FEUILLETON (a diminutive of feuillet, the leaf of a book), a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of the French newspaper. Its inventor was Bertin the elder, editor of the Débats. It is not usually printed on a separate sheet, but merely separated from the political part of the newspaper by a line, and printed in smaller type. It consists chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the fashions, and epigrams, charades, and other literary trifles; and its general characteristics are lightness, grace, and sparkle. Some editors make use of the feuilleton as a separate sheet to float their journals into popularity by means of the instalments of an exciting novel. Something resembling the feuilleton 13 not uncommon in the newspapers of other nations, but none of these imitations possess the peculiar and distinctive excellencies of the French supplement.