MODERNITY(IES) OF FEVALEAN CONSPIRACY AND ESPIONAGE

The article proposes a re-reading of three works of Paul Feval (1816-1887) L'Homme du gaz (1872), Les Mysteres de Londres (1843-1844), and La Quittance de Minuit (1846) in the light of a spy narrative. While only the, first of these novels can be considered as belonging to this genre, all three are built on a conspiracy to overthrow a nation-state. The article highlights the typical elements of the spy narrative at work in these novels in order to illustrate how these narratives already play a part in a, fundamental schism within the genre, although critics generally place the emergence of this schism in the second third of the twentieth century. By moving this landmark, this study seeks to show that the spy narrative is, from its origins, linked to a conception of modernity marked by an inexorable sense of helplessness.