These charming volumes come before us with every claim to interest. The author is a Frenchman without national prejudice—a mere boy in years without either self-sufficiency or vain-glory—a nobleman of high degree without morgue or arrogance, to whom fortune has allotted an inestimable opportunity of improving the gifts of nature by sending him as companion to the young Duc de Penthièvre, on this easy, pleasant 'Voyage round the World.' All these conditions unite to predispose the reader to a series of novel emotions in traversing an already beaten track. The Duc de Penthièvre is introduced to us as a young man of high intelligence and sterling character, who, in spite of his youth, had already seen six years of service in the United States' navy, and gained promotion therein by merit alone—not as homage to his position as scion of a royal house. The princes of the House of Orleans have been apt scholars in the great school of adversity. It would be well for France if the lessons they have been learning could be turned to account in the government of their own country. We learn from M. de Beauvoir's preface that, during the space of three months, three princes of Orleans left Europe to see if in some distant land they might not utilize their talents and energy, as at present they were unable to devote them to the service of their own. The Duc d'Alençon entered the Spanish service, and took command of the artillery during the glorious expedition to the Philippine Islands; the Prince de Condé went to India and Australia, where death cut him off at the commencement of his career; and the Duc de Penthièvre, the Prince de Joinville's son, started on a voyage round the world. No greater proof of the great change which has come over the social world of France could be found than this announcement made so simply by our author.
The two volumes under review are devoted to Australia, Java, Siam, and Canton. The novel judgments of men and things, attributable to the extreme youth and exceptional position of the writer, gives an entirely original insight into the manners and customs of the higher classes of these different countries. Naturally enough, we turn at once to Australia. Throughout the whole of the volume which treats of Australia, the national pride of the English reader is gratified to its fullest extent, not by empty praise of material wealth and rich produce, but by solid admiration of the perseverance, tenacity of purpose, and high intelligence with which the mother country has resisted all temptation to impose a yoke upon her distant children; and has thereby caused their hearts to cling closer to her own, than those of her nearer and dearer progeny. We can readily sympathise with the pleased astonishment which seizes upon the Marquis de Beauvoir, when he contrasts the wise abstention from all interference in the local government of the colony, with the petty and vexatious pressure of French authority in Algeria.
One instance of the equity of the law as practised in the colony, contrasted with the following of its mere letter, peculiar to the tribunals of Europe, we cannot pass over.
'In going through the workshops we remarked two native blacks, mere children, and utterly hideous, but with a perfectly gentle expression. Their extremely white teeth exposed to view by a mouth split from ear to ear, formed a strong contrast with their black skins, as their jolly and perpetual laugh did with the dress which is worn by those condemned to hard labour for life. Their appearance was so cheerful, that we were naturally much interested in them. Besides, there was a great deal in their novelty as aborigines.' All interest in these merry culprits was, however, at an end, when the visitors were informed that one of them had murdered three sailors, and the other had waylaid and hacked to pieces two white women. They had not been condemned to death, because 'they were natives—and none of the aborigines had as yet been hung—their instincts and belief being so different, that with them murder is no crime; they are tamed more by gentleness than cruelty.'
The Marquis expatiates, with true youthful ardour, upon this generous forbearance, and declares that a government professing such principles after invading, in the name of civilization, a country occupied by a barbarian race, deserves the admiration of all Europe. The records of Sydney law confirm the distinction made between barbarous native and civilized colonist; for a little while after, seven white men, having murdered a family of natives, were hung without mercy, to give a good example to the rising generation of the young colony, who are taught to pity the blind, ferocious instincts of the native race, and to feel contempt and horror of the civilized white men guilty of the same cold-blooded atrocities.
Life in the bush has charms for our youthful author as great as those of the handsome drawing-rooms of Melbourne and Sydney. After much visiting amongst the highest circles of Sydney—banqueting at the Government House, and dancing in the spacious halls of the great officials of the colony—the buoyant spirits of the young Marquis lead him to throw himself, a corps perdu, into the delights of savage life. His enthusiastic description of the visit to Mr. Capel—the arrival of the party at the hut inhabited by the triple millionaire, on the banks of the Murray river—the glee with which he recounts the danger of fording the stream, while the horses were left to swim to the bank as best they could, and the subsequent scramble up the muddy side to Mr. Capel's dwelling, will make many an English boy's eyes sparkle with delight and envy as he reads.
We can only mention the journey through Java, Siam, and Canton. Much of the interest lies in the description of the court of the King of Siam, rendered familiar to the English public by the recent account of the 'English Governess.' At Hong Kong, the author's admiration of English rule again breaks forth. And we take our leave of the distinguished party, of which he appears to have been the very life and soul, with hearty thanks for the boldness with which the young Marquis has dared to assert his conviction that the English alone are fitted to found a colony, and that no other nation is possessed of the patience, the calmness, and true sense of justice which are needed to render the natives submissive to civilization and the yoke of the foreigner.
Fair France. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' Hurst and Blackett.
At a time when France is torn and tortured by the most terrible war the world has ever known, it seems strange to open a volume of peaceful travel in the beautiful country which most of us know so well, and which has undergone such an unparalleled transformation. The authoress (pace Thackeray) of this charming volume is well known to the public as a novelist, and however critical judgments may vary as to her artistic power, of her purity of tone and freedom from the vicious tendencies of modern fictitious literature, there can be no question. For our own part, we find her even more agreeable as a tourist than as a novelist. She looks at the world with unprejudiced eyes; she finds that even French curés are human beings, and not the frightful demons that they appear to the excited imagination of the honourable member for Peterborough. We have, in these days, been accustomed to travellers of many kinds: there is the sensational tourist, who bursts into mysterious eloquence on the slightest provocation; and there is the cynical tourist, who with upturned nose regards all the world as a gigantic imposture—looking up into the dome of St. Peter's, or down into the crater of Etna, and contemptuously remarking that 'there is nothing in it.' But the truly pleasant traveller is the man or woman who starts with intent to enjoy the trip, who looks at the bright side of everything, and who, writing a book, writes cheerily and gaily. This is precisely what we find in 'Fair France.' The dedication deserves to be quoted: 'I inscribe "Fair France"—France of yesterday—to those heroic and suffering souls in the France of to-day, who yet suffer in hope, seeing light through the darkness, and believing in a new and nobler "France of to-morrow."' That new and nobler France is no dream of the ivory gate. This siege of Paris, to which the siege of Troy seems trivial, will purge the French people of many evil qualities, and leave them greater than before. This is the belief of all who know them well—who know how their higher life has been eclipsed by noxious influences. However this war may terminate, and whatever may be the fate of the country of Lothair, it is pretty certain that the fatal follies which have misguided the French people are now exploded for ever.
The Land of the Sun. By Lieutenant C. R. Low. Hodder and Stoughton. 1870.