government, though it has furnished them with a ship, informs the French authorities of their design, and a flotilla bars their passage. The émigrés, after securing the escape of Lantenac, who is commissioned to raise Bretagne, blow up the vessel. After landing he learns that a price is set on his head. A number of men come towards him, and he believes he is lost, but bravely tells his name. They are Bretons, and recognize him as their leader. Then ensues a conflict in which the marquis is victorious, and in which no quarter is given except to the three children, whom the Bretons carry to La Tourgue as hostages. La Tourgue is besieged by the republican troops under Gauvain, the marquis's nephew, assisted by the ex-priest Cimourdain, a rigid and inflexible republican who has trained Gauvain in his own opinions. The besieged are determined to blow up the tower and all it contains, if they are conquered. When their case is desperate and the tower is already on fire, an underground passage is discovered, and they can escape. Lantenac is in safety, but he hears the agonizing shrieks of the mother, who sees her three children in the midst of the flames. Moved with pity, he returns, saves them, and becomes a prisoner. When he is about to be executed, Gauvain covers him with his own cloak, tells him to depart, and remains in his place. A council of war condemns Gauvain; and at the moment he mounts the scaffold, Cimourdain, who was one of his judges, kills himself. Hugo incarnates in his three principal characters the three ages of human society. Lantenac, the monarchic chief, personifies the past; Cimourdain, the citizen priest, the present; and Gauvain, the ideal of mercy, the future. Although the descriptions and disquisitions are sometimes wordy and tedious, and there are many improbabilities in the romance, the picture of the three little children tossed about in the revolutionary hurricane will always be considered one of the loftiest achievements of Hugo's genius. The account of the convention of 1793, and the conversations of Marat, Danton, and Robespierre, also show the hand of a master.

Magic Skin, The ('La Peau

de

Chagrin'), by Honoré de Balzac. This forms one of the Philosophic Studies of the great Frenchman.

In

>

1829 a young man, in despair because of failure to succeed in his chosen career, tries the gaming table. He meets an old man, who revives his interest in life by showing him a piece of skin, bearing in Arabic an inscription promising to the owner the gratification of every wish. But with each request granted the skin becomes smaller. The life of the possessor is lessened as the enchanted skin diminishes. The unknown young man seizes the skin, crying "A short life but a merry one!" Scenes in Paris pass before us, taken from lives of artists, journalists, politicians. We meet again Canalis, a chief character in Modest Mignon. One chapter is entitled "The Heartless Woman.' Raphael by virtue of the talismanic skin becomes rich. Pauline loves him. Life smiles on them. Yet the fatal skin is brought to his eyes, casting a gloom over everything— scientific work, salons of painting and sculpture, the theatre-embittering all. He brings the skin to Lavrille, a savant, for examination. "It is the skin of an ass," is the decision. Raphael was looking for some means to stretch the skin, and thus prolong his life. He tries mechanical force, chemistry; but the skin becomes less and still less-till he dies. Through all we feel the author's tone of irony toward the weakness and sins of society. Some twenty principal personages are introduced.

Catharine, by Jules Sandeau (Paris:

1846). The scene of the story is laid in the little village of Saint-Sylvain, in the ancient province of La Marche. The curé, a priest patterned after the Vicar of Wakefield, who spends most of his income of 800 francs in relieving his poor, discovers that there is no money left to buy a soutane for himself and a surplice for his assistant; while the festival of the patron of the parish is close at hand, and their old vestments are in rags. There is consternation in the pres、 bytery, especially when the news arrives that the bishop of Limoges himself is to be present. Catharine, the priest's little niece, determines to make a collection, and goes to the neighboring château, although warned that the Count de Sougères is a wicked and dangerous man. But Catharine, in her innocence, does not understand the warning; and besides, Claude, her uncle's choir-leader and her friend from childhood, will protect her.

When she reaches the château, she meets, not the count, but his son Roger, who gives a liberal donation to the fair collector, and afterward sends hampers of fowl, silver plate, etc., to the presbytery, so that Monseigneur of Limoges and his suite are received with all due honor. Universal joy pervades the parish, which Claude does not share. He is jealous; and with reason, for Catharine and Roger quickly fall in love with each other. 'Catharine' ranks as one of the best, if not the best, of Sandeau's works. While some of the scenes show intense dramatic power, and others are of the most pathetic interest, a spirit of delicious humor pervades the whole story, an unforced and kindly humor that springs from the situations, and is of a class seldom found in French literature.

