The writing of the white Creole writer René Bonneville (1871–1902) illustrates that Jenny Manet's influence and the role of serialized novels published in local newspapers should not be underestimated in the development of Martinican literature and Martinican constructions of national identity and self. While Manet, in Maïotte.1896), explores the négresse.#x0027;s misfortunes and avoids political commentaries, Bonneville, in Le triomphe d'Églantine.1897), revels in the mulâtresse.#x0027;s reformed life as a means of promoting the Third Republic in Martinique. In so doing, he actively combats the prevalent préjugé de race.race prejudice).

Bonneville's serialized novel showcases both the people of color's republican stance against white Creole domination and their participation in colonialism; and it uses a rhetoric of victimization to depict the plight of people of color. The story, which takes place in the capital Saint-Pierre between the early 1860s and the mid-1890s, recounts the social ascent of the poor mulâtresse.#x00C9;glantine and her two children after her Creole lover Raoul Cauvert deserts them. In Le triomphe d'Églantine. Bonneville singles out Saint-Pierre; he gives priority to the urban space, and by extension to a more modern Martinique with its population's conflicted sexual, familial, racial, and political relationships. As the story negotiates between several discourses from France and its colonies, it promulgates the social emancipation of people of color and displays a more positive example of discursive cross-pollination than we have previously examined.

Unlike most white Creole writers, Bonneville praises the woman of color as a positive agent of progress, modernity, and nationalism. He thus subverts the values of his class in his remarkable portrayal of the woman of color.