A Place of Greater Safety

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Antoine Saint-Just: A young radical ex-poet, formerly emprisionné. A partisan of Robespierre's with significant ambitions of his own. Probably related to Camille, somehow. Camille Desmoulins: The sweetheart of the Revolution. A provocateur with a vulnerable-yet-audacious charm, he is Robespierre's childhood friend and Danton's right-hand man. Outwardly dashing, sensitive, and polite, Camille has a strange and destructive personality. Married to: When they have enough to eat and when the rich and the government stop bribing treacherous tongues and pens to deceive them; when their interests are identified with the people. Hilary Mantel has soaked herself in the history of the period...and a striking picture emerges of the exhilaration, dynamic energy and stark horror of those fearful days.’ Daily Telegraph verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{

A gripping tale based on historical events, extremely well read, each character having his own voice. Jean-Marie Hérault de Séchelles: An young reformist aristocrat and legal dignitary, filthy rich and idle. Later called a "Dantonist". A gambler. Contrary to the tendency in Anglophone media to focus on the crumbling of "l'Ancien Regime," A Place of Greater Safety is explicitly told through the eyes of the revolutionaries, opting to explore the lives of the previously-unknown men and women who gained fame and infamy in the swells of the Great Revolution. Crafty tensions, twists and high drama...a bravura display of her endlessly inventive, eerily observant style.’ Times Literary Supplement

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Ben Miles as Thomas Cromwell and Lydia Leonard as Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Much, much more than a historical novel, this is an addictive study of power, and the price that must be paid for it...a triumph.’ Cosmopolitan Even so, buying A Place of Greater Safety was still a bit of a whim, as I didn't have much time in which to choose, but was still desperate to be exposed to Mantel's writing. Being very interested in history, particularly the French Revolution (in which the novel is set), the book turned out to be the perfect choice for me, as Mantle's ability to seamlessly interweave fact with fiction proved to be excellent. A Place of Greater Safety is a 1992 historical novel by Hilary Mantel, about the French Revolution of 1789. It was the first novel she wrote, but her third to be published. It chronicles the Revolution through the dynamic relationships between three of its central players: Georges-Jacques Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Maximilien Robespierre. The novel is basically structured as a dramatized triple biography, covering almost the entirety of their intertwined lives from their respective formative years in the 1760s and 1770s all the way to the executions of the former two at the height of the Reign of Terror. If you've learned about the French Revolution at school, you've probably assembled a jumble of facts about the dramatic actions of the revolutionaries and the mob and the outcome of it all. Hilary Mantel dives beneath that to breathe life into the characters who populated the events.

It is notable for being fairly epic in scope while maintaining an intimate tone and character-driven focus, and for averting Hollywood History. It also features vast supporting cast, all of whom are real historical figures. If you could take any character from A Place of Greater Safety out to dinner, who would it be and why? The middle period of Cromwell’s life sees him at the apogee of his success: history’s most successful accountant, a loyal family man and an embodiment of his own maxim: “Love your neighbour. Study the market. Increase the spread of benevolence. Bring in better figures next year.” Anne Boleyn has been beheaded along with several of his deadliest enemies. But though a sort of peace has broken out, it’s “the peace of the hen coop when the fox has run home”. The Mirror and the Light (2020)The arc of the third and longest part of the trilogy is framed by a conversation between Cromwell and the Spanish ambassador: “What will you do,” asks the ambassador, “when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?” Cromwell’s downfall and death are a matter of fact; Mantel’s skill is never to let the tension drop as the mythologised life of an ordinary man, with no pedigree, unravels amid the treachery of a class-based realpolitik. Mantel Pieces (2020)