Harold by Louis-Stéphane Ulysse (review)

and aligns himself with Gaspard de Coligny to protect the Huguenots. Charly is able to save a few of his Protestant friends but capitulates before his mother’s insistent demands that the Protestants be eradicated. Such is the setup for what has become known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day on 25 August 1572. The narrative’s reliance on dialogue to convey its peripeteia makes the confrontation of characters the necessary component of its storytelling. Once the eponymous young man is led to authorize the massacre, the reader witnesses his steady deterioration into madness through his conversations with other members of the court. There is an omniscient narrative voice that occasionally intervenes to describe the concomitant destruction of France’s Renaissance culture. Guilt for eradicating Charly’s Protestant friends obsesses the King and finds an outlet in violent acts while he insistently fends off responsibility with the phrase “Je ne suis pas là.” The Massacre itself is occasioned by the presence of Protestants from throughout France. They have come to the court at the Louvre Palace to attend the marriage of the King’s sister, Marguerite de Valois, to Henri de Navarre, a Protestant who will convert and later be responsible for the Édit de Nantes and the official sanction of religious tolerance. Before the marriage, Henri is nineteen and plays jeu de paume with the King and his two brothers. As they are playing, the reader encounters Charly as the young, immature King who does not yet deserve the dignity of a royal title, so the use of 9 rather than IX is appropriate to convey this boy in a king’s garb. His playing at a game without rules for him to respect degenerates into his killing small, defenseless animals, especially dogs. He wears the pelts of the dogs he has killed as gloves and shawls. Charly’s cruelty becomes increasingly manifest in the presence of unprotected animals. Despite becoming known as the assassin of the Huguenots, Charly did spare the lives of several Protestants. Noteworthy in this narrative are his doctor Ambroise Paré, his mistress Marie Touchet, and his nurse Madame Portail. Paré is, of course, a respected artist of the period who shows the King his illustration of an ostrich, known for hiding its head in the sand when it is threatened. The illustrations from the period ground the story in actual events. Marie Touchet sexually consoles the King whose own wife, Catherine of Austria, does not give him a male heir. Since Catherine’s native language is not French, her incompetent interpreter provides comic relief as the bridge between the King and his Queen. And the King’s nurse tends to him during his ironic, horrific death. This is a timely story with its focus on the devastation of the intolerance of another time. Sometimes, anachronisms in the literary style make the reader pause by reminding us that we have the advantage of experiencing some of this story in another era. After all, the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV in 1685. The devastation wreaked by Charly 9 fell on deaf ears then and must be retold so we do not make the same mistake. Trinity University (TX) Roland A. Champagne ULYSSE, LOUIS-STÉPHANE. Harold. Paris: Serpent à plumes, 2010. ISBN 978-2-26806978 -4. Pp. 341. 19 a. Dans ce huitième roman de Louis-Stéphane Ulysse, les personnages centraux , Chase, un éleveur d’oiseaux, et Harold, un corbeau, sont mêlés malgré eux Reviews 1213 au tournage de Les oiseaux. À partir de ce fameux film d’Hitchcock, dont on sait que le dénouement devait laisser les spectateurs quelque peu sur leur faim, Ulysse fouille dans l’inconscient du maître du suspense puis nous embarque audel à de la scène de tournage. Il imagine un chassé-croisé de désirs amoureux, de communication animale énigmatique, et d’intrigues entre Tippi, l’actrice principale , Chase qui l’admire en secret mais n’ose l’approcher, Harold qui va la prot éger envers et contre tous, et le célèbre metteur en scène dont elle exaspère la libido mais refuse les avances pressantes. Pour plus...