It would have been easy for a less able writer than M. Merimee to have extended the "Chronique" to thrice its present length. It is not a complete romance, but a desultory sketch of the events and manners of the time, with a few imaginary personages introduced. Novel readers who require a regular _denoument_ will be disappointed at its conclusion. There is not even a hint of a wedding from the first page to the last; and the only lady who plays a prominent part in the story, a certain countess Diane de Turgis, is little better than she should be. And yet, if we follow M. Merimee's rule, and judge her according to the ideas and morals of the age she flourished in, she was rather an amiable and proper sort of person. True, she sets her lovers by the ears, and feels gratified when they cut each other's throats: she even challenges a court dame, who has taken the precedence of her, to an encounter with sword and dagger, _en chemise_, according to the prevailing mode amongst the _raffines_, or professed duellists of the time; and she writes seductive billets-doux in Spanish, and gives wicked little suppers to the handsome cavalier on whom her affections are set. But, on the other hand, she goes to mass, and confesses, and does her best to save her Huguenot lover's body and soul, and obtain the remission of her own sins by converting him from his heresy. So that, as times went in the year 1572, she was to be reckoned amongst the righteous. The handsome heretic, in whose present safety and future salvation she takes so strong an interest, is one Bernard de Mergy, who has come to Paris to take service with the great chief of his co-religionists, Admiral Coligny. His brother, George de Mergy, has deserted the creed of Calvin, and is consequently in high favour at the Louvre, but under the ban of his father, a stern old Huguenot officer, who will not hear the name of his renegade son. Bernard, whilst regretting his brother's apostasy, does not deem it necessary to shun his society. On the road he has been cajoled or robbed of his ready cash by a pretty gipsy girl, and his good horse has been stolen by one of the hordes of German lanzknechts, whom the recent civil war had brought to France. He reaches Paris with an empty purse, and is not sorry to meet his brother, who welcomes him kindly, and supplies his wants, but refuses to recant, and attempts to justify his backsliding. In the course of his defence he gives an insight into the prevalent corruption of the time, and shows how the private vices of great political leaders often marred the fortunes of their party.