These adventures are told in _Whither
Bad Ways Lead_ and two other volumes. A concluding book, entitled
_Vautrin's Last Incarnation_, relates the outlaw's duel with justice
in his confinement, the suicide of his disciple, and his own pardon at
the price of entering into the Government's secret police. The later
portions of this drawn-out piece of fiction are written in the
melodramatic style, and the characterization is distinctly inferior.
The author loses himself in the various imbroglios, and the actors
degenerate into creatures of romance, lacking consistency.
The _Reverse Side of Contemporary History_ has similar defects. It was
commenced in the _Musee des Familles_ in 1842, was continued in 1844,
and was completed only in 1848 in the _Spectateur Republicain_. We
meet at first with a certain Godefroi who reaches middle age without
obtaining any permanent satisfaction out of his life, and who thinks
of burying himself in some quiet quarter of Paris where he can dwell
unknowing and unknown. An accident introduces him to a kind of lay
community whose presiding spirit is a Madame de la Chanterie, and
whose members are a priest and three old gentlemen.
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