Monsieur Etienne

In Paris in the Spring of 1793, Etienne has been living for five years with his wife Marion and her Uncle Rétif de la Bretonne, librarian, printer and libertine writer. Both Etienne and Uncle Rétif enjoy the night life of Paris and frequently visit the Palais Royal, meeting place for lovers and haven for illicit affairs. It is there that Etienne meets and falls madly in love with the vivacious, heady Lucile. But the world has changed. Freedom and pleasure loving France has become a country of barbarians and delation, no longer a time for the playful romping of lovers. Etienne, like many of his contemporaries, is trapped in his contradictions. Neither criminal nor idealist, he becomes, in spite himself, an accomplice of a political regime that repels him. Cultivating his sensual passion for Lucile becomes a sort of revenge against the savageness he witnesses around him Disgusted by the plot involving the young Louis XVII to discredit his mother, Marie-Antoinette, Etienne flees Paris with his mistress, far from the madding crowds of the city. Old Uncle Rétif will forgive his betrayal but Marion will never forget and Lucile will be the one to pay for Etienne's weakness. A novel of disillusion and the coming of age of a young man who has much to lose and much to gain, Monsieur Etienne is also the striking portrait of a moment in French history where customs and values were violently turned upside down, leaving men struggling to adjust to the inevitable. François Langlade holds degrees in philosophy and finance and directs his own business in London. He has written several short stories, poems and a previous novel.