Page:Historical Essays and Studies.djvu/503

 XIX A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By Vol. II French Revolution owes its success to an immense body of accurate detail. He has been the first of our countrymen to consult the whole recent literature of France, including tracts, reviews, and provincial publications. If he has left in comparative neglect the dusty and discoloured prints of the time itself, he may be trusted as a master of the newest knowledge and of the facts as they now are. His clear, plain, un pretentious narrative seldom rises above an even level unbroken by perspective or reflection, and the reader who is never stirred or dazzled or distracted, feels that he has got at last behind the north wind of fine writing and calculated pathos. The reserve and moderation of language, the directness of the appeal to reason, constitute a very real advance.

The difficulty has been to select from the mass of information, and of course there are not two men who would choose alike. At times the author indicates, and seems to announce, something which we should be glad to know, and then disappoints us. Vergniaud, he says, was a far more profound thinker than his associates. This is a good opening. For Vergniaud has been allowed to pass for no more than a superb rhetorician, and everybody would wish to learn what his profound 491