With “The Mystery of the Iron Wardrobe”, the former editorial director of “Libération”, who writes the continuation of the adventures of Nicolas le Floch, continues to immerse us in these revolutionary years.
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When the cycle of novels dedicated to Nicolas le Floch began, in 2000 from the pen of Jean-François Parot, the action took place in 1761, and the young provincial placed himself in the service of Louis XV’s lieutenant general of police, Mr. of Sartine, to solve different criminal enigmas. The long reign of the aging monarch, then the first years of that of his grandson Louis XVI, being relatively “calm”, the historical facts and characters only appear in the background, the author concentrating on his fictional characters (Le Floch, his faithful assistant Inspector Bourdeau, Paulet, brothel keeper with a big heart, Aimé de Noblecourt, retired former prosecutor, the cook Catherine, the cat Mouchette, etc.).
Jean-François Parot died in 2018, leaving, after fourteen volumes, his hero now in his fifties on the eve of the Revolution. Three years later, Laurent Joffrin (former editorial director of Liberation) takes over the series and plunges Nicolas le Floch into the deep end of history with a capital H. No more romantic intrigues, improbable plotters, stereotypical sidekicks… From now on, there is no question of ignoring the events that follow one another through noise of the canon when the slightest act or gesture of the royal couple, of La Fayette, Mirabeau then Danton, Robespierre and the others shape the destiny of France every day.
Taking up the principle of Robert Margerit’s superb quadrilogy on the Revolution (crowned in 1963 by the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française) in which the author had invented only three fictional characters (a soldier, a deputy and a young woman) to make them experience the strict reality of history, Laurent Joffrin in turn slips Nicolas Le Floch and his friends into the interstices of the great revolutionary days.
So we saw our hero running through the corridors of Versailles in October 1789 (the Corpse of the Royal Palace) ride alongside Louis XVI’s sedan to Varennes where, obviously powerless, he could not prevent the arrest of the royal family (The Secret of Marie-Antoinette), and in this last volume, the Mystery of the Iron Wardrobe, trying to save the king from rioters attacking the Tuileries in August 1792 before witnessing the September massacres in the capital’s prisons. How will the story end? We obviously know that. But how will Nicolas le Floch experience these events? That’s all the spice of this new episode.
The Mystery of the Iron Wardrobe by Laurent Joffrin, Buchet Chastel editions, 334 pp., 20.90 euros.
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