Antonin Derues: Celebrated Crimes, book 8

To paraphrase the note from the translator, The Celebrated Crimes of Alexandre Dumas père was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language—has minced no words—to describe violent scenes of violent times.

In this, the eighth of the series, Dumas explores the depths of a soul, that of Antonin Derues, a man capable of the most amazing hypocrisy, perfidy, and cruelty. He was what we would know today as an extreme sociopath, a man willing to lie, cheat, steal and kill out of overwhelming avarice, with little or not compassion for his victims, or even understanding of what he forced upon them.

The place is Paris; the time is just before the Revolution. Dumas has no love for his subject; in several passages he lashes out at him with downright fury, and everywhere spares no pains to show us the worst of him. As is typical of his approach, he bases his story on the facts of the case, but does not hesitate to supply thoughts, words, and actions of his characters out of his imagination, in circumstances where no record of them can possibly exist.

Although he lays no stress upon it, his story of the hideous carrier of this infamous criminal also indicts the society of the time; a society in which a man who created a thorough appearance of the forms of religious feeling diverted all attention from his true nature--as shown by his actions.

If ever there was a story in which we are happy to see the bad guy get his comeuppance, it is certainly this one.

Enjoy!