It is many years since I devoured the swashbuckling yarn, “Jamaica Inn”, and the slow-burning psychological dramas, “Rebecca” and “My Cousin Rachel”, but Daphne du Maurier’s “The Glass-Blowers” is in a different vein. Thoroughly researched, this is a fictionalised account of the lives of her French ancestors, the Bussons, skilled craftsmen who prospered in the late C18 producing finely engraved glassware for the aristocracy – on one occasion even the King paid a visit – in the forested land of what became Sarthe, in the Pays de la Loire.

Judging by reviews, I was not alone in finding the opening chapters quite tedious, overburdened with description, while it was hard to engage with the two-dimensional characters or keep track of the locations of the various glassworks. Admittedly, this served to “set the scene” for a stable, contented, self-contained community, run in an orderly, caring fashion by Sophie’s parents, with no awareness this was about to be disrupted by the French Revolution.

The narrative becomes more absorbing as the personalities of Sophie’s three brothers become more distinct. Robert, the eldest is talented, charismatic but at times shockingly self-centred, utterly seduced by the world of the aristocrats which he is determined to enter. François, who has no interest in glass-blowing, falls under the influence of Rousseau’s writing, and dedicates himself to creating a more free and equal world by helping the poor, leaving the youngest Michel, hampered by an acute stammer and underestimated by his father, to be the one most likely to keep the family business going.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the portrayal of the French Revolution, through its stages of initial optimism, descent into a reign of terror, and ultimate restoration of the monarchy, as viewed from the different perspective of the countryside some hundred miles from the action in Paris. There is the initial fear of marauding bands, since communication is so unreliable. Being in a social limbo partway between the workers and the aristocracy mainly in flight, Michel and Sophie’s husband gain in status from marshalling their workers to join the National Guard, but the author pulls no punches in showing how the pair rapidly become domineering, abusing their new-found power in the process, at the price of losing the goodwill of their employees.

Although I thought I knew a good deal about the French Revolution, du Maurier prompted me to reflect for the first time what it must have been like to be living some way from the capital with patchy and inaccurate information, the threats from the various factions which formed, and the ultimate realisation that successive groups had replaced each other at the top, leaving the workers at the bottom of the system feeling no better off. Once the old way of life had broken down, there were some powerful descriptions of how people think and behave in violent situations, and the portrayal of how attitudes and behaviour change over time in the light of experience was also convincing.

Despite my reservations, this is probably more worth reading than, say, the escapism into “Jamaica Inn”.