PRINCESSE DE CLEVES. (The Prin cess of Cleves' by Madame de la Fayette ap peared first under the name of in I67& It is a novel, but it is in form and con tent in the sharpest contrast to the novels that had up to that time been in vogue. They had been interminable affairs, in 10 and 12 volumes, made up of the most extraordinary adventures, through which paragons of valor were made to pass before their love-laden sighs might with propriety melt the heart of the paragons of beauty who were the objects of their adoration and they might lead them to the altar. This was a short and simple story, scantily furnish ing a thin volume, without heroic or gallant adventure, without paragons of beauty and valor and without wedding bells. It is a drama of conscience. A married woman is the heroine. What fixes our attention and interest is the moral experience of a noble character striving to realize a high ideal of duty in a difficult situation. It is such a victory of wise
self-control and steadfast will over impulse and passion as Corneille loved to present in his tragedies. It is essentially a novel of charac ter, in which psychological analysis and pene trating observation of human conduct as it displays itself under familiar conditions take the place of breathless action and thrilling situ ations. The influence of the "Princess of Cleves' was very great, and it is not too much to say that it marks an important turning point in the history of the novel. The great masters of the early 18th century, like Marivaux in France and Richardson in England, who deter mined the course the modern novel was to take, developed her method and applied it on a much broader canvas, but not always with more perfect results. There is a translation by Thomas Sergeant Perry (Boston 1891).