Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/902

 892 Reviews of Books much as mentioned. The part played by women is scarcely noticed. Herein Dr. Blok has rather fallen away from his promises. The scien- tific student of Netherlandish history will however richly enjoy this work, with its copious reference to authorities, both in foot-note and special chapters, its excellent indexes, and the colored maps accompanied with proper annotation in every volume. Certainly in critical value Blok's history has no rival. William Elliot Griffis. Rome et Napoleon III. {184P-1S/0). Etude siir les Origines et la Chute du Second Empire. Par £mile Bourgeois et £. Clermont, avec une Preface de G.vbriel Monod. (Paris: Armand Colin. 1907. Pp. xvii, 370.) This is an important book. First, it illustrates that fine disinter- estedness which characterizes contemporary historical scholars in France. They have the good fortune to be placed within reach of material which their brothers in Germany and England are denied. There is nothing so kind to a historian as a successful revolution if it un- earths the material he requires. Since 1871, or more properly since about 1885, Republican France has been lavishly pouring out state secrets concerning the Republic of 1848 and the Second Empire. As a political move what could be shrewder than to expose the blunders and wickedness of Louis Napoleon's regime? The dullest Frenchman can hardly wish to restore the Empire, when he has seen the Empire as it was. What historian does not wish that he might have equally free access to the archives of Prussia and Germany from i860 to 1890, instead of having to depend on official historiographers, who naturally write to fit their story to the prescribed Hohenzollern legend? Fear of lese-majcstc does not conduce to impartial writing. But the French wish to do more than discredit Imperialism ; they are earnestly bent on profiting by their national failures. It is the purpose of learning from the recent past what to shun in the present and what to pursue in the future that gives to a monograph like this of MM. Bourgeois and Clermont its impress of actualitc, as the French themselves call it. And the general spirit of veracity, even when veracity exposes French blunders, makes their work disinterested. In the next place this book traces for the first time the results of Napoleon III.'s meddling in Rome. We have had hitherto a mass of testimony, both French and Italian, in regard to the Roman E.xpedition of 1849 ^nd the September Convention ; we have also a good deal of material about the preliminaries of the War of 1870 and of the attitude of Italy and Austria after war was declared: but MM. Bourgeois and Clermont are the first to show, in a single volume, the causal sequence between the three crises. With commendable openness they follow step by step the insincerity which prompted the Prince President to de- spatch (ludinot's corps to suppress the Roman Republic of 1849, and