ARSINE

HOUSSAYE (1815-1896)  , French novelist, poet and man of letters, was born at Bruyeres (Aisne), near Lao; on the 28th of March 1815 . His real surname was Housset . In 1832 he found his way to Paris, and in 1836 he published two novels, La Couronne de bluets and La Pecheresse . He had many friends in Paris, among them Jules Janin and Theophile' Gautier, and he wrote in collaboration with Jules Sandeau . He produced art 'criticism in L'Histoire de la peinture flamande et hollandaise (1846); semi-historical sketches in Mlle de la Valliere et Mme de Montespan (186o) and Galerie de portraits du X VIP siecle (1844); literary criticism in Le Rai Voltaire (1858) and his famous satirical Histoire du quarante et unieme fauteuil de l'academie francaise (1855); drama in his Comediennes (1857); poetry in his Symphonie des vingt ans (1867), Cent et un sonnets (1873), &c.; and novels, Les Filles d'Eve (1852) and many others . In 1849, through the influence of Rachel, he was entrusted with the administration of the Theatre Francais, a position he filled with unfailing tact and success until 1859, when he was made inspector-general of works of art . He died on the 26th of February 1896. souvenir; d'un demi-siecle appeared in 1885- His Confessions, 1891 . See also J . Lemaitre, Arsene Houssaye (1897), with a bibliography . His son, HENRY HOUSSAYE (1848- ), the historian, was born in Paris . His early writings were devoted to classical antiquity, studied not only in books but on the actual Greek sites which he visited in 1868 . He published successively Histoire d'Apelles (1867), a study on Greek art; L'Armee clans la Grece antique (1867); Histoire d'Alcibiade et de la republique athenienne depuis la mort de Pericles jusqu'd l'avenement des trente tvrans (1873); Papers on Le Nombre des citoyens d'Athenes au ViAe siecle avant Pere chretienne (1882); La Loi agraire a Sparte (1884) ; Le Premier Siege de Paris en 52 ay .

J,-C . (1876); and two volumes of miscellanies,

Athens, Rome, Paris, 1'histoire et lcs mceurs (1879), and Aspasie, Cleopatre, Theodora (6th ed . 1889) . The military history of Napoleon I. then attracted him . His first volume on this subject, called 1814 (1888), went through no fewer than forty-six editions . It was followed by 1815, the first part of which comprises the first Restoration, the return from Elba and the Hundred Days (1893); the second part, Waterloo (1899); and the third part, the second abdication and the White Terror (1905) . He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1895 .