she doesn't know herself.' Her loyal biographers were obliged to suppose that Lucchesi visited her in Brittany. But M. de Reiset has lately discovered a letter from the Duchess to her husband, and two letters from Lucchesi to her, which, if genuine, prove that she paid the Court a visit at the Hague in the late summer of 1832. She made her way from Brittany in the disguise of a peasant. That she should have been able to do so corroborates what we are told by Mme de Boigne about the anxiety of the French Government, until Thiers came into power, to give her every opportunity to leave the country. It is harder to understand why she was allowed to return to Nantes; and still more difficult to suggest a reason why it should have been left to chance to disclose, so many years after the event, the evidence which would, if produced at the time, have refuted the ill-natured gossip of enemies and faithless friends. We may, if we please, accept the vindication of the Duchess of Berry, but we cannot greatly blame Mme de Boigne for a scepticism which she shared with Charles X and his advisers.

It would not be difficult to fill many pages with extracts which, even when robbed by abridgment and translation of all the grace and vivacity of the original, would still be entertaining. But we shall better deserve the gratitude of our readers by urging them, if they have not already done so, to take up the Tales of an Aunt.' They will not find it easy to put down the volume when once in their hands, unless it be to take up another. It is difficult to turn to any page without lighting upon some brilliantly sketched scene. What can be better than the picture of Mme de Krüdener on her knees with her Imperial votary, praying for such things as the Tsar himself can bring about, and trusting that he will do so for the sake of proving to himself and others that the purity of his soul makes his prayers more efficacious than those of other mortals? Or that of Chateaubriand, after the Revolution of July, pacing up and down his study, his head swathed in a red bandanna, while he pours abuse on Charles X and his Ministers, and, stopping opposite a shelf containing his works, exclaims, 'But what can I answer to those thirty volumes facing me? No, no! they condemn me to throw in my lot with these wretched creatures. Who knows them better? Who despises,

who hates them more than I?' Or Talleyrand supported by two footmen on his painful deathbed, awaiting the King of Terrors with the same calm imperturbability which had enabled him to pass almost with dignity through the most trying scenes of his tortuous career, and using his last breath to utter a courtly compliment? Or M. Thiers offended that Mme Adelaide should have laughed because, when looking at the portrait of Turenne painted on his dinner-plate, he had said, 'That is what I should be-what I am!'

But we should never stop were we to attempt a catalogue of even a small part of the good things which have delighted us in these reminiscences. We have pointed out that not everything the author says is to be accepted as historical fact. The many memoirs and collections of letters published since she wrote have thrown a clearer light on many of the transactions related, and on the character of those concerned in them. Mme de Boigne, as we have said, had little insight into the deeper and more permanent causes of political change, or into the growth and influence of ideas which she neither liked nor understood, But the personal causes, the follies and faults of the rulers, which had so much to do with the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, are placed vividly before us; and we are made to realise that the optimism of the talented Guizot and of his master, the 'modern Ulysses,' was hardly less blind and obstinate than that of the fatuous Charles X and his imbecile minister Polignac.

P. F. WILLERT.

Art. 15.-THE NEAR-EASTERN QUESTION.

I. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

1. L'Europe et la Question d'Autriche. By André Chéradame. Fourth edition. Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1906. 2. The Whirlpool of Europe: Austria-Hungary and the Habsburgs. By A. R. and E. Colquhoun. London: Harper, 1907.

3. Questions d'Autriche-Hongrie. By René Henry. Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1908.

4. The Political Evolution of the Hungarian Nation. By Hon. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen. Two vols. London: 'National Review' Office, 1908.

5. Racial Problems in Hungary.

By Scotus Viator (R. W. Seton-Watson). London: Constable, 1908. 6. The Development of Hungarian Constitutional Liberty. By Count Julius Andrássy. London: Kegan Paul, 1909. 7. Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Ungarische Reichsidee. By 'Mercator.' Budapest: M. Rath, 1908.

