Title : Adèle D'aiguebrune Volume 2 - The Hour of Elise - Pascale Rey - book

Summary :

A great female character, noble and serious, in an eminently romantic era.

The storm of Terror has receded, Adèle has returned to her poor castle of Aiguebrune. And her life is empty: gone is the Count of Méricourt, her lover in the happy days of Champlaurier; gone is the handsome Michel Marsaud, the revolutionary who, for a moment, made her heart beat in the turmoil. After four years of absence, Denis, her half-brother, reappears. He is certainly a colonel of the Republic, but he is bitter: lacking political support, he is kept at a distance, while his brothers-in-arms, all generals, soar from victory to victory with Bonaparte. Meeting Michel Marsaud, who has become Commissioner General to the Directory, allows her to achieve the dream rank; a situation reinforced by his marriage to the insignificant daughter of the very powerful and very rich Commissioner General of the Armies, a friend of Fouché. This marriage brings Adèle to Paris, which she discovers with joy. For her, life in Paris is a celebration. Painful at times, when she finds herself rejected by the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where she is criticized for not having emigrated, for having survived and for being, it is said, the mistress of the deputy Marsaud. General Denis Barrère is in Italy where he is champing at the bit (at that time, Bonaparte is in Egypt). But, because there is no question of endangering the son-in-law of a general commissioner, he is recalled to Paris. Then the proud Denis collapses: he frequents gambling houses, ruins himself. He could not pay his debt without selling Aiguebrune. He commits suicide. Adèle takes care of the little girl born from Denis's marriage, as she once did with Élise. But she is tired. Méricourt has turned his back on her, Marsaud, after Brumaire, has retired to Charente. She is barely forty years old, but she has lived too much: History has crushed her, she has loved without being loved. Back in her old empty manor, she learns that Aiguebrune has not been sold: Marsaud has paid Denis's debt; and she finally understands that if Marsaud, before the revolutionary tribunal, could not save Élise, it is because the young girl was condemned by the wealth and splendor of her family, and that he chose to save her, Adèle d'Aiguebrune, who was poor and loved by her people. And so, deep in their province, far from the din of the big city, Adèle the noblewoman and Marsaud the revolutionary will end up confessing their hidden love.

• EAN : 9782221091777
  
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