The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-02-19
reign of Louis XIV. Macmillan Com

reign of Louis XIV. Macmillan Com
pany.
History was never made more trans
parent and reasonable, or more vivid
and dramatic than the history of
| France in the hands of Mr. Watson.
| In the first place, Mr.. Watsons point
| of view is intensely modern; his ideals
and criteria are modern. When he
comments upon a 9Th century saint or
10Th century princess we know with
what he is comparing them.
Again, Mr. Watson handles his mat
ter in a sympathetic, interested fash
ion; that is to say, he is not the cold,
unmoved, detached chronicler of re-
mote events, but the narrator of oc-
currences in which he personally is
concerned. He is not afraid to have
emotions and to express them. To him
hJoan of Arc is the poor child, the
poor girl, the glorious country girl"
| "a helpless country girl" and the
miserable child Yet. again, Mr.. Wat
| son is democratic in his philosophy,
/ he sympathizes with the masses in
their long, slow emergence, and can
Write history from the point of view
OF the laborer and the mechanic.
| The author himself gives the most
complete idea of the intention and ex-
tent Of the book. 1t has been his pur-
! poses, he says, to lay before his read
ers a clear narrative of the gradual
development of a great people
! to note the varying forms of govern
ment, to trace the ancient origins of
modern laws and customs. to mark the
encroachments of absolutism upon
1 popular rights, to describe the long
| contlnued struggle of the many to
throw off the yoke of the few, to em-
| phasize the corrupting influence Of the
! union between church and state; to
! illustrate once more the blighting eff
fects of superstition, ignorance, blind
obedience, unjust laws, confiscation
under the disguise of unequal taxes
and a systematic plumber year by year
OF the weaker classes by the stronger. .
Mr.. Watson's style of narrative is
enough to make Macaulay and Gibbon
gasp. 1t is bold racy, picturesque and
unconventional to a degree. The fol-
| lowing paragraphs, which conclude the
second volume, Illustrate better than
any description can the charm of the
historians manner. He is depicting
the state of affairs at the close of Louis
XV's reign:
There is something appalling in the
levity, the unconscious gayety, with
| which the French mobiles rushed to
their doom. Warning voices had been
raised, but not needed.
''Voltaire had predicted revolu-
ton; Lord Chesterfield had done so:
the king himself had done so; it was in
the air; and yet the privileged classes
laughed and chartered and made love,
intrigued and feasted and made merry.
put every thought on the cut of a
coat the set of wig, the phraslng of
a jest, the connection of a sauce. the
/ choice of perfume and the seduction
OF women, who, in most cases, were
willing to meet them halfway
Like bevy of bacchanals, mad
dened with wine and garlanded with
flowers, the old French nobesse reeled
TO It's doom, riotously gay TO the last.
1t was as though a carnival roliickine.
through sunny streets. had met the
Pale Horse and its rider at the turn
or the street, and the shouts of revelry
mad changed to shrieks of fear and
pain-aS light, life and joy We're 4strik-
en- down by swift, appalling Death"