Anatole France in 1909 went on a lecture tour to
South America. The subject he proposed was Francois Rabelais. Neither lecturer nor subject, however, were particularly acceptable to the Roman Catholic authorities. " At the last lecture there was not a soul in the boxes and not one woman in the house. In all, three hundred baldpates. It was funereal. The Master, smiling and short-sighted, and fingering sheaves of notes, explained Francis I.'s subtle policy to empty stalls and boxes peopled with shades, with a little pause for applause at the end of each paragraph." So Anatole France obligingly changed his subject. He lectured instead on the glories of the Argentine ; and his lecture (no doubt unworthy of preservation) was received with great appreciation. The series of lectures as it was originally designed is now given us in an English translation by Mr. Ernest Boyd, in Rabelais, by Anatole France (Gollancz, 18s.). The book is at once a life of Rabelais and a running commentary on his works. It has all the ironic charm of style for which France is famous ; and, in so far, as the fastidious intellectual scepticism of France is akin to the boisterous and energetic scepticism of Rabelais, we can even call it a notable essay in interpretation. The French edition will not be published eparately for some two or three years ; only the English version, -therefore, will be readily available for the author's admirers.
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