CONTENTS
FRANCOIS COPPEE
A ROMANCE OF YOUTH
BOOK 1.
CHAPTER I. ON THE BALCONY
CHAPTER II. SAD CHANGES
CHAPTER III. PAPA AND MAMMA GERARD
CHAPTER IV. THE DEMON ABSINTHE
BOOK 2.
CHAPTER V. AMEDEE MAKES FRIENDS
CHAPTER VI. DREAMS OF LOVE
CHAPTER VII. A GENTLE COUNSELLOR
CHAPTER VIII. BUTTERFLIES AND GRASSHOPPERS
CHAPTER IX. THORNS OF JEALOUSY
CHAPTER X. A BUDDING POET
BOOK 3.
CHAPTER XI. SUCCESS
CHAPTER XII. SOCIAL TRIUMPHS
CHAPTER XIII. A SERPENT AT THE FIRESIDE
BOOK 4.
CHAPTER XIV. TOO LATE!
CHAPTER XV. REPARATION
CHAPTER XVI. IN TIME OF WAR
CHAPTER XVII. "WHEN YOUTH, THE DREAM, DEPARTS”
FRANCOIS EDOUARD JOACHIM COPPEE was born in Paris, January 12, 1842. His father was a minor ‘employe’ in the French War Office; and, as the family consisted of six the parents, three daughters, and a son (the subject of this essay)—the early years of the poet were not spent in great luxury. After the father’s death, the young man himself entered the governmental office with its monotonous work. In the evening he studied hard at St. Genevieve Library. He made rhymes, had them even printed (Le Reliquaire, 1866); but the public remained indifferent until 1869, when his comedy in verse, ‘Le Passant’, appeared. From this period dates the reputation of Coppee—he woke up one morning a “celebrated man.”
Like many of his countrymen, he is a poet, a dramatist, a novelist, and a writer of fiction. He was elected to the French Academy in 1884. Smooth shaven, of placid figure, with pensive eyes, the hair brushed back regularly, the head of an artist, Coppee can be seen any day looking over the display of the Parisian secondhand booksellers on the Quai Malaquais; at home on the writing-desk, a page of carefully prepared manuscript, yet sometimes covered by cigarette-ashes; upon the wall, sketches by Jules Lefebvre and Jules Breton; a little in the distance, the gaunt form of hi