rel- I hope we are neither of us quite silly enough to do that- but it would be ridiculous to pretend that we shall ever be upon affectionate terms. Indeed, it is not likely that we shall often meet." As for Sir George's proposition, she scouted it with all the indignation that her son could have desired. It was a gross insult she affirmed - the last of many which had been addressed to her from the same quarter. Of course, its sole object. was to produce an estrangement which Sir George had been laboring through all these years to bring about, and she begged that Willie would write an emphatic refusal in her name on the morrow. Nevertheless, when the morrow came she withdrew her refusal. She had talked matters over with her husband in the interim, and he had persuaded her that she was not only entitled, but bound, for the sake of both her children, to accept this shred of a large fortune which would otherwise go a-begging. Archdale was fully alive to the meanness of an offer which, in the event of his wife's premature decease, would throw him once more upon his own resources; but he pointed out that it would be both ungenerous and useless to deprive poor Willie of his inheritance, saddled though it was with conditions which never ought to have been imposed upon him. So, for Willie's sake, Marcia consented to pocket her pride and the money. She said she had never yet hesitated to make any sacrifice for Willie's sake, and it was too late in the day to begin now. It may be strange, but it is certainly fortunate, that her son was able to believe in her sincerity. As she predicted, he has not seen a great deal of her since his marriage; for the Archdales have once more made their home in Italy, and at Blaydon, where the young people spend a good part of their time, they could scarcely be made welcome guests. However, they were good enough to spend the whole of the last season in Willie's London house, and there seems to be every probability of this becoming an annual custom. Archdale's resolution to work hard has not as yet borne much fruit; but he says with truth that he has always been a slow worker, and adds that he owes it to himself, as well as to the purchasers of his pictures, to eschew haste. Marcia and Lady Evelyn are as good friends as their respective natures will allow them to be, which, to be sure, is not saying much. Yet their respective natures have, accord ing to their respective ways, one point in common; and if between them they have not yet managed to spoil Willie Brett, that is only because he is one of those rare human beings whom it is impossible to spoil. From The Quarterly Review. PROVINCIAL FRANCE.* IT is a noticeable fact that, in these days of easy and swift travelling, the countries which lie nearest to the British Islands are less well known to Englishmen than they were a couple of generations ago, in the era which preceded the development of railways in Europe. Even more recently than that period, a member of Parliament, who had spent the recess in studying American institutions at New York or Philadelphia was looked upon as a praiseworthy example of adventurous self-improvement. Nowadays, if a legislator rises in committee on the Foreign Office to enlighten the House from his personal experiences of Portuguese aggression and German intrigue among the equatorial lakes of Africa, his narrative is outdone by that of another, who has ascended the Karun River to checkmate the Muscovite in the heart of Persia, while a third will thrill the dwindling senate with wild stories of the seals in Behring Sea, and of the midnight sun of Alaska. Nor is distant travel the exclusive privilege of our law-makers. The worthy mayor of a provincial borough is quite competent to lecture on a winter evening to the Athenæum of his native town upon his pil 1. France as it is. By André Lebon and Paul Pelet. London, 1888. 2. Murray's Handbook for Travellers in France. 17th Edition: Vol. I. 1886. Vol. II. 1890. London. 3. Itinéraire Général de la France. Par Paul Joanne. Franche-Comté et Jura, 1888. Bourgogne et Morvan, 1889. Le Nord, 1890. Gascogne et Languedoc, 1890. Paris. Par Adolphe Joanne. Paris, 1890. 5. North-Eastern France; South-Eastern France; South-Western France. By Augustus J. C. Hare. Three volumes. London, 1850. 6. Days near Paris. By Augustus J. C. Hare. London, 1889. 7. La France Provinciale. Par René Millet. Paris, 1888. 8. French and English: a Comparison. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. London, 1889. 9. France and the Republic: a Record of things seen and learned in the French Provinces during the Centennial Year 1889. By William Henry Hurlbert. London, 1890. 