Paris, Édition Rombaldi, coll. Le club de la Femme.
Here, a novel with Cyranesque accents, which is worth it for its detailed and colorful descriptions of Verona in the 15th century. Apart from that, it’s a book to support herself financially, written without passion. Living from her pen, without financial support, position or husband, may have required her to produce this work. (Vincent)
Paris, Le livre contemporain – Amiot-Dumond, coll. Visages de l’aventure, 202 pages.
The Ferme Générale (1680 – 1794) was a body of financiers and shareholders who, having bought the office from the King, collected the various taxes in force, with the right to keep half of them. Needless to say, the Farmers were overzealous, and infinite abuses were committed: here we have the ancestor of the international mafias and trusts, depending on which side of the law they are on.
It was against this system and its men that the highwayman Mandrin, France’s Robin-des-bois, rose to fame, ending up roasted alive in a public square in Valence in the early 1750’s. He remained in popular memory for a long time, and there are still recordings of songs celebrating his exploits.
A character, then, befitting the picaresque pen of a Françoise in her thirties, who quenches her thirst for justice and a taste for the epic in the writing of her story.
Note: Awaiting annotation.
Paris, Éditions de Paris, coll. série blonde, 249 pages.
Spain again. This sentimental novel hides under an apparent lightness memories of Françoise’s youth: the war in Spain, the Campaign in France. The novel’s heroine hides a secret, and a fiery soul not unlike that of the author. The secondary characters are probably drawn from a series of encounters made at the villa Les Pamplemousses of her Toulouse childhood after the retirada, the exodus of Spanish republicans in 1939. (Vincent)
Nouvelles éditions Debresse, coll. série « de cape et d’Idée », Paris, 104 pages
Note: Awaiting annotation.
Broadcast by Radio-Lille.
Probably lost, so we can only speculate on this Flying Dutchwoman.
The Flying Dutchman is the archetype of ghost ships, prominently featured in the tales and legends passed down and still passed down to seafarers. It represents the fatal omen to not cross on one’s voyage, because it is a boat whose crew has been cursed and condemned to wander on the waves for eternity.
It is therefore most certainly a maritime tale that Françoise proposed, like Le Gabier de Surcouf 4 years later. Note that the Dutchman has become a Dutchwoman, and it’s a safe bet that she made a captain of a pirate or corsair; it is even quite possible that the entire crew was female. A curse on the men who crossed their path! (Vincent)
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