From this novel, one could make an opera. Fabrice, the hero, torn between two women, France, and the County of Nice, is a soldier serving the King of France, then, out of love for a woman, betraying France in favor of the citadel of Nice. Everything is said: he will be executed, and the woman, his love, will commit suicide.
The Siege of Nice in 1706 is the final theme of this novel where we follow Fabrice in his lyrical epic leading him to the court of Versailles and Louis XIV.
The castle of Nice, a bane for the kings of France, Nice a possession of the Savoys, enemy, ally, at the mercy of shifting alliances, it will suffer assaults from the French.
Maurice and Jean Marie Rainaud make us live through this period of Nice’s history. The song of the Bihoreaux, the song of the Nice soldiers, loyal to the Duke of Savoy. This novel is both a historical work, a guide to finding oneself in 18th century Nice, and a lexicon to discover the nuances of the Niçois language. The castle of Nice destroyed by the will of Louis XIV is reborn, thanks to the authors, from its ashes.
Of the two loves of Fabrice, we discover Bérangère de Saint Alban, daughter of Count Henri de Saint Alban, the Man in the Iron Mask, twin brother of Louis XIV; from myth to reality, there is the novel, and the authors leave us to judge.
Fabrice is the hero of an opera and is executed on a cold January morning in 1706 on the Ponchettes beach; one might think of Carmen, here a double love that ends tragically.
Thierry Jan
