The Chouans (1799)

A historical novel about the guerrilla war in Normandy and Brittany between the royalists and republicans in 1799 after the French Revolution. Balzac's first successful novel. It was written in the manner of the English novelist Sir Walter Scott and the introduction contains some explicit theorizing on the best way to write a historical novel. Balzac did his research for this novel by actually going to the region and interviewing elderly people who had participated in the war and the region is "evoked as a perfect terrain for guerilla warfare, ambushes, surprise attacks, sudden withdrawals and a confusion of manouevres due to the abscence on one side of of uniformed troops." (Hunt, 19)

The novel has also been compared to Shakepeare's "Romeo and Juliet" because it contains the most passionate and romantic love story that Balzac ever wrote. The title from the hooting sound of an owl "Chouan, chouan,...chouan" that the guerrillas used to signal each other with.

(Long, Les Chouans, choun10.txt)