Amazon.com description: Product Description: An intense claustrophobic tale describing rivalry among clerics in a French provincial town. The abbé who'll stop at nothing to gain a bishopric is an emblem of concentrated fury worthy of François Mauriac, who may well have been influenced by this stunning novel (originally published in 1873)."" - USA Today. ""In the best nineteenth century, fire-and-brimstone tradition, this small French masterpiece pits good against evil."" - Publishers Weekly. ""His translation recaptures perfectly the immediacy and the urgency of Fabre's style."" - TLS.