brief moment--can in no sense be described as one of the book's
characters, and yet the whole plot is so skilfully contrived as to
hinge on his personality. We are made to feel the dominating
influence of that powerful will upon the fears and hopes of a time
brimming over with revolutionary movement. Whether the Chouan
revolt is in this particular story accurately depicted for us in
all its phases, or whether the motives which impelled certain
public characters are therein interpreted aright--both in regard to
these and other points there may be room for doubt, but at least
the general forces of the period are placed before us in such a way
as to drive home the conviction that, be the historical
inaccuracies of detail what they may in the eyes of this or that
specialist, the picture as a whole is one which, while it rivets
our attention as lovers of romance, does no injury to the strictest
Historic sense.

I know well that numerous novels might be cited which, besides
abounding in anachronisms, are harmful in that they present us with
a misleading conception of some personality or period; moreover, I
acknowledge that this defect is by no means confined to romances of
an inferior literary order. That Cromwell has been unreasonably
vilified, and Mary Queen of Scots misconceived as a saintly martyr--
how often are these charges brought against not a few of our
leading exponents of Historical Fiction. Let this be fully
granted, it remains to ask--To whom were our novelists originally
indebted for these misconceptions? Were not the historians of an
earlier generation responsible for these wrong judgments? True,
the real Science of History--the sifting of evidence, and the
discovery and unravelling of ancient documents--may be described as
an essentially modern attainment, so it would be unreasonable to