Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Sun King Conspiracy
WORK NOTES: with Denis Lepee, trans by Sue Dyson
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 4/17/1961
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: French
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_J%C3%A9go
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born April 17, 1961.
EDUCATION:Attended Panthéon-Assas University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, publisher, attorney, politician, and member of French parliament. Mayor of Monterau-Fault-Yonne, 1995-2008; Member of French Parliament, 2002—; Secretary of State for Overseas (France), 2008-09; regional councillor, Ile-de-France, 2010-11; Member of the French National Assembly for Seine-et-Marne, 2012—; Union of Democrats and Independents, general delegate, 2012—. Light Consultant, development director of human resources management and recruitment, 1998-2002. Founder of publishing houses Editions Timee, 2000, and Squan Editions, 2008.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Yves Jego is a French writer, novelist, publisher, attorney, politician, and member of French parliament. He has spent more than twenty years in politics, serving in such positions as the mayor Monterau-Fault-Yonne, the French Secretary of State for Overseas, a member of the French National Assembly for Seine-et-Marne, and a member of the French parliament.
Outside of politics, Jego has been an attorney working in the defamation field; a development director for a consulting firm; and a publisher, founding two publishing firms (Editions Timee and Squan Editions). He is also a frequent blogger who writes about French politics and related subjects.
Jego is also a novelist. His first novel is The Sun King Conspiracy. The story is a collaboration with Denis Lepee, a historical novelist and environmental consultant. “The novel follows the events of 1661 and gives a new twist to the political machinations at the court of Louis XIV, blending a fictional hero into the real events of that year,” commented a contributor to the website Euro Crime.
Gabriel de Pontbriand, a young actor during the reign of Louis XIV, is the protagonist of the book. The year of 1661 is underway, and promises to be an eventful one for the Sun King, his court, and for the entire country of France. Cardinal Mazarin, one of the most important individuals of those closest to the king, is near the end of his life. He had governed France in the early years of Louis XIV’s reign, but now he is dying, and heavy turmoil will follow his passing.
When Mazarin’s apartments are burglarized by a group of religious zealots, a package of extremely important papers is stolen. One of the thieves accidentally crashes through a skylight above a group of actors rehearsing a performance. The package of papers is dropped, but is found by de Pontbriand. Neither the thieves nor de Pontbriand fully understand the importance of the papers contained in that unassuming package. The secret encoded messages they contain could destroy the French state and leave many of the country’s most powerful exposed to revenge, assassination, or worse. When Mazarin discovers the papers are missing, he orders that they be recovered immediately, and by any means necessary. As de Pontbriand ponders the meaning of material that others have lost their lives over, the powerful forces of French politics close in on him with no thoughts of mercy.
An Internet Bookwatch reviewer called the book a “consistently compelling and unfailingly entertaining read from cover to cover.” Writing on the website History and Women, a reviewer called the book an “exciting story of political intrigue, espionage, murder, and betrayal. In Publishers Weekly, a writer observed, “Dumas fans will especially enjoy Jego and Lepee’s thoughtful thriller.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Internet Bookwatch, March, 2017 , review of The Sun King Conspiracy.
Publishers Weekly, February 6, 2017, review of The Sun King Conspiracy, p. 49.
ONLINE
Euro Crime, http://www.eurocrime.co.uk/ (November 8, 2017), Norman Price, review of The Sun King Conspiracy.
History and Women, http://www.historyandwomen.com/ (April 20, 2016), review of The Sun King Conspiracy.
Tonstant Weader Reviews, https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/ (April 21, 2016), review of The Sun King Conspiracy.
Novels
The Sun King Rises (2008)
aka The Sun King Conspiracy
Yves Jégo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (February 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
[show]
Yves Jégo
Member of the French National Assembly for Seine-et-Marne
Incumbent
Assumed office
20 June 2012
Mayor of Montereau-Fault-Yonne
Incumbent
Assumed office
19 June 1995
Secretary of State for Overseas (France)
In office
18 March 2008 – 23 June 2009
President
Nicolas Sarkozy
Prime Minister
François Fillon
Personal details
Born
17 April 1961 (age 56)
Besançon, France
Political party
UDI
Other political
affiliations
Parti Radical, Mieux Vivre Ensemble (MVE)
Alma mater
Panthéon-Assas University
Yves Jégo (French: [iv ʒeɡo]; born 17 April 1961) is a French politician, député for the third constituency of Seine-et-Marne in the National Assembly, and Mayor of Montereau-Fault-Yonne.
