LITERATURE, CONTINENTAL, IN 1873. 



abont whom we should say, as Boileau did of 

 rore in the case of Corneille's Ayftilat, " he- 

 lot!" M. Dauban, the indefatigable furetetir 

 of historical documents, gives us, from wcll- 

 aatbenticated pieces, the history of the Pan- 

 Commune, and brings to li.-ht the lower strata 

 of French society, the famous couchet tociale* 

 immortalized by M. Gombetta. M. Villcniuin's 

 IliM.iry of I'ope Gregory VII." would ha\c 

 created some sensation forty years ago, when 

 its publication was first announced ; it reads 

 now merely as a piece of fine writing^ I 

 shall only mention here the cheap duodecimo 

 edition of Saint-Simon's "Memoirs.'' It is 

 intumlo-.l, I suppose, as a popular work for 

 general readers, and as a foretaste of the more 

 scholarly one which Messrs. Ilachctto an- 

 nounce in their collection of " les Grands 

 Eerivains de la France." M. Victor Palme 

 proceeds slowly with his magnificent reprint 

 of the Benedictine. " Recuoil des Historic-,'' 

 and he has issued, moreover, the first two vol- 

 umes of a new edition of the "Galli:i Chris- 

 tiana," Works like these are always sure to 

 obtain much success, especially when they 

 have the benefit of a thorough revision by 

 such lanantt as M. Leopold Delisle. I have 

 also seen with unfeigned pleasure the Ville- 

 hardouin and the Joinvillu. edit.-d l>y M. N'ata- 

 lis de Wailly. These two splended octavos, 

 copiously annotated, illustrated with maps, 

 woodcuts, glossaries, and indices, form part of 

 a series of French mediceval chtft-cTautire pub- 

 lished by Messrs. Didot, under the editorship 

 of M. L6on Gantier, the enthusiastic annota- 

 tor of the " Chanson de Roland." I shall con- 

 clude iny notice of historical works by men- 

 tioning briefly the remarkable book which M. 

 Perrons has published on the progress of dem- 

 ocratic ideas in France during the middle ages. 

 In the sphere of moral and metaphysical 

 science the outcome of the present year has 

 been singularly feeble, and the list of books 

 worth noticing includes a very small number 

 of really valuable productions. If the excel- 

 lent hot too concise little text-book of M. 

 1 1 art ten (" Principes de Psychologic ") deserves 

 to betaken into serious account, it is because 

 it place* iUelf at the stand-point of revealed 

 religion. Father Lescojur occupies the same 

 vantage-ground, and challenges the philo- 

 lopket to show that their exertions have ever 

 given the right solution of the problem of 

 happiness. The great battle-field on wlii.-h 

 the champions of 1'ositivism pla.-e thorn- 

 is, naturally enough, physical science, tin- ori- 

 f species, and the doctrine of evolution. 

 The lie. si deplorable feature in the whole C..M- 

 troversy is the fact that, if questions conn- 

 with these science* are discussed by a prie-t. 

 It is always assumed on the other side that 

 the discussion must necessarily be the result 

 of parti prit, and be completely prejudice.!. 

 Against m extraordinary an MMrOOB, M. do 

 Valroger protest* very strongly in his now 

 work on the " Genesis of Species," and, the 



better to remove every ground of complaint, 

 he allows in all instances the mrantt whom lie 

 criticises to speak for themselves. The ditl'cr- 

 ent essays here collected appeared originally, 

 if I am not much mistaken, in the " Ke\ . 



ion- lli-tori<|Ucs," a periodical of decided- 

 ly Ultramontani.st sympathies, but which has 

 nevertheless done a great deal for the prog- 

 ress of historical studies. The new editions 

 of M. Joly's excellent book on "Instinct." mid 

 of M. Francisquo Bouillier's " I.e 1'rincipu 

 Vital et 1'Ame Pensante " must not l>e forgot- 

 ten here, because they have both received 

 considerable augmentations, and are really im- 

 portant contributions to metaphyatoal litera- 

 ture. M. Bnuillier, as your readers may, per- 

 haps, remember, is an animitt; I mean that 

 he looks upcn the soul as the seat of the ac- 

 tivity which pervades our whole frame. M. 

 Littre's series of review and newspaper ai ; 

 published together in a thick volume, give him 

 an opportunity of explaining his theory on the 

 concatenation of sciences and their interde- 

 pendence. Never was I'ositivism so com- 

 pletely stated, never was the programme of 

 the new school made so clear and so harmoni- 

 ous. M. Littri- then selects from the o\clo- 

 piedia of human knowledge a special branch 

 history and tells us what the teaching of that 

 science should be ; examining, by way of illus- 

 tration, the " Histoire des Langues Scini- 

 tiques " of M. Renan, and M. Francois Lenor- 

 tnant's " Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne." 



I know of few works so interesting as a 

 biography, when it is well done, and when 

 the subject of it really deserves to bo remem- 

 bered as a public character. M. do God- 

 Mesnil (ilaiso, in describing the works, the 

 virtues, and the industry of a whole family 

 during threo centuries, has earned fresh title 

 to the gratitude of all those readers who love 

 and appreciate true merit. The Godefroys, 

 whoso labors he analyzes, were his ancestors; 

 as magistrates, historians, lawyers, and arch:e- 

 ologists, they enjoyed European reputation, 

 and they transmitted down from father to son, 

 for the space of threo hundred years, tli.i-o 

 traditions of integrity and high principles 

 which were formerly the heirloom of the old 

 French bourgowif. The interest belonging to 

 the biography of the notorious Foiu-lu- is of 

 a totally different kind, but it is not the less 

 real, and Count de Mart el has contrived to 

 bring together, in this new work, a number of 

 curious particulars, not only on the- commis- 

 sioner of the Revolutionary Government, but 

 also on the Ileiirn of Terror. It is well known 

 that the theories of o_nr modern communists 

 are far from possessing the merit even of 

 originality ; they were held by Gracchus I?a- 



md Fouclif indorsed them when h. 

 th it " les richesses ne sont entre les mains des 

 individus qu'un depot dont la nation a le 

 droit de disposer." Count do Martd promises 

 us a second volume on him who afterward 

 paraded about the title of Duo d'Otranto at 



