occupied the neighbouring house, asked him in a whisper—“Has my cook
caught sight of you? She is a Jacobin!”
“Nobody has set eyes on me.”
“God be praised, neighbour!”
She led him into her bedroom, whither I followed them. A consultation
was necessary. Some hiding-place must be hit upon where she could keep
Planchonnet concealed for several days, or at least for several hours,
whatever time it might take to deceive and tire out the search party. It
was agreed that I should keep the approaches under observation, and that
when I gave the signal, the unfortunate man should make his escape by
the little garden gate.
Whilst he waited, he was unable to remain standing. He was completely
paralysed with terror.
He endeavoured to make us understand that he was being hounded down for
having conspired with Monsieur de Cazotte against the Constitution, and
for having on the 10th of August formed one of the defenders of the
Tuileries—he, the enemy of priests and kings. It was an infamous
calumny. The truth was that Lubin was venting his hate upon him—Lubin,
hitherto his butcher, whom he had a hundred times had a mind to lay a
stick about to teach him to give better weight, and who was now
presiding over the section in which he had formerly been a mere
stallholder.
As he uttered the name in strangled tones, he was persuaded that he
actually saw Lubin, and hid his face in his hands. And of a truth there
was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Madame de Luzy shot the bolts
and pushed the old man behind a screen. There was a hammering at the
door, and Pauline recognized the voice of her cook, who called out to
her to open, that the municipal officers were at the gate with the
National Guard, and that they had come to make an inspection of the
premises.
“They say,” the woman added, “that Planchonnet is in the house. I know
very well that it is not so, of course. I know you would never harbour a
scoundrel of that sort; but they won’t believe my word.”
“Well, well, let them come up,” replied Madame de Luzy through the door.
“Let them go all over the house, from cellar to garret.”
As he listened to this dialogue, the wretched Planchonnet fainted behind
the screen, and I had a good deal of trouble in resuscitating him by
sprinkling water on his temples. When I had succeeded—
“My friend,” the young woman whispered to her old neighbour, “trust in
me. Remember that women are resourceful.”
Then, calmly, as though she had been engaged in some daily domestic
duty, she drew her bedstead a little out from its alcove, took off the
bedclothes, and with my assistance so arranged the three mattresses as
to contrive a space next the wall between the highest and the lowest of
them.
Whilst she was making these arrangements, a loud noise of shoes, sabots,
gunstocks, and raucous voices broke out on the staircase. This was for
all three of us a terrible moment; but the noise ascended by little and
little to the floor above our heads. We realized that the searchers,
under the guidance of the Jacobin cook, were ransacking the garrets
first. The ceiling cracked; threats and coarse laughter were audible,
and the sound of kicks and bayonet-thrusts against the wainscot. We
breathed again, but there was not a second to lose. I helped Planchonnet
to slip into the space contrived for him between the mattresses.
As she watched our efforts, Madame de Luzy shook her head. The bed thus
disturbed had a suspicious appearance.
She endeavoured to give it a finishing touch; but in vain, she could not
make it look natural.
“I shall have to go to bed myself,” she said.
She looked at the clock; it was exactly seven, and she felt that it
would look extraordinary for her to be in bed so early. As to feigning
illness, it was useless to think of it: the Jacobin cook would detect
the ruse.
She remained thoughtful for some seconds; then calmly, simply, with
royal unconcern, she undressed before me, got into bed, and ordered me
to take off my shoes, my coat, and my cravat.
“There is nothing for it but for you to be my lover, and for them to
surprise us together. When they arrive you will not have had time to
re-arrange your disordered clothes. You will open the door to them in
your vest,[21] with your hair rumpled.”
-----
Footnote 21:
The vest was worn under the coat. It was a sort of waistcoat, longer
than ours, and provided with sleeves of full length. (AUTHOR.)
-----
All our arrangements were made when the search party, with many
exclamations of “_Sacré!_” and “_Peste!_” descended from the garrets.
The unfortunate Planchonnet was seized with such a paroxysm of trembling
that he shook the whole bed.
Moreover, his breathing grew so stertorous that it must have been almost
audible in the corridor.
“It’s a pity,” murmured Madame de Luzy. “I was so satisfied with my
little artifice. But never mind; we won’t despair. May God be our aid!”
A heavy fist shook the door.
“Who knocks?” Pauline inquired.
“The representatives of the Nation.”
“Can’t you wait a minute?”
“Open, or we shall break the door down!”
“Go and open the door, my friend.”
Suddenly, by a sort of miracle, Planchonnet ceased to tremble and gasp.
III
Lubin was the first to enter. He had his scarf round him, and was
followed by a dozen men armed with pikes. Casting his eyes first on
Madame de Luzy and then on me—“_Peste!_” he exclaimed. “It seems we are
disturbing a pair of lovers. Excuse us, pretty one!”
Then turning to his followers, he remarked—
“The _sans-culottes_ are the only folks who know how to behave.”
But despite his theories this encounter had evidently put him in good
spirits.
He sat down on the bed, and raising the chin of the lovely high-bred
woman, said—
“It is plain that that pretty mouth wasn’t made to mumble paternosters
day and night. It would have been a pity if it were. But the Republic
before all things. We are seeking the traitor, Planchonnet. He is here,
I’m certain of it. I must have him. I shall get him guillotined. It will
make my fortune.”
“Search for him, then!”
They looked under the chairs and tables, in the cupboards, thrust their
pikes under the bed, and probed the mattresses with their bayonets.
Lubin scratched his ear and looked at me slily. Madame de Luzy, dreading
that I might be subjected to an embarrassing catechism, said—
“Dear friend, you know the house as well as I do myself. Take the keys
and show Monsieur Lubin all over it. I am sure you will be delighted to
act as guide to such patriots.”
I led them to the cellars, where they turned over the piles of faggots,
and drank a fairly large number of bottles of wine; after which Lubin
staved in the full casks with the butt end of his gun, and leaving the
cellar flooded with wine, gave the signal of departure. I conducted them
out as far as the gate, which I shut on their very heels, and then ran
back to let Madame de Luzy know that we were out of danger.
When she heard this, she bent her head over the side of the bed next the
wall, and called—
“Monsieur Planchonnet! Monsieur Planchonnet!”
A faint sigh was the response.
“God be praised!” she exclaimed. “Monsieur Planchonnet, you occasioned
me the most appalling fear. I thought you were dead.”
Then turning towards me—
“My poor friend, you used to take so much delight in declaring, from
time to time, that you loved me; you will never tell me so again!”
THE BOON OF DEATH BESTOWED
TO ALBERT TOURNIER
THE BOON OF DEATH BESTOWED
When he had for a long while tramped through the deserted streets, André
at last went and sat down on the bank of the Seine and watched the water
lapping the base of the hill where, in the vanished days of joy and
hope, Lucie, his dear mistress, had her home.
For long enough he had not felt so restful.
At eight o’clock he took a bath. Then he strolled into a restaurant in
the Palais Royal, and glanced through the newspapers whilst his meal was
preparing. In the _Courier of Equality_ he read the list of the
condemned prisoners who had been executed on the Place de la Révolution
on the 24th of Floréal.
He ate his breakfast heartily. Then he rose, looked in a glass to make
sure that he was presentably dressed, and that his colour was not likely
to betray him, and set out at an easy pace to the other side of the
river towards the low house at the corner of the Rue de Seine and the
Rue Mazarine. Here were the quarters of Citizen Lardillon, deputy public
prosecutor at the revolutionary tribunal, a man well disposed towards
André, who had known him first as a capuchin at Angers, and later as a
_sans-culotte_ in Paris.
He rang, and after an interval of some few minutes, a figure appeared
behind a grating commanding the entrance, and Citizen Lardillon, having
prudently satisfied himself as to the appearance and name of his
visitor, at length threw open the door. His face was broad, his colour
high, his eyes glittering, his lips moist, and his ears red. He looked a
jovial but worried man. He led André into his ante-chamber.
There, on a small round table, a meal for two was set out. There was a
chicken, a pie, a ham, a terrine of foie-gras and various cold meats in
aspic. On the floor six bottles were cooling in a pail. A pineapple,
cheese of various kinds, and preserved fruits occupied the mantelpiece,
and flasks of liqueurs were deposited on a desk littered with papers.
Through the half-open door of the adjoining room a large bed was
visible, not yet made.
“Citizen Lardillon,” began André, “I have come to beg a favour of you.”
“I am quite ready to grant it, citizen, provided it involves no risk to
the security of the Republic.”
André smilingly replied—
“The service I ask you to do me is not in the least compromising to the
safety of either the Republic or yourself.”
At a sign from Lardillon, André sat down. “Citizen deputy,” he said,
“you are aware that for the last two years I have been conspiring
against your friends, and that I am the author of the pamphlet entitled,
_The Altars of Fear_. You will not be doing me a favour in having me
arrested. You will only be doing your duty. Moreover, that is not the
service I ask at your hands. But listen: my mistress, to whom I am
devoted, is in prison.”
Lardillon nodded his head to indicate that he approved of the devotion
André confessed to.
“I am sure that you are not unfeeling, Citizen Lardillon. I beg you to
procure my reunion with the woman I love, and to have me conveyed to
Port Libre as speedily as may be.”
“Come, come,” said Lardillon, and a smile played upon his lips, which
were both delicate and firm, “it is a greater boon than life that you
demand of me. You require me to bestow happiness on you, citizen!”
He stretched out the arm nearest to the bedroom, and called—
“Epicharis! Epicharis!”
A big, dark woman entered, her arms and throat still bare, for she had
only got as far with her _toilette_ as a chemise and petticoat, though a
cockade was fastened in her hair.
“Nymph of mine,” said Lardillon as he drew her on to his knees, “look
upon the face of this citizen, and never forget it! Like us, Epicharis,
he is tender-hearted; like us, he realizes that the greatest of ills is
to be separated from the beloved one. He wishes to go to prison—ay, to
the guillotine—with his mistress, Epicharis. Can I withhold this boon
from him?”
“No!” answered the girl, as she tapped the cheeks of the carmagnole-clad
monk.
“You are right, my goddess. We shall be earning the gratitude of two
devoted lovers. Citizen Germain, give me your address, and this very
night you shall sleep in the Bourbe.”
“That is agreed?” said André.
“That is agreed,” replied Lardillon as he offered him his hand. “Go and
find your fair friend, and tell her how you saw Epicharis in Lardillon’s
embrace. I trust that that recollection may stir your hearts to joyous
measures.”
André replied that possibly they would be able to call up even more
affecting memories, but that he was none the less grateful to Lardillon,
and that he only regretted that it was not likely to be in his power to
be of service to him in return.
