The Vendetta (1800,1815)
A young Corsican woman in Paris encounters a fugitive soldier
hiding in the studio of the artist she is studying under.
She marries him against the wishes of her parents and we learn what
can happen when one ignores the social institution of arranged marriage.
The couple's fall into poverty and squalor resembles
the same in Zola's "L'Assomoir".
(Medium, La Vendetta, vndta10.txt)
A Double Family (A Double Life) (1806-1833)
The Comte de Granville takes the daughter of a poor widow
as a mistress. She bears him two illegitimate children
and finally leaves him for a poor man whom she loves but who
quickly exhausts all her wealth. After that she lives
in sickness and poverty. Her son later gets into trouble and
his father the count stands by his son and bails him out.
(Medium, Une double famille, 2ndhm10.txt)
A Dark Affair (The Gondreville Mystery,A Murky Business) (1803-1806,1834)
During the French Revolution two sons of rural aristocracy
flee from France after the death of their father
leaving their young sister behind.
Their sister matures into a daring defender of the
aristocratic cause together with the faithful but churlish steward
(everyone's enemy) of a neighboring estate.
Together they arrange for the return of her brothers to France
and for a hiding place in the caverns of an abandoned monastery deep in the forest.
They outsmart the secret police sent to keep tabs on things,
but get falsely accused of a kidnapping that
they had nothing to do with.
The much hated steward gets the chop,
the brothers get a reprieve from Napoleon only
to meet the same fate as most soldiers of the Napoleonic wars.
The whole story ends many years later during a dinner party
where it's revealed that the kidnapping was all part of a high
level political conspiracy that failed.
Someone had to take the fall and the young woman and her
brothers were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(Long, Une Tenebreuse Affaire, hmist10.txt)
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket (Before 1815)
The daughter of a draper makes an inappropriate
m with a painter, Sommervieux, whom she is never
able to understand and who is eventually unfaithful
to her. The marriage has a tragic ending.
(Short, La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote,ctrkt10.txt)
The Executioner (El Verdugo) (1808)
"A heroic son, Juanito...is forced, in order to safeguard the
honour of his family, to decapitate his old father." (Robb, 162)
(Very Short, El Verdugo, vrdug10.txt)
Domestic Peace (1809)
Young men at a ball are captivated by a
beautiful young woman who sits in a corner all by herself.
What gradually unfolds in this story is a love triangle and
a woman's strategem to regain the love of her husband.
(Short, La Paix du menage, dmspc10.txt)
Louis Lambert (1812-1824)
The tragic story of the childhood prodigy Louis Lambert.
Born poor, even while in school he wrote a philosophical treatise
that was destroyed by his teacher.
Lived as a workman for three years during which time he was
a member of the Cenacle literary circle.
Just when he meets the woman he loves and wishes to marry
on a trip to Touraine, a fatal brain malady sets in.
(Medium, Louis Lambert, lmbrt10.txt)
The Alkahest (Search for the Absolute) (1812-1824)
In which "a fanatical scientist twice sends the family fortune up
in smoke in his search for the principle of matter." (Robb, 256)
(Long, La Recherche de I'Absolu, lkhst10.txt)
A Woman of Thirty (1813-1844)
In which Balzac establishes that
"true feminine beauty begins only with middle age." (Robb, 211)
(Long, La Femme de trente ans, thrty10.txt)