10. The Roof of France; or the Causses of the Lozère. By M. Betham-Edwards. London, 1889. Life and Customs in Aveyron and the Lot. By G. 11. Our Home in Aveyron, with Studies of Peasant Christopher Davies and Mrs. Broughall. Edinburgh, 1890. grimage from Jaffa to Jerusalem, in the well-horsed landaus of Messrs. Cook, and thence to the Jordan Hotel at Jericho; but he must not trifle on the way with comparative descriptions of the tunnels of Mount Cenis and St. Gothard, as the passage of the Alps is familiar ground to the critical aldermen and burgesses of his audience. In the mean while the countries at our doors are unknown to us. British tourists have vulgarized the Fair of Seville, and the American twang echoes through the halls of Grenada, yet no one in these days knows the Peninsula as did George Borrow, when he wrote the "Bible in Spain," though to reach Vigo and Lisbon then entailed a sea voyage, longer and more perilous than is the transit of the Atlantic now. But nearer still to England there lies a fair land, every acre of which has at one time or another for well-nigh a thousand years been associated with the history of Great Britain, and, save for some portions which are least characteristic of its nationality, it seems as if the acquaintance of travelled Britons with its soil had not been able to survive long the obliteration of the lilies of France from the escutcheon of George III. In writing thus we have not in mind the peregrinations of that accurate observer, Arthur Young, the record of whose experiences in France on the eve of the Revolution have recently been reprinted. We were thinking rather of the journeys of less ambitious itinerants of the more recent generation, which commenced its Continental travel when peace was proclaimed after Waterloo, and only changed its method of locomotion through France when railways commenced to traverse that country in the later days of the July Monarchy. In many an English country home there are collections of faded letters, signed with names, some of which have since become illustrious and nearly all of which have passed away, dated fifty years ago or more from Abbeville or from Beauvais, from Dijon or from Bourg-enBresse, recounting the incidents of the French highways, the humors of the villages, the costumes of the peasantry. Such travellers as these, who in leisurely and costly fashion followed the conventional route, disregarded as a rule the advice which Arthur Young had given to his countrymen, that, if they would view the finest portions of the kingdom, they should land at Dieppe, follow the Seine to Paris, then taking the great road to Moulins, they should pass through Auvergne, and striking the Rhone at Viviers, should enter Italy by way of Aix. Nevertheless, the ordinary traveller, who was content to follow the beaten track without exploring the bye-ways recommended by the enter prising Suffolk squire, returned from his tour with considerable knowledge of the people of the land he traversed and of their way of life. Nowadays, though a thousand British people and Americans pass through France for every one who entered the country in the days before railways, the number of men and women speaking the English language, who are acquainted with provincial France, is probably less than those who have visited Zanzibar or Formosa. The Channel packets disembark myriads of passengers every year on the shores of Picardy and of Normandy; the most glittering quarters of Paris are cosmopolitan rather than French, and British rather than cosmopolitan; the accents of Bloomsbury and of Boston are heard on the boulevards, and the habiliments of the Anglo-Saxon tourist are the cynosure of Parisian theatres; each winter brings its hordes of gamblers, triflers, and valetudinarians, to a strip of the Mediterranean littoral, which is France only in the sense that Corsica is, and at the same season pleasure-seekers of the same race ride to hounds across country in the Basses-Pyrénées.. Statistics are annually published to display the proportions of these rushing, idling crowds, and not one in twenty thousand of them knows as much about the land through which the express trains hurry them, as does a Western pork-packer of the ethnology of the Indians who once inhabited the regions on the track between his marts at Chicago and Omaha. Quaint old towns a few leagues from the main line, like Auxerre with its glowing cathedral, or Rodez with its triple terraced belfry, are secure from the incursions of scampering wayfarers; but it is strange that places not less attractive actually on the tourist trail should be neglected. Of the summer crowd which hastens on to Switzerland through Amiens and Bâle, rarely does one ever stop to climb the hill which is crowned by the lofty towers of Laon. Of the winter sunseekers making for the Riviera, hardly ever one is found to rest for a day at Orange, beneath the colossal shade of the Roman theatre. At every season of the year is thronged the railway line to Bordeaux and the Spanish frontier, but the only passengers who alight at Angoulême are the ambassadors of commerce, who are not attracted thither by a taste for