ABSTRACT
The period 1793–1794 was one of crisis for the novel in France as the publication of new works of fiction plummeted during the Terror. In fact, Robespierre is indirectly the focus of much of the novel, as Michael Tilby has shown in his exploration of how the notion of the noble bandit was clearly identified with the aims of the Revolution in France between 1793 and 1795. C. B. Le Bastier was perhaps asked by his brother, the eventual publisher of the novel, to write a text of the moment to capitalize on a collective need to purge the memories of the Terror and stress the benefits of the new regime. Many of the novels of the Directory, make no explicit reference to the Revolution, and revert instead to Ancien Regime settings and sentimental tropes. Of course, it is entirely reasonable to assume that some sentimental novels existed in a preliminary, unpublished form before the Revolution and were revised afterwards.
