Écarté, or The Salons of Paris

Naomi Brun is a freelance writer and a book reviewer for The Hamilton
Spectator.

Major John Richardson very much embodied the spirit of his time. Born
October 4, 1796, Richardson allowed himself to be moulded by the values
of his contemporaries. He learned bravery during the War of 1812,
chivalry in the salons of Paris, and integrity in the political arenas
of his day. He turned his attentions, from time to time, to the plight
of North American Aboriginals, the cultural deprivation in North
America, and the final destruction of the world, which, ironically
enough, he predicted to be in 1852, the year of his death. Richardson
was a romantic hero, an idealist in an age of idealism, and his works
are best read as representative of that particular worldview rather than
as novels with literary merits of their own.

The three works reviewed here are simple and melodramatic, with stark
moral landscapes. In Йcarté, Richardson warns readers against the
dangers of gambling and fast women in the seedier side of Parisian
society while extolling the “English” virtues of temperance and
chastity. Long passages are written entirely in French, so a thorough
understanding of both official languages is necessary to grasp the
entirety of this novel. In Frascati’s, Richardson displays an array of
weak protagonists who find themselves in a web of trickery, such as the
wealthy young gentlemen who discovers that his fiancée only wants his
money for herself and her lover. In Westbrook, the Outlaw, an abusive,
lecherous villain finally meets his end at the hands of an avenging
wolf, but not before destroying many innocent lives.

Richardson’s novels embrace the 19th-century values of bravery,
chivalry, and integrity, but are so extreme in their representations of
good and evil that they cannot be taken seriously by a modern reader.
His works lack nuance, and his writing is florid even by the standards
of his own time.

This is not to say that there is little merit in reading his fiction.
He is one of Canada’s earliest novelists, and his stories do present a
framework that would be familiar to 19th-century readers. Anyone wishing
to read a fictionalized account of 19th-century Paris would do well to
pick up either of the first two books as important works of social
history. As novels, however, they do not shine, and perhaps this is one
reason why Major John Richardson is not a household name in his own
country.