SOME REVIEWS OF THE FRENCH EDITION

Emile Faguet in Les Annales Politiques et Littéraires, March 5,1916:—

I had the honour … three years ago to write the Preface toM. Gaston Riou’s first book, Aux écoutes de la France qui vient. It wasfull of fire, impetus, and passion; it was a heart-beat. I was not alwaysof the same opinion as the author, but I never failed to share his sentiments.I felt in him at once a brother in patriotism and a brother in loveof truth and justice. I greeted him affectionately and contradicted himtenderly. You all know the success of the work. The public learnedand has remembered a new proper name. M. Gaston Riou now presentsus with a very different book, but one painfully entrancing, as its titleimplies, Journal d’un simple soldat, guerre—captivité, 1914-1915.…M. Riou now shows himself to be an extraordinarily delicate and livelypainter of real life, a charming painter of landscape, a vivacious narrator,a thoughtful, conscientious, and penetrating psychologist alike in respect ofindividuals and of nations. At once artist and thinker, the artist never doesinjustice to the thinker, while the thinker always gives the artist free play.

Chicago Daily News, May 1916:—

Out of the mass of books, good, bad, and indifferent, which have beenwritten about the great war, there is one, Journal d’un simple soldat,by Gaston Riou, which stands out as a work that will live and passdown to future generations as a masterpiece.

Rev. Father Ménage, O.P., in La Revue des Jeunes, Feb. 25, 1916:—

The author of these pages is a man of energy and self-command.But he is something more. What gives the work a distinctive characteris the profundity of its psychologic sense.

Daily Chronicle, March 24, 1916:—

It has grown out of the war, but it is more than a war book becauseit has thought, feeling, knowledge, and English readers of French willappreciate its great charm of style.

A. Billy in Paris Midi, Feb. 9, 1916:—

These pages are the diary of the man who, among all the Frenchprisoners, was perhaps best fitted to understand Germany from within.

La Tribuna, Feb. 20, 1916:—

Though not a novel, it is as engrossing as a novel.

Daniel Lesueur in La Renaissance, March 18, 1916:—

Every one should read this record of imprisonment, whose realism—simple,trivial, and at times almost repulsive—is irradiated with a beautywhich no work of romantic fiction can ever equal.

Marcel Rouff in Mercure de France, April 1, 1916:—

The book will gain by being read and re-read after the war, when thecoming of peace will have restored to us that independence of mind whichis necessary for the adequate appreciation of works of art.

Paul Bourget in Echo de Paris, April 28, 1916:—

I consider the Journal d’un simple soldat, one of the best examples ofthe literature of war impressions which has characterized the conflict nowin progress.… The book is as impassioned as a novel and as living ashistory.