Honoré de Balzac

Colonel Chabert marries Rose Chapotel, a prostitute. Colonel Chabert then becomes a French cavalry officer who is held in high esteem by Napoleon Bonaparte. After being severely wounded in the Battle of Eylau (1807), Chabert is recorded as dead and buried with other French casualties. However, he survives and after extricating himself from his own grave is nursed back to health by local peasants. It takes several years for him to recover. Returning to Paris, he discovers his widow has married the social climber, Count Ferraud, and has liquidated all of Chabert's belongings.

One of the coach operators on the Paris to l'Isle-Adam route is Pierrotin, a forty-year-old family man. He uses The Silver Lion Inn as his Paris base, overpacks his coach and flagrantly violates travel regulations but is much beloved by his loyal regulars. It is one Saturday in the fall of 1822 and Pierrotin is complaining that he only has four passengers and no parcels booked on this fine day. He is thrilled when a servant asks him to hold a place for his master, the Comte de Serizy. Pierrotin carries a lot of parcels for the Count's estate manager, Moreau, and is always generously tipped. The servant emphasizes that the Count wishes to travel incognito...

Young Nicolas Poussin, as yet unknown, visits the painter Porbus in his workshop. He is accompanied by the old master Frenhofer who comments expertly on the large tableau that Porbus has just finished. The painting is of Mary of Egypt, and while Frenhofer sings her praises, he hints that the work seems unfinished. With some slight touches of the paintbrush, Frenhofer transforms Porbus' painting such that Mary the Egyptian appears to come alive before their very eyes. Although Frenhofer has mastered his technique, he admits that he has been unable to find a suitable model for his own masterpiece, which depicts a beautiful courtesan called Catherine Lescault, known as La Belle noiseuse. He has been working on this future masterpiece, that no one has yet seen, for ten years...

Dans un village de Norv ge, perdu au milieu des glaces et des neiges, Minna, la fille du pasteur, prouve une trange attirance pour S raph t s. De son c t , Wilfrid, un tranger retenu pendant l'hiver Jardis, tombe sous le charme de S raph ta. En r alit S raph t s et S raph ta ne forment qu'un seul tre, synth se de l' tre terrestre et de l' tre immortel, qui doit convaincre les hommes d'abandonner leurs d sirs et leurs aspirations terrestres afin d'atteindre le monde c leste. Ce curieux r cit d'Honor de Balzac prend appui sur les visions occultes du mage su dois Swedenborg. Il offre une occasion unique de d couvrir les id es gnostiques de Balzac sur la vie dans l'au-del .

Sylvain Pons, a musician in a Parisian boulevard orchestra, has a close friend in another musician from that same orchestra, the German pianist Wilhelm Schmucke. They lodge with Mme Cibot, but Pons - unlike Schmucke - has two failings: his passion (which is almost a mania) for collecting works of art, and his passion for good food. Schmucke, on the other hand, has only one passion, and that is his affection for Pons. Pons, being a gourmet, much enjoys dining regularly with his wealthy lawyer cousins M. and Mme Camusot de Marville, for their food is more interesting than Mme Cibot's and full of gastronomic surprises. In an endeavour to remain on good terms with the Camusots, and to repay their favour, he tries to find a bridegroom for their unappealing only child C cile.

la nuit tomb e, dans une sombre ruelle (comme on en trouve souvent dans La Com die humaine: Ferragus, Les Proscrits, L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine), un homme suit une vieille femme qui se r v le tre une religieuse allant chercher des hosties dans une p tisserie. En d pit du temps froid et de la neige, elle sort de la boutique et transporte une petite bo te jusqu'au taudis qu'elle partage avec une autre soeur et l'abb Marolles. Elle doit apporter le tout au pr tre inserment afin qu'il c l bre la messe. L'inconnu l'a suit et, une fois qu'elle est entr e, frappe la porte du mis rable logis. Il remet alors au pr tre un mouchoir tach de sang et marqu de la couronne royale. L'abb reconna t (on ne l'apprend qu' la fin) qu'en r alit l'inconnu est le bourreau Charles-Henri Sanson qui a coup la t te de Louis XVI. Homme pieux malgr sa fonction, Sanson ne demandait rien d'autre qu'une messe pour l' me du d funt roi.

