In 1840 Musset passed through a period of feeling that the public did not recognize his genius—as, indeed, they did not— and wrote a very short but very striking series of reflections headed with the words "A trente ans," which Paul de Musset published in his Life. In 1841 there came out in the Revue de Paris Musset's "Le Rhin allemand," an answer to Becker's poem which appeared in the Revue des deux mondes. This fine war-song made a great deal of noise, and brought to the poet quantities of challenges from German officers. Between this date and 5845 he wrote compara tively little. In the last named year the charming "proverbe" 11 faut q'une Porte soit ouverte ou fermee appeared. In 1847 Un Caprice was produced at the Theatre Francais. The word "rebonsoir" shocked some of the old school. But the success of the piece was immediate. In 1848 Il ne faut jurer de rien was played at the Theatre Francais and the Chandelier at the Theatre Historique. Between this date and 1851 Bettine was produced and Carmosine written. The poet died on May 2, 1857.
Alfred de Musset now holds the place which Sainte-Beuve first accorded, then denied, and then again accorded to him—as a poet of the first rank. He had genius, though not genius of that strong est kind which its possessor can always keep in check. His own character worked both for and against his success as a writer. He inspired a strong personal affection in his contemporaries. His very weakness and his own consciousness of it produced such beautiful work as, to take one instance, the Nuit d'octobre. His Nouvelles
are extraordinarily brilliant ; his poems are charged with passion, fancy and fine satiric power; in his plays he hit upon a method of his own, in which no one has dared or availed to follow him with any closeness. He was one of the first, most original, and in the end most successful of the first-rate writers included in the phrase "the 1830 period." The wilder side of his life has probably been exaggerated; and his brother Paul de Musset has given in his Biographie a striking testimony to the finer side of his character. In the later years of his life Musset was elected, not without oppo sition, a member of the French Academy. Besides the works above referred to, the Nouvelles et contes and the Oeuvres posthumes, in which there is much of interest concerning the great tragic actress Rachel, should be specially mentioned. (W. H. Po.; X.) The biography of Alfred de Musset by his brother Paul, partial as it naturally is, is of great value. Alfred de Musset has afforded matter for many appreciations, and among these in English may be mentioned the sketch (189o) of C. F. Oliphant and the essay (185s) of F. T. Palgrave. See also the monograph by Arvede Barine (Madame Vincens) in the "Grands ecrivains francais" series. Musset's correspondence with George Sand was published intact for the first time in 1904.
See M. Donnay, Alfred de Musset (1914) ; C. Maurras, Les Amants de Venise: George Sand et Musset (1916), pp. 316; E. Moroncini, A. de Musset e l'Italia (Milan, 1921), pp. 228.