Sue Eugene – The Misery of the Founded Children (volume 1) (Other title: Martin the foundling, or the memories of a valet): We are in 1845 in Sologne. The small people cultivate lands that do not make much because they are swampy. Animals do not have enough food to be good. The people of the earth, malnourished and victims of fevers, are not entitled to the product of the land they cultivate.

Next to them, live the rich: they organize hunts, dazzle the notables by large receptions and aim at the deputation. And they do not forget to cash in the tenancies of their sharecroppers. Thus Count Duriveau and his son, owners of vast lands in Sologne, jaded and ruthless …

But in this “brave new world”, some underground squeaks stir the tranquility of the rich. Beast-Puante, the poacher who distributes his hunt to the poor, is everywhere and seems to know everything … Bamboche, the convict, escaped and rode in the forest. And what does Martin do, the enigmatic valet who seems to know the king so well? And finally, Bruyère the charmed, who gives such good advice to his “practices” she really needed? Beaucadet, the gendarme, thinks only to get his hands on all these criminals … To understand the threads of the plot, we will have to go back in time while these orphaned children, with the man-fish Léonidas Requin, burned the circus boards of their master, La Levrasse …

A rural setting for this social romance of Eugene Sue which is the reprint under a new title of Martin the foundling, or memories of a valet de chambre published in 1846-1847. Eugene Sue knows the Sologne well to have retired, ruined, in the castle of Souesmes. Unhappy candidate for deputation in the Loiret in 1848, beaten by conservatives frightened by the movements of large cities, he presented himself, in 1850, in a by-election to replace a socialist forced into exile.

“The Mysteries, as well as The Wandering Jew and The Misery of Foundling Children, are no strangers to the revolution of 1848. Increasing wages, women’s equality, co-management in the enterprise, the right to education and to culture, the abolition of slavery (Atar Gull) are the novelistic themes of Eugene Sue. Ponson du Terrail and Alexandre Dumas (The Mohicans of Paris, …) will take over from Sue by worrying less, by their content, the imperial power … “(Eugène Sue In Paris and Sologne, terredesecrivains.com)