SOME MODERN FRENCH BOOKS.*

THE Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne have already been translated into English,-a readable translation, though it appears to miss the point of one of Madame de Boigne's best stories. But no list of recent French books can afford to leave out this extremely interesting first volume of the most vivid and authentic Memoirs published of late years in France. Madame de Boigne bad every opportunity of collecting Court and society gossip, good-natured and otherwise, before and after the Revolution. She was brought up in the household of Madame Adelaide, and was petted as a child by Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. As a young girl, she went through the painful experiences of emigration, softened for her by the fact that her father, the Marquis d'Osmond, had married Miss Dillon, of a branch of that family which had settled in France. Thus Madame de Boigne-whose marriage to a rich Indian General three times her age took place in 1798-was equally at home in English and French society. She was much in Paris during the Empire, and this volume of her Memoirs closes with the Restoration. It is full of curious stories of all the conspicuous people of the time, written in a most lively style for the benefit of Madame de Boigne's nephews of the d'Osmond family. Both French and English readers will look forward to the forthcoming volumes.

M. Alfred Mezieres has long been a distinguished member of the French Academy, and his readers know what to expect from the author of many delightful books, among which we must especially recall those dealing with Shakespeare, his times and his influence. M. Mezieres moves with ease in the worlds of history, biography, and literary criticism. His latest volume, a series of studies of remarkable men and women at some specially interesting point of their lives or

(1) Mimoires de la Combas@ de Boigne. Publids d'apras le 7danu.scrit Original par M. Charles Nicoullaud. Vol. I., 1781.1814. Paris : Plon. [71. 50c.] And Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne. Translated from the French. London : W. Heinemann. r10s. net.]-(21 }lemmas at Femmes d'ilier at d'Avant-hear. Par A. Mezieres, de VAcademie Francaise. Paris: Hachette.[3f. 50c.1- (3) Les Massacres de Septembre. Par 0. Lenotre. Paris Perrin. [31. 50c.]- (4) Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Par Jules Lemaitre, de VAcadentie Francais°. PPS: Cadmann•Levy. [3f. 50c.]-(5) Byron at le Bomantisme Francais. Par Edmond EstAye. Paris : Hachette. [10f.]-(6) Questions Actuates. Par Ferdinand Brunetiere, de VAcademie Francrise. Paris: Perrin. pr. Soc.]- (7) Questions Litteraires at Sociales. Par Bend Basin, de VAcademie Francaise. raris: Calmann-Levy. [31. 50c.1-(8) Les Fontes de Lourdes. Par J. K. Huysmans. Paris : Stock. [31. 50c.]-(9) L'Ombre s'Elend sur to Montagne. Par Edouard Rod. Paris : Fasquelle. 3f. 40.]-(10) Le Uri, de Vivre. Par Paul Acker. Paris : Calmann-Levy. 50c.]-(11) Lea Btourderies de La Qbanoinesse. Pa: Leon de Tinseau. Pruitt: Ceamann-Levy. [3f. 50c.] -

(12) Les Rogueriliard. Par Henry Bordeaux. Paris : Plon. 13f. 50c.]-

(13) Le Fantonte du Bortheur. Par J. de Mestral-Combremout. Pans : Calmaun- /4'7- [3f. 50c.] -(14) La Chanson du Pauses, Boeings. Par Gregoire Le Roy. Paris: Societe Cu Idercure de France. [81. 50e.1

their mental development, shows his intimacy with all these worlds. There is a certain historical sequence in the twenty- one studies, which extend from Descartes to Pere Didon, touching Voltaire, Marie Antoinette, and M. Thiers by the way.

Every one who has read M. Lenotre's book on the drama of Varennes, either in the original or in Mrs. Stawell's brilliant

translation, will be ready to believe that Les Massacres de Septembre is worth attention. It consists chiefly of unpub- lished or little-known documents relating to some of the most

terrible events of the Revolution, the series of frightful murders committed at the prisons of La Force, l'Abbaye, Les Carmel, and others. The stories are told by eyewitnesses.

To students of Revolution literature, some of the most interesting pages in the book will be those called " Le Dossier des Massacreurs," which bring us face to face with the

septembriseurs themselves at the time when their country

turned in horror and punished most of them, the worst wretches being condemned to twenty years in irons. About sixteen men were responsible for the deaths of about sixteen hundred innocent victims. M. Lenotre's introductions and notes are full of curious detail, and the interest of the book is increased by illustrations, especially plans of the prisons and of the old streets whose stones ran with blood in that summer of 1792.

In the book next on our list M. Jules Lemaitre, the most clear-sighted and independent of critics, dealing with Jean- Jacques Rousseau's influence on the history of humanity, is

not afraid to speak plainly as to the Control Social and the results of its teaching. Rousseau's idea, he reminds us, of

absolute equality and the infallibility of numbers was meant to apply to " a city of 20,000 souls and 1,500 electors." " The Revolution took it up as a gospel, and tried to impose it on a nation ten centuries old of twenty-five millions of men.

This attempt was the Terror." Not that Rousseau's writings brought about the inevitable Revolution. But they were, and are, " the breviary of Jacobinism." Rousseau gave the Revolution its jargon, its sentimental phraseology. He was responsible for the " affreuse sensiblerie " which existed side by side with the worst horrors of the Revolution, and was its most repulsive feature. It will be seen that M. Lemaitre does not follow the common fashion of whitewashing and glorifying Rousseau. But the very name of this distinguished critic is a guarantee of fairness and just judgment. If in his earlier years he greatly admired Rousseau, if in later life he saw good cause to change his opinion, neither of these facts has hindered him from making the fresh, unprejudiced, and exhaustive study, both of the man and his works, which after being given to the French public in the form of a series of " Conferences" is now

published in a volume. M. Lemaitre's Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a brilliant picture, painted with the sympathy and the

justice of a true artist, of one of the strangest geniuses that ever lived, the spirit of whose writings, for good or for evil, has been among the most powerful factors of modern life and modern literature.

