Daphne du Maurier's The Glass-Blowers showcases new facets of the French Revolution

Daphne du Maurier’s The Glass-Blowers is one of her lesser-known historical novels. Having greatly enjoyed Rebecca, Mary Anne, The House on the Strand, and My Cousin Rachel years ago, somehow The Glass-Blowers fell off my radar until I found it again this week: a vintage 1963 paperback with an unassuming cover that represents its subject well.

Set in the Sarthe département of northwestern France, the story follows one family – the author’s paternal ancestors – through the turbulence of the French Revolution and after. Du Maurier acknowledges the help of numerous researchers, and the information must have been fascinating to uncover. So much fiction about this era takes place in Paris that it’s refreshing to envision it from a new viewpoint.

The Bussons are master glass-blowers, a talented, proud, and self-contained community, so much so that when outsider Magdelaine Labbé, a bailiff’s daughter, comes to marry glassmaker Mathurin Busson, she feels like a stranger in a strange land. But Magdelaine is strong and wise, insisting on a place for herself in the firm and raising a large family of five surviving children – each of whose actions during the French Revolution naturally reflect different facets and reactions to ongoing events.

The way Du Maurier frames her novel grabbed me immediately. Aged 80 in 1844, Sophie (Busson) Duval, daughter of Magdelaine, writes a long letter to tell her long-lost nephew the truth about his father, Robert, who was Sophie’s eldest brother. Robert Busson – who later called himself “Busson du Maurier” after the supposed château (really a farmhouse) where he was born – was a carefree dandy who fled France for England during the Revolution to avoid creditors. Robert’s English-born children grew up thinking he had aristocratic origins, and Sophie wants to set the record straight.

As others on Goodreads have pointed out, Du Maurier’s choice of Sophie as narrator has flaws. All her siblings have more striking personalities, and Sophie feels more like a convenient vehicle through which their stories unfold. She speaks fondly of her beloved brother Robert, though we see more of his fecklessness than his supposed charm as he aims high, gambles, and loses again and again. Growing up in a rented château, Robert adores the trappings of wealth and soon latches onto the coattails of the Duc d’Orléans, later Philippe-Égalité. The Glass-Blowers is most powerful when we see firsthand how rumblings from the capital spread throughout the country and catch fire, but weaker when historical facts are presented as reportage: the classic adage of “show, don’t tell.”

cover of Little, Brown
ebook edition (2013)

I especially relished Sophie’s reflections on the seismic changes that ripped society apart: “My brothers, my husband, even Edmé, my little sister, belonged to this moment, had waited for it, even, welcoming change as something they could themselves shape and possess, just as they moulded glass to a new form. What they had been taught as children did not matter any more… Why, then, did I lag behind?” While Sophie supports greater equality, she hates the suffering and unbridled violence perpetrated as if they’re the end goals – including by her own family members.

The story also gets dense in places. While not the masterpiece that some of her other novels have become, The Glass-Blowers remains a valuable read for Du Maurier fans and anyone wanting to see a near-century of French history through a new lens.