SOURCE: "Exile and Return: La Rue à Londres," in his Feet First: Jules Vallès, University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1992, pp. 145-72.

In the following excerpt, Redfern discusses Vallès's exile in London, from about 1872 to 1880, focusing on Vallès's contrasting views of Paris and London and the background for Vallès's book La Rue a Londres. Redfern also describes Vallès's efforts to work in Paris following his return from London and the defeat of the Paris Commune, particularly his work on the newspaper Le Cri du peuple.

Exile

Long before he was forced into it, Vallès hankered for a chosen exile, an expatriation (or 'exmatriation').¹ Eight years before his first trip to England in 1865, he observed some Englishmen in Paris: 'L'Anglais garde, dans son faux col trop raide et son coatchman [sic] trop large, un air ètrange et distingué. Il est muet, il a...