A Start in Life (1822-38)

The education of a young man without means and the errors he repeatedly makes but eventually outgrows is described. The very last sentence makes it clear that this education is the education of the "modern bourgeoisie," in essence the making of a new type of social person, the new middle class man.

The Plot:

Count Serizy is being deceived by everyone. His wife carries on innumerable affairs behind his back. Gossip has made it common knowledge that his wife cheats on him because he has an unsightly skin disease caused by working too much. The manager of his estates in the country, Moreau, is also using his position to enrich himself. The count learns that Moreau is working with another farmer in the neighborhood, Leger, to sell him land at an inflated price. He decides to make an unannounced trip to his estates to find out what's really happening.

During the French revolution Moreau was saved from the guillotine by a Madame Husson. Since the revolution, the fortunes of Madame Husson have declined a bit, so Moreau tries to help her when he can. Moreau's wife, a former chambermaid of his employer, driven by social pretensions which she hopes to realize through her husband, dislikes the interest her husband shows in his former protectress Madame Husson.

Madame Husson has a young son, Oscar (who actually might be Moreau's illegitimate son). Oscar needs some help getting a start in life. Actually, he needs a lot of help. Moreau has grown wealthy off the money he has skimmed off the count's estate and plans to leave the count and enter into business for himself. Moreau suggests to Madame Husson that Oscar could replace him as estate manager when he retires. He invites Oscar to come and stay with him in the country.

Oscar's mother brings him to the stagecoach to see him off on his trip to see Moreau. His mother embarasses him in front of all the other travellers by doting on him and fussing over him the way mothers usually do. The other passengers in the stagecoach include Count Serizy, who has chosen this very day to travel to his estates incognito, Joseph Bridau and Leon de Lora (or Mistigris), two painters who are painting a mural at the count's home in the country, and George Marest, a clerk of the count's notary and also a elegant dandy.

Balzac provides the reader with a great little history of the stagecoaches used before the advent of the train to travel to the rural areas surrounding Paris. He also paints a detailed picture of one entrepreneur in this business, Pierrotin, the owner of the stagecoach that the travellers are travelling in.

During the journey to the country, the talk amongst the passengers quickly degenerates into showy boasting calculated to impress the rest of the passengers. Georges invents tall tales of adventure in Egypt and Turkey. Joseph Bridau pretends he is the famous painter Schinner and invents a tall tale of love and adventure in Yugoslavia. Mistigris provides the passengers with witty little epigrams. Little Oscar gets fed some wine at one of the stops along the way and wanting to tell a story like everyone else, contributes the story of the count's skin disease and his inability to satisfy his wife.

Approaching his estates, the count gets off the stagecoach and makes his way to his manor through the back of his estates. Everyone at the estate is shocked when they find out that the count has arrived unexpectedly. The count gives little Oscar, Moreau, and the painters a thorough dressing down for their behavior in the stagecoach. Oscar blows his first chance to get "a start in life" and makes his way back to Paris, sulking.

Madame Husson's next step to find a career for her son is to ask a relative by marriage, the businessman Cardot, to get her son hired on as an apprentice clerk to a lawyer. Oscar starts work at the office of Desroches under the tutelage of Godeschal (both recurring characters in Balzac). Among the traditions of this law firm that Balzac recounts is the party that new clerks have to treat the other clerks in the firm to when they finish their apprenticeship. Everything is going well for Oscar when several events converge in an ominous fashion.

Oscar must attend one of these end-of-apprenticeship parties as well as take care of some important business for the head clerk Godescal the following day. He is also entrusted with some money by Godeschal. The party ends up in the house of the mistress of Oscar's patron Cardot, the courtesan Florentine Cabirolle. First, Oscar loses all the money that the head clerk has entrusted to him at the gambling table. One of the courtesans at the party, feeling pity for him, replenishes the cash he has lost, but Oscar loses it all again. Being drunk, he falls asleep in the hostess's bedroom and doesn't wake up until the next day, too late to take care of the important business entrusted to him by the head clerk. Moreover, his rich relative and patron Cardot finds Oscar asleep in his mistress's bedroom and is furious. All these indiscretions spell the end of Oscar's second start in life.

Without his wealthy patron he cannot buy himself out of the draft so Oscar is drafted into the army where he is finally able to prove himself. After many years of service he is promoted to the rank of officer. Fighting in Africa, he rescues the son of Count Serizy, the same count he had insulted so many years ago, from the hands of the Arabs. He loses his arm in the battle, is promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and retires from the army. Having regained favor with Count Serizy, Oscar is given a position of tax collector.

In the final scene, Oscar is seen taking the same stagecoach journey with his mother that so many years ago led to disaster. The passengers include Moreau and his partner Leger who have grown wealthy from land speculation, the now famous painter Joseph Bridau, and Georges Marest, who once cut such a fine figure in society but is now bald, fat, ugly, and reduced to making his living as a travelling insurance salesman. Oscar himself has earned a measure of respect through his military service and the position he has been appointed to. in short the prototype of a new social type emerging in early nineteenth century France: the middle class man.

(Long, Un Debut dans la vie, stlif10.txt)