This is the concluding volume of Taine’s history of the French Revolution, and in vividness of presentation, charm of style, and clearness of statement it surpasses even its predecessors. The views of M. Taine in regard to the causes of the French Revolution, and his characterizations of the men who rose to the top during its fierce and bloody progress, have been severely criticised. Nearly every historian of the period is borne along by a strong partisan bias. It seems impossible for the writer to enter on this troubled and tempestuous period to keep himself aloof from the agitations which swell the events and motives he depicts. So all historians of the period are at odds with each other. M. Taine is more severe and sweeping in his condemnation of the men that guided the revolution than most of his rivals. Perhaps no better explanation of the view and attitude of the author can be given than that found in his eloquent and striking preface, which we give entire: “‘In Egypt,’ says Clement of Alexandria, ‘the sanctuaries of the temples are shaded by curtains of golden tissue. But on going farther into the interior in quest of the statue, a priest of grave aspect, advancing to meet you and chanting a hymn in the Egyptian tongue, slightly raises a veil to show you the god. And what do you behold? A crocodile, or some indigenous serpent, or other dangerous animal, the Egyptian god being a brute rolling about on a purple carpet.’ “We need not visit Egypt or go so far back in history to encounter crocodile worship, as this can be readily found in France at the end of the last century. Unfortunately, a hundred years is too long an interval, too far away, for an imaginative retrospect of the past. At the present time, standing where we do and regarding the horizon behind us, we see only forms which the intervening atmosphere embellishes, shimmering contours which each spectator may interpret in his own fashion; no distinct, animated figure, but merely a mass of moving points, forming and dissolving in the midst of picturesque architecture. I was anxious to have a nearer view of these vague points, and, accordingly, transported myself back to the last half of the eighteenth century, where I have been living with them for twelve years, and, like Clement of Alexandria, examining, first, the temple, and next the god. A passing glance at these is not sufficient; a step further must be taken to comprehend the theology on which this cult is founded. This one, explained by a very specious theology, like most others, is composed of dogmas called the principles of 1789; they were proclaimed, indeed, at that date, having been previously formulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the well-known sovereignty of the people, the rights of man, and the social contract. Once adopted, their practical results unfolded themselves naturally; in three years the crocodile brought by these dogmas into the sanctuary installed himself there on