BOOKS.

M. DAIJDET'S RECOLLECTIONS.* THE alarming spread of autobiography in recent years has . been for many reasons a source of great anxiety to dis- interested observers. That one particular branch of literature should preponderate over others for a time, is only natural; but we know that the effects of a plethora of poetry, criticism, divinity, or even novels, though painfid at the time, do not imply any serious danger to the literary constitution, because the public will not be coerced into reading a line more than it chooses on such subjects as these. No such limits can be placed to the virulence of the disorder which has now extended its ravages to all classes of society. Some stringent measures should really be taken at once, more in the interests of the reading public than of the writers themselves, though the effect on the latter class is sufficiently serious, many worthy persons who had previously pursued their professions with general respect and admiration, having proved themselves offensive bores when they burst into reminiscences.

M. Daudet's books, however, we should exempt from the rigour of such salutary regulations, chiefly because it is always worth while to read what he writes, and also partly because it is obviously no desire for notoriety which has brought him to autobiography. It is rather the pleasant confidence of a man who knows his own value, and is quite certain that people will be interested to hear any little details about him. The same kind of confidence that we want to know all about them, becomes wildly exasperating when it leads Tom, Dick, and Harry to deluge us with their personal recollections ; but in this case we make no objection. M. Daudet is quite aware of his importance in the world of literature, and that it is really a public-spirited action to interview himself in the interests of the public. The result is certainly some delightful read- ing. Of the Treats Any de Paris, the contents are not in every case new. At least one story, ".Le Premier Habit," we have seen before in another collection of M. Daudet's smaller pieces. It is also mentioned that the article on Tourgneneff appeared originally in the Century, and that on " Les Salons Litteraires " in a Russian periodical. Such productions, however, will well bear reading twice over. The book may be broadly divided into three portions, including, first, personal recollections of our author's early life ; secondly, sketches of persons with whom he has been brought into con- tact at various periods of his literary career ; and lastly, details as to the plots and characters of his novels and his methods of work in general. The arrangement is at times a little faulty. For instance, we cannot understand why the sketch of Villemessant should be sandwiched between the two early reminiscences of the arrival in Paris and the soiree of Augustine Brohan. It is true that our author's first interview with M. Villemessant took place in his very early days, and that the first impressions of the young aspirant, waiting timidly in a corner of the salle de redaction with his manuscript, and watching with terrified gaze the for- midable monarch of the Figaro rejecting the services of one of the first journalists in Paris, form a principal point in the sketch of a man whom he afterwards came to know well ; but still, one feels that it is out of place, and more or less breaks the continuity of the early experiences. The Daudet who could secure the proteCtion of M. Villemessant for the proto- • (1.) Trent. Ana de Paris. Par Alphonse Daudet. Paris: C. Marpon et E Plammarion.—(2 ) Thirty Years of Paris. By Alphonse Daudet. Translated by Laura Ensor. London: George Routledge and Bons. 18813 —(3.) Souvenirs d'un Homme de Lettree. Par Alphonse Daudet. Paris : C. Marpon at E. Flammarion.—(L.) Recolleetions of a Literary Man. By Alphonse Daudet. London : George Routledge and Bons. 1889.

type of M. Joyeuse, is not the same Daudet who put on that first dress-coat with fear and trembling to make his first appearance in society. This, however, is a very trivial de- feet. The early.personal reminiscences are among the most delightful portions of the book. The first arrival in Paris of the young provincial, who comes up to make his way in the world, has been described hundreds of times, and, if we are not mistaken, M. Daudet himself has given an account of it in the " Petit Chose," which is partly autobiographical. The his- tory of the first dress-coat, written in our author's most purely comical vein, is extremely amusing ; the nervousness of the youthful poet in the unknown world to which he is being intro- duced, mingled with a certain sense of being rather above the common herd, such as makes him resent deeply the satisfaction of the lady who greets his arrival as that of " another dancing• man ;" the utter bewilderment which prevents him from

resisting the final decision of the company that this queer- looking stranger must be the expected Wallachian Prince—by- the-way, there is an exactly similar incident in The Newcomer —the hasty departure at last, and the shame of being without an overcoat, are all described with genial humour. "My

