La Semaine Sainte

La Semaine Sainte is an historical novel by French writer Louis Aragon published in 1958. It sold over 100,000 copies. An English translation, Holy Week was published the next year, to mixed reviews.

The book covers the week of 19 to 26 March 1815, when Napoleon, after escaping from captivity on the island of Elba, sought to regain power from the French King Louis XVIII. The main character in the novel, the painter Theodore Gericault, who has renounced his artistic career for a military one, accompanies the king on his flight from Paris, but begins to have doubts about his own actions.

The novel is rich in history, blending real persons and events with fictional ones. It swaps back and forth between characters, portraying their divided loyalties, and the confusion of the period. All the characters need to make a decision sooner or later as to which side to support. Their emotions, past histories, and present fears are recreated well.

Aragon does not simply tell a simple narrative. Many of the characters have flashbacks, and even flashforwards (such as that which details the mysterious death by defenestration of Marshall Berthier| in June 1815, that are introduced suddenly, without warning or introduction. Likewise, Aragon manifests himself in the novel by directly addressing the reader as himself in several digressions: he recalls his own experiences during the French occupation of Germany in 1919, or his experiences and memories of Bamberg, or after describing a soldier raping a peasant girl, discusses his reasons for not naming the soldier, describing the progeny of the soldier down to the present day, and explaining that he does not wish to shame the present, real family descended from this soldier. Aragon also discusses the political and economic policies of both Napoleon and Louis XVIII reminding the reader that the decision of whom to support was not black and white. Napoleon was liberal and forward thinking with regard to agricultural and industrial development, but his constant conscription of workers and peasants into his armies had stripped many villages of their male workforce, who returned crippled, if at all, and his wars had reduced opportunities for trade, particularly with England, destroying the industries he otherwise tried to develop. In contrast, the king's reactionary policies and the return of the aristocracy after Napoleon' exile had embittered the peasantry, but at least there were jobs and stability and peace and trade. Napoleon's return threatened new upheavals, not only within France, but invasions from Prussia, Russia, Austria and England. How each character, historic or fictitious, reacts to these contradictions and dilemmas forms the meat of the novel.