NEW EVENTS

Sepulchre by Kate Mosse

Themed questions for discussion

perspective

1. Sepulchre begins with an intimidating yet picturesque scene in a Parisian graveyard. The reader sees the action from Léonie’s point of view – but Léonie has been deceived and doesn’t really know what is going on. When did you first begin to pick up clues to the nature of the tragic intrigue?

2. ‘The soul of another person is a dark forest in which one must tread carefully.’ Claude Debussy was famously single-minded, yet he understood the profound nature of imagining oneself in another’s emotions and thoughts. Did you feel like an eavesdropper in Léonie’s world?

settting

3. At the end of the first section, Léonie and her beloved brother flee Paris. Were you sorry to leave the French capital behind? Did you enjoy it when there were later glimpses of Parisian action, such as Constant’s murder of Marguerite and Laboughe’s police investigation?

4. If you have read Labyrinth, you will know that most of the action takes place in the great, fortified medieval city of Carcassonne. By contrast, Rennes-les-Bains is a small, isolated spa town in the Pyrenees and the estate of the Domaine de la Cade is an imagined place. What difference did this make to your enjoyment of the descriptions of the landscape in Sepulchre?

character

5. Léonie is – at least at first – a charmingly innocent though headstrong young woman. In fact, she is almost still a girl. In the modern section of Sepulchre, the hero – Meredith Martin – is much more worldly-wise, perhaps even a little sceptical. Did you enjoy the contrast between the two heroines?

6. Two of the characters you may have met in Labyrinth reappear in Sepulchre – one in 1891 and one in 2007. Was that a surprise? If you have read Labyrinth, did it make a difference when you realised that, in the modern section of Sepulchre, the Labyrinth story has already finished and one of those two characters has, more than 100 years later, died?

history

7. Léonie’s father was exiled after the bloodbath of the Paris Commune. Her neighbour, Claude Debussy, was at the forefront of a transformation in classical music and a devotee of the new fashion for occult experiments. Did you feel the need to ‘read up’ on late 19th-century France, or did you feel that the author gave you enough background to understand her characters in their historical context?

8. Rennes-les-Bains is a neighbour village of Rennes-le-Château and the ‘mysteries’ of Abbé Saunière. Later, it is an intrigue concerning the Tarot that first draws Meredith into Léonie’s drama. Perhaps you knew about Saunière or the Tarot before reading Sepulchre. Do you think the knowledge made any difference to your enjoyment of the story?

supernatural

9. The landscape that Léonie discovers at the Domaine de la Cade is many people’s idea of a perfect retreat from the world – a lovely house, a beautiful setting close to nature. Yet it is surrounded by place names that seem to summon evil – the Horned Mountain, the Devil’s Lake, the Dead Man. Do you believe that a place can be inhabited by evil? Did you believe that the imaginary Domaine was inhabited by evil?

10. The author is a great admirer of the ghost stories of M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood. Do you think you need to believe in the supernatural to be able to enjoy a story – like Sepulchre – that has paranormal elements such as the demon?

Meeting Tips

Get the group into a suitably spooky mood by lighting candles and keeping bright lights to a minimum. For background music, it can only be Debussy!

Sepulchre is steeped in the character of the Languedoc in south-west France. The classic food of this region includes the famous cassoulet, but for lighter food why not makes the most of Languedoc’s Mediterranean influences and serve nibbles made with the following key ingredients:

  • Tapenade
  • Wild mushrooms
  • Sardines
  • Olives
  • Tuna
  • Figs
  • Goat’s Cheese