Romanesque architecture. stored. No Englishman, unless he resides in France, can gain more than a superfiThe books which we have before us cial knowledge of provincial life; but most include in their survey the whole area of of our fellow-countrymen are in complete France. The volume by Messrs. André ignorance of even the surface of French Lebon and Paul Pelet, entitled "France existence. The key to knowledge of a as it is," is a remarkable work, not only most important portion of life in France on account of the amount of information is an acquaintance with the administrative it contains upon the administration, the system of the land, which touches the politics, and the finances of the country, very foundations of French society. The but also from the fact that it is a transla first essential of a guide-book is that it tion of a work which has never been shall be of portable size; the second, that printed in French. M. Lebon is chef de it shall be easy of reference so that he cabinet to the president of the Senate; who runs may read. Both of these qualbut he is engaged in a work of higher ities are admirably exemplified in Mur importance than his official duty. He ray's handbooks, and later imitations of is one of the most instructive lecturers these time-honored travelling companions of the talented staff of the Ecole Libre are a tribute to the excellence of their des Sciences Politiques, where he has form. It is not possible, therefore, for among his colleagues Messrs. Léon Say, such a work to be arranged according to Boutmy, Francis Charmes, De Foville, and departments or provinces; it must of nethe two Leroy-Beaulieu. This admirable cessity follow the railway lines of commuinstitution, which has its home in the Fau-nication; but as a supplement to the bourg St. Germain, provides special courses of instruction for men who have completed their university education, and who wish to enter an official career in the diplomatic, the administrative, and the colonial services. We hope that before long M. Lebon will republish a series of the lucid and impartial discourses delivered in the Rue St. Guillaume, which are too terse and too full of matter to be lost in the note-books of students, however attentive; and the useful treatise before us, excellent as it is as an outline sketch of French institutions, does not represent a tithe of the author's knowledge of the elements which form the France of to-day. It is the fashion of a certain class of travellers to sneer at the persons who make use of guide-books. The adventurous voyager, who has spent a fortnight in Paris and a winter at Nice, despises his humbler compatriot who is not ashamed to confess the limits of his Continental experience. The modest tourist, who on a brief holiday is able to examine only a couple of French cities under the guidance of a good handbook, provided he does it thoroughly and intelligently, may flatter himself that he knows more about France than his scornful friend, who has jostled with the heterogeneous crowds on the plage at Dieppe, in the pesage at Long champ, and in the Casino at Monte Carlo. We would encourage all travellers to commence their explorations with the companionship of a good guide-book, but we would counsel them, if they have time at their disposal, not to be content with the concise stores of information therein abbreviated lore of the indispensable scarlet manuals, we would recommend the use of the series of little volumes which bear the name of the eminent geographer, Adolfe Joanne, who has fortunately given to the world copious results of his labors before his lamented death. These departmental geographies are published separately, and each contains a complete view of the department described. Its name is explained, its history is narrated, and its limits defined. Its physical characteristics are given with minuteness, the condition of its population is treated statistically, and a full account is afforded of the agriculture, industry, and products, of the department. The administrative divisions are tabulated in convenient form, and in a dictionary of the communes to the name of every town and village within its boundaries is added a brief mention of each object of interest to be found therein. The serviceable and inexpensive little books are made complete by illustrations of considerable merit, and by an accurate map of the department colored according to its arrondissements. With the aid of "Murray's Handbook " and the "Géographies-Joanne a rapid traveller, whose baggage is as limited as his time, can make a survey of the country round about his halting places, which will be full of living interest and of memories of the past. If he has the leisure to settle down in a locality and thoroughly explore it, and is willing to burden himself with a library, he may study with advantage the larger volumes edited by M. Paul Joanne, which we have no hesitation in saying are the best guide-books in existence. Calais to Paris, which with one or two Another volume by Mr. Hare which is before us, with its exquisitely finished sketches from the pencil of the author, entitled "Days near Paris," might seem not to come under the heading of provin cial France, but it is a curious fact that just beyond the boundaries of the department of the Seine, even that part of the country which is so near to Paris as to have suburban relations with the capital, has not much of the Parisian element in its characteristics. Versailles, for example, excepting on a fête day, or on one of the rare occasions when the National Assembly is convoked, is the respectable sleepy chef-lieu of the Seine-et-Oise, with a self-contained society and interests which have little relation with Paris, though at night the glow of the lights on the boulevards illuminates the eastern sky. The Ile-de-France, though it has always | vastating the fabric, it is not easy for been dependent on the capital, preserves one to realize how often during the ages features of its own as marked as those of the quiet old town has been beset with Touraine or of Burgundy. Mr. Hare fire and sword. Stories of its sieges by conducts us, in his "Days near Paris,' ," the Burgundians and the sacking of its almost beyond the limits of Parisis, as the churches by the Calvinists belong to the metropolitan province was called. In the dim distance, but in the life-time of old best of good society, with Madame de inhabitants, who still sun themselves on Sévigné and with Saint-Simon, we tread Sunday afternoons at the jeu de paume by the noble terraces of Chantilly; with Viol- the banks of the Aisne, its tranquil streets let-le-Duc we learn to recognize the beau- were occupied by the ten thousand Rusties of the steeple-pinnacles at Senlis; and sians in 1814, whom Marmont could not so to the woodlands of Compiègne, where dislodge without the destruction of ancient we wander with our guide till suddenly, monuments; and in our own day for three like a palace in a fairy-tale, the towers October nights was Soissons bombarded of Pierrefonds rise from out the forest, by the Prussians before its brave garrison guarding the borderland of the Soissonais surrendered on the fourth autumn mornwherein Picardy touches the fringes of ing. This constant encounter with scenes, the vine country of Champagne. wherein the history of this century has been violently made, is a feature of travel in provincial France, which especially strikes an Englishman, the soil of whose country has for many a generation had no more thrilling legends connected with it than are written in its parochial records. The region, of which a vast expanse meets the eye from the turrets of the Château de Pierrefonds, is one of the most characteristic portions of France. It is not only within easy access of Paris, but all parts of it can be reached in a short half-day from London. Starting thence One of the volumes before us is the within an hour of noon, the traveller can work of a versatile American journalist, dine before the day closes in old-world and we hoped that it would contain a more cities, the repose of which is rarely dis- complete account of this interesting region turbed by the sight-seer or the tourist, in than has hitherto been published in Enspite of the historic memorials they con-glish. Although we found from the contain and of the beauty of the land. This tents-table of "France and the Republic region comprises the greater part of that the title of the book was somewhat Picardy, including the departments of the misleading, as the headings of its chapters Somme, the Oise, and the Aisne, and so showed that it only described six of the much of the ancient province of Cham- eighty-six departments, we nevertheless pagne as is contained within the depart-anticipated a valuable and thorough examment of the Marne. The lovely forest of Compiègne is comparatively well known, but just on its borders there lie a number of picturesque towns which are rarely visited by English people. There is Villers-Cotterets, standing in the midst of the woodlands which bear its name, with its once magnificent Renaissance château, now converted into a hospital. The Revolution, which swept away many a castle hereabouts, left this one untouched, but it had already been ruined by the Duc d'Orléans, who in the reign of Louis XV. devoted twenty years and three millions of francs to its mutilation. About half-adozen leagues from this peaceful spot, where the older Dumas first saw the light, stands a famous city whose name is sometimes met with in his romances. This is Soissons, which, centuries before Pepin le Bref was proclaimed king there, had commenced its stormy history. Resting beneath the shadow of its beautiful cathedral, which is an example of how a restoration may be effected without de ination of the important districts taken |