He is the general delegate of the Union of Democrats and Independents,[1] since the party’s creation in October 2012. He is also vice president of the Radical Party and president of the Communauté de communes des Deux Fleuves.
He was appointed Secretary of State for Overseas in the government of François Fillon on 18 March 2008. Jégo was the Minister in charge during the 2009 French Caribbean general strikes, in which the strikers were protesting against high living costs and particularly the costs of food and fuel. As he undertook the dismantling of monopolies, his role was the subject of controversy.[2] He was replaced by Marie-Luce Penchard on 23 June 2009 and was not given another portfolio.
Jégo has been an MP (député) since 2002, and mayor of Montereau-Fault-Yonne since 1995. He was the spokesman for the Union for a Popular Movement, when the party was ruling. He is also founder and president of a local party Mieux Vivre Ensemble (MVE), formerly known as Mouvement des Seine-et-Marnais (MdSM).
Contents [hide]
1
Political career
2
Voluntary associations
3
Professional experience[6]
4
Lawsuits for defamation and insult
5
References
Political career[edit]
This section may need to be formatted. You can help Wikipedia by formatting it if you know how. Please also consider changing this notice to be more specific. (March 2015)
Governmental functions
Secretary of State for Overseas: 2008-2009.
Electoral mandates
While most members of the French parliament are also mayors or general (department) or regional councillor,[3] Yves Jégo is one of the rare to cumulate three elected offices.
1. National Assembly of France
Member of the National Assembly of France for Seine-et-Marne (3rd constituency): 2002-2008 (Became secretary of State in 2008) / Since 2009. Elected in 2002, reelected in 2007 and 2012.
2. Municipal Council
Yves Jégo's four electoral mandates, between March 2010 and July 2011.
Municipal councillor of Montereau-Fault-Yonne: Since 1989. Reelected in 1995, 2001, 2008.
Mayor of Montereau-Fault-Yonne: Since 1995. Reelected in 2001, 2008.
3. Community of communes Council
President of the Communauté de communes des Deux Fleuves: Since 2003. Reelected in 2008.
Regional Council
Yves Jégo has also been Regional councillor of Ile-de-France: from March 2010 to his resignation in July 2011.
Accumulation of electoral mandates
According to French law[4] against accumulation of electoral mandates, M. Jégo should have resigned from one of the three first mandates in this list before 21 April 2010. But giving as a pretext a legal complaint from the Front National's candidates, he still held the three of them, plus his local mandate of president of the « communauté de communes des deux fleuves » (CC2F) until his resignation from the Regional Council in July 2011.
In September 2011, Yves Jégo failed to become a member of the Senate of France. In June 2012, he was re elected as a member of the National Assembly.
Voluntary associations[edit]
Yves Jégo is involved in a number of voluntary associations.
Co-founder and president of the multi-partisan association Entreprendre Villes et quartiers, devoted to the promotion of the French Zones Franches Urbaines (Urban Free Trade Zones) since 1996.
Founder and president since 2001 of the association la Seine en partage, devoted to the economical and cultural promotion of the Seine river.
Founder and president since 2006 of the Association Française d’Accession Populaire à la Propriété (AFAP)[5]—formerly and briefly named Association des maisons à 100.000 euros. Its purpose is to help municipalities to build €100,000 houses and to sell them to lower-class households.
Professional experience[6][edit]
Development director of human resources management and recruitment firm: Light Consultant (1998–2002)
Cofounder of a publishing house, Éditions Timée (2000)
Cofounder of a publishing house, Squan Éditions (2008)
Lawyer (2010)
Lawsuits for defamation and insult[edit]
A confirmed blogger himself, Yves Jégo prosecuted two blogs for defamation and insult.
