The way to France
.jpg)
The Road to France (Le Chemin de France) is a novel by the French author Jules Verne . It was published on October 3, 1887 by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in Paris . The short story Gil Braltar was also in the same volume .
action
The novel deals with the situation in Germany and France shortly before and at the beginning of the first coalition war in 1792. The Rittmeister Natalis Delpierre describes an incident that occurred in 1792 and 1793. Delpierre comes from a peasant family and served in the French army at the time. He traveled to the small German town of Belzingen to visit his sister Irma. She lives there as a servant to the Keller family. This family consists of the German husband, his wife from France and their son Jean. Jean is engaged to Marthe de Laurany, a French woman who also lives in Belzingen. Neither of them get married because Germany has declared war on revolutionary France. The situation is becoming more critical. Jean is supposed to fight the French as a soldier for the Germans. After the outbreak of war, the French living in Germany are made clear that they are no longer wanted in the country. You should leave Germany within twenty days. The group consisting of Delpierre, his sister Irma, Ms. Keller and the Laurany family set off for France. A little later, Jean joins this group. He has now deserted after having an argument with his superior Lieutenant Frantz von Grawert, who constantly humiliated him. The group is followed, but reaches a small town across the French border. This place has since been conquered by Austrians . Delpierre and Jean are arrested. Both face execution. Shortly before, however, the French troops attack and are able to repel the invaders. In the midst of the fighting, Jean takes revenge on his adversary Frantz von Grawert.
German-language editions
In contrast to all the other volumes of the Voyages extraordinaires (Extraordinary Journeys), Der Weg nach Frankreich was not immediately translated into German. The reasons for this can only be speculated. The most widespread opinion is that the novel was not published in Germany due to its thoroughly anti-German passages, but this is not conclusive, since other novels with similarly drastic or even more drastic statements regarding the Germans, such as Die 500 Mio der Begum or Claudius Bombarnac appeared almost parallel to the French editions. Another possible reason could be related to the fact that historical novels from recent German history almost always represented a German point of view in German literature and The Way to France would have offered an unusual perspective for most readers of the time, and therefore perhaps from would have been rejected. Of course, this meant that the title was completely unknown to many German-speaking readers of subsequent generations, so that the major public publishers who only carry Verne's works sporadically in their programs and then usually only republish those novels that are best known excluded this from the start. Add to this the fact that it is a historical novel with no scientific, technical or even fantastic approach that most Verne readers would not expect. It was not until 2012 that a professional translation was commissioned on the initiative of the German Jules Verne Club and passed on to club members in small numbers. At the same time, this translation was also published by a small publisher as part of a general evaluation. The novel was also translated in 2012 by a German-French student group from the University of Regensburg and then appeared together with a translation of the short story Der Graf von Chantelaine in June 2013 by Ablit-Verlag.
- Jules Verne, Der Weg nach Frankreich , preferred and first edition in the translation by Gudrun Hermle for the Jules Verne Club 2012
- Jules Verne, The Way to France , (translated by Gudrun Hermle) Berlin 2012 ISBN 978-3943275049
- Jules Verne, Der Graf von Chantelaine (translated by Ralf Junkerjürgen) and Der Weg nach Frankreich (group translation under the direction of Ralf Junkerjürgen with illustrations by Fanny Jacquier and an afterword by Volker Dehs) Munich 2013 ISBN 978-3935410182
literature
- Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): Jules Verne manual . Deutscher Bücherbund / Bertelsmann, Stuttgart and Munich 1992.
- Volker Dehs and Ralf Junkerjürgen: Jules Verne . Voices and interpretations of his work. Fantastic Library Wetzlar, Wetzlar 2005.
- Volker Dehs: Jules Verne . Jules Verne. A critical biography. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005. ISBN 3-538-07208-6
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Bernhard Krauth, Le Chemin de France - The way to France. The only novel in the Voyages Extraordinaires series that has not yet been translated into German in: Jules Verne, Der Weg nach Frankreich. German first edition , epilogue 2012, p. 230 f.
