Came a Cavalier was published by Julian Messner in 1947 and represents Keyes’s French period — novels set in or deeply connected to France, drawing on her extensive residence there and her intimate knowledge of French provincial society. The novel follows an American woman who falls in love with a French cavalry officer during World War II and must navigate the complex social world of French aristocratic life.
Keyes’s depiction of France during the Occupation and Liberation is based on personal observation and extensive research — she had lived in France for years before the war and returned immediately after. The novel captures the moral ambiguities of the Occupation period: collaboration, resistance, survival, and the social reckoning that followed Liberation. But these historical events are the backdrop for a love story that is structured according to Keyes’s characteristic formula: a strong, intelligent woman navigating an unfamiliar social world through a combination of native intelligence and romantic attachment.
The cross-cultural element — American woman in French society — gives Keyes an opportunity for the kind of social documentation she excels at: explaining one social world to readers familiar with another. The detailed depictions of French provincial life — its food, its architecture, its customs, its social hierarchies — are rendered with the same precision she brought to New Orleans and Boston.
Collecting Came a Cavalier
First edition (Julian Messner, New York, 1947): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $15–$35
- Without jacket: $5–$10