The Journey of Martin Nadaud Book

One of the most interesting kinds of history being written today is not that of Great Men and Important Battles, but miniaturist portraits of minor players, whose lives can still give us a unique insight into an entire age. Such was the life of Martin Nadaud. He was born in 1815, into a family of desperately poor stonemasons, in the rocky, inhospitable heartland of France called the Creuse. Nadaud's mother never wore shoes (only clogs,) never spoke a word of French (only a local patois incomprehensible outside the region), and never tasted either coffee or sugar: preserves of the rich. At the age of 14, young Martin set off walking to Paris to work on the great public buildings of the metropolis, as the famed stonemasons of the Creuse had always done. Once there, he set about educating himself, and was soon involved in radical politics, before finally becoming a Member of Parliament. After 1848 he fled to England and earned a living as a schoolmaster in Wimbledon, until the last revolution of 1870, when he returned to his homeland in triumph, feted as a hero.Gillian Tindall really brings alive this stubborn, brilliant, passionate man, and his ambitious journey from an almost medieval way of life to turbulent, revolutionary Paris. History with all the compelling drama of a novel. -- Christopher HartRead More