Born Marie-Jeanne Philipon in 1754, the heroine of A Daughter of the Seine - and heroine she must be called, for although this is a biography, it is written with such sympathetic partisanship for its subject, that it might just as easily be a romance - would go on to become the famous Madame Roland, the muse of the Girondist faction, and an important figure in the French Revolution. From her early years as a precocious and very willful student; her gradual awakening to the pernicious French class system which denied the meritorious the recognition they deserved, while elevating others through the accident of birth; her marriage to Jean-Marie Roland, de la Platière, an economist of some renown, who served the government in various positions; and the married couple's growing involvement in those political circles which would bring about the revolution, Jeanette Eaton traces the life of Madame Roland, painting a moving portrait of a woman of great ability and intellect, who, through her marriage, her entertaining, and her networking - the only methods available to her, as a woman of that time - influenced the history of her country.

Published in 1929, A Daughter of the Seine was one of six titles - together with Pran of Albania, The Jumping-Off Place, The Tangle-Coated Horse and Other Tales, Vaino: A Boy of New Finland, and Little Blacknose - to be chosen as a Newbery Honor Book in 1930. An immensely engaging biography of a fascinating historical figure, it was also a Junior Literary Guild selection, and is, in my judgment, probably best suited for older children and young adults. The text is simple enough to be followed by readers who have little familiarity with the period in question - I myself am not as well-versed in the intricacies of the French Revolution, as I no doubt should be - but never "dumbed down" in a way that would be insulting to young readers. I'm very impressed, in fact, that a book on this subject, running to this length (324 pages, including bibliography and index) would be considered juvenile fare. One wonders if modern children would be interested in reading it.

As already mentioned, this is a very sympathetic portrait of Madame Roland, although Eaton does occasionally insert some criticism - as when she mentions Roland's inability to see the "romance" of the royal family's story - and offer some apologia for her lack of foresight, when it came to her judgment of the more dangerous extremists who would one day be the cause of her death. The authorial interjections are fairly minimal however - with a notable exception, in which Eaton makes mention of Americans recently fighting in the Argonne in the "Great War," thereby dating her book - and the narrative reads smoothly. The final section, in which the Rolands find themselves caught in the growing tide of violence that would become "The Terror," is most involving, and simply flies by.

All in all, I enjoyed A Daughter of the Seine, finding it both engaging and informative. I am encouraged by this, as three more of Eaton's biographies - Leader by Destiny: George Washington, Man and Patriot (1938), Lone Journey: The Life of Roger Williams (1944), and Gandhi: Fighter Without a Sword (1950) - were also chosen as Newbery Honor Books. I will look forward to reading them, in this long Newbery Project of mine! ( )