To the average reader of 1845, there was nothing particularly original or surprising about Prosper Mérimée's Carmen when it first appeared on October 1 in La Revue des deux mondes. It is, indeed, entirely possible that few recognized the story as fiction. La Revue des deux mondes (Review of the Two Worlds) had originally been founded as a bi-weekly travel journal depicting, for the civilized “world” of France, exotic landscapes and adventures in what today we call the Third World. The volume of October 1 contains Mérimée's contribution as lead with no indication of its nature, together with an article on Belgium and the Catholic Party since 1830, a literary/historical article on the satires of Lucilius, an article on the political situation in Germany in 1845, a synopsis of the political events of the previous fifteen days and a review of the historical plays of G. Revere. In this context, Carmen takes on all the trappings of a “Letter from Abroad.” Not even professional critics appeared to notice the story.

For several decades, French culture had manifested a fascination with history: the desire to rediscover the truths of the past, to place France at the head of a continuum of scientific progress, to assert its supremacy over lesser cultures. As we shall see in Chapter 3, this agenda was coupled with a fascination with the exotic, the bizarre and the supernatural, often resulting in stories very much like Carmen: stories in which a sober, high-minded French narrator, representative of French superiority and civilization, visits an area alien to him and reports upon what he finds.