It takes genius, however, to cook bouillabaisse;
and, to parody what De Banville says about his own recipe for making
a mechanical "ballade," "en employment ce moyen, on est sur de faire
une mauvaise, irremediablement mauvaise bouillabaisse." The poet
adds the remark that "une bouillabaisse reussie vaut un sonnet sans
defaut."
There remains one field of M. De Banville's activity to be shortly
described. Of his "Emaux Parisiens," short studies of celebrated
writers, we need say no more than that they are written in careful
prose. M. De Banville is not only a poet, but in his "Petit Traite
de Poesie Francaise" (Bibliotheque de l'Echo de la Sorbonne, s.d.) a
teacher of the mechanical part of poetry. He does not, of course,
advance a paradox like that of Baudelaire, "that poetry can be
taught in thirty lessons." He merely instructs his pupil in the
material part--the scansion, metres, and so on--of French poetry.
In this little work he introduces these "traditional forms of
verse," which once caused some talk in England: the rondel,
rondeau, ballade, villanelle, and chant royal. It may be worth
while to quote his testimony as to the merit of these modes of
expression. "This cluster of forms is one of our most precious
treasures, for each of them forms a rhythmic whole, complete and
perfect, while at the same time they all possess the fresh and
unconscious grace which marks the productions of primitive times.
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