Conscrit de 1818, Histoire d'un (His

tory of a Conscript of 1813), by Erckmann-Chatrian, was published at Paris in four volumes (1868-70). Joseph Bertha, a watchmaker's apprentice, aged 20, is in despair when he learns that in spite of his lameness, he must shoulder a gun and march against the allies. Hitherto his own little affairs have had much more concern for him than the quarrels of kings and powers, and he has an instinctive dislike to the spirit of conquest. Still his is a loyal heart, and he resists the temptation to desert. After an affecting farewell to his betrothed, he marches to join his regiment, resolved to do his duty. Of the terrific battles of the period Joseph relates only what he saw. He does not pretend to be a hero, but he is always true to his nature and to human nature in his alternate fits of faint-heartedness and warlike fury. He obeys his leaders when they bid him rush to death or glory; but he cannot help turning his eyes back, at the same time, to the poor little cottage where he has left all his happiness. His artless soul is a battle-field whereon the feelings natural to him are in constant conflict with those of his new condition: the former prevailing when the miseries of the soldier's life are brought home to him; the latter, when he is inflamed by martial ardor. All the narrative, up to the time he returns wounded to his family, turns on the contrast between the perpetual mourning that is going on in families and the perpetual Te Deums for disastrous victories. This is the dominant note; and in the mouth of this obscure

The

victim of war, this thesis, interpreted by scenes of daily carnage, is more eloquent and persuasive than if it borrowed arguments from history or philosophy. style is simple, familiar; perhaps at times even vulgar: but it is never trivial or commonplace, and is always in harmony with the speaker. As the work was hostile to the Napoleonic legend, numerous obstacles were put in the way of its circulation at the time of publication. But notwithstanding, it was scattered in profusion throughout France by means of cheap illustrated editions.

Lo

oki, by Prosper Mérimée, is one of the strongest and most skillfully constructed of his works. The motive is the almost universal belief that human beings may be transformed into animals. A German professor and minister, commissioned to make a new translation of the Scriptures into the Zhmud language, is invited by a Lithuanian nobleman (Count Szémioth) to reside at his castle and use his valuable library during his labors.

The Count's mother, on the day of her marriage, had been carried off by a bear, and when rescued, found to be hopelessly insane, even the birth of her son having failed to restore her reason.

The Professor finds the Count an agreeable companion, but observes in him certain strange and often alarming characteristics. The Count is in love with a beautiful, witty, but rather frivolous young girl, Miss Julia Ivinska, and the Professor goes with him several times to visit her at Doughielly. At last their engagement is announced, and the Professor is recalled to the castle to perform the marriage ceremony.

The next morning the bride is found dead, and the Count has disappeared. The whole trend of the story, the incidents and conversations, often seemingly irrelevant, the hinted peculiarities of the Count, all serve to point, as it were inexorably, at the inevitable conclusion that the man has at last undergone the terrible transformation and become bear, after killing and partially eating his helpless victim.

a

The perfect simplicity and naturalness of the language, the realism of its romance, the grace and wit of the dialogue, and the consistency of the characters, particularly of the Professor, who narrates the story with the utmost

92

plausibility,—give it the effect of history. While the supernatural is the most dramatic quality of the story, every incident in it might nevertheless be explained scientifically.

Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, The,

by Anatole France. This charming story, by a distinguished critic and academician, not only paints the literary life of Paris, but depicts the nobler human emotions with delicate humor and pathos. In a short prelude entitled 'The Log,' the kindliness and simplicity of nature of the learned archæologist Sylvestre Bonnard, member of the Institute, are revealed. It relates how he sends a Christmas log to a poor young mother, in the attic above him, on the birth of her boy; how, like a fairy gift, the log comes back to him on a later Christmas, hollowed out, and containing a precious manuscript of the Golden Legend,' for which he has journeyed to Sicily in vain; and how the Princess Trépof, who is the gracious donor, turns out to be the poor attic-neighbor, whom he had befriended years before. When the story opens, we find Sylvestre Bonnard at the château of a Monsieur de Gabry, for whom he is cataloguing old manuscripts. Here he meets a charming young girl named Jeanne, and discovers her to be the portionless daughter of his first and only love. He resolves to provide for and dower her; but she has already a guardian in a crafty notary, Maître Mouche, who has placed her in a third

rate school near Paris. Here the good

Bonnard visits her and gradually wins her filial affection; but unluckily at the same time arouses in the pretentious schoolmistress, Mademoiselle Préfère, the ambition of becoming the wife of a member of the Institute who is reputed wealthy. The defenseless savant, upon receiving a scarcely veiled offer of wedlock from the lady, cannot conceal his horror; upon which she turns him out of the house, and denies him all further intercourse with Jeanne. On the discovery that his protégée is immured and cruelly treated, he is driven to commit his great crime, the abduction of a minor. This deed is effected by bribing the portress of the school and carrying away the willing victim in a cab to the shelter of Madame de Gabry's house. Here he finds that he has committed a penal offense; but escapes prosecution owing to Jeanne's unworthy guardian's having decamped a week pre

vious with the money of all his clients. Jeanne thus becomes the ward of her good old friend, who later sells his treasured library to secure her a marriage portion, and retires to a cottage in the country, where his declining days are brightened by the caresses of Jeanne and her child

ren.

