A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE.* To many of us French
history has always been the most delightful reading. And when it is French history written by Mine. Duclaux, and specially for that large class of "cultivated and ignorant" people to which most of her readers belong and which she is quaintly pleased to call her own, it is difficult to imagine anything more enchanting. Mme. Duclaux is a true literary artist ; and no one, we venture to say, even among the writers of her adopted nation, the home of brilliant literature, was better fitted for the exact task she has here set herself and so charmingly fulfilled.
As to the schoolboys and the historians whose approval Mine. Duclaux mentions as a secondary and doubtful object, there is no reason why either set of critics should not be equally pleased ; though the schoolboy would be a rare bird of his kind, and the historian might be too much occupied in examining the roots and bones, the anatomy of the lovely impressionist picture, to appreciate justly its outward charm. We have no fear that he would not find satisfaction In his own line : although the writer may not have done much digging among documents and "original sources" for herself, she has by no means failed to make effective use of those who have : and this is true, even if Michelet's occasionally careless and incorrect work appears to have been one of her chief inspirations. Like him, she knows how to give life to the dry bones of history ; and she has the great advantage of being free from the prejudices which occa- sionally irritate his readers of the present day.
One thing we are inclined to regret ; though quite understanding that it is deliberately done and in accordance with Mme. Duclaux's own view of the just proportions of French history. Out of three hundred and forty-two pages, more than half are given to the forty years which include the reign of Louis XVI., the Revolution, and the First Empire. It is a recognized fact, indeed, that the better the public knows a special person or period, the more it desires to read on that particular subject. But those extraordinary years are extra-familiar, even to the less inTormed amongst us ; though, of course, Mme. Duclaux's treatment of them has its own freshness and characteristic choice of detail. One would have preferred a fuller treatment of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Age of Louis Quatorze. One regrets that chapter on Philippe-le-Bel which was "deliberately sacrificed" to the general effect of the book. It is a little consoling, though the comfort. is cold, to know that the sacrifice was not made without qualms. One cannot quarrel with the artist, and within her self-set limits Mine. Duclaux gives a most vivid general picture of the centuries as they worked on towards the great explosion ; but such portraits as that of Charles VIII., Charles the Affable, "the harum-scarum young Frenchman we so often meet, ugly, expressive, pleasant, friendly, brave, and eager for romance," traversing Italy "as glorious as Charlemagne," breaking like a barbarian child into old cities full of wickedness and beauty—or of Henri Quatre, typical of his country, realistic, gay, prudent, brave, "so besotted with the welfare of his people that he planted even his gardens of the Tuileries with mulberry-trees for the silkworms "—or of Richelieu, great man of genius, with his double, and therefore incompatible, aims of peace, prosperity, and toleration for France and military glory for her absolute King : such portraits, shining from their faint background, interest some of Us even more than the well-known tale of the death of the Monarchy in poor Louis XVI., innocent victim of past centuries, and the birth of the world we have lived in. Perhaps this is only saying that one wishes the "Short History " were twice as long.
At the same time, no reader can complain that any interesting figures or developments are entirely left out. No period is ignored; a few touches are often enough to show its salient features, though possibly not much more, and by arousing interest to set that happy creature, the "cultivated and ignorant" man or woman, on an independent hunt for more information. The shorter half of the book is full of tantalizing sketches of this kind. Not a word is dull, not a stroke is wasted ; every page has something that somebody will find fresh and delightful. Chapters on " The Roman Tradition" cover the Roman rule in Gaul and its disappearance, the rise of the Christian Church and of the separate provinces and kingdoms, and the gradual development of the French language. Chapters on "Feudal Society" include the birth and florescence of chivalry, the advance of the towns, the Hundred Years' War. Those on the Renaissance, the Wars of Religion, and the magnificent seventeenth century are, as has been hinted, a little disappointing, though the portraits and telling touches mentioned above are here most numerous.
One of the chief merits of the book, which makes it valuable for all persons, and they are legion in these days, who wish really to understand France, is Mine. Duclaux's penetrating knowledge of the French character. She can write proudly of "her two countries, the two great countries of Europe," and this fact no doubt gives her a clearer visioh of the windings of that long thread, if sometimes tarnished, always golden, which runs down from Roman and
• A Short History of Frame from Orsar's Invasion to the Battle of Waterloo. By ry Duelaux (A. Mary F. Robinson). London : T. Fisher Calvin. tlOs. 6d. nct.j
Christian Gaul through nearly twenty centuries to the loved and heroic France of to-day.
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