Memoirs of a Breton PeasantSeven Stories Press, 2004 M02 3 - 432 pages A fascinating document of an extraordinary life, Memoirs of A Breton Peasant reads with the liveliness of a novel and bristles with the vigor of an opinionated autodidact from the very lowest level of peasant society. Brittany during the nineteenth century was a place seemingly frozen in the Middle Ages, backwards by most French standards; formal education among rural society was either unavailable or dismissed as unnecessary, while the church and local myth defined most people's reasoning and motivation. Jean-Marie Déguignet is unique not only as a literate Breton peasant, but in his skepticism for the church, his interest in science, astronomy and languages, and for his keen—often caustic—observations of the world and people around him. Born into rural poverty in 1834, Déguignet escapes Brittany by joining the French Army in 1854, and over the next fourteen years he fights in the Crimean war, attends Napoleon III’s coronation ceremonies, supports Italy’s liberation struggle, and defends the hapless French puppet emperor Maximilian in Mexico. He teaches himself Latin, French, Italian and Spanish and reads extensively on history, philosophy, politics, and literature. He returns home to live as a farmer and tobacco-seller, eventually falling back into dire poverty. Throughout the tale, Deguignet’s freethinking, almost anarchic views put him ahead of his time and often (sadly, for him) out of step with his contemporaries. Déguignet’s voluminous journals (nearly 4,000 pages in total) were discovered in a farmhouse in Brittany a century after they were written. This narrative was drawn from them and became a surprise bestseller when published in France in 1998. |
From inside the book
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Contents
The Story Behind This Story | 11 |
Translators Note | 19 |
Maps | 20 |
Chronology | 21 |
Authors Apostrophe to the Reader | 23 |
THE BEGGAR BOY 18341853 | 25 |
That pestilent sewer the Rue Vili | 28 |
My third accident | 29 |
The fierce mountain men of Kabylia | 212 |
From Algiers to Vera Cruz | 219 |
Three thousand leagues from France | 220 |
1866 | 224 |
Gorgeous orgies | 227 |
Social questions | 228 |
The enemy was upon us | 230 |
So we were run out | 233 |
Prayers and catechism | 34 |
Those characters we used to call wild men | 36 |
Horsemovers and wolfkillers | 41 |
Stories and legends | 45 |
Potato death | 49 |
The legend of the Black Cat Ar has du | 50 |
My first Communion | 56 |
My fourth mortal accident | 59 |
The Revolution of 1848 | 61 |
At the Quimper hospice | 63 |
The idlerkings of Lower Brittany | 68 |
Terrible and cruel noblemen | 71 |
The Midsummer Nights festival | 73 |
Extraordinary visitors | 76 |
At deaths door for the fifth time | 80 |
A professor of agriculture | 84 |
We would have orgies | 87 |
Superstitions | 88 |
Gwerz de KěrIs The Ballad of KěrIs | 90 |
Learning to write | 95 |
A regular domestic servant | 98 |
Observing the moon | 101 |
Learning French | 103 |
The Breton saints | 108 |
The first telegraph line | 112 |
At the recruitment office | 113 |
THE SOLDIER 18531868 | 119 |
This barracks looked less cheerful | 121 |
Tu faraï un bounn soudart Youll make a good soldier | 123 |
All i heard was foul language | 126 |
You asked for it so now march or die doing it | 128 |
At the Sathonay camp | 133 |
A volunteer for the Crimea | 136 |
Malta | 139 |
The terrain was strewn with shells | 141 |
The battle of Sevastopol | 144 |
Scurvy dysentery and typhus | 147 |
My learned teacher | 149 |
Two good enemies | 151 |
The whirlwind | 154 |
The horrible black plague | 155 |
Jerusalem Pilgrimage | 158 |
Our turn to embark | 169 |
Marshal de Castellane | 171 |
Napoleon III at Châlons | 173 |
Long live Italy Long live France | 176 |
Viva nostri liberatori | 178 |
Triumphal entrance | 181 |
Great battle great victory | 185 |
The agreements between the two imperial rogues | 192 |
Demobilization at Tréport | 194 |
I was discharged to ErguéGabéric | 197 |
I was off to see a new country | 200 |
I recited Dantes lines to him | 202 |
The Arabs caught sight of me and cried out in terror | 204 |
Now i was a schoolmaster | 208 |
Long expedition | 211 |
In Mexico City | 238 |
The last of the Mexican bullets | 241 |
I started telling stories | 244 |
The Breton and the Corsican get along fine | 247 |
Promoted to sergeant | 249 |
The hermit beelover | 250 |
To my old Brittany I shall return | 252 |
Long live the Emperor | 254 |
THE FARMER 18681882 | 257 |
The prodigal rich man | 259 |
The great pardon of Kerdévot | 261 |
I shall set up an apiary | 265 |
She was a daughter of Kernoas | 271 |
My dreams of freedom were over | 281 |
Betrothal meats | 285 |
The sacrifice is to take place in a few days | 291 |
The wedding feast lasted two days | 305 |
A few hours of supreme happiness | 311 |
My newfangled ways | 314 |
The good motherinlaw would grumble | 318 |
His little god locked up in a box | 323 |
My farming follies | 325 |
Long live the republic Down with the priests | 327 |
Heavens fire | 334 |
I have fattened you for fifteen years and now you put me out | 336 |
The rumor of my death reached Toulven before I did | 339 |
Fortyeight years old and halfcrippled | 344 |
IV PERSECUTED 18821905 | 351 |
The national insurance company | 353 |
Delirium tremens | 360 |
My tobacco shop | 362 |
The fine lady | 365 |
The big day | 368 |
So things went along rather nicely | 372 |
There probably never will be a woman without vice or fault | 374 |
This blow could only have come from the parish | 380 |
A am run out of Pluguffan | 381 |
Taking my children | 385 |
And I began to write the story of my life | 388 |
My son is buried | 391 |
The ErguéGabéric paper mill | 394 |
Thankless child | 396 |
That great Breton Regionalist Union | 400 |
It is the twentieth century and I am still alive | 401 |
These stupid proletarians | 402 |
A month with no food | 403 |
Pistigoù | 405 |
I resolve to kill myself | 406 |
Declared a madman idiot fool | 409 |
The decree expelling the nuns | 413 |
A short treatise on beekeeping | 418 |
The drunkards room | 424 |
At the library | 425 |
I have seen my name shining amid literary luminaries | 427 |
It is time to end | 429 |
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Common terms and phrases
already Anatole Le Braz army arrived asked Bazaine beekeeper bees beggars better Black Cat Braz bread Brest Breton Breton language Brittany called camp Castellane chateau cows Crimea crimes curé Déguignet despite devil drink Durango Emperor Ergué-Armel Ergué-Gabéric everything farm farmers father fellow Finistère French gave gendarme gone Guélennec hand heard hundred francs Jean-Marie Déguignet Jesuits Kabyles knew lady later laugh learned leave legends Long live looked Lorient mayor Mexican Mexico Mexico City Monsieur morning mother Napoleon Napoleon III never night officer peasants Pluguffan poor potatoes priests Quimper Ramallah regiment republican revue de Paris rich Rospart saints seen seigneurs sergeant Sevastopol shouting soldiers soon Stang-Odet stay stopped talk tell terrible things thought tobacco told took Toulven town uncle walk wanted whole wife woman women word young