Sometimes I come across a unique bit of history while researching for one of my novels. As I’ve mentioned before, Paris in Ruins, the novel I plan to self-publish relatively soon, is set in 1870 and 1871, a time when Paris went through the horror of a destructive, deadly siege by the Prussian Army and an uprising that pitted citizen against citizen.
Victor Hugo created a poem about that uprising. Sur Une Barricade. I found it in translation on The French Desk, a blog created by Michael Partridge.
Barricades were everywhere during the siege, demolished after France capitulated to Prussia and then re-emerged when the Commune took over. Made of wood, sandbags, overturned carts, bricks and other material, such barricades blocked the forward movement of troops, while providing protection to those men and women – yes, women – who defended them.
According to Michael Partridge, “Hugo was dismayed at the wrongdoings of both the Communards and the government, writing in a diary entry, “this Commune is as idiotic as the National Assembly is ferocious. From both sides, folly.”
We’ve all heard of Hugo’s famous works such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables, but he was also a renowned poet of the romantic movement.
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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel, TIME AND REGRET was published by Lake Union. Mary’s other novels, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her website www.mktod.com.
6 Responses
Interesting: thank you for putting the history in context.
Ever the story-teller, Hugo’s work has stood the test of time. A pity his message in this poem has been ignored so often in the century and a half since.
Thanks for your message, Caroline. I found a few parallels to today while investigating 1870 Paris. The old adage about being doomed to repeat history if we don’t learn from it comes to mind.
Good blog, thanks for sharing…. I like the Hunchback of Notre Dame: “Like the way Dante describes Beatrice as the “Beauty in white robes”, that is how beautiful Esmeralda died, in white robes. She died because of her own act of love, although unrecruited, rather it was an infatuation with Phoebus.”
I tried to write a blog about it , hope you like it: https://stenote.blogspot.com/2018/07/an-interview-with-victor.html