Notes on CITIZEN TOUSSAINT

By Ralph Korngold. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1945.
Bob Corbett's notes on the book. Feb. 1991.

Korngold is widely read, but he seems to rely a great deal on Baron de Wimpffen's book of 1790 for his early material.

Korngold tell the story with great clarity, making sense of each move with the most plausible constructs I've yet read. Other reports often fail to do this. For example, Toussaint retired. Why? Either nothing is offered to explain this, or the rather lame and unconvincing (and non-Toussaintian) reply is given: He was tired.

Korngold argues the whole surrender was a sham.

On the one hand he is the most detailed--in keeping the whole story in front of the reader's eye. Yet he has relatively few dates. It's easy to lose sight of time. It was all so compressed and almost never mentions sources. He has no footnotes. But there is a long and useful bibliography at the end.

His book is an odd mix: extremely popular style of writing, careful, yet popular, yet no sources given, except now and again the name of a book. Excellent bibliography.