Num

uma Roumestan, by Alphonse Daudet. The author at first intended to call his romance North and South'; a title indicative of his true purpose, which is to contrast these two sections of France, not at all to the advantage of the one in which he was born. Numa Roumestan is a genuine Provençal: a braggart, a politician, a great man, and a good fellow to boot. He appears inthe opening pages at a festival at Apt, where he is the choice of his adoring fellow-countrymen for deputy. Congratulations, embraces, hand-shaking, and requests for offices, are the order of the day. He promises everything to every one,

crosses, tobacco, monopolies, whatever any one asks,- and if Valmajour, the tambourine player, come to Paris, he will make his fortune. A friend remonstrates with him. "Bah!" he answers, "they are of the South, like myself: they know these promises are of no con sequence; talking about them will amuse them." But some persons take him at his word. The story is intensely amusing, and there is not a chapter which does not contain some laughable incident. The mixture of irony and sensi

bility which pervades it is Daudet's

distinguishing characteristic, and reminds the reader of Heine. There are some scenes of real pathos, such as the death of little Hortense. Daudet describes the early career of Gambetta in the chief character. Gambetta was his friend, but Daudet never shrank from turning his friends into "copy.»

Faience Violin, The, by J. F. H. Champ

fleury. A dainty book, wrought with the delicacy and care of an artist in some frail and rare material, truly and without metaphor a romance of pottery. There is no love episode in the story save that passion that consumes the collector of antiques, which, if yielded to unreservedly, will surely lead to the moral result of "turning the feelings into stone.» The scene is laid in Nevers, the centre of the fine pottery districts of France; and the characters, Gardelanne and Dalègre,

at the first warm friends, end in being rival collectors, consumed with envy and suspicion. Gardelanne, who lives in Paris, having learned of the existence of a violin made of pottery, charges Dalègre, his old companion at Nevers, the home of their boyhood, to hunt it up; and on his failing to find it, undertakes the search himself at last, discovering it in a collection of old rubbish, and buying it for a mere trifle, much to Dalègre's chagrin. To satisfy his friend, however, he puts a clause in his will leaving to him the violin; a concession that helps to convert the former love of his friend into eagerness to hear of his death. At length the coveted porcelain comes into Dalègre's possession, and is about to be assigned to the shrine long kept waiting for it, when, on being tuned for a few delicious notes of greeting, the precious idol cracks and falls to pieces on the floor. owner, in his grief and mortification, is for a time thought by his friends to have fallen in "defaience.» He has horrid dreams of people who have turned into fine vases and may not mingle too freely with their companions lest they spoil their glaze. At length, recovered from his malady, he marries; and amid the joys of home, contrasts the happiness of domestic life with the hollow pleasures of those unfortunates "whose feelings are turning into stone." In a preface to an American edition, the author expresses his delight at the kind welcome his story has found in America.

The

Madame Chrysantheme, by Pierre Loti

(whose real name is Louis Marie Julien Viaud), appeared in 1887, when he was thirty-seven. It is the seventh of the novels in which Loti has tried to fix in words the color, atmosphere, and life of different countries. The scene of 'Madame Chrysanthème is Japan, and the reader sees and feels that strange land as Loti saw and felt it, a little land of little people and things; a land of prettiness and oddity rather than of beauty; where life is curiously free from moral and intellectual complexities. Loti has but a single theme, the isolated life of one man with one woman; but the charm of 'Madame Chrysanthème' is not in its romance. The pretty olivehued wife whom the sailor Loti upon his arrival at Nagasaki engages at so much a month, conscientiously does her part.

She pays him all reverence, keeps

the house gay with Japanese blossoms, plays her harp, and is as Japanese a little oddity as he could find; but fails even to amuse him. She is as empty of ideality as her name-flower is of fragrance, or as the little apartment which he rents for her and for himself is of furniture. But the disillusion of Loti himself, the mocking pessimism underlying his eager appreciation of the new sense-impressions, and the exact touch and strong relief of his descriptions of exotic scenes, exercise a curious magnetism.

With Chrysanthème, Loti explores Nagasaki, goes to concerts, and gives teas; but he is not in harmony with this bizarre simplicity of life. Suddenly his

ship is ordered to China. The pretty summer home is dismantled. Chry. santhème must return to her mother. In future she will be a pleasant memory, but he leaves her without regret, with an indulgent smile of light mockery for the clever, gain-seeking little Japanese lady.

Cosmopolis, by Paul Bourget.

