FEYDEAU, Ernest-Aimé (1821-1873), a French author, was born in Paris, March 16, 1821. He began his literary career in 1844, by the publication of a volume of poetry of that mediocre quality which in poetry is fatal. Either the partial failure of this literary effort, or his marriage soon afterwards to a daughter of the economist Blanqui, caused him to forsake for a time the vocation of letters, and to devote his ambition to exchange transactions; but the study of archaeology gradually supplanted his interest in speculation, and he was finally confirmed in his original choice of a literary profession by the remarkable success which attended the publication, in 1858, of his novel Fanny, a success due chiefly to the cleverness with which it depicted and excused the corrupt manners of a certain portion of French society. Fanny was followed in rapid succession by a series of fictions, in which immorality was gilded with the same alluring glitter, but, wanting the attraction of novelty, they failed to produce such a marked impression as their predecessor and as their interest depended little on the portrayal of any but the lower traits of character, and chiefly on the description of intrigues, they were read and admired only within a limited circle. Besides his novels Feydeau wrote several plays, none of which, however, attained much popularity; and he is also the author of Histoire generale des usages funebres et sepultures des peuples anciens, 3 vols., 1857-61; Le Secret du Bonheur (sketches of Algerian life), 2 vols., 1864, English translation, 2 vols., 1867; and HAllemagne en 1871, Paris, 1872, a clever caricature of German life and manners, but characterized in many places by a somewhat blase tone, and disfigured here and there by bitterness of feeling. He died at ...