Henry Boulanger of Mushannon Town

The court of Louis XVI continues to exert a powerful pull on the imagination. The dramatic events of Yorktown, the final struggle in America's bid for Independence also remains a subject of fascination. Less known is the story of the Azilum Company, how after the French Revolution, investors purchased large tracts in Pennsylvania and promoted settlements in the hopes of providing a refuge for French emigres. Versailles, Yorktown, Azilum all play a part in Mark Seinfelt's novel "Henry Boulanger of Mushannon Town," which tells the story of a Revolutionary war soldier, who prior to coming to the States, was a travelling shoemaker in Germany and France. The novel resembles Thomas Mann's "Felix Krull" in that it features a rogue hero venturing out from his own nation into two very different worlds. The reader sees how life was lived on both sides of the Atlantic, an old world as debauched as that portrayed in "Barry Lyndon," a new as fierce and untamed as in "The Last of the Mohicans."