The quip about Mantel's humor reminds me of the bit in Wolf Hall:
"Mark says I look like a muderer."
"Didn't you know?"
It's one of the many things I love about Mantel's work. It's so quietly funny. I think too many historical writers forget that people in the past had a sense of humor, too.
While I bow to the talent of Mantel, I am weary of this hot-house of a novel. The “cleverness” of the author, the tangled domestic situations and the (to me) somewhat confusing political alliances are wearing me down, though, of course I will continue and finish APOGS, in part because Simon is a masterful guide. I am always eager to read his (and fellow readers’) commentary and observations each week. And I am learning about Paris during the French Revolution. Or re-learning it perhaps…
I am also currently slow-reading Anna Karenina and I’ll choose Tolstoy over Mantel any time. Tolstoy’s writing is often brilliant and even elegant at times. Mantel is sometimes brilliant but less coherent.
I always have trouble separating an author from his or her writing and sense a turbulence that makes its way onto her pages….a life that wasn’t easy perhaps, corralling a drive and an intellect that burned white hot at times.
I love these slow reads, and am always trying to explain what they are, hoping to seduce others to join.
Glad to see I'm not the only one struggling a bit. Maybe a large part of the reason why I am finding this to be a rather frustrating reading experience is attributable to my lack of knowledge about the French Revolution, but I am finding it impossible to keep track of the characters outside of the main cast. Admittedly my reading this on an e-reader doesn't help, since it's a bit of a hassle to consult the list of characters at the beginning, but while the list may help one contextualise the character, it doesn't really give you a good handle on how the beliefs/politics of the person, let alone how these may be changing over the course of the novel. Mantel's "jump cut" style, consisting often of snippets of conversations that are rich in subtext and adumbrations, is especially challenging on a novel of such expansive scope where secondary characters are hardly given any development. (The part introducing Mme Roland is such a welcome relief because it is rare that there is so much to sink one's teeth into re a side character.) At some point I couldn't even follow the evolution of the thoughts of the three protagonists and how/why tension among the three is ebbing and flowing at different point.
Something I would have liked to have done, had I had time, was provide individual chapter-by-chapter character summaries in the same way I did for War and Peace and Wolf Hall. This was so labour-intensive last year, I decided I couldn't commit to it - but I can see how it would have been a great help here.
The audiobook really helps (in fact, I would say this book is especially well-suited to the audiobook format), and I know on my first read, I didn't take it all in and got characters muddled the whole time. Hopefully, these weekly summaries and discussions help with that... although I always say, don't worry about being lost, sometimes being lost is part of the adventure!
We have to keep banging this drum: the audiobook really helps with keeping track of who’s who! Jonathan Keeble does an admirable job with it (especially his characterisation of Danton, imo)
Oh, I really like the „jump cut“ description, that‘s spot-on, @KL.
I‘m not the most attentive of readers in the first place, but almost every week I‘ve found myself reading Simon‘s recaps and thinking to myself, I completely missed that. It really is a bit disorienting. And I‘m at an advantage as I have a fairly ok grasp of the French Revolution and many of its main protagonists (I will be very, very happy next week!).
As to my judgment of the book, I am still quite torn. The central conceit of putting the private lives of the revolutionaries front and centre seems to me to be very successful, because I can easily believe that it‘s what it would have felt like to them. But the large cast of point-of-view characters taking dizzying turns is a bit much. Then again, this style is quite emblematic of their characters, as the most down-to-earth characters who aren‘t buffeted around by their desires and political ambitions, like Gabrielle and Manon Roland are given perfectly straightforward narrative turns.
Finally, finally someone has called Camille „evil“ to his face! I punched the air. I enjoy him very much as a character, but what a dreadfully amoral and destructive human being he is. At this point, one of the reasons I am sticking with the novel (apart from the as-ever excellent slow read and its undisputable qualities in the writing) is that I want closure for these accidental, thoroughly self-centered revolutionaries. I‘m going to Paris in about two weeks‘ time, so I might read ahead just so that I can shout „ha! You kind of deserved that!“ in the appropriate places (or place, rather, seeing how NO SPOILERS here).
Haha says a lot about me that I find your response to the characters almost more chilling than the characters themselves! What this book does to my insides is similar to what the Cromwell books do: regardless of whether I want it or not, I find myself feeling all their joys and fears. So their deaths are my death, and however evil their actions, I cannot cheer over that – I just feel sick in my stomach and want to crawl out of the pages and escape.
That's what this book is about for me: the physiological experience of revolution and terror. It makes me feel. And that overload of characters and bewilderment is all part of that experience – as well as the sense that your friends are about to turn on you.
Oh no, now I have gone and shocked you! While I am a rather mellow judge of my fellow humans in real life, I‘ve found that I have much stronger reactions to fictional (or, in this case, semi-fictional) characters and find it very easy to condemn them to awful fates. One form of escapism, I guess?
The current chapters are also happening against the backdrop of the Vendée uprising. Learning - as a child, too, an age where I didn’t grasp the full extent of what happened- about the atrocities committed there shocked me deeply and made me decide I definitely didn‘t want to know more, but they are barely mentioned here as our revolutionaries are busy with their love-lives and increasingly high-stakes personal squabbles. I think Mantel is right to treat them that way, because obviously our men wouldn’t have been too concerned with what was going on so far west.
