From Reviews (ADR) by Arthur D. Rypinski:
A historical novel set in La Vendée (in the environs of Nantes) in 1832.
In 1830, the last Bourbon King, Charles X, was forced to abdicate in
favour of Dumas' employer, Louis Philippe (1773-1850), who styled
himself "King of the French" and endeavoured to rule as a constitutional
monarch.
In 1832, the widowed mother of the young Bourbon pretender, Henri V,
Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicilie (1798-1870), the Countess de Berry,
made a clandestine return from exile and attempted to lead an uprising
against Louis-Philippe in favor of her son. Her supporters generally
refused to take up arms, except in La Vendée, the center of Royalist
opposition to the French Revolution, and the scene of savage partisan
warfare in the 1790's. There, an abortive upraising was suppressed by
Government forces, and tailed off into banditry.
From this episode, Dumas fashioned an immense and very interesting
novel. The eponymous "Louves de Machecoul" are the beautiful twin
daughters of the Marquis de Souday, a royalist partisan fighter who
fled into exile when Napoleon suppressed the resistance, and returned to
reclaim his ancestral lands in 1815. The family are all ardent
Legitimists--supporters of the Countess de Berry.
The twins encounter the wimpy Michel, son of a commoner who had become
rich by betraying the Royalist guerillas to Napoleon’s forces, who,
after the war, is killed in a suspicious hunting accident. Michel,
smitten with the twins, promptly offers his services to the Legitimist
cause. Michel fights bravely in the uprising and falls in love with
Mary, while the other twin, Berthe, falls in love with Michel. Through
a misunderstanding, Michel is betrothed to the wrong twin.
As the revolution collapses, the characters find themselves hunted by
the Government forces of the energetic General Dermoncourt, and
continually subject to betrayal and arrest.
Alexandre Dumas was a proponent of a set of antique and aristocratic
virtues: duty, honor, courage, and loyalty. In Louves de Machecoul
these virtues lead to a pointless war. General Dermoncourt, in his
tribute to the Countess de Berry, describes her as "having been born two
centuries too late." The Countess who believes that duty requires her
to struggle to uphold her son's rights, learns that the struggle
requires the death of her most devoted adherents.
This novel, with its flashes of ambivalence, realistic descriptions of
guerilla war, emotional growth of its characters, and insight into the
tensions of post-revolutionary France, suggests that the mature Dumas
had become a wiser and more thoughtful man than course of many of his earlier novels would have suggested.
From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: A story of La Vendée at the time of the Duchesse de Berri's effort to raise a revolt in the west. Her adventures and arrest, concerning which Dumas had much knowledge and first-hand information, is very graphically described. This has been stated to be an entirely original interpolation by Dumas into the original rough draft by the "assistant." It will he remembered that the General Dermoncourt who effected the arrest of the princess was a personal friend of Dumas', and had moreover been his father's aide-de-camp. (Compare "La Vendée et Madame" on page 64.) For the fictitious part De Cherville is usually given some credit, and he claimed to have supplied some labour. Period 1793-1843, mainly the latter portion.
It first appeared serially in the "Journal Pour Tous," commencing on the 27th of February, 1858.
Original edition : Paris, Cadot, 10 vols., 8vo., 1859. First illustrated edition : Paris, Dufour, Mulat et Boulanger, 1 vol., 8vo., with 15 engravings, 1860.
It now occupies three volumes in the standard Calmann-Lévy edition, and one in the same firm's "Musée Littéraire."
In Le Vasseur's "Alexandre Dumas Illustré" it forms part of Vol. XVIII.
References :—
Dumas: "Le Dernier Roi des Français."
Dumas: "Deutz." (See ante, page 96.)
Dermoncourt (and Dumas): "La Vendée et Madame." First edition. (See ante, page 64.) Glinel: "Alexandre Dumas et Son Œuvre," pp. 447-48. Parran: "Bibliographie d'Alex. Dumas," page 66.
English Translations :—
"The Last Vendée;" London, Sampson Low, translated by K. P. Wormeley, 2 vols., post 8vo., illustrated, 1894.
"The She Wolves of Machecoul;" London, Dent, 2 vols., cr. 8vo., 1895 (with "The Corsican Brothers"). Reprinted, same firm, 1906 and 1927.
From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: (CCLXVIII.) Chapter LV., two five-line stanzas, rhyming alternately.
