TWO FRESH HISTORIES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.*
WHEN Otho and Vitellius were marching to the field which was to leave one of them master of the world, each dis- paraged the other in very strong language, and both, in the opinion of Tacitus, were right. Well, if Mr. Ban were to disparage Mr. McCarthy's book, and the latter were to return the compliment with interest, an impartial listener might be inclined to say with the historian, "Neuter falso." The following description of a historian of the French Revolu- tion, one M. Jean Bernard, hits Mr. Ban off as if written for him. For to M. Bernard, says Mr. McCarthy, "the Revo- lutionists are all angels of light, and the Royalists are all devils of more or less degrees of darkness. Every malign rumour, every foul whisper which strikes at the name and fame of an adherent of the Crown, is so much gospel truth to this impassioned advocate." Just such an advocate is Mr. Ban, but his ignorance and incapacity leave his pleadings stingless. He accepts, for instance, the charge which that scoundrel Hebert brought against Marie Antoinette at her trial, and from the depths of his con- sciousness he draws what he is silly enough to call the fact, that "it is a mistake to apply the ordinary canons of maternity to a creature like her." We have no thought of criticising the fantastic pictures which Mr. Ban has drawn of the chief actors on his stage. If this gallant Socialist chooses to think that the Queen was an "abandoned wretch," for whom "the guillotine was too good," and that the "Princess de Lamballe, her friend," was "the Court head prostitute and procnress," that is his affair. And if he chooses "(1.) The Story of the French Revolution. By E. Belfort Bar. London Swan Sonnensohein and Co. 1890.—(2.) The French Revolution. By Justin H. Me Cartby, M.P. Vols. I. and II. London; Chatto and Windut. 1800. to paint Mirabeau as the paid advocate of such a woman's rights, and to caricature Lafayette as a "hypocritical charlatan, the henchman of Mirabeau," he is clearly no mark for serious criticism. He treats " Marat, Chaumette, Clootz, Pache, and Babceuf " with great respect, and says of the first of these insignificant fellows, that his "unique and titanic force of character must make him immortal in history." Marat's name, it happens, is still remetn- bored, but solely or chiefly because he was murdered by a woman so nobly mistaken as Charlotte Corday was. Mr. Ban calls this woman a "dastardly assassin ;" and what then, let us ask him, was Marat ? Yet we put this question only because by doing so we are, according to the proverb, "answering a fool according to his folly," as will be seen by any one who reads his monstrous com- ment on what he is himself forced to call 'the horrible Noyades" of Carrier. We prefer, however, to take the alternative which Solomon offers, and are content to say that Mr. Bax, as a historical critic, resembles a Homeric critic who could believe that Achilles was bribed by Priam to continue sulking, and who would see the true hero of the Iliad in that "first great vindicator of the rights of the Proletariat,"—Thersites. We have charged Mr. Ban with ignorance and incapacity, and proofs of this charge, to borrow Mr. Gladstone's merry jest, lie thick in Mr. Ban's pages. One specimen of his logic is all that we can find room for; but, as Mercado says of his wound, " 'tis enough, 'twill serve." Confounding post hoc with propter hoc, in the way of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, he gravely asserts that the French Revolution "constitutes the dividing-line between the world of to-day and all past ages whatever," because, inter alia, that "Revolution was scarcely over when the electric telegraph appeared on the scene, and at the same time the idea of the steam-engine was working in the heads of the ingenious." Mr. Ban states in his preface that his descriptions of events are written from the point of view of modern Socialism. It is so much the worse for modern Socialism if they are, for Mr. Ban seems to think that com- munity of goods, for that is what his vaguely expressed "economic equality" seems to amount to, is a panacea hitherto untried for curing the ills of the" capitalistic system," which feeds, he thinks, "of necessity on itself." And he humorously proposes as "one of the foremost principles of the modern Socialist movement, the necessity of taking possession of the political power." His English is not idiomatic, and it is pleasant to quote for the benefit of his readers the racy lan- guage in which Wordsworth tells us how Rob Roy forestalled Babcenf in his great, when practicable, notion, "that those should take who have the power, and those should keep who can." This History, by-the-way, forms a volume of what is called "The Social Science Series." We honestly think that it might find a place more fitly in what might be called "The Unsocial Nescience Series," and with this remark we leave it.
