AN AMBASSAIOR'S MEMOIRS. By Maurice Paiéologue (Last French Ambassador to
the Russian Court). '3 Vols. (Hutchinson. 18s. a volume.) Miasmas are the life-blood of history—enlivening and illumining the dull pages of diplomatic correspondence, and quickening the figures of monarchs and statesmen. Diplomat, man of letters, bearer of an historic name, M. Paleologue surveyed the Russian scene throughout the years 1914-1917 as French Ambassador to the Imperial Court. With pride he recalls that it was from Sophy Paléologue, niece of the last Emperor of Byzantium and wife of Ivan the Great, that the Russian Tsars derived their claim to Constantinople and to the double-headed eagle as their crest. Fortunate in his name, the Ambassador was no less fortunate in his literary and social gifts, and M. Paleologue speedily found himself a persona gratissirna in the salons of the city. The Byzantinism and splendid ceremonial of both Church sind Court in Russia have appealed, as might be expected, to M. Paleologue's eye for colour and lively historic sense. But of the Russians themselves he is keenly critical. What repelled him in Russian society was its superstitiousness, sensuality, and cruelty. Such a people—so it seemed to him—could only exist "to give humanity terrible lessons." Yet when in 1917 the time came for him to part from them he did so with regret, and as he crossed the frontier, leaving behind him the flaming ruins of an Empire, he recalled the prophecy of the village idiot in Boris Godunov: "Weep, my holy Russia, weep. For thou art entering into darkness."
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