And I like your description of the effect the novel has:
„That's what this book is about for me: the physiological experience of revolution and terror. It makes me feel. And that overload of characters and bewilderment is all part of that experience – as well as the sense that your friends are about to turn on you.“
I still take the liberty of judging them! As I judge the whole enterprise of the revolution, especially the profound and extremely ugly misogyny it was fuelled by. It‘s a shame really, because it did have a really important impact on political thought - the ideas of equality and liberty have clearly made the world a better place. (The metric system is cool, too! And the fashion was quite excellent)
I have Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three on my shelves. Have you read it? Would you recommend it? I feel I may need to read something on the Vendée at some point - if my stomach can take it.
Not shocked, I think, only chilled! It seems to get at different ways of reading, something I think emerged during the War & Peace slow read.
I don't tend to read for escapism, and I find myself reading fiction as life (instead of art?) and a space where I practice greater compassion than I can muster in the real world. Rather than being harsher on fictional characters, I am kinder to them - perhaps because the imaginative process makes those characters *become me*, and we should be kinder to ourselves, no?
For me it really is the other way round - having mentally pummelled fictional characters for lacking something or other, I find myself able to walk out into the world and view my fellow human beings somewhat more charitably.
Have not read the Victor Hugo book - and merely learning that it was about the Vendée makes my skin crawl, so you won‘t get me to recommend reading it.
Our daughter spent a week on an exchange with some really dyed-in-the-wool Vendéens (lovely people, our wonderful exchange student Julie, now a midwife, is coming to visit again next year) and the history still shows. She brought back Vendée uprising-themed sweets! My jaw dropped a little.
There‘s a very odd and triumphantly reactionary theme park, Le Puy du Fou, in the Vendée that‘s very well done and spectacular fun, with all the cool bits of French history trotted out for entertainment. We went there because our daughter‘s exchange included a visit and she loved it, but there‘s something maniacal about it. The shows there include one about a young general who leads the Vendéens in the counter-revolutionary uprising. I‘d cautiously recommend it - fantastic entertainment, but you have to be ok with putting money in the pockets of some extremely reactionary people.
Daphne du Maurier's The Glass Blowers has a horrific scene which I think was in the Vendee. The whole novel is about Du Maurier's ancestors who lived through the revolution, but in the provinces rather than in Paris.
I feel exactly the same with Mantel. I’ve stuck with it, but would have given up months ago without Simon as our guide. I’m with you on the Anna K journey. I love the slow read format as well. 👍
Yes.. I’ve learnt a lot about the history.. and shocked my husband a few months ago when I correctly answered a question on University Challenge on the subject. He looked across at me and said “ How did you know that?” 🤣
Sounds well worth it, haha! One of the main reasons I do these slow reads is so I can learn more about the events and objects referenced in my favourite books. This re-read of APOGS has been the richest so far - and I'm almost looking forward to listening to it again one day, with all this extra knowledge.
Politicians claiming to be doing things for the people - but in reality lining their own pockets?
Politicians being unfaithful - and violent towards a spouse?
Politicians ignoring the rule of law to achieve their own ends?
I mean, it's a bit far-fetched, isn't it?
Oh, wait a minute...
I must admit the echange about Camille being in love with Danton took me by surprise - in fact, the idea of anybody being in love with Danton takes me by surprise. It's not only the face that only a mother could love, but his ego! Again, look at 21st Century politicians!
The admin side of me is thinking 'this is what happens when you don't have a plan'. It's total bloody (in all senses of the word) chaos. There are lots of short-term tactics, but nobody seems clear about the endgame.
In fact, the only person who seems to have any understanding of the politics is Louise - and stay-at-home teenager.
Danton's reaction to Gabrielle's death was unexpected. It does feel genuine - and yet he was so awful to her when she was alive.
And nice to see 'arranging your face' back in fashion.
Your immunity to Danton's seductions does you credit, Bren. I only wish I were so strong. While I cannot say what is attractive about him precisely, I feel Gabrielle, Lucile and Camille would be no more coherent. Louise thinks she can save him from himself, which is clearer and more noble... if evidently naive.
The National Convention has been sitting for half a year now, and still no sign of a new constitution, the main reason why they were set up. No wonder everyone is pissed off with them.
Tragedy, blackmail, and beheadings aside, there's so much juicy soap opera this week. But I was fascinated by Gabrielle and Camille's conversation about Danton.
"This view he has of himself -- he thinks, people may call me corrupt, but I am just playing the system, I'm still my own man, nothing touches me. But it doesn't work like that. He's forgotten what he wanted. The means have become the end. He doesn't see it, but he's corrupt all through."
I had dog-earred and then returned to a page for this exact quote: the notion of forgetting one's desire; "The means have become the end"; the self-delusion.
I’m with you Simon, when you say this book makes you feel - I am utterly sucked into the drama and this week was a rollercoaster. Again, so many chilling moments where key decisions are made and their architects fail to foresee, or have no choice but to discount, their implications.
I loved the conversation between Camille and Gabrielle, perhaps because someone finally treated her like a grown up, not just a child to be kept in the dark. Her death felt like such a cruel blow, too, although perhaps in a way it was a mercy for her to miss out on the coming bloodbath.
