Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans
(Scenes from a Courtesan's Life) (1824-1830,1845)
The sequel to Lost Illusions.
At the end of Lost Illusions the great criminal Vautrin,
disguised as a priest befriends Lucien, thus saving him temporarily
from the fate of suicide that he was contemplating.
(Very Long,,sfacl10.txt)
The Marriage Contract (1821-27)
A young man with an inheritance is eager to get married
and there's a mother-in-law eager to have him as her son-in-law,
but for all the wrong reasons.
Most of the story is taken up in hammering out the details of the
marriage contract.
His wife ends up driving him to ruin.
He's bailed out by the same person who advised him
not to get married in the first place and
ships off to Calcutta to make his fortune.
(Medium to Long, Le Contrat de mariage,mrgct10.txt)
Gobseck (1806-30)
The story of some financial dealings
undertaken by the money-lender Gobseck,
a self-made man who worked his way up
from cabin-boy working in various trades
at the far reaches of the world including
India and the Americas, developing a
passion for money all the while.
Besides being a miser Gobseck has a rather
harsh philosophy of life
that includes not helping people because
"adversity is the greatest of all teachers."
He also believes that all the
different peoples and countries of
the world are in the end quite alike,
money being the greatest common denominator.
(Short, Gobseck, gbsek10.txt)
The Deserted Woman (1822)
An aristocratic husband and wife lead separate lives.
The wife is quite active in high society,
throwing parties that the greatest names in France attend,
but after her lover deserts her to marry another
woman, she retreats to the countryside and lives
a life of seclusion for three years. There a young man
manages to meet her and court her.
They are lovers for nine years but he cannot marry her
because her husband is still alive.
He finally marries someone else.
(Short, La Femme abandonnee, dswmn10.txt)
Study of a Woman (1823)
A little bit of gossip related by the
doctor Bianchon. One of his aristocratic female
patients having imagined that she was the object of
a young man's affections after the young man
mistakenly sent her a love letter,
comes down with a bad stomache when she learns the truth.
(Very Short, Etude de femme, sowmn10.txt)
The Interdiction (A Commission in Lunacy) (1828)
The wife of a slightly eccentric nobleman
hopes to get her husband declared insane so she can control the families
wealth. A lower level judge is recruited to help but when his honesty
becomes an impediment, suitable arrangements are made for his future
by his superiors.
(Medium, L'Interdiction, lunac10.txt)
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.
(Long, Un Debut dans la vie, stlif10.txt)
Modeste Mignon (1829)
Three men, a duke, a lawyer, and a poet,
wage a courtship contest
for a young lady's hand. Somewhat like a ten round boxing match,
not one of punches but of one of words and deeds.
The targetted audience? Young women?
Don't be discouraged by the long drawn out series of love letters
at the beginning, the author actually cuts them short midstream
and pokes fun at himself for including so many.
The best part is at the beginning of the contest with
all the verbal fireworks delivered by the author
and the poet who has the
habit of continually contradicting himself.
(Long, Modeste Mignon, mdmgn10.txt)
The Vicar of Tours (The Bachelors) (1826)
A slightly obese and dull-witted priest inherits the furniture
of his superior that he covets, but loses it and ultimately
his whole comfortable life by just not paying enough attention
to the "art of living."
(Short, Le Cure de Tours, vcrtr10.txt)
The Country Doctor (1829-30)
About a doctor who
"after being spurned by the woman he loves,
devotes the rest of his life to the godforsaken peasants of a remote village
in the region of Grenoble." (Robb, 217)
It's meant to demonstrate "the civilizing effect of philanthropy." (Robb, 341)
(Long, Le Medecin de campagne, ctrdr10.txt)
Another Study of Woman (Before 1815)
Proust devoted three pages of his essay on Balzac to a criticism
of this short story.
Almost all of Balzac's recurring characters
take part in this extended conversation at a dinner party.
As Proust observes
Balzac summarizes its contents
even before he begins and also manages to applaud himself
in the process:
It is in Paris alone that this type of wit abounds. Only Paris, the capital city of taste, understands this science. that changes a conversation into a tourney.... Deft repartees, sharp observations, admirable witticisms, pictures sketched with brilliant precision, sparkled and jostled ...accompanied by mimicries, tilts of the head, airs, and graces...
If you're looking for the proto-type for a male-chauvinist
jerk, the dinner party prattle of De Marsay would seem
to fit the bill.
In describing one of his mistresses he treats the reader to
vulgarities such as "There is always a first-rate monkey
in the most prettiest and angelic of women" and goes on to
observe "...she could not live without me...she made me into
her god."
