those whom you have given to govern me in your name. And be sure that a soul cannot sin in acting according to the orders and lights of its spiritual father." But by the time she had entirely abnegated her accountability she finds the easy rule of the Jesuits too lax, and for her further humiliation and penance takes for her director a monk of one of the barefooted orders--a coarse and ignorant Calabrian peasant, whose austerity has given him a widespread reputation for sanctity. There is something more than painful in the minute portrayal of the degradation of mind, character, even temper, which occupies the latter part of the book: it is repulsive, and it strikes us as overdone, although we know of at least one similar instance in real life. But Madame Gervaisais has been represented as an uncommon woman in every way, and we are forced to allow the progress of undermining disease some share in her abasement. The last ten or a dozen chapters and the tragical conclusion are among the weaker portions of the book, which as a novel has many defects. It is nevertheless an able performance, and might be a useful one if people, as a rule, were not more eager for the poison than the antidote. All the phenomena and experiences which are unfolded like holy relics by Madame Craven's high-bred hands are recognized by MM. de Goncourt, but they are differently accounted for. In _Renee Mauperin_, another book by the same authors, which with considerable cleverness has also many faults of construction and development, we have a glimpse of the cheerful social aspect of the Roman hierarchy through its intervention in mundane affairs. "The Abbe Blampoix had neither parish nor curacy. He had a special vocation: he was the priest of the world, the gay world, the great world.... His voice was musical and his style flowery. He called the devil 'the prince of evil,' and the Eucharist 'the divine aliment.' He abounded in periphrases colored like sacred prints.... From time to time fashionable phrases and colloquialisms of the day mingled in his spiritual consolations, like bits of a newspaper in a book of devotion. He had the odor of the century. His gown kept, as it were, the perfume of all the pretty sins which had come near it.... Mothers consulted him before they took their daughters to their first ball: daughters sought his advice before going thither. He was the man from whom permission was obtained to wear low-neck dresses--of whom one inquired the novels which might be perused and the plays which might be seen. He baptized children and confessed adulteries of heart.... Great sorrows, despair, had recourse to him, and he ordered a journey to Italy, the diversions of painting and music and a good confession at Rome." By this and analogous counsel on still more delicate matters he superseded the fashionable physician. But what kept him most busy was a species of matrimonial agency which he managed for the benefit of his flock. "There was an