SU'DRA is the name of the fourth caste of the Hindus. See CASTE.
SUE, a well-known French novelist, was born at Paris Dec. 10, 1804. His father, Jean-Joseph Sue, was one of the household physicians of Napoleon, and he educated his son for his own profession. At the age of twenty the young man became an army-surgeon. In this capacity he served in the French expedition to Spain, under the duke of Angoul8me, in 1823. Subsequently he transferred himself to the navy; and iu 1828 was present at the battle of Navarino. In 1829 his father died, leaving him a handsome fortune, on the acquisition of which he ceased to practice his profession. After coquetting a little with art he betook himself seriously to literature, and very soon, in the department of fiction, he achieved a considerable popularity. His earlier efforts were sea-stories, somewhat after the manner of Cooper, or romances in imitation of Scott; and though in both fields he displayed talent, his true power was scarcely as yet developed. Something of it may, however, be traced in his Mathdde, on les Memoires d'une Jeune Femme, published in 1841; but it was first decisively made manifest in the famous Mystires de Paris, which began to appear the year after in the columns of the Journal des Debats., The furor of excitement occasioned by this work and its successor
—Le Juif Errant—which appeared in the Constitutionnel, not only in France but else where, has seldom, perhaps, been exceeded; and for both the writer received large sums of money. In 1846 his Martin, l'Enfant Trouve was issued; in 1847-8 appeared Les Sept Hades Capitaux • and in 1852 he published Les Hysteres du Peuple, his last work of any importance. Throughout Sue's latest works there runs a vein of socialism; and at the revolution of 1848 he allied himself with the extremest sect of the republicans. On April 28, 1850, he was elected deputy to the legislative assembly for the department of the Seine, and was assiduous in his duties as such till the coup d'etat of Dec., 1852, by which he was driven into exile. He retired to Savoy; and at Annecy he died July 3, it357.
In the writings of Sue 5reat power is displayed; but it is rather of the unhealthy kind, and depends for much of its effect on vicious sources of interest. His books are read once with a fever-heat of curiosity, and scarcely bear reperusal.