Holy Week  First English-language edition |
| Author | Louis Aragon |
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| Original title | La Semaine Sainte |
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| Translator | Haakon Chevalier |
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| Cover artist | Philip Gough |
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| Country | France |
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| Language | French |
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| Genre | Historical novel |
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| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton (UK)
G.P. Putnam's Sons (US) |
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Publication date | 1958 |
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Published in English | 1961 |
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| Media type | Print |
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| Pages | 467 |
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La Semaine Sainte is an historical novel by French writer Louis Aragon published in 1958. It sold over 100,000 copies.
An English translation by Haakon Chevalier was published in 1961 under the title Holy Week by Hamish Hamilton, London, to mixed reviews:
"It is a very bad book, so bad that one doesn't want to write about it, and if it weren't by Aragon, France's according-to-blurb "leading poet-novelist", one wouldn't....The translation, incidentally, is execrable throughout." [1]
"Although the novel lacks the warmth of War and Peace and never makes us care very deeply for any of the characters, it displays a splendid range of intellectual understanding. The only recent book worthy to be compared with this tremendous panorama is Dr. Zhivago . M. Aragon's vision seems to me no less poetic than Pasternak's, and his technique as a novelist is far superior." [2]
Analysis
The novel begins with a strange 'Author's Note': "This is not a historical novel. Any resemblance to persons who have lived, any similarity in names, places, details, can be an effect only of pure coincidence, and the Author declines responsibility for this in the name of the Inalienable Rights of the Imagination". Yet is it very definitely an historical novel, using real persons and real incidents, including the author himself and events in his own life, as well as those invented by the author's imagination.
The novel is rich in history, blending real persons and events with fictional ones. It swaps back and forth between characters, portraying their divided loyalties, and the confusion of the period. All the characters need to make a decision sooner or later as to which side to support, and what action to take: to run or fight, to run for England or Belgium, to fight for the king or for Napoleon, to save themselves, their possessions, their livelihoods or their country. Their emotions, past histories, and present fears are recreated well.
Aragon does not simply tell a simple narrative. Many of the characters have flashbacks, and even flashforwards (such as that which details the mysterious death by defenestration of Marshal Berthier in June 1815), that are introduced suddenly, without warning or introduction. Likewise, Aragon manifests himself in the novel by directly addressing the reader as himself in several digressions: he recalls his own experiences during the French occupation of Germany in 1919, during the German invasion of France in 1940, his (and his wife's) experiences and memories of Bamberg. Less personally, after describing a royalist officer raping a peasant girl, he discusses his reasons for not naming the soldier, describing the progeny of the soldier down to the present day, and explaining that he does not wish to shame the present, real, family descended from this soldier.
As part of the narrative, Aragon also discusses the political and economic policies of both Napoleon and Louis XVIII reminding the reader that the decision of whom to support was not black and white. Napoleon was liberal and forward thinking with regard to agricultural and industrial development, but his constant conscription of workers and peasants into his armies had stripped many villages of their male workforce, who returned crippled, if at all, and his wars had reduced opportunities for trade, particularly with England, destroying the industries he otherwise tried to develop. In contrast, the king's reactionary policies and the return of the aristocracy after Napoleon' exile had embittered the peasantry, but at least there were jobs and stability and peace and trade. Napoleon's return threatened new upheavals, not only within France, but also the possibility of invasion by forces from Prussia, Russia, Austria and England. How each character, historic or fictitious, reacts to these contradictions and dilemmas forms the meat of the novel. The novel ends with Théodore Géricault seeing no point in dying either for a crippled king who has fled the country, nor for supporting Napoleon and his imperial police state. Having seen the royal family across the frontier into Belgium, he feels his duty is completed and he decides to return as anonymously as possible to Paris and his former artistic career.
Louis XVIII, known as the Desired, was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in exile: during the French Revolution and the First French Empire (1804–1814), and during the Hundred Days.
The Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history during which the House of Bourbon returned to power after the first fall of Napoleon on 3 May 1814. Briefly interrupted by the Hundred Days in 1815, the Restoration lasted until the July Revolution of 26 July 1830. Louis XVIII and Charles X, brothers of the executed King Louis XVI, successively mounted the throne and instituted a conservative government intended to restore the proprieties, if not all the institutions, of the Ancien Régime. Exiled supporters of the monarchy returned to France but were unable to reverse most of the changes made by the French Revolution. Exhausted by decades of war, the nation experienced a period of internal and external peace, stable economic prosperity and the preliminaries of industrialization.
Louis Philippe I, nicknamed "The Citizen King" was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France.