I loved Louise’s narration, too. Mantel is a master of voice, and each character feels so distinctly themselves in the way they describe and interact with the world.
Also, Danton’s comment to the General gave me pause: “You are determined to be the complete cynic, General. There is nothing I can do about that. But watch us - we are going to make a new constitution. It will be different from anything the world has ever seen before. It will provide for everyone to be educated, and for everyone to have work.” A rare statement of ideals from the man who seems most interested in using Revolution for his own advantage. Maybe Mantel is being ironic about who the cynic is here, but it did cause a pang of grief for me, that these progressive, positive ideals were not executed and instead what was executed was… everyone?
That exchange made me take stock too, Marianne. I thought for a minute I had confused who was talking, and Dumouriez was calling Danton a cynic. But no.
I think so many interesting things are going on: Danton's obviously presenting himself as a pure patriot so that Dumouriez doesn't try to implicate him in his plans. Danton may also be thinking: what is my price? I can be bought, but not at Dumouriez's asking price, which will clearly cost my head.
And then yes, maybe Danton does indeed want to be the man who gets things done. At this time he is positioning himself as more of a moderate, someone who can unite the factions in the National Convention, bring the war to an end and get the constitution written.
If ever there was an on-the-nose instance of juxtaposition, I feel like it is here. A hyperbolic form of irony, even. An inversion, too, of order that can electrify just as much as it destabilizes.
While I still am swirling a bit as I try to navigate this section of the book and Mantel's choices around its narration and depiction, I have to admit: the deliverance of Louis's death was remarkable. Tragically so, too.
Nearing the end now, I still can’t make up my mind about it. Initially I thought it needed a decent editor, but I don’t know what you could cut out. The multiple viewpoints is experimental and gives a sense of the confusion of the events and of what it must have been like living through them, not knowing where all this was leading to. On the other hand it leads to an inconsistent narrative voice. Some of the characters are plain irritating (looking at you, Desmoulins). But the one thing I have particularly enjoyed is the humour that I found really unexpected and it has really helped to keep me going. This week especially the scene between Dumouriez and Danton read like a Marx Brothers film script.
Oh, how Camille splits opinion! He's the lynchpin to the narrative, so I think readers who find him irritating seem to have the hardest time with this book. But I agree, Mantel's humour carries it. It would be dull and dark without it.
Must admit I feel a bit more warmly towards Camille now, after his reaction when his friend was killed before his eyes, when he felt sick at the hypocritical distinction between some deaths and others during Robespierre’s speech, his love for Lucille and Danton… although I still find him very selfish and untrustworthy… Oh, and does anybody else think that Timothée Chalomet would be a good casting choice in a movie adaptation?
“The king’s trial is over.” So begins Part V, Chapter 5—yet Mantel never takes us inside the Convention, the actual courtroom of history.
Instead, she shifts the emotional weight to Danton’s house, where he receives a blackmail letter from an émigré royalist, urging him to support the king’s cause. Stressed and volatile, Danton lashes out with a backhand to his pregnant wife. It’s a tense and well-crafted scene.
There’s no historical record that Danton ever received such a letter—or that he ever struck his wife. But Mantel’s depiction is psychologically credible and thematically resonant. Still, it’s worth noting that Danton’s most recent biographer, David Lawday, strongly contests the long-standing image of Danton as corrupt. While accusations of bribery have dogged Danton’s legacy for centuries, Lawday finds no direct evidence that he accepted bribes and argues persuasively that the charges were politically motivated.
Meanwhile, the real drama is unfolding elsewhere: in the Convention, where for the first time in modern European history, an elected legislature is deciding whether to execute its monarch. The stakes could not be higher. Monarchies across Europe watch in horror.
The deputies—ostensibly impartial jurors—are already compromised. Danton votes for execution without hearing the evidence; Camille Desmoulins, even before the trial begins, publishes a pamphlet calling for the king’s death. This is also the moment the Girondins lose their first major confrontation with the Mountain. Sensing political defeat, many of them—literally in fear for their lives—abandon their prior opposition to capital punishment. And even then, the vote for execution passes by just one.
Thomas Carlyle captures the trial’s surreal tone with a kind of horrified wonder. Over the course of three sleepless days, the Convention chamber becomes a bizarre theatre of judgment:
“‘The Ushers in the Mountain quarter,’ says Mercier, ‘had become as Box-keepers at the Opera’; opening and shutting of galleries for privileged persons, for ‘D’Orléans Égalité’s mistresses,’ or other high-dizened women of condition, rustling with laces and tricolor. Gallant Deputies pass and repass thitherward, treating them with ices, refreshments and small-talk… Betting goes on in all coffee-houses of the neighbourhood… Figures rise, like phantoms, pale in the dusky lamp-light; utter from this Tribune, only one word: Death… Deep in the Thursday night, when the Voting is done, and Secretaries are summing it up, sick Duchâtel, more spectral than another, comes borne on a chair, wrapped in blankets, in ‘nightgown and nightcap,’ to vote for Mercy: one vote it is thought may turn the scale.”
Mantel dramatizes none of this. She’s writing a different kind of novel—not Tolstoy’s panoramic history, but something more intimate, focused on private lives, their ruptures and betrayals, the lurid human dramas behind closed doors.
