in Metz is met together to attend a service in memory of the soldiers of France fallen during the siege. During that service something larger than herself takes possession of the heart and soul of the little dressmaker. 'Elle se sent chargée d'une grande dignité, soulevée vers quelque chose de plus vaste, de plus haut et de plus constant que sa modeste personne.' Coming out of church, she turns to the kind and fervent young Prussian who accompanies her: "Monsieur le docteur," dit la jeune fille, "je ne peux pas vous épouser."'

Maurice Barrès also is like his heroine Colette. 'Il se sent chargé d'une grande dignité, soulevé vers quelque chose de plus vaste, de plus haut, et de plus constant que sa personne.' He has gone far since first we met him, half-mystical, half-quizzical, rapt in the cult of the Ego. The nervous melancholy, the poignant and bizarre imagination, the strange discordant genius, have broadened out into a large and meditative calm. Instead of the 'Culte du Moi' he now proposes to us a code of honour, a practice of solidarity, a habit of contemplation— Honour, as in Corneille; Love, as in Racine; and such a contemplation as the sweet French landscape naturally inspires. Penser solitairement, c'est s'acheminer à penser solidairement,' he exclaimed half-ironically in 'Les Deracinés'; and with him at least it has been true. If we sink deep enough into our own souls, we fall into the general soul of all. We find the deep subterranean flood that fills all the fountains of the city! And now the hermit of St Germain-on-the-Meurthe is the founder of Nationalism, the instigator of a glorious local life, heroic, dreamy, passionate and moral,' the prophet of a Federalism (of a Regionalism, as he would say), in which every province shall preserve its peculiar shade of feeling, its ties with the past, its own physiognomy.

The danger of such an autonomous local life would be the dissociation of France; and the remedy that Barrès proposes is the restoration of the Catholic Church and the cult of great men. The grand figures of history are the natural educators of a nation-their intercessors,' their patrons, and their patterns. Pascal and Corneille are surely more to France than St Denis! In Goethe, with his moderation and nobility, the German frontier reveals its nobler soul; in Il Greco, the visionary painter,

a whole side of Catholicism is revealed. Each great genius is a résumé and a revelation of a group of human beings, a circle of ideas; and the man who can grasp, were it but three or four of these illustrious epitomes, has enlarged the capacity of his nature and is more capable of comprehending humanity. Barrès of late has given us several studies of his heroes-a Pascal, a Greco ; and we hope he will add to their number at least a Corneille, a Chateaubriand, and a Goethe-natures with which his own has obscure and intimate affinities. He appears at present engrossed by the ecstatics; although, as he admits, 'de tels états ne semblent pas compatibles avec la grande civilisation, et par exemple avec l'emploi de chef de gare.'

And certainly he will give us another novel-one is announced for the autumn. With what curiosity we await it! Barrès at fifty, with his slow-ripening nature, is in the prime of his powers. He is younger by several years than the Cervantes who composed 'Don Quixote'; younger than Anatole France when he began to tell of M. Bergeret and his times. For these reflective, melancholy natures, the latter season is the best; their autumn roses bear a lovelier flower. An intimate experience of life, a vast perspicacity, a noble detachment, joined to a sensibility still poignant and romantic, make the ultimate harvests of their minds an incomparable nourishment. They have felt, they feel-these wise Elders-the implacable mystery of our human destiny. They meditate, they accept; and their philosophy has learned that there are regions, bottomless gulfs of unconscious life from which all our activities emerge, like coral islands that seem to float upon the sea. Beneath the surface there are whirlpools and deep stratifications; they know it, and admire all the more the little we can touch, or see, or feel-the brief and frail efflorescence of an incomprehensible abyss.

MARY DUCLAUX.

Art. 7.-FRENCH RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE.

1. A History of French Architecture from the reign of Charles VIII till the death of Mazarin. By Reginald Blomfield, A.R.A. Two vols. London: Bell, 1911. 2. The Architecture of the Renaissance in France. By W. H. Ward, A.R.I.B.A. Two vols. London: Batsford, 1911.

3. A History of Architectural Development (The Architect's Library). By F. M. Simpson, F.R.I.B.A. Vol. III. London: Longmans, 1911.

