than intuition--an intuitive sense, above all, of its logic, of the
necessity which draws into one all minor changes, as elements in a
reasonable development. And his care for it, his curiosity about it,
were symptomatic of his own genius. Structure, proportion, design, a
sort of architectural coherency: that was the aim of his method in
the art of literature, in that form of it, especially, which he will
live by, in fiction.

As historian and archaeologist, as a man of erudition turned artist,
he is well seen in the Chronique du Regne de Charles IX., by which we
pass naturally from Merimee's critical or scientific work to the
products of his imagination. What economy in the use of a large
antiquarian knowledge! what an instinct amid a hundred details, for
the detail that carries physiognomy in it, that really tells! And
again what outline, what absolute clarity of outline! For the
historian of that puzzling age which centres in the "Eve of Saint
Bartholomew," outward events themselves seem obscured by the
vagueness of motive of the actors in them. But Merimee, disposing of
them as an artist, not in love with half-lights, compels events and
actors alike to the clearness he [21] desired; takes his side without
hesitation; and makes his hero a Huguenot of pure blood, allowing its
charm, in that charming youth, even to Huguenot piety. And as for
the incidents--however freely it may be undermined by historic doubt,
all reaches a perfectly firm surface, at least for the eye of the
reader. The Chronicle of Charles the Ninth is like a series of
masterly drawings in illustration of a period--the period in which
two other masters of French fiction have found their opportunity,
mainly by the development of its actual historic characters. Those
characters--Catherine de Medicis and the rest--Merimee, with
significant irony and self-assertion, sets aside, preferring to think