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 546 Revieivs of Books cessible about the earlj' history of the Franciscan Order and its chief members, for the scholarly editions of new texts, and for the indefatiga- ble zeal with which he has labored on even the most minute points. Histoire de la Marine Fram^aisc. Vol. II. La Guerre de Cent Aiis; Revolution Maritime. Par Charles de la Ronciere. ( Paris : Plon, Neurit and Co. 1900. Pp. 560.) M. DE LA Roxciere's new volume is devoted mainly to the Hundred Years' War, but wi^h regret it must be said at once that one rises from the perusal of it with little more knowledge of the effect of naval action upon the course of that long struggle than one had when one began. Facts it is true are lavished upon us with a profusion that tells of infinite labor and an unsurpassed enthusiasm for research. But facts and research alone will not make a naval history. Rather for the bulk of readers do they tend by themselves to deepen the obscurity that hangs round an obscure subject. Without some sustained attempt to correlate the apparently dis- connected events, to deduce from them some kind of principles, to explain their bearing on the development of naval science, and their general place in the broad progression of the war, such a work sinks to the position of a chronicle. It cannot be called a history. Yet M. de la Ronciere almost chokes his subject with ill-digested facts. He spares us nothing, no matter how minute and how little germane to the matter in hand. He can scarcely draw breath for a moment to help us get our bearings, and even when he does his exposition is sometimes far from luminous and not always sound. Nor has he the excuse that his main purpose is to rescue from oblivion the exploits of the French marine. For the greater part of his story is not concerned with the French marine at all, but is devoted to the exploits of Spanish, Italian, and other squadrons hired by the French government or with which French officers or French ships were serving. Not that such matters should not find a place in a history of the French navy, for therein lies its universal interest and importance. As M. de la Ronciere himself has so ably pointed out, France through- out the Middle Ages was the focus of the naval art. Every existing in- fluence was brought directly to bear upon its navy and left its mark. To explain the French navy all these influences must be followed and under- stood. A real history of the French navy would be also a real history of the art of war by sea. Around no other marine could the work be so artistically and logically arranged. But of this broad fact, which in his first volume M. de la Ronciere seemed about to handle with so much skill, his grip grows looser as he proceeds and we feel with genuine dis- appointment that a great opportunity is being missed. Nor can our reluctant fault-finding stop here. For so far from carrying further our knowledge of the strategy, tactics and material of medieval navies, he leaves it behind the point it has already reached, and even tends to cover up what other workers to some extent have laid bare. The antiquary's lack of interest in the living professional aspect of the