Jacquou the Croquant , english translation

There they stood, a picture of the poor Périgord country people of old, carefully kept in ignorance, badly nourished, badly dressed, forever sweating and toiling, counting for nothing and despised by the wealthy classes.

Published in 1899, Jacquou le croquant is a fictional memoir of the 90-year-old Jacquou, with the main action set between 1815 and 1830, following the Bourbon Restoration. A time in which some nobles such as the Comte de Nansac of the Château de l'Herm sought to reassert their feudal oppression of the poor as though the French Revolution had never taken place.

As Jacquou grows up, he takes his place alongside his long « Croquant » rebel ancestry, and leads a revolt for emancipation and justice against the Comte and his château.

The finest of Dordogne novels reached a wider audience through the 1969 TV series directed by Stellio Lorenzi. Jacquou le Croquant is a key work in the French traditionof the rural novel (Eugène Le Roy was nicknamed « the Balzac of the Périgord »), yet it has only once before (in 1919) been translated into English. This updated version allows English language readers to share fully in Le Roy's vibrant story and his powerful evocation of the 19^th century in the Périgord countryside.

Martin Smith is a language teacher, and he is also very grateful to have enjoyed a fifty-year association with the beautiful Périgord region.