http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
There are ghosts sticking to your heels. Mine was called 'Casimir Fidèle, negro caterer.'" Thus begins this book which retraces the itinerary of this "Native of Arada, Côte de Guinée," according to the origin that the French administration has attributed to him. Enslaved at the age of six, the man who was renamed Casimir by the captain who bought him on board the ship that tore him from his native land had an incredible trajectory. Arriving in Nantes, sold to new Parisian masters determined that he should become a chef, he then began a training course that led him, once free, to the head of a Bordeaux hotel where the local elite flocked. Until the end, mixed up in the tumults of history, he experienced the effervescence around the abolition of slavery in 1794, two years before his death. Julie Duprat retraces the multiple uprootings experienced by this survivor, his emancipation, his marriage, his paternity, his relationship with the elites but also with his companions in misfortune, "without betraying him," as close as possible to his experience. She confides in us her doubts, hesitations and hypotheses, while Casimir Fidèle's life is strewn with gaps and documentary holes. Conceived as a reparation, this story allows this forgotten figure to be revived.
Prologue -- Déraciné -- De Nantes à Paris : itinéraire d'un esclave -- La liberté chez les Lamontaigne -- L'Hôtel de l'Empereur à Bordeaux -- Fidèle derrière le masque -- Fidèle, citoyen de couleur -- Un député à Paris -- Épilogue -- Notes -- Remerciements -- Bibliographie indicative.