"Comment s''en vont les reines" by Colette Yver is a novel written in the early 20th century. Set in a small northern monarchy where republican fervor rises against the crown, it follows the new delegate Samuel Wartz and his spirited wife Madeleine as courtly spectacle, parliamentary strategy, and private loyalties entwine. The narrative explores how prestige, propaganda, and personal feeling shape public life, with special attention to the quiet burdens carried by
politicians’ wives. Its central tension lies in the waning power of monarchy and the calculated making of a modern republic. The opening of the novel centers on a royal ball at Oldsburg’s city hall, where the young republican Wartz, dazzled yet wary, encounters Queen Béatrix’s charm offensive while Madeleine, radiant, draws notice—even from a royal prince. Amid the glitter, Wartz’s circle debates his signature plan for compulsory education and the tactics needed to turn it into a transformative political lever. A private scene on a deserted staircase reveals Madeleine’s secret “politics of the heart”: her long, unspoken bond with their mentor, Dr. Saltzen, which fuels Wartz’s insecurity. Soon after, the dubious fixer Bertrand Auburger approaches Wartz, then proves his worth by exposing a rival’s attempt to preempt the education law—forcing Wartz into the murky “underneath” of politics; the sequence closes with Saltzen’s poignant critique, sparked by the melancholy of their servant Hannah, that mass schooling may awaken new pains in a people not yet given the strength to bear them. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
