A Beleaguered City by Margaret Oliphant
"A Beleaguered City" is a speculative ghost story set in the somber French provincial town of Semur during the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War. The narrative centers around Martin Dupin, the town's mayor, who faces a profound challenge to his skeptical beliefs when he encounters a remarkable event—thousands of deceased individuals return to life, parading through the streets. This eerie occurrence disrupts the town's mundane existence and prompts varied reactions from its residents, each interpreting the event through their unique emotional lenses. Dupin, alongside the local priest and other townsfolk, grapples with the implications of this phenomenon, which also stirs up deep-seated fears and beliefs about life, death, and divine judgment. The story explores themes of existential inquiry and the blurred lines between the living and the dead, culminating in a poignant reflection on loss and the human experience. As Dupin seeks understanding amidst the chaos, the narrative ultimately underscores the complexities of faith and the mysteries that lie beyond human comprehension.
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A Beleaguered City
First published: 1880
Type of work: Novella
Type of plot: Fantasy—occult
Time of work: The late 1870’s
Locale: Semur, a provincial city in France
The Plot
A Beleaguered City is a fantastic, speculative ghost story that takes stock of the changing beliefs of nineteenth century Europeans regarding religion and the supernatural. Very popular in the nineteenth century, it went out of print until late in the twentieth century. It can be seen as one of the first attempts to include within the realm of fantasy stories the areas of inquiry usually associated with religion.
Semur is a rather dreary French provincial city participating in the general malaise of France after that country’s defeat by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War. Martin Dupin, mayor of the town as well as owner of the great estate of La Clarière, is a progressively inclined man who is skeptical of traditional religious faith. While strolling about the city on a summer evening, Dupin is approached by Paul Lecamus, an eccentric man with a strong visionary streak who has not been emotionally whole since the death of his wife. Lecamus informs Dupin that a great portent has occurred. This news is soon confirmed by several others. Dupin is stunned, when he arrives at the place described by Lecamus, to see thousands of dead people returned to life and solemnly parading. Dupin cannot believe his senses, but the uncanny spectacle is confirmed when giant letters in the sky spell out a message of summoning from entities who describe themselves as “Nous Autres Morts”—French for “we other dead.”
The sedate, comfortable, placidly mediocre life of Semur is completely disrupted by the arrival of the strange undead. Dupin confers with his wife and with the Curé, a local priest, in order to help him gain his bearings and provide some guidance to a stunned community. Each member of the community has his or her own experience that is eventually related to the mayor. From the skeptical Monsieur de Bois-Sombre to the impressionable Madame Dupin to the mystical Lecamus, each account filters the weird apparition through the prism of individual hopes, fears, and vulnerabilities. Dupin’s mother, for example, sees the ghosts as a judgment of divine vengeance for the civil administration’s shoddy treatment of the Sisters of St. John, a locally dominant order of nuns. Lecamus suddenly encounters the face of Dupin’s father, signaling the suspension of accepted notions of past and future. What was thought dead and buried has returned to life.
Dupin goes in the company of the Curé to confront the apparitions. Despite the philosophical differences between the two men, the challenge of the returned dead creates solidarity and comradeship between them. Dupin’s mother leads the women and children away to the mayor’s estate in order to provide for their safety. Meanwhile, Dupin’s wife and Lecamus have a direct encounter with the dead. Through the medium of the visionary Lecamus, Dupin’s wife feels the presence of her daughter Marie, who died young. Lecamus is so entranced by the threshold between life and death that he crosses over the line. Seeking to rejoin his dead wife, he throws himself into the sphere of the undead and is gone from Earth forever. After this, the apparition recedes and the tumult subsides. Peace is restored to Semur. The religious conservatives of the town try to turn the incident into a conventional miracle, but Dupin knows that what had transpired was in truth a more unsettling phenomenon, an enigma he could never wholly hope to solve.