Histoire de la Révolution Française, (1789-1799,) Par Théod. H. Barrau. Paris: Hachette. 1857.
We cannot vouch that we have here a new, original history of this important epoch, based on an independent study of historical sources; but it is the very first history of the French Revolution we have known, not written in a partisan spirit, and bent on falsifying the facts in order to make political capital or to flatter national prejudices. It bears no evidence of any tendency whatever,—perhaps only because, with its more than five hundred pages, it is too short for that.
Histoire de France au XVI. Siècle, par Michélet. Tom. 10. Henri IV. et Richelieu.
Michélet is too well known as a truly Republican historiographer and truly humane and noble writer, and the former volumes of this history have been too long before the public, to require for this volume a particular recommendation. It begins with the last décade of the sixteenth century, and concludes with the year 1626. We are no particular admirers of Michélet's historical style and method of delineation, but we acknowledge his sense of historical justice, his unprejudiced mind, and his Republicanism, even when treating a subject so delicate, and so dear to Frenchmen, as Henry IV. Doing justice to whatever was really admirable in the character of this much beloved king, he overthrows a good many superstitious ideas current concerning him even down to our days. He shows that the Utopian, though benevolent project, ascribed to Henry, of establishing an everlasting peace by revising the map of Europe and constituting a political equilibrium between the several European powers, never in fact existed in the king's mind, nor even in Sully's, whom he equally divests of much unfounded glory and fictitious greatness. No doubt, but for his fickleness and inconsistency, Henry could have done a good deal toward realizing such ideas and reforming European politics; but it is saying too much for Henry's influence on the popular opinions of Europe, to affirm, what Michélet gives us to understand, that he could have combined the nations of Europe against all their depraved rulers together.
La Liberté, par Émile de Girardin. Paris. 1857.
This book contains a discussion between the author and M. de Lourdoueix, ex-editor of the "Gazette de France," written in the form of letters, on the various topics connected with the notion of Liberty. Girardin is, no doubt, the most genial of all living French writers on Socialism and Politics. He belongs neither to the fanatical school of Communists and Social Equalizers by force and "par ordre da Mufti," nor to the class of pliable tools of Imperial or Royal Autocracy. He is the only writer who, in the face of the prevailing restrictions upon the press in France, dares to speak out his whole mind, and to preach the Age of Reason in Politics and in the Social System. He is full of new ideas, which should, we think, be very attractive to American readers; and it is, indeed, strange that his writings are so little read and reviewed on this side of the ocean. His ideas on general education, on the total extinction of authority or government, on the abolition of public punishments of every kind, on the doing away with standing armies, war, and tyranny, and on making the State a great Assurance Company against all imaginable misfortunes and their consequences, are a fair index of the best philosophemes of the European mind since the last Revolution. We do not say that we approve every one of his issues and conclusions, but we insist most earnestly, that this book and similar ones, bearing testimony to what the political and social thinkers of the day in Europe are revolving in their minds, should be read and reviewed under the light of American institutions and ideas. The reader enjoys in the present book the great advantage of seeing the ideas of the Social Reformers discussed pro and contra,—M. Lourdoueix being their obstinate adversary.
Mémoires de M. Joseph Prudhomme, par Henri Monnier. 2 vols. Paris. 1857.
This is not what is commonly called mémoires,—to wit, historical recollections
