Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AMEDEE ACHARD BY WILLIAM HALE ‘‘Belle-Rose, the best imitation of Dumas’ best manner by his best imitator, Amedee Achard.”—George Saintshury. HE brilliant success of the romance of the cloak and sword, in the latter part of the reign of Louis Philippe, seems to have influenced many of the writers of that epoch to imitate the example of the elder Dumas. Auguste Maquet, Dumas’ col- laborator, attempted to fill the blanks in the great master’s series of historical romances covering the period between the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the Revolution; Théophile Gautier wrote a four de force not altogether successful, entitled, ‘‘Le Capitaine Fracasse’’; Ponson du Terrail built up audacious inven- tions which had nothing historic about them except the date; Albert Blanquet introduced the most ultra-sensationalism into his pictures of the court of Henry II. and the episode of La Belle Féronniere; Paul Féval, at a somewhat later period, echoed the _ traditions of this period, in a historic romance of real merit de- scribing the Regency and the famous Mississippi scheme of Law. But chief among all these imitators was a native of Marseilles, Amédée Achard, who had many of the qualities of the great Dumas himself. Louis Amédée Eugene Achard is the full name of the author in question, and he was born at the above-named city on April 19, 1814. Léon Gozlan and Joseph Méry, two of Achard’s most brilliant contemporaries, were also born at Mar- seilles about the same period. It would be interesting to compare these two now almost forgotten writers with the versatile author of ‘‘Belle-Rose.’’ They all had their hour of vogue, but only Achard is read to any great extent to-day. Amédée Achard’s family were merchants, and the young man’s comicbook