M. Maurois's method is to tell his story in some
sixty short consecutive chapters, each of which is a kind of essay on a minor theme, interspersed with occasional sweeping general surveys of broad development. It is an effective and appropriate method, though the monotonous device of entitling his chapters in the manner indicated above has an irritating effect. He devotes roughly half his book to events since 1789 and just over one hundred pages to the last hundred years. These proportions enable him to place heaviest emphasis on the Revolution and its consequences, which also enhances the dramatic effects. But with more particular emphases it is possible to quarrel. He devotes about one and a half pages to the Paris Commune of 1871 and but one page to• the Popular Front experiment of 1936 ; whereas some four pages are spent on the relatively minor movement of Boulangism, fot no reason except that it is more picturesque.
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