Having recently drawn attention to Trollope’s less successful works, it seems only fair to trumpet one of his finer novels. The Golden Lion of Granpère (1872) is a short but perfectly-formed tale of love and unreasonable patriarchs, set against a richly-drawn backdrop of provincial France.
The Lion d’Or is a small town hotel, owned by the ambitious Michel Voss. He lives there with his son George, his second wife and her niece, Marie Bromar. Perhaps inevitably, Marie and George fall in love, thereby incurring the Jehovah-like wrath of Michel. He believes that each of them could make a more advantageous marriage, conferring greater wealth and influence upon the family. After consent to the couple’s engagement is refused unequivocally, George stomps off in a fit of pique to another town, remaining on non-speakers with his family for a whole year.
Meanwhile, Michel is keen that Marie should instead marry Adrian Urmand, a prosperous linen-buyer from Basle who dazzles Granpere with his urbanity and fancy ways. Marie is unimpressed, however: “George Voss was a real man; whereas Adrian Urmand, tried by such a comparison, was in her estimation simply a rich trader in want of a wife.” His fondness for jewellery and clothes no doubt leads Marie to think that he’d be spending more time in front of the bathroom mirror than attending to her needs.
Michel is displeased by his niece’s intransigence. As a misogynist of the Jurassic order, he thinks women should do exactly what they’re told and “it was always a sign of high good humour on the part of Michel Voss, when he spoke of his wife as being anybody in the household.” His considered opinion of Marie’s failure to bend to his will is: “Young women are queer cattle to take to market. One can never be quite certain which way they want to go.” Well, Marie does know which way she wants to go, and struggles not to be cowed (sorry) into submission.
The Golden Lion of Granpère is one of Trollope’s so-called “single-issue” novels and, as such, is tightly plotted and narrow in focus. Trollope clearly enjoys himself in delineating the sexist monster Voss, and then taking him down a peg or two. Although this character is meant to be ridiculous, the suggestion lingers that Marie is wrong to disobey him: even a foolish and misguided man trumps a woman. Still, it wouldn’t be Trollope if he didn’t make my chauvinist antenna start wobbling. This grumble aside, it’s an engaging and charming story for those with a taste for Trollope’s less dramatic works.
The Golden Lion of Granpère by Anthony Trollope