day, does not so much as name Him. The man who argues that such an event as the Crucifixion must have made some impression forgets what a common and unheeded incident a crucifixion was in troublous times. During the Jewish war of the year 70, in the course of which 13.000 Jews were killed at Skythopolis, 50.000 in Alexandria, 40,000 at Jotapata—1,100,000 in all—Titus crucified on an average 500 Jews every day. When, impelled by hunger, they crept under the walls of Jerusalem, they were captured, tortured, and crucified. At last there was no more wood for crosses left in Palestine.

As his principal character, France has taken the Titus Ælius Lamia to whom the seventeenth ode of Horace's Third Book is addressed—a gay young Roman who, according to France, is banished by Tiberius for a flagrant love-affair with a consuls wife, goes to Palestine, and meets with a friendly reception in the house of Pontius Pilate. Forty years pass; Ælius Lamia has long been back in Italy; he is at Baiæ, taking the baths, and is sitting one day by a path upon a height reading Lucretius, when, in the occupant of a litter borne past by slaves, it seems to him that he recognises his old host, Pilate.

And it really is Pilate, who has come, accompanied by his eldest daughter, now a widow, to take the baths. They talk of old days—of all the trouble Pontius had with those wretched Jews, who refused to do homage to the image of the Emperor on the banners, and allowed themselves to be flogged to death rather than worship it. They continually came to him, too, demanding a sentence of death on some unfortunate creature whose crime he was unable to discover, and who appeared to him to be as mad as his accusers. Lamia declares that Pontius lacked appreciation of the Jews' good qualities, but confesses that his own predilection was in favour of the Jewesses. He recalls an evening on which he saw one of them dancing with uplifted arms to the clang of cymbals, on a ragged carpet in a miserably lighted, wretched drinking-booth. The dance was barbaric, the voice hoarse, but in the motion of the limbs there was sorcery, and the eyes were Cleopatra's. She had heavy red hair, this girl, whose charms enticed the young Roman to follow her everywhere. "But she ran away from me," he continued, when the young lay preacher and miracle-worker came from Galilee to Jerusalem. She became inseparable from him, and joined the little band of men and women who were always with him. "You remember him, of course?" "No," replies Pilate. "His name was Jesus, I think; he was from Nazareth" "I do not remember him," reaffirms Pilate. "You were obliged to have him crucified." "Jesus—" mutters Pilate, "from Nazareth—I have no recollection of it."

Here we have a characteristic example of Frances manner of producing his effects, and of his art in its profound truth.

So far is he from seeing Pilate's connection with Jesus in the light of later times that he represents him as completely forgetting the whole occurrence, which was an everyday one to him—whilst Lamia only remembers it because of Magdalene.

France has drawn Magdalene again in the tale of Læta Acilia, one of those composing the volume entitled Balthasar. Here he represents her as driven from Judæa, and arriving by ship at Marseilles, where she tries to convert her protectress, a Roman knight's wife. The Roman lady desires a child. Magdalene promises to pray for her. The next time she comes to the house Læta Acilia is pregnant. And now Magdalene tells her that she herself was a sinner when she first beheld the fairest of men, the Son of Man; that He drove seven devils out of her; and that she fell on her knees before Him in the house of one Simon and poured precious ointment from an alabaster box over His sacred feet. She repeats the words which the gentle Rabbi uttered in her defence when His disciples, with coarse taunts, would have driven her away. Since then she has lived in the shadow of the Master as in a new Paradise. And to her it was that He appeared first after His resurrection.

It seems to the Roman lady that Magdalene is endeavouring to impart to her a distaste for the pleasures of her placid life. Until now she has had no idea of there being any other happiness in the world except that which she knows.

"I have no desire to know your God. You have loved him too supremely. To please him one is to fall at his feet with unloosened hair! That is no posture for the wife of a Roman knight. Go, Jewess! Your God can never be mine. I have not lived the life of a sinner, and I have not been possessed with seven devils. I have not wandered in ways of error; I am a woman deserving of respect. Go!"

What attracts France in these characters is the contrast between the emotional life of the two women, between the religiously erotic rapture of the Asiatic and the tradition-sanctioned conjugal love of the Roman matron.

It is always as the creative writer that he touches history.

Among the many things in which France does not believe is history as a science. History, he says, is a representation of the events of the past. But what is an event? A remarkable fact. Who decides whether a fact is remarkable or not? The historian decides it, arbitrarily, according to his taste. A fact is, moreover, an exceedingly composite thing. Does the historian represent it in all its compositeness? That would be impossible. Hence he gives us it cropped and pruned. And yet again, the historic fact is the final consequence of unhistoric or unknown facts. How can the historian demonstrate their concatenation?

This line of argument appeals so forcibly to France that he sets it forth no fewer than three times—in the preface to La Vie Littéraire, in Les Opinions de M. Jérôme Coignard, and in Le Jardin d'Épicure. As the creative writer he chills the ardour of the investigator by his scepticism. It is, he says, impossible to know the past; no one is able to read everything that would require to be read. Twice he relates the same fable in illustration of his argument:

When young Prince Zemire succeeded his father on the throne of Persia, he summoned a convocation of all the learned men of his kingdom, and addressed them thus:

"My revered teacher has impressed upon me that kings would be less liable to error if they were acquainted with the history of the past. Write me a history of the world, and make certain that it is complete."

After the lapse of twenty years the learned men reappeared before the king, followed by a caravan composed of twelve camels, each bearing 500 volumes.

The secretary of the society made a short speech and presented the 6000 volumes.

The king, whose time was fully occupied with the affairs of the State, expressed his gratitude for the trouble taken, but added: "I am now middle-aged, and even if I live to be old I shall not have time to read such a long history. Abridge it!" After labouring twenty years longer the learned men returned, followed by three camels bearing 1500 volumes, and said: "Here is our new work; we believe that nothing essential is omitted."

"That may be; but I am an old man now. Abridge still further, and with all possible speed!"

After the lapse of only ten years they reappeared, followed by a young elephant, bearing only 500 volumes. "This time we have been exceedingly brief."

"Not yet sufficiently so," replied the king. "My life is almost over. Abridge again!"

Five years passed, and the secretary returned alone, walking with crutches, and leading a small ass, whose load was one large book.

"Hurry!" called an officer. "The king is at the point of death."

"I die," said the king, "without knowing the history of mankind."

"Not so, sire," answered the aged man of learning; "I can compress it for you into three words: They were born, suffered, and died."

We see how it is that France, in spite of his great gifts as an investigator, has not become a historian, but a novelist and story-writer.

He is not,