10 AUGUST 1912, Page 23

The Return of Pierre. By D. IL Haines. (S. Paul

and Co. fa.) —Those who remember with admiration or pleasure The Red Badge of Courage, with its pitiless dissection of a soldier's feel- ings in battle, will be interested in this story. Apart from a few chapters of love interest at the beginning and the end, the book is mainly an account of a French soldier's thoughts and experiences before, during, and after the fights at Saarbrack and Gravelotte in the Franco-Prussian War. These feelings are, on the whole, well described, and the analysis is not so acutely painful throughout as might be feared. Probably the author is right in making bewilderment a frequent anodyne. The mixed feelings of many Eastern Frenchmen with German ties are also dwelt upon. The language is American.