Liedzeit

2022-05-29

La Vandee

2/17/30

This was Trollope’s third published novel. And the least successful, getting him only 20 pounds. (Whereas Can you forgive her? made him more than 3000.)

And indeed it is not a very good one. At least not compared to his other efforts. It is a historical novel placed in the midst of the French Revolution. And we follow the adventures of the people of the Vendèe who were (apparently) all Royalists and who chose to fight the Republicans. I was, to tell the truth, not aware of this little war, and so I did learn something which is a good thing. But the story of this war Trollope is not really exciting.

There are a couple of historical figures, like General Cathelineau (a postilion in civilian life) and Henri de Larochejaquelin (Trollope’s spelling) along with some made up supporting cast, among them Henri’s sister Agatha who is loved by the poor postilion. Luckily he gets killed early on and so brings up the courage to confess his love in his dying hour. Then there is a friend of Henri who is also in love with the sister, gets rejected and promptly turns traitor to the noble cause. Luckily he lives long enough to see the evil of his ways and in the end manages to die as a hero to the cause.

In fact, I would call the novel a failure if not for three brilliant chapters. In the middle of the book with no connection to the rest of the story at all Trollope inserts two chapters on Robespierre. And these are breathtakingly wonderful. “For fifty years the world has talked of, condemned, and executed Robespierre. Men and women who have barely heard the names of Pitt and Fox, who know not whether Metternich is a man or a river, or one of the United States, speak of Robespierre as of a thing accursed.“ And then: “Yet it is not impossible that some apologist may be found for the blood which this man shed; that some quaint historian, delighting to show the world how wrong has been its most assured opinions, may attempt to vindicate the fame of Robespierre, and strive to wash the blackamoor white.“ And then he goes on to remind us how wrong our established views on Richard III, Henry VIII or Queen Bess are. That was written in 1847 and nothing (fundamentally) has changed since then.

Of course, he continues not to whitewash, but to give a vivid and fair portrait of the Man, including his paranoid reactions to the (presumably) innocent request for the life of the Queen by his lover Eleanor Duplay. Trollope’s sympathies are clearly on the side of the Royalists but he is too intelligent not to able and to be willing to explain exactly in what sense Marie Antoinette deserved death.

The other brilliant chapter, also not really adding to the story, is when Agatha visits the poor mother of Cathelineau to congratulate her on the deeds of her son. And she acts as a mother maybe should. She does not care about politics. She just mourns his death. And she is quite cynic. At least until she finally sort of believes that the daughter of a marquis could have been in love with her son.

And finally, the concluding chapter. People married in the penultimate chapter and looked into a bright future. But that was not what happened in history. And Trollope gives us beautiful scene where one of the heroes of the tale who had become a barber in Paris in the meantime tells us what has happened to the other protagonists.

Fascinating, how the view of the book changes if you concentrate on the good parts. But really, the larger part of the book is not that good at all.