The Role Of Chevalier's Memoirre In A Truthful Genre

Both the reading and the lecture are about whether content in the Chevalier’s memoir is conveyed in a truthful manner. While the article suggests that the Chevalier have fabricated some of the stories in his memoir, the lecturer argues that the Chevalier’s memoir is accurate and refutes each of the author’s reasons.

First, the reading states that because Chevalier has borrowed money while living in Switzerland, he could not have been very rich. The lecturer counters this point by saying that Chevalier’s wealth was in the form of property that had to be sold in order to generate cash. According to the lecturer, Chevalier was not poor; he just had to borrow money for a few days while he waited for his property to be sold.

Second, the reading suggests that the Chevalier’s conversation with Voltaire, which occurred many years before the memoir was written, could not have been accurately captured. However, the professor states that Chevalier maintained the habit of keeping journals and that each night after the conversations he would write down everything he could remember. He also points out that witnesses confirm that when writing his memoir years later, the Chevalier regularly consulted these notes.
It says that such a dramatic escape is unlikely, because the Chevalier could have asked politically well-connected friends to offer his jailers a bribe to free him. However, according to the professor, other prisoners who had even more powerful political connections were never able to bribe their way to freedom and that prisons records indicate that soon after the Chevalier’s escape, the ceiling of his room in the prison had to be repaired. The professor thinks all these demonstrate that the jail-breaking anecdote in the memoir is an honest recount of the