In a large book which readers of literary taste are sure to enjoy, M. Edmond Esteve has made a special study of the influence of Byron in France during the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a wide and curious subject. French romanticism was born before Byron, but both his poetry and his personality had a great deal to do with directing its course.

He-in a sense a descendant of Rousseau-was responsible for much of the tragic melancholy, the desperate passion for liberty, for solitude, for Nature, which the poets of " Young

France " combined with melodramatic humbug and artificiality. The "type byronien" also explains the spirit of ironic persiflage

and cynicism which marked the school of Alfred de Musset.

It is difficult to give in a few words any idea of the varied interest of this volume. Written in an attractive style and with a real power of critical analysis, it is in fact an extended review of French literature throughout the Byronic) period.

M. Ferdinand Brunetiere, the learned editor of the Revue des Deux Mondes, was not only an authority on literature, but during the later years of his life a remarkable fighter on the side of Christianity as opposed to atheistic freethonght. His death last December, at the early age of fifty-seven, left also a serious gap in the ranks of the anti-Socialists. He had already prepared for publication this volume of essays, Questions Actuelles, and all his clear reasoning and strong conviction is to be found in the preface, which deals chiefly with the conflict between religion and science. Such a con- - Aict, according to him and to Pascal before him, neither 'should nor can exist. Truths of a different order do not

.destroy each other. " Contrariety is not contradiction, and diversity is not contrariety." He also attempts to prove that there is no necessary incompatibility between the Church and democracy. His thoughtful papers on this and other burning subjects should certainly interest English readers.

Every one enjoys the writings of M. Rene Bazin. He has steadily advanced in favour, not only in his own country, which be knows and loves so well, and where he has received the highest literary honour, but with the thousands among ourselves who care for good French books. We can trust his taste and his high principle. This volume of essays, Questions Litteraires et Sociales, is in every way attractive. One word, however, as to his remarks on Madame de &vigil& It is not fair or really critical, surely, to expect from her the pic- turesque language of later centuries. Why should M. Bazin suppose that she did not really care for her trees at Les Rocbers because she contented herself with the words " beaute surprenante " in describing them ? One might as well wonder that Bossuet did not write like the late M. Huysmans.

Les Ponies de Lourdes, this writer's last published book, is indeed a vivid and extraordinary performance. His wonderful command of all known words, not to speak of his power of inventing new ones (such as bondieuserie), enabled him to describe Lourdes and its pilgrimages more realistically than even Zola did. Many hard and true things are said, and no repulsive detail is spared; but full justice too is done to the spirit of active charity which at Lourdes—more than any- where else, according to M. Huysmans—brings back men and women to the first ages of Christianity, the rich and fortunate Making themselves into nurses and beasts of burden for the poor, the suffering, and the miserable. M. R.donard Rod's L'Ombre s'Etend sur la Montagne is one of the best novels lately published in France. His literary power, of course, is great, and he uses it with a restraint which gives a peculiar distinction to his story. In itself it is common enough ; the old story of a woman married to the wrong man. It is the treatment here that is uncommon. The three principal characters, Irene Jaffe, her husband the philosopher, her friend the musician, are drawn with delicate touches. The self-conquest achieved by each does not prevent the advance of the " shadow " which at last engulfs alL The later scenes, too theatrical, are the weakest part of the book; but it may at least be said that the tragedy has no sordid element.

Le Desir de Vivre is a clever novel, also sad in tone and ending, but of a different type, and more of a study from everyday life. The author tells the adventures of a young girl, a farmer's daughter, bright and talented beyond her surroundings, who becomes a shop-assistant at Dijon. She is fall of hopes and ambitions ; she longs to live, to see life in all its variety. Naturally, being thrown into the world to fend for herself, she happens on some risky situations and gains some bitter experience. The book has several excellent characters; notably the girl's employer at Dijon, and an old priest who does his best to save her from her own foolishness.

The light touch of M. Leon de Tinseau always makes his books pleasant to read. They have something of the fairy- tale. The characters are apt to be types, perhaps, and the happy ending does not always seem probable. However, Les .Etourderies de la Chanoinesse disarms criticism. She is eighty, this romantic, fascinating old woman. Living on the recollection of the one love affair of her youth, she is only too enchanted to encourage the unworldly fancies of her great- niece. This is one of the prettiest and most amusing stories we have read for a long time. The honest and honourable are rewarded ; the false and scheming are dismissed with a cam ouflet.

M. Henry Bordeaux is a rising writer, and his story, Les Roquevillard, which first appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes; is a good and strong one. It is a little spoilt for English taste by the assumption that it is a much more serious sin to rob a man of his money than of his wife. Still, young Maurice Roquevillard, led away by a bad woman, is not really the hero of the novel. That place belongs to his father, a fine character. the incarnation of a fine race, all the best

elements of which are brought forward to save a prodigal son. The underlying idea of the story is to be found in the familiar words, " Notre terre et nos morts."

Le Pantome du Bonheur is a readable story of the life of a modern French girl. It is rather an amusing picture of the dangers that may beset an enthusiastic, up-to-date young woman in a country where liberty for girls is a comparatively new idea. But Jacqueline's heart was in the right place, and the author allows us to guess at a satisfactory ending.

To any one who cares for modern French poetry we should like to recommend a volume lately published by M. Gregoire Le Roy, La Chanson du Pauvre. It is a collection of lyrical poems, about half of which appeared a few years ago under the title of Mon Cceur Pleure d'Autrefois. We are sorry that space does not admit of our quoting one or two specimens.