“France: An Adventure History”, by Graham Robb

 

544 pages, W. W. Norton & Co., ISBN-13: 978-1324002567

France: An Adventure History is Graham Robb’s 15^th book, virtually all of them about “L’Hexagone” – be warned, though, as it was written for your common Francophile, not being an exhaustive history but rather a series of historical vignettes from over the many centuries this nation at the end of the Eurasian continent has existed, most of which a casual student probably hasn’t heard of. And this matters for, while your common Francophile thinks that France has and will exist forever, Robb, instead, sees a future full of uncertainty in which the nation’s people, language and, even, soul will change – whether for the better or no…you be the judge.

And what changes might those be? Well, the list is long and includes, not least, the Mouvement des gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests Revolution) of 2018 that saw a nationwide protest against economic and political disparities. Or the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, in which 12 people were murdered and a further 11 others were injured, all for a bunch of satirical cartons of the Prophet Muhammad and the subsequent debate – not always civil – over the influx of Muslims and other ethnic groups into France. To say nothing of how this theoretical Catholic country becomes less Christian by the day.

But while the present interests Robb, there are past Frenchmen, too, that he sets his sights on, such as: Harriet Howard, ambitious mistress to Napoleon III; Jacques-Louis Ménétra, a free-spirited glazier from Paris whose autobiography painted a ribald picture of 18^th Century France; Pope Sylvester II – aka Gerbert d’Aurillac – early medieval polymath, Archbishop of Reims and the first French Pope; Ermoldus Nigellus, a poet with a “cheeky sense of humour” whose chronicles bore witness to 9^th Century Brittany; along with the usual suspects, such as Charles de Gaulle, Napoleon and Caesar. Really, there’s a lot set down in these 18 eclectic chapters.

But these chapters act as leafy stations in this book in marked contrast to what Robb has called the “express train” narratives that have dominated histories of France. Bringing his command of French history, a lively curiosity and “taste for apparently futile journeys of discovery”, Robb (and his wife) traverse the whole of this beautiful and exasperating country by bike, train and foot in this mélange of a memoir, travelogue and history. This is a sweeping, spirited and refreshingly unsentimental portrait of France, from the Bronze Age to the present, that opens up new avenues of thought for the experienced Francophile on this most maddening of countries.