Mr. McCarthy, whose book is dedicated to his father, the well-known author of some admirable works, is a writer diametrically opposite to Mr. Ban, so far as the spirit in which he writes is concerned. We can speak of that spirit in no other terms but those of sincere and hearty praise. But looked at from the point of view of literary criticism, his pre- sent volumes invite condemnation. Mr. Ban hits off Mr. RicCarthy's fatal weakness, when he says that he has pur- posely omitted "biographical details respecting the chief actors," as tending to expand his History indefinitely. Mr. McCarthy, unfortunately for himself and for his readers, sets no bounds to this tendency. His chapter headed "The Wild Gabriel Honore " will convince any one that the phrase above is no exaggeration. That chapter begins at page 119 and ends at page 159 of his second volume, and Mirabeau is not born till page 141. This is the longest, but far from the worst specimen of unconscionable padding with which Mr. McCarthy has stuffed his for the most part brightly and pleasantly written volumes. It marks, however, a fault which practically destroys their value. For the history of the French Revolution has been written so graphically, and on the whole so accurately, by Carlyle, that it is difficult to read, without resentful yawns, the infinite deal of nothing which Mr. McCarthy talks so unmercifully about men who played great, or even infinitesimally petty parts in that sanguinary melo- drama. We quote one specimen of this irrelevant talkative- ness because, if we may use the phrase which modern slang
has borrowed from ancient Greek, it "takes the cake," as a specimen of what a confectioner of padding can do when he puts his shoulder fairly to the wheel:—
" There is another face of English mould visible to the mind's eye among the besiegers of the Bastille, John Stone of Tiverton. It was his destiny to bring together the 'gallant and seditious Geraldine,' young Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the beautiful Pamela, daughter of Madame de Geniis and of Equality Orleans. It was his destiny to share the suspicion with which the Revolu- tion regarded Englishmen after the affair of Toulon, and to taste the fare of French prisons. It was his destiny to adore the Giron- dists and to glorify Charlotte Corday. It was his destiny to die peacefully in Paris after his stormy life, and to sleep in Pere in Chaise, by the side, no doubt, of Helen Maria Williams, whom he loved not wisely but too well."
It was our destiny to read the above, and we appeal, good-humouredly of course, to Mr. McCarthy to tell us, if he should read these lines, where we can elsewhere find so matchless a specimen of unaffected padding. But padding of this kind, if rather profitless, is not unpleasant reading, and readers who find in Carlyle meat too tough for them will probably be instructed, as well as pleased, with Mr. McCartby's lively and long-winded, but never quite dull, expansions of history. His sketch of Voltaire
is capital ; but his sketch of Rousseau wanders to the confines of wearisomeness. He is strictly fair to Marie Antoinette, and amusingly vituperative of Mr. John Morley, for the "frigid judicial ferocity" of his verdict upon her. But Marie Antoinette had all the minor faults of her sex and station in abundance ; and the Princess de Lamballe, though innocent of the vices with which Mr. Bax charges her, hardly deserved to be called, as she was by the Baroness d'Oberkirch, "the model of all virtues." Mr.
McCarthy goes so far as to say that this praise does not seem to be exaggerated, and those who gaze upon the lovely face of that hapless Princess will not quarrel with this gentleman for being a little blind to her faults. He is not so lenient, pro- portionately, to the terrible vices of Egalite Orleans and his mother, as Carlyle is in the beautiful and pathetic words in which he dismisses Robespierre. But with all Mr. McCarthy's faults, we can leave him with no unkindly feelings,—and, in- deed, with gratitude. For after reading his volumes, we read Carlyle again with a better appreciation of his merits than we had ever felt before. Other readers of the famous History which proved so conclusively that Cervantes was right when he wrote, " Que la Epica tambien puede escrivirse en prosa, como en verso," may possibly be affected in a similar way ; and from them, too, Mr. McCarthy may receive full pardon for his literary faults. We have to add that he is a man of wide reading, as is evidenced by his reference to the pseudo- Anacreon when writing about Louis XVI.'s real or reputed fondness for wine.
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