Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/571

 Perkins: Richelieu and t lie Grmvtii of l''reiieli Potvcr 561 But Mr. Stevens's book makes it clear to us that the worth of the man did not he in his mathematical and scientific genius, rate it as high as you can, but in his fine character, his perfect fidelity, his freedom from personal views. His will evinces the same business-like care with which, through life, he had performed all those of his duties to which selfish- ness could not urge him. The volume is pretty. It is not surpassingly so ; but then, when the printing was begun, we were not yet tired to death of the rather fanciful imitation of the sixteenth-century Roman type. There is an in- dex which seems to have an entry for about every fifty words of the text. I forgot to mention that there is interesting information in the book about de Bry, Jacques LeMoyne, Captain John White, William Sander- son, Robert Hues, and others. But I am too ignorant of American his- tory to venture upon that ground. C. S. Pkirce. Ricliclicn and the Growth of French Power. By James Breck Per- kins, LL.D. (New York and London : G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1900. Pp. xiii, 359.) About fifteen years ago Mr. Perkins presented studies of the great Cardinal in his France under Mazarin. Although he modestly called these a "Review of the Administration of Richelieu" they treated the subject almost as extensively as the present work, but with less emphasis on the personal side of Richelieu's career. The biography is not to be considered a mere rewriting of the same material. A comparison of the two accounts shows that Mr. Perkins has approached the subject with opinions substantially unchanged, and yet with his thought of it con- trolled by additional years of investigation and reflection. Indeed, it is remarkable to how small an extent there are verbal similarities in the statement of what is necessarily the same matter. Since his previous work the publication of two volumes of M. Hanotaux's Histoire dii Car- dinal de Richelieu, a work which Mr. Perkins himself says ' ' will remain the permanent record of the great Cardinal," has enabled Mr. Perkins to compare his own results upon the subject as far as 1618 with those of the distinguished French historian and statesman. The conception of the man in the pages of the two writers is not dissimilar. Upon one's first reading of Mr. Perkins's description of Richelieu's earlier career one feels that he has made the transformation of the Cardinal's conduct too abrupt at the time of his accession to power. The ambitious intrig- uer, who uses the bishopric of Lu(on merely as a stepping-stone, and who is not above taking the attitude of fulsome and servile flattery towards the Queen-Mother, suddenly appears as the farsighted statesman, who was selfish, it is true, but only because he had determined to be him- self the instrument of carrying into effect his designs. A second read- ing shows this to be a carefully worked out conception of Richelieu's career. Hanotaux puts the matter in this way: " Jusque-la, il avail marche, contraint et courbe, dans les avenues de I'ambition et de 1' intrigue. A peine au pouvoir, sa taille se redresse," etc.