In Chapter 6, A Secret History, Camille writes the infamous pamphlet denouncing his former Girondin colleagues, branding them as traitors simply for opposing the Mountain. Did he mean only to destroy their careers? Or did he understand that he was paving the way for their arrests and eventual executions? Mantel doesn’t dramatize much internal conflict here—no hesitation, no remorse. Once again, Camille appears as a tool of others’ power—this time Robespierre’s. It feels like a missed opportunity.
I tend to see Camille as a tragic figure, closer in spirit to someone like Nikolai Bukharin—Stalin’s former protégé, who opposed the regime’s violent collectivization and broke down in tears over the suffering it inflicted on Russia’s peasantry. But Mantel’s Camille isn’t tragic. He’s petty, opportunistic, and politically stupid—indifferent to the consequences of his own polemics.
One more thing that deserves mention here: Thomas Paine. A transatlantic figure—English-born, American-naturalized—Paine had no love for monarchy. He believed hereditary rule was absurd and tyrannical. And yet, when the time came, he spoke out forcefully against executing Louis XVI, at great personal risk. His opposition nearly cost him his life. Both Americans and Britons should take pride in his moral clarity. In a scene full of betrayal and bloodlust, Paine stands out for his principle—one of the more remarkable voices in a moment when so many others went silent.
A good scholarly treatment of the king's trial: Jordan, David P. The King’s Trial: Louis XVI vs. the French Revolution. University of California Press, 1979.
The dialogues in these chapters are some of the best in the book - breathtaking. I took my time with them. Mostly women - Gabrielle, Louise, Manon, Angelique, Mme. Gely, some quips from Lucile that are precious. Mantel is such a virtuoso with dialogue and detail, the way the characters move about the room, sit, stand, slump, face each other, turn - and where she cuts the scene - it is just genius. I know folks have been talking about Tolstoy in the thread above (no comparison on the time frames of the writing) - I find his war scenes amazing and his private dialogues, especially his handling of women, heavy handed and even contemptuous at times (it may be my high school baggage, who knows, and I am willing to put some effort into a curated re read). But Mantel … I cannot believe it’s just another 2-3 weeks with this book - then what?
Yes - wolf hall twice, Bones definitely have to re read as I want to get into detail - I read it when it first came out. Have about 300 pages of the Mirror and the Light left, as you pointed out, I have not wanted it to end! Will finish this year. And reread with a pencil in hand. It’s a rare joy, her writing.
My favourite part of this week's reading was the way that the voices of the women form a sort of chorus bringing us different perspectives on the story.
Lucile is increasingly saying what we're all thinking with her critique of the legality of Louis's trial & her scornful comments on "public safety". I think she may be my favourite character, I love how she combines self-awareness with her moth-to-the-flame need for drama.
Gabrielle also shows herself to be far more switched on than everyone assumes, giving a surprisingly clear-eyed assessment of what our protagonists have been going through, with her speech to Camille adding to the theme of choosing not to know that I mentioned last week ("Both of us knew everything and wouldn't admit it") & her wonderful summary of the corrupting effects of politics.
& Louise, in her conversation with Danton where she echoes her parents' royalist views, is able to bring us a glimpse of the parts of the story that Mantel leaves untold, with her mentions of civil war and provincial demands for a referendum. And her scolding of Danton is priceless:
"Listen, I am familiar with you great men, in all your manifestations, and I'm sure I don't know the words for how you disgust me."
"Most of you discharge your public duties by beginning to drink at nine o'clock in the morning and spend your day plotting how you can stab each other in the back and make off with each other's wives."
"If you want to save yourself as a human being, you should get out of politics."
I felt the same way about the women forming a sort of chorus to the events, especially in the “Burning the Bodies” chapter where Gabrielle, Lucile, and Louise Robert are waiting together in the apartment during 10 August.
Oh, Gabrielle!!!😫😢I didn’t see that coming, these types of deaths always leave me heartbroken and unsettled, it’s all so sudden and unexpected, so unfair… and once more shows how bad things were for women…😭
Was it pre eclampsia, do we think? Mantel mentions Gabrielle’s face or hands being puffy and swollen, and a convulsion. I cant find any information other than Danton’s reaction afterwards, so probably she made it all up, but it feels very real, and very bleak.
At the Musee de la Revolution in Vizille near Grenoble, there’s a display of collectible painted ceramic dishes from the time that feature Revolutionary scenes like this 😂
The quip about Mantel's humor reminds me of the bit in Wolf Hall:
"Mark says I look like a muderer."
"Didn't you know?"
It's one of the many things I love about Mantel's work. It's so quietly funny. I think too many historical writers forget that people in the past had a sense of humor, too.
Yes, there are so many acerbic one-liners.
While I bow to the talent of Mantel, I am weary of this hot-house of a novel. The “cleverness” of the author, the tangled domestic situations and the (to me) somewhat confusing political alliances are wearing me down, though, of course I will continue and finish APOGS, in part because Simon is a masterful guide. I am always eager to read his (and fellow readers’) commentary and observations each week. And I am learning about Paris during the French Revolution. Or re-learning it perhaps…
I am also currently slow-reading Anna Karenina and I’ll choose Tolstoy over Mantel any time. Tolstoy’s writing is often brilliant and even elegant at times. Mantel is sometimes brilliant but less coherent.