This

novel is written to demonstrate the influence of heredity. The scene is at Rome, but a glance at the principal characters shows the fitness of the title.

Countess Steno is a descendant of the Doges. Bolislas Gorka shows the nervous irritability and facile conscience of the Slav; his wife is English. Lincoln Maitland is an American artist, whose wife has a drop of African blood. The clever Dorsenne is French. From the alien ambitions and the selfish intrigues of these persons the story arises. It is most disagreeable in essence, but subtle in analysis, dramatic in quality, and brilliant in

execution.

Germa

It

ermany (Germania), by Tacitus. The full title of the work is 'De Origine, Situ, Moribus, ac Populis Germaniæ. was written probably in 99, and is a geographical and political description of ancient Germany, or at least of the part of it known to the Romans, which did not extend far beyond the Elbe. It may be divided into three parts: Chapters i.-v. describe the situation of the country, the origin of its population, and the nature of the soil; Chapters vi.-xxvii., the manners of the Germans in general and their method of waging war; and the remaining chapters deal with the several tribes, and give a careful and precise

account of the manners and customs that distinguish one from another. This fine work is at once a treatise on geography, a political study of the peoples most dreaded by Rome, a study of barbarous manners, and, by the simple effect of contrast, a satire on Roman manners. It is not only the chief source of the ancient history of the tribes that were to form the northern and western nations of Europe, but it contains an account of the germs of almost every modern institution,-military, judicial, and feudal. Notwithstanding occasional errors in geography and some misconceptions as to the religion of the Germans, the striking accuracy of his details, as well as the correctness and precision of his general views, have led some scholars to believe that Tacitus spent the four years of his life which are unaccounted for, from 89 to 93, in Germany. But this is only conjecture; and the means of information within his reach were as valuable as a personal visit to the country he describes might have been. Many of his friends, like Rufus, had made campaigns beyond the Rhine, and their knowledge was at his disposal. He must have consulted the numerous hostages and captives that were always in the city. Deserters, such as Marbod and Catuald, not to mention the merchants who trafficked with the Teutons, may also have helped him to give his work the character of truthfulness and the local color that distinguish it. He is supposed, in addition, to have derived great assistance from the History of the Wars in Germany,' in twenty books, by Pliny the Elder, a work now lost. Tacitus has been accused of a tendency to idealize the ancient Germans, in order to contrast their virtues with the vices of the Romans. But while he no doubt intends now and then to point a moral for the benefit of his countrymen, he is not blind to the faults of the people he describes, and has no love for them. He speaks of their bestial drunkenness, their gluttony, their indolence, and rejoices with a ferocious joy at the destruction of sixty thousand of the Brusteri, slain in sight of the Roman soldiers by their own countrymen.

Germany, by the Baroness de Staël

Holstein (Anne Louise Germaine Necker). (1813.) One of the most remarkable examples in literature of the genius of woman opening new paths and

executing efforts of advance with full masculine strength and energy. Napoleon had in 1803 driven Madame de Staël from Paris, and in December of that year she had visited Schiller and Goethe at Weimar, and Schlegel at Berlin. The death of her father, a visit to Italy, and the composition of 'Corinne' which greatly added to her fame in Europe, were followed by a second visit to Germany in the latter part of 1807. The book 'De l'Allemagne' was finished in 1810, and printed in an edition of 10,000 copies after submission to the regular censorship, when Napoleon caused the whole to be seized and destroyed, and herself ordered to leave France at once. By good luck her son had preserved the manuscript; and the author was able, after a long wandering through Europe, to reach England, and secure the publication of her book in 1813. In dealing, as she did, with manners, society, literature, art, philosophy, and religion, from the point of view of her observations in Germany, Madame de Staël gave to France a more complete and sympathetic knowledge of German thought and literature than it had ever had. It was a presentation of the German mind and German developments at once singularly penetrating and powerful. The defects of the work were French, and promoted rather than hindered its influence in France. In England an immense enthusiasm was aroused by the author and by her brilliant book, which easily took the highest rank among books of the time.

Ger

erman Empire, The Founding of the: Based chiefly upon Prussian State Documents; by Heinrich von Sybel. (7 vols., 1890-98.) An able authoritative treatment of Prussian history during the period 1850-70. Dr. Von Sybel had published a History of the Revolutionary Period from 1789 to 1800,' in which he pictured the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire among the Germans. In sequel to this he undertook the history of the Prussian founding of a German Empire. Bismarck gave permission, March 19th, 1881, for him to use the records in the government archives; and through five volumes, bringing the story as far as to 1866, this privilege was of avail to secure an accurate and comprehensive picture of Prussian aims and efforts down to the war with Austria. A few months after Bismarck's retirement, the permission