212 OBITUARY 



Stanislas Julien. His colleagues had elected him confident that he was 

 entitled to the position, without personally knowing him, even without 

 having seen him, an exceptional privilege, even more surprising in the 

 case of so young a man. Ten years later he entered the 'Institut de 

 France.' In the interval the 'Societe Asiatique' had invited him to 

 take the place of Darmesteter as its secretary, a position which 

 Darmesteter had himself occupied in succession to Renan. Loaded 

 with all the favours of fortune he possessed in addition to all these 

 honours the exquisite pleasures of the happiest of home-lives. Never- 

 theless, in 1907, at the age of 42 when his health had already suffered 

 a serious setback, he tore himself away from the delights of his fire-side 

 and of society to return to China ; his voyage which had been carefully 

 prepared by long researches, was crowned with splendid results. 



"It is difficult to form an adequate idea of the labour which under- 

 lies the rapid stage of this brilliant career. Chavannes had from the 

 beginning assigned himself as the maintask of his life to translate the 

 historical memoirs of Sseu-ma Ts'ien, written during the second 

 century before Christ, which contains in a brilliantly conceived monu- 

 mental work all the classics of China and which has served as a model 

 for all historians of later Periods. He has not been able to accomplish 

 this heavy task, interrupted at the publication of the fifth volume, 

 but it may be said, that all his other works, irrespective of their 

 varied nature, have Sseu-ma Ts'ien as their centre of gravity. 



The classical education had taught him that the narrations of the 

 ancient historians, regardless of how scrupulous they may be, must be 

 accepted with great caution and that means for their control are within 

 reach of the conscientious scholar : the sculptured monuments and the 

 inscriptions more especially furnish valuable evidence. The work 

 might seem easy ; the Chinese do not possess the historical sense which 

 endeavours to establish positive connections between scattered facts 

 and between the order of happenings, but they possess, on the other 

 hand, a craving for historical knowledge which passionately attaches 

 them to the monuments of the past. They have compiled enormous 

 treaties on archeological and epigraphical subjects containing a wealth 

 of material ; but the scrupulous conscientiousness of Chavannes refused 

 to rest satisfied with documents of doubtful authenticity ; he would 

 only make use of originals. His first sojourn in China resulted in a 

 book which to-day is considered classical. Twenty years later, follow- 

 ing another voyage, he published his 'Archeological Mission to Western 

 China' which was hailed as a materpiece and which has caused a 

 renaissance of our knowledge of Chinese art. 



"Buddhism occupies an important place among the factors of 

 Chinese art. Introduced in China during the first century of the 



