30 JUNE 1928, Page 32

The reader of French Country Life, by Madeleine Clemen- ceau-Jacquemaire

(Williams and Norgat,e, 6s.), will feel at first somewhat perplexed. A note on the jacket states that it is the work of the daughter of the famons M. Clemenceau, but a. glance at the book shows _us that the names of the characters are not those that we should have expected, It appears that the celebrated statesman_ objected to,-the publicity and the names were all changed at the last minute at his request. The story, though camouflaged in this manner, is very charmingly told. Juliette La Chasgneres, to call her by her fictitious name, grew up in an old castle in La Vendee, in the care of her grandparents, who might have stepped out of the pages of Balz.ac The grandfather had studied medicine, but the sight of his that patient so disgusted him that he never took another, devoting himself to books instead. The grandmother, known as Tante Bonne, was beautiful and beloved by all, The servants and the peasants are sketched in admirably, showing a state of life as far removed from the yresent as if it had been the Middle Ages. There are only a few notes on " The Tiger," one of the most interesting giving a picture of him in his early days when he lived in a flat in Paris, and worked often till the early hours of the morning. - * * * *