SoHzriiirs du Comte dc Sala berry 789 the several portraits of the declaiming and expounding Goethe (pp. 325- 338) have more human value than a whole new Jahr buck of the Goethe Gesellschaft. Mme. Reinhard makes her most serious effort in the journal of her Russian trip (p. 235 ff. ), and the way in which the reader is brought near to Russian prisons, Russian officials and Russian land- scape, must convince him that the writer's intellect is quite on a level with her artistic perceptions. Ferdinand Schwill. Souvenirs Politiqiics du Coiiitc dc Salabcny sur la Rcstauratioii, 1821-30. Publics pour la Societe d'Histoire Contemporaine par le Comte de Salaberry son petit-fils. (Paris : Alphonse Picard et Fils. 1900. Two vols., pp. xi.x, 285, 325.) These volumes are the latest publications of the " Societe d'Histoire Contemporaine," and show a commendable activity on the part of that organization. But the society might easily have found more valuable objects of its preservative care ; we have here in fact little more than a series of political pamphlets thrown into a connected narrative form (with the narrative very incomplete, and always a secondary and indeed in- cidental matter), and almost wholly unprovided with documents. Very little information of convincing weight is to be garnered here, and the accepted general conclusions are not affected. We are told much in re- gard to individuals both small and great that the close student will con- sider ; but most of the personal sketches are hopelessly vague and in- complete, and of interest mainly as reflecting malicious political gossip. The author deigns to touch nothing that is not political ; the student will search these volumes in vain for any direct light on general social or in- tellectual conditions. The "Souvenirs" begin with the formation of the Villele ministry in the middle of December 182 1, and close with the elections of June 1830, Vol. II. beginning with 1826 ; the arrangement is loosely chrono- logical, and the matter is divided into " Livres " on no perceptible prin- ciple. We therefore have here no information or reflections on the revolutionary events of 1830, though we reach the very verge of the catastrophe, and in the last pages (probably written after July 1830), have some statements with reference to preceding revolutionary disturb- ances that we suspect display knowledge after the event. The question of the date of the composition or final revision is invested with difficulty. The editor does not refer to the point (a fact which is representative of the value of the editing) and we are thrown entirely upon internal evi- dence. From this I conclude that these " essais " (as the author him- self terms them, — II. 35), were written almost entirely in the reign of Charles X., and that the work was never carefully revised (frequent repe- titions and abrupt ending) ; the writing was probably begun late in 1824 or early in 1825, and continued thereafter at probably never more than a year's distance from the events dealt with. They were evidently written for the public (see I. 9, 178 ; II. 35, 68), but apparently the revolution
