Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/325

 I 1920 SHORT NOTICES 317 M. Bernard, in volumes xxx to xxxiii, writes an interesting study of Brest in the eighteenth century, with a map showing that Brest, including Recouvrance, was already a town of 20,000 people, mainly engaged in the royal navy and its arsenals. In volumes xxxi and xxxii M. B. Pocquet du Haut-Jusse studies ' La vie temporelle des communautes de femmes a Rennes au xvii^ et au xviii® siecle.' In ' Le gouvernement de la Bretagne sous la duchesse Anne ' (vol. xxxii), M. L. Maitre shows that all acts of sove- reignty over the duchy were exercised by her husband Charles VIII, and that Louis XII, though to a less extent, followed his example when, by marrying his widow, he also secured control of Brittany. Yet the two kings respected the principles of the Breton constitution and allowed their wife to be more than a nominal duchess, since in her household and in her sympathies she was able to keep up the Breton traditions to which she was devoted. Details of Anne's household are appended. The late M. J. Allenou's unfinished study of the church of Dol and its estates, contained in volumes xxxii and xxxiii, has also been separately published, and its value has been noted by Mr. Round.^ M. L. Dubreuil writes in volumes xxxii and xxxiii studies of the revolutionary leaders Joseph le Normant de Kergre and Jean Marie Baudouin de Maisonblanche, and M. P. Viard examines in volumes xxxii and xxxiii ' Les subsistances en Ille-et-Vilaine sous le Consulat et le Premier Empire '. T. F. T. Three contributions deserve notice in the last four numbers of the Annates du Midi (Toulouse : Privat, 1917-18). In nos. 115 and 116 Professor J. Calmette studies the siege of Toulouse by the Normans in 862, criticizing the incidental discussion of this obscure event by M, F. Lot and still more by M. L. Levillain. He claims to have brought out the sequence and meaning of the facts in a clearer and more coherent order. In nos. 117 and 118 M. F. Pasquier publishes a full-sized facsimile of an interesting charter of Berengar, count of Barcelona in 1023, along with a transliteration and an exposition. It is the sale of the castle of Castelviel near Rosas. Its diplomatic is interesting ; it is dated 15 Kal. Sept. in the 27th year of Robert king of the French. The composition, handwriting, and business-like method of the document show that even in the eleventh century the secretarial work of the counts of Barcelona was extremely well executed. There is no seal, and last among the numerous signa is that of ' Poncii cognomento Bonifilii, clerici et iudicis, qui hoc scrips! et subscripsi '. In the same issue M. J. Regne prints an interesting letter in Proven5al in which Count John of Armagnac, constrained by the citizens of Toulouse, who had revolted against a poll-tax in 1357, remits the unpopular impost and promises to pardon the insurgents. Unluckily for the Toulousains, the count immediately escaped from their hands and at once threw over his sacred promises. The document is a good example of complete submission, too complete perhaps to last. Arma- gnac's attitude, both in his surrender and in his breach of faith, is substan- tially on all fours with that of his rival Edward III when he accepted and then repudiated the proposals of the parliament of 1341. T. F. T.
 * Ante, xxxiii. 260-1.