Alphonse Esquiros and his "Magician" : an unknown author, an ignored book, some characters

In her article about Alphonse Esquiros and his unique novel "Le Magicien" (1838), "a Romantic text with all the strengths and all the weaknesses" of this literary current, the author discusses Romantic avatars of a Renaissance alchimist (magician-scholar-artist): Stell, a young sculptor and Ab Hakek, an old alchimist of queen Catherine de' Medici, who coincide in their search of the Absolute and the Art, "this philosophical stone of the 19th century". The autor insists on the role played by the Imaginary in the mediatisation of the characters, especially the collective ones, like the Parisian crowd showed across an aquatic image: an immense vogue.