". . . reflections on the French Revolution made me question (not for the first time) the anti-French, anti-revolution bias in historical romance. (my bolding)
It’s a bias that has interested me for a while, mostly because I’m not sure what is at the root of it.
Is it a general disdain of the French common to…most everyone but the French?
Is it based on the weirdly pro-British slant in historical romance (I say weird because it’s usually American authors writing these books)?
Is it based on actual disdain for the bloodthirstiness of the revolution?"
Is it a general disdain of the French common to…most everyone but the French?
Is it based on the weirdly pro-British slant in historical romance (I say weird because it’s usually American authors writing these books)?
Is it based on actual disdain for the bloodthirstiness of the revolution?"
I've thought about this subject some.
Bit of Backgound here for anyone who lives on Mars and is tuning in through subether radio:
Historical Romance has a dozen few favorite settings. The most tenacious of these may well be 'The Regency'. Regency Romances are set, roughly, from 1800 to 1817.
Engaging in fussy historical quibbledry here:
The French Revolutionary Period ran from 1789 to 1799. From the Bastille to Napoleon's coup d'etat.
The Napoleonic Era was 1799 to 1815. From the coup d'etat to Waterloo.
Anyone still able to unglaze their eyes at this point will see that Regency Romances are set during the Napoleonic Era.
Or,
to put it another way . . .
To me, this kinda sums up the Old Regine. |
is ten or twenty years ago. It happened when they were at school. Some of the protagonists weren't even born when the Bastille fell.
The French Revolution was, (as my kids would put it,) "so last week."
Regency characters are fighting the Napoleonic Wars.
Different animal.
The Napoleonic Wars, unlike the French Revolution,
can be presented, simplistically, as a straightforward conflict of right and wrong. (Which may be why Regencies are set there.)
France is an invader and conqueror. England is defending itself and other nations in Europe.
"Them bad French invaded Spain. We go rescue Spain."
The Regency spy surveils, and the Regency soldier comes home from, 'a just war'.
My character Annique, in The Spymaster's Lady, has been loyal to France through the Revolution.
I propose that she may plausibly change her loyalty when Napoleon begins a series of wars of conquest.
Her moral dilemma is exactly about the difference between the philosophical basis of the French Revolution and philosophical basis of the Napoleonic Era in France.
My character Maggie, in The Forbidden Rose, makes a choice typical of the French Revolution.
She's not choosing between nations or philosophical systems, but rather is forced to one side of an internecine class war.
Annique responds to a moral conflict that didn't exist in the Revolution. Maggie, to a conflict that was resolved by the Napoleonic Era.
Eight years apart, it's an entirely different war.
As to why books get set in England, instead of, say, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Croatia, or France . . .
I figger it's the same reason kids go out to play soccer or football instead of making up a new game each time. You arrive on the field and you got yer lines already painted, the goal posts are up, and everybody knows the rules.
We write books set in Regency England because the readers are familiar with the Regency and folks are familiar with Regency England because so many books are set there.
It's one of those feedback loops. A viscous cycle. Sticky.
Readers come to a Regency Romance armed with all sorts of background. They know Almacks, Bond Street, Vauxhall Gardens, and Gunter's.
Just about nobody knows the Chinese Baths, the Palais Royale, the Tivoli Gardens of Paris, or the Cafe Foy.
The Chinese Baths of Paris in the 1790s
A writer who sets a novel someplace . . . novel,
faces a massive origination fee. She has to describe the Chinese Baths. Explain what the Cafe Foy is.
While that author is describing, explaining, and making real the setting, she's not telling the story.
And the writer doesn't necessarily know all this stuff. It's long, irritating, and difficult work to do research outside the English-speaking world, because, (you guessed it,) the references are not in English.
Finally, when we're writing Romance, we do not generally look at the French Revolution because you'd have to be barking mad to set escapist literature in the middle of folks getting their heads chopped off. I mean . . . really.