ondition of parties is seasoned with some
of those piquant personal episodes of party manoeuvres and private
intrigues, in the author's happiest and most captivating vein, which
convert the dry details of politics into a sparkling and agreeable
narrative. But the portrait which will stamp the book as one of the most
extraordinary productions of the time is that of Sir Robert Peel. It is
written with wonderful force and extraordinary impartiality."

THE LIFE OF MARIE DE MEDICIS,
QUEEN OF FRANCE,
CONSORT OF HENRY IV., AND REGENT UNDER LOUIS XIII.

BY MISS PARDOE.
Author of "Louis XIV. and the Court of France in the 17th Century," &c.

In 3 large vols. 8vo., with Fine Portraits, 42s. bound.

"A fascinating book. The history of such a woman as the beautiful,
impulsive earnest, and affectionate Marie de Medicis could only be done
justice to by a female pen, impelled by all the sympathies of womanhood,
but strengthened by an erudition by which it is not in every case
accompanied. In Miss Pardoe the unfortunate Queen has found both these
requisites, and the result has been a biography combining the
attractiveness of romance with the reliableness of history, and which,
taking a place midway between the 'frescoed galleries' of Thierry, and
the 'philosophic watch-tower of Guizot,' has all the pictorial
brilliancy of the one, with much of the reflective speculation of the
other."--_Daily News._

"A valuable, well-written, and elaborate biography, displaying an
unusual amount of industry and research."--_Morning Chronicle._

"A careful and elaborate historical composition, rich in personal
anecdote. Nowhere can a more intimate acquaintance be obtained with the
principal events and leading personages of the first half of the 17th
century."--_Morning Post._

"A work of high literary and historical merit. Rarely have the strange
vicissitudes of romance been more intimately blended with the facts of
real history than in the life of Marie de Medicis; nor has the difficult
problem of combining with the fidelity of biography the graphic power of
dramatic delineation been often more successfully solved than by the
talented author of the volumes before us. As a personal narrative, Miss
Pardoe's admirable biography possesses the most absorbing and constantly
sustained interest; as a historical record of the events of which it
treats, its merit is of no ordinary description."--_John Bull._

"A life more dramatic than that of Marie