CORRESPONDENCE.

SOME MODERN FRENCH BOOKS.

cro THE EDITON. Or THE " SPECTATOR." j SIR,—It is not too much to say that one of the finest and most attractive books lately published in France is Jeanne d'Arc, by M. Gabriel Hanotaux (Hachette, 7fr. 50c.). The author's name of course vouches for charm of style, per- fection of taste, and the fairness and accuracy of a trained historian. His idea in this book is to paint a true picture of Europe in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries ; the political, social, spiritual state of things of which the Maid and her mission were in a sense the natural and neces- eery outcome. He has succeeded brilliantly in this, and his book will be welcomed by many as a counterblast to the narrow materialism of M. Anatole France. M. Hanotaux is a philosopher of a different type. He desired, he tells us, to write a book on the national heroine based on research to which the curious contemporary woodcuts scattered through his pages bear witness, and leading to conclusions in which all unprejudiced Frenchmen would agree. His success ought to be unquestioned.

M. de Firnodan's new book, Le Comte F. C. de Mercy- Argenteau (Plon-Nourrit, 7fr. 50c.), tells in a most readable manner the whole life-story of the diplomatist who is best known in England as "The guardian of Marie Antoinette." Without being a man of the most brilliant talents or of the the very finest type of character, Mercy-Argenteau was a great ambassador, possessing all the strong sense, the cool- ness, the balance of mind, the extraordinary prudence and absence of enthusiasm, the entire devotion to his master's interests, which make up the ideal of such a character. We are left with the impression—which the writer hardly intends to give—that this trusted servant of Maria Theresa and her sons, through whom she so largely influenced Marie Antoinette, was in reality anything but a useful friend to the Queen. In early days he was a much-needed Mentor, but Marie Antoinette owed her later unpopularity in great measure to the political work for Austria imposed on her by Kaunitz and Mercy-Argenteau, which earned her the fatal name of l'Autrichienne. It would have been well for the Queen of France to forget her native land; and this, with such an am- bassador at her elbow, she was never permitted to do. She was, of course, repaid in the time of her trouble by cold and cal- culating selfishness. Mercy-Argenteau did his best to save her, but even, as represented by a kindly biographer, that best was somewhat poor. It took time to convince a mind like his that slow diplomatic methods were useless, and when he awoke to the Revolution's true character all methods were too late.

This is the high-road of eighteenth-century history. To some minds its byways are equally interesting, as they are certainly more curious and more unfamiliar. A few months ago M. Casimir Stryienski published a most entertaining volume of historical biography, chiefly from unpublished sources, on the much-despised daughters of Louis XV., Mesdames de France (Emile-Paul, 5frs.). It is surprising to find how little is generally known as to the real lives and characters of these princesses, in so many ways typical of their time. Of the two eldest, the twins, Louise-Elisabeth, Duchess of Parma, and Henriette, who died at twenty-five, it may be said that, except by students, their very existence has been almost forgotten. The chief interest centres of course round Adelaide, the strong-minded, Victoire, the amiable, and Louise, the Carmelite, each with a decided personality of her own. The story of the two surviving sisters in their exile

under the Revolution is as curious as any part of the book, and M. Stryienski's touch, as kindly as it is truthful, enlists a

new sympathy with these unlucky princesses in their travel- hugs and tossings and all the miseries from which, at Trieste, death finally rescued them. Dealing with the same period, the agreeable and well-informed writer, M. Joseph Turquan, whose books on French society,are always worth reading, has given us in Les Femmes de l'Entigration (Emile-Paul, Mrs.) a very fair picture of some aspects of the emigration in 1789 and 1792, with striking portraits of several of the women whose self-denying courage raised the movement above its general level of careless frivolity. The author finds room for a good deal of amusing gossip and many tales of exciting adventure.

Silhouettes Historigues (Calmann-Levy, 3fr. 50c.) is a series of sketches by the Marquis de Segur, whose light touch and brilliant manner of dealing with social history should be well known to my readers. His subjects here are scattered through a couple of centuries, and, though mostly personages on the second plane, are none the less rich in variety and interest.

Souvenirs d'Enfancs et de Eggiment, by the Comte de Comminges (Plon-Nourrit, 3fr. 50c.), is a book of considerable charm. The author of the recollections, who died some years ago, was by birth a southerner, and his description of country life in the Haute-Garonne of his young days abounds in quaint scenes and figures. Later, M. de Comminges was an officer in the Guides, and formed part of the Emperor's escort in the Italian campaign. His notes of the war of 1870 are slight compared with the rest of the book, but they show the best

side of a typical old-world Frenchman, generous, courageous, loyal, and gay. In Ce que mes Yeas ont vu (Plon-Nourrit,

3fr. 50c.)—from the point of view, it is understood, of the

Gaulois—M. Arthur Meyer gives his memories and impressions of society and politics since 1870. It is an interesting, even

brilliant volume. Not the least curious and important part is the preface, written by M. Emile Faguet, a convinced though moderate Republican. Before leaving

subjects connected with history, I must mention the fourth volume of Messrs. Viallate and Candel's useful publication, La Vie Politique dans tee deux 3fondes (Felix Alcan, 10fr.), containing every possible information as to the political events of the past year.