ANY attempt to look at the Near East from the point of view of the Austro-Hungarian nationalities is rendered especially difficult by the fact that questions of foreign policy are excluded from parliamentary debates in those countries. The only assembly in which such subjects can be discussed is the so-called 'Delegations,' two bodies composed of members representing in equal proportions the Austrian Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom. Onethird of the members of the Austrian Delegation are chosen by the Upper Chamber of the Reichsrath, and are usually men connected with the Imperial Court; while the rest, chosen by the Second Chamber, are mainly ex-ministers and lawyers and soldiers of high professional rank. The Christian Socialist party, which is really the Clerical party under a new guise, represents the only democratic element; and now that the Austrian Government has adopted a Clerical attitude, it is assured of their support. The attitude of the Hungarian Delegation seems to be equally favourable to a 'Clerical' policy (and in Bosnia-Herzegovina the Clerical attitude has predominated); while other reasons, to be touched on hereafter, secure the support of Hungary for Baron Aehren

thal's views. Not even from the Bohemian members of the Delegation is severe criticism to be expected; and the result is that, with grave internal dissensions on the subject, Austria-Hungary is able to present an unruffled front to the world in the matter of her foreign policy.

It is, however, necessary to penetrate beneath the official surface in order to appreciate the attitude of Austria-Hungary, not as a State, but as a conglomeration of nationalities, towards the Near-Eastern question. While it would be impossible in the limits of this article to give any idea of the numberless eddies and torrents which go to make up the Whirlpool of Europe,' we may endeavour to trace some of the main currents, and to show how they are setting at the present time. It is, of course, a truism to say that these internal conditions, this play and interplay of conflicting forces, have been determining factors in deciding the policy which has recently brought Europe to the verge of war. The strained relations between the two halves of the Dual Monarchy rendered necessary some definite and decisive action on the part of Austria; and the question of the subject nationalities-a burning one in both Austria and Hungary-is inextricably bound up with the Balkan policy of the great Powers.

The

The political evolution of Austria in the nineteenth century, with which M. Chéradame begins his L'Europe et la Question d'Autriche,' marked the introduction of a new factor in European politics; and the last step in that evolution, by which a democratic suffrage was bestowed on all the people of the Austrian crown-lands, is likely to cause an even greater modification, though still too recent for its effects to be discerned. hereditary policy of the Habsburgs was the preservation of the Teutonic hegemony, not through numbers-for Austria is predominantly Slav - but through wealth, culture, and the influence of the Church. Right across the path of this policy has arisen the revived Bohemia; and some idea of the strength of this revival is essential to a comprehension of Austria's internal problem.

In Bohemia the crux of the nationalist problem centres in the language question; and here the Czechs possess several advantages over other peoples with whom they are sometimes compared. Czech was the only 'authorised'

and official tongue for many centuries. So late as 1615, a vote of the Diet reaffirmed the official position of the native Bohemian language. A few years later the battle of the White Mountain shattered Bohemian liberties; the property of the old nobility was confiscated; their estates were mostly given to the generals of the Imperial army-Germans, Spaniards or Italians-who were ignorant of the language of the country; and an Imperial decree placed German on an 'equality' with Czech. But the decay of the latter language was slower than is usually imagined, and was never-as Count Lützow tells us in his "History of Bohemia'-at all complete. Not till Maria Theresa began to push on the work of germanisation by education and social influence did the national tongue shrink away from cultured centres and become a peasant or provincial dialect. It never ceased to be a living tongue; and, when the patriots of the early nineteenth century began their work of revival, they had not to create a modern language, but simply to bring an exist ing one up to the level of modern educational demands. Czech is now once more the 'official' language of Bohemia; and, although it shares that dignity with German, the latter is losing ground.

The nationalist spirit of Bohemia centres in the beautiful city of Prague. During the last few months this city has seen a revival, in its crudest form, of the Slav and German struggle. Students need not always be taken too seriously, and many sober and serious Nationalists regard the Chauvinism of their younger brethren with regret; but the unpleasant fact remains that the Austrian authorities felt it necessary to place Prague under martial law, and to send executioners from Vienna to carry out the decrees of the martial courts. No one who has witnessed a great nationalist demonstration like the meeting of the Sokols in 1906, when 27,000 men were massed together in Prague and a week's programme was carried through without a hitch, can fail to be struck by the fact that this city, usually so well ruled and organised, was regarded by Austria as unable to control its unruly elements without the imposition of martial law.

The aim of the Czechs is to restore their country to its position as a sovereign State within the Habsburg realms. Dr Kramarz, the most prominent of the Young