From Reviews (ADR) by Arthur D. Rypinski: Un Voluntier de '92 is a historical romance, set in France at the time of
the revolution, in which the romance vanished beneath the historical
narrative. As
F. W. Reed
notes, Dumas first researched and imagined this
work in the 1850's, but may not have actually begun writing it until 1862.
In one of his entertaining but characteristically unreliable prefaces,
Dumas recounts how, while researching his history
La Route de Varennes
in 1856, he encountered a veteran of Napoleon's army, Colonel Rene Bresson,
who gave to Dumas a memoir of his experiences in the revolution. The book
purports to be Rene's memoir.
Rene grew up an orphan in the Argonne forest, and frequently acted as a
hunting guide to members of the Court and royal family. In 1788,
influenced by reading Rousseau, he adopts Republican sentiments and
apprentices himself as a carpenter in the town of Varennes. He also met
and fell in love with Sophie, the daughter of his master, who, in turn,
loves a local aristocrat, the Viscount de Malmy.
In July 1790, Rene travels to Paris to celebrate the revolution, and
attends meetings of the Jacobin and Cordelier clubs, which gives Dumas an
opportunity to introduce Mirabeau, Robespierre, Marat, Camile Desmoulins,
and other revolutionary figures.
Rene returns to Varennes, and, of course, just happens to be around when
Louis XVI and his family flee Paris in 1791 and attempt to escape over the
frontier, only to be stopped by the municipal authorities in--Varennes.
This give Dumas an opportunity to give a step-by-step account of the
flight and Louis' arrest, about which he had previously written. Rene, as
a member of the National Guard, forms part of Louis' escort back to Paris,
and remains in Paris to witness the massacre at the Champ de Mars. That
evening, Rene is shot and wounded, and spends the next several months
recovering. With his hero out of action, Dumas is freed from the
constraints of historical romance, and the last third of the book (chapters
47 through 63) is a narrative of the history of the revolution,
encompassing the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, through to
the death of Robespierre in 1793, concluding "France fell into the hands of
Napoleon."
On the very last page, Rene returns to confess that he never regretted
helping Sophie and the Viscount de Malmy escape, an action never described
in the novel. Rene concludes: "The revolution was terrible, but it did
the world more good in the long run than the world has yet found out."
F. W. Reed
characterizes this book as unfinished, and describes the French
text as comprising 43 chapters, published in Dumas' journal
Le Monte-Cristo, ending abruptly when
the journal failed in 1862.
However, the principal English translation of this work,
Love and Liberty,
published by T. B. Peterson & Brothers of Philadelphia in 1869
(i.e., during Dumas' lifetime) comprises 63 chapters. The extra chapters
are largely a highly opinionated historical narrative, written in Dumas'
inimitable style. They do provide an imperfect conclusion to the book.
When he could, Dumas simultaneously sold his literary output to publishers
in different countries. The failure of his journal in France would not
necessarily halt publication in other countries. It is probable that
something of the sort occurred in this case, either in 1862 or (more
likely) in 1866. It would appear that the last third of this work has
never been published in French.
From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: In 1856 Dumas entered into an agreement with Jules Simon to supply him with a romance for his magazine "Le Journal pour Tous." The period was to be 1791 and the following years, the opening taking place on the night of the arrival of the royal family at Varennes, on the occasion of their flight. The plot, however, was not running smoothly in our author's brain, and he was persuaded by his son to give it up, and instead Simon received "Les Compagnons de Jehu." Dumas, however, was never inclined to readily abandon work well started, and in 1862 he commenced to give this "René d'Argonne," as it was first entitled, to "Le Monte-Cristo" under the title of "Le Volontaire de '92." The intervening years had evidently allowed his intentions to develop, for the story begins well before the date first determined upon. Indeed, it is not until the twenty-sixth chapter that we attain the proposed commencing point. "Le Monte-Cristo" proceeds as far as the forty-eighth chapter, where the sudden and unannounced cessation of the periodical stays the story. Its re-publication was commenced in the later "D'Artagnan" of 1868. There Dumas says that he had commenced it in the revived "Le Mousquetaire" of 1866-67, but omits to mention its issue in the earlier, and more important, journal. The re-issue, says Mr. R. S. Garnett, who possesses a set of the "D'Artagnan," only proceeds as far as the twenty-first chapter; thus it would seem that the largest portion ever printed in French is to be found in "Le Monte-Cristo." Chincholle states that it was all but ready for publication in book form. Dumas says it was to include its hero's experiences in the wars of the Empire ; in that case there was vastly more to appear.
References :—
Dumas: Preface to "Les Compagnons de Jéhu."
Dumas: Préface to "Le Volontaire de '92," in "Le Monte-Cristo," Nos. for April 25th and 29th, 1862,
English Translation :—
As "Love and Liberty ; or, A Man of the People (René Besson)." Philadelphia, Peterson and Bros., 186—. (Not to be confused with the "Love and Liberty" published by Stanley Paul, London, 1918, which is a translation of "Emma Lyonna.")
