ages is La France au temps des Croisades, by M. Vaublanc, which has lately made its appearance at Paris, in four handsome octavo volumes. It is the fruit of long and conscientious researches, and is written in a style of seductive elegance. The author is no dry chronicler, or plodding statician, but an artist, fully alive to the picturesqueness of his topic. He carries his reader with him into the time and the scenes he describes, and makes him a participant in the romantic and adventurous life of the period. His book is thus as entertaining as it is instructive.
A convenient book of reference for those who deal with the more recondite and interesting questions of history is the Statistique des Peuples de l'Antiquité, by M. Moreau de Jonnés, just published at Paris. It is a work of great erudition and even originality. All sorts of facts as to the social condition of the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and Gauls, may be gathered from it. Another new work of a similar character is entitled Du Probleme de la Misére et de sa solution chez tous les Peuples Anciens et Modernes, by M. Moreau Christophe. Two volumes only have been published; a third is to follow. Price $1.50 a volume.
A translation of M'Culloch' Principles of Political Economy has appeared at Paris, in four vols. 8vo. The translator is M.A. Planche.
Louis Viardot has published in Paris a Histoire des Arabes et des Mores d'Espagne. The excellent translator of Don Quixote ought to produce a striking work on this subject. The Count Albert de Circourt, too, has published a new edition of his Histoire des Mores Mudejares et des Morisques; ou des Arabes d'Espagne sous la domination des Chrétiens. Few topics in history have been until recently so much neglected as that of the Moorish races in Europe, and a good deal of what has appeared on the subject has been put together rather with a view to romantic effect than with a proper respect for the responsibility of the historian; though all Spanish history, Christian or Saracen, so abounds in romantic interest that there is less excuse, as less necessity, for outstepping the limits of truth, or giving undue prominence to the pathetic and marvellous. From this defect of most of his predecessors, the work of the Count de Circourt is in a great measure free. He has made a dexterous and conscientious use of the materials within his reach, and produced a work which unites to an unusual degree popularity of style with matter of great novelty and interest. There are few spectacles in modern times more attractive, or hitherto more imperfectly understood, than the condition of the Spanish Moors, from the time when they became a subject race, until their final expulsion from Europe in 1610. The reason why more attention has not been given to this subject, must be looked for in the fact that the expelled people were Mahometans, and that they took refuge in Africa, not in Europe. They had not, as the Protestants of France had, an England, Holland, and Germany to sympathize with and shelter them;—though, taking it with all its consequences, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was not a more important event in history, or more pregnant with injury to the power that enforced it, than the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. In folly and perversity the last transaction has pre-eminence. Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, when he and his empire were at the summit of their power; but Philip III. chose the luckless moment for expatriating the most energetic and industrious of the inhabitants of Spain, when the virtual acknowledgment of the independence of the Dutch, and the concession to them of free trade to India, now assailed the prestige of Spanish supremacy in Europe, and the commerce of Portugal, at that time subject to Spain. From that hour the Peninsula declined with unexampled rapidity; and though, in course of time, the progress of decay became less marked, it was not finally arrested until two centuries after, when the invasion of Napoleon re-awakened Spanish energies, and freed them from the trammels which had impeded their development. Two centuries of degradation are a heavy penalty for a nation to pay for pride and intolerance; though not heavier than Spanish perfidy and cruelty to the Moors most richly deserved. In accordance with his design of treating of the Moors as a subject race, the Count de Circourt has given only a brief summary of their early history when they were ascendant in Spain. With the rise of the Christian and decline of the Mahometan power, the subject is more minutely, but still succinctly treated, the four centuries from the capture of Toledo to that of Granada being comprised in the first volume. The two remaining volumes are occupied exclusively with the history of the Moors from the overthrow of Grenada to their final expulsion from Spain. The various efforts made to convert and control them, and their struggles to regain their independence and preserve their faith, are copiously treated, but a subject so peculiar and hitherto so unjustly neglected, needed early discussion. We know not where the character of that worst species of oppression, where the antagonism of race is aggravated by differences of creed, can be so advantageously studied as in this portion of Spanish history. Nor is the early history when the Moors, still a powerful people, were treated with comparative consideration by their antagonists, deficient in traits of the highest interest, and lessons which oppressors of the present day would do well to lay to heart.
We observe that M. de Circourt agrees very nearly with Madame Anita George (whose views upon the subject we recently noticed in The International) respecting Queen Isabella. He says:
"The Spaniards speak only with enthusiasm of this Princess. They place her in the rank of their best monarchs, and history, adopting the popular judgment, has given her the title of "Great." If we consider merely the grandeur of the fabric she erected, the appellation will appear merited; if its solidity had been taken into consideration, her reputation must have suffered. Nations in general make more account of talents than of the use that has been made of them. They reserve for princes favored by fortune the homage which they ought to pay to good and honest princes, who have exercised paternal rule. They deify him who knows how to subjugate them. Thus it happens in all countries that the king who has established absolute monarchy is styled the great king. But it happens often that such founders have built up the present at the expense of the future. In Spain absolute monarchy sent forth for a time a formidable lustre, and then came suddenly a protracted period of progressive decay, which ended in the revolutions of which we have been witnesses. Barren glory, shameful prostration, interminable and possibly fruitless revolution, are all the work of Isabella."
This is very different from the estimate of Mr. Prescott, but perhaps more just. In his forthcoming Memoirs of the Reign of Philip the Second, Mr. Prescott will have to trace the results of Spanish policy toward the Moors. We shall compare his views with those of MM. Circourt and Viardot.
M. de Villemerque has translated the Poème des Bardes Bretons du VI. Siècle, and the book is praised by the French critics.
Louis Philippe's last apology for his policy as King of the French has just made its appearance at Paris, and justly excites attention. It is a pamphlet written by M. Edward Lemoine, and bears the title of L'abdication du roi Louis Philippe racconteé par lui méme. It is the report of a series of conversations which M. Lemoine had with the deceased King during the month of October, 1849, and which he was authorized to give to the world after his death. The writer gives every thing in the words of Louis Philippe, as they were uttered either in reply to questions or spontaneously in reference to the topics under discussion. The exiled monarch defends his conduct in every particular with ingenuity and force, dwelling especially on his abdication, on his refusal to yield to the opposition and admit the demanded reform, which brought on the revolution, on his abandoning Paris with so little effort at resistance, on his peace policy, and on the Spanish marriages. He denies emphatically that he or his family had thought of or undertaken any conspiracy with a view to recovering the throne. His children, he said, had been taught that when their country spoke they must obey, and that the duty of a patriot was to be ready, whatever she might command. This they had understood, and in all cases practised. Accordingly they had always been, and always would be strangers to intrigues.
As for his persistence in keeping the Guizot ministry, that was commanded by every constitutional principle. That ministry had a majority in the Chambers as large even as that which overthrew Charles X.; how then should the King interfere against this majority? Besides, had not what happened since February demonstrated that he was right? The policy of every government since June, 1848, had resembled, as nearly as could be conceived, the very policy of the ministry so much and so unjustly complained of.
Guizot
