Memoirs of a Breton Peasant

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Overview

A fascinating document of an extraordinary life, Memoirs of A Breton Peasant reads with the liveliness of a novel and bristles with the vigor of an opinionated autodidact from the very lowest level of peasant society. Brittany during the nineteenth century was a place seemingly frozen in the Middle Ages, backwards by most French standards; formal education among rural society was either unavailable or dismissed as unnecessary, while the church and local myth defined most people’s reasoning and motivation. ...

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Memoirs of a Breton Peasant

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More About This Book

Overview

A fascinating document of an extraordinary life, Memoirs of A Breton Peasant reads with the liveliness of a novel and bristles with the vigor of an opinionated autodidact from the very lowest level of peasant society. Brittany during the nineteenth century was a place seemingly frozen in the Middle Ages, backwards by most French standards; formal education among rural society was either unavailable or dismissed as unnecessary, while the church and local myth defined most people’s reasoning and motivation. Jean-Marie Déguignet is unique not only as a literate Breton peasant, but in his skepticism for the church, his interest in science, astronomy and languages, and for his keen—often caustic—observations of the world and people around him. Born into rural poverty in 1834, Déguignet escapes Brittany by joining the French Army in 1854, and over the next fourteen years he fights in the Crimean war, attends Napoleon III’s coronation ceremonies, supports Italy’s liberation struggle, and defends the hapless French puppet emperor Maximilian in Mexico. He teaches himself Latin, French, Italian and Spanish and reads extensively on history, philosophy, politics, and literature. He returns home to live as a farmer and tobacco-seller, eventually falling back into dire poverty. Throughout the tale, Deguignet’s freethinking, almost anarchic views put him ahead of his time and often (sadly, for him) out of step with his contemporaries. Déguignet’s voluminous journals (nearly 4,000 pages in total) were discovered in a farmhouse in Brittany a century after they were written. This narrative was drawn from them and became a surprise bestseller when published in France in 1998.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
• "What makes it gripping reading is not only that it offers a rare view of 19th-century French society from the bottom up; it is also written from the perspective of a lifetime’s experience. . . . He both suffers and celebrates his suffering as the price of his nonconformity. . . . A fascinating account." —Alan Riding, New York Times Book Review
• "Linda Asher has now given Déguignet a splendidly faithful English voice: pugnacious, tetchy and opinionated." —David Coward, London Review of Books
• "Never a dull moment in his company. Must be read." —Le Telegramme
Alan Riding
What makes [the book] gripping reading is not only that it offers a rare view of 19th-century French society from the bottom up; it is also written from the perspective of a lifetime's experience. Thus, even during his final years, as Déguignet sits in a miserable garret filling page after page, he both suffers and celebrates his suffering as the price of his nonconformity.
— The New York Times
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781609803469
  • Publisher: Seven Stories Press
  • Publication date: 10/18/2011
  • Pages: 432
  • Sales rank: 1,371,442
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 8.90 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Born to landless farmers in Brittany in 1834, JEAN-MARIE DÉGUIGNET spent his childhood and adolescence as a beggar and cowherd. He joined the French Army in 1854, and was unique for a peasant from this region in that he was not only literate, but well-read, and taught himself Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. Former New Yorker fiction editor and translator LINDA ASHER is the recipient of many awards including the French-American Translation Prize in 2000.

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Table of Contents

The Story Behind This Story 11
Translator's Note 19
Maps 20
Chronology 21
Author's Apostrophe to the Reader 23
I The Beggar Boy 1834-1853
That pestilent sewer, the Rue Vili 28
My third accident 29
Prayers and catechism 34
A natural history of men and women 34
Those characters we used to call wild men 36
Horse-movers and wolf-killers 41
Stories and legends 45
The beggar's trade 45
Potato death 49
The legend of the Black Cat (Ar has du) 50
My first Communion 56
My fourth mortal accident 59
The Revolution of 1848 61
At the Quimper hospice 63
The idler-kings of Lower Brittany 68
Terrible and cruel noblemen 71
The Midsummer Night's festival 73
Extraordinary visitors 76
At death's door for the fifth time 80
A professor of agriculture 84
We would have orgies 87
Superstitions 88
Gwerz de Ker-Is (The Ballad of Ker-Is) 90
Learning to write 95
A regular domestic servant 98
Observing the moon 101
Learning French 103
The Breton saints 108
The first telegraph line 112
At the recruitment office 113
II The Soldier 1853-1868
This barracks looked less cheerful 121
Tu farai un bounn soudart (You'll make a good soldier) 123
All I heard was foul language 126
You asked for it, so now march or die doing it! 128
At the Sathonay camp 133
A volunteer for the Crimea 136
Malta 139
Iss Sebaistoupoul! 139
The terrain was strewn with shells 141
The battle of Sevastopol 144
Scurvy, dysentery, and typhus 147
My learned teacher 149
Two good enemies 151
The whirlwind 154
The horrible black plague 155
Jerusalem pilgrimage 158
Our turn to embark 169
Marshal de Castellane 171
Napoleon III at Chalons 173
Long live Italy! Long live France! 176
Viva nostri liberatori! 178
Triumphal entrance 181
Great battle, great victory 185
The agreements between the two imperial rogues 192
Demobilization at Treport 194
I was discharged to Ergue-Gaberic 197
I was off to see a new country 200
I recited Dante's lines to him 202
The Arabs caught sight of me and cried out in terror 204
Now I was a schoolmaster 208
Long expedition 211
The fierce mountain men of Kabylia 212
From Algiers to Vera Cruz 219
Three thousand leagues from France 220
That celestial paradise, Avilez: 1866 224
Gorgeous orgies 227
Social questions 228
The enemy was upon us 230
So we were run out 233
In Mexico City 238
The last of the Mexican bullets 241
I started telling stories 244
The Breton and the Corsican get along fine 247
Promoted to sergeant 249
The hermit beelover 250
To my old Brittany I shall return 252
"Long live the Emperor!" 254
III The Farmer 1868-1882
The prodigal rich man 259
The great pardon of Kerdevot 261
I shall set up an apiary 265
She was a daughter of Kernoas 271
My dreams of freedom were over 281
Betrothal meats 285
The sacrifice is to take place in a few days 291
The wedding feast lasted two days 305
A few hours of supreme happiness 311
My "new-fangled ways" 314
The good mother-in-law would grumble 318
His little god locked up in a box 323
My farming follies 325
Long live the republic! Down with the priests! 327
Heaven's fire 334
I have fattened you for fifteen years ... and now you put me out 336
The rumor of my death reached Toulven before I did 339
Forty-eight years old and half-crippled 344
IV Persecuted 1882-1905
The national insurance company 353
Delirium tremens 360
My tobacco shop 362
The fine lady 365
The big day 368
So things went along rather nicely 372
There probably never will be a woman without vice or fault 374
This blow could only have come from the parish 380
I am run out of Pluguffan 381
Taking my children 385
And I began to write the story of my life 388
My son is buried 391
The Ergue-Gaberic paper mill 394
Thankless child 396
That great Breton Regionalist Union 400
It is the twentieth century and I am still alive 401
These stupid proletarians 402
A month with no food 403
"Pistigou" 405
I resolve to kill myself 406
Declared a madman, idiot, fool 409
The decree expelling the nuns 413
A short treatise on beekeeping 418
The drunkards' room 424
At the library 425
I have seen my name shining amid literary luminaries 427
It is time to end 429
About the Editor and Translator 432
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