found two reviews here
This powerful book is a collection of 16 narratives written by Eugene Sue, first published as serials between 1849 and 1857.
It is the history of the Lebrenn family that its members are transmitted from generation to generation since 57 BC until 1857.
In "The Ring of the Forcate", which serves as an introduction, Marik Lebrenn exhumed, in the presence of his family, the various chronicles, which will be as many chapters to discover, accompanied by various objects worth testifying.
Eugene Sue then began, by the way of his character, a long serial.
On the eve of the Roman conquest led by Caesar, Joel the Brenn is the leader of the "karnak" tribe settled near Vannes in Britain.
Becoming a slave of the Romans, he would then have to undergo the yoke of the Franks, then the domination of the church, which promises a divine reward to those who suffer submissively here below.
Over time and broadcasts, each member of the family, who has become a character in the saga, will have to struggle to escape the many oppressions and try to find a kind of golden age described in "La faucille d'or" First manuscript, a Celtic society defined as a kind of ideal community.
This work is strongly anticlerical and politically and socially committed. It is the testimony of the sufferings of a people and its author has been worried many times by censorship.
Each volume opens with an exhortation to revolt: "It is not a religious, political or social reform, which our fathers were not forced to conquer from century to century at the price of their blood, by the insurrection ".
In September 1857, Eugène Sue deceased, a lawsuit leads to the destruction of the work which, fortunately, is saved by the Belgian and Swiss editions ….
& this reads like a seller's summary
Proletarian Epic, The Mysteries of the People retrace the life of a working class family of 57 BC. BC until the revolution of 1848. This odyssey, which appeared in deliveries in the 1850s, was immensely successful, but Eugene Sue's ideas were considered subversive throughout Europe … Over 6,000 pages , Sue tells the story of the Lebrenn family, a Gallic family, at first free, happy and prosperous in a democratic, federalist, feminist and fraternal druidic civilization, then defeated, enslaved by the Romans first, by the Franks Then, and gradually reconquering, over the centuries, its freedom, its rights and its sovereignty. With Les Mystères de Paris (more than 37,000 copies sold in "Bouquins" and The Wandering Jew (25,000 copies), The Mysteries of the People form a great fresco of the popular novel. Bicentenary of the birth of Eugène Sue On May 25, 1841, Eugène Sue (1804-1857) attended the theater of the Porte-Saint-Martin to the representation of a play by his friend Félix Pyat At the end of the meal, the worker talks about his wretched condition and Sue, the son of a great bourgeois, whom his family had destined for a career as a doctor or a lawyer, discovers the life of the common people and decides to Sue has placed this significant sentence: "It is not a religious, political or social reform, which our fathers were not forced to conquer of the century Century, at the price of their Blood, by the Insurrection. "Nothing is lacking in the mysteries of the people, as Michel Foucault, who particularly liked this text, emphasizes:" The adolescent who watches over the corpse sown with flowers of the fraternal rival he killed, The naked breasts which split the asshaughts who assaulted them with the ax, the sale of slaves with impoverished children palpated by bloodless debauches. All the classics, all the clichés of historical eroticism; The films of peplum a few years ago were much less amusing and did not have the same political interest. "This edition was established by Matthieu Letourneux, who has already presented in" Bouquins "Gustave Aimard, The Trappeurs of Arkansas, and Emilio Salgari, The Black Corsair.
from here
babelio .com/livres/Sue-Les-Mysteres-du-peuple-ou-lHistoire-dune-famille/124044
