Edgar Maass (1897–1964)

Felipe II. Vivió 71 años, una edad más que respetable para el final del siglo XVI, cuando la vida media de los españoles no sobrepasaba los 32 años. Fue el Rey del Mundo desde 1556 a 1598 y soberano de una España de ocho millones de habitantes asolada por la peste, la mortalidad infantil y la fiebre puerperal. El Rey Prudente es un eterno personaje literario, porque no podría ser de otro modo. ¿Por qué cuando el rey murió, el pueblo se debatió en opiniones distintas? ¿Fue Felipe II un rey prudente? ¿Por qué se casó con Isabel de Valois, cuando en principio ella estaba destinada al príncipe Carlos? ¿Al rey solo le importaban sus cuentas con Dios? ¿Respetó en verdad a su pueblo o únicamente lo usó para su propio beneficio?… (lisätietoja)

A novel on the Marquise de Brinvilliers should be intriguing from start to end, but just like Albert Smith’s “The Marchioness of Brinvilliers” published nearly 100 years earlier, “A Lady at Bay” is a missed opportunity.

Divided into four parts, the book opens with the death of the marquise’s partner in crime, Godin de Sainte-Croix. The chapter is largely a third-person perspective of policeman Lieutenant Desgrez. This comes across as a corny emulation of a Sherlock Holmes tale, with Sargent Cluet providing the Dr Watson role.

You may like this section if you’re into classic detective fiction, but I found it slow-paced and unengaging. Nearly everything is “told”, not “shown”. It’s all backstory, except for the confrontation with La Chaussée.

In reality, La Chaussée was Sainte-Croix’s servant and, through him, the marquise’s tool for poisoning her brothers. The image I have of La Chaussée – based on biographical accounts I’ve read – is an arrogant, carefree man, who must’ve been something of a hardcase.

I therefore have difficulty in accepting Edgar Maass’s version of La Chaussée, which is a snivelling little wretch. He’s at one time described as a dwarf, and always portrayed as a coward.

The real La Chaussée is another fascinating personage. Maass hasn’t picked up on this.

Similar could be said of the author’s portrayal of Desgrez. In factual accounts, Desgrez comes across as a man hell-bent determined to achieve his aims. In this novel, he’s too sentimental and, as mentioned, something of a Sherlock Holmes impersonator.

In one scene, as Desgrez is leaving a room, he turns to blow a kiss at a statue of a nymph. This is as cringeworthy as it is unbelievable.

The book’s second part is the best of the four. To some extent it stays with Desgrez’s perspective, but the bulk of the section switches to another character’s first-person account, namely Nicolas Briancourt.

In reality, Briancourt was employed as tutor for the marquise’s children, through which he became the marquise’s lover. This novel remains faithful to this, though rather than show things as they happen, it’s all related in backstory. Or, to be precise, Briancourt writes everything down for Desgrez to read because he’s embarrassed to speak about it.

So, while this isn’t the best approach the author could’ve used, he still does a good job of creating scenes between Briancourt and the fascinating marquise. Briancourt’s obsession with a woman about twice his age is very believable.

This section is, amazingly, the first time the marquise – the novel’s main subject – appears on the pages. Apart from a few references to her, she isn’t featured in a scene until page *90*, and she speaks her first line of dialogue on page 91. And I thought Albert Smith’s novel of the marquise was bad enough for waiting 50 pages to introduce the main star!

I must commend the author, however, on his portrayal of the marquise. The image I’ve drawn of her from factual accounts is of a cunning and clever woman who’s slightly unhinged. Edgar Maass puts this personality type across well.

The third section, while less engaging than the second, is better than the first. We do have a more linear approach to the marquise’s story in that Desgrez finds her and disguises himself as an abbe in order to talk with her.

The majority of this section is fabricated and wholly unbelievable. Alexandre Dumas is guilty of romanticising the episode where the marquise is lured from a religious haven through a deceptive love interest. Maass has adopted this myth, intentionally or unintentionally.

Perhaps I dislike this section because I know it would never have happened this way. Even if it did, though, I still wouldn’t like the way the marquise and Desgrez’s feelings towards each other change through their meetings. I can’t believe a hardened police lieutenant with Desgrez’s determination for justice would ever let personal feelings get in the way of his duty.

Factual accounts describe the marquise’s arrest and subsequent journey to Paris, which show Desgrez’s disdain towards the marquise. He certainly had no love for her. Yet, in “A Lady at Bay”, the author omits their journey back, which is another lost opportunity, because in reality they had to prevent the marquise from killing herself more than once.

The final section is the marquise’s trial, with the main emphasis being on her defence lawyer’s speech. This does little, if anything, to move the story on. A snippet from this would’ve been fine, but dedicating pages to it is a waste. The court’s questioning of the marquise would’ve been more engaging and more relevant to the story.

We also have the friendship between Deszrez and Abbé Pirot. As far as I’m aware, these two were in reality not acquainted, never mind good friends. I think it’s just another way for the author to keep Desgrez in the fold, and to maintain an unrealistic connection between him and the marquise.

Pirot’s portrayal also doesn’t reflect the factual accounts I’ve read of him. More to the point, his conversations with the marquise don’t come close to the real version. Pirot wrote an exhaustive account of his time with the marquise during her final days, so it’s a shame the author didn’t tap into this and dramatize the best material.

My biggest surprise was the omission of the marquise’s time in the torture chamber. It’s not mentioned at all. Even Victorian Albert Smith covered this in a mild way. The drama of her subsequent punishments are also glanced over.

The ending carries on to long past the “main event”. I think, like with Smith’s novel, Maass wanted to end on a happy – or at least not a tragic – note.

Stylistically, the author is another whose too fond of adverbs and is in love with adjectives. If, as Stephen King points out, “the road to hell is paved with adverbs”, then the road to clunkyville is paved with adjectives. The author often used two or three adjectives at a time. At one point he uses four adjectives to describe some wine, and he uses seven to describe a window!

I appreciate this is translated from German, and maybe in that language the sentences don’t read as clunkily, but it’s poor style in English.

In summary, this isn’t a bad book, but it’s a lost opportunity. It could and should’ve been better. A linear approach would’ve worked better. Too much is told in backstory, rather than dramatized as it happens.… (lisätietoja)