La Grande-Bretagne devant l'opinion francaise au xviie siecle.

Abstract

GEORGES ASCOLI. (Travaux et Memoires de l'Universite de Lille. Droit-Lettres, Nouvelle Serie, Fascicule 13.) Paris: J. Gamber. 1930. Vol. I, viii + 517 pp.; Vol. II, 360 pp. All who have had occasion to use M. Ascoli's earlier volume (La GrandeBretagne devant l'opinion francaise depuis la Guerre de Cent Ans jusqu'a la fin du seizieme siecle, Paris, 1927) will welcome this continuation of his work. As time went on, French interest in British affairs increased and became more articulate through the development of pamphlet literature and the periodic press; M. Ascoli's task has accordingly been rendered more difficult in the later period by abundance and complexity of material. That he should have completed it within three years of his earlier volume is in itself a testimony to his appetite for work. I am tempted to apply to it his own description of Camden's Analecta anglo-britannica-'chefd'oeuvre d'erudition patiente.' The increasing complexity of his subject has compelled the author to adopt a more rigorous classification of ,his material than he had used in his earlier work, where a more or less chronological arrangement was possible. The new work falls into three great divisions. In Book I, English events are studied in chronological sequence with their repercussions in France; naturally the author is forced to recount a great deal of history which is already familiar to the English reader, but the angle from which it is considered is a new one, and it is instructive to view our own history in the light of foreign prejudices. The political history of Britain, it transpires, was infinitely more accessible and more widely familiar to the mass of the French people than any aspect of social or intellectual life. The struggle between James I and the Pope over the rival claims of temporal and spiritual authority was followed in France with passionate interest. Charles I's marriage to a French princess increased the sympathy extended to the Royalist party in the Civil War, and the universal horror at the execution of the King; even when reasons of state induced the French government to recognise Cromwell and receive his ambassadors, public opinion, though forced into unwilling admiration of his statesmanship, continued to execrate him as a regicide. Catholic hopes, disappointed by Charles II, rose high again at the accession of James II, and the Revolution of 1688, though bloodless, shocked the French almost as deeply as that of 1648, confirming their impression of the English as a disloyal and lawless people. Sympathy with the exiled Stuarts waxed and waned according to their personal popularity. About this time, however, M. Ascoli notes the beginnings of organised polemic warfare to capture public opinion. Pamphlets, lampoons, and songs solicited popular favour on behalf of William of Orange or of Louis XIV. M. Ascoli does not stop, as his title would seem to indicate, at the close of the seventeenth century, but carries us on to the close of Anne's reign, with the passing of the Stuart dynasty and the prospect of 'une entente cordiale et durable.' The final chapter of the section is a retrospective review of the interest shown by the French in Britain's past history. Book ii deals with French knowledge of Britain itself and of its inReviews 103