C HIM (1842—). A French poet, dramatist, and novelist. Ile was horn in l'aris, January 12, 1842, and was a weak. nervous, sentimental boy, son of a clerk in the War Department. his mother died in his childhood, his father in his youth. He obtained a Government clerkship, but the sadness and trials of early days left deep impress on his later work. _Moments that he could spare from office labors were siren to poetry, but he first attracted notice by a one act play, Le passant ( 1869). In the Franco-Ger man War he served in the militia. Hehad already published three volumes of verse, Le reliquaire (1866); Les i»timit(cs (18681; and Panics mo deities (1869), but first caught the popular ear after the experiences and disasters of the war had prepared him and his public for Les humbles (1872). The next six years brought each its volume of verse, Le cahicr rouge; Olivier; Uric idylle pendant le siege; L'exilee; Les Timis; Le naufrage. During all this period he had been producing dramas, collected in four volumes (1873-86). Of these the more noteworthy are Le lathier de Cremone (1877) and Pour la couronne (1891). his prose tales date chiefly
from the eighties. Of these, the best are Fillc de tristesse; Henriette ; Madame n11111 ; and Le eon cher de soleil. He has told his own story in the essentially autobiographical Toute cue jeu»esse (1890). There is also a series of journalis tic essays. lion franc parley (1894). Coppje best deserves study as a poet, for it is the poetic element in his stories and dramas that gives them their charm. He was at first and by instinct an artist in verse, a skilled craftsman, though, perhaps, a little affected; after 1870 his facile suavity yielded to sterner notes in the lyric of democracy, of work. poverty, and self denial, and of the indignant patriotism of de feat. To this succeeds the gentle idyllic vein with an occasional tragic touch. lint whether in prose or verse, he continues the poet of the Parisian workman and the petty trading elas4. He has happily described himself as "a man of refinement who enjoys simple people, an iris tocrat loves the masses." Consult Leseure, Copper, nom mc, in c ie ct 1(11ft-re (Paris, 1888).