Jules Valles and the Narration of History: Contesting the French Third Republic in the ‘Jacques Vingtras’ Trilogy

This study focuses on the work of the nineteenth-century journalist and revolutionary, Jules Valles (1832-1885). By exploring the relationship between Valles’s trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels and the ideology underpinning the early Third Republic, it argues that his trilogy aimed at several levels to contest the legitimacy of the French Third Republic. The study begins by discussing the historical motivations behind the Republic’s forceful propagation of its ideology. It then goes on to chart the typical discursive modes through which Third Republican ideology was (re)produced, in particular the speeches, festivals and iconography of the infant regime. The concluding chapters provide a detailed analysis of literary strategies used by Valles to combat the ideological discourses of the Republican regime.