Albert Richard Smith (1816–1860)

Any novel on the Marquise de Brinvilliers should be exciting, suspenseful, frightening, and disturbing. This book does at times hit the mark, but it’s essentially a missed opportunity.

Of course, it being written in Victorian England compels the author to tone down many elements. It didn’t surprise when, come the famous torture scene, the sufferer was not stripped naked as she is described as being in other accounts.

Despite the restrictions of the 1840s, the author still had the freedom to create an intriguing account of the morbidly fascinating woman that was Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers. Instead, we have a patchy novel that’s exciting in some places, but at times melodramatic, slow-paced, off-topic, and with a tendency to “tell” instead of “show”.

The title character doesn’t appear until 55 pages into the story! What’s more, she’s soon gone again. Much of the first half of the book focuses on the marquise’s lover and partner in crime, the Chevalier de Sainte-Croix. A lot of Sainte-Croix's activities are the author's invention.

Sainte-Croix is a vital part of the marquise’s history, and his inclusion is therefore warranted, but I would’ve preferred to view events from the marquise’s viewpoint much more frequently.

The marquise doesn’t take centre stage until the latter part of the novel. During this time, the author creates great excitement with the marquise’s escape from the hot-on-her-trail authorities (this is fictitious, but it does make for a good read). After this section, which lasts for quite some time, the story goes downhill, with lots of explaining about what happens, and little dramatizing to show us *how* things happen.

The story includes a lot of humour, which feels out of place in the type of novel this is supposed to be. The characters Picard and Blacquart supply the comic relief, and appear in the novel as much as, if not more, than the title character. Many of their scenes, although at times entertaining, have little or nothing to do with the marquise’s story, which I’d rather be reading about.

The author is either reluctant to dramatize the more disturbing aspects of the marquise’s history, or perhaps he felt restrained from doing so by the Victorian society in which he lived. For example, this is the author’s depiction of a character who’s been poisoned:

“It is unnecessary to follow the horrid details of the effect of the Aqua Toffana, or to describe the last agonies.”

Even worse than the above example is the author’s reasoning to not describe the marquise’s final hours:

“It would be utterly futile to attempt any description of her last hours more graphic or interesting than the manuscript narrative of M. Pirot.” (Pirot being the priest who attended to the marquise during her final days. Soon after, he wrote a detailed account of his time spent with her.)

The above also brings me to my biggest criticism of the book, namely that the author feels it’s okay to switch to non-fiction whenever it suits him, and usually does so to avoid dramatizing what should be entertaining scenes.

Again, maybe this was typical in nineteenth-century historical fiction, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating when he goes into a detailed description, as if switching to non-fiction. At times it reads like travel writing, which takes the reader out of the narrative. For example:

“The modern visitor may perhaps recall it to mind by a square tower built against its western side.”

Of course, the then modern reader lived in the 1840s, so the author never contemplated that in years to come things might change again.

Surely even Victorian readers of historical fiction must’ve wanted to feel like they were taken into the past. The spell is broken at once when the reader is drawn away from the fictitious recounting of real events by dry facts like:

“The authority for matters respecting the ‘Question’ will be found in a note to the Tableau Moral of the reign of Louis Quatorze, in Dulaure's History of Paris,” or “The ‘water question’, as it was termed, was one of the most revolting punishments which the barbarous usages of the period allowed in its criminal proceedings.”

Footnotes are also in abundance, some of which have nothing to do with the story in hand but relate to a place where some other famous historical person had visited or lived. I’ve yet to read a pre-1900 historical work that includes an afterword to explain facts and background, so maybe footnotes were the only way of conveying such info back in the 1800s. Either that, or the authors back then used prefaces to explain things, which sometimes give important elements of the story away.

Speaking of giving things away, if you do read this book, try not to look at the chapter headings. Some of them reveal what will happen to certain characters, destroying all suspense and surprise before you’ve started to read the chapter.

Another huge criticism I have is this kind of thing:

"il se plaignait d'avoir un foyer brulant dans la poitrine, et la flamrne interieure qui le devorait semblait sortir par les yeux, seule partie de son corps qui demeurat vivante encore, quand le reste n'etait deja plus qu'un cadavre."

I detest it when authors write in a foreign language in the arrogant assumption that because they know the language the reader must understand it or else they’re not clever enough. In fact, one of the longest footnotes is written in French. Yes, I know the odd word, but not enough to make sense of the bulk of it, and I’m not going to break-off from reading to try translating it. I’m pro-language learning but works of English literature are not the place for doing so.

The book is set in France, therefore we know the characters are speaking French, which makes it all the stupider when the author inserts French words or phrases into the dialogue.

Overall, much is worth criticising, though bearing in mind when and where this was written, some allowances should be made. I would’ve rated it four stars because some scenes in the first half of the book – plus the exciting chase in the final half – make for good reading.

Sadly, the “telling, not showing” aspects, the slips into non-fiction, and the amount of French language, all detract from what could’ve been a gripping novel, despite the constraints of the times.

The author didn't research it too well, either, though perhaps he hadn't the material at hand. Much of Sainte-Croix's adventures are entirely invented.… (más)