_Histoire de la Révolution Française_, (1789-1799,) Par THÉOD. H. BARRAU. Paris: Hachette. 1857.
We cannot vouch that we have here a new, original history of this important epoch, based on an independent study of historical sources; but it is the very first history of the French Revolution we have known, not written in a partisan spirit, and bent on falsifying the facts in order to make political capital or to flatter national prejudices. It bears no evidence of any tendency whatever,--perhaps only because, with its more than five hundred pages, it is too short for that.
_Histoire de France au XVI. Siècle_, par MICHÉLET. Tom. 10. _Henri IV. et Richelieu_.
Michélet is too well known as a truly Republican historiographer and truly humane and noble writer, and the former volumes of this history have been too long before the public, to require for this volume a particular recommendation. It begins with the last _décade_ of the sixteenth century, and concludes with the year 1626. We are no particular admirers of Michélet's historical style and method of delineation, but we acknowledge his sense of historical justice, his unprejudiced mind, and his Republicanism, even when treating a subject so delicate, and so dear to Frenchmen, as Henry IV. Doing justice to whatever was really admirable in the character of this much beloved king, he overthrows a good many superstitious ideas current concerning him even down to our days. He shows that the Utopian, though benevolent project, ascribed to Henry, of establishing an everlasting peace by revising the map of Europe and constituting a political equilibrium between the several European powers, never in fact existed in the king's mind, nor even in Sully's, whom he equally divests of much unfounded glory and fictitious greatness. No doubt, but for his fickleness and inconsistency, Henry could have done a good deal toward realizing such ideas and reforming European politics; but it is saying too much for Henry's influence on the popular opinions of Europe, to affirm, what Michélet gives us to understand, that he could have combined the nations of Europe against all their depraved rulers together.
_La Liberté_, par ÉMILE DE GIRARDIN. Paris. 1857.