A Place of Greater Safety

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Then there was Louis Suleau, an ironical sort of boy, who smiled when the young aristocrats denigrated the status quo.

I know that, in real life, there has been much speculation about Robespierre’s relationship with Eléonore Duplay and whether or not it was sexual in nature. She also wrote A Change of Climate, A Place of Greater Safety, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, An Experiment in Love, The Giant, O'Brien, Fludd, Beyond Black, Every Day Is Mother's Day, Vacant Possession, and a memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. Back to Lucile, though: at first, she seems like a silly, flirtatious young girl, who manipulates Desmoulins into marrying her, but she turns out to be highly intelligent, very much the equal of her husband. I found myself struggling with a slow crawl through the social history of what should have read as very hard.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Desmoulins is a brilliant man, but not usually a great public speaker, because he has a stutter, which, according to Mantel, began when he was sent to boarding school at seven. I found that with some of the characters I didn’t really see why Hilary Mantel spent so much time introducing them, but then later in the book I wished I had paid a bit more attention to who they were.

Danton and Robespierre eventually become colleagues in the National Convention and, for a time at least, political allies, but they are not close personal friends in the same way each is a close friend of Desmoulins. The explanation came at the christening, from the grinning uncles and cradle-witch aunts: aren't you a little Godard then, isn't he a little Godard to his fingertips?

Lucile Desmoulins, who approaches various people in Paris in an attempt to rescue her husband, is guillotined shortly afterwards. The sad news of Mantel’s untimely death prompted me to revisit the novel, and I find that I have totally changed my mind. His stepson was fourteen years old when he removed his noisy and overgrown presence to the ancient cathedral city of Troyes. Georges started off as a favourite of mine but then I saw his true, two-faced colours and his sleazy treatment of women and towards the end I despised him and wanted them to hurry up and cut his head off. PLOT: In some ways, historical fiction like A Place of Greater Safety is more restricted in terms of plot than other novels.

We take away your childhoods,we force your ideas in this hothouse air; then we winter you in a climate of despotism. This was an idea peculiar to Camille, Maximilien thought: that the worse things get, the better they get. She cleverly deals with conversations and brings wit and ridicule into events , especially when dealing with the brilliant and eccentric Camille. The narrative focuses on three men who are central to the Revolution: the hard-headed pragmatist, Georges-Jacques Danton; the passionate rabble-rouser, Camille Desmoulins and the fanatic ideologue, Maximilien Robespierre.