Based on a shamefully brutal incident from French history, Jean Teulé’s riveting story shows how easily a group of individuals can turn into an irrational, bloodthirsty mob.
A true story.
Tuesday 16 August 1870, Alain de Monéys, makes his way to the village fair. He plans to buy a heifer for a needy neighbour and find a roofer to repair the roof of the barn of a poor acquaintance.
He arrives at two o’clock. Two hours later, the crowd has gone crazy; they have lynched, tortured, burned and eaten him. How could such a horror be possible?
With frightening precision, Jean Teulé reconstructs each step of one of the most shameful stories in the history of nineteenth-century France.