New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1912-06-14
FICTION
Patriots, Peasants, Financiers.
Reporters and Ghosts.
TWO BOOKS BY RENE RA7,N

TWO BOOKS BY RENE Balm.
THE, CHILDREN OF ALsACE. Giles
ace by DIR. Angelo S. Rappoport. l2mo.
PIP. 262 The John Lane Company.
THE PENITENT by Rene Balm l2mo,
| PIP. 28. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
Company.
Rene Balm. one Of the leaders Of the
young French school of novelists that
has broken decisively with the increas-
ingly malodorous psychologico-natur
istic tradition Of the SOS and 9Os. was
| introduced TO American readers some
years ago with TRANSACTIONS of THE
Nun" and one or two other books. A
realist he decidedly is, and a serious one,
peculiarly sensitive to suffering and mis-
cry, but also to the sterling qualities of
courage, devotion and self sacrifice
which life in its stern, bare manifesto
lions sometimes fosters in simple silent
souls He is ALI ardent patriot, also. the
! friend of the peasantry. the lover OF the
soil Of France. the protestant against
conditions that, in his opinion, con-
stantly and increasingly sap her
strength.
! les Oberles." the story that, with La
Terre Out Meurt," probably attracted
most attention in France and abroad on
account Of their message. apart from
their literary quality, was published
eleven years ago. 1t is rather strange
that this book, with its vivid presenta-
ton of the social and family conditions
and dissensions which German anneXa-
1 ton has created in the conquered prov
ince, has not been translated into Eng
! fish before. The present version, from
an anonymous pen is a good piece Of
work. In the drama of the three gen
erations that have overlapped each other
in the Reichsland since 1870 NJ Bazin
shows us the national soul of a people
divided against itself: the irreconcilabe
attitude OF the elders, who are fast dis
appearing, the motives of accommoda-
tion of their children, mixed of often
noble promptings and material interest;
and a renascent French national con-
seriousness in the children approaching
manhood and womanhooG to-day. The
| process of Denomination succeeds with
| them. and again It fails, even in the
same family.
Thus it is with the Oberles. The
grandfather, a former protestant men,
Der Of the Reichstag. is dying with I'M
| dying hatred in his heart; his son has
| Germanized himself. because in that
course he has seen the material interests
of his people; his granddaughter, edu-
Gated in German schools. is betrothed TO
Prussian lieutenant, but her brother.
destined for q career in the German
| bureaucracy, makes the match impos-
sible by deserving on the eve OF his
years service in the army, recalled to
| his French allegiance by his return TO
the Alsatian soil
The book made a deep impression on
| both sides Of the Rhine at the time Of
| its first appearance. 1t IS admirably
well written, vivid in its revelations oe
conditions in the Reichsland.
In THE Penitent," which is called
"Donatienne" in the original, NJ. Balm
returns to the peasantry Of France. In
La Terre Qui Meurt." whose scene is
laid in the Vendee, he dealt with the
dwindling life Of the rural population o:
France whose younger generation hears
the call Of the cities as potently as that
Of any other nation. The heroine Of
THE Penitent" is a Bretonne. who,
leaving the farm which yields her and
her husband but the scantiest Of liveli-
hoods for themselves and their three
children, goes to Paris to earn money as
a wet nurse. There she succumbs to tho
temptations OF pleasure, ease and what
! TO her is luxury. The story OF the de-
serted husband. Loyalty. lovingly. mar
ticulately serving his children as best
he can, and of the wife whose disillu
sion is sharpened by longing for her Off
/ spring, and by the Catholic puritanism
Of her race, is told with impressive sim
picity, with an economy of resource that
will convince even the foreign reader,
unfamiliar though he may be with the
! fundamental characteristics OF the SOM
bre Celts that the Bretons are.