“A humane action needs no recompense,” replied Lardillon.
Then he rose, and clasping Epicharis to his heart, said—
“Who knows when our own turn may come?”
_Omnes eodem cogimur: omnium
Versatur urna; serius ocius
Sors exitura, et nos in æternum
Exilium impositura cymbæ._[22]
“In the meanwhile, let us drink! Citizen, will you join us at table?”
Epicharis said it would only be polite of him, and made to seize him by
the arm. But he tore himself away, relying on the promise the deputy
public prosecutor had made.
-----
Footnote 22:
We all must tread the paths of Fate,
And ever shakes the mortal Urn,
Whose Lot embarks us, soon or late,
On Charon’s Boat, ah! never to return.
FRANCIS’S _Horace_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A TALE OF THE MONTH OF
FLORÉAL IN THE YEAR II
TO MADEMOISELLE JEANNE CANTEL
A TALE OF THE MONTH OF
FLORÉAL IN THE YEAR II
I
The turnkey had shut the door of the house of detention upon her who was
formerly known as the Comtesse Fanny d’Avernay, whose arrest is
described in the gaol register as a step taken “in the interests of
public safety,” though her actual crime was that she had given shelter
to enemies of the Government.
And now she is actually within the venerable edifice in which, once upon
a time, the recluses of Port Royal indulged their craving for solitude
and community life combined, and out of which it was easy to contrive a
prison without making any structural change.
Seated on a bench whilst the registrar enters her name, she thinks—
“Ah, God, why are these things permitted; and what more do You demand of
me?”
The turnkey’s aspect is rather surly than evil, and his daughter, who is
pretty, looks enchanting in her white cap, with cockade and knot of
ribbons in the national colours. By this turnkey Fanny is conducted to a
large courtyard, in the middle of which grows a fine acacia. There she
will wait till he has prepared a bed and a table for her in a room which
already contains five or six prisoners, for the house is crowded. Vainly
each day is the overplus of tenants led to the revolutionary tribunal
and the guillotine. Each day anew the committees fill up the gaps thus
created.
In the courtyard Fanny catches sight of a young woman busy cutting a
device of initials on the bark of the tree, and at once recognizes
Antoinette d’Auriac, a friend of her childhood.
“What, you here, Antoinette?”
“And you, Fanny? Get them to put your bed by the side of mine. We shall
have countless things to tell one another.”
“Yes, numbers of things.... And Monsieur d’Auriac, Antoinette?”
“My husband? Upon my word, my dear, I had rather forgotten him. It is
unfair on my part. To me he has always been irreproachable.... I fancy
that at the present moment he is in prison somewhere or other.”
“And what were you doing just now, Antoinette?”
“Pooh!... What o’clock is it? If it’s five, the friend whose name I was
interlacing on the bark there with my own has ceased to exist, for at
midday he was haled away to the revolutionary tribunal. His name was
Gesrin, and he was a volunteer in the army of the North. I made his
acquaintance here in the prison. We passed some agreeable hours together
at the foot of this tree. He was a worthy young fellow.... But I must
set about making you feel at home, my dear.”
And seizing Fanny by the waist, she carried her off to the room where
she herself slept, and obtained the turnkey’s promise not to part her
from her friend.
They decided that the following morning they would join forces in
washing the floor of their room.
The evening meal, meagrely provided by a patriotic eating-house keeper,
was served in common. Each prisoner brought his plate and his wooden
cover (metal covers were not allowed), and received his portion of pork
and cabbage. At that coarse repast Fanny met women whose gaiety
astonished her. As in the case of Madame d’Auriac, their headdresses
were scrupulously arranged and they wore unimpeachable costumes. Though
death was in sight, they had not lost the womanly desire to please.
Their conversation was as gallant as their persons, and Fanny was soon
abreast of the love affairs which were knit and unknit in these gloomy
courtyards where death lent a keener edge to love. Then, overcome with
an indescribable agitation, she was seized with a great longing to clasp
another hand in her own.
She called to mind the man who loved her, to whom she had never yielded
herself, and a pang of regret, cruel as remorse, rent her heart. Tears
as scalding as tears of passion coursed down her cheeks. By the light of
the smoky lamp which lit up the table she took note of her companions,
whose eyes glittered with fever, and she thought—
“We are condemned to die, all of us. How is it that I am sad and
perturbed in spirit, whilst for these women life and death are equally a
matter of no concern?”
And all night she wept upon her pallet.
II
Twenty long monotonous days have passed heavily by. The courtyard where
the lovers were wont to go in search of quiet and shade is deserted this
evening. Fanny, stifled in the moist air of the corridors, has just sat
down on the mound of turf which encircles the base of the old acacia
that gives the courtyard its shade. The acacia is in flower, and the
breeze passing through its branches emerges charged with the heavy
perfume. Fanny catches sight of a scrap of paper fastened to the bark of
the tree underneath the device which Antoinette traced there. On this
paper she reads some verses by the poet Vigée, like herself a prisoner.
Here hearts, from taint of treason free,
Calm victims were of calumny.
Thanks to the shade outspread above
They banished grief in dreams of love.
It heard their sighs and tender fears,
They oft bedewed it with their tears.
You, whom a time less menacing
Shall to this bare enclosure bring,
Spare yet awhile the kindly tree
Which anguish quelled, and strength upheld,
And half bestowed felicity.[23]
-----
Footnote 23:
Ici des c[oe]urs exempts de crimes,
Du soupçon, dociles victimes,
Grâce aux rameaux d’un arbre protecteur,
En songeant à l’amour oubliaient leur douleur.
Il fut le confident de leurs tendres alarmes;
Plus d’une fois il fut baigné de larmes.
Vous, que des temps moins vigoureux
Amèneront dans cette enceinte,
Respectez, protégez cet arbre généreux.
Il consolait la peine, il rassurait la crainte;
Sous son feuillage on fut heureux.
-----
After reading these lines, Fanny relapsed into a thoughtful mood. She
mentally reviewed her life, calm and even, her loveless marriage, the
state of her own mind, interested in music and poetry, inclined to
friendship, sober, untroubled; and then she thought of the love lavished
on her by a gallant gentleman, which had wrapped her in its protective
folds, yet been accepted unresponsively, as she was better able to
realize in the silence of her prison. And, recognizing that she was
about to die, she broke down. A sweat of mortal agony rose to her
forehead. In her anguish she raised her burning eyes to the star-strewn
sky, and wringing her hands murmured—
“Ah, God, give back to me one little gleam of hope!”
At this moment a light footstep approached. It was Rosine, the turnkey’s
daughter, coming for a surreptitious talk with her.
“Citizeness,” the pretty girl said to her, “to-morrow evening a man who
loves you will be waiting on the Avenue de l’Observatoire with a
carriage. Take this parcel; it contains clothes like those I am wearing;
during supper you will put them on in your bedroom. You are of the same
height and fair colouring as myself. In the dusk we might easily be
taken one for the other. A warder who is in love with me, and who has
engaged in the plot with us, will come up to your room and bring you the
basket which I take when I go marketing.
“With him you will descend the staircase (of which he carries a key)
leading to my father’s lodge. On that side of the prison the outer gate
is neither locked nor guarded. You will only have to avoid being seen by
my father. My lover will place himself with his shoulder against the
little window of the lodge and say, as if he were talking to me: 'Au
revoir, Citizeness Rose, and don’t be so mischievous!' You will then go
quietly into the street. Whilst this is going on I shall leave by the
main gate, and we shall join one another in the carriage which is to
carry us away.”
As she listened to these words, Fanny drank in the breath of spring and
reawakening nature. With the whole energy of her being, palpitating with
life, she longed for liberty. She could perceive, could taste the safety
that was within her grasp. And as into the same draught was distilled an
aroma of love, she clasped her hands on her breast to restrain her
happiness. But, little by little, consideration, a powerful factor in
her character, got the better of sentiment. She gazed steadily on the
turnkey’s daughter, and said—
“Why is it, dear child, that you are prepared to devote yourself in this
way to the interests of one whom you scarcely know?”
“Oh,” replied Rose, this time forgetting to use the familiar form of
speech she had been employing hitherto, “it’s because your kind friend
will give me a large sum of money as soon as you are free, and then I
shall be able to marry Florentin, my lover. You see, citizeness, that I
am working entirely in my own interests. But I am better pleased to be
the means of rescuing you than one of the others.”
“I thank you for that, my child, but why the preference?”
“Because you are so dainty, and your good friend must be so weary of
being separated from you. It is agreed, isn’t it?”
Fanny stretched out her hand to take the parcel of clothes Rose was
offering her.
But immediately afterwards she drew it back.
“Rose, do you realize that if we are discovered it would mean death to
you?”
“Death!” exclaimed the young girl. “You terrify me. Oh, no, I didn’t
know that!”
Then, as quickly reassured—
“But, citizeness, your kind friend would manage to hide me.”
“There isn’t a spot in Paris that would prove a safe hiding-place. I
thank you for your devotion, Rose; but I can’t take advantage of it.”
Rose stood as if thunderstruck.
“But you will be guillotined, citizeness, and I shall not be able to
marry Florentin!”
“Be easy, Rose. I can do you a service although I can’t accept what you
offer.”
“Oh, no, no! It would be cheating you out of your money.”
The turnkey’s daughter begged and prayed and wept for long enough. She
went on her knees and raised the hem of Fanny’s skirt.
Fanny gently pushed the girl’s hand away and turned her head aside. A
moonbeam displayed the peacefulness of the fair face.
It was a lovely night, and a light breeze was moving. The prisoners'
tree shook its perfumed branches and scattered its wan flowers upon the
head of the voluntary victim.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LITTLE LEADEN SOLDIER
TO MADAME GASTON MEYER
THE LITTLE LEADEN SOLDIER
That particular night the fever induced by influenza prevented me from
sleeping, and presently I heard very distinctly three smart taps on the
glass door of a cabinet at the side of my bed, a cabinet in which I kept
in an inextricable medley little figures in Dresden china or biscuit of
Sèvres, terra-cotta statuettes from Tanagra or Myrina, little
Renaissance bronzes, Japanese ivory carvings, Venetian glass, Chinese
cups, boxes in Vernis Martin, lacquer trays, enamel caskets—in fact, a
thousand nothings which a kind of fetish worship causes one to treasure,
and which have the power of reviving memories of bygone hours, both gay
and melancholy. The taps were faint but perfectly unmistakable, and by
the light of the nightlight I perceived that they proceeded from a
little leaden soldier installed amid the contents of the cabinet, who
was making efforts to regain his liberty. He was successful, for soon
beneath the weight of his fist the glazed door swung wide open. To tell
the truth, I was not so surprised as might be expected. To my mind that
little soldier had always worn a suspicious appearance. And during the
two years since Madame G. M—— had given him to me, I had been prepared
for all sorts of impertinences from him. His uniform is blue turned up
with red; he is a _Garde française_, and it is common knowledge that
that regiment was not remarkable for discipline.