To turn to more literary works, M. de Lacretelle's book, Les Origines et la Jeunesse de Lamartine (Hachette, 3fr. 50c.), is not only a valuable study of the early training of a poet, but a vivid picture of the daily life of country folk of gentle birth before, during, and after the Revolution.

Alphonse de Lamartine was born in 1790, and thus grew up in the world of Napoleon and Chateaubriand. His father had quitted a military life for that of a small land-owner in the neighbourhood of Macon ; his mother had spent part of her childhood in the Orleans household at the Palais Royal, where her mother, Mme. Des Roys, held an appointment. She was, as readers of Lamartine know, a woman of singular goodness and charm. Some of the most attractive pages of this book are those which tell the curious history of the poet's early friend, the Abbe Dumont, the original of "Jocelyn."

Though Mr. Hedgcock's name is English, his work is purely French, and much of that enlightening criticism in which the

French excel is to be found in his recent study Thomas Hardy, Penseur et Artiste (Hachette, 10fr.). He has also published a very agreeable book on David Garrick et see Amis Franfais (Hachette, 5fr.) dealing with that part of Garrick's life which was and is the least known to his English admirers.

Charming alike in style and spirit, the volume called Lettres dun Philosophe, published by M. Bougie in memory of his friend, B. Jacob (Comely et Cie, 3fr. 50c.), may be read with sympathy even by those least in agreement with the writer's religious and social opinions. These letters are the

expression of a mind both refined and distinguished. Pro- fessor Jacob was a convinced Socialist, an admirer of M. Jaures, a thorough-going partisan of " l'ecole laique " and its logical consequences ; yet never did republican lion roar more gently, and the moral state and prospects of his country found him anything but optimistic.

Mme. Colette Yver's novels are usually well worth reading, and Le Métier de Rol (Calmann-Levy, 3fr. 50c.) is no excep- tion to the rule. Excellently written and thoroughly original in idea and treatment, this is the story of a woman of brilliant attainments, brought up in revolutionary society and attached to it both by affection and conviction, who is invited by the King of " Lithuania " to hold an appointment in the palaee as scientific teacher of the fragile and exquisite genius, his daughter Wanda. Among striking scenes and extraordinary situations, Clara Hersberg learns the true nature of the king whom she has been taught to bate and to conspire against. It is a fine subject worthily treated. Another recent book of Mme. Yver's should not be missed by my readers. Les Dames du Palais (Calmann-Levy, 3fr. 50c.) may be described as a specially "French novel"—not quite in the ordinary English sense, but as a picture of a kind of life peculiarly French, with its own characteristic manners and customs, that of women as barristers and pleaders in courts of law. Nothing can be more modern, more amusing, than the way in which Mme. Yver shows us these young women in their public and home life, and points her moral as to certain difficulties in reconciling the two. Les Exiles of M. Paul Acker's recent novel (Plon-Nourrit, Mr. 50c.) are Frenchmen, born in Alsace, whose passion for their old province rules their lives. The author—for the best of reasons probably— has been able to give such an air and background of truth to the grave strength and tenderness of his story that few readers will lay it down unmoved. M. de Tinseau has added to the long list of his novels a pretty love-story, told in his own light and pleasant way. Le Finale de la Symphonie (Calmann- Levy, 3fr. 50c.) contains at least three entirely fascinating characters : Dalphas, the rich industriel, his daughter, and his right-hand man. The young musician, the hero of the book, is slightly irritating, and his rival, the Italian prince, borders on caricature. In La Dame du Bourg, by Jean Yole (Grasset, 3fr. 50c.), modern village life is touched with considerable charm and a point of delicate satire. Every reader will sympathize with the good old Cure and his worthy sacristan, disturbed in their old-fashioned ways by religious women who are bent on establishing in the parish church new-fangled devotions to saints known and unknown.

Perhaps the French have too keen a sense of literary art to be very fond of writing or reading historical novels ; yet their studies of the past in fiction are often valuable, and especially when they deal with such periods as that of the Revolution, with its strange social developments. The real hero of M. Paul Gaulot's Les Rigues Wrovaises (011endorff, 3fr. tOc.) is a gallant general under the Directoire whose life and career are mixed up, for his misfortune, with those of two young ei-devants, a weak man and a vicious woman. It is a tragic story well told, its crowning events happening, as the title suggests, during Napoleon's first Italian campaign. Though fanciful to the edge of absurdity, Le Convent des Orferres (Grasset, Mr. 50c.) will, I feel sure, delight some readers as it has delighted me. M. Robert Dervieu is a poet and at home in fairyland, and he writes his marvellous tale of a haunted chapel with all the seriousness and conviction that it naturally needs. Such a -romance of mystery and twilight seems a foreign thing in the clear and logical world of French literature.

Neither the lights of heaven nor the glories of their country will be hidden from French children who are allowed to read La Douce France (J. de Gigord, Mr. 50c.), the delightful illustrated book which M. Rene Bazin, of the Academy, has written for their special benefit. It should also be enjoyed by the English, young and old, being full of a charming variety of reading—history, stories, local descriptions, folk-lore, old manners and customs, arts and industries, and all that is characteristic of French life in its best and noblest aspects.—