BOOKS.

A FRENCH ROMANCE.* Do our readers know the charm of eventide, when all that is inharmonious in the foreground is forgotten as we look towards

• Elians. By Mrs. Augustus Craven. Paris ; Didier et Cie. 1882.

the amber clearness of the west, in which here and there a cloud witnesses to a further depth of golden light, and pro- vokes our longing for something " beyond these voices P" Or have they enjoyed the mixed fragrance of an old-fashioned. garden, in which scents of lavender and violets, jessamine and roses seem at play all the summer-time ? Mrs. Craven's book leaves on us somewhat of the same impression, for it suggests, even when it is most restrained in style and realistic in

minute social touches, a light that is not mere vibration of atoms, a sweetness that appeals to the spiritual sense, if we may use so clumsy an expression for what is, perhaps, inexpressible. Eliane does much to justify fiction. It- is

a relief from the weary strain of every-day life, as fine poetry

is a relief from our personal limitations. It deals with practical society in the most matter-of-fact way, yet it suggests a stan- dard of living that, while perfectly attainable, is rarely attained.

By its very realistic sketches of quite common-place, though high- principled persons, the book is a manual of that unwritten law within the law, of which there should be exponents and exemplars in every society that hopes to live and thrive. Indeed, we may observe that, in proportion as the rugged bonds of physical coercion are relaxed by man's emancipation, so that unwritten law becomes more necessary, if society would escape dissolution.

Eliane is a novel of charitcter and manners ; its plot is slight, though well sustained ; and its episodes are introduced to illus- trate certain modes of life and social principles of which we in England know perhaps less than we do of Hottentot or littaort customs. The ways of French gentlemen and ladies are, on the whole, better worth studying than those of the wildest of wild men, even though he were first cousin to the " missing link.' Aristocracies are attacked from many quarters, but they have a vitality that deserves respectful attention ; and Mrs. Craven,. herself of the Empyrean, to use Lord Beaconsfield's phrase,

gives pictures of the French noble caste which are not carica- tures. She does not accent the points in which it differs by pedigree or position from the commonalty. Her men and

women are noble, whether titled or untitled, rich or poor, yet not merely noble according to the prerogative of all good men, but after a finer fashion. In England, we have no noble caste, strictly speaking, which may or may not be a source of patriotic pride ; but some notable facts of social science may be learnt from what remains of the Frankish seigneury. M. Taine is never more interesting than when, in his Ancien Regime, he

contrasts the physiology of Lord andSacobin. The Revolutionary

storm has defaced much that was vulgarly impressive in ths- noblesse, whether of .sword or gown ; but the true germs of

their greatness could not be destroyed, except by them- selves. This Mrs. Craven demonstrates. With the grazer and simplicity of a classical French style, before bombast and slang had broken down its fences, she shows us how even.

in the social anarchy of modern France these germs survive, and the noble principles of St. Louis, the dignity in all externals

