OLD REGIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 267, 10 November 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

OLD REGIME.

RUSSIA THROUGH IRISH EYES. In "The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilniot, 1803-1808," edited by the Marchioness of Londonderry and 11. M. Hyde (Macmillan) we are taken back well over a century, and given lively and candid descriptions of Russia and society people in Kussia in tho <lays of Napoleon and of Tolstoy's great novel, "War and Peace.' , The Wilmots were two sisters, well educated girls, hailing from Cork in the south of

Ireland. Martha, tlic elder, went on a visit to the celebrated Princess Daslikov. The princess took such a fancy to her that she stayed on for live years, am) would perhaps havo stayed on longer but for Russia's declaration of war against Britain. To keep her company Catherine joined lier after u time and, what wo have iii this attractive volume, in the letters Home and the diaries of (lie two girls during their stay in Russia. There- are also a, couple of letters from tho pen of Catherine's shrewd, observant, Irish maid for which we arc grateful, if only for her amusing way of describing tho lack of cleanliness of the poorer people: "Better for them to wash their faces, a'nd not have so many Flaighs hopping about them." There is singularly little reference to Napoleou in the letters, and not much is said about political matters. What we get is chiefly an insight into the splendour and luxury of the Russian society of the time, with its selfishness and hollowness, the French cooking, the French customs, the French clothes, the extravagance, the banqueting, the idling, and the gossip of the set in which, they found themselves. Catherine charitably sums up this Russia by likening it to a "clumsy, romping, ignorant girl of 12 years old with a fine Parisian cap. on her head." There is little indication of sympathy with the serfs and poorer people generally, though we get glimpses of them. Doubtless that is explained by the youthfulness of the 'writers, and the outlook, of the circle in which they moved. But we do. get a scries of gay. vivid and refreshingly frank descriptions of a very different Russia from the Russia of to-day, and for that the book is well wrth reading.