The Napoléon is the colloquial term for a former French gold coin. The coins were minted in denominations of 5, 10, 20, 40, 50, and 100 francs. This article focuses on the 20 franc coins issued during the reign of Napoléon Bonaparte, which are 21 mm in diameter, weigh 6.45 grams and, at 90% pure, contain 0.1867 troy ounces (5.807 g) of pure gold. The coin was issued during the reign of Napoleon I and features his portrait on the obverse. The denomination continued in use through the 19th century and later French gold coins in the same denomination were generally referred to as "Napoléons". Earlier French gold coins are referred to as Louis or écu. Gold Napoléons have historically proven more resilient than other gold coins to economic forces, such as after the Suez crisis when unlike other coins Napoléons did not weaken.
The Hundred Days, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign, the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.
Jean-Baptiste Antoine Marcelin Marbot, known as Marcellin Marbot, was a French general, famous for his memoirs depicting the Napoleonic age of warfare. He belongs to a family that has distinguished itself particularly in the career of arms, giving three generals to France in less than 50 years. His elder brother, Antoine Adolphe Marcelin Marbot, was also a military man of some note.
Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d'Otrante, 1st Comte Fouché was a French statesman, revolutionary, and Minister of Police under First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, who later became a subordinate of Emperor Napoleon. He was particularly known for the ferocity with which he suppressed the Lyon insurrection during the Revolution in 1793 and for being minister of police under the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire. In 1815, he served as President of the Executive Commission, which was the provisional government of France installed after the abdication of Napoleon. In English texts, his title is often translated as Duke of Otranto.
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault was a French painter and lithographer, whose best-known painting is The Raft of the Medusa. Although he died young, he was one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.
The Raft of the Medusa – originally titled Scène de Naufrage – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism. At 491 by 716 cm, it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today's Mauritania on 2 July 1816. On 5 July 1816, at least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practiced cannibalism. The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain.
Louis Henri Joseph de Bourbon was the Prince of Condé from 1818 to his death. He was the brother-in-law of Philippe Égalité and nephew of Victoire de Rohan.
Pierre-Narcisse, baron Guérin was a French painter born in Paris.
Louis-Auguste-Victor, Count de Ghaisnes de Bourmont was a French general, diplomat and statesman who was named Marshal of France in 1830. A lifelong royalist, he emigrated from France soon after the outbreak of the French Revolution and fought with the counter-revolutionary Army of Condé for two years, then joined the insurrection in France for three more years before going into exile. He was arrested after assisting the Georges Cadoudal conspiracy, but escaped to Portugal.
Élie, 1st Duke of Decazes and Glücksbierg was a French statesman, leader of the liberal Doctrinaires party during the Bourbon Restoration.
The Old Guard were the veteran elements of the Emperor Napoleon's Imperial Guard. As such it was the most prestigious formation in Napoleon's Grande Armée. French soldiers often referred to Napoleon's Old Guard as "the Immortals".
Events from the year 1824 in France.
Casimir-Louis-Victurnien de Rochechouart de Mortemart, prince of Tonnay-Charente, then baron of Mortemart and of the Empire, 9th duke of Mortemart and peer of France (1814), was a French soldier, diplomat and politician. In 1830 Charles X of France made him president of the Conseil des ministres.
The Government of the first Bourbon restoration replaced the French provisional government of 1814 that had been formed after the fall of Napoleon. It was announced on 13 May 1814 by King Louis XVIII of France. After the return of Napoleon from exile, the court fled to Ghent and the government was replaced by the French Government of the Hundred Days on 20 March 1815.
The Wounded Cuirassier is an oil painting of a single anonymous soldier descending a slope with his nervous horse by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). In this 1814 Salon entry, Géricault decided to turn away from scenes of heroism in favor of a subject that is on the losing side of the battle. On display in the aftermath of France's disastrous military campaign in Russia, this life-size painting captured the feeling of a nation in defeat. There are no visible wounds on the figure, and the title has sometimes been interpreted to refer to soldier's injured pride. The painting stood in stark contrast with Géricault's Charging Chasseur, as it didn't focus on glory or the spectacle of battle. Only his Signboard of a Hoofsmith, which is currently in a private collection, bears any resemblance in form or function to this painting.
The French Restoration style was predominantly Neoclassicism, though it also showed the beginnings of Romanticism in music and literature. The term describes the arts, architecture, and decorative arts of the Bourbon Restoration period (1814–1830), during the reign of Louis XVIII and Charles X from the fall of Napoleon to the July Revolution of 1830 and the beginning of the reign of Louis-Philippe.
The Champ de Mai was a public assembly held by Napoleon on the Champ de Mars, Paris, a large open area near the École militaire, on 1 June 1815. This was during the Hundred Days, the period between Napoleon's return from exile and the restoration of the Bourbon kings following his failed Waterloo campaign. The objective of the Champ de Mai was to gather public support behind Napoleon's Charter of 1815, a constitutional reform that promised a more liberal government than under his earlier rule. The Charter was put to the citizens in a constitutional referendum and the results of this would be announced during the ceremony by representatives of the electoral college.
