law. His literary tastes, however, soon led him away from the law and he began to write articles for various small newspapers and notices for La Biographie Didot. Later on he was engaged to get up the musical criticism for the Lloyd Français. In 1859 he published his first novel — Amants, the first part of a work divided into three series under the title of Les Victimes de l'Amour. This made him a reputation at once and evoked considerable criticism. He was next charged with the literary criticism in the Opinion Nationale; in this were published Amours de Jacques, 1860, articles, especially on education and studies on England — La Vie Moderne en Angleterre, 1862. A large number of novels followed. His method seems to have been to gather his souvenirs and to justify them by minute explanations, thus "his descriptions and characters are more photographs than paintings." Le Docteur Claude is accepted as one of his strongest novels, which, in general, treat of the most complicated problems of conscience and moral life, and the absolute sincerity of which is never doubted. M. Malot has written over fifty novels in all.
