Louis XIV. in Court and Camp. By Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Haggard,
D.S.O. (Hutchinson and Co. 16s. net.)—Colonel Haggard tells us in the preface of this work that he learned no more of French history at school than "the expression sans-culottes, and that historical shibboleth The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes." And it is doubtless for those as unhappily educated as himself that he has written Louis XIV. in Court and Camp, which has all the vices of popular history. Being written in the flippant style of the journalist, it makes little demand upon the attention, and may be read as easily as a novel. But the information which it conveys is as misleading as that furnished by the imitators of the elder Dumas. Colonel Haggard can never resist the temptation to exaggerate, and he sees most things in a false relation. This is the more to be regretted because he has evidently read the memoirs of the time with some diligence. Indeed, he would have been wiser had he suppressed his own opinions and given his readers extracts from Saint-Simon and the rest, accurately translated. For his own judgment is very often at fault. To describe Louis XIV. as "a monster of vice who ruled in the name of religion" is to make an obvious epigram and to miss the truth. Colonel Haggard appears to think that the dominant trait in the Duo de Bourgogne was a childish piety. Had he remembered Saint-Simon's analysis of that remarkable youth's character, he would surely have revised his opinion. However, we need not criticise this gossiping book too seriously, and for those who wish to pass the time it will serve as well as the last novel of the sword and cape.
NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS.
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