Joseph Marie Eugène Sue (French pronunciation: [ø.ʒɛn sy] (20 January 1804 – 3 August 1857) was a French novelist. He established the genre of the serial novel with his very popular and widely imitated Les Mystères de Paris which was published in a newspaper from 1842 to 1843.
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The invasion of the Normans, or Northmen, or Norsemen—called throughout this brilliant story the Northmans—bears characteristics that distinguish it markedly from all the other European invasions. With all the others the migrations were brought on by home changes of soil and waterways that drove the invaders westward. War was only a means, the goal was bread. With the Northman invasion it was otherwise. The goal was war and adventure. This simple circumstance places a wholly different stamp upon the Northman invaders. It explains the impulse they gave to oratory, poetry, music and the fine arts. Their rush from the frozen north through Europe—conquering and transforming England; carving for themselves large domains out of the French territory, then held in the imbecile hands of the imbecile successors of Charlemagne; startling the populations of southern Italy and Sicily—acted like a leaven through all the territories that they traversed. And they traversed none without raising its tone with their poetic-barbarian spirit.
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