SOURCE: "Historical Novelist," in Prosper Mérimée, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1970, pp. 84-97.

In the following essay, Raitt studies the technique of Mérimeé's Chronique du règne de Charles IX and evaluates his work as a historical novelist.

. . . remarquons seulement à quelles absurdes et dégoûtantes exagérations s'abaissent les hommes dans leurs querelles religieuses.

'Les Mormons', Études anglo-américaines

La Jaquerie (the usual spelling is Jacquerie, but Mérimée's version is an uncommon alternative rather than a mistake by Balzac's type-setter) has not found much favour with critics. Even the author's friends were lukewarm: Stendhal regarded it as a falling-off from Le Théâtre de Clara Gazul, and Mary Shelley complained that 'we feel the want of one prominent character to concentrate the interest'.¹ Lack of plot and unity, dispersal of interest, characters who are little better than types, excess of melodramatic devices, crudeness...