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 Le tires de Madame Rein hard a sa Mere 787 modify earlier conclusions. The many points with regard to which it might be expected to do so are the negotiations between Kleber and Sir Sydney Smith for the Convention of El Arisch, later repudiated by Ad- miral Keith, and the controversy between Bonaparte and Kleber or their friends as to the condition in which the army and the finances were left by the former. On the first matter the important papers are not given ; nor does the latter difficulty seem to be satisfactorily settled. The editor makes no effort to discuss the controversy carefully (see pp. xvi-xvii), and an examination of the papers does not leave us much better off, though on the whole they support Kleber. As might be expected, the additions to our knowledge made by this publication are mainly as to the personalities of Kleber and Menou, and the methods of civil and military administration ; we are left with vivid impressions of the men, and with fairly definite ideas as to how govern- ment was being conducted. It would be interesting to dwell on the at- tractive figure of Kleber ; IMenou decidedly loses in the contrast. There are some interesting and probably new side-lights on Bonaparte's pre- vious conduct of affairs. Victor Coffin. Lcttrcs dc ][adainc Rcinhard a sa JSIcrc, 1 798-1 8 15. Traduites de I'allemand et publiees pour la Societe d'Histoire Contemporaine par la Baronne de Wimpffen, nee Reinhard. (Paris : Alphonse Picard et Fils. 1901. Pp. xxvii, 429.) This volume of letters will immediately take a place among the most interesting publications of the Societe d'Histoire Contemporaine. Written by the clever wife of a clever and responsible French diplomat, who, during the period covered by the letters (1798-1815) filled important posts at Florence, Berne, Jassy, Cassel, and in the Foreign Office at Paris, they furnish, as far as they go, a trustworthy record of the reaction of the French Revolution upon a number of smaller European govern- ments, and teem with lively descriptions of persons and of places. The harvest of political fact, however, is not as considerable as it might have been if Madame Reinhard had not felt that she owed a certain considera- tion to her husband's position, and that she must not trust too deeply in a mail system which, in a period of wars and violence, was only too often operated for the benefit of one's enemies. But a reticence occasionally and voluntarily imposed does not, it will be recognized, impair the general spirit of probity and sincerity in which the letters are conceived. They were addressed to the writer's mother, before whom Madame Reinhard had no secrets, and such is their ease, uprightness, and charm- ing, impressionistic volubility that they secure her a place among the masters of that difficult art of letter writing, in which none but women seem to arrive at excellence. These statements disclose where the real significance of this volume lies : not so much in new political facts as in personal appreciations of well-known contemporaries, and in vivacious