Two old friends banter near the end of a long day of walking and hunting. The younger, Colonel Philippe de Sucy, had served in Siberia. His host, Marquis d'Albon is a plump magistrate who desires to rest and eat. A remark by d'Albon causes the Colonel to shudder and he says, "Some day I will tell you my story." The sight of a house and the thought of sustenance causes d'Albon to plunge through the undergrowth. They see a fascinating but run-down building and grounds. Just as d'Albon likens it to the palace of Sleeping Beauty, he sees a slender, light, shadowy woman. The two men hear a cry as if a bird were caught in a snare.

Eug nie Grandet is set in the town of Saumur. Eug nie's father Felix is a former cooper who has become wealthy through both business ventures and inheritance (having inherited the estates of his mother-in-law, grandfather-in-law, and grandmother all in one year). However, he is very miserly, and he, his wife, daughter, and their servant Nanon live in a run-down old house which he is too miserly to repair. His banker des Grassins wants Eug nie to marry his son Adolphe, and his lawyer Cruchot wants Eug nie to marry his nephew President Cruchot des Bonfons, both parties eyeing the inheritance from Felix. The two families constantly visit the Grandets to get Felix's favour, and Felix in turn plays them off against each other for his own advantage.

Les Chouans est un roman de 1829 du romancier et dramaturge francais Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) et inclus dans la section Scenes de la vie militaire de son roman La Comedie humaine. Situe dans la region francaise de Bretagne, le roman combine l'histoire militaire avec une histoire d'amour entre l'aristocrate Marie de Verneuil et le royaliste chouan Alphonse de Montauran. Il a lieu lors du soulevement d'apres-guerre de 1799 a Fougeres. Suivant de pres les traces de Sir Walter Scott, le roman utilise son contexte historique veridique pour raconter une histoire fictive de personnes qui ont sculpte le passe. Le roman aborde les themes de l'amour passionne, de la ruse vindicative et du statut social.

General Armand de Montriveau, a war hero, is enamored of Duchess Antoinette de Langeais, a coquettish, married noblewoman who invites him to a ball but ultimately refuses his sexual advances and then disappears. Assisted by the powerful group known as The Thirteen, who subscribe to an occult form of freemasonry, General Montriveau finds the duchess in a Spanish monastery of Discalced Carmelites under the name of Sister Theresa.

The novel is set around the year 1820. Auguste de Maulincour, a young cavalry officer, walking in a Parisian district of ill repute, sees from afar a young married woman, Clemence, with whom he is secretly in love. He sees her enter a house of ill repute. The young married woman is widely recognized in Parisian society as a paragon of marital virtue-what is her secret? Auguste decides to spy on the woman to find out. He finds her in the company of a man named Ferragus...

Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of his physical energy.

Philosophical Studies from The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine). Contains The Calvinist Martyr, The Ruggieri's Secret and The Two Dreams. By the French author, who, along with Flaubert, is generally regarded as a founding-father of realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works (stories, novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works. His stories are an attempt to comprehend and depict the realities of life in contemporary bourgeois France. They are placed in a variety of settings, with characters reappearing in multiple stories.

In this novel, A Woman of Thirty, Balzac draws a portrait of a miserable marriage: a marriage of unequal sensibilities. Julie is an intelligent, sensitive woman paired with a man of mediocre talents which are masked by his rank and wealth. The story opens in 1813, April, on "a morning which gave promise of one those bright days when Parisians, for the first time in the year, behold dry pavement underfoot and a cloudless sky overhead." This perfect weather is a glorious backdrop for the spectacle about to take place at the Tuileries-a "magnificent review" of Napoleon's forces. In the crowd is Julie, who's excitedly dragging her father along to watch the spectacle. It's clear that she's there to see someone very specific-Colonel Victor D'Aiglemont. Julie cannot hide her emotions, and her father, guessing that his daughter is in love, warns her not to marry D'Aiglemont...

