Both series, and others since published, abound in gossip, in amusing anecdotes, in sharp literary criticism, while both contain evidences of a cynical and Rabelaisian or Swiftian humour which was very strong in Merimee. This characteristic is said to be so prominent in a correspondence with another friend, which now lies in the library at Avignon, that there is but little chance of its ever being printed. A fourth collection of letters, of much inferior extent and interest, has been printed by Blaze de Bury under the title of Lettres a une autre inconnue (1873), and others still by d'Haussonville (1888), and in the Revue des Deux Mondes (1896). In the latter years of his life Merimee suffered very much from ill-health. He died at Cannes September 23, 187o.
Merimee's character was a peculiar and in some respects an unfortunate one, but by no means unintelligible. Partly by tem perament, partly it is said owing to some childish experience, when he discovered that he had been duped and determined never to be so again, not least owing to the example of Henri Beyle (Stendhal), who was a friend of his family, Merimee appears at an early age to have imposed upon himself as a duty the main tenance of an attitude of sceptical indifference and sarcastic criti cism.
All his literary work has the Renaissance character. It is tolerably extensive, amounting to some seventeen or eighteen volumes, but its bulk is not great for a life which was not short, and which was occupied, at least nominally, in little else About a third of it consists of the letters already mentioned. Rather more than another third consists of the official work which has been already alluded to—reports, essays, short historical sketches, the chief of which latter is a history of Pedro the Cruel (1843), and another of the curious pretender known in Russian story as the false Demetrius (1852). Some of the literary essays, such as those on Beyle, on Turgeniev, etc., where a personal element enters, are excellent. Against others and against the larger his torical sketches—admirable as they are—Taine's criticism that they want life has some force. In purely archaeological matters his Description des peintures de Saint-Savin is noteworthy.
It is, however, in the remaining third of his work, consisting entirely of tales either in narrative or in dramatic form, and especially in the former, that his full power is perceived. He translated a certain number of things (chiefly from the Russian) ; but his fame does not rest on these, on his already-mentioned youthful supercheries, or on his later semi-dramatic works. There remain about a score of tales, extending in point of composition over exactly forty years and in length from that of Colomba, the longest, which fills about one hundred and fifty pages, to that of l'Enlevement de la redoute (1829), which fills just half a dozen.
They are unquestionably the best things of their kind written during the century, the only nouvelles that can challenge com parison with them being the very best of Gautier, and one or two of Balzac. The motives are sufficiently different. In Colomba and Mateo Falcone (1829), the Corsican point of honour is drawn on; in Carmen (written apparently after reading Borrow's Spanish books), the gipsy character; in la Venus d'Ille (1837) and Lokis (two of the finest of all), certain grisly superstitions.
Arsene Guillot is a singular satire, full of sarcastic pathos, on popular morality and religion; la Chambre bleue, an i8th-century conte, worthy of C. P. J. Crebillon for grace and wit, and superior to him in delicacy; The Capture of the Redoubt just mentioned is a perfect piece of description; l' Abbe Aubain is again satirical; la Double ineprise (the authorship of which raised objections to Merimee when he was elected to the Academy) is an exercise in analysis strongly impregnated with the spirit of Stendhal, but better written than anything of that writer's. These stories, with his letters, assure Merimee's place in literature at the very head of the French prose writers of the century. He had undertaken an edition of Brantome for the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne, but it was never completed. (G. SA.) BIBLIOGRAPI1Y.-Oeuvres Completes (ed. P. Trahard and E. Cham pion, 1927, etc.) ; See also a selected edition published by Nelson (1927) ; the collections of MM. Charpentier and Calmann Levy ; M. Tourneux, Prosper Merimee: sa bibliographie (1876), and Prosper Merimee: ses portialts, sa bibliotheque (1879) ; L. Pinvert, Sur Meri mee. Notes bibliographiques et critiques (1908). For reviews and criti cisms, see Chronique de Charles IX. (trans. by G. Saintsbury, with an introduction, 5889) , and the essay, containing a review of Merimee's entire work, prefixed by the same writer to an American translation ; A. Filon, Merimee et ses amis (1894) ; Walter Pater, "Prosper Merimee" in Studies in European Literature. Taylorian Lectures 1889-1899 (1900) ; V. M. Jovanovi6, "La Guzla" de Prosper Merimee. Etude d'histoire romantique (1911) ; E. Falcke, Die romantischen Elemente in Prosper Merimees Roman and Novellen, Romantische Arbeiten, No. 6 (1915) ; P. Trahard, Prosper Merimee et Part de la nouvelle (1923), and La Jeunesse de Prosper Merimee 2 VOL (1925) .