Rocambolesc Notes: Histories of Mock Heroes

Abstract

This article, in its beginning offers an apparently unusual approximation between two works: 1) the French Adventures of Rocambole (1857-1870), a Ponson du Terrail feuilleton, that is structured upon the secret society 'The Hearts Jack Club', headed first by the sordid Count Andrea and later by his nephew Rocambole; 2) the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte of Karl Marx, that tells the rise of the Napoleon´s nephew from the secret society 110th of December' and also the real and ar the same time phony adventures of a 'mediocre canaille'. It is shown that the French press at that time identified the character of Rocamboloe as though it was the Emperor´s. This article remark as Rocambole could be a character of ours days, searches for a definition for the world "rocamboles" in this period of corruption and violence. It talks about the appeal that these kind of mock, rascal heroes have on readers, comparing to examples from Machado de Assis and Graciliano Ramos.