Ro7tssel : Corrcspoiidance de Le Coz 133 On the whole this is one of the most feebly constructed books we re- member ever to have read, the tone of reality lacking throughout. And, what in fiction is unpardonable, it is dull, with the exception of the fourteenth letter, which shows much brilliancy of imagination in its por- trayal of Napoleon, whose biography must be rewritten in important par- ticulars if the statements made here are true. We have not been accus- tomed to hear the First Consul speak of his youthful days at Brienne as " the only really happy ones " he ever knew, q^^^^^^ ^ Hazen. Corrcspoiidance dc Lc Coz, Ev'cqiic Constitittionncl d' Ille-ct-l'ilaiiu. Publiee pour la Societe d'Histoire Contemporaine. Par le P. RoussEL, de rOratoire. (Paris : Alphonse Picard et Fils. 1900. Pp. xiv, 430.) This is the latest of a series of over twenty volumes, published by the Society during the last eight years, comprising documents relating to the French Revolution. This volume consists of 176 letters written from November, 1790, to May, 1802, preceded by a brief biography by the editor. The letters throw much light on the ecclesiastical and social conditions of the period. The relation of the constitutional clergy to the papacy is not clearly brought out, and we suspect that some letters and other documents on this subject have been omitted. The writer, Claude Le Coz, was a member of the Assembly of 1 791-1792, one of the few bishops who had taken the oath to support the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and a leader in the constitutional church. Although lenient toward the clergy who had refused the oath, and desiring peace with them, he was distinguished for his liberal and independent ideas, defended the position of the constitutional clergy against the Pope himself, and accused Pius VI. of having provoked a religious war because the latter had excommunicated the constitutional clergy instead of trying to make peace between those who had taken and those who had refused the oath. Le Coz was a zealous partisan of Napo- leon, whom he lauds to the skies, and from whom, even as First Consul, he expects every good for the Church. On account of his charities he was called the Father of the Poor. Le Coz was born in 1740 in a village in eastern Bretagne and educated in a school of the Jesuits at Quimper, where, shortly after their expulsion in 1762, he held the position of principal until 1791. In February, 1791, he took the oath of submission to the Constitution and joined the ranks of the assermentes. About this time the electoral assembly of Ille-et-Vilaine deposed the bishop of Rennes on account of his refusal to take the oath, and elected Le Coz in his place. After some hesitation and a very courteous letter to the former bishop and a very respectful announcement to the Pope, he accepted and was conse- crated at Paris in April. In September he was elected a deputy to the Legislative Assembly, where he made several speeches and served until the close of the session in September, 1792. During this period we
