ALFRED DE VIGNY (1797-1863) BY GRACE KING LFRED VICTOR, Comte de Vigny, is represented in the voluminous literature of his country in the nineteenth century by a mere handful of books: briefly, by two volumes of poetry, 'Poésies Antiques et Modernes' and 'Les Destinées'; by a novel, Cinq Mars'; a comedy, 'Quitte pour la Peur' (Let Off with a Scare); a prose epic, Stello'; four tales from military life, Military Servitude and Grandeur'; a play, 'Chatter ton'; and The Journal of a Poet.' And in the resounding fame of great contemporaries and successors in literature, De Vigny's name and this handful of books might, with easy supposition, have been relegated to the position of a dwindling and expiring reminiscence of the past; the fate of long catalogues of successful writers and books of his day. De Vigny's name and work, however, have gained rather than lost lustre by the friction of time upon them; and the eulogy by Théophile Gautier, that he was "the purest glory of the romantic school," is as fresh in its truth to-day, as when it was penned over a half-century ago. Of all the romanticists, he remains, to the critical eyes of to-day, as the most genuine, the most sincere, and the least illogical; in short, as a romanticist by blood, birth, and traditions, not by school or profession of faith. ALFRED DE VIGNY He was born at Loches in Touraine, in 1797, the last descendant of a once wealthy and distinguished family. Through his mother, he was connected with great admirals and sea captains; through his father, with courtiers, army officers, and princely seigneurs. Ruined by the Revolution, his parents removed to Paris; where they consecrated their life, and what fortune remained to them, to his education. On the knees of his white-haired father, an old courtier of Louis XV. and a crippled veteran of the Seven Years' War, the child learned to know Louis XV., the great Frederick, Voltaire, and the |