Rendezvous in hell

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Rendezvous in Hell ( French: Rendez-vous aux Enfers ) is the third volume of the novel trilogy The Great Families by the French writer Maurice Druon , which was published in 1951 in Paris by Julliard.

Volume 1 - The great families ( Les Grandes Familles ) and Volume 2 - The fall of the bodies ( La chute des corps ) came out in 1948 and 1950. The German edition of the entire trilogy in the broadcast by Lotte Frauendienst was published by Henry Goverts in Stuttgart in 1961 .

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Paris, Italy and Mauglaives Castle 1937 to late summer 1939.

The beast's ball

Paris 1937: Anyone who visits the animal ball in the house of the poet Comtesse Inès Sandoval, born in 1888 , receives a mask specially created for him / her. Simon Lachaume, born on October 12, 1887 in Mureaux , bespectacled minister with the frog face, meets the now 22-year-old Marie-Ange Schoudler there. Her 21-year-old brother Jean-Noël, called "my little deer" by the aged poet, wears the tailcoat of his stepfather De Voos. The drunken Duchess Lydia von Salvimonte observed at an advanced hour that Lord Basil Peemrose was courting the young lover of the lady of the house.

Although Simon Lachaume wants to part with the ambitious actress Sylvaine Dual, who is also present and who is pushing into the ensemble of the Comédie-Française , he is still jealous of her.

At home, Juliette de La Monnerie, the grandmother of Marie-Ange and Jean-Noël, is on her deathbed. When the grandchildren enter the room, Juliette confides two more family secrets to them on the last one. Juliette's son Baron François Schoudler, the father of the two children, had shot himself in Paris and their mother Jacqueline was murdered by her second husband Major Gabriel De Voos at Mauglaives Castle.

separation

Simon Lachaume can't stand the moaning of his lover Sylvaine Dual anymore. He tries to poison Sylvaines in her new rented apartment on Avenue Kléber . Sylvaine survived the attack with great difficulty. Finally a member of the ensemble of the theater company mentioned above, she wants nothing more to do with the minister, this monster, and is positively relieved when he turns to the much younger Marie-Ange, who works as a mannequin in haute couture .

Time of suffering

When, after the death of grandmother Juliette de La Monnerie, her more valuable inventory is to be sold, Marie-Ange and Jean-Noël are cheated by some shrewd relatives.

Jean-Noël dumps Comtesse Inès Sandoval. The motif: "Disgust for women". The homosexual English Lord Peemrose roams through Paris with Jean-Noël and takes the man, forty years his junior, as a pleasure boy on something like a honeymoon in Italy. Where the lemons bloom, travelers meet Peemrose's noble friends from England. These older men are accompanied by a boy named Christian Leluc, a young pianist. In Italy, Jean-Noël often meets the Duchess of Salvimonte. Jean-Noël is lucky. The old man Peemrose does not attack him. On the contrary - as a “tender heart”, as Maurice Druon describes the highly educated, sensitive Englishman, the old man gets a remorse and goes straight to the monastery in Italy. The exam turns out to be so bugged that Peemrose flees and still slips under the priceless hotel bedspread with the loving Jean-Noël. According to the chapter heading, however, it shows - the time of suffering of the Lord begins, because he has reached the "impotent age". Lord Peemrose dies of jaundice .

Marie-Ange follows Simon Lachaume from Paris to Jeumont to the “Minister-Schlößchen” - a villa that the government member had rented years ago in his constituency. Excursions take the unlikely couple into the rural surroundings. A stop is made in Simon Lachaume's birthplace, which is not too far away. Chantou-Mauglaives is only sixteen kilometers further on. The long-serving Laverdure couple still hold the house at Mauglaives Castle, the crumbling property of Marie-Anges and Jean-Noël. You are amazed. The castle owner has to earn her living as a mannequin in Paris.

On the way back to the Villa, Marie-Ange told Simon Lachaume, when asked, that she did not want a child. The minister continues to play his father's friend. The young woman visits the twenty-six-year-old at night, lets herself sleep and feels satisfied for the first time in her life. Outwardly extremely ugly, Simon Lachaume has decades of experience in dealing with women sexually. But the years of suffering begin for the minister. Because he thinks that the very young Marie-Ange will in time be superior to him, the aging woman.

