The Beasts of Paris: A Novel
“Penney has written a well-researched, fascinating historical novel of a time in the history of Paris that English-speaking readers are not very aware of . . .”
Stef Penney’s novel of historical fiction set in the 1870s before, during, and after the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, tells of love, suffering, fighting and heroism by the inhabitants of Paris—the French, but also an American and a Canadian.
The novel begins—and indeed the title reflects this—in the zoo in the Jardin des Plantes, with its several different species of animals, most magnificent of which are the large cats. Victor Calmette, the assistant veterinarian of the menagerie, is fascinated by what he considers the most exquisite of these, a Caspian tigress named Marguerite. He visits and feeds Marguerite daily and eventually focuses on another frequent visitor: the beautiful and mysterious Anne Petitjean. When they strike up a conversation, he learns that she, too, is mesmerized by Marguerite and that she resides in the nearby mental hospital, the Salpêtrière, where Dr. Jospin, the medical director regularly gives performances with his hypnotized patients for the haute monde of Paris.
We soon meet Lawrence Harper, a Canadian photographer who is in Paris having escaped his regimented life back in Montreal and is now working as an apprentice in the nearby studio of Serge Lamy; and Fanny, a model who poses, sometimes for erotic photographs for Monsieur Lamy; as well as Ellis Butterfield, an amateur poet, who is trying to run away from his traumatic experience in the American Civil War as an army surgeon, and has followed his uncle Ephraim, the American Ambassador to France, to the City of Light.
The lives of these characters mesh together in the intensifying conflict and misery that befalls Paris, first of the war with the Prussians, and then in the post-War chaos where the barely surviving, famished and beaten down common people of the city revolt to form the Commune, which is then savagely put down by the troops of the Versaillais government.
Victor, who is appointed chief veterinarian to replace the aging Monsieur Papin, is in love with Anne, who has become a maid in the household, and summons up the courage to ask her to marry him. When she refuses, he tries to force himself on her one night after drinking profusely. Traumatized, she flees to the Lamys where Fanny, who has befriended her and who is now one of the servants there, hides her.
Meanwhile Lawrence, with his love for a French painter unrequited, has come together with Ellis, and both end up working with the sick and dying of the conflict. Anne, too, dressed in Lawrence’s suit to escape the Lamy household, is recruited to help in the hospital.
As the brutal crackdown and destruction at the hands of the government forces progress, they mark these lives in different ways: Lawrence is taken captive, the Lamy’s house and studio is burned down, and Fanny’s Communard husband is killed.
Penney has written a well-researched, fascinating historical novel of a time in the history of Paris that English-speaking readers are not very aware of, and for that reason alone the book is worth reading. The characters are engaging and exotic and positioning them in this historical context allows Penney to explore attitudes toward race, gay sexuality, and economic inequality.
The writing is generally good and flows, although there are several instances throughout the book of the use of the wrong case—e.g. accusative vs. subjective, as in for example, “who other than them [instead of ‘they’] would protect it, if the worse came to the worst?” especially since Penney is an acclaimed author and Pegasus a first-class publisher. One instance of this error would be excusable, but it occurs numerous times, and these instances disturb the flow of the novel.
Overlooking that, Penney’s novel is a tour de force of historical fiction and worth the read.