8/14/2019 The Last King of Poland by r Nisbet Bain Review Ny Tribune 25sept 1910

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8 % 2 s h - d < l > t k S?ftun&SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER S,, 1010.

at Turquan's biography of this ill fatedwoman, who wa s Bourbon to the backbone, who,too, had learned nothing and forgotten noth-ing, is as impartial as on e can be inthe case ofso unsympathetic, so antagonistic a subject.That she wa s the "man of the family"cannot bedoubted. Unfortunately her influence wa s al-ways thrown on the wrong side, in the interestof reaction. She had all the ideas of the oldregime, but none of its graces. She lovedFrance, but hated the French. Narrow, bigoted,she knew no charity, no forgiveness. The no-bles of the empire who had made their peacewith the Kingshe treated with systematic in-solence; when she attempted to be amiable tothe o l d ' nobles she succeeded but rarely. Her

the Duke of Bordeaux, the last of the Bourbonsin the direct line, who died as Comte de Cham-bord. The French people paid no attention tothis arrangement, and elected Louis Philippe In-stead. Tillthe end of her days Madame P.oyaleclung to the title of Queen, borne byher duringa few minutes. She died in exile, at Frohsdorf,in ISSI.ADAME ROYALS, TILE LAST DATFlip.Marie-Therese-Charlotte de France IXichessed'Angoulems. ByJoseph Turqu.in Kdite. andtranslated by Lady Theodora Davidson. Illus-trated. Bvo, pp. 335. Urentanos.

THE RETURN OF LOUISXVIII.From the French'f Gilbert Stenger by Mrs. Ilodolph Stawell.Illustrated. Svo, PP. xv, 431. Char les Bcil lNMr*SSons.THE LAST KINO OF POLAND AND ins CON-TEMPORARIES. ByR. Nisbet Bain. With sir-teen illustrations. Bvo, pp. xvni, 2% . O. 1Putnams Sons."The only man inthe family"Napoleon calledMadame Royale, when, at the beginning of theHundred Days, he was informed of her valiantattempt to keep the garrison of Bordeaux loyalto her uncle, LouisXVII,lready in full flightto the Belgian frontier. Itwas the only greatmoment In the life of this daughter of theaugust house of Bourbon in the contemptible

Roya l but I n e f f e c t i v e Figures inEuropean History.MORE MEMOIRS

Poor Balzac! Even beyond the grave he ispursued by at least one of the malign influenceswhich d.'gged his footsteps while lie lived. Oneof the n u m e r o u s worlds he frequented wa spopulated entirely by creditors and bailiffs. Hewas forever indebt, forever at odds with peoplewho had entirely lawful designs upon his bankaccount. And now th e enemy is at it again.The Balzac Museum in Paris, the opening ofwhich was mentioned in these columns not longago. is indebt to the government, which claimsa sum of about $ 18 5 , due for taxes, and as th ecurator declines to pay the money out of hisown pocket there is t rouble. The tax collectorhas threatened to attach and sell the relics inth e building if \se is not paid. Meanwhile, th epresident of th e Society of Friends of Kalzacindignantly protests to the authorities that, asan establishment of national interest, the mu-seum L s legally exempt from taxation. Inallprobability his arguments will be heeded, forth e French ar e not the kind of people to behavebadly iv a matter of this sort We should no tbe surprised to hear that the whole difficultysprang from th e pedantic conduct of some offi-cious underling. But when the incident isclosed all th e documents should be gathered to-gether and conspicuously exposed in the mu-seum. The lover of Balzac who has a sense ofhumor will recognize them as a delightfullycharacteristic exhibit.

MADAME ROYALS.(From the portrait by Vigee Le Brun.)

Mr. Kenyon also testified to the great extentCo which British readers of all classes werecarrying on special studies, stating that theknowledge sought in the free libraries wa smainly scientific an d technical knowledge, thatwhich a man needed for th e cultivation of hisown trade, or itwa s historical, political, orsociological knowledge. We rejoice to hear allthis, and we trust that we may be pardoned forremarking that itconfirms what we have re -peatedly asserted, that the attribution to thegreat public of an incurable taste for trash ismerely nonsensical.