“Ho, there!” I called out. “What’s your name, La Fleur, Brindamour, La
Tulipe! can’t you make less noise and let me sleep in peace? I am
anything but well.”
The rascal replied with a growl:
“I haven’t changed much, my good man, since I took the Bastille, a
hundred years back. On top of that a good many cans of good liquor were
emptied. I doubt if many leaden soldiers of my age are still in
existence. Good night to you. I am off to parade.”
“La Tulipe,” I replied with severity, “your regiment was disbanded by
order of Louis XVI on the 31st of August, 1789. There is no longer any
reason for you to attend parade. Stay where you are in the cabinet!”
La Tulipe twirled his moustache, and then, throwing a sly glance of
contempt in my direction, retorted:
“What! do you mean to say you don’t know that every year on the night of
the 31st of December, when the children are asleep, our great review
takes place, and the leaden soldiers march in procession over the roofs
and between the chimneys still joyfully pouring forth the smoke arising
from the dying embers of the Yule log? It’s a desperate charge, and many
a rider takes part in it with never a head on his shoulders. The shades
of all the leaden soldiers who have fallen in battle pass by in the rage
of combat. Nothing but bent bayonets and broken swords is to be seen.
And the spirits of dead dolls, all ashen-faced in the moonbeams, watch
them as they go by.”
This harangue put me in a quandary.
“Come now, La Tulipe, you mean to say it is a custom, a solemn custom? I
have the profoundest respect for all ancient customs and usages,
traditions, legends, and popular beliefs. That is what we call
folk-lore—a subject we find a great deal of amusement in studying. La
Tulipe, it is a great satisfaction to me to learn that you are an
observer of tradition. On the other hand, I am not at all sure that I
ought to let you leave that cabinet.”
“Indeed you ought,” said a clear musical voice which I had not heard
before, but which I instantly recognized for that of the young woman
from Tanagra, who, wrapped in the folds of her himation, occupied a
place next to the _Garde française_, on whom she looked down from the
graceful dignity of her superior stature. “Indeed you ought. All customs
handed down to us by our ancestors are equally worthy of respect. Our
fathers knew better than we what is permissible and what forbidden, for
they were nearer to the gods. It is only proper, then, to allow this
Galatian to perform the warlike rites of his ancestors. In my time they
did not wear a ridiculous blue dress turned up with red like our friend
here. Their only covering was their buckler. And we held them in great
awe. They were barbarians. You yourself are just as much of a Galatian
and barbarian. It is all in vain that you have read the poets and
historians: you have no true conception of the beauty of life. You were
not in the market-place when I used to be spinning wool from Miletus in
the courtyard of the house, under the old mulberry tree.”
I compelled myself to answer with moderation—
“Lovely Pannychis, your insignificant Greek folk conceived certain forms
so beautiful that the eyes and hearts of the judicious will never tire
of them. But every day in your market-place such a quantity of drivel
was babbled as would give occupation to one of our municipal councils
for a whole session. I have no regrets at never having been a citizen of
Larissa or Tanagra. At the same time I admit that what you have said is
reasonable. It is fitting that customs should be maintained, otherwise
they would cease to be customs. Fair Pannychis, who didst spin wool from
Miletus under the ancient mulberry tree, not in vain have you assailed
my ears with words of good counsel; for on your advice I give La Tulipe
permission to go whithersoever folk-lore may call him.”
Then a little dairymaid in biscuit of Sèvres, her hands resting on her
churn, turned towards me with glances of entreaty.
“Monsieur, do not let him go. He has promised to marry me. He falls in
love with every woman he meets. If he goes, I shall never set eyes on
him again.”
And, hiding her plump cheeks in her apron, she began to weep
uncontrollably.
La Tulipe had grown as red as the trimmings of his coat: he could not
endure scenes, and he found it extremely distasteful to listen to
reproaches which he had richly merited. I reassured my little dairymaid
as well as I could, and begged my _Garde française_ on no account to
loiter about after the review in some Circe’s grot. He promised, and I
said good-bye to him. But he made no attempt to start. It was
extraordinary, but he remained perfectly still on his shelf, as
motionless as the dainty trifles surrounding him. I let him perceive my
surprise.
“Patience!” he exclaimed. “I cannot set out under your very eyes in that
fashion, without infringing every law of the occult world. When you have
gone to sleep I shall make off easily enough on a moonbeam, for I am
full of expedients. But there is no great hurry, and I can still wait
another hour or two. We have nothing better to amuse us than
conversation. How would you like me to tell you some tale of days gone
by? I know plenty such.”
“Yes, tell us one,” said Pannychis.
“Tell us one,” said the dairymaid.
“Go ahead, then, La Tulipe,” said I in my turn.
He sat down, filled his pipe, asked for a glass of beer, coughed, and
began his tale with these words:—
THE LEADEN SOLDIER’S STORY
Ninety-nine years ago to the very day, I was standing on a round table
with a dozen of my comrades, all of them as like me as if they had been
my brothers. Some were standing, some lying down, several had sustained
injuries to the head or legs: we were the heroic remnant of a box of
leaden soldiers bought the previous year at the fair of Saint Germain.
The room was hung with pale blue silk. It contained a spinet with the
Prayer from Orpheus open upon it, a few chairs with lyre-shaped backs, a
lady’s escritoire of mahogany, a white bed decked with roses; and all
along the cornice were perched pairs of doves. Everything combined to
convey an impression of affecting charm. The lamp diffused its soft
light, and the flame on the hearth quivered like wings beating in the
dusk. Clad in a dressing-gown, and seated in front of her escritoire,
her delicate neck bending beneath the circling masses of her magnificent
fair hair, Julie was turning over the letters tied up with ribbons,
which had lain hidden in the drawers of the bureau.
Midnight strikes; the outward sign of the imaginary leap from one year
to another. The dainty timepiece, on which is poised a laughing, golden
Cupid, proclaims that the year 1793 has come to an end.
Just as the hands of the clock meet, a small phantom figure makes its
appearance. Through a door which stands half open, a pretty child has
crept out of the dressing-room, where he has his bed, and run in his
nightshirt to fling himself into his mother’s arms and wish her a happy
new year.
“A happy new year, Pierre?... Ah! thank you, thank you! But do you know
what a happy year is?”
He thought he did; but, all the same, she wished to make quite sure that
he knew.
“A year is happy, my darling, when it passes on its way bringing us
neither hatreds nor fears.”
She embraces him; then she carries him back to the bed he has escaped
from, and then returns to her seat in front of the escritoire. She
glances first at the flames leaping on the hearth, and then at the
letters from which dried flowers are falling. It is heartrending to have
to burn them. Yet it must be done. For these letters, if they were
discovered, would consign to the guillotine both him who wrote them and
her who received them. If it was only herself that was in danger, she
would not burn them, so weary is she of her contest for life with the
executioners. But she thinks of him, proscribed, denounced, pursued,
hidden away in some garret at the other end of Paris. A single one of
these letters would be enough to put his pursuers on his track and
deliver him over to death.
Pierre is sleeping snugly in the neighbouring dressing-room; the cook
and Nanon have gone to their rooms in the upper regions. The intense
silence of a snow-clad town reigns all around. The keen, clear air
brightens the flame on the hearth. Julie has made up her mind to burn
these letters, and it is a task she cannot carry out—how well she knows
it!—without recalling events of the profoundest sadness. She will burn
the letters, but not until she has read them through once again.
The letters are all arranged in succession, for Julie imparts to
everything around her a measure of the orderliness which is natural to
her.
These, already growing yellow, date from three years ago, and in the
silence of the night Julie lives over again the magic hours. Not a
single page is surrendered to the flames until she has conned it over at
least ten times, syllable by treasured syllable.
The stillness all around her is unbroken. From time to time she goes to
the window, raises the curtain, glances through the oppressive gloom at
the tower of Saint Germain des Prés silvered by the moon, and then
resumes her slow labours of pious destruction. Why should she not for
the last time rejoice over these delicious pages? Why deliver to the
flames these cherished lines ere she has for ever imprinted them on her
heart. Stillness prevails everywhere, and her spirit leaps with youth
and love.
She reads—
“Though absent, I behold you, Julie. I go on my way, surrounded by
images which my mind conjures up. I behold you, not cold and unnerved,
but alive, animated, ever changing, yet ever perfect. Around you in my
dreams I gather the most gorgeous spectacles the world can yield. How
happy is Julie’s lover! He finds charms in all things, since in all
things he finds her. In loving her it is life he loves; he marvels at
this world which she irradiates; he treasures this earth which she
adorns. Love unveils to him the hidden mystery of things. He apprehends
the infinite forms of creation; they all display to him symbols of
Julie; he hears the unnumbered voices of nature; they all murmur in his
ear the name of Julie. He plunges his gaze rapturously into the inmost
heart of the daylight, with the thought that that fortunate light bathes
also the countenance of Julie, and casts as it were a divine caress on
the loveliest of human forms. This evening the earliest stars will
thrill his being; he will say: ‘Perhaps at this very moment she too is
gazing on them.’ He inhales her in all the odours borne on the air. He
desires to kiss the very ground she treads on....
“My Julie, if I am fated to fall beneath the axe of the persecutor, and
like Algernon Sidney to die for liberty, death itself will be unable to
restrain my indignant ghost in the land of shades which holds not you. I
shall fly to you, my beloved. Often will my spirit return to hover
around you.”
She reads and dreams. Night is coming to a close. Already a pallid light
pierces the curtains: it is morning. The servants have begun their work.
She must finish her own. Has she caught the sound of voices? No; all
around her is silence, still....
Yes, all around is silence, for the snow deadens the tramp of feet. They
are coming; they halt outside. Blows fall heavily on the door.
She has not time to hide the letters, to close the escritoire. All she
can do she does; she takes the papers in armfuls and throws them
underneath the sofa, the valance of which touches the floor; a few
letters are scattered on the carpet; she pushes them under with her
foot, seizes a book, and flings herself into a chair.
The president of the district enters, followed by a dozen of his
pikemen. He is an elderly chair-caner named Brochet, who shivers with
ague, and whose bloodshot eyes roam in an unspeakably loathsome fashion.
