THE SCRUTINEER.
Eliza Jane. "'Ere, that last one didn't seem like a full sack to me."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Not the least attractive feature in Madame Waddington's new book, My First Years as a Frenchwoman (Smith, Elder), is the revelation, undesignedly made, of a keen-sighted, vivacious, exceedingly womanly woman. During her residence in France as the wife of a highly placed Minister she had rare opportunity of watching the progress of historic events from a favoured standpoint behind the scenes. When she married M. Waddington, in later years known to this country as French Ambassador, the National Assembly was sitting at Versailles. Thiers, first President of the Republic, had been overthrown and MacMahon reigned in his stead. Madame Waddington was brought into personal touch with these statesmen, with their successors, Jules Grévy, de Freycinet, Carnot and with their varied entourage. Of each she has something shrewd, sprightly and informing to say. While immersed in international politics, perhaps not wholly free from anxious conviction that she was in some measure responsible for their direction, she had a seeing eye for frocks. Frequently, when describing social gatherings at the height of political crises, she stops to tell you how some lady was dressed and how the apparel suited her. Amongst other men of the epoch she has something to say about Blowitz, the famous Paris correspondent of The Times. It is evident that, without premeditation, he managed to offend the lady. She reports how Prince Hohenlohe expressed a high opinion of the journalist, remarking, "He is marvellously well-informed of all that is going on." "It was curious," writes Madame, "how a keen clever man like the Prince attached so much importance to anything Blowitz said." For the side-lights which it flashes on high life in Paris at a critical period of the Republic the volume possesses exceptional value.
The subtleties of human motives, the fine problems of temperament, the delicate interplay of masculine logic and feminine intuition, what are these compared to blood, thunder, plots, counter-plots, earthquakes and, from the final chaos, the salvage of the "sweetest woman on earth" effected in the nick of time by a herculean and always imperturbable hero? Mr. Frank Savile is not out to analyse souls. The opening chapter of The Red Wall (Nelson) plunges us into a fray, irrelevant to the narrative save in so far as it introduces Dick Blake and Eileen O'Creagh and removes any possible doubt that might ever have been felt as to their respective merits and their mutual suitability. That preliminary complete, we proceed to the real business of the agenda, and momentous, passionate, nefarious, diabolical, mysterious and incessantly exciting business it is, covering the gamut of private emotions and international complications. In such narratives I demand three things: the first, that my author should combine a graphic (and grammatical) style with the professional knack of imparting an air of probability to his tale; the second, that things should go all wrong in the beginning and come all right in the end; the third, that if any German schemers are involved these should be eventually outwitted. Mr. Savile has abundantly satisfied me in all particulars; although I incline to carp at the opportuneness with which nature is made to erupt from time to time, and I venture to suggest that men and women never were and are probably never going to be like Dick and Eileen. The book is, however, of the sort which is to be read and enjoyed but not considered further.