Hotel Trianon

Anno 1938: War Minister Simon Lachaume rents Marie-Ange an apartment in the Muette and employs her conscript brother Jean-Noël as his chauffeur. Before that, the latter had to serve in a hussar regiment in Rambouillet for three weeks . After a pleurisy , Jean-Noël is allowed to quit his job for the fatherland and goes into the film industry. Jean-Noël's project “Knights of the Sahara ” was never realized because the inexperienced person fell victim to swindlers. Simon Lachaume does not replace the misappropriated funds. Even when Jean-Noël tries to blackmail the war minister with his intimate knowledge, which he was able to collect as a chauffeur, Simon Lachaume does not give in, but rather scolds the bankrupt filmmaker as a “cowardly little villain”. Jean-Noël pumps his sister up. During a short trip to the Côte d'Azur , Marie-Ange was impregnated by Simon Lachaume. The former minister - the portfolio has not been offered to him again - asks his wife Yvonne in vain for consent to the divorce.

By chance Jean-Noël runs into a friend from Italy on a Paris street corner: the pianist Christian Leluc. That gives him a brilliant idea. The Duchess Lydia von Salvimonte, who is now also in Paris, has around 21 million francs. The Duchess is delighted to see the man, who is fifty years younger, but only lends him the money he needs for the next three days.

On April 5, 1939, Simon Lachaume and Marie-Ange dined with Parisian high society in the Great Hall of the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles . The expectant mother is disappointed by her lover during a walk in the park around the Grand Trianon . Marriage to the father of her child will probably have to be years in coming - if at all - because of the divorce procedure against the will of Yvonne Lachaume. Jean-Noël is also present and also goes for a walk with the Duchess in the park. The 72-year-old needs a man in bed and gives Jean-Noël to understand: After he has married her, he will be free of all financial worries. Jean-Noël objects, but the crafty old woman does not buy the homosexual and impotent from him.

Return to Mauglaives

The Schoudlers all live at Mauglaives Castle from now on. Marriage is not enough. Lydia Schoudler, the duchess with Russian and Italian roots, who became French through marriage, insisted on the separation of property. The couple's second bone of contention is the incomplete marriage. Jean-Noël asserts himself with Lydia. After he extortionately usurped the 21 million or so, he kept his word and consummated the marriage. Lydia, finally satisfied, knew straight away that her husband is neither impotent nor homosexual.

Marie-Ange had the abortion and enters into an abysmal relationship with her brother . Immediately after the mobilization, the suicidal Jean-Noël wants to report to his unit for a dangerous mission. Maurice Druon writes: "He was already dead before he went into battle."

epilogue

Simon Lachaume reappears as the coward he always was. The reward for his discouragement is not long in coming. The President of France calls and offers him the post of Deputy Prime Minister without a portfolio. Simon Lachaume takes a quick decision.

German-language literature

German-language first edition

  • The big families . Henry Goverts Verlag Stuttgart 1961. 854 pages.

Used edition

  • Rendezvous in hell. German broadcast of Lotte Frauendienst. 320 pages. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1966 (Licensor: Goverts, Stuttgart)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Vol. 1 was already published in 1949 in the transmission by Gustav Rademacher in the Bonn publishing house of the Europäische Bücherei under the title Who wears golden chains ( Who wears golden chains as d-nb.info). And yet the German title of vol. 3 is long gone in the translation by Waldemar Sonntag in the same publishing house from 1954 ( and yet it is long gone as d-nb.info).
  2. ↑ Jean-Noël, born at the beginning of 1916 (vol. 1), turned 21 (edition used, p. 25, 9. Zvo).
  3. ↑ France's mobilization (edition used, p. 307, 10. Zvu) begins on September 3, 1939 .
  4. ↑ At the time of this third part of this novel trilogy, Édouard Daladier was French Minister of War .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ French Editions Julliard
  2. ^ French. Hôtel Trianon Palace
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 307, 1. Zvu