First Play" is, in some respects, even better. M. Daudet's first dramatic effort was brought out at the Odeon at a time when he himself was away in Algiers on a shooting expedi- tion. The description of the lovely Algerian scenery, in the midst of which he is dreaming of the superior delights that

would await him in the close, musty atmosphere behind the scenes, is a perfect literary gem. His only companions are four worthy Arabs, extremely friendly and well disposed,. but as ignorant of French as he of Arabic:— "Suddenly there was a great commotion, the dogs barked, the servants ran hither and thither, a great long devil of a spahi iii his red burnouse stopped his horse short in front of the tent and said,—` Sidi Daoudi ?' It was a telegram from Paris, which had followed my track from camp to camp since I left Milianah. It con- tained merely these words :` Piece played yesterday, great success,. Rousseil and Tisserant splendid!' I read and re-read this delightful telegram, twenty times, a hundred times over, as if it were a love- letter. Only think ! my first piece. Seeing my bands trembling- with emotion and the happiness shining in my eyes, the ages smiled at me and spoke among themselves in Arabic. The cleverest of them even called up all his learning to his aid, in order to say to me, ' France—news—family ' Ah no, it was no news of my family which made my heart beat so rapturously; and unable to accustom myself to the notion of having no one to whom I could communicate my delight, I set to work to explain, with my four words of Arabic and the twenty words of French I believed them to understand, whets, theatre was, and the importance of a first representation in Paris, to the aga of the Atafs, to Sid' Omar, to Si-Sliman and Boualem-Ben-Cherifa. I hunted for comparisons, I expressed myself in endless pantomime, I flourished the blue cover of the telegram, saying : Karaguenz ! Karagaeuz ! as if my- affecting little piece. intended to touch the heart and draw forth tears from the eyes of innocence, could possibly have any affinity with the monstrous and devilish buffoonery in which the Turks delight, and as if one could without blasphemy compare the classic Odeon with the clandestine haunts of every Moorish town, in which at night, notwithstanding the exertions of the police, the good Mussulmans assemble to enjoy the spectacle of the wanton adventures of their favourite hero !"

The articles devoted to the history of M. Daudet's different books have an interest of another kind. As the theory is generally accepted that the public has a right as well as a desire to examine the actual wheels of the machinery, and have the secrets of the springs explained to them, we cannot blame the detail into which M. Daudet has entered on this subject. The charm of the writing always remains, even for those who do not care for the theme. There could not well be more pleasant reading than the accounts of our author', excursions on the Loire with his wife and his little son, while

he was getting together the materials for the factory episode in Jack. That terrible story, we hear, is no invention ;

indeed, the history of the real Raoul is even more heart- rending than that of the imaginary Jack. On the other hand, some of the diameters drawn from life are pleasanter in their true form, than when they are suited to the exigencies of

a plot. Such a character is the tambouririaire, whose real history has much more comedy than pathos in it, and is entirely free from the disagreeable element added to the character in Norma .Roumestan. Tartarin himself, it appears, was a real personage, though he did not come from Tarascon, but we can hardly believe that he was quite as delightful as his- counterpart in fiction. M. Daudet has taken the oppor- tunity to make a little apology to Tarascon ; but we doubt whether it will not rather aggravate matters, if the good town had not sufficient sense of humour to appreciate the exuberant

fun of the "Defense de Tarascon" in the first, place. Perhaps it could not be reasonably expected that it should.

The Souvenirs d'un Homme de Lettres give details concerning Les Bois en Exit and Numa Bournestan. It appears that the central figure of the latter work is on no account to be identi- fied with Gambetta, nor is Christian of Elyria to be regarded as having the remotest connection with the King of Naples. We are bound, as they say in another place, "to accept the denial of the honourable gentleman," though we can hardly join in his cry of amazement and indignation that anybody should pretend to make such mistakes. " As if that were possible ! As though, had I wished to model a Gambetta, any one could have mistaken him, even under the mask of a Numa !" However, perhaps, as Numa Roumestan was by no means a faultless character, and as Gambetta was an old and valued friend of our author, his indignation is natural. His pride as an author is also wounded, for his characters are no mere copies of living models, but genuine creations of his own, compounded of many simples. Of the real Gambetta, as he was in actual life, we have a very interesting sketch, giving glimpses of his career, such as his early friend could get, under very different conditions, at various periods,—from the early times when he was the oracle of the cafés in the Quartier Latin, and society was vaguely cognisant of the existence of a promising young man with an odd name, to the days of the siege of Paris and the court-martial of Bazaine. Another interesting piece gives us a picture of Emile 011ivier and his dream of a Liberal Empire, and relates an interview of the author's with that well-intentioned Minister on the occasion of the murder of Victor Noir.

