FRENCH PURITANS.*

IN spite of the reputed impossibility of "seeing ourselves as others see us," there is always a charm in making the attempt to look at ourselves from an outside point of view, and so dis- • Pori Salralion ; or, the Ecangelia. By Alphonse Daudet. Trsnslated by C. Barry Meltzer. London; Chatto and Windtm. covering "how it strikes a stranger." M. Daudet's last book, therefore, deserves to be studied by English people, whether in the original or in Mr. Meltzer's excellent translation, as it shows sus how the latest form of Protestant—or, far more truly, Puritan—fanaticism strikes an intelligent and thoughtful man who has not had his senses blunted to religious eccentricities by being brought up in the midst of them, as English and Americans are. No doubt, an Anglican may reasonably resent being told by the cure, in L'Evanggliste, that the Reformed Church is, " Une religion sans discipline, oh tout le monde entre comme an moulin, croit ce veut, peut meme jouer au pretre, si cela l'amuse." " Aussi, voyez quel ghchis de sectes, de croy-

ances Vous avez les Irvingiens les Sabat-

tistes les Wagers, dont tonte la devotion consists it se frappes la poitrine is grands coups de poing ; [a sect we must confess to never having heard of before] les Derbystes, rebelles is tout organisation ecclesiastique les Metho- distes, les Wesleyens, les Mormons, les A.nabaptistes, les

Hurleurs, les Trembleurs Quoi encore ?" We may, indeed, repeat, " What more ?" and hold resolutely that between ourselves and many of the sects named above there is a deep gulf ; but there can be no doubt that to the eyes of a foreigner, and especially of a Roman Catholic, the gulf is but a small one, and in this humiliating classification we do but "see ourselves as others see us.'

The whole plot of the book turns upon the alleged existence of a small Puritan sect in Paris, started and dominated, ap- parently, by one woman, and holding much the same tenets and doctrines as what M. Daudet calls " L'Arrnee du Saint" in England. We may as well say at once that our feelings towards the Salvation Army and its French counterpart are very much those of a man who is compelled to have constantly before his eyes a coarse and degrading caricature of a face which he has loved and honoured from infancy ; but we are unwilling to believe that the " Army " can ever have descended to such practices as the " Evangelists " are accused of, and we must think that much of what M. Daudet alleges of them is only part of a "roman parisien," as he calls his work. This sense a caricature throughout rather spoils the power of the book ; in the most really impressive scenes a certain feeling of unreality steals in, one cannot help thinking it is a bad dream, from which one will soon waken, and perhaps the most prominent idea left on one's mind at the end is the time-honoured,—" Et, surtout, mon ami, point de zele !" Nevertheless, some of the minor scenes in the book can hardly be surpassed in tenderness and pathos ; and we only grieve that these so soon disappear, before the baneful influence of " l'Evangeliste."

Jeanne Autbeman and Eline Ebsen are the heroines of

the story. The former, daughter of a wealthy Lyons merchant, is, we are told, of a "race emportee et froide, an caractere de volonte et de melancolique exaltation." Mother- less, and left to the charge of an old aunt, " d'un protestautisme 4troit, exagere, noye de menues pratiques," the aunt's teaching finds congenial soil in Jeanne, who grows up beautiful and delicate, intensely earnest in her narrow views, and longing to devote herself to religious work for life. Engaged at eighteen to a young Genevese missionary, the delightful prospect of sharing his labour absorbs all her ideas ; she is really attached to her future husband, and would probably have played a noble part as a missionary's wife, and found a safe outlet for her energies in some heathen land ; but her father loses all his money, the marriage is broken off by the young missionary's mother, and the romance of Jeanne's life is over. Soured and embittered by this blow, her religion becomes a matter entirely of bead without heart, and her marriage to a wealthy Jewish banker who worships her, and whom she accepts simply for his money, opens the door to all her wildest dreams of evangelising the world. Her husband, one of her earliest converts, makes no difficulties, and Jeanne, taling as her motto, "Une femme a perdu le monde, une femme le sauvera," starts on her ambitious career. Disgusted by the worldly, irreligious lives going on all round her, realising intensely, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?" Jeanne can see only one way by which this salvation may be made certain,—utter abandonment of all borne and family ties, and missionary work in various parts of the world, backed up by the Autheman gold. Her powerful will and intense faith in herself produce a small number of converts, who as soon as they are converted all appear to adopt " nu long Reliant waterproof" as their invariable costume, and who of

course encourage her in her views, so that by degrees the Christian ideal of self-renunciation becomes an insane asceticism, in which Jeanne herself is one of the leaders. Eline Ebsen is

the daughter of poor parents ; her father gone before her birth, she has been loved and cared for all her life by her mother and

