Ramuz Charles Ferdinand – The Reign of the Evil Spirit: The reign of the evil spirit is about the irruption of an evil principle into a peasant community. As in an old legend, this disruptive principle is none other than the Devil, who takes for the occasion the personality of the shoemaker Branchu. Blinded by his suborneur power, the villagers do not recognize the Evil One. He debauches those who follow him with the goods he fills them with, while the few who resist him live in unspeakable misery. Disasters, crimes and blasphemies culminate in a horrible feast that begins at the inn and continues to the church. That Ramuz wrote this novel of an archaic society, violently delivered to the rage of transgression and destruction, shortly before the First World War, seems an impressive proof of his gift of divination. (Marianne Ghirelli)

A novel in which the transgression, on the scale of an almost entire village, is described with a force that impresses and surprises in C.F. Ramuz.