Joachim’’s Floor: The Incredible Diary of a 19th-Century Village Carpenter Rediscovered on the Floorboards of an Alpine Chateau

The incredible diary of a 19th-century village carpenter rediscovered on the floorboards of an Alpine chateau.
In 2000 the new owners of an Alpine chateau decided to renovate the parquet floor of its upper stories. On the underside of the planks were found long messages written in 1880 that revealed the village life, fears and thoughts of the man who originally laid the floor - Joachim Martin, who kept this secret diary, written with the knowledge that his words would be discovered by a carpenter in the future.
The planks were given to Jacques Olivier-Boudon, a former Professor of History at the Sorbonne, Paris. Entrusted with this unknown documentary material of life in 19th century France, Olivier-Boudon casts a biographical magnifying glass on the identity of this unknown carpenter, his life story, and the message he was trying to transmit, at a time of religious and political upheaval.
From stories on agriculture and village life, to salacious tales of infanticide, extramarital relations and suspicions of paedophilia, Joachim's Floor is a compelling and detailed insight, revealing the hidden truth of life, love and death during one of the most turbulent times in French history.

Jacques-Olivier Boudon is an alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure with a PhD in History. Since September 2003 he has been a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, conducting research on the history of the French Revolution and the First French Empire, along with contemporary religious history. Since 2012, he has been on the consulting committee for History for Le Figaro. He has written, or contributed to, around 18 books, largely academic titles. In April 2017, he was one of a group of researchers and university professors who endorsed Macron as presidential candidate.