I always have trouble separating an author from his or her writing and sense a turbulence that makes its way onto her pages….a life that wasn’t easy perhaps, corralling a drive and an intellect that burned white hot at times.
I love these slow reads, and am always trying to explain what they are, hoping to seduce others to join.
If you find a concise way of describing these slow reads, do let me know Barbara. I'm always trying to explain to people what I do!
Glad to see I'm not the only one struggling a bit. Maybe a large part of the reason why I am finding this to be a rather frustrating reading experience is attributable to my lack of knowledge about the French Revolution, but I am finding it impossible to keep track of the characters outside of the main cast. Admittedly my reading this on an e-reader doesn't help, since it's a bit of a hassle to consult the list of characters at the beginning, but while the list may help one contextualise the character, it doesn't really give you a good handle on how the beliefs/politics of the person, let alone how these may be changing over the course of the novel. Mantel's "jump cut" style, consisting often of snippets of conversations that are rich in subtext and adumbrations, is especially challenging on a novel of such expansive scope where secondary characters are hardly given any development. (The part introducing Mme Roland is such a welcome relief because it is rare that there is so much to sink one's teeth into re a side character.) At some point I couldn't even follow the evolution of the thoughts of the three protagonists and how/why tension among the three is ebbing and flowing at different point.
Something I would have liked to have done, had I had time, was provide individual chapter-by-chapter character summaries in the same way I did for War and Peace and Wolf Hall. This was so labour-intensive last year, I decided I couldn't commit to it - but I can see how it would have been a great help here.
The audiobook really helps (in fact, I would say this book is especially well-suited to the audiobook format), and I know on my first read, I didn't take it all in and got characters muddled the whole time. Hopefully, these weekly summaries and discussions help with that... although I always say, don't worry about being lost, sometimes being lost is part of the adventure!
I’m loving the audiobook!
We have to keep banging this drum: the audiobook really helps with keeping track of who’s who! Jonathan Keeble does an admirable job with it (especially his characterisation of Danton, imo)
YES! It's one of the best audiobooks and brings everyone to life!
I couldn't have stuck with the book if I wasn't listening to it as I read it. The audiobook really helped me to separate out the characters better.
Oh, I really like the „jump cut“ description, that‘s spot-on, @KL.
I‘m not the most attentive of readers in the first place, but almost every week I‘ve found myself reading Simon‘s recaps and thinking to myself, I completely missed that. It really is a bit disorienting. And I‘m at an advantage as I have a fairly ok grasp of the French Revolution and many of its main protagonists (I will be very, very happy next week!).
As to my judgment of the book, I am still quite torn. The central conceit of putting the private lives of the revolutionaries front and centre seems to me to be very successful, because I can easily believe that it‘s what it would have felt like to them. But the large cast of point-of-view characters taking dizzying turns is a bit much. Then again, this style is quite emblematic of their characters, as the most down-to-earth characters who aren‘t buffeted around by their desires and political ambitions, like Gabrielle and Manon Roland are given perfectly straightforward narrative turns.
Finally, finally someone has called Camille „evil“ to his face! I punched the air. I enjoy him very much as a character, but what a dreadfully amoral and destructive human being he is. At this point, one of the reasons I am sticking with the novel (apart from the as-ever excellent slow read and its undisputable qualities in the writing) is that I want closure for these accidental, thoroughly self-centered revolutionaries. I‘m going to Paris in about two weeks‘ time, so I might read ahead just so that I can shout „ha! You kind of deserved that!“ in the appropriate places (or place, rather, seeing how NO SPOILERS here).
Haha says a lot about me that I find your response to the characters almost more chilling than the characters themselves! What this book does to my insides is similar to what the Cromwell books do: regardless of whether I want it or not, I find myself feeling all their joys and fears. So their deaths are my death, and however evil their actions, I cannot cheer over that – I just feel sick in my stomach and want to crawl out of the pages and escape.
That's what this book is about for me: the physiological experience of revolution and terror. It makes me feel. And that overload of characters and bewilderment is all part of that experience – as well as the sense that your friends are about to turn on you.
Oh no, now I have gone and shocked you! While I am a rather mellow judge of my fellow humans in real life, I‘ve found that I have much stronger reactions to fictional (or, in this case, semi-fictional) characters and find it very easy to condemn them to awful fates. One form of escapism, I guess?
The current chapters are also happening against the backdrop of the Vendée uprising. Learning - as a child, too, an age where I didn’t grasp the full extent of what happened- about the atrocities committed there shocked me deeply and made me decide I definitely didn‘t want to know more, but they are barely mentioned here as our revolutionaries are busy with their love-lives and increasingly high-stakes personal squabbles. I think Mantel is right to treat them that way, because obviously our men wouldn’t have been too concerned with what was going on so far west.
And I like your description of the effect the novel has:
„That's what this book is about for me: the physiological experience of revolution and terror. It makes me feel. And that overload of characters and bewilderment is all part of that experience – as well as the sense that your friends are about to turn on you.“
I still take the liberty of judging them! As I judge the whole enterprise of the revolution, especially the profound and extremely ugly misogyny it was fuelled by. It‘s a shame really, because it did have a really important impact on political thought - the ideas of equality and liberty have clearly made the world a better place. (The metric system is cool, too! And the fashion was quite excellent)
I have Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three on my shelves. Have you read it? Would you recommend it? I feel I may need to read something on the Vendée at some point - if my stomach can take it.
