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Show THE CITIZEN fled thejevery stage by the devices of faction. A leurious omission on Disraelis part contributed to Inflame his opponents. In matters affecting the dignity of the crown, H bad been the practice for the responsi-ontleli- e minister, In order to minimize con- ned letters to its victors. The blockade is lifted, but it lacks the means to buy raw materials, and without them no work can begin. So the lifting of the blockade is not a solution after all? When he writes about Poland he gives credit to the kindly Germans for their extreme courtesy in not burning and destroying industrial plants in to enter Into communication the leaders of opposition. But Disell, In spito of the easy social relations which he enjoyed with both the official berai leaders, Granville and Hartington, Itroversy, li ivlth neglected this customary and courteous cities and recaution until the measure was already laboring heavily amid storms of parlia-nentar- y criticism. The queen took the on herself. She writes to Disraeli a February 10: She is provoked at the n unduct of the Opposition about the but thinks she title, perhaps ought as was done in the case of the Princes itle of Prince Consort) to have herself formed Lord Granville of it, and thus ave prevented the disagreeable remarks, he could still do this, and state how mch she had urged this herself, if Mr. Israeli is of the same opinion. Her ajesty also accepted the responsibility r a further omission, which led the rince of Wales to write to Disraeli from eville on April 22: As the queens eld-- t son I think I have some right to fee? on &i annoyed that . . . the announcement r min i gf the addition to the ueens title should range-- jaVe be enread by me in the newspapers, to ourl instead of having received some intima-Disjflo- n on the subject from the Prime Min- -, would 4ter. Ponsonby wrote on the Queens Indlal behalf to Disraeli on May 3: She blames deepi;. jjerself for not having written to (the lannenl prince) about the Titles Bill, adding, how-visi-jver, that she certainly thought she had ilame In-ia- 1 m l cen lione so. ed; tori 1 1 popuia fVlA QA.I aj.g ftH'l to Disraeli did not at once take parlia- - I Dent into his confidence as to the na- of the new title, but he made fre- - e characlquent use in ity anKmpire! an( er, an f J ise, k his speech of the words imperial: was not until the debate on the sec- accord jit ond reading to tb the new title that Disraeli revealed what was to be; and, in an adroit of 60. ipeech, he skiifully led up to the an)naV es nouncement by pointing out the remarkable circumstance that, to those desirous of objecting to the policy, one title alone hat tklfcas occurred; which prima facie is rath-o- f in favor of its being an opposite title. Em was not to dispose of objec- s mail!I tions which can hardly be read with tience now. As for the "bad associations n mur.li the title of Emperor, Gibbon had laid jecturel1! down in an immortal passage that the manknd was never so es wittlI pness ijetely assured or so long maintained as enougnljj ntonines who were age ho COB I Emperors. Nor could the assumption of nformecl title locally at all impair the title of King or Queen of Great Britain. Our Kings had always asserted an equity with Rflperors, and the claim had been Nor was the title it over used 0f Queen Elizabeth in Spencer's met dedication to her of the Faery Queen. The of of India so costyle Empress mply corresponded with notorious fact &t. as Disraeli showed, to the amuse- of the House, in a subsequent sppech been already attributed to Queen Victoria in a popular school geography of the pa-ntim- enl un-Engli- sh; E;ent day. j ROSS THE BLOCKADE. By Henry Brailsford. Harcourt, Brace & jNoel Howe. Tlie blockade which Comrade jailsford condems was the economic triction established by the allied tovernments against what were the ntral powers. There is no cure for state of things until the blockade Jjs , lifted, he writes. The blockade, course, is maintained with the intention of destroying a Yet on page 46 experiment. L? rea: Five months later the Aus- plan government is writing begging J de-T)ra- te doing constructive work there. It never seems to occur to him that the Germans believed they were to have control of Poland, and, of course, wanted its cities and manufacturing plants to be in good shape. Another indication of guilelessness is to he found in his description of a factory in Budapest, which is Tun by a soviet. He writes of its management: Three former directors were em-- . ployed at high salaries as consulta-- . tive experts; the other three, who had been mere financiers, ceased to be connected with it That mere is unconsciously funny. One has only to read his descriptions of the wretched condition of the working people in these cities of Socialist experiment to realize how much better the mere financiers used to conduct the industries of Hungary and Austria than do their soviet successors. And as Lenine and Trotzky found in Russia, the Budapest factory soviet had to employ the former heads of the factories to run them. The bourgeoise has its uses, it appears, even under a Bolshevist government or a Socialist experiment. Another diverting aspect of these Socialist governments as this writer describes them is their brazen manipulation of the elctions. No ring politician of Tammany Hall was ever quite so barefaced in controlling an election to his own ends as are these comrades. While it is true that he found here and there interesting illustrations of experiments in socialism being worked out successfully on farms and estates, they seem to have been more in the nature of Writers with leaning toward socialism and communism who have gone to Russia have found much to admire in Lenine and Trotzky. Mr. Brailsford in the same way admires Bela Kun, who had no liking for needless violence; he detested disorder . . . and was a faithful pupil of his master, Lenine. Somehow the world has a different impression of that dictator of Hungary, and we are of the opinion that in time to come it will be the worlds present impression of Bela Kun that will prevail, not Mr. Brailsfords. would-have-bee- n THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN. By Ibanez. Translated Blasco Vicente from the Spanish by Irving Brown. E. P. Dutton & Co. The novelist expands and the poet condenses though it wouldnt be safe to draw any conclusions as to their likeness to cold and heat. There was an old song, beloved of college glee clubs, that began: So-rfli- st Reuben, I have long been thinking What a fine world this would be, If the men were all transported Far beyond the northern sea. And a later stanza changed fine world to sad world. Change men to women and you have the idea of the Spanish romancers latest story, which covers more than 500 pages. An old fashioned Prince induced a group of comrades to join him in dropping women out of their lives. Mans greatest wisdom, he asserted, consists in getting along without women. The idea, however, is only a springboard to land the reader in a kind of literary worlds fair of all the and ever.active exhibits this open-eyeauthor has collected from everywhere. Monte Carlo is the fair ground. Something is going on everywhere all the time. Of course there are pages of description of the idiosyncrasies of gamblers of all the familiar types. The title really means that women are the enemies of men. The particular representative of the enemy whom the Prince first repulses and then tries to win is a kind of operatic Thais, modern style. Here is a paragraph about her manner of life: At all hours of the day and night one of her various expensive cars was kept in readiness in front of the stairway. Three chauffeurs divided the service between them. They stayed in the porters quarters; and as soon as the bell was heard they had only to put on their gloves, run to the machine and start the motor. She often chose the most extraordinary hours for going out. And as for the nature of a typical dinner, the meal looked liko something a great chef might have prepared if he had suddenly gone mad and made up the dishes in the midst of his ravings. Blasco Ibanez is of the ancient type of Oriental story teller. He is a skillful chronicler of events, painter of external scenes. He applies the same well tested method to all phases of life. The war intrudes on the melodrama with its antique duels in grotesque contrast to the general slaughter. In. the final pages are many laudatory passages about America, the nation that fights well abroad and is good to novelists who come here For example: A people has just risen above all the peoples of the earth. Never in history has such a rise been known. It dominates through friendliness, through its generous acts and by the beneficent strength of its activities; not through terror, the base of all greatness in the past The boys of today, grown old, would remember how they learned to play baseball from the soldiers who had come from a land of marvels beyond the sea: the girls, become grandmothers, would yearningly recall the American lovers they once had. d THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. By Jasques Boulenger. G. P. Putnams Sons. Facts so oft revive where myths sink breathless down that even Alexander Dumas ought to have foresworn romances and taken up the more romantic opportunities of actual history. There is a National History of France, of which four out of six vol umes have already been published. The" fourth, only recently added; .is translated from the French, of Jacques Boulanger and is devoted to the seven' ' teenth century. Aside from the possibilities of. glow and glitter which belong to this, the golden age of French monarchy; M. Boulenger proves himself the most exciting sort of dramatist. Like the late Clyde Fitch, he is not afraid to begin his work with a funeral, that of the assassinated Henri 1Y. Then his reader is in the land the times of DArtag-naQueen Marie de Medici, obese, sensual, the low forehead shaded by. frizzled fair hair, the prominent, shortsighted eyes, the red and white complexion of a fat, overfed woman; the spawning Conchini, the Anne of Aus- tria, who was brought almost in pinafores to be married to a little boy who, despite his royal destiny, spent all his time with falconers and kitchen implements; the Anne of Austria of the Regency and the opera bouff e of the Fronde, conducted by the pliant baton of her Mazarin these are shrewd, really memorable portraits. And they thrill. Old friends of The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years and inAfter, that triguer, Mme. the beautiful Duchesse de Chevreuse, are in the parade of M. Boulengers facts. The historian persists in a minute impartiality. His discussion of the reign of Richelieu lights up both King and Cardinal. But neither Dumas nor Buhver-Lytto- n ever invented a scene more touching than this one, which, says M. Boulenger, took place at the two old men, death already circling about both of them, after a lifetime of distrust, ingratitude and battle against England, Spain, the Protestants and their own conspiring . . .The King was ill courtiers. and had himself carried to the chamber in which the Cardinal lay in bed; the King was thoroughly ashamed of his own ingratitude, and the Minister had hardly recovered from the state of anxiety into which he had been thrown; they both shed tears of emotion . . . Yet the stride of the book does not assume its manliest lengths until M. Boulenger is through with Louis XIV.s youth, and his escapades across the palace roofs, and the pretty days before he settled down into the staid arms of his second wife, Mme. de Maintenon. Thereafter the court and its intrigues, the politics and petty wars of a Conde or a Savoy, dwindle to insignificance, and the fierce splendor of a research into the social, economic and artistic of the seventeenth century begins. Fouquet, Colbert, Mansart, Poussin, Le Brun, Lully, La Rochefoucauld, Mme. de Sevigne, Boileau, Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Bossuet, La Bruyere, Saint-Simoand all those others who were the brilliant satellites of the Roi Soleil, and who helped uplift him into his high station into the sky, are located and described with a shrewdness and enthusiasm which result in real fascination. n, . . . arch-masquerad- er - Nar-bonn- pre-eminen- e: ce n |