7 NOVEMBER 1896, Page 13

The Second Madame. By M Louise McLaughlin. (G. P Putnam's

Sons, New York.)—Elizabeth Charlotte, daughter of the Elector Palatine, became in 1071 the second wife of Monsieur, younger brother of Louis XIV. Her eldest child died at the age of three ; the second became the Regent, and survived his mother one year, dying in 1723; the third married the Due de Lor- raine, and became the mother of Francis, Emperor of Germany (1745-1765). Madame was a person of remarkable character, not without contradictions, which necessarily lessen our estimate of her, but, on the whole, too good for the society in which she found herself. This story of her life has much that is interesting in it.