KING LAZARUS.* WE will begin by criticising the title of
this book. By Lazarus is indicated the French Commune, and this seems scarcely a happy simile ; for, whereas the beggar of the parable was a good man, and eventually entered into "Abraham's bosom," the Communists, as a rule, behaved (or misbehaved ?) them- selves in such a fashion as to make the proverbial beggar on horseback a more fitting type for them. The frantic excesses of which they were guilty make it impossible to deny that, even if they did no worse, they had, at all events, so far lost their heads with excitement as to be in the condition of the wall-eyed bay in Nicholas Nickleby, who was said by the guard to have " game mad wi' glory carse t'coorch is over." And a comparison between such turbulent madmen, and the mild and patient man who lay outside the gate of Dives, is obviously inapt.
In the hero, Louis Roland, is easily recognised one of the victims of Satory, whose fate excited much commiseration in both England and France. We do not ourselves know the his- tory of his life, but presume that Mr. Derwent has studied it, and that the portrait he presents may be accepted as accurate in the main outlines. The following incident of Roland's childhood certainly gives the impression of truth :-
" They tell strange stories of his school-days at La Fleche,—of the mild, little, grave-eyed Puritan that he was, when he came there from his sombre cradle and birthplace, Château-Roland. A brown-haired, blue-eyed, English-looking, little fellow glances up at the professor on the morning when he first appears in class, with the expectation that here, as at home, one prefaces the work of the day with prayer. For a prayer, the professor begins dictating to the class a theme. All the boys but one fall instantly to writing. The new-comer, who felt, perhaps, as if the eyes of God and his mother.were upon him, drops to his knees and prays silently,—a prayer of a few momenta, such as, before grasping his sword and rushing out upon the musketeers of Vinare, his heroic ancestor may have offered up. Play-time arrives, and the little Louis, a mark for the dislike and sarcasm of his comrades, is unmercifully thrashed and jeered at. Put a hundred average boys of eleven in such a predicament, and ninety would be conquered by the mockery, and the other ten by the beating. That taciturn, grave-faced little Puritan from the old château in the Cevennes was made of sterner stuff. Beat and scoff at him as they might, when the arrival of the hoar for recreation left him daily at their mercy, his companions saw him, morning after morning, drop quietly to his knees. A month or two of persecution, and the spirit of fierce hostility that this indomitable little Daniel had persisted in braving gave way to a feeling of respect ; and this singular addition to the Rives of the Prytanee was left to say his morning prayer in peace."
The author's picture of Roland represents him as governed by an almost fanatical devotion to his country, blended with a con- siderable strain of ambition. Though not wholly free from the charge of self-seeking in his desire for power, he yet stands out as a model of pure patriotism amongst the selfish, greedy, unscrupulous men with whom he has to do,—men who have little of the patriot about them except the name. For there is a wide difference between the true patriot who identifies him- self with his country, and thinks that every person and thing should be sacrificed for her interests, and the spurious patriot, who identifies his country with himself, and defines patriotism to mean that his private advantage is to be striven after, at any cost of honour, principle, justice, and morality. Here is an extract, giving a fair idea of the author's conception of Roland's character :—
" In his early boyhood Roland had thought to devote himself for life to the service of the Church of his forefathers ; but as he grew older the dream had changed, and patriotism and ambition had begun to drown, like loud-speaking voices as they were, the small, still whisper of religion in his heart. When the boy became man, and put on uniform and belted a sword to his side, he would have found, had he searched narrowly into his creed, that he had little by little perverted the first commandment until that worship was given to his country which he should have accorded only to his God. With all his heart had he loved her, and had felt that it would be a joy to die for her ; yet the completeness of his idolatry did not prevent it
from being, as idolatries often are, a partly selfish feeling He would cheerfully have died for his country; and had he lived to save her, it would not have been to have snatched at the sceptre that Sedan
• King Lazarus, By Leith Dement. London : Bentley. 1881. had dashed from the weak grasp of the Emperor ; yet, could he have. plucked the Republic from the talons of the German eagle, he would have claimed as his reward one commensurate with the greatness of the service done to her,—that she should set none other of her Citi- zens above him. It was the old story of the days of chivalry,—the knight loved the lady, and would lay the world at her feet if he could, but in return she was to give him herself."
Descended from one of the old Camisard leaders, and born amongst " the billowy hills of the Cevennes, earth-waves, the foam of which was the vine and the olive," Roland in 1868 is twenty-four years of age, and a captain in the French Engineers.
Two years later, he is still in the same service, though a Republican at heart, and hating the Emperor. At Metz, with Bazaine, he speaks his mind to that officer with a freedom some- what inconsistent with the popular notion of the respect exacted by military discipline from a captain to a marshal. Subse- quently, at Tours, he is equally ready to give good advice to Gambetta. His heart is entirely set upon continuing the war with Germany, as witness the following speech made by him in prison, when some one said that even if the Revolution had succeeded, Bismarck would only have crushed it out, and in- sisted on a double ransom :—
" Was that fear to keep me back P if my enemies who are about to take my life were to say to me, after they have condemned me to be shot, We will give you your life, but degrade you,' I should answer, Take it ; it is valueless to me on such terms.' I would have made the same choice for my country."
Utterly disgusted at the peace of 1871, he joins the Commune, as offering the best prospect of continued hostility to Germany, but does not get on well with his new colleagues, who dislike and distrust him, because he has no sympathy with their vices, and is braver, honester, and more thorough than themselves.
They appoint him as claggue It la guerre, and yet refuse him the authority he requires to keep his forces in order, and, further- more, suspect him of treachery. He at last leaves them in dis- gust, and goes home to his mother's death-bed. From there he returns to Paris, to search for a missing cousin, and falls into the hands of the Versaillais, who have by that time got possession of the town. As we follow his course, the knowledge that he had a real existence and played a conspicuous part in the French troubles, gives the story an interest quite inde- pendent of the manner in which it is told; and the recollection that we are reading about what actually happened within the last ten years lends a pathos to the death-scene at Satory which would be lacking, if the victim were a mere imaginary person. It is evident that in such a life as that of Roland's, and in the stirring events of the Commune, are to be found excellent materials for a novel ; but we think that in King
Lazarus, the idea is better than the execution, and that there is much indifferent padding, whose inferiority shows all the more strongly by contrast with the boldness of the framework which it fills in.
As far as the unhistorical part of the book is concerned, we do not care to dwell upon it, for the ruin of an innocent girl by a roue is an unpleasant and objectionable theme, and we do not congratulate the author on having chosen such an one for his subject. There is too much " tall " writing. All the extracts from Harry Clifford's journal are simply sentimental bosh and vapid twaddle, and as they are immaterial to the story, the reader may safely skip them, whenever they occur. Clearness of expression would be an improvement in some places, which have to be read over more than once to get at their meaning. For all this, we are of opinion that the author has a turn for novel-writing, and that if he will choose a pleasant subject, curtail his sentences (in one we counted 165 words, without any stops, except commas), make his con- versations more life-like, be sparing in the use of long words, and ruthlessly cut out whatever he deems his most eloquent moralisings and finest bits of writing, he may produce a very much better book than the one we have been considering.
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