THE issue of a book by Mr Blomfield on the French Renaissance is an event in the world of Architecture. The same wide-spread and well-merited appreciation which met his work on Renaissance Architecture in England will certainly be extended to the volumes under notice. The form in which he has cast his work may not commend itself generally; he has not given a continuous narrative in chronological order, nor detailed descriptions of particular buildings, nor summaries of the chief French architects in biographical sections. His book is largely a collection of essays, some of which'The Italians in France,' 'The Master Builders,' 'NeoClassic Architecture in the sixteenth century,' and 'The Jesuits in France'-are in themselves valuable treatises; but, admirable as his exposition is, this plan has certain defects. For instance, the large class of readers, looking for succinct accounts of great buildings like the Louvre and Fontainebleau, will look in vain, and will have to range through centuries of time and hundreds of pages. No doubt Mr Blomfield's plan is the better for literary treatment of the subject, as allowing a greater breadth of outlook and a more effective presentation of arguments. And this presentation is greatly assisted by a number of excellent illustrations-process-plates of existing buildings, reproductions of engravings of some of those which have perished, and, best of all, a selection-only too small-of Mr Blomfield's own charming drawings.

The other two books on our list need not delay us long. Mr Simpson's third volume concludes his 'History of Architectural Development.' The author, considering Italy as the fons et origo of the Neo-Classic style, devotes

the greater part of his book to its architecture. only about a quarter of it is allotted to France, his survey of French architecture is necessarily little more than an abridgment; but, however cogent the demands of brevity, surely Jean Bullant deserved more than four lines. This volume is well up to the standard of its predecessors, lucid, well-arranged and accurate save for a few trifling slips. Laurana was a Dalmatian, not a Florentine; and the style of architecteur' seems to have been first applied to a certain Pierre Paule in 1534, and not to Serlio in 1541. Mr Ward's work represents much labour and research; it is copiously illustrated and divided into 'styles,' to each of which the name of a king has been given in somewhat arbitrary fashion. The return of Charles VIII from Italy (1495), the liberation of Francis I (1526), and the beginning of the religious wars (1562), mark the epochs of French architecture far more exactly than the accession of a particular monarch. For purposes of reference this system may be useful, but, from excessive subdivision, it is fatal to literary form. Each 'style' is virtually a book by itself, and not always clear and coherent in arrangement. Still Mr Ward's book fills its place as a manual, and will prove valuable to the student. His estimates of social and political forces, and of their effect upon architecture at various epochs, are sound and sufficient. The book is brought down to 1830-Mr Blomfield's closes at the death of Mazarin (1661)-and thus allows a consideration of the growth of Rococo, and the subsequent Greek reaction during the Republican fervour at the end of the eighteenth century.

In his historical survey and in matters of building science Mr Blomfield is a safe guide. He is not merely brilliant in his survey; he is intimate and comprehensive, and lays under contribution the 'Comptes des Bâtiments du Roi,' documents of great value and interest, which have hitherto escaped the notice of English writers. These refer to works undertaken during the sixteenth century, and give in minute detail the procedure of building in these times. On paper the system of departments and checks seems as if it ought to have been efficient; but when a king is paymaster, the leaks are sure to be frequent and costly. At least this was De

l'Orme's experience when he overhauled the royal accounts after the death of Francis I. In questions of taste those who disagree with Mr Blomfield will have to admit that he does not state his views without giving adequate reasons. And there is never any doubt as to what his views are. He is strong in his dislikes and preferences. He is perhaps hardly just to the early master-masons who built Chambord, Chenonceaux and Madrid (near Paris) and remodelled Fontainebleau and St Germain ; and he cannot forgive them for not having been taught by trained instructors. Yet these men were of the same breed as those who reared the incomparable piles of Reims and Chartres; and they failed over their early efforts in the Neo-Classic style because the task which confronted them was an unfamiliar one. Generations had toiled over pointed arch and vaulted roof before the builder's hand gained skill enough to compass the triumph of the great cathedrals; and it is scarcely just to throw such hard words at the occasional imperfections of men set to build after a style which was as antagonistic and unfamiliar to their ideals and training as a Latin composition, after the manner of Tacitus, would be to an elementary school master. They failed because they had not grasped the constructive principles of Renaissance design. Mr Blomfield's indignation would be more justified were these early builders commonly rated as equals of Lemercier and Mansart; as it is, they are raised to undue eminence by writers such as Palustre and his followers.

Every treatise on the Revival in France begins with a dissertation on the invasions of Italy by Charles VIII and his successors. The first expedition (1494) marks the end of a political epoch with more than ordinary precision, and as such is generally recognised by historians, who seldom pay much attention to art. But in the history of French architecture that date is as important as it is in the history of States. The Italian influences, which then began to make themselves distinctly felt north of the Alps, necessitate for the art historian who discusses this epoch a careful study of Italian conditions. He must have more than a general idea of the art which glorified Italy at the end of the fifteenth century; he cannot even confine himself to the architectural triumphs which Arnolfo, Brunelleschi, Alberti, Michelozzo, Peruzzi and