The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-01-11
M. FUNCK- -BRENTANO
TO TELL OF 1.-THE BASTILE AND
 ITS SECRETS"

In Lecture Tonight Under the Aus-
 pices of the New Haven Branch of the
 Alliance Francaise in Osborn Hall.
 The New Haven branch of the AL liance Francaise invites the public to an illustrated lecture in French to be given this evening at o'clock in Os- born hall by M. Frantz Funck-B -Brentano of Paris upon "T'he Bastile and its Se- crets." The subject is one of general interest, and 1t is hoped that a large audience will take advantage of the opportunity to attend this lecture, which is the only one of the series free to the public. Seats will be reserved for members of the association. M. Funck-Bretano is secretary general of l the Society of Historical Research of Paris, and archivest of the Arsenal li- brary, where he has been ever since his graduation in 1885 from the Ecole des Chartes. The lecturer comes to | this country under the auspices of the Alliance Franchise, but he has also a commission from the French govern ment to prepare report upon the diffu- sion of the French language in the United States and Canada.
 M. Brentano has published g. great | deal for a man of his age--he was born | in 1S62-and each of his books throws a new light upon French history; he | has spent his entire time delying among the archives of the Bastile, and those of other famous prisons, and has ob- | tained material which corrects many of the popular beliefs regarding the treat ment of prisoners of state in the sev- enteenth and eighteenth centuries. He has cleared up the mystery of the man
 with the iron mask, and has settled the responsibility in the affair of the diamond necklace, which ruined the reputation of Marie Antoinette, and
 which Goethe called the Preface of the French revolution. MT. Brentano's
 best known books, all of which have been translated into English, are "Le- gendes ct Archives de la Bastile," "Le Drame des Poisons," "LAffaire du Collier" and La Mort de la Reine,' D These are volumes suited to general reading, founded on the authors re- searches and historically exact, yet so l filled with the spirit of humor, and of adventure that they are as exciting and as romantic as tn enovels of Du- mas based on the same subject. @'' -:
 An idea of the purpose of the author in these books may be obtained from the introduction written by Victorfen
 Sardou to the first of the series, in
 which he says: At the worlds fair of 1899 I visited with several friends, as
 did many others, a model of the Bas- tile, which was we'll calculated to give the fatsest idea of it, Close by the en- trance in serni-darkness, on the tradi, tional humid straw, was an old man Imuffed in long white beard, clanking
 his chains and uttering lamentable Icries. And the guide said to the party lwith visible emotion, That is the un' fortunate Latnde, who remained in this lposition, his two arms chained behind his back, thirty-five years I finished lthe tale by continuing in the same tone, More than that, ,tsit3 was ! in this atti Itude that he had the address to fabri cate the 1S0foot ladder which made possible his escape The visitors eyed lme with amazeInent, the guide turned lon me with nla1evolence, and l slipped away The motive which impelled me Ito speak these words was precisely the motive which impelled M. Funck-Bren- itaro to write this book on the Bastile lin which he corrects long standing CT l TOTS and opposes the legends with which everyone is familiar with facts of which lmost people are ignorant"