BERNARD, CHARLES DE, whose full name was PIERRE MARIE CHARLES DE BERNARD DU GRAIL DE LA VILLETTE (I 804 185o), French writer, was born at Besancon. After studying for the law, and then taking to journalism, he was encouraged by Balzac (whose La Peau de chagrin he reviewed) to settle in Paris and write ; and the result was a series of remarkable pictures of provincial society and the Parisian bourgeoisie. The best of these are Le Noeud gordien (1838), containing among other short stories Une Aventure de magistrat, from which Sardou drew his comedy of the Pommnes du voisin; Ger f aut (1838), considered his masterpiece; Les Ailes d'Icare (184o) ; La Peau du lion (1841) and Le Gentilhomme campagnard (1847) His Oeuvres completes (185o) include also his poetry and two comedies written in collaboration with "Lsonce" (C. H. L. Laurencot, 1805-62). In W. M. Thackeray's Paris Sketch-book ("On some fashionable French novels") there is an admirable criticism of Bernard. See also an essay by Henry James in French Poets and Novelists (1884)