He makes a sign to his men to keep guard over the approaches, and then
turning to Julie, announces—
“We have just received information, citizeness, that you are in
correspondence with the agents of Pitt, and with émigrés and
conspirators in the prisons. In the name of the law, I am here to take
possession of your papers. It is now some time since you were pointed
out to me as an aristocrat of the most dangerous type. Citizen Rapoix,
whom you see before you” (here he indicated one of his followers), “has
confessed that in the severe winter of 1789, you gave him both money and
clothes with a view to corrupting him. Magistrates of a timid tendency
and wanting in patriotism have shown you leniency over long. But I am
master now, in my turn, and you shall not escape the guillotine. Deliver
up your papers, citizeness!”
“Take them yourself,” said Julie; “my escritoire is unlocked.”
There still remained in the drawers certain certificates of births,
marriages, and deaths, tradesmen’s bills, and title-deeds, which one by
one Brochet examined. He fumbled with them, and laid them aside with the
suspicious air of a man who reads but poorly, and from time to time
exclaimed: “Scandalous! The name of the so-called king is not effaced.
Scandalous, scandalous, I call it!”
From his manner Julie concludes that his visit will be lengthy and
scrupulous. She cannot resist taking a furtive glance at the side of the
sofa, and she sees at once the corner of a letter peeping out from under
the valance like the white ear of a cat. At this sight her agony
vanishes suddenly. The certainty that she is lost brings back to her a
quiet assurance, and her face takes on a calm indistinguishable from an
expression of complete security. She has no doubt that the men will
observe this scrap of paper so patent to her own eyes. Its whiteness on
the red carpet positively screams at her. But she cannot guess whether
they will discover it at once or whether some time must first elapse.
This doubt occupies and distracts her mind. At this tragic moment she
indulges in a sort of joke with herself as she watches the patriots
moving further away from or nearer to the sofa.
Brochet, who has finished with the papers in the escritoire, becomes
impatient, and declares that he will certainly find what he has come in
search of.
He overthrows the furniture, turns the pictures round, and raps the
panelling with the pommel of his sword to detect hiding-places. He can
discover nothing. He smashes a panel of looking-glass to see if anything
is concealed behind it. There is nothing.
Whilst this is going on his men raise some of the squares of parquet.
They declare with oaths that a beggarly aristocrat is not going to have
the laugh of honest _sans-culottes_. But never one of them espies the
little white wisp which peeps from under the valance of the sofa.
They march Julie into the other rooms of the suite and demand all her
keys. They burst open the cupboards, shiver the windows to splinters,
smash up the chairs, drag the stuffing from the upholstery. And they
find nothing.
Still Brochet is not yet despondent; he returns to the bedroom.
“In God’s name! the papers are here; I’m certain of it!”
He examines the sofa, declares that it has a suspicious appearance,
probes it five or six times with his sword from end to end. Still he
finds no traces of what he seeks, utters a horrible oath, and gives his
men orders to depart.
He is already at the door, when, returning a step or two towards Julie,
he raises his fist and shouts—
“Live in dread of my return! I am the sovereign people!”
And he goes out, last of all.
At length all are gone. She hears the clatter of their tread grow
fainter on the staircase. She is saved! Her imprudence has not betrayed
him—him whom she loves! She runs, with a jubilant little laugh, to
embrace the tiny Pierre, who is sleeping with his fists clenched, just
as though everything round his cradle had not been turned upside down.
When he had finished his tale, La Tulipe relighted his pipe, which had
gone out, and emptied his glass.
“My friend,” I said, “justice is a virtue. For a _Garde française_ it
must be admitted that you are a finished story-teller. But I have a
strong impression that I have already heard that story somewhere.”
“It may be that Julie herself related it. She was a creature of infinite
wit.”
“And what became of her?”
“She knew some happy times in the days of the Consulate. Nevertheless,
of an evening she would whisper sorrowful secrets to the trees in her
park. You see, Monsieur, she was better armed against death than against
love.”
“And he who wrote such elegant letters?”
“He became a baron and prefect under the Empire.”
“And little Pierre?”
“He died a colonel of _gendarmerie_ at Versailles, in 1859.”
“The deuce he did!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WORKS OF
ANATOLE FRANCE
It has long been a reproach to England that only one volume by ANATOLE
FRANCE has been adequately rendered into English; yet outside this
country he shares the distinction with TOLSTOI of being the greatest and
most daring student of humanity now living.
¶ There have been many difficulties to encounter in completing
arrangements for a uniform edition, though perhaps the chief barrier to
publication here has been the fact that his writings are not for
babes—but for men and the mothers of men. Indeed, some of his Eastern
romances are written with biblical candour. “I have sought truth
strenuously,” he tells us, “I have met her boldly. I have never turned
from her even when she wore an unexpected aspect.” Still, it is believed
that the day has come for giving English versions of all his imaginative
works, and of his monumental study JOAN OF ARC, which is undoubtedly the
most discussed book in the world of letters to-day.
¶ MR. JOHN LANE has pleasure in announcing that he will commence
publication of works by M. Anatole France in English, which will be
under the general editorship of Mr. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, with the following
volumes:
1. THE RED LILY. A Translation by Winifred Stephens.
2. MOTHER OF PEARL. A Translation by the Editor.
3. THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS. A Translation by Alfred Allinson.
4. THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD. A Translation by Lafcadio
Hearn.
¶ During the autumn and next year will appear the remaining volumes,
including JOAN OF ARC. All the books will be published at SIX SHILLINGS
each, with the exception of JOAN OF ARC.
¶ The format of the volumes leaves little to be desired. The size is
Demy 8vo (9 × 5¾ in.), and they will be printed from Caslon type upon a
paper light of weight but strong in texture, with a cover design, a gilt
top, end-papers from designs by Aubrey Beardsley, initials by Henry
Ospovat. In short, these are volumes for the bibliophile as well as the
lover of fiction, and form perhaps the cheapest library edition of
copyright novels ever published, for the price is only that of an
ordinary novel.
¶ The translation of these books has been entrusted to such competent
French scholars as MR. ALFRED ALLINSON, HON. MAURICE BARING, MR.
FREDERIC CHAPMAN, MR. ROBERT B. DOUGLAS, MR. A. W. EVANS, MRS. FARLEY,
LAFCADIO HEARN, MRS. JOHN LANE, MRS. NEWMARCH, MR. C. E. ROCHE, MISS
WINIFRED STEPHENS, and MISS M. P. WILLCOCKS.
¶ As Anatole Thibault, _dit_ Anatole France, is to most English readers
merely a name, it will be well to state that he was born in 1844 in the
picturesque and inspiring surroundings of an old bookshop on the Quai
Voltaire, Paris, kept by his father, Monsieur Thibault, an authority on
18th-century history, from whom the boy caught the passion for the
principles of the Revolution, while from his mother he was learning to
love the ascetic ideals chronicled in the Lives of the Saints. He was
schooled with the lovers of old books, missals, and manuscripts; he
matriculated on the Quais with the old Jewish dealers of curios and
_objets d’art_; he graduated in the great university of life and
experience. It will be recognised that all his work is permeated by his
youthful impressions; he is, in fact, a virtuoso at large.
¶ He has written about thirty volumes of fiction. His first novel was
JOCASTA and THE FAMISHED CAT (1879). THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD
appeared in 1881, and had the distinction of being crowned by the French
Academy, into which he was received in 1896.
¶ His work is illuminated with style, scholarship, and psychology; but
its outstanding features are the lambent wit, the gay mockery, the
genial irony with which he touches every subject he treats. But the wit
is never malicious, the mockery never derisive, the irony never barbed.
To quote from his own GARDEN OF EPICURUS, “Irony and Pity are both of
good counsel; the first with her smiles makes life agreeable; the other
sanctifies it to us with her tears. The Irony I invoke is no cruel
deity. She mocks neither love nor beauty. She is gentle and kindly
disposed. Her mirth disarms anger, and it is she teaches us to laugh at
rogues and fools whom but for her we might be so weak as to hate.”
¶ Often he shows how divine humanity triumphs over mere asceticism, and
with entire reverence; indeed, he might be described as an ascetic
overflowing with humanity, just as he has been termed a “pagan, but a
pagan constantly haunted by the preoccupation of Christ.” He is in
turn—like his own Choulette in THE RED LILY—saintly and Rabelaisian, yet
without incongruity. At all times he is the unrelenting foe of
superstition and hypocrisy. Of himself he once modestly said: “You will
find in my writings perfect sincerity (lying demands a talent I do not
possess), much indulgence, and some natural affection for the beautiful
and good.”
¶ The mere extent of an author’s popularity is perhaps a poor argument,
yet it is significant that two books by this author are in their HUNDRED
AND TENTH THOUSAND, and numbers of them well into their SEVENTIETH
THOUSAND, whilst the one which a Frenchman recently described as
“Monsieur France’s most arid book” is in its FIFTY-EIGHTH THOUSAND.
¶ Inasmuch as M. France’s only contribution to an English periodical
appeared in “The Yellow Book,” Vol. V, April 1895, together with the
first important English appreciation of his work from the pen of the
Hon. Maurice Baring, it is peculiarly appropriate that the English
edition of his works should be issued from the Bodley Head.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FRENCH NOVELISTS
: : OF TODAY : :
BY WINIFRED STEPHENS
WITH A PORTRAIT FRONTISPIECE
Cr. 8vo, PRICE FIVE SHILLINGS, NET.
“No book of the spring season will receive a heartier welcome than Miss
Winifred Stephens' ‘French Novelists of To-day.’ It provides what
thousands of educated readers have long been asking for in vain—a guide
to the writings of the great living masters of French fiction. It is
evident that Miss Stephens has gathered much of her material in France,
and that she has been in contact with the personal as well as the
artistic life of the authors described. The biographical passages in
each chapter add much to our knowledge, and are obviously compiled from
first-hand information. Miss Stephens shows critical powers of a high
order. Her accounts of the chief novels are pleasant reading for those
already acquainted with the books, while for the beginner they afford a
clear, judicious, comprehensive guide.... We cannot praise too highly
this sparkling and graceful book, which should have a place in the
library of every student of French literature. Its practical value is
enhanced by the full and careful bibliographies.”—_British Weekly._
“These light chapters will be serviceable in helping the English reader
to realise the personality and work of the writers they deal
with.”—_Times._
“The book may be welcomed as a further sign of the progress of France
and England towards mutual comprehension. Thanks to its useful
bibliographies, it will serve as an excellent guide to all those who are
anxious to make themselves acquainted with what is best in modern French
fiction.... The criticism of this book is good, and gains much by its
connection with a concise biography of the author discussed.... The book
may be recommended to all English readers of French fiction.”—_Daily
News._
“A felicitous and graceful little volume, presenting very adequately the
eight French novelists of to-day who are read, criticised, and sold ...
should be read along with recent essays on French writers by Mr. Edmund
Gosse.”
