Board of Regents of the University of OklahomaUniversity of Oklahoma

La Croisade des enfants by Hélène PagésReview by: Urban T. Holmes, Jr.Books Abroad, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Summer, 1938), p. 332Published by: Board of Regents of the University of OklahomaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40079967 .

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332 French Fiction BOOKS ABROAD French Fiction

a solution. Captain Bernier, former carpenter, bigamist, spitefully contributes to the catas* trophe. Numerous details, minutely recorded, of this period in the history of the French Army, aid in making this praiseworthy narra- tive instructive as well as gripping. La J<[eige de Galata definitely establishes Francis as an author of merit. - Geo. B. Watts. Davidson College.

• Marie Gevers. La ligne de vie. Paris. Plon. 1937. 250 pages. - A Belgian novel

of the soil. Not dramatic or entertaining, but disturbing. It recounts the miserable, poverty stricken, superstition-ridden lives of Benoit and Johanna avec ses grands yeux vides de pensee et chauds de vie from the day of their meeting until the murder of their daughter Lodia, the flower of elemental love.

Yet neither Johanna nor Lodia is the central figure of the book. The story really revolves around Emerance, who is feared as a witch throughout the countryside. What a contrast between the financial prosperity of her house- hold and the unhappiness of her family! As the enigmatic Emerance looks around on the tragic unhappiness of the family - husband gone insane, eldest son doomed to early death, two ugly harelipped daughters forced to eat on the floor out of sight - she is possessed with an overwhelming desire to have one healthy normal son. She has her wish at a price, but even her beloved Stanne, like Jo- hanna's Lodia, comes under the shadow of her baleful influence at last. In La ligne de vie the beauty of land and sky seems more real and intimate than the human characters and every bit as interesting. Not quite the American type of book. - Bess Langsford. Washington, D. C.

• Selma Lagerlof. Legendes du Christ. Paris. Perrin. 1938. 257 pages. 22 francs. - A

collection of charming tales dwelling, as the title suggests, upon the life of Christ as it has been handed down from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation. These legends, fruit of a naive faith and unaffected imagina- tion intimately interwoven, have become a priceless heritage of this hard and faithless age. How refreshing it is to sit a few hours with such a book and relive a few of those moments when we also sat with our knees tucked under our chins listening as grandmother related Christ-legends like these, whose very tone has been so marvelously recaptured by the author. - R. W. Baldner. Northwestern University.

• Bertrand de la Salle. Les Forces cachies. Paris. Plon. 1937- 307 pages. 18 francs -

Jerome Legrand, artist, who has loved and been loved by Eve Ribeauval, delves into his memories in an effort to find the hidden forces which made the growth of their love as inev- itable as its ultimate destruction. For the reader, the search proves to be a fascinating adventure. It results in a penetrating portrait of two individuals who are highly sensitive and perhaps over-cerebral. Of the relations be- tween men and women, of their pathetic at- tempts to understand each other, and of their underlying sex-confusion and antagonism, de la Salle has much to say that is both provoca- tive and enlightening. The book is written with sympathy, and one feels with the author a sincere pity for the tragic, inescapable blun- dering with which most human beings destroy their own happiness. - A. Pietrangeli. Univer- sity of Illinois.

• Helene Pages. La Croisade des enfants. Traduit de Tallemand par Jean Pere-

girien. Paris. Desclee de Brouwer. 1937- 234 pages. 15 francs. - For many years Helene Pages has been known to the German reading public as an author of Catholic books for children. The book now before us is a render- ing of her Von Godefried und tAechthildis, die Kreuzfahren gingen (Munich, 1924) of which a fourth edition appeared in 1926. It is the story of the German children who, imitating those from France, undertook a children's Crusade to the Holy Land in 1212. The two leaders, Godfrey and Mathilda from the Rhineland, are eventually found by their father on the Mount of Olives and they return safely home. The story is a beautiful one and is simply told with great effect. Helene Pages is now seventy-five years of age; the last of her books that has come to my attention is her Frauen auf des Herren Kreuzweg (Munich, 1930). She may well be proud of her life of devoted service to the youth of her land. - Urban T. Holmes, Jr. The University of North Carolina.

• Leon Paquot-Pierret. Le Bonheur des Autres. Bruxelles. Les Editions de Bel-

gique. 1937. 256 pages. 15 Belgian francs. - M. Paquot-Pierret, favorably known for his previous work - critical studies and short sto- ries - fully justifies the expectations of his friends by this first novel. The plot turns around what may be termed a social revolution in Europe: "Maintes femmes s'entendent au-

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