of the Grand Ea, are not altogether forgotten. The very dis- comforts of Republican Paris, by driving its upper class to their country homes, tends to keep alive the best traditions :- " Antrefois, en France, les gene du monde habitaient la campagne pendant tout retz, et In vile pendant rhiver. Les châteaux devenaient deserts et les hotels do Faubourg St. Germain se penplaient an ler Decembre, pour lea retardataires, et des la Toussaint pour le plus grand nombre. Anjonrd'hui, it n'en est plus ainsi ; la campagne demeure habit& pendant l'hiver, presque tont entier ; et le sejour de Paris, tout en empietant on pen snr Is saison des fleurs, s'acheve d'ordinaire des lea premiers jonts de Juin, pour ceur qui le prolongent le plus longtempa Il est triste de naltre dana on temps de realites froides, crnelles, sonvent grossieres ; plus triste encore, de vivre dans on temps d'im- pitoyables haines. An xvie Bieck, on se battait dana lea rues, ma on se delassait par des fetes, et la trove d'nne journee ponvait remit- les partis dana one concorde au moins momentanee. Dials qnand les salons sont l'arene elle-meme oa les combats se livrent, lorsque ce sant lea co3urs et les amours-propres qui se heurtent et se blessent, ces blessnres, pour n'etre pas sanglantes, n'en soot pas moins pro- fondes, et lea cicatrices qn'elles laissent sent pent-etre moins gueriss- ables encore que les antres. Vest la on des cotes les plus sombres de rhorizon qui nons environne, et il y en a on bon nombre d'autres qui ne le soot (pare moins ; mais, me rangeant, malgre lea reflexions precedentes, pint& parmi les optimistes, qne parmi ceux qui regardent comma nne exception malheurense dans la duree des siecles eelui or le Ciel nose a fait naltre, je crois apercevoir no grand dedommagement, en ce qui concerne Ia France toute entiere, a rinconvdnient que je viens de signaler relativement a Ia vie sociale de Paris. 11 me semble en effet que dans les chateaux, ranee encore debont, malgre le tremblement de terre qui en a renverse tant d'autres, tont comme dans ces nombreuses habitations aoquises, on elevees par ceux qua le fob montant de Is richesse indnstrielle on commercials ports gradnellement an sommet de la society francaise, —il me semble, dis-je, que le goat et l'art de vivre a Ia eampagne exist- out anjonrd'bui dans tontes ces demenres, sous une forme inoonnne an temps passé, et prodnisent des effete dont is pinpart sont bien- faisants et utiles ; et l'un d'enz, pour ne citer quo le moindre, est d'augmenter le nombre des jennes Riles et des femmes qui savent, it Is foie, ne jamais s'ennuyer, et empecber l'ennui do :mitre autour d'ellea."

The story of Eliane turns on the social customs which govern marriage contracts in France, and they are so different from English ways in those matters, that though we may be within tunneling distance of Calais, our whole domestic system must remain hopelessly apart from that of our neighbours. The heroine is by her mother's side, and by her training, English, and she brings into sharp relief the contradiction of Maxwell .and Liminges ideas as to the disposal of her hand. Orphaned just at the threshold of youth, she is adopted by her aunt, Madame de Liminges, a marquise worthy of the seventeenth century, in her pride of will and of authority, not less than by her family ambition and a certain nobleness of style in her harshest acts. She is an admirable study of strong character, which, in our easy-going days, is almost an anachronism. There is never any vulgarity of duplicity or any use of un- worthy means in her conduct, even when the strain on her affections is so great that her very life is menaced by grief at her son's misalliance. We may be sure that Mrs. Craven never exaggerates, and we may be the more surprised at what seems matter of course in the exercise of Madame de Liminges' parental authority. What English mother would, as of simple right, claim the disposal in marriage of a son such as was Raynald de Liminges, an experienced man of the world, a rich and independent grand seigneur ? What Englishman would have recognised the ties of filial duty as stronger than all others, and would have exiled himself from his own home and country, sooner than claim the affection of his cousin Eliane, to whom his mother had no objection, except that she stood in the way of more ambitious schemes P Mrs. Craven shows us how the whole constitution of family life in France differs from ours, and as family life is the basis of our whole social structure, we may guess the national antagonisms which may be disguised by

culture, but can never be healed. Be it for better or worse, when we study the structure of a French family we recognise the invincible personality of Englishmen, who refuse to accept any position but absolute monarchy within their homes. It is based on the community of interests which binds parents and children in a common action, while the Englishman honours his wife only because she is his wife, and he sends his children out into the world as independent units, who in their turn may

make each his monarchy for himself. He neither claims from them special obedience, nor owesIthem special duty. He is little controlled either by law or custom, but the personal affections which soften his despotism play a larger part, the necessity for conjugal sympathy is greater, and freedom of choice in marriage becomes of the last importance. In France, the family authority is vested in a domestic council, wherein, by the tendencies of religion and custom and by her larger part in the common fund, the wife, like the queen in chess, is almost grand vizier. Hence

the stringency of filial ties, since parentage, and not conjugal union, is the family bond ; hence the bent of French law, which has to counteract exaggeration of those ties ; hence the pre-

judice, so strange to English minds, which deprecates the egotism of love-matches as much as English feeling encourages them ; hence the different axis on which French life revolves, from our English principle of marital supremacy and filial emancipation.

