View sample
Buy hard copy / 26,00 EUR
Buy e-book / 22,00 EUR
Borrow e-book / 18,00 EUR
In September 1944, as the war draws to a close, the small German town of Sigmaringen becomes the last refuge of France’s darkest face. Hitler installs the remnants of the Vichy government in the castle of the Hohenzollern princes, bringing with them Marshal Pétain and Pierre Laval, their ministers, members of the Milice, and some two thousand French refugees. Among them is Louis-Ferdinand Céline. At the heart of this strange world is Julius Stein, the castle’s butler. Reserved and unassuming, Stein watches and listens, missing nothing. As a little France takes shape around him, trapped in exile and rife with betrayal, intrigue, and struggles for power, its inhabitants try to save their own futures—or erase their pasts. But Sigmaringen is only an illusion. The Allies are closing in, the Third Reich is collapsing, and with it disappears the last refuge of Vichy France. As the illusion begins to crumble, Julius’s secret love for Jeanne Wolfermann, the marshal’s housekeeper, forces him to do what he finds hardest: stop watching and finally take sides.
* * *
Less than a week remained before the arrival of the first Frenchmen. I knew nothing about them. French politics was not my strong suit; I knew even less about it than I did about German politics. When you have the privilege of serving a great family, it is only natural that you despise worldly matters. Those foreigners were strangers to me. Their language was familiar to me, since it had long been spoken in the castle; but nothing about their world attracted me. Although I had never met any of them before, for it seems to me that none of them had been received here before that September of 1944, I felt not the slightest curiosity about them, which, in any case, was of no importance. A good butler must remain reserved. He is not without qualities, but he is without opinions. The conception he has of the dignity of his position leads him to exercise complete discretion in everything, beginning with the expression of his own feelings. Openness would not be appropriate. In our profession, there is no outward display. But we do determine the daily schedule.
(Excerpt from the novel)
- ISBN: 978-953-369-080-3
- Dimensions: 142x205 mm
- Number of pages: 236
- Cover: paperback
- Year of the edition: 2026.
- Original title: Sigmaringen
- Original language: French
- Translation: Dubravka Celebrini
Related titles
The Swimmer
In his novel The Swimmer, Pierre Assouline tells the extraordinary life story of Alfred Nakache. Born in Constantine, Nakache was a French and European champion as well as a world record holder. As a...
The Client
The Client is a novel full of unexpected twists, which makes us think about the superficial judgments we can have about the behavior of others, the story of a man possessed whose desire to understand...