In 2007, he sued Frédéric Maupin and Jean-Luc Pujo, who called him a "liar" and "manipulator" during the 2007 legislative campaign. His suit was dismissed in November 2007 (confirmed by the Paris appeal court in July 2009[7])
In 2008, he sued a local opponent, Yves Poey who called him an "apparatchik" and a "schemer" during the local elections campaign. He won partly (for "schemer") in March 2008, but Yves Poey eventually won his appeal in May 2010[8]
The Sun King Conspiracy
264.6 (Feb. 6, 2017): p49.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* The Sun King Conspiracy
Yves Jego and Denis Lepee, trans. from the
French by Sue Dyson. Gallic, $14.95 trade
paper (448p) ISBN 978-1-910477-35-9
Dumas fans will especially enjoy Jego and Lepee's thoughtful thriller set in 1661 France. Though the country is nominally ruled by young Louis XIV, Cardinal Jules Mazarin has been the country's de facto leader for decades. As the cardinal lies on his deathbed, he's shaken to learn that a fire set in his Paris palace was designed to divert attention from a burglary that netted the thieves some secret documents. Mazarin orders his adviser Jean-Baptiste Colbert to retrieve them by any means necessary. This effort ensnares the book's D'Artagnan-like hero, actor Gabriel de Pontbriand, secretary to the playwright Moliere. Gabriel stumbles upon coded papers concealed in the prompter's well of the theater after one of the burglars fell through the roof. The machinations of a shadowy Rome-based conspiracy, as well as the jockeying for power in anticipation of a vacuum following Mazarin's demise, ratchet up the tension, even for readers familiar with how that struggle played out. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Sun King Conspiracy." Publishers Weekly, 6 Feb. 2017, p. 49. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480593840&it=r&asid=eb46d6ac568955288163f40220ef3bd1. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480593840
The Sun King Conspiracy
(Mar. 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
The Sun King Conspiracy
Yves Jego & Denis Leppe
Gallic Books
www.gallicbooks.com
9781910477359, $14.99, PB, 448pp, www.amazon.com
Stolen documents have the power to change the course of history for France and the Sun King himself. The collaborative work of Yves Jego (a politician and the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction) and Denis Lepee (an environmental adviser and historical novelist) "The Sun King Conspiracy" is fast-paced historical mystery that features many real-life seventeenth-century characters including Moliere, La Fontaine, Cardinal Mazarin, and Louis XIV, as well as famous locations, including the Louvre palace, Versailles, and the chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte. A consistently compelling and unfailingly entertaining read from cover to cover, "The Sun King Conspiracy" is certain to be an enduringly popular addition to community library Historical Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "The Sun King Conspiracy" is also available in a Kindle format ($9.99).
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Sun King Conspiracy." Internet Bookwatch, Mar. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA491086869&it=r&asid=7a3eb80e8d6adb208647cd37d8b13eb3. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491086869
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
THE SUN KING CONSPIRACY - Yves Jego and Denis Lepee
A tale of religious brotherhoods, corruption, romantic intrigue and political scheming at the court of Louis XIV. 1661 is a year of destiny for France and its young King, Louis XIV. Cardinal Mazarin, the Chief Minister who has governed throughout the King's early years, lies dying. As a fierce power struggle develops to succeed him, a religious brotherhood, guardian of a centuries-old secret, also sees its chance to influence events. Gabriel de Pontbriand, an aspiring actor employed as secretary to Molière, becomes unwittingly involved when documents stolen from Mazarin's palace fall into his hands. The coded papers will alter Gabriel's life for ever, and their explosive contents have the power to change the course of history for France and the Sun King himself.
REVIEW
In this fast paced historical thriller, we are swept into the court of France's Sun King, King Louis XIV. The authors introduce us many of the characters who lived at the time - the king, queen, mistresses, and Cardinal Mazarin and his nieces. But Cardinal Mazarin is near death and members of the secret society to which he belongs enact some dastardly and powerful maneuvers to take his place. Thus begins an exciting story of political intrigue, espionage, murder, and betrayal. I liked the fast-paced, intricate plot and how more and more of the story was revealed a little at a time. The tale kept me engaged to the end. The characters were well drawn, as were the many historical descriptions of locations, clothing, and occurrences. This was one of the most decadent periods of French History. and the authors present a spectacular yet private glimpse into the wealthy and opulent court of the handsome and virie King Louis XIV and his many lovers.
Thank you to the author and publisher. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for visiting my blog, http://greathistoricals.blogspot.ca, where the greatest historical fiction is reviewed! For fascinating women of history bios and women's fiction please visit http://www.historyandwomen.com.