We should excuse ourselves for these remarks, were they not strictly relevant to Mrs. Craven's novel, which, for all its grace- ful lightness, is illustrative of serious issues. In Eliane she sets forth the merits of both French and English systems, and the main interest of the book lies in the recognition by Madame de Liminges of her mistake in resisting her son's inclination for his cousin. Only after bitter suffering to the exceptionally noble and high-principled personages of her story does Mrs. Craven reconcile French and English ideas by the union of her hero and heroine, who have for each other a real English love, and who yet succeed in dispelling the prejudices of the Mar- quise de Liminges, French as she is to her finger•ends. Before that can be done, Raynald must be an exile; he must make a rash and unhappy marriage with an Italian girl of inferior rank, he must lose her and her child, before his mother will so much as hear him spoken of. The Roman episode, admirable in local colour as it is, is but a foil to the French manners and thought, which, in their intense Frenchness, are so interesting to us. The dreamy, un- practical Roman scholar, his indolent daughter, whose very life is in her voice and dramatic gift, throw into more vivid relief the indomitable Marquise of the noble faubourg. Splendidly strong in her triumphant disposal of her daughter, in her stoical resistance to what she believes bad for her son, in her silent endurance of Raynald's revolt when he marries the Italian Ersilia, but most of all in her large humility and generous obedience, when her palsied hands fail her when she would write her long-deferred forgiveness to her son, and when won to grant it by Eliane's intercession, she must needs employ her daughter's pen to form the words :—

" Reviens, Raynald ! Ta cause et cello d'Ersilia a 6t6 bien

et elle est gagnee. Venez, tons les deux ; mon occur et mes bras vous sont onverts !'—' Maintenant, donne-moi la plume.' Et de ea main• gauche, la Marquise de Liminges trace an has de ces lignes, d'uns ecriture defiguree, mail lisible, ces mots, ` Ta mere, qui to pardonne, et t'attend.'"

Of the minor personages in this charming novel, the friend' of Raynald, the silent worshipper of Eliane, Armand de Mat- seigne, is the most interesting ; in his conduct, Mrs. Craven

rises to the highest level of domestic romance ; and romance of this sort is the expression of the truest truth concerning humanity. How much better, as Mrs. Craven does, to make us look at the choicest flowers of life, than, as the affected truth- tellers do, on the rotting garbage of decay. But while, by her• very realism, Mrs. Craven reaches the highest romance, the chief traits noteworthy in her figures are their good-sense, their dislike to " la langne sentimentale " and all affectations, their self-control, and the suavity which belongs to their systematic sociableness, and which is ,partly a relic of Versailles. By a certain quality of temper and hereditary stand-point, these high- thoughted persons are always, even in trivial actions, on the- confines of romance. Behind their nineteenth-century existence•

are the obligations binding on them as descendants of nobles, the power of self-sacrifice, even. though it be latent, and a fine

contempt for self-abandonment to passion.

The sobriety of Mrs. Craven's style emphasises her opinions. Her faith in the power of high principle kindles a like faith is. her reader, while, though religion is hardly mentioned through- out her book, it is impossible to mistake the source of her optimistic thoughts of human capacity for good. She deals with quite human motives, but her standard of them is so high that it touches what is divine at many points. She recognises the full power of passion and-temptation, nor does she minimise the difficulties of virtue, or disguise the anguish of the battle of life, or the results of error. But it may be said of her writings, as of Turner's drawings, that she takes the brightest light, the whitest radiance, from which to graduate her scheme of colour. Her gracious figures give us reason to hope that some of the French nobles fulfil their special end of noble life. As we- close her book, we trust that there remain still a remnant un- affected by the discouragement of their political position, ready to help their country in whatever need, and clear of Bontoux. scandals.