Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Paris: The Cross-Chunnel Relations of Periodical Sensational Literature in the 1870s–1880s

Abstract

The setting: “the quietest road” in the Marais quarter in Paris— rue St Gilles, “where gossip flourishes as rankly as the grass between the paving-stones.” The time: a Saturday evening, April 27, 1872. A man of thirty is noticed in the area as he wanders from door to door seeking information about the house of M. Vincent Favoral, supposedly for a cousin of his who is considering a job offer as a cook in the mansion of M. Favoral, at number 38 of rue St Gilles, “an old type of house, not so common anymore, that the housing market values at 1200 francs per square meter.” M. Favoral is chief cashier and one of the principal shareholders at Mutual Credit Bank, an institution that, “sprung up with the Second Empire, won heavily on the bourse the day the Coup d’État was played on the street.” While he sits at dinner entertaining his guests for the evening, he is interrupted by M. de Thaller, an elegant baron, who takes him to another room for an animated conversation. All money in the bank is lost, the police wait outside of the house to arrest him for forgery and embezzlement.