" Rochegrosse honed his illustrative technique on the books of his era's literary giants: Theophile Gautier, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, and others. He was also house artist for the magazine La Vie Parisienne. Here, the romantic sweep of his presentation, however, obscures the controversial stir the operetta created in its day from the contemporary eye. "'Louise' . . . is the story of a working girl who falls in love with a poet and goes to live with him, to the horror of her parents. They contrive to get her back, but their rigid values and drab existence are pitted against the bohemian life of Montmartre. Montmartre wins, Charpentier . . . broke with operatic tradition in portraying the seamy side of contemporary life and his heroine was the symbol of a new freedom in the new century" (Rennert, PAI-XXXVII, 256)