The Lord of the River – Wikipedia

The Lord of the River is a novel by the writer Bernard Clavel published in 1972 by Robert Laffont editions.
The Rhône, this river with which he lived for a long time, he particularly loved him and made him the hero of several of his novels, in particular The Lord of the River where he is omnipresent.

He presented it in an album where we find the atmosphere and certain characters of The Lord of the River , album published under the title The Rhône or the metamorphoses of a god , Hachette Literature editions, with photos of Yves-André David in 1979, then taken up under the title I’m looking for you old Rhône , at Actes Sud editions, in 1984.

In this autobiographical album dedicated to the Rhône, we find the decor, the characters, the atmosphere of which Bernard Clavel will use to write The Lord of the River. This is what he confirms here: on a map dating from 1845, “I find the Rhône that I followed with my heroes by writing The Lord of the River . »

The Rhône for Bernard Clavel : highlight of his sentimental geography , fruit of a disappointed love that he drags like an injury. This evolution appears from the first page when, through a quote from Jean Giono, he says “A river is a character, with his rages and his loves, his strength, his chance, his diseases, his hunger of adventures. »Then through a new quote from Denis de Rougemont , he says his bitterness in the face of the attacks of progress which disfigure him: “I will now call pollution not only what is sooty, but what is unfit for beings, things and biological processes, and is brutally imposed on them. “Progress has ended up slavery” the most proud river of our land. »»

For Bernard Clavel , the Rhône has its source in Lyon, “the city of silks, patents and mists” neau foot of the Guillotière bridge where the confluence went before the work of Perrache when the long regions were prepared for the decize. Because, unfortunately for the river, “man is a modeler of the universe. “He describes characters who resonate through his work there, this taverns which recalls another, these vorgines, these lônes, places made of earth and water where” pirates with shadow, “pilot porter and force of nature, true “lord of the river,” Revolate the Jousting Champion, the playful-players of the Marinière Union or Beaupoux () The nurse who also takes care of rescuers. “There are beings as it would be necessary for a novelist to be of a pride to hope to create more beautiful, stronger, more eloquent. »»

He describes this Rhône there, which he says “I took her with me, as I have carried the land of my native jura everywhere,” The city of Lyon before Lugdunum, the Celtic city of Condate At the confluence, the one he describes in his novel Brutus. Already, whatever he lives in, far from the office where he works, he lives in his head, “Once again, the thousandth may one of my yesterdays, who entered it on the side and From the right in my novels, had just escaped to shoot me from the bed. »He tells us about Mademoiselle Marthouret , La Féatire de la Battellerie in Serrieres-sur-Rhône de Son Museum Chapel des Mariniers With his crosses that were placed in the bow of boats before the emergence of the steam navy, the evocation of these carved crosses which he will engrave on the last page of his novel Brutus . Bernard Clavel The museum frequented it a lot but “by the sleeping or awakening dream, it is thousands of times that I have made the trip. »»

Son Rhône To him, it was the emotions he felt, this power, this light that made him want to get into writing, an osmosis with painting first and then with literature. “It is not only in bed that they dug that rivers flow, it is in us. Basically, painfully. Wonderfully. The thousands of tonnes of stones spilled on these banks, the jets, the walls built, a huge project has tamed and disfigured the river. But nature tends to regain its rights and the vorgine pushes back to this new decor. Bernard Clavel is doubly unhappy: he fails to admit injuries made to his river, he also cannot condemn technical progress. “The Rhône, he has his strength in him,” said Beaupoux . She can sleep for years or centuries … but she will always end up re -emerging. »»

He remembers the first time, when he fell in love with Rhône , “This look of pure star and flamboyant water that will accompany me to the muddy delta of my ultimate decize. »»

About the Rhône, here is what Bernard Clavel tells us:
“I was madly in love with the Rhône. I dreamed during my childhood of navigation and boats. I like hard life, manual work, fraternal fight with natural elements. Writing this story of a man in love with his river and his profession, is it not above all one of my always dreams that I tried to live? »» ^{[ first ]}

The novel is divided into 5 parts:

1- The fogs of the dawn

2- The Midi Sun
3- At the end of the decize

4- Wind work
5- Range

“Wild and rebels, independent but above all full of pride, an unexpected power and fury among these men of the people, work, and earth”: this is the observation of Maryse Vuillermet On the characters of the first novels of Bernard Clavel, who wonders “where do they come out Lords of the River , these pirates of the Rhône, this Hercules on the square ”? Philibert Merlin is in any case a character with well anchored values, knight of the river and the bansel.

Characters with imposing build as clavel likes them ^{[ 2 ]} , forces of nature, here the three mariners, the boss, his son and his prouvier Honoré Baudry Have an impressive physique: at 23, Claude Merlin already has the build of his father “the same long muscles, the same wrists with tense skin … The same wide and thick hands”. Honoré Baudry is “wide, crushed, … thick of chest, arms all in balls with short hands, it seems to hold the mass of his fists half closed”.

