French critic and man of letters, born at La Roche sur Yon on the 17th of December 1847. He was educated at the normal school in Paris, and after teaching for some time in La Rochelle and Bordeaux he came to Paris. After acting as assistant professor of poetry in the university he became professor in 1897. He was elected to the academy in 1900, and received the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in the next year. He acted as dramatic critic to the Soleil; from 1892 he was literary critic to the Revue bleue; and in 1896 took the place of M. Jules Lemaître on the Journal des débats. Among his works are monographs on Flaubert (1899), André Chénier (1902), Zola (1903); an admirably concise Histoire de la littérature française depuis le XVIIe siècle jusqu’à nos jours; series of literary studies on the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries; Questions politiques (1899); Propos littéraires (3 series, 1902–1905); Le Libéralisme (1902); and L’Anticléricalisme (1906). He continued up to 1914 to publish several volumes annually of critical and literary studies, more especially concerning Rousseau (Rousseau penseur, 1910; Vie de Rousseau, 1911; Les Amies de Rousseau; Rousseau artiste, etc., 1912). Amongst others may be noted a volume on Madame de Sévigné (1910); a study of Rostand (1911); En lisant Molière (1914) and Msgr. Dupanloup (1914). He died in Paris on the 7th of June 1916.
See A. Séché, Émile Faguet (1904).
