REVIEW – A story as incredible as it is vivid. First, the story of this exceptional woman. But also an equally interesting portrait: that of an era, which comes immediately after Waterloo.
In the first pages, a scene: a lover joins his lover by climbing onto the balcony of an apartment. She flattering, bold, direct words: she soon succumbs… A scene that the author himself describes as “common places”… The lover is called Camille, the lover is the “Beautiful Aurélia”, wife of Mr. Rogacz, a nobleman in the service of the king. Furthermore, the humiliated Rogacz travels throughout Paris in search of Camille to take revenge on her when the latter is in her wife’s apartment in Montrouge.
If the scene may seem banal, the singularity is found in this moment: we are in the evening of Waterloo. There is another fact out of the ordinary. The sentences that follow the meeting describe a torrid affair between Camille and Aurélia. The reader won’t wait long before discovering that Camille is a woman… and a formidable soldier.
Obsession with revenge
The novelist Armand Cléry clearly takes great pleasure in telling this story, as incredible as it is vivid. The legend is coming. They’re like two…