After "La Guzla" he wrote three traditional novels: "La Jacquerie" (June 1828) was an historical novel about a peasant revolt in the Middle Ages, filled with flamboyant costumes, picturesque details and colorful settings. The critic Henri Patin reported that novel was "lacking in drama, but many of the scenes were excellent". The second, "La Famille Carvajal" (1828), was a parody of the work of Lord Byron, set in 17th-century New Granada, filled with murders and crimes of passion. Many of the critics entirely missed that the novel was a parody: the "Revue de Paris" denounced the story for its "brutal and shameful passions". The third was "La Chronique du Temps de Charles IX" (1829), another historical novel, set during the reign of Charles IX of France in the 16th century. It was written three years before Victor Hugo published his historical novel "Notre-Dame de Paris". Mérimée's story featured a combination of irony and extreme realism, including a detailed and bloody recreation of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. It was published in March 1829, without any great success, and its author was by then tired of the genre. "I wrote a wicked novel that bores me", he wrote to his friend Albert Stapfer.