grandmother, the latter just dead when the story opens. Eline and her mother live happily together, Madame Ebsen devoted to her daughter, a-nd'Eline working contentedly as a daily gover- ness. Like Jeanne, she has had a romance in her life, which the impossibility of leaving her mother and grandmother has destroyed ; and now she has consented to marry a man who has never touched her heart, but for whose motherless children she has an intense affection. Full oT a passionate mysticism, to which her cold, Swedish Lutheranism gives her no outlet, full of all the heroic enthusiasm of early youth, and of feelings and ideas utterly uncomprehended by those round her, Eline is at a critical period of her life and only eighteen years old when Jeanne Authemau sets her powerful will upon winning her, and little by little draws her into her net. Of course, the attraction

to Eline is the idea of self-abnegation and devotion to the Saviour which is the one thread of truth running through Madame Autheman's gloomy creed, illustrating the fact, so well expressed by Tennyson, that,— " A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

A lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight."

The steps by which Eline is led to forsake her home, become one of the "Evangelistes," and break her mother's and fiancé's hearts, are too long and too painful to be dwelt upon here, besides having a savour of impossibility about them, as, indeed, the author seems to have felt, when he has recourse to belladonna and nux. vomica to explain some of Eline's doings. She goes, and the frantic mother exhausts herself in efforts to rescue her; but on every hand the wealth and power of the Authemans defeat her, and her story is, not unnaturally, treated as a "roman d'Anne Radcliffe." By the way, we never saw that celebrated romancer mentioned by her Christian name before. The first lawyer in Paris dismisses her story with the half cynical, half tender, and wholly French sentiment, " Toutes les meres sont martyres," and the only person who raises a voice on her behalf is the old preacher and orator Aussandon, who relates her story from the pulpit to a large audience, including Madame Authe- man herself, and winds up with words which we give at length in the original, for their truth, as well as beauty :—

"Dieu bon, Dien de charite, de pitie, de justice, pasteur d'hommes et d'etoiles, vole quell° caricature us font de ta divinite travestie ear leur image. Qnoicpte to les ales renies et maudits du haat de ton Sermon sur Is Montague, l'orgueil des faux prophetes et des marchands de miracles comtnet toujours des crimes en ton Nom. Bears mensonges enveloppent (run brouillard ta religion de lumihre. C'est pourquoi ton vieux pasteur, charge d'ans et dejh rentre dans la nuit oii l'on se recueille et se tait, retnonte en chaire aujourd'hui pour denoncer ces attentats A la conscience chretienne, et faire entendre is nouveau ta malediction : Retirez-vous de moi; je ne vous ai jamais connus.' "

Aussandon is disgraced and silenced, and an attempt, which, how- ever, fails, is made to put Madame Ebsen into a lunatic asylum.

The suicide of Autheman, who has always suffered from a loathsome disease; and has been slowly discovering that his

wife is absolutely indifferent to him, turns the tide of public sympathy (the cause of the suicide being unknown) towards

Jeanne. Madame Ebsen is forgotten, and lives on alone and sorrowful, until one day Eline unexpectedly returns to her. This is the moment for which the poor mother has so longed, never realising that the separation between her and her child is one of heart, not only of place, and that nothing can reunite those so separated. It does dawn upon her by degrees that, as she writes to Lone Dufresne, " C'est mon enfant, et ca n'est plus mon enfant ;" but she adds immediately, "et, pourtant, je no perds pas tout espoir de guerir ma flue de cette affreuse maladie de tie plus aimer rien ; c'est tine affaire de temps et de tendresse." The tenderness is there, but the time is, purposely, not allowed her. Eline is summoned away to. carry on "the work" elsewhere, and the mother and child part, it is implied, for ever. With this final blow the book closes, and this ending has been so long inevitable, that it is a relief when the axe has fallen and the worst has come. French people, to our shame be it spoken, seem always to have more sympathy with parental feelings than we have, and the whole episode of Madame Ebsen's devotion to her child and her anguish over the separation is intensely touching, in its simple truth to nature.

We regret that want of space prevents our commenting farther on other parts of the story, or on the characters who brighten it by the keen humour with which they are sketched ; but it would require pages of quotation to set before the reader the amusing yet touching story of Lone Dufresne, with his wife and children ; or Henriette Briss, the ex-Sister, with her hopeless muddle-headedness and her efforts at being " pratique "; or the excellent husband and wife Romain and Sylvanire; or the " orateur funebre," Magnabos, cte. Anne de Beuil, we admit, we don't believe in, and are delighted that we see so little of her. We almost owe Mr. Meltzer an apology for not having made our quotations from his translation, which is a most exceptionally good one, indeed the only translation from the French we have ever seen which it is a pleasure to read ; but we can conscientiously recommend it, or the original, to such readers as care for a powerful and telling study of a melancholy phase of religion "falsely so called."