A celebrated French novelist, born at Saint-Lò, in La Manche; started his literary career as one of Dumas' assistants, but made his first independent success in the Revue des Deux Mondes by a series of tales, romances, etc., begun in 1848; in 1862 he was elected a member of the Academy, and later became librarian to Louis Napoleon; his novels, of which "Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre" and "Sibylle" are the most noted, are graceful in style, and reveal considerable dramatic force, but often lapse into sentimentality, and too often treat of indelicate subjects, although in no spirit of coarseness (1812-1890).