A principal feature of the Souvenirs is that portion which is devoted to scenes from the war, and the domestic troubles which followed. M. Daudet has already given to the world many vivid pictures of that eventful period. For him, as for many other French writers, there is a kind of fascination in the recollections of those dark days, under the influence of which he has produced some of his most powerful work. Personally, we should say that there is hardly anything in his most famous works which is quite equal to some of the short stories of the war, such as " Le Turco de la, Commune" or " L'Enfant Espion ;" but the actual recollections of his own experiences in the volume before us are of a much lighter description. There is a story of a night-alarm, actually written during the siege of Paris, which discourses in a pleasant, chatty way of the author's own ideas of war, its advantages and its drawbacks. M. Daudet wisely observes that it is a very dismal amusement for people to stand shivering in trenches through a long January night, and fails to see any point at all in being knocked on the head by a lump of old iron from a battery five miles off ; but.to start off on a fine frosty night after a good meal, with a pleasant glow of excitement and a company of good fellows whom you can hear and -feel all round you,—that, says M. Daudet, is really a delightful sensation. Probably the enjoyment is all the more complete when, as on the occasion described, the enemy have kindly retreated, and the gallant volunteer gets all these pleasurable sensations without the 'drawback of any actual danger.

There is another very amusing story of the escape from Paris, in the time of the Commune, of a dandy of the Empire, who is obliged to disguise himself as a scavenger, with many comic details of the various ways in vogue of getting out of Paris when it was becoming rather too hot to hold peaceable citizens,—how the more romantic would get over the ramparts at night by means of a rope-ladder ; how the bolder spirits would make up a party and take a gate by storm, and plain, practical people would solve the difficulty with the aid of a five-franc piece. Other sketches dealing with the German occupation are written in a sadder strain, while among the most interesting is one which gives some details of the murder of Generals Lecomte and Thomas in the Rue des Rosiers. There is a curious account of the indifference of the French peasantry to the national cause. According to M. Daudet, they did not feel it at all necessary for them to resist the common enemy. " They remained at home to show the Prussians our cellars, and to complete the pillage of our poor summer palaces." We remember hearing a story of a somewhat similar tendency on the part of the peasantry, which was told of a certain Mama in the depths of Burgundy. News arrived at a neighbouring village—not the village immediately beneath the walls, but the next one—that the chateau was to be sacked next day. It was on the occasion of one of the many revolu- tions, and the report seemed extremely probable. Next day, the whole village turned out in their Sunday clothes, and made their way over to La Roche, the place which was to be plundered. The villagers of La Roche, in great astonishment, asked the reason of this assemblage, and the visitors said simply " N'est-ce pas qu'on vs, piller le château ? " The people of La Roche said they had heard nothing of it, and the others thereupon returned quietly home. They had no ill- will against the proprietors of the chetteau, only they thought if there was any pillaging going on, it would be silly not to have a hand in it. M. Daudet gives us an excellent story containing a beautiful picture of the estimate such good, prudent people form of the mania of patriotism. A gallant artist, having been wounded in a sortie from Paris, was taken in and tended by some charitable peasants. As he grew better, these worthy people were anxious to know " why he had fought without being obliged to do so P Perhaps he was an old soldier P No, he only painted pictures ; he did nothing else. Then he had been induced to sign some papers which obliged him to go with the soldiers ? Nothing of the kind." Then the good peasants would wink at each other and say : " Well, then, it was because you had had a drop too much!"

Next to the stories of the war, perhaps the moat interesting portion of the Souvenirs is the account of the various gene de thicitre with whom M. Daudet has come in contact. These are very short sketches of some half-dozen actors and actresses, among which we should select as the best the notices of Felix and Lafontaine. The story of the lesson in acting given to the latter by Frederick is delightful. The rest of the book is occupied with Parisian and provincial scenes, which are, perhaps, hardly up to the level of the previous volume, or of the best portions of the new one. The translations have been carefully done, perhaps with more success in the former than in the latter volume. The passage we have quoted from the former is one of the best specimens. Light French pieces of this description are extremely hard to render at once faith- fully and with spirit; but there are some cases in which Miss Ensor seems to have given up the attempt in despair, and merely put down the English equivalents of the French words, without any search for a corresponding idiom. For instance, " l'oise.an du bon Dieu," is rendered "a wild bird of the good God's," which is nothing approaching to an English phrase. If it is any language at all, it is translationish. Suppose we were to follow this method, and render literally the pretty periphrasis in which the French speak of the ladybird, " the beast of the good God" ! It is impossible to say what might be the con- sequences to the public understanding.

The illustrations, which are the work of several different hands, are uniformly good. They have been exactly repro- duced in the English translations, which are, indeed, in all respects, almost a fac-simile of the original editions.