_Daily Chronicle._
“... These essays form a useful introduction to modern French fiction.
They are, for the most part, well judged and tersely written.”
_Evening Standard._
“As a guide to modern French fiction and its authors, this book is
useful, especially in its bibliographies.”—_Daily Mail._
“... Miss Winifred Stephens puts her hand to a most welcome and timely
undertaking in this book, which will supply English readers with an
intelligent introduction to the study of leading French novelists. What
she says about the writers she selects is excellent.”—_Daily Graphic._
“Miss Stephens' primary object was to indicate what contemporary French
novels are likely to interest English readers, and on the whole she has
succeeded: her book will serve a very useful purpose.”
_Manchester Guardian._
JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD, LONDON AND NEW YORK.
THE WORKS OF
ANATOLE FRANCE
IN AN ENGLISH
TRANSLATION EDITED
BY FREDERIC CHAPMAN
Uniform, Demy 8vo.
6s.
$1.75 net.
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD.
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY.
TORONTO: BELL AND COCKBURN.
AN APPRECIATION OF
ANATOLE FRANCE
By WILLIAM J. LOCKE
The personal note in Anatole France’s novels is never more surely felt
than when he himself, in some disguise, is either the protagonist or the
_raisonneur_ of the drama. It is the personality of Monsieur Bergeret
that sheds its sunset kindness over the sordid phases of French
political and social life presented in the famous series. It is the
charm of Sylvestre Bonnard that makes an idyll of the story of his
crime. It is Doctor Trublet in _Histoire Comique_ who gives humanity to
the fantastic adventure. It is Maître Jérôme Coignard whom we love
unreservedly in _La Rôtisserie de la Reine Pédauque_. No writer is more
personal. No writer views human affairs from a more impersonal
standpoint. He hovers over the world like a disembodied spirit, wise
with the learning of all times and with the knowledge of all hearts that
have beaten, yet not so serene and unfleshly as not to have preserved a
certain tricksiness, a capacity for puckish laughter which echoes
through his pages and haunts the ear when the covers of the book are
closed. At the same time he appears unmistakably before you, in human
guise, speaking to you face to face in human tones. He will present
tragic happenings consequent on the little follies, meannesses and
passions of mankind with an emotionlessness which would be called
delicate cruelty were the view point that of one of the sons of earth,
but ceases to be so when the presenting hands are calm and immortal; and
yet shining through all is the man himself, loving and merciful, tender
and warm.... In most men similarly endowed there has been a conflict
between the twin souls which has generally ended in the strangling of
the artist; but in the case of Anatole France they have worked together
in bewildering harmony. The philosopher has been mild, the artist
unresentful. In amity therefore they have proclaimed their faith and
their unfaith, their aspirations and their negations, their earnestness
and their mockery. And since they must proclaim them in one single
voice, the natural consequence, the resultant as it were of the two
forces, has been a style in which beauty and irony are so subtly
interfused as to make it perhaps the most alluring mode of expression in
contemporary fiction.
_The following Volumes appear in the Uniform English Edition of Anatole
France’s works:—_
THE RED LILY
A TRANSLATION BY WINIFRED STEPHENS
MOTHER OF PEARL
A TRANSLATION BY THE EDITOR
THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS
A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON
THE CRIME OF SILVESTRE BONNARD
A TRANSLATION BY LAFCADIO HEARN
THE WELL OF ST. CLARE
A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON
THAÏS
A TRANSLATION BY ROBERT BRUCE DOUGLAS
THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN
A TRANSLATION BY M. P. WILLCOCKS
THE WHITE STONE
A TRANSLATION BY C. E. ROCHE
PENGUIN ISLAND
A TRANSLATION BY A. W. EVANS
BALTHASAR
A TRANSLATION BY MRS. JOHN LANE
THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL
A TRANSLATION BY M. P. WILLCOCKS
ON LIFE AND LETTERS. FIRST SERIES
A TRANSLATION BY A. W. EVANS
THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE-BROCHE.
A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON
[OVER
------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO ST., W.
AT THE SIGN OF THE REINE PÉDAUQUE
A TRANSLATION BY MRS. WILFRID JACKSON
JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT
A TRANSLATION BY MRS. FARLEY
THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN
A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON
THE OPINIONS OF JÉRÔME COIGNARD
A TRANSLATION BY MRS. WILFRID JACKSON
MY FRIEND’S BOOK
A TRANSLATION BY J. LEWIS MAY
ON LIFE AND LETTERS. SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH SERIES
A TRANSLATION BY A. W. EVANS
THE GODS ARE ATHIRST
A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_In addition to the above, the following Translations of Anatole
France’s works have been published_:—
JOAN OF ARC
A TRANSLATION BY WINIFRED STEPHENS With 8 Illustrations. Two Vols.
25s. net. $8.00.
HONEY BEE
A TRANSLATION BY MRS. JOHN LANE
With 16 Illustrations in Colour, End Papers, Title-page, and Cover
by Florence Lundborg. 5s. $1.50.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO ST., W.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTICE
_Those who possess old letters, documents, correspondence, MSS., scraps
of autobiography, and also miniatures and portraits, relating to persons
and matters historical, literary, political and social, should
communicate with Mr. John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, London,
W,. who will at all times be pleased to give his advice and assistance,
either as to their preservation or publication_.
_Mr. Lane also undertakes the planning and printing of family papers,
histories and pedigrees_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIVING MASTERS OF MUSIC.
An Illustrated Series of Monographs dealing with
Contemporary Musical Life, and including
Representatives of all Branches of the Art.
Edited by ROSA NEWMARCH.
Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 2/6 net.
HENRY J. WOOD. By ROSA NEWMARCH.
SIR EDWARD ELGAR. By R. J. BUCKLEY.
JOSEPH JOACHIM. By J. A. FULLER MAITLAND.
THEODOR LESCHETIZKY. By ANNETTE HULLAH.
ALFRED BRUNEAU By ARTHUR HERVEY.
GIACOMO PUCCINI. By WAKELING DRY.
IGNAZ PADEREWSKI. By E. A. BAUGHAN.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY. By MRS. FRANZ LIEBICH.
RICHARD STRAUSS. By ERNEST NEWMAN.
GRANVILLE BANTOCK. By H. O. ANDERTON.
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Edited by J. T. GREIN.
Crown 8vo. Price 2/6 each net.
ELLEN TERRY. By CHRISTOPHER ST. JOHN.
SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE. By MRS. GEORGE CRAN.
SIR W. S. GILBERT. By EDITH A. BROWNE.
SIR CHARLES WYNDHAM. By FLORENCE TEIGNMOUTH SHORE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_A CATALOGUE OF_
_MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC._
THE WORKS OF JOHN HOPPNER, R.A., By WILLIAM MACKAY and W. ROBERTS.
Imperial 4to. With 50 Photogravure Plates, the majority of which are
taken from pictures never before reproduced, and a frontispiece
printed in colours from the Photogravure plate. 500 copies only
printed. With supplement, 5 guineas net.
⁂ Mr. John Lane has pleasure in announcing that he has taken over the
150 copies of this book originally published by Messrs. Colnaghi which
still remain of the 500 copies originally printed. Mr. Roberts is
writing an introduction to bring the work thoroughly up-to-date and
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THE KEATS LETTERS, PAPERS AND OTHER RELICS. Reproduced in facsimile from
the late Sir Charles Dilke’s Bequest to the Corporation of Hampstead.
With full transcriptions and notes edited by GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON,
Litt. D. Forewords by THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON, an Introduction by H.
BUXTON FORMAN, C.B., and an Essay upon the Keats Portraiture by the
Editor. With 8 Portraits of Keats and 57 Plates in Collotype upon a
special hand-made paper designed to match old letter paper. Limited to
320 copies. Imperial 4to. 3 guineas net.
⁂ The fine collection of Keats' relics formed by the late Sir Charles
W. Dilke, Bart., was bequeathed by his generosity to the Public
Library at Hampstead, as a joint memorial of the poet, and of his
friend Charles Wentworth Dilke, grandfather of the testator. The
collection comprises a number of most important and interesting
letters written by and to the poet from the time of the publication of
his first volume of poems in 1817, to October, 1820, and includes a
letter from Naples to Mrs. Brawne shortly before his death. The
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ALASTAIR. Forty-three Drawings in Colour and Black and White. With a
Note of Exclamation by ROBERT ROSS. Demy 4to. Limited to 500 copies
for England and America. 42s. net.
⁂ This beautiful gift book contains thirty-five facsimiles in
collotype and eight in colour, and has a cover and end papers
specially designed by Alastair.
This remarkable young artist prefers to be known without the usual
prefix denoting rank or nationality. His astonishing powers as a
draughtsman and decorator have been proved by the unqualified success
of his exhibition at the Dowdeswell Galleries.
TAPESTRIES: THEIR ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND RENAISSANCE. By GEORGE LELAND
HUNTER. With four full-page Plates in Colour, and 147 Half-tone
Engravings. Square 8vo. Cloth. 16s. net.
⁂ This is a fascinating book on a fascinating subject. It is written
by a scholar whose passion for accuracy and original research did not
prevent him from making a story easy to read. It answers the questions
people are always asking as to how tapestries differ from paintings,
and good tapestries from bad tapestries. It will interest lovers of
paintings and rugs and history and fiction, for it shows how
tapestries compare with paintings in picture interest, with rugs in
texture interest, and with historic and other novels in romantic
interest; presenting on a magnificent scale the stories of the Iliad
and the Odyssey, the Æneid and the Metamorphoses, the Bible and the
Saints, Ancient and Medieval History and Romance. In a word, the book
is indispensable to lovers of art and literature in general, as well
as to tapestry amateurs, owners, and dealers.
THE VAN EYCKS AND THEIR ART. By W. H. JAMES WEALE, with the co-operation
of MAURICE BROCKWELL. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12_s._
6_d._ net.
FROM STUDIO TO STAGE. By WEEDON GROSSMITH. With 32 full-page
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
⁂ Justly famous as a comedian of unique gifts, Mr. Weedon Grossmith is
nevertheless an extremely versatile personality, whose interests are
by no means confined to the theatre. These qualities have enabled him
to write a most entertaining book. He gives an interesting account of
his early ambitions and exploits as an artist, which career he
abandoned for that of an actor. He goes on to describe some of his
most notable _rôles_, and lets us in to little intimate glimpses
“behind the scenes,” chats pleasantly about all manner of celebrities
in the land of Bohemia and out of it, tells many amusing anecdotes,
and like a true comedian is not bashful when the laugh is against
himself. The book is well supplied with interesting illustrations,
some of them reproductions of the author’s own work.
