Le Feld-marechal von Bonaparte
Paris, Flammarion, (July) 1996.
1 vol. (145 x 230 mm) of 180 p., 1, [1] and 4 f. In wrappers, uncut.
First edition.
One of 25 author's copies on blue paper, this one nominative, numbered by the author.
Signed presentation inscription: “À Jean-Noël Flammarion, ce petit maréchal qui a l'uniforme de l'Empire Flammarion ! Avec l'amicale pensée de Jean Dutourd.”
One of 25 author's copies on blue paper, this one nominative, numbered by the author.
Signed presentation inscription: “À Jean-Noël Flammarion, ce petit maréchal qui a l'uniforme de l'Empire Flammarion ! Avec l'amicale pensée de Jean Dutourd.”
The novel is a fictionalized alternate-history essay — as much as a nostalgic plea for monarchy — asking what would have happened if Louis XV had not purchased Corsica: Bonaparte would presumably have become a Field Marshal in the service of Austria, and Europe would have been spared a million deaths, laid at the door of the man whom the staunchly royalist Dutourd describes as the first dictator of the modern era. Yet Dutourd’s true concern is the decline of France — that is, in his view, its fall as a consequence of the Revolution, the source of all its misfortunes.
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