Itwas estimated that through these librariesf.ohA.i00 4 volumes were circulated annually Inthe homes of the people. Of these 32,000,000were fiction, including-children's books, and 28,-000,000 wore not fiction. Ifccount was takenalso of the 11.000,000 volumes issued by theReference Library and of the volumes con-Bultcd In the libraries themselves itwas calcu-lated that the proportion of fiction issued toreadi rs was not more than 24 per cent of theWhole. Further, this fiction consisted almostwholly cf standard works and writings ofacknowledged merit, which were not merely anadmissible but a desirable form of intellectualnutriment.

rii'C' more the poignant question of the aver-n.vmans reading lias come op for public dis-cussion inEngland. At the recent meeting ofthe Library Association at Exeter the presidentfor the year, Mr. F. C,. Kenyon, director andpriii. ipal librarian of th e British Museum, d^vote.l his address to the significance of freelibraries in the spread of culture. His mos tinterest ing point was made incontradicting theeurreni notion that the free libraries are to apredominating extent simply purveyors of fictionto those who would be better without it. Re-ferring to the the arrangement, and Jolanilthe Bourbon court at Mlttau la 1799 , where ther arriage t>..k place. Thenceforth sh e sharedthe family fortunes inRussia, Prussia and Eng-land until the Restoration, in 1814. LouisXVIIIdied in I*-"and was succeeded by theComte d'Artois as Char les X. His accessionraise.ihe d'Angoulemes to the dignity ofDauphin and Dauphine, the last to bear thetitles. Seven years later Madame Royals becameQueen of France during the few moments thatelapsed between the abdication of Charles X infavor ofher husband and the latter'a abdicationin favor of hL s murdered younger brother*! aon,

days of its gradual extinction. Born on De-cember 19, 1 7 7 5 , the daughter ofLouis XVIandMarie Antoinette passed her childhood partlyamid the pomp and ceremony of the Frenchcourt and partly in imprisonment with herparents. After their execution and the pitiabledeath of the Dauphin she continued to be keptcaptive until surrendered, in 1 7 i > ~ . to her ma-ternal cousin, FrancisIIf Austria. He cher-ished a plan of marrying her to one of theHapsburg archdukes, and of thus establishingthrough her. as the only surviving child ofLouis XVI,a claim for his house , ifnot to thet'lrone ofFrance, at least to Alsace-Lorraine,with a vague project of a possible restoration ofthe kingdom of Navarre in the backgroundwhen the day of reckoning should come for theFrench Republic,

Louis XVIIIstands forth full length In anexceptionally well drawu picture, which MBBCtI

M. Stenger's book, the bulk of whl.-h is de-VOted to the year LSI4, is crowded with in-structive pictures of the contrast between theKrain the Baaraaaa had left and the Franceto which they returned a quarter of a centurylater. Tlieyhad learned nothing up to then-be t iiipluistzes their inability to learn at allChaos reigned in the country, which had sothoroughly forgotten the amient regime thatthe names llourbon, d'Artois. Berrl. meantnothing to it. Nowhere, except among the less-er nobilityInthe country districts, was therea genuine desire for the return of the royalbouse. The great nobles at Paris, the famil iesthat had shone In the reflected glory of thecourt of Versailles, had made their peace withUM empire, accepted honors at Its hands andjoined its curt. The author fairly bolls overwith indignation at the tn-at hery. the syco-phancy of the men and women whom Napoleonbad made, at their ingratitude and crawlinganxiety to ingratiate themselves with the ne wcourt.

looks agreed withher character; her ingratitudewas proverbialitwas that ofher house.The author denies that itwas either her sadexperiences inchildhood or the uncertainties ofher long exile that made act what she was.According tohim, the true formative influenceof be* life was the disappointment ofher mar-riage to a man of limited intellect and less thaninsigniticant appearance, a sacrifice vshi.h BB Sbore to the end, sustained by her great pride.m . Toraaau lays great stress throughout Uponthe physical as wvll as the mental degenerationof the Baarbaaa inthe period of their approach-ing extinction.

The papers on the Holy Land *1 Mr. Eoft"crt Hit hens, which have for some time beenrunning through the pages of "Th CenturyMagazine." are bow being matte in a U*the meanness and pettiness of his character,his cowardice, his incapacity, Hiblack ingrati-tude toward those who had served him Afelicitous phrase maker he was, but phrases didnot suffice. One year was enough to showFrance what she had lost and what had beengiven her inreturn. Corruption, incompetence.favoritism, persecution, fraud, peculation andopen theft ran riot. Paris feasted retfdeafcbut, say.-; the author:

NEW-TORE DAILY TRIBUNE, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 . 1 . 1010 .AFTER MELEAGEB.BY WALTER HEDI.AM.Love, whil- winging through the skies,Passed before Ttmarion's eyes;Hence, being tangled in that snare,L"\>- himself lies prisoned there.

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