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Literary critics from René Girard to Jacques Rancière assert that French literature of the 19th century— itself arguably the century of the novel—is fundamentally romantic. What does that mean? Is the French novel intrinsically romantic? Our discussion could well start with Girard’s Vérité romanesque et mensonge romantique, which presents a new conception of the novel in correlation with human philosophy, and concludes that the “roman romanesque” is not “romantique,” because romanesque adhered to the truthfulness of its subject while the romantic scenario is linked to its deceit. However, the real theoretical focal point is not the position of contemporary critics on romantic and non-romantic narrative scenarios, but the following characterization from 1903 of the “roman romanesque” by Academician Émile Faguet (1847-1916): “Ce n'est point du tout le roman à aventures extraordinaires et tumultueuses. Celui-là, je l'appellerais plutôt le roman mélodramatique. J'entends par roman romanesque celui qui, très délibérément, s'attache à nous présenter des caractères exceptionnels qui ne cessent pas d'être vrais.” The course will introduce the socio-cultural complexity of novelistic forms and techniques of the literary movement familiarly known among the critics as “le romanesque français” from the Restoration to the early Third Republic. Readings by Balzac, Constant, Dumas, Flaubert, Hugo, Sand, Staël, and Stendhal. Taught in French.