NOVELS.
BARLASCH OP THE GUARD.*
THE abiding fascination of the Napoleonic era has not un- naturally exerted its spell on Mr. Merriman, who has given us in Barlasch of the Guard an excellent, if somewhat unequal, romance of the Russian campaign. The scene is chiefly laid in Dantzig, and the story is concerned with the fortunes of a, family of Royalist emigres of noble birth, the head of which is reduced to teaching music and dancing with the aid of his two daughters. The story opens at the time of the occupation of Dantzig by Napoleon and the visit of the Emperor on the eve of the invasion of Russia, and has for its starting-point the marriage of Antoine Sebastian's younger daughter, Desiree, with Charles Darragon, a young French officer in Napoleon's army. It is a love match, and the young couple seem admirably mated, but we are not long left in doubt as to the ultimate results of the union. For Charles, gay and charming fellow though he is, has, in spite of his aristocratic origin, enrolled himself in Napoleon's secret service, doubles the role of soldier with that of spy and agent. provocateur, and at the very moment of his marriage is weaving the net of suspicion round his father-in-law, one of the leaders of the secret societies whose chief aim is the over- throw of Napoleon. By a free use of the long arm of coinci- dence Mr. Merriman effects a meeting, on the day of the marriage, between Charles and his cousin Louis, an entigle who has entered the English Navy, and has been lent to Russia to keep open the lines of communication between England and St. Petersburg. On the same day, again, Barlasch of the Guard is billeted on the Sebastians, anti takes up his residence in the house of the family to whom out of personal attachment he is destined to play the part of good genius and protector. To complicate matters a little further, Mathilde, Desiree's elder sister, is impelled by a cold ambition to turn traitress to her own flesh and blood, and furnish information as to her father's move- ments to the head of Napoleon's secret police. We have thus a story of the mutual relations of two French houses, each divided against itself, as developed and affected by the momentous events of the year 1812; and it need not be said that Mr. Merriman turns his materials to good account, both as regards portraiture and incident, using the historical background and introducing historical personages with his usual tact and discretion. It may be urged as a defect in the book that the reader's interest in the romantic side of the stcry is discounted from the outset by the premature revela- tion of the weakness and unworthiness of Charles, and the immediate indication of the ultimate relations between Desiree and Louis. If, however, Mr. Merriman fails somewhat as an illustrator of the art of suspense as regards these points, there is little ground for complaint on this score in his handling of the chain of plots and counterplots which lead up to the final denouement. A more serious defect, to our
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• Barlasch of the Guard. By Henry eton Merriman. London: Hit.tn, Elder. and Co. De.]
way of thinking, is the lack of self-effacement which is betrayed in his own sententious comments and reflections, which generally take the form of comparing and contrasting the manners and morals of the Napoleonic age with those of our own. Take, for example, such a passage as this :—
"A hundred years ago celebrated generals fought a great deal more and talked a great deal less than they do to-day. There were then no bazaars to be opened nor anniversary dinners to be attended. Neither did the shorthand writer find a ready welcome in high places. Thus a successful warrior who had carried out, tent ken que rnal, an insignificant campaign or an insignificant portion of a campaign, was not compelled to make modest speeches about himself for the rest of his life.'
As an example of Mr. Merriman's habit of dogmatising at the expense of the present generation, we may quote his curious obiter dictum that "Russia remains at this time the one European country unhampered and unharassed by a cheap Press—the one country whose prominent men have a quiet tongue." We are slot prepared to wax enthusiastic over the advantages of a cheap Press, but certainly the choice of Russia is singularly infelicitous.
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