Not shocked, I think, only chilled! It seems to get at different ways of reading, something I think emerged during the War & Peace slow read.
I don't tend to read for escapism, and I find myself reading fiction as life (instead of art?) and a space where I practice greater compassion than I can muster in the real world. Rather than being harsher on fictional characters, I am kinder to them - perhaps because the imaginative process makes those characters *become me*, and we should be kinder to ourselves, no?
For me it really is the other way round - having mentally pummelled fictional characters for lacking something or other, I find myself able to walk out into the world and view my fellow human beings somewhat more charitably.
Have not read the Victor Hugo book - and merely learning that it was about the Vendée makes my skin crawl, so you won‘t get me to recommend reading it.
Our daughter spent a week on an exchange with some really dyed-in-the-wool Vendéens (lovely people, our wonderful exchange student Julie, now a midwife, is coming to visit again next year) and the history still shows. She brought back Vendée uprising-themed sweets! My jaw dropped a little.
There‘s a very odd and triumphantly reactionary theme park, Le Puy du Fou, in the Vendée that‘s very well done and spectacular fun, with all the cool bits of French history trotted out for entertainment. We went there because our daughter‘s exchange included a visit and she loved it, but there‘s something maniacal about it. The shows there include one about a young general who leads the Vendéens in the counter-revolutionary uprising. I‘d cautiously recommend it - fantastic entertainment, but you have to be ok with putting money in the pockets of some extremely reactionary people.
Daphne du Maurier's The Glass Blowers has a horrific scene which I think was in the Vendee. The whole novel is about Du Maurier's ancestors who lived through the revolution, but in the provinces rather than in Paris.
I feel exactly the same with Mantel. I’ve stuck with it, but would have given up months ago without Simon as our guide. I’m with you on the Anna K journey. I love the slow read format as well. 👍
Mantel won't be for everyone, for sure! But I hope you are getting something from the experience nonetheless.
Yes.. I’ve learnt a lot about the history.. and shocked my husband a few months ago when I correctly answered a question on University Challenge on the subject. He looked across at me and said “ How did you know that?” 🤣
Sounds well worth it, haha! One of the main reasons I do these slow reads is so I can learn more about the events and objects referenced in my favourite books. This re-read of APOGS has been the richest so far - and I'm almost looking forward to listening to it again one day, with all this extra knowledge.
Politicians claiming to be doing things for the people - but in reality lining their own pockets?
Politicians being unfaithful - and violent towards a spouse?
Politicians ignoring the rule of law to achieve their own ends?
I mean, it's a bit far-fetched, isn't it?
Oh, wait a minute...
I must admit the echange about Camille being in love with Danton took me by surprise - in fact, the idea of anybody being in love with Danton takes me by surprise. It's not only the face that only a mother could love, but his ego! Again, look at 21st Century politicians!
The admin side of me is thinking 'this is what happens when you don't have a plan'. It's total bloody (in all senses of the word) chaos. There are lots of short-term tactics, but nobody seems clear about the endgame.
In fact, the only person who seems to have any understanding of the politics is Louise - and stay-at-home teenager.
Danton's reaction to Gabrielle's death was unexpected. It does feel genuine - and yet he was so awful to her when she was alive.
And nice to see 'arranging your face' back in fashion.
Your immunity to Danton's seductions does you credit, Bren. I only wish I were so strong. While I cannot say what is attractive about him precisely, I feel Gabrielle, Lucile and Camille would be no more coherent. Louise thinks she can save him from himself, which is clearer and more noble... if evidently naive.
The National Convention has been sitting for half a year now, and still no sign of a new constitution, the main reason why they were set up. No wonder everyone is pissed off with them.
Danton is ugly but HOT
Ha, I knew it was something.
Definitely hot.
😲
I'm failing to see the appeal of Danton too, although I will sheepishly admit that I'm quite captivated by Camille...
Rather like the cavaliers, Camille seems to be “wrong, but wromantic”. I think you can allow yourself to be captivated.
I read Children of the New Forest at an impressionable age so I'd have to agree. Or maybe I'm just drawn to whoever has the best hair?
Tragedy, blackmail, and beheadings aside, there's so much juicy soap opera this week. But I was fascinated by Gabrielle and Camille's conversation about Danton.
"This view he has of himself -- he thinks, people may call me corrupt, but I am just playing the system, I'm still my own man, nothing touches me. But it doesn't work like that. He's forgotten what he wanted. The means have become the end. He doesn't see it, but he's corrupt all through."
I had dog-earred and then returned to a page for this exact quote: the notion of forgetting one's desire; "The means have become the end"; the self-delusion.
This is a masterful, resonant observation.
I’m with you Simon, when you say this book makes you feel - I am utterly sucked into the drama and this week was a rollercoaster. Again, so many chilling moments where key decisions are made and their architects fail to foresee, or have no choice but to discount, their implications.
I loved the conversation between Camille and Gabrielle, perhaps because someone finally treated her like a grown up, not just a child to be kept in the dark. Her death felt like such a cruel blow, too, although perhaps in a way it was a mercy for her to miss out on the coming bloodbath.
