ABOUT, h Enuoxo (1828-85). A bril liant, witty. but uneven French journaliq, nov elist, and writer of social and political essays. Ile was born at Dienze, completed his studies in Paris, won honors; and was sent in 1851 to the French School at Athens, where he studied lit tle, but observed much in a desultory way. The literary result of his two years' stay in Greece iS La Grew(' contomporaine (1851). ml 1,r roi des montagues (1856), both full of lnunor and irony. They were popular, often translated, and had infinenee on what passed for politic-al thmight. In 1865 he published 7'olla, a story of Italy, bor rowed in part, and without due acknowledg ment, front An Italian novel, Vittoria Sacor•ni ( 18•1 ) . 1 185(1 he essayed the stage without success, lout won popularity by short stories col lected miller the titles Les mariag•s dr Paris (1856) and Les mat-loges dr province (1868).
most popular stories are L'homme l'oreille «Isst'e (15(11) and Le ne: du notaire ( 18611, both often translated. Ile had a gift of facile narration, but he did not take his talent seri ously, and ceased writing fiction with the fall of the Second Empire, of which he was a spoiled child. To politics during these years he had contributed La question romaine (1859), now; contcmporaine (1861). La Prusse err 1860, La vouvelle carte, de l'Europe (1860), and Le prog•t's (186-1). After the fall of the Empire he became editor of Lc .0.1". Sleek% and published a bitter book on Alsace (1872). He was made an academician in 1885. The general character istics of his work are a kindly humor, a keen irony, a cleanly taste, and a rather shallow skep ticism.