Romance of the Forest Pt.1

In the first half of Romance of the Forest, I wasn’t surprised to find that one of the first action scenes takes place in a forest.  Adeline, our damsel in distress makes her first debut in a cabin with some criminals who pawn her off on La’Motte, who of course is fleeing from debt collectors. It’s only fitting for a damsel to quickly fall ill and be so charming that the whole lot of characters instantly fall in love with her. As the plot makes haste, La’Motte, Peter, Annette, and the rest of the crew find themselves in an old abandoned abbey in the forest.

In the absence of his money, La’Motte robs the Marquis and hides his newly acquired booty in the forest. As the lot becomes comfortable in the abbey, Adeline makes frequent walks through the forest where she breaks out into spontaneous poetry. Go figure.  Because La’Motte and Adeline venture into the forest often, Madam La’Motte soon begins to suspect a love affair.

As the suitors begin to pile up for the fair Adeline, she finds herself amidst the Marquis who miraculously survived La'Motte's attack during the robbery. The Marquis promised not to press charges against La'Motte as long as he was given full sexual access to Adeline. To her horror, the Marquis is pursuing her despite the fact that he has a wife. After Adeline’s refusal, the Marquis decides to do the logical thing and abduct her to his chateau. In his scheme, she meets a boy in service to the Marquis named Theodore, and they fall in love.

As I read this half, I began to be able to pick out every theme that merits gothic literature. We had skeletons in the closet, old abandoned mansions, mystery, suspense, high emotion, and women in distress.  This novel is a classic example of gothic literature at its core.

What I think is interesting is that during the early 17^th century, most people would have been running from the plague and seeking seclusion from disease, but La’Motte is running from money and seclusion from debt collectors.