FANNY BURNEY AT THE COURT OF QUEEN CHARLOTTE. By CONSTANCE HILL. Author
of “The House in St. Martin Street,” “Juniper Hall,” etc. With
numerous Illustrations by ELLEN G. HILL and reproductions of
contemporary Portraits, etc. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
AND THAT REMINDS ME. By STANLEY COXON. With a Frontispiece and 40
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ The author, who began life on board a merchantman and ended his
working career in the Indian Civil Service, has put together his
reminiscences in a very readable form. In Burma, India, and Australia,
he lived a life of adventure, and combined his duties with an
experience of sport. His stories include a good deal of big game
shooting, and his description of the social side of life, and the
characteristics of native races is highly amusing.
The hardships of a life at sea thirty-five years ago are told in true
sailor fashion, and the author’s varied experiences have been turned
to good account for the production of a narrative which includes the
life of a middy in the Merchant Service, active service in the Royal
Indian Marine and the suppression of dacoity. The author then spent
some years in Burma. The visit of Prince Albert Victor to Rangoon is a
pleasant incident in a series of events, all of which are highly
interesting.
THE STORY OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. By PADRE LUIS COLOMA, S.J., of the
Real Academia Española. Translated by LADY MORETON. With
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16_s._ net. ⁂ “This book has all the
fascination of a vigorous _roman à clef_ ... the translation is
vigorous and idiomatic.”—_Mr. Osman Edwards in Morning Post_.
A PLAYMATE OF PHILIP II. By LADY MORETON. Author of “Don John of
Austria,” etc. With Seventeen Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
⁂ Don Martin IV. was one of the most distinguished members of one of
the first families in Spain and lived at a time when Spain was at the
height of her glory. He was the playmate and afterwards the personal
friend of Philip II. (the husband of Queen Mary of England) and
accompanied him on his visit to this country. It was indeed this
monarch who gave him his nickname of “The Philosopher of Aragon.”
THIRTEEN YEARS OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE. By Mrs. ALEC TWEEDIE. With
Nineteen Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net. Third Edition.
⁂ “One of the gayest and sanest surveys of English society we have
read for years.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._
⁂ “A pleasant laugh from cover to cover.”—_Daily Chronicle._
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE IN THE XVIITH CENTURY. By CHARLES BASTIDE. With
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._ net.
THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. By JOSEPH TURQUAN. Author of “The Love Affairs of
Napoleon,” “The Wife of General Bonaparte.” Illustrated. Demy 8vo.
12_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ “The Empress Josephine” continues and completes the graphically
drawn life story begun in “The Wife of General Bonaparte” by the same
author, takes us through the brilliant period of the Empire, shows us
the gradual development and the execution of the Emperor’s plan to
divorce his middle-aged wife, paints in vivid colours the picture of
Josephine’s existence after her divorce, tells us how she, although
now nothing but his friend, still met him occasionally and
corresponded frequently with him, and how she passed her time in the
midst of her miniature court.
NAPOLEON IN CARICATURE: 1795-1821. By A. M. BROADLEY. With an
Introductory Essay on Pictorial Satire as a Factor in Napoleonic
History, by J. HOLLAND ROSE, Litt. D. (Cantab.). With 24 full-page
Illustrations in Colour and upwards of 200 in Black and White from
rare and unique originals. 2 Vols. Demy 8vo. 42s. net.
_Also an Edition de Luxe._ 10 guineas net.
PAULINE BONAPARTE AND HER LOVERS—As revealed by contemporary witnesses,
by her own love-letters, and by the anti-Napoleonic pamphleteers. By
HECTOR FLEISCHMANN. Authorised Translation. Illustrated. Demy 8vo.
12s. 6d. net.
⁂ “As long as human nature delights in the spectacle of dramatic
vicissitudes, the story of the rise and fall of the House of Bonaparte
will retain its fascination. The story of Napoleon himself, of course,
is the story of genius seeing its opportunity and forcing its way; and
its personal interest is somewhat obscured by its historical
significance. The story of the various members of his family belongs
to a different category. Their rise in life, due to his genius, which
none of them shared, and his strong sense of the obligations of blood
relationship, was as fortuitous as if they had suddenly “come into
money” through the demise of a long-lost uncle in America; and the
interest which one feels in them is largely the interest which one
always feels in the behaviour of a _parvenu_ in a station to which he
has been promoted through no merit of his own. Some of them behaved
decorously, others eccentrically and extravagantly; and it is the
latter group which is the most diverting to read about. Jerome, for
that reason, makes a more powerful appeal to our imagination than
Joseph, and Pauline possesses a magnetic attraction denied to Madam
Mere; and Pauline’s life is here related admirably by M. Fleischmann.
She was more than frivolous, her “affaires” were countless. M.
Fleischmann has told them admirably with a sparkling wit and a true
feeling for drama.”—_Times._
NAPOLEON’S LAST CAMPAIGN IN GERMANY. By F. LORAINE PETRE. Author of
“Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland,” “Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia,”
etc. With 17 Maps and Plans. Demy 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
NAPOLEON AT BAY, 1814. By F. LORAINE PETRE. With Maps and Plans, Demy
8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
THE STORY OF NAPOLEON’S DEATH MASK. By G. L. DE ST. M. WATSON. Demy 8vo.
6s. net.
⁂ An historical and critical account of the most faithful and physical
presentment of the great Conqueror. By a study of original sources and
researches amongst the contemporary Press, the Lowe Papers, etc., the
writer proves beyond the doubt hitherto existing the English
authorship of the death mask so long a tributed to the Italian surgeon
Antommarchi. The value to be attached to the various casts put up for
sale during the past year or two is established comparatively in the
light of an interesting recent discovery. The book will be an
indispensable adjunct to Napoleonic iconography and a sidelight upon
the “Last Phase” as well.
FOOTPRINTS OF FAMOUS AMERICANS IN PARIS. By JOHN JOSEPH CONWAY, M.A.
With 32 Full-page Illustrations. With an Introduction by Mrs. John
Lane. Demy 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ Franklin, Jefferson, Munroe, Tom Paine, La Fayette, Paul Jones,
etc., etc., the most striking figures of a heroic age, working out in
the City of Light the great questions for which they stood, are dealt
with here. Longfellow the poet of the domestic affections; matchless
Margaret Fuller who wrote so well of women in the nineteenth century;
Whistler master of American artists; Saint-Gaudens chief of American
sculptors; Rumford, most picturesque of scientific knight-errants and
several others get a chapter each for their lives and achievements in
Paris.
MEMORIES OF JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER: The Artist. By THOMAS R. WAY. Author
of “The Lithographs of J. M. Whistler,” etc. With numerous
Illustrations. Demy 4to. 10_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ This volume contains about forty illustrations, including an
unpublished etching drawn by Whistler and bitten in by Sir Frank
Short, A.R.A., an original lithograph sketch, seven lithographs in
colour drawn by the Author upon brown paper, and many in black and
white. The remainder are facsimiles by photolithography. In most cases
the originals are drawings and sketches by Whistler which have never
been published before, and are closely connected with the matter of
the book. The text deals with the Author’s memories of nearly twenty
year’s close association with Whistler, and he endeavours to treat
only with the man as an artist, and perhaps, especially as a
lithographer.
[A]Also an EDITION DE LUXE on hand-made paper, with the etching
printed from the original plate. Limited to 50 copies.
Footnote A:
This is Out of Print with the Publisher.
THE BEAUTIFUL LADY CRAVEN. The original Memoirs of Elizabeth, Baroness
Craven, afterwards Margravine of Anspach and Bayreuth and Princess
Berkeley of the Holy Roman Empire (1750-1828). Edited, with Notes and
a Bibliographical and Historical Introduction containing much
unpublished matter by A. M. BROADLEY and LEWIS MELVILLE. With over 50
Illustrations. In 2 vols. Demy 8vo. 25s. net.
IN PORTUGAL. By AUBREY F. G. BELL. Author of “The Magic of Spain.” Demy
8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ The guide-books give full details of the marvellous convents,
gorgeous palaces, and solemn temples of Portugal, and no attempt is
here made to write complete descriptions of them, the very name of
some of them being omitted. But the guide-books too often treat
Portugal as a continuation, almost as a province of Spain. It is hoped
that this little book may give some idea of the individual character
of the country, of the quaintnesses of its cities, and of peasant life
in its remoter districts. While the utterly opposed characters of the
two peoples must probably render the divorce between Spain and
Portugal eternal, and reduce hopes of union to the idle dreams of
politicians. Portugal in itself contains an infinite variety. Each of
the eight provinces (more especially those of the _alemtejanos_,
_minhotos_ and _beirões_) preserves many peculiarities of language,
customs, and dress; and each will, in return for hardships endured,
give to the traveller many a day of delight and interest.
A TRAGEDY IN STONE, AND OTHER PAPERS. By LORD REDESDALE, G.C.V.O.,
K.C.C., etc. Demy 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ “From the author of ‘Tales of Old Japan’ his readers always hope for
more about Japan, and in this volume they will find it. The earlier
papers, however, are not to be passed over.”—_Times._
⁂ “Lord Redesdale’s present volume consists of scholarly essays on a
variety of subjects of historic, literary and artistic
appeal.”—_Standard._
⁂ “The author of the classic ‘Tales of Old Japan’ is assured of
welcome, and the more so when he returns to the field in which his
literary reputation was made. Charm is never absent from his
pages.”—_Daily Chronicle._
THE BERRY PAPERS. The Correspondence hitherto unpublished of Mary and
Agnes Berry (1763-1852). By LEWIS MELVILLE. With 27 Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. 20s. net.
THE LIFE OF JOHN WILKES. By HORACE BLEACKLEY. Author of “Ladies Fair and
Frail,” “A Gentleman of the Road,” etc. With numerous Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
NOLLEKENS AND HIS TIMES. By JOHN THOMAS SMITH. Author of “A Book for a
Rainy Day.” First Complete Edition since 1829. First Illustrated
Edition. With Biographical Introduction and about 900 Notes and an
exhaustive Index. Edited by WILFRED WHITTEN (JOHN O' LONDON). Author
of “A Londoner’s London,” etc. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. 25s. net.
