REVOLUTIONS AS THEY WERE
Robespierre : First Modern Dictator. By Ralph Korn,old. (Macmillan. x6s.) Talleyrand. - By Comte de Saint-Aulaire. Translated by G. F. Lees and F. J. Stephens. (MacMillan.' 15s.) The Lives of Talleyrand. By Crane Brinton.' (Allen anl -Unwin. los. 6d.) - Napoleon : The Portrait of a King. By R. McNair Wilson. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. I2S. 9d.) THREE of these five books are translations from the French. One may doubt whether M. Nezelors book was worth the labour of translation. In the seventh paragraph of the first page of chanter I the Marquis de Mirabeau goes " through the- motions -of a South: Sea Islander when, after eating a banana, he flicks the skin over his shoulder into the sea." And
so the book 'Ontinues, „ Dr. McNair Wilson's study of Napoleon is dominated by a belief that, if you look behind the scenes of. modern history, and particularly behind the colour and action of the revolutionary and Napoleonic period in France, you will find very wicked bankers making hay of the common weal. It is true that the financial and economic history of France during this period was neglected for a long time, but a good deal of work has been done on it during the last twenty years, and the subject is so full of snares that it must be approached with caution, and without that quality which was described, once upon a time, as enthusiasm. Dr. Wilson thinks that " the real due to __Napoleon's _personality_bas only lately been revealed in the recently published Caulaincourt memoirs " of which his book
is " the first to make use." Caulaincourt's memoirs are indeed of great interest ; but they add little to the essential facts already known about the personality and aims of Napoleon. Moreover, the memoirs were used, at least in part, by Thiers eighty years ago, and also by Vandal in his book on Napoleon et Alexandre I. (These facts are stated on p. 223 of the first volume of the memoirs.)
Mr. Korngold also has a thesis ; the rehabilitation of Robespierre. This thesis is not new, although Mr. Korngold states it clearly, and supports it with a study of authorities. The divergence of opinion about Robespierre is not wholly uncon- nected with a quarrel between two distinguished historians, both of whom are now dead ; but it is due mainly to the dis- covery of new, and the re-examination of old, material in a field where interpretation is difficult. The result is a little bewildering to the layman because 'neither side takes sufficient notice of the evidence produced by the other, and neither school is altogether free from political bias. The general reader will be on safe ground if he treats Mr. Korngold's book as a defence of Robespierre ; a fair defence, but a case upon which it would be unwise to pass judgement without hearing what the other side has to say about it.
There is less room for difference of opinion about Talleyrand, though if one man may be said to be more complicated than another, Talleyrand was certainly more subtle, more delicately poised than Robespierre. On the other hand it is easier to judge Talleyrand because he was a success while Robespierre was a failure, and, as a rule, there are more data for judging successful men than for judging failures. Yet the contrast between M. de Saint-Aulaire's and Dr. Brinton's approach, to their common subject shows that there is still room for a difference of emphasis and different judgements of value. Both these writers are too much concerned with modern instances. Dr. Brinton cannot get far away from President Wilson and the harm done by righteous men let loose upon public affairs. He is perhaps a little too much on his guard against being taken in by sophisticated Europeans. M. Clemenceau and others may have caught President Wilson ; Dr. Brinton is not going to let himself be caught by Talleyrand. Modern psychology has told him where the traps are set. He avoids them by a bland acceptance of sophistication. He will not make the Victorian mistake (surely the time has come to take the Victorians in one's stride) of calling Talleyrand a bad man. He calls him a good man, if you give goodness its proper meaning. Talley- rand was in many respects a good European, but he was a bad man who admitted his own badness. Dr. Brinton tries to escape from the difficulty that in a world where everyone was as selfish, as corrupt, and as cynical as Talleyrand, civilisation would fall to' pieces and life would be so nasty that one would want it to be short. In this dilemma Dr. Brinton calls in Aristotle's distinction between the good citizen and the good man ; but surely it is begging the question to assume that Aristotle would havesalled Talleyrand a good citizen.
M. de Saint-Aulaire (whose book is very well translated) has ffie advantage of knowing Europeans, and diplomacy, from inside. He is not frightened by Talleyrand ; he deals with him as the Catholic Church dealt with him, and his portrait is more sharply drawn than Dr. Brinton's more philosophical study. On the other hand Dr. Brinton has a deeper historical knowledge ; his pages on French society in the last years of the ancien regime are brilliant. They cut through a great deal of nonsense still talked about the art and life of France under Louis XVI, and they could have been written only by a scholar posseSsing complete mastery of detail. For this reason, because his good pages are so very good, one may wish that Dr. Brinton had given his readers more about France and less about Plato, Pareto, pacificism, biographers, and human behaviour in general,, though in the long discussion with which the book concludes there are many shrewd remarks. This may sound a little' ungrateful, but there are few men writing in English about France with Dr. Brinton's knowledge of the subject, while the world is full of bright people talking brightly about political ideas. - Meantime the general reader, looking for interesting and intelligent books, should not buy Dr. Brinton without -buying M. de Saint-Aulaire, or M. de Saint- Aulaire without Dr. Brinton, and would be well-advised to buy the two books in order to see Talleyrand from two different
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