Octave Feuillet was a French noelist and dramatist. He began his writing career as a collaborator of Dumas the elder, but then branched out into his own work. He was popular in the Second Empire, and the Empress Eugenie once took a part in one of his plays. The Sphinx is a romantic tangle. Blanche de Chelles is the wife of an absent naval officer. she lives with ther father-in-law near her friend Berthe, whose husband dislikes her friendship with Blanche. Blanche has fallen in love with Berthe"s husband, while being pursued by a Scottish nobleman. As one critic of the time commented on Feuillet, "He has to do with things as he finds them, and if we are to believe him, what he finds is a lack of culture in women, and lack of sympathy in men, and a lack of principle in both."