"
In translating 'The Jumping Frog' into faultless French (giving Mark
Twain the opportunity for that delightful retranslation into English
which furnished delight for thousands), in reviewing with elaboration
and long citations 'The Innocents Abroad' and 'The Gilded Age', Mme.
Blanc introduced Mark Twain to the literary public of France; and Emile
Blemont, in his 'Esquisses Americaines de Mark Twain' (1881), still
further enhanced the fame of Mark Twain in France by translating a
number of his slighter sketches. In 1886, Eugene Forgues published in
the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' an exhaustive review (with long citations)
of 'Life on the Mississippi', under the title 'Les Caravans d'un
humoriste'; and his prefatory remarks in regard to Mark Twain's fame in
France at that time may be accepted as authoritative. He pointed out
the praiseworthy efforts that had been made to popularize these
"transatlantic gaieties," to import into France a new mode of comic
entertainment. Yet he felt that the peculiar twist of national
character, the type of wit peculiar to a people and a country, the
specialized conception of the _vis comica_ revealed in Mark Twain's
works, confined them to a restricted milieu.
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