13 JUNE 1903, Page 23

.Franceeka. By Molly Elliot Seawell. (Grant Richards. 6s.) —Mr. Stanley

Weyman must look to it if he is not to find a formidable rival in Miss Seawell. One Babache, a Captain of Uhlans, in command of the body-guard of Marshal the Count Saxe, tells the story of the loves of Franeczka Capello and Gaston de Cheverny, and a capital story it is—till the last complication is reached. We must say frankly that it is too revolting. That such things have happened in the varied history of fraud we readily acknowledge, but that they can be rightly made a theme for the novelist's art we refuse to believe. They make an enormous demand on the power of belief, and they naturally lead to hideous complication. Praneeska is a very clever book, but we cannot honestly recommend any one to read it.