AN IRISH BEAUTY OF THE REGENCY: By MRS. WARRENNE BLAKE. Author of
“Memoirs of a Vanished Generation, 1813-1855.” With a Photogravure
Frontispiece and other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
⁂ The Irish Beauty is the Hon. Mrs. Calvert, daughter of Viscount
Pery, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and wife of Nicholson
Calvert, M.P., of Hunsdon. Born in 1767, Mrs. Calvert lived to the age
of ninety-two, and there are many people still living who remember
her. In the delightful journals, now for the first time published,
exciting events are described.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By STEWART HOUSTON
CHAMBERLAIN. A Translation from the German by JOHN LEES. With an
Introduction by LORD REDESDALE. Demy 8vo. 2 vols. 25s. net. Third
Edition.
⁂ “A manwho can write such a really beautiful and solemn appreciation
of true Christianity, of true acceptance of Christ’s teachings and
personality, as Mr. Chamberlain has done ... represents an influence
to be reckoned with and seriously to be taken into account.”—_Theodore
Roosevelt in the Outlook, New York._
⁂ “It is a masterpiece of really scientific history. It does not make
confusion, it clears it away. He is a great generalizer of thought, as
distinguished from the crowd of mere specialists. It is certain to
stir up thought. Whoever has not read it will be rather out of it in
political and sociological discussions for some time to come.”—_George
Bernard Shaw in Fabian News._
⁂ “This is unquestionably one of the rare books that really matter.
His judgments of men and things are deeply and indisputably sincere
and are based on immense reading.... But even many well-informed
people ... will be grateful to Lord Redesdale for the biographical
details which he gives them in the valuable and illuminating
introduction contributed by him to this English translation.”—_Times._
IMMANUEL KANT. A Study and Comparison with Goethe, Leonardo da Vinci,
Bruno, Plato and Descartes. By HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN, author of
“The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.” Translated by LORD
REDESDALE. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. 25s. net.
⁂ “This is a book, if ever there was one, which should fire the mind
of the reader with the desire to be at home in the region of which it
treats. It is a book which teems with interest. We must not conclude
without a reference to the merits of the translation of Lord
Redesdale. The book must have demanded throughout the most painstaking
observance of delicate shades of meaning. These have been rendered
with faultless accuracy, yet in a style of individuality and
animation.”—_The Times._
THE SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day, with a Topographical Account of Westminster at Various
Epochs, Brief Notes on Sittings of Parliament and a Retrospect of the
principal Constitutional Changes during Seven Centuries. By ARTHUR
IRWIN DASENT, Author of “The Life and Letters of JOHN DELANE,” “The
History of St. James’s Square,” etc., etc. With numerous Portraits,
including two in Photogravure and one in Colour. Demy 8vo. 21s. net.
ROMANTIC TRIALS OF THREE CENTURIES. By HUGH CHILDERS. With numerous
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ This volume deals with some famous trials, occurring between the
years 1650 and 1850. All of them possess some exceptional interest, or
introduce historical personages in a fascinating style, peculiarly
likely to attract attention.
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WILLIAM COBBETT IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. By LEWIS
MELVILLE. Author of “William Makepeace Thackeray.” With two
Photogravures and numerous other Illustrations. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. 32s.
net.
A PAINTER OF DREAMS. By A. M. W. STIRLING. Author of “Coke of Norfolk.”
With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ These various Biographical sketches are connected by links which
fashion them into one consecutive and singularly attractive whole.
Lively and full of vitality, they throw many curious fresh lights on
an age long past, then lead us, by gentle stages, down to an age so
recent that for many of us it still seems to breathe of a day not yet
fled. Meanwhile alternate laughter and tears, merriment and pathos
mingle in their pages; and each separate life forms in itself a
concise human document vivid and sincere. From the first chapter, in
which we are introduced to the amusing Scrap-book of a fine lady
during the Georgian era, to the last when we dwell, not without
emotion, on the life story of an Idealist during Victorian days, the
book teems with incident, humour, and hitherto unpublished information
respecting many historical personages, to which the author alone has
been allowed access.
COKE OF NORFOLK AND HIS FRIENDS. The Life of Thomas Coke, First Earl of
Leicester and of Holkham. By A. M. W. STIRLING. New Edition, revised,
with some additions. With 19 Illustrations. In one volume. Demy 8vo.
12_s._ 6_d._ net.
THE ROMANTIC HISTORY OF THOMAS COUTTS. By ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE. With
numerous Illustrations. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. 25s. net.
ANNALS OF A YORKSHIRE HOUSE. From the Papers of a Macaroni and his
kindred. By A. M. W. STIRLING, author of “Coke of Norfolk and his
Friends.” With 33 Illustrations, including 3 in Colour and 3 in
Photogravure. Demy 8vo. 2 vols. 32s. net.
THE LETTER-BAG OF LADY ELIZABETH SPENCER STANHOPE. By A. M. W. STIRLING.
Author of “Coke of Norfolk,” and “Annals of a Yorkshire House.” With a
Colour Plate, 3 in Photogravure, and 27 other Illustrations. 2 vols.
Demy 8vo. 32s. net.
⁂ “Extracts might be multiplied indefinitely, but we have given enough
to show the richness of the mine. We have nothing but praise for the
editor’s work, and can conscientiously commend this book equally to
the student of manners and the lover of lively anecdote.”—_Standard._
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ENGLAND IN 1675. By MARIE CATHERINE COMTESSE
D’AULNOY. Translated from the original French by Mrs. WILLIAM HENRY
ARTHUR. Edited, Revised, and with Annotations (including an account of
Lucy Walter) by GEORGE DAVID GILBERT. With Illustrations. Demy 8vo.
16s. net.
AUSTRIA: HER PEOPLE AND THEIR HOMELANDS. By JAMES BAKER, F.R.G.S. With
48 Pictures in Colour by DONALD MAXWELL. Demy 8vo. 21s. net.
GATES OF THE DOLOMITES. By L. MARION DAVIDSON. With 32 Illustrations
from Photographs and a Map. Crown 8vo. Second Edition. 5s. net.
THE INTIMATE LETTERS OF HESTER PIOZZI AND PENELOPE PENNINGTON 1788-1821.
Edited by OSWALD G. KNAPP. With 32 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
⁂ This work is a most important find and should arouse immense
interest amongst the large number of persons whom the Johnson cult
attracts to anything concerning Mrs. Piozzi.
Mr. Knapp gives 198 letters dating from 1788 to 1821. The letters are
most delightful reading and place Mrs. Piozzi in a somewhat different
aspect than she has been viewed in hitherto. The attitude of her
Thrale daughters to her is shown to be quite unwarrantable, and her
semi humorous acceptance of the calumny and persecution she suffered
arouses our admiration.
The Illustrations to this charming work have been mainly supplied from
Mr. A. M. Broadley’s unique collection.
CHANGING RUSSIA. A Tramp along the Black Sea Shore and in the Urals. By
STEPHEN GRAHAM. Author of “Undiscovered Russia,” “A Vagabond in the
Caucasus,” etc. With Illustrations and a Map. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
ROBERT FULTON ENGINEER AND ARTIST: HIS LIFE AND WORK. By H. W.
DICKINSON, A.M.I.Mech.E. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
GEORGE BUBB DODDINGTON, LORD MELCOMBE. By LLOYD SANDERS. With numerous
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ARTHUR HELPS, K.C.B., D.C.L. By E. A. HELPS. With
numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
⁂ Sir Arthur Helps was a notable figure among the literary men of the
last generation, and as Clerk to the Privy Council enjoyed the
confidence and friendship of Queen Victoria, while his magnetic
personality drew round him a distinguished coterie, many of whose
witty and wise sayings are here preserved. Not only was he on terms of
intimacy with Tennyson, Dean Stanley, John Stuart Mill, Gladstone,
Disraeli, Ruskin, Frowde, Carlyle, Dickens, Kingsley, and other men of
light and leading, many letters from whom are included in the volume,
but he was ever in the vanguard of philanthropic movements.
The present collection of letters deals with the topics of the day,
and burning questions such as the Chartist agitation, the American
Civil War, and the cholera epidemics; and they are handled with great
acumen by the various writers, and still possess an absorbing
interest. The letters have a peculiarly intimate touch, and yet carry
with them the weight of authority.
A STAINED GLASS TOUR IN ITALY. By CHARLES H. SHERRILL. Author of
“Stained Glass Tours in England,” “Stained Glass Tours in France,”
etc. With 33 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
⁂ Mr. Sherrill has already achieved success with his two previous
books on the subject of stained glass. In Italy he finds a new field,
which offers considerable scope for his researches. His present work
will appeal not only to tourists, but to the craftsmen, because of the
writer’s sympathy with the craft. Mr. Sherrill is not only an
authority whose writing is clear in style and full of understanding
for the requirements of the reader, but one whose accuracy and
reliability are unquestionable. This is the most important book
published on the subject with which it deals, and readers will find it
worthy to occupy the position.
MEMORIES. By the Honble. STEPHEN COLERIDGE. With 12 Illustrations. Demy
8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
⁂ “Mr. Coleridge’s memories are very crisply and clearly written. He
makes a real addition to our knowledge of the essentially human
aspects of justly celebrated figures of the past. He was brought up
amid the society of many of the most cultivated men of the past
half-century. Among a host of notabilities of whom Mr. Coleridge
speaks are Lewis Morris, Browning, Jowett, Jenny Lind, Lord Leighton,
Ruskin, Watts, Whistler, and Irving. It was at Lord Coleridge’s house
that Cardinal Newman and Matthew Arnold first met.”—_Daily Telegraph._
ANTHONY TROLLOPE: HIS WORK, ASSOCIATES AND ORIGINALS. By T. H. S.
ESCOTT. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ “The whole of this book is admirably done, and no one who is
interested in Trollope or, indeed, in nineteenth century literature,
can afford to overlook it.”—_Globe._
ORIENTAL RUGS, ANTIQUE AND MODERN. By WALTER A. HAWLEY. With numerous
Illustrations in Colour and Half-tone. Demy 4to. 42s. net.
ON THE LEFT OF A THRONE. A personal Study of James, Duke of Monmouth. By
Mrs. EVAN NEPEAN. With 36 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH PATRIOTISM. By ESMÉ C. WINGFIELD STRATFORD,
Fellow King’s College, Cambridge. In 2 vols. Demy 8vo. With a
Frontispiece to each volume, (1,300 pages). 25s. net.
⁂ The author may fairly claim to have accomplished what few previous
historians have so much as attempted. He has woven together the
threads of religion, politics, war, philosophy, literature, painting,
architecture, law and commerce, into a narrative of unbroken and
absorbing interest.