" Je c de ton d sir. Le privil ge de la femme que nous aimons plus qu'elle ne nous aime est de nous faire oublier tout propos les r gles du bon sens. Pour ne pas voir un pli se former sur vos fronts, pour dissiper la boudeuse expression de vos l vres que le moindre refus attriste, nous franchissons miraculeusement les distances, nous donnons notre sang, nous d pensons l'avenir. Aujourd'hui tu veux mon pass , le voici. Seulement, sache-le bien, Natalie: en t'ob issant, j'ai d fouler aux pieds des r pugnances inviol es. Mais pourquoi suspecter les soudaines et longues r veries qui me saisissent parfois en plein bonheur ? pourquoi ta jolie col re de femme aim e, propos d'un silence ? Ne pouvais-tu jouer avec les contrastes de mon caract re sans en demander les causes ? As-tu dans le coeur des secrets qui, pour se faire absoudre, aient besoin des miens ? Enfin, tu l'as devin , Natalie, et peut- tre vaut-il mieux que tu saches tout: oui, ma vie est domin e par un fant me, il se dessine vaguement au moindre mot qui le provoque, il s'agite souvent de lui-m me au-dessus de moi. J'ai d'imposants souvenirs ensevelis au fond de mon me comme ces productions marines qui s'aper oivent par les temps calmes, et que les flots de la temp te jettent par fragments sur la gr ve. Quoique le travail que n cessitent les id es pour tre exprim es ait contenu ces anciennes motions qui me font tant de mal quand elles se r veillent trop soudainement, s'il y avait dans cette confession des clats qui te blessassent, souviens-toi que tu m'as menac si je ne t'ob issais pas, ne me punis donc point de t'avoir ob i ? Je voudrais que ma confidence redoubl t ta tendresse. A ce soir.

La Corde au cou mile Gaboriau .

Paul de Manerville is a gentleman born of wealth and nobility who decides, over the objections of his worldly friend de Marsay, to give up his elegant bachelor's life and get married at the age of twenty-seven. He falls in love with a beautiful girl named Natalie Evangelista, the daughter of a proud Spanish matriarch whose financial assets have been diminishing since the death of her husband. Too na ve and full of illusions to see the hidden motives of Natalie Evangelista's mother, who wants Paul's wealth in order to procure for her daughter the lavish lifestyle she believes to be her birthright.

C sar is a man of peasant origins from the Touraine region. At the start of the novel, in 1819, he owns a successful perfume shop, La Reine des Roses, he has been elected deputy mayor of his arrondissement in Paris, and he has been awarded the Legion of Honour. During the revolution he took part in the Royalist 13 Vend miaire uprising against the Republic, at one stage confronting Napoleon Bonaparte himself, and he mentions this often in conversation. He is married to Constance and has a daughter Cesarine. He plans to throw a ball at his home, and make renovations to his home for the ball. He becomes involved in property speculation with borrowed money, through his notary Roguin. He plans to expand his business with a new hair oil product, with his assistant Anselme Popinot (who is in love with Cesarine) as his business partner. All of these plans have caused him to run up large debts.

"The Atheist's Mass" is a short story written by Honor de Balzac in 1836, that was later included in "The Human Comedy (orig. "La Com die Humaine"), a comprehensive novels and short story collection. Although a short text (around 20 pages long), this story contains a variety of powerful messages, ranging from social aspects, to morals and religion. Balzac allies with his two main characters - Doctors Horace Bianchon and Desplain - and delivers a refined insight into the integration of belief and knowledge in the context of humanity.

Le Lys dans la Vall e is an 1835 novel about love and society by French novelist and playwright Honor de Balzac (1799-1850). It concerns the affection - emotionally vibrant but never consummated - between Felix de Vandenesse and Henriette de Mortsauf. It is part of his series of novels (or Roman-fleuve) known as La Com die humaine (The Human Comedy), which parodies and depicts French society in the period of the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815-1848). In his novel he also mentions the chateau Azay-le-Rideau, which can still be visited today.