User:WiJCee/Jacquou le Croquant

Jacquou le Croquant is a French social novel about the croquant rebellions (French: Jacquerie des croquants). The book was written by the novelist Eugène Le Roy between March 1896 and May 1897. His work was originally called La Forêt barade and was published as a series in the French literary magazine la Revue de Paris. The final work, with the title Jacquou le Croquant, was then published in 1900 by Calmann-Lévy.

Origins
The term "Jacquou" comes from "rebellion" (French: jacquerie), which refers to the peasant revolts during the French "old regime" (French: Ancien Régime). The person was nicknamed the croquant, as well as the rebels who fought in western and southern France in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Summary
The book sets in 1815 (Napoleon being exiled in Saint Helena) in Combenègre, in a poor tenant farm, which was dependent on the château de l'Herm where the Ferrals are the sharecroppers of the Count of Nansac. After the castle's manager Laborie was killed, Martissou, Jacquou's father, is

Place
Most places mentionned in the novel exist really and are located on the right bank of the Valley of the Vézère (French: Vallée de la Vézère), in the Périgord (French department):
 * The château de l'Herm in particular, the Nansac family's dwelling place;
 * The villages of Rouffignac-Saint-Cernin-de-Reilhac, Fanlac and Bars (Dordogne).

Characters

 * Jacquou, known as "Le Croquant": the main character in the novel, from his childhood to the end of his life. As a child, helpless, he attends the tragedies around him. Little by little, he rises up against the main person responsible of these misfortunes, the Count of Nansac, the nobleman of the region.
 * Martissou: Jacquou's father, the Count of Nansac's farmer. He poaches despite the Count of Nansac's warnings.
 * Françou: Jacquou's mother, courageous wife and mother who has to work hardly to bring up her son. She died, exhausted in the poverty.