Where Mademoiselle Faces Impossible Choices

Count Hannibal: A Romance of the Court of France by Stanley J. Weyman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a historical romance (in the older sense) set in France during the Huguenot purges, written right around 1900. I found it very entertaining and engaging, as well as thought-provoking--in part because I can't agree with almost anyone in the novel. But I still liked them, sort of.

Count Hannibal--Monsieur de Tavannes, or just Tavannes, mostly--is veteran of many foreign wars, a devout Catholic, a servant of the crown, and a real bastard. In real life, he took a leading role in the murder of Huguenots in 1572, a crime probably instigated by Catherine de' Medici rather than her son the king, but enthusiastically endorsed by most noblemen in the north and most of the Catholic lower classes. However, he saves mademoiselle de Vrillac, a beautiful Huguenot woman he's been kinda hitting on, in a gross way, despite the fact that a she's intended for M. Tignonville. That man is not too brave, and in the moment his betrothed needs him most, when the mob is surging throughout Paris, looking for Huguenots, he's trying to find the woman he hopes will be his mistress. (She won't. She despises him.) Murderous Count Hannibal, though, protects her and her household from the crowd, and eventually Tignonville as well, but will continue to do so only if she marries him. If she remains principled, it means not just her death, but all those others, including Tignonville. Not much of a choice. It's the worst kind of extortion, though it's presented like a kind of mercy.

Her choice in that moment, and her even more crucial choice in the last few pages of the novel, are the center of plot. There's lots of travel across France and secret messages and ambushes and intrigue, very readable stuff, but the real story is the moral and ethical struggle of this one poor woman and the choices she has to make in the midst of incredible cruelty, mayhem, chaos, and murder. How can anyone be a good person, an ethical person, in a place and time where the rules of society are so perverse? Also, how black can the marks against you be before your redemption is impossible?

The one virtue that seems to be universally admired and adhered to is the sanctity of giving your word. The only exception I can think of in the novel is a moment of exceptionally high stakes--is it permissible to break your word to save half a city? I think the answer the book arrives at is yes, though it's a tussle.

There's a lot to think about, but it's hard to discuss it without giving up every spoiler. It's an old book and not many people are reading it, but if you like Dumas, you probably would like this, so I don't want to ruin it for those people.

Recommended.

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