Paris, Les Editions du Sud, 345 pages

This biographical novel begins with a 3-page introduction, Le 19ème siècle et le triomphe de la bourgeoisie, which ends as follows:

“Certainly, from 1830 to the first decades of our 20th century, this was the golden age of the bourgeoisie, with that unpleasant nightmare of the Commune, a desperate attempt by the “possessed” class to shake off its yoke; this was the era, of which ours has retained so much nostalgia in the heart of its middle classes, when the Franc was as firm as a rock, and consequently patriarchal morality, severe, prudish and fixed. Where the little blue flower is cultivated all the more because gold is obtained at the price of sweat and blood…”.

“A lively, lively tone… A book full of anecdotes.” (Nouvelles littéraires)

Paris, Éditions du Sud, Albin Michel, 335 pages

“Just as Jacobin and Napoleonic expansion had tended to liberate peoples before giving them a new discipline, the School of Five broke the chains with which Italian and Classical tyranny had burdened the realm of music; in this sense Balakirev and his satellites, Borodin, Moussorgsky, César Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov were the heirs … of the French Berlioz and the Frenchized Hungarian Franz Lizt. The former was dead: the latter recognized his own. …

…Franz Lizt represents the second generation of musical Romanticism. …Freedom of interpretation, a legacy of 19th-century Romantic individualism, is an achievement due to Lizt and him alone. “

Paris, Seghers, 349 pages.

” 1896 ; un dur hiver noircit les vitres de Paris ; la neige a couvert les trottoirs d’un drap épais, puis a fondu ; on attend à nouveau qu’elle tombe. Chaque bec de gaz crache sa flamme jaune au cœur d’une plume de paon, irisation des gouttelettes de la brume.

Rue Descartes, au carreau d’un garni, un papillon rouge vacille, tremble et rouvre ses ailes ; c’est une lampe à pétrole dont la mèche noircissante va mourir. Le vieux malade est tombé sur le carrelage ébréché. Sa chemise de nuit, crasseuse, est remontée sur ses cuisses comme sur le dessin de Daumier Les Massacres de la rue Transnonnain. Il grogne et gémit ; il jure. Une de ses jambes, énorme et raide, a la couleur bleue d’une seule monstrueuse ecchymose. Il halète. Il griffe les carreaux avec ses ongles. Il crie : «Eugénie ! » Il se tait. Son souffle bruyant accompagne l’agonie de la lampe. Un fiacre qui passe ébranle les vitres de la maison et un chant d’ivrogne tourne le coin de la rue, vacille, puis disparaît.

Il est étendu par terre, dans sa chemise sale, avec son crâne chauve et sa barbe emmêlée, et il pousse encore quelques jurons; puis il gémit comme un enfant qui rêve : «Philomène… » Il se tait. “

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” Entre les mains qui le bordent et resserrent les couvertures autour de lui, le vieux se sent filer, tomber dans un trou immense ; une brèche de lumière s’ouvre à travers cette nuit : c’est le pâle soleil de Metz sur les vertes esplanades, à l’heure où sonne la diane étouffée des casernes ; la nuit va descendre, et le petit Paul tend son front ravi aux lèvres de la plus belle des femmes :

—Bonsoir, maman, dit-il. “

Éditions Albin Michel, Paris, 285 pages. Reissue titled Moi, Kristine, reine de Suède, 1979

The Memoirs of Hadrian , Marguerite Yourcenar’s monumental work published 7 years earlier, can only come to mind when reading Françoise’s novel. And it is not the transparent clues that she left that will invalidate this observation. One could think of a stylistic imitation, when it is necessary to see there what these two great authors shared: a real knowledge of the Greeks and the Latins.

Knowledge that Françoise puts at the service of her purpose which, always, will have been to say: Women ! Be proud to be! It is thanks to this statement that I will have quite naturally, from my childhood readings, been led to consider that an epic hero could just as well be a heroine.

With Kristine from Sweden, Françoise paints a historical figure that lives up to her intentions. Friend and correspondent of the greatest intellectual and scientific figures of her century, linchpin of the Treaty of Westphalia, adventurous and combative, diplomat and peacemaker, Queen Kristine was unquestionably one of the most important figures in Europe of her time. (Vincent)

In this book, Françoise shows not only the poet, but above all the man Rimbaud in all the ups and downs of his life, with his vices, his eruptions of character. Rimbaud’s genius shines through, with his eruptive temperament, his absolute loyalty to himself, his mockery of all bourgeois morality, and his transformation from poet to pure merchant, interested only in making money in Abyssinia as an arms dealer.

Julliard, 354 pages.

Written between 1942 and 1943, this novel is a succession of detailed images and earthy dialogues. The misery of the times that Françoise navigates as best she can finds an echo in the descriptions that she makes of popular life under Louis XIV. A whole world of craftsmen, shopkeepers and rank and file soldiers comes to life in these pages against the backdrop of the life and paintings of Antoine Watteau. Women are also very present there, especially Morena, who embodies a hard-won and preserved independence. This novel, which is deftly constructed in a masterly way, is surprisingly mature for a 22-year-old author. (Vincent)