Joachim's Floor: The Story of Religious Fear, Poverty, Criminal Clergy and Infanticide Discovered on the Underside of a Chateau's Floor

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, long messages were found that were 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.