MARIA. CAROLINA, QUEEN OF NAPLES. .,
A Sister of Marie Antoinette : the Life-Story of Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples. By Mrs. Bearne. With 32 Illustrations. (T. Fisher Unwin. 10s. 6d. net.)—Mrs. Bearne's researches among the chronicles of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are always profitable and interesting. Her new book is valuable in more than one way. It carries her readers into fairly fresh fields, for the history of Italy and of Naples during the Revolution and the Empire is not very familiar to the English public. Also the lively Queen, one of Maria Theresa's most remarkable children, has been blackened remorselessly and far beyond her deserts by writers who can see no merit in a woman who dreaded and hated both tho Revolution and the Napoleonic power. For instance, Mrs. Bearne strongly defends the Queen from the accusation of having anything to do with the cruel execution of Luigi& di Sanfelice. She declares the charge to be a " most iniquitous falsehood," and her plain language certainly seems to be justified by facts. Maria Carolina was at Vienna at the time, and Ferdinand, easygoing on the surface, had been irritated by difficult circumstances into the violence and cruelty which lay at the root of his Neapolitan nature. The story of these years is painful, but must always be interesting to English people, if only because it includes the romance of Nelson and Lady Hamilton. And the Queen herself gains by intimate knowledge. With many faults and follies, her "warm heart, high spirit, and strong affections" made her a worthy daughter of the great Empress, and her courage in adversity befitted the sister of Marie Antoinette.
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