The Sun King Conspiracy by Yves Jégo and Denis Lépée
The Sun King Conspiracy by Yves Jégo and Denis Lépée is a complex historical novel with a myriad of intrigue and conspiracy swirling around Louis XIV, the famed Sun King. It’s a novel full of the movers and shakers of the 17th Century, from the Sun King himself, Louis XIV, his mother Anne of Austria, the Cardinal Mazarin, Minister of Finance Colbert, and Superintendent Fouquet with cameos by Moliere and even Charles Perrault, the author of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and many other fairy tales.
Like a sheep among wolves, there is poor Gabriel Pontbriand, a lowly fictional character who comes to Paris to escape an overbearing uncle and be an actor. He is in love with Louise de La Vallière, though of course he does not know it. He literally trips over the key to secrets that could bring down the state and so much more, secrets that people have killed to get, including a cipher with the key to The Secret, a document guarded for centuries by a secret society.
The novel would be better named The Sun King Conspiracies because there is not one person who is not part of one of several conspiracies. There is the Queen and Mazarin’s conspiracy about the parentage of King Louis. There is Colbert’s conspiracy against Fouquet and every other person who is not Colbert. There are the religious zealots conspiring against Mazarin and Colbert. And of course, there is Fouquet’s grand conspiracy with the members of a secret society to guard The Secret and with its power change the course of history.
The best historical novels are those about people and times of which the readers know very little. Certainly, the less you know, the more you will enjoy The Sun King Conspiracy. It’s not that it is not grounded in history. It is. There are conversations that come right out Madame de Montespan’s memoirs, a sort of Real Housewives of Versailles score-settling memoir of one of Louis XIV’s mistresses. However, their interpretation of history leaves a lot to be desired. This is sort of an opposite-day history.
The novel takes seriously the wild theory that Louis XIV is the son of Cardinal Mazarin and not Louis XIII. It’s a ridiculous theory and ignores that Louis XIII and Anne were reconciled after yet another uprising when Richelieu convinced him that if he did not get an heir the uprisings and problems would continue. This speculation exists because some people insist Louis XIII was gay and would not sleep with his wife. He was bisexual, he had affairs with men and women. He understood the need for an heir and did his duty for an heir and a spare.
For me, the greatest problem was the authors’ decision to make Jean-Baptiste Colbert into such a cardboard villain, he only lacked a long mustache to twist with his fingers. No one who achieved his level of power was an innocent, the road to power is full of compromises and moral ambiguity. But, Colbert was one of the truly great bureaucrats of all time.
Colbert was not the flamboyant and charismatic sort of character that gets to be heroic. He was too busy working. Less famous than Richelieu and Mazarin, he mattered because of his competence in restoring the balance of trade, building new industries, investing in the infrastructure of France, and hauling France off the cliff of bankruptcy. He also codified the laws, and expanded and supported the colonization of Canada and Louisiana, even promoting the “Daughters of the King” whose transport to Canada was paid by the King to encourage colonization and expansion rather than just trade.
And while Colbert was a typical 17th century European and did not work to ban slavery or promote abolition, he did write the Black Code that guaranteed certain human rights to slaves, including one day off a week, adequate food and clothing, and the right to marry. It prohibited slave owners from raping women slaves. It prohibited separating families, defined a way to earn freedom and mandated other conditions utterly unlike American chattel slavery. Freed slaves also had the same rights as other subjects. It is why New Orleans had so many free people of color, people who earned their freedom under Colbert’s Black Code. And yes, from the eyes of today, it is all horrible and inexcusable, but for its time, it was a remarkably humane document.
So Colbert is the villain.
In contrast, Nicolas Fouquet is heroic, a patron of the arts, generous and pious and wonderful. However, in reality while he was Superintendent of Finance, he mingled his personal finances with the royal finances so thoroughly they could not be untangled. This was common. Richelieu and Mazarin enriched themselves as well. Surely Colbert did, too. But Fouquet’s conspicuous consumption in building Vaux-le-Vicomte, the inspiration for Versailles, was his downfall. You don’t show up the King. In the novel, he is presented as purely innocent of any inurement, though certainly the leader of the central conspiracy.
While the novel portrays Fouquet as a patron of the arts, he was more a personal collector of the arts for his benefit while Colbert founded many Royal Academies that continue to this day. He gave many writers a settlement enough to support them in their work, independent of the need to seek further patronage. For someone who has done so much good in his life, whose ideas about national economic development, banking and finance informed Alexander Hamilton and was a basis of our own system in the United States, it is sad to see him cast as the villain, but I suppose if you’re going to make Fouquet a good guy, there is no other option.