I loved Louise’s narration, too. Mantel is a master of voice, and each character feels so distinctly themselves in the way they describe and interact with the world.
Also, Danton’s comment to the General gave me pause: “You are determined to be the complete cynic, General. There is nothing I can do about that. But watch us - we are going to make a new constitution. It will be different from anything the world has ever seen before. It will provide for everyone to be educated, and for everyone to have work.” A rare statement of ideals from the man who seems most interested in using Revolution for his own advantage. Maybe Mantel is being ironic about who the cynic is here, but it did cause a pang of grief for me, that these progressive, positive ideals were not executed and instead what was executed was… everyone?
That exchange made me take stock too, Marianne. I thought for a minute I had confused who was talking, and Dumouriez was calling Danton a cynic. But no.
I think so many interesting things are going on: Danton's obviously presenting himself as a pure patriot so that Dumouriez doesn't try to implicate him in his plans. Danton may also be thinking: what is my price? I can be bought, but not at Dumouriez's asking price, which will clearly cost my head.
And then yes, maybe Danton does indeed want to be the man who gets things done. At this time he is positioning himself as more of a moderate, someone who can unite the factions in the National Convention, bring the war to an end and get the constitution written.
"Lepelletier, the martyr, lies in state."
"Louis, the King, is quicklimed."
If ever there was an on-the-nose instance of juxtaposition, I feel like it is here. A hyperbolic form of irony, even. An inversion, too, of order that can electrify just as much as it destabilizes.
While I still am swirling a bit as I try to navigate this section of the book and Mantel's choices around its narration and depiction, I have to admit: the deliverance of Louis's death was remarkable. Tragically so, too.
Nearing the end now, I still can’t make up my mind about it. Initially I thought it needed a decent editor, but I don’t know what you could cut out. The multiple viewpoints is experimental and gives a sense of the confusion of the events and of what it must have been like living through them, not knowing where all this was leading to. On the other hand it leads to an inconsistent narrative voice. Some of the characters are plain irritating (looking at you, Desmoulins). But the one thing I have particularly enjoyed is the humour that I found really unexpected and it has really helped to keep me going. This week especially the scene between Dumouriez and Danton read like a Marx Brothers film script.
Oh, how Camille splits opinion! He's the lynchpin to the narrative, so I think readers who find him irritating seem to have the hardest time with this book. But I agree, Mantel's humour carries it. It would be dull and dark without it.
Must admit I feel a bit more warmly towards Camille now, after his reaction when his friend was killed before his eyes, when he felt sick at the hypocritical distinction between some deaths and others during Robespierre’s speech, his love for Lucille and Danton… although I still find him very selfish and untrustworthy… Oh, and does anybody else think that Timothée Chalomet would be a good casting choice in a movie adaptation?
I immediately pegged Timothee Chalamet as Camille too. I think it's the hair! lol
“The king’s trial is over.” So begins Part V, Chapter 5—yet Mantel never takes us inside the Convention, the actual courtroom of history.
Instead, she shifts the emotional weight to Danton’s house, where he receives a blackmail letter from an émigré royalist, urging him to support the king’s cause. Stressed and volatile, Danton lashes out with a backhand to his pregnant wife. It’s a tense and well-crafted scene.
There’s no historical record that Danton ever received such a letter—or that he ever struck his wife. But Mantel’s depiction is psychologically credible and thematically resonant. Still, it’s worth noting that Danton’s most recent biographer, David Lawday, strongly contests the long-standing image of Danton as corrupt. While accusations of bribery have dogged Danton’s legacy for centuries, Lawday finds no direct evidence that he accepted bribes and argues persuasively that the charges were politically motivated.
Meanwhile, the real drama is unfolding elsewhere: in the Convention, where for the first time in modern European history, an elected legislature is deciding whether to execute its monarch. The stakes could not be higher. Monarchies across Europe watch in horror.
The deputies—ostensibly impartial jurors—are already compromised. Danton votes for execution without hearing the evidence; Camille Desmoulins, even before the trial begins, publishes a pamphlet calling for the king’s death. This is also the moment the Girondins lose their first major confrontation with the Mountain. Sensing political defeat, many of them—literally in fear for their lives—abandon their prior opposition to capital punishment. And even then, the vote for execution passes by just one.
Thomas Carlyle captures the trial’s surreal tone with a kind of horrified wonder. Over the course of three sleepless days, the Convention chamber becomes a bizarre theatre of judgment:
“‘The Ushers in the Mountain quarter,’ says Mercier, ‘had become as Box-keepers at the Opera’; opening and shutting of galleries for privileged persons, for ‘D’Orléans Égalité’s mistresses,’ or other high-dizened women of condition, rustling with laces and tricolor. Gallant Deputies pass and repass thitherward, treating them with ices, refreshments and small-talk… Betting goes on in all coffee-houses of the neighbourhood… Figures rise, like phantoms, pale in the dusky lamp-light; utter from this Tribune, only one word: Death… Deep in the Thursday night, when the Voting is done, and Secretaries are summing it up, sick Duchâtel, more spectral than another, comes borne on a chair, wrapped in blankets, in ‘nightgown and nightcap,’ to vote for Mercy: one vote it is thought may turn the scale.”
