With Napoleon at St. Helena. Translated from the French of
Paul Fremeaux by Edith M. Stokoe. (John Lane. 5s.)—We do not intend to examine this book in detail ; this would, we think, be an unprofitable task. It is a narrative founded upon the journals of Dr. John Stokoe, a naval surgeon who was at St. Helena from 1817 to 1819. M. Fremeaux has not thought fit to give us Dr. Stokoe's own words ; he has told the story anew. Now there may have been good literary reasons for this ; but it is quite fatal to the value of the book as testimony. Here is a witness, and we are asked to take the advocate's account of the evidence which lie gives. This would be inadmissible in any case ; and, further, the advocate does not inspire us with confidence. On the title-page he quotes Napoleon's words to Dr. Stokoe : "I should have lived to be eighty, if they had not brought me to this accursed island!" Now Napoleon did not know, and possibly Dr. Stokoe did not know, that he was suffering from cancer of the stomach ; but M. Fr6meatur knows it, and he knows further, or ought to know, that St. Helena is not, as he declares it to be, "a pestilential island." For many months thousands of Boer prisoners have lived there, and their health has been very good. A Frenchman has often so marvellous a capacity for shutting his eyes to what he does not see, aril is often so absolutely incapable of seeing anything beyond his own side of the case, that we can easily acquit. M. Fremeaux of deliberate falsehood. Eut this one assertion makes his book absolutely valueless.
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