The Conscript an Historical Novel Author:Erckmann-Chatrian General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1908 Original Publisher: A. L. Burt company Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you ... more »can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTION. The partnership in the craft of letters which existed for over forty years between the two Lor- rainers, M. Emile Erckmann, of Phalsburg, and M. Alexandre Chatrian, of Soldatenthal, both in the department of the Meurthe, has become well-nigh as famous as that of the De Goncourt Brothers, or that of the joint dramatic authors of James I.'s era, Beaumont and Fletcher. That the two men were in reality one was long the belief of readers of their early Alsatian romances and stories of the Vosges country and those of the Black Forest. This belief was cherished even as late as the period when they produced their historical novels, dealing with the era of the French Revolution and that of the First Empire. Indeed, writing as they did under the compound name, Erckmann-Chatrian, was in itself calculated to favor that impression, particularly beforethey had reached eminence as writers and gained the success and fame which finally came to them. The illusion was further aided, and for a time perpetuated, by the composite character of their work, as well as by their community of ideas, and the imaginative gifts they appeared to have in common in the working out of their plots and in the descriptions of the region of country native to both. With the success, in 1859, of their story, "The Illustrious Doctor Matheus" and other feuilletons from their joint pen, and especially, in 1863, on the appearance of "Madame Therese," which was published serially in the 'Journaldes D'ebats, popularity was at last achieved, and with it came a knowledge of the personnel of the tw...« less