Lives and Times of the Early Valois Queens: Jeanne de
Bour- gogne, Blanche de Navarre, Jeanne d' Auvergne et de Boulogne. 'By Catherine Bearne. Illustrated by Edward H. Bearne. (T. Fisher Unwin. 10s. 6d.)—Only those who have done something of the same kind of work will understand the reasons for the partial failure of Mrs. Beanie to make her characters stand out quite clearly from the details which surround them. Two processes are needed. Firstly, the narrator's own mind must have absorbed everything that can be drawn from history, chronicle, or memoir.. That Mrs. Bearne has done. Every page shows most recognisably what a labour of love this compilation represents. She justly says that "around the princes of the house of Valois there seems to linger a special fascination, somewhat like the halo that has always hung over the Stuarts. Their courts were so brilliant, their adventures so romantic, they themselves so handsome, so distinguished, so charm- ing in the manners with which they veiled their very reprehensible conduct I" The three Lives, which cover the early part of the fourteenth century, are illustrated by masses of most interesting detail, and, as in the account of the battle of Poitiers, are sur- rounded by skilful and vivid narrative, easy to read and to remember. But, secondly, in writing personal monographs, by mental discrimination and literary art the narrator must either keep back the unimportant or advance the principal in- terests. That Mrs. Bearne has not done. We hope very much that she will continue her studies in this fresh field of. work ; but, when she does give us more, will she try to realise—what no one steeped in a subject does by nature realise—that general readers need some assistance 1 They like the author to suggest gently that, of course, they will remember that character, when it lived, and how it was connected with William the Conqueror's land- ing, or the destruction of the Armada, or something which they feel quite sure about. The style, illustrations, and appearance of the book, as well as its many and varied points of attraction, show that Mrs. Bearne means not only to interest scholars, but alsotolgive pleasure to any historically minded person. To a certain extent she succeeds ; but the general reader, unless by chance he is familiar with the period, might have to take more pains than that person likes to do before he could grasp the unities of the biographies. When he does, he will be delighted with the world into which Mrs. Bearne takes him. One reflection must be added. We trust that no one will be provoked nowadays by the exaggerations of the peace meetings into thinking that war is the school of all the virtues. All its horrors came out in the public and private wars of the Valois Princes, but with those tares, too, appears the wheat of endurance, courage, loyalty, and honour, and sometimes a simple piety scarcely grown in furrows not so deeply ploughed,
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