Fortune de France: “More Downton Abbey than The Accursed Kings!”

Co-creator and director, Christopher Thompson explains his vision for the new historical fiction which begins tonight on France 2.

It is a saga that he discovered when he was a little boy, when his grandfather, Gerard Ouryoffered him the first volume. Forty years later, Christopher Thompson adapted Fortune of France in series for France Télévisions. A great family and historical saga adapted from Robert Merle (season 1 covers the first volume published in 1977), which immerses us in the daily life of the Sioracs, minor nobility of Périgord in the 16th century, far from the Capital, but still immersed in the heart of the wars of religion.

A way of telling the story of the Kingdom of France”through the prism of a provincial family“, the co-creator, who also directed all the episodes, tells us.”The first volumes of Robert Merle span between 1559 and the Edict of Nantes in 1598. It is an exciting period, which also tells of a war of succession in filigree, since the Bourbons succeed the Valois. It was a period of political, spiritual war, which cut France in two.”

History on the scale of a family of minor country nobility

A fracture that will have consequences in Paris, but not only there. Fortune of France is not intended to depict central power, but to show the ricochets among the nobles of the Province, in this case, the Siorac family, deep in a castle in Dordogne. “We are not in The Accursed Kings” insists Christopher Thompson.

“We are not at the Court of France. We are not talking about the great, we are not talking about royalty. We are in the micro-history through this family and the appointments of family life: births, deaths, arguments, teenage loves, children leaving home, etc. The events in Paris, the decision-makers of the Court are far away. They have an influence on their daily lives, because it triggers a war. But we are not among the great nobles of the Kingdom. We are on the scale of a family of a recent minor nobility, in the countryside, where masters and servants live together. A bit like in Downton Abbey if we want to make a comparison. It is a bit of a micro-society inside this castle, with its social classes. That is the specificity of the series.”

Did the Siorac family really exist?

Inspired by the aesthetics of Patrice Chereau and his Queen Margot In his staging, the director wanted something very realistic. Even in the dialogues.”I think we came up with a very accurate writing style from a historical perspective. We tried not to tell nonsense. Even from a language perspective. There is a musicality in the dialogues, both inspired by what Robert Merle had done in his novels, but in a simplified version nonetheless. That said, for each dialogue, we asked ourselves the question of the origin of the words: when did they really appear in the French language? Even slang words! We went to the source each time, to be sure not to make an anachronism, to stay within a framework while creating our own language in a certain way. Like Robert Merle at the time, we had fun building something accessible and fun, which could be on the lips of today's actors..”

A fiction very close to a certain historical truth, but a fiction nonetheless, which assumes its soap opera side.Because Jean de Siorac's family never existed” precise Christopher Thompson. “It is basically a historical novel, but the whole story of the Siorac family was entirely invented by Robert Merle.“.

Fortune de France, season 1, in 6 episodes, to watch on France 2 and online on France.Tv.