Sébastien Roch (novel)
Sébastien Roch is a French novel by Octave Mirbeau, published in 1890. It tells the story of Sébastien, a boy who is sent to a boarding school in Saint-François-Xavier, Vannes, Brittany, by his snobbish father when he is eleven. He never fits in with the wealthy students and is largely ignored until a priest at the school befriends him.
The priest, Father de Kern, abuses Sébastien sexually. When Sébastien is about thirteen, he and his friend Bolorec are accused of inappropriate acts; the charges are false, but the abuse is covered up and the boys are expelled. The experience ruins Sébastien’s life: he cannot hold a job, struggles to make friends, and even loses his chance with his childhood sweetheart, Marguerite. At twenty-one, he dies in the Franco-Prussian War, his body carried from the battlefield by Bolorec.
Mirbeau uses Sébastien’s story to denounce child abuse and the impunity of those in power, especially priests. He suggests that education within family, school, and church can become a dangerous violation of a child’s mind. Rather than a coming-of-age tale, Sébastien Roch is a novel of self-destruction.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 15:42 (CET).