The Sun King Conspiracy was disappointing, not just in its historical revisionism, but also in the central plot. There was a conflict in France between the clergy and the aristocracy, it was not a conflict between oppression and liberty. The actual Secret was silly and disappointing. I expected more and kept reading in hopes that there would be a great Dan Brown sort of payoff, but there was not. Sure, I see the Dan Brown inspiration, but if you’re going to hide a secret until the next to last chapter, it better be a good one.
This book is going to be much more enjoyable for people who have studied not history, who won’t have an inner “So Wrong!” sounding in their head while they read. If it were just a story about something I knew nothing about I would probably like it better. It’s a translation from French and who knows, perhaps the French view Colbert differently than those who studied him because of his profound influence on Canada and the United States.
I received a digital edition of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Jego, Yves and Lepee, Denis - 'The Sun King Rises' (translated by Sue Dyson)
Paperback: 474 pages (Feb. 2008) Publisher: Gallic ISBN: 1906040028
THE SUN KING RISES is a historical novel written by Yves Jego, a member of the French Parliament, and Dennis Lepee, a local politician and environmental adviser, who has also written books on Ernest Hemingway and Winston Churchill. The book was translated from the French by Sue Dyson, who is more widely known as best selling novelist Zoe Barnes. The novel follows the events of 1661 and gives a new twist to the political machinations at the court of Louis XIV blending a fictional hero into the real events of that year.
Cardinal Mazarin, who has governed France during the early years of the King's reign, carrying on the system devised by his mentor Cardinal Richelieu, is dying. His apartments are burgled by religious zealots who steal a package containing secret encoded papers from his desk, but in escaping one of them falls through a skylight to his death on the stage, where Moliere's company are rehearsing, and drops the package of papers.
Gabriel de Pontbriand, a young actor and the fictional hero of the story, finds the package and when he examines the papers notices his father's signature on one of them. Coincidentally Gabriel's childhood friend the beautiful Louise de la Valliere had recently arrived at court to act as companion to Henrietta of England who is to marry the King's brother. The complex court relationships, intrigues and power battles between Colbert, Mazarin's secretary, and Nicholas Fouquet who is building the magnificent Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte dominate much of the rest of the book. The rivals Colbert and Fouquet both wish to assume the mantle and power of Mazarin but Louis XIV has other plans as he wants to rule as an absolute monarch.
Some of the encoded papers refer to the close relationship between Mazarin and Anne of Austria, the King's mother, and others are ancient documents that may change the course of history. Gabriel has to struggle to find the secret contained in the papers, survive the various conspiracies at court, and possibly win the love of Louise.
The book appeared in France under the title 1661 and from the information on the website it is clear the book has aroused a lot of interest. The authors state that they were trying to create a historical novel in the style of Alexandre Dumas or Robert Louis Stevenson (I apologise if with my French O level circa 1959 I have got this wrong). I read many years ago a number of the Dumas novels, including the D'Artagnan books that started with THE THREE MUSKETEERS and went on to TWENTY YEARS AFTER, a marvellous sequel, and VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. Perhaps this is why I was very disappointed and found this novel rather predictable and boring, with the briefest periods of action separated by long sections of dull material. Neither the word portraits of the characters nor the plot were anywhere near the standard of Alexandre Dumas. They also bizarrely decided to latch on to the "Da Vinci-Dan Brown" band wagon with a plot line about an ancient biblical gospel and an exclusive group holding the key to the encoded secret.
This could have been such a good book but I am afraid that although interesting to anyone who wants to learn a little bit about this fascinating time in French history it lacked the sparkle, momentum and inventiveness of a Dumas novel. I don't think this story works because it is very difficult to blend fictional characters and events with real life characters and events in a novel in a seamless fashion. I prefer the real life component to be used only as a foundation for the fictional story, as Dumas does so brilliantly in TWENTY YEARS AFTER, a tale of intrigue based on the period of the Fronde rebellion in France and Civil War and regicide in England. Unfortunately in the case of THE SUN KING RISES it feels as if the fictional characters and storyline have just been tacked on as an afterthought.
Norman Price, England
August 2008
Norman blogs at Crime Scraps.