,i- en Fxil" 

 appeared in 187!. In the cour-e .,; f his 



brother's b..ok. "M..: ^Ioi: Souvenir d'Kn- 



fance et de .IciinnesM-." in the " Atlantic Monthly" 

 f..r .June. 1HS2. Henry .lame-. .Jr.. said: "Alp; 

 Daudet is a pas-ioniit- observer an observer not 

 perhaps of the deepe-t things in life, but .f t In- 

 whole realm <f tin- immediate, the expre--i\e. the 

 actual. This faculty, enricln-d by the mo-t abun- 

 dant exercise and united with tlie feeling of the 



poet who sees all the finer relations of thin-_ r - and 

 never relimpiishes the attempt to charm, is what 

 we look for in the happic-t novelist of our days. 

 Ah. the tiling he sees the various fleeting, lurk- 

 ing, -i moeleet, hnmea things 1 This 

 tiful vivar-jtv finds itself rno-t complete in * Les 

 Ilois en Kxil,' a boc^k that could have been pro- 