⁂ “Mr. Wingfield Stratford is to be congratulated on a great
achievement.”—_Outlook._
CHARLES CONDER: HIS LIFE AND WORK. By FRANK GIBSON. With a Catalogue of
the Lithographs and Etchings by CAMPBELL DODGSON, M.S., Keeper of
Prints and Drawings, British Museum. With about 100 reproductions of
Conder’s work, 12 of which are in colour. Demy 4to. 21s. net.
⁂ With the exception of one or two articles in English Art Magazines,
and one or two in French, German, and American periodicals, no book up
to the present has appeared fully to record the life and work of
Charles Condor, by whose death English Art has lost one of its most
original personalities. Consequently it has been felt that a book
dealing with Conder’s life so full of interest, and his work so full
of charm and beauty, illustrated by characteristic examples of his Art
both in colour and in black and white, would be welcome to the already
great and increasing number of his admirers.
The author of this book, Mr. Frank Gibson, who knew Conder in his
early days in Australia and afterwards in England during the rest of
the artist’s life, is enabled in consequence to do full justice, not
only to the delightful character of Conder as a friend, but is also
able to appreciate his remarkable talent.
The interest and value of this work will be greatly increased by the
addition of a complete catalogue of Conder’s lithographs and
engravings, compiled by Mr. Campbell Dodgson, M.A., Keeper of the
Print-Room of the British Museum.
PHILIP DUKE OF WHARTON. By LEWIS MELVILLE. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 16s.
net.
⁂ A character more interesting than Philip, Duke of Wharton, does not
often fall to the lot of a biographer, yet, by some strange chance,
though nearly two hundred years have passed since that wayward genius
passed away, the present work is the first that gives a comprehensive
account of his life. A man of unusual parts and unusual charm, he at
once delighted and disgusted his contemporaries. Unstable as water, he
was like Dryden’s Zimri, “Everything by starts and nothing long.” He
was poet and pamphleteer, wit, statesman, buffoon, and amorist. The
son of one of the most stalwart supporters of the Hanoverian dynasty,
he went abroad and joined the Pretender, who created him a duke. He
then returned to England, renounced the Stuarts, and was by George I.
also promoted to a dukedom—while he was yet a minor. He was the friend
of Attenbury and the President of the Hell-Fire Club. At one time he
was leading Spanish troops against his countrymen, at another seeking
consolation in a monastery. It is said that he was the original of
Richardson’s Lovelace.
THE MANNERS OF MY TIME. By Miss C. L. HAWKINS DEMPSTER. With numerous
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
THE LIFE OF MADAME TALLIEN, NOTRE DAME DE THERMIDOR (A Queen of Shreds
and Patches.) From the last days of the French Revolution, until her
death as Princess de Chimay in 1835. By L. GASTINE. Translated from
the French by J. LEWIS MAY. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and 16
other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ There is no one in the history of the French Revolution who has been
more eagerly canonised than Madame Tallien; yet according to M.
Gastine, there is no one in that history who merited canonisation so
little. He has therefore set himself the task of dissipating the mass
of legend and sentiment that has gathered round the memory of “_La
Belle Tallien_” and of presenting her to our eyes as she really was.
The result of his labour is a volume, which combines the scrupulous
exactness of conscientious research with the richness and glamour of a
romance. In the place of the beautiful heroic but purely imaginary
figure of popular tradition, we behold a woman, dowered indeed with
incomparable loveliness, but utterly unmoral, devoid alike of heart
and soul, who readily and repeatedly prostituted her personal charms
for the advancement of her selfish and ignoble aims. Though Madame
Tallien is the central figure of the book, the reader is introduced to
many other personages who played famous or infamous rôles in the
contemporary social or political arena, and the volume, which is
enriched by a number of interesting portraits, throws a new and
valuable light on this stormy and perennially fascinating period of
French history.
MINIATURES: A Series of Reproductions in Photogravure of Ninety-Six
Miniatures of Distinguished Personages, including Queen Alexandra, the
Queen of Norway, the Princess Royal, and the Princess Victoria.
Painted by CHARLES TURRELL. (Folio.) The Edition is limited to One
Hundred Copies for sale in England and America, and Twenty-Five Copies
for Presentation, Review, and the Museums. Each will be Numbered and
Signed by the Artist. 15 guineas net.
RECOLLECTIONS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT. By his Valet FRANÇOIS. Translated
from the French by MINA ROUND. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE. By JOSEPH TURQUAN. Author of “The Love
Affairs of Napoleon,” etc. Translated from the French by Miss VIOLETTE
MONTAGU. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
ENGLISH TRAVELLERS OF THE RENAISSANCE. By CLARE HOWARD. With 12
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
SOPHIE DAWES, QUEEN OF CHANTILLY. By VIOLETTE M. MONTAGU. Author of “The
Scottish College in Paris,” etc. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and
16 other Illustrations and Three Plans. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ Among the many queens of France, queens by right of marriage with
the reigning sovereign, queens of beauty or of intrigue, the name of
Sophie Dawes, the daughter of humble fisherfolk in the Isle of Wight,
better known as “the notorious Mme. de Feucheres,” “The Queen of
Chantilly” and “The Montespan de Saint Leu” in the land which she
chose as a suitable sphere in which to exercise her talents for
money-making and for getting on in the world, stand forth as a proof
of what a woman’s will can accomplish when that will is accompanied
with an uncommon share of intelligence.
TRAVELS WITHOUT BAEDEKER. By ARDERN BEAMAN. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
⁂ An entertaining book of unconventional travel—unconventional as the
author progressed more on the lines of a tramp than a tourist, from
Aden to Port Said, afterwards through Cairo and Alexandria, then on to
Jaffa and Jerusalem, then into Greece and Turkey, and finally on to
Venice. He constantly travelled third class amongst crowds of filthy
natives and on at least one occasion made a steamer voyage in the
steerage, but he had experiences he could not have obtained in any
other way, and kept a light heart and amused countenance through it
all.
MADAME DE BRINVILLIERS AND HER TIMES, 1630-1676. By HUGH STOKES. With a
Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s.
6d. net.
MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM THOMSON, ARCH-BISHOP OF YORK. By Mrs. WILFRED
THOMSON. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
HARRIET HOSMER: LETTERS AND MEMORIES. Edited by CORNELIA CARR. With 31
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ These pages are full of interest to the general reader, owing to the
fact that Harriet Hosmer was on intimate terms with so many of her
most famous contemporaries in the World of Art and Letters.
Particularly valuable will be found the authentic and charmingly
recounted information regarding the home life of Robert Browning and
his wife. The correspondence shows that in nearly every case the
letters of these celebrities were never intended for print. They are,
all the more perhaps, indications of the true characteristics of the
writers.
THE GREATEST HOUSE AT CHELSEY. By RANDALL DAVIES. With 18 Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
⁂ This is a most fascinating account of the great house built at
Chelsea in 1520, by Sir Thomas More, and occupied successively by
various notable people, among whom were Sir Arthur Gorges, the Duke of
Buckingham, and finally Sir Hans Sloane. Each of the successive owners
is dealt with by Mr. Randall Davies in most entertaining fashion, and
a great deal of historical detail is brought together which has never
seen the light before. The illustrations are of great interest.
WITH THE TIN GODS. By MRS. HORACE TREMLETT. With 24 Illustrations from
Photographs. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ Mrs. Tremlett went with her husband and some other members of a
syndicate on a journey in search of tin in Northern Nigeria. This book
is a racy, entertaining and very human account of their adventures.
There are no tedious descriptions of the country or the natives but
the atmosphere and the life are vividly suggested and the narrative is
brightened by many stories and touches of humour. The book is
illustrated by some excellent photographs taken on the spot.
ADVENTURES WITH A SKETCH BOOK. By DONALD MAXWELL. Illustrated by the
Author. F’cap 4to. 12s. 6d. net.
⁂ This book provides a new departure from the conventional methods of
book illustration. By an ingenious use of tints it is illustrated
throughout in colour. All the text drawings are printed on rough
surface paper, and are not, as in the case of so many so-called colour
books, plates printed on a shiny paper.
With regard to the text the reader will feel that he is an active
partaker in Mr. Maxwell’s explorations and romantic expeditions in
numerous unexpected places all over Europe. It is a book that will
make a delightful possession.
NAPOLEON AND KING MURAT. A Biography compiled from hitherto Unknown and
Unpublished Documents. By ALBERT ESPITALIER. Translated from the
French by J. LEWIS MAY. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
LADY CHARLOTTE SCHREIBER’S JOURNALS. Confidences of a Collector of
Ceramics and Antiques throughout Britain, France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Turkey. From the year 1869
to 1885. Edited by MONTAGUE GUEST, with Annotations by EGAN MEW. With
upwards of 100 Illustrations, including 8 in colour and 2 in
Photogravure. Royal 8vo. 2 volumes. 42_s._ net.
CHRONICLES OF ERTHIG ON THE DYKE. From Original Letters preserved in the
House. By ALBINIA CUST. With Illustrations from Photographs. In 2
vols. 25s. net.
⁂ The story is not of a Family but of a House. In the oak-panelled
library are parchments, manuscripts, old printed books, and the
letters—frail yet enduring souvenirs of a vanished past. Never
intended for publication, they have an interest so poignant as to be
realised only in the reading. The writers with their joys and sorrows
seem to live again in these pages, conjuring up visions of the scenes
amid which they played their little part.
A MOTOR TOUR THROUGH CANADA. By THOMAS WILBY. With 32 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
⁂ A capital account of a trip from Halifax to the Pacific Coast. Mr.
Wilby brings the scene most vividly home to the reader and he blends,
with considerable skill, history and narrative. The Photographs also
give an excellent idea of the tour.
WITH THE RUSSIANS IN MONGOLIA. By H. G. C. PERRY-AYSCOUGH and R. B.
OTTER-BARRY. With an Introduction by SIR CLAUDE MCDONALD, K.C.M.G.,
K.C.B., etc. With numerous Illustrations from Photographs. Demy 8vo.
16s. net.
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NAPOLEON. By JOSEPH TURQUAN. Translated from the
French by JAMES LEWIS MAY. New Edition. With 8 Illustrations. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the
original.
115.21 Let us go and listen to G——.[”] Added.
200.31 A tout l’[e/é]clat des roses. Replaced.
227.10 an English work entit[l]ed Inserted.
251.13 this e[ /n]counter> had evidently Restored
a5.36 of her min[i]ature court. Inserted.
a8.29 [“]A man who can write Added.
a10.19 [“]Extracts might be multiplied Added.
a15.13 will be fo[n/u]nd the authentic Inverted.