Mantel dramatizes none of this. She’s writing a different kind of novel—not Tolstoy’s panoramic history, but something more intimate, focused on private lives, their ruptures and betrayals, the lurid human dramas behind closed doors.
In Chapter 6, A Secret History, Camille writes the infamous pamphlet denouncing his former Girondin colleagues, branding them as traitors simply for opposing the Mountain. Did he mean only to destroy their careers? Or did he understand that he was paving the way for their arrests and eventual executions? Mantel doesn’t dramatize much internal conflict here—no hesitation, no remorse. Once again, Camille appears as a tool of others’ power—this time Robespierre’s. It feels like a missed opportunity.
I tend to see Camille as a tragic figure, closer in spirit to someone like Nikolai Bukharin—Stalin’s former protégé, who opposed the regime’s violent collectivization and broke down in tears over the suffering it inflicted on Russia’s peasantry. But Mantel’s Camille isn’t tragic. He’s petty, opportunistic, and politically stupid—indifferent to the consequences of his own polemics.
One more thing that deserves mention here: Thomas Paine. A transatlantic figure—English-born, American-naturalized—Paine had no love for monarchy. He believed hereditary rule was absurd and tyrannical. And yet, when the time came, he spoke out forcefully against executing Louis XVI, at great personal risk. His opposition nearly cost him his life. Both Americans and Britons should take pride in his moral clarity. In a scene full of betrayal and bloodlust, Paine stands out for his principle—one of the more remarkable voices in a moment when so many others went silent.
A good scholarly treatment of the king's trial: Jordan, David P. The King’s Trial: Louis XVI vs. the French Revolution. University of California Press, 1979.
The dialogues in these chapters are some of the best in the book - breathtaking. I took my time with them. Mostly women - Gabrielle, Louise, Manon, Angelique, Mme. Gely, some quips from Lucile that are precious. Mantel is such a virtuoso with dialogue and detail, the way the characters move about the room, sit, stand, slump, face each other, turn - and where she cuts the scene - it is just genius. I know folks have been talking about Tolstoy in the thread above (no comparison on the time frames of the writing) - I find his war scenes amazing and his private dialogues, especially his handling of women, heavy handed and even contemptuous at times (it may be my high school baggage, who knows, and I am willing to put some effort into a curated re read). But Mantel … I cannot believe it’s just another 2-3 weeks with this book - then what?
Wolf Crawl 2026 maybe?
Definitely thinking about it. Cannot bear to have no Mantel …
Have you read the books before?
Yes - wolf hall twice, Bones definitely have to re read as I want to get into detail - I read it when it first came out. Have about 300 pages of the Mirror and the Light left, as you pointed out, I have not wanted it to end! Will finish this year. And reread with a pencil in hand. It’s a rare joy, her writing.
My favourite part of this week's reading was the way that the voices of the women form a sort of chorus bringing us different perspectives on the story.
Lucile is increasingly saying what we're all thinking with her critique of the legality of Louis's trial & her scornful comments on "public safety". I think she may be my favourite character, I love how she combines self-awareness with her moth-to-the-flame need for drama.
Gabrielle also shows herself to be far more switched on than everyone assumes, giving a surprisingly clear-eyed assessment of what our protagonists have been going through, with her speech to Camille adding to the theme of choosing not to know that I mentioned last week ("Both of us knew everything and wouldn't admit it") & her wonderful summary of the corrupting effects of politics.
& Louise, in her conversation with Danton where she echoes her parents' royalist views, is able to bring us a glimpse of the parts of the story that Mantel leaves untold, with her mentions of civil war and provincial demands for a referendum. And her scolding of Danton is priceless:
"Listen, I am familiar with you great men, in all your manifestations, and I'm sure I don't know the words for how you disgust me."
"Most of you discharge your public duties by beginning to drink at nine o'clock in the morning and spend your day plotting how you can stab each other in the back and make off with each other's wives."
"If you want to save yourself as a human being, you should get out of politics."
I felt the same way about the women forming a sort of chorus to the events, especially in the “Burning the Bodies” chapter where Gabrielle, Lucile, and Louise Robert are waiting together in the apartment during 10 August.
Oh, Gabrielle!!!😫😢I didn’t see that coming, these types of deaths always leave me heartbroken and unsettled, it’s all so sudden and unexpected, so unfair… and once more shows how bad things were for women…😭
Was it pre eclampsia, do we think? Mantel mentions Gabrielle’s face or hands being puffy and swollen, and a convulsion. I cant find any information other than Danton’s reaction afterwards, so probably she made it all up, but it feels very real, and very bleak.
I’m not an expert, but it sounds like it could be… very bleak indeed 😢
I'm doing Wolf Crawl as well and there was that "arrange your face" again. I know this was published first but seeing it made me think of Cromwell.
A bit of a tangent, but: how naff is this?
https://radicalteatowel.co.uk/tea-towels/storming-of-the-bastille-tea-towel
Every home should have one!
Not nearly as bad as the jigsaw made of Anne Boleyn's death sentence, courtesy of the National Archive, as spotted by Bea!
😱
At the Musee de la Revolution in Vizille near Grenoble, there’s a display of collectible painted ceramic dishes from the time that feature Revolutionary scenes like this 😂