Honoré de Balzac

La comtesse St phanie de Vandi res, qui avait suivi son vieux mari, le g n ral de Vandi res, dans la campagne de Russie, a t sauv e par son ami d'enfance, le major Philippe de Sucy, lors du passage de la B r zina. Au moment de leur s paration, la jeune femme, prise de panique crie: Adieu son amant rest sur l'autre berge. l'automne 1819, apr s tre rest prisonnier des Cosaques pendant six ans et de retour en France depuis onze mois, Philippe de Sucy, devenu colonel, aper oit, lors d'une partie de chasse dans le parc d'un ancien prieur moiti en ruines, le ch teau des Bons-Hommes, pr s de L'Isle-Adam, la silhouette fantomatique, mais toujours d'une trange beaut , d'une femme qui ne cesse de r p ter le mot Adieu. Une paysanne sourde-muette, Genevi ve, veille sur elle. Le colonel croit reconna tre St phanie de Vandi res qu'il n'avait jamais revue depuis. L' motion est si forte que le colonel s