At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque (French: La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque) was published by Calmann-Lévy in 1893. The novel is set in eighteenth-century Paris and narrated by Jacques Ménétrier, known as Tournebroche (Turnspit) — the son of a cook at the Reine Pédauque inn. Young Jacques becomes the pupil and companion of the Abbé Jérôme Coignard, a priest of immense learning and equally immense appetites.
Coignard is one of France’s supreme creations: a man who knows everything, believes nothing, and enjoys everything. He is simultaneously a profound scholar of classical and theological literature, a cheerful drunkard, a compulsive womanizer, a thief when occasion demands, and a philosopher of extraordinary penetration. His conversation — which constitutes much of the novel’s substance — ranges over religion, morality, politics, literature, and human nature with a freedom and intelligence that makes him one of the great talkers in fiction.
The plot involves an alchemist (d’Astarac) who hires Coignard to translate a manuscript and who is searching for the philosopher’s stone — but the plot is largely a pretext for Coignard’s discourse and for the picaresque adventures that arise from his ungovernable behavior. There are duels, seductions, robberies, and escapes, all narrated in Tournebroche’s admiring but occasionally bewildered voice.
France found in the eighteenth century a congenial setting — an age of skepticism, elegance, and intellectual freedom that reflected his own values more accurately than the pious and nationalistic nineteenth century.
Collecting At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque
First edition (Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1893): French text, original wrappers.
Market values:
- French first edition, fine: $40–$100
- First English translation: $20–$50