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    416 NOTICES OE BOOKS.

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    ... Maitre Jpierre. Par Edmond About. A ...

    do there" settles the destiny of tlie nation . This accounts for the , amusing * reverence with which the French regard our Lord Mayor ;

    it accounts , too , for M . About ' s surprise when he finds young men about town in Bordeaux tolerably au courant in matters of artistic

    and other gossip . His book will surely have amused the Parisians , whatever other effect it may have had . The Frenchman who was

    complaining * lately of the decay of French style , owing to the use of teacoffeeand tobaccoinstead of tlie native winecannot have read

    , , , , M . About's books : they are models of sharp , _" incisive " writing ; every word tells . At times we are almost wearied by the constant

    brilliancy , and long to whisper to the writer that if history cannot be written in a siring of epigrams , surely agricultural statistics have

    sty a much le . But smaller , however chance un of -Eng being lish treated in form , of ct Maitre successfull Pierre y in " is such both a

    interesting and amusing . I ? empire c'est la paix : ' the book might have been written by one

    cautiously desirous of recalling the Emperor to his promise . Amid his funhis patliosand his Flemish accuracy in painting interiors ,

    M . Abo , ut never , forgets that the _progres , the battle against poverty and bad tillage and decay promised in that motto , are wliat

    . France really wants , —what Frenchmen must aim at for themselves , without waiting for the " " Government" to initiate the movement _.

    This comes out in every other page . Maitre Pierre , the genius of improvement in the Landes , starts his works himself ; rouses ,

    persuades , cajoles his fellow-peasants into working with him by themselves . He is very willing to have help from Paris ; he hopes M .

    About will tell all about him and Ms doings , and that a Paris company may take up his grand canal ; but of the Government lie

    says , " All-that is very well to force people to do necessary works , as whenfor instancethe first Napoleon took away the ' dunes' from

    the communes , which , declined planting them , and sending down a commission from the ' woods and forests , ' planted them all , and

    made them State property , until expenses were repaid by the timber ' and _turpentine ; but it is a costly plan . Government does everything

    dearer than other people : their trees cost them more , and they get less for the wood when they sell it ; besides , the Government moves

    _slowlyT This is very significant language . M . About is a friend of the present Emperor . Doubtless the Emperor , who knows England

    so welland who knows what private enterprise , unhelped , has done for uswoul , d desire nothing better than to make tlie French feel the

    , how are valu so e much of fond self has - of help quoting been _—r-the done , necessity " Aide in France -tot of , acting et within le del on the that tfaidera last princi . " dozen ple By which the years way they in ,

    the way of internal improvement ! Look at the change in their roads ; _, they are nowin most artsperfection itself—well arched , well

    drained—the , " cantonnier p with , his tools always at work finishingthem off ( for they don't seem to want any repairs ) at every two kilos _,

    of distance . Seetoothe active reparation of churches and other , ,

    416 Notices Oe Books.

    416 NOTICES OE BOOKS .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1862, page 416, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021862/page/56/