Since this fatal July 15, 1783 Where Jouffroy d’Abbans manages to sail the first steam engine on the Saône in Lyon, despite the fury and the revolt against the iron monster, slowly but surely, things had deteriorated for the mariners. With other Rhôdanniens, Barthélemy Thimonnier making his sewing machine and Jacquard patented in 1830 inventing his job with perforated cards, Lyon is doomed to technical progress, ogre who eats the use of canuts, mariners who crisscross the Rhône between Lyon and Beaucaire and a whole small people who live. But boss Merlin, the problems of others, that did not interest him, “In 1831, the canuts had rebellious, there had been riots … But he, had it prevented him from continuing his work ? »» ^{[ 3 ]}

Behind this fight between vapor and secular swamp, between tradition and technical progress, it is a whole culture, a relationship with man, which is in question, the relationship of the master to his companions, the one who succeeded, s ‘is imposed and is recognized as such, faced with the more neutral and more formal, less human relationship between shareholders, principals and employees. Father Sourdon had understood the stake well: what the steam will kill, “it’s not so much the boats pulled by horses, is also a way of living … to live and remain his master. Claude Merlin sees things other than his father: “The steam … it must improve the fate of the workers. Not just the fate of the bosses. The bosses must not use it to kill the worker and deprive him of his livelihood. »»

Steam boat dating from 1910

In this novel, Bernard Clavel evokes the time of the boatmen who were fighting with the then wild river, virgin of the dams which will gradually tame it and want to take up the challenge of the first steam machines which compete for them. The story of a secular corporation faced with the inexorable advance in technological progress. For more than twenty years, reigning over his men and horses, he has lived in communion with the river from which he drinks a bottled every morning to draw strength and courage. This novel is first of all the drama of a great master skiller, Philibert Merlin , who refuses to bow to the dictatorship of the machine, a man while fury and rant, full of contradictions: “He was furious against this anger which he continued to feed”.

Philibert Merlin , Patron-Batelier on the Rhône is one of those men who smell things with his experience of slowly integrated skills, who is one with his job and knows how to recognize the warning signs of a flood of the river, is also a ready being ready to sacrifice everything out of love of the profession and by pride. He hunted an unusual odor, a smell of coal: that of Triumphant , the competing vapor boat. “We realized … that the madness of humans is more dangerous than that which shakes the elements because it lasts more”. The competition is tough and the steam has already killed ’43 crews but Maître Merlin is another caliber. But, beyond the boatmen, all the little people who live from the river in suffering, fishermen, passers, tenants, naval craftsmen gradually disappears ^{[ 4 ]} .

The mariners are important and respected men who have never known – even less imagined – than day technical progress would upset their profession and their lives, worse, would question them in their social utility and their dignity. However, Master Batelier Merlin is an expert in his field: “The South has taken very soft,” he observes, which stirs here is a wind tail. It is well short much higher, and at the earth raz almost nothing … The storm had to go up and die on the Saône ”. That day, water goes up and the fog persists, Merlin is determined to grasp this advantage and enjoy it. Despite the difficulties, he leaves, being doubled by the vapor, triumphant, which runs up a little lower and asks for help.

Between the swallowing and the ‘steam’, it is now war: there is no question of houer the ‘triumphant’ prisoner of a pebble bench, the delivery of the rhodan ‘rod’ ends in general fight and in the rout to those of steam. Patron Merlin has perfectly succeeded in his decize and arriving in Beaucaire, he is celebrated as a hero. But his triumph will be short -lived. After the drought that had retained ‘vapors’ and regions – the trains of boats – in Lyon for days and days, the autumn rains began to grow the river which promised this year 1840 an exceptional flood. Under these conditions, no one would like to take the risk of going up the Rhône from Beaucaire to Lyon. Too dangerous.

But Merlin decides to launch a vapor challenge, to the river and undoubtedly to himself: his pride, his pride of lord of the river dictates to him to go up at all costs, to know fear and to risk despite everything. He separated from his son Claude and his Prouvier Took out , guilty of collusion with ‘steam’ and he added an old sailor of experience Father Sourdon , very happy to join the expedition. Boss Merlin is all the more decided since two vapors, large from Bonnardel, passed while he was stopped on the side of Vallabrègues. For him, it is like a provocation that he must note.

That year, the wrong drought, the Rhône flood was exceptional, in the city of Lyon, “the river reached up to 7.37 meters above its low water. “The water was dripping making the Saône and the Rhône swell, flooding the whole region and” large lakes crossed by currents were formed between the mountains. The slopes were torrents and the plains were lakes. “The furious waves of the Rhône carry huge debris, uprooted whole trees, will be fatal to the boss Philibert Merlin, lord of the river,” already the Rhône grants him, turns him like a child and breaks his head against the pillar of This bridge where it has just been smashed, without shaking it, all the beautiful boats of its rig. »»

Level reached by the Saône à Quincieux (Rhône) in 1840

References