Used Book – LES CHEMINS DE L'AVENTURE, Juliette Benzoni

Adventure with a capital A and in every sense of the word: glorious, desperate, sordid, or ambitious. Spartacus, the rebellious slave, who breaks his chains and for a moment threatens all-powerful Rome, chooses to live dangerously. Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France at twenty-five and companion of Joan of Arc, loses his life on the scaffold. Stenka Razin, the rebellious Cossack, is quartered. However, Jeanne de Clisson, who in despair of love scours the seas with incredible ferocity and stands up to King Philip VI of France, peacefully breathes her last in her bed, just like the Duke of Guise in the royal castle of Blois or the brave Bussy d'Amboise in an Anjou manor.

As for the fanatical loyalty of a Cadoudal, it elevates adventure to its highest peaks, while it sinks with Brinvilliers and Jeanne de La Motte-Valois.

Adventurers possess in their hearts, perhaps more than other mortals, the violence of human passions. Their ghosts, soberly evoked, despite the blood and tears – or perhaps because of them – emit a shattering light that centuries have not weakened and that Juliette Benzoni, with her storytelling talents, knows so well how to recreate.