(Short, Autre Etude de femme, nswmn10.txt)
La Grande Breteche (1830)
A escaped Spanish nobleman hides in the closet of his lover
when her husband returns home unexpectedly. The husband believes his
wife, sure he does, but then it shouldn't matter if he bricks up the closet,
right? A Cask of Amontillado-like tale.
(Very Short, La Grande Breteche, brtch10.txt)
Letters of Two Brides (1825-33)
A series of letters exchanged between two young brides who became close friends during their education in a Carmelite convent. In the letters they discuss Renee gives the passionate Louise prudent advice which is often not heeded. The following passage gives you a flavor of what they talk about: "Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty. I shall soon be thirty, and at that age the dirge within begins. What though I am still beautiful, the limits of my woman's reign are none the less in sight. When they are reached, what then?"
"...one of the last epistolary novels of French literature... with an unprecedented wealth of detail on the realities of motherhood, from cracked nipples to post-natal depression, the pros and cons of nappies (Am. diapers) and the problems of communicating with a troublesome, semi-literate creature." (Robb, 250)
(Long, Memoires de deux jeunes mariees, l2brd10.txt)Pierrette (1827-28)
"...one of his cruellest tales. The tragic end of the little orphan,'
enslaved, tortured, and maimed by her foster-parents." (Robb, 325)
It actually began as a cinderella story. The transformed story
reflects the mood Balzac was in after his friend
was executed for murdering his wife and servant.
An unmarried brother and sister,
sent to work when they were
very young by their parents, become
successful shopkeepers in Paris.
Neglecting other aspects of life they also become
narrow-minded, ignorant bores. In their 40's
they retire to a provincial town, get rejected by society
and then get adopted by everyone who opposes the
existing ruling order in the town.
They decide to adopt an orphaned relative, Pierrette, only
when they see a clear advantage in it.
Like cinderella, they abuse Pierrette physically and mentally.
Pierrette suffers from a life threatening dietary deficiency,
and injures her head, all of which they neglect.
A lawyer Vinet becomes politically powerful
and supports Bathilde, a clever
aristocrat in her marital campaign against the old
bachelor.
An old colonel lays siege to the sister.
When the local physician and priest dash
her plans of marriage by advising that it is
impossible or immoral for a woman over 40 to have
children and that children are the only legitimate
reason for marrying, the lawyer takes advantage
of the situation and redirects the colonel's marital
campaign to the young Pierrette.
The colonel realizes he's been manipulated
and redoubles the assault on the old sister,
but the old sister, writhing in jealousy believes
the colonel is courting Pierrette behind her back,
passing letters to her at night.
Trying to pry the letters out of Pierrette's hand,
the old sister breaks her hands and just in the nick of time
her grandmother, who by a stroke of luck
has had her fortune restored to her,
arrives to rescue her.
A court case for custody of the child begins
with the two main factions of the town arrayed on each side.
All the local doctors plus Horace Bianchon, a famous
doctor from Paris, sign a report detailing the child abuse.
The grandmother and her side win custody, but the
question of criminal culpability for child abuse remains.
The child finally dies and just as they are about to bury
her the lawyers for the accuse arrive with a court order to
perform an autopsy, apparently in front of all the bereaving
relatives. They heroically refuse and lose the case.
Several years later, the brother and sister's influence
in the town having increased, most people have learned
to retell the story of Pierrette in a way that's favorable
to the brother and sister, explaining away the true story
told by others as the biased product of vested interests,
using the very argument that could be used against them.
The final crowning irony is the series of biographies in which
all the unsympathetic characters who manipulate the world
for their own selfish interests achieve success in the end.
Even though the work as a whole is a little slow moving,
not really a literary masterpiece,
it stands as an indictment of legal chicanery and expose of the sort
child abuse that probably goes undetected and unpunished.
Also a little reminiscent of the OJ Simpson case.
Balzac issues his own judgement in the final sentence
of the work: "We must all agree that legality would
be a fine thing for social scoundrelism
IF THERE WERE NO GOD." Perhaps implying that the
punishment of these people,
successful by immoral means, awaits them in heaven.
(Medium to Long, Pierrette, prrtt10.txt)
Pierre Grassou (1832)
A mediocre painter finally succeeds by marrying a wealthy art collector's daughter
and endearing himself to the same influential people that
most of his fellow artists despise.
(Very Short, Pierre Grassou, prgrs10.txt)
The Government Clerks (Bureaucracy) (1824-30)
A promising government bureaucrat marries a rich man's
daughter who drives her husband to ruin.
(Long, Les Employees, brcrc10.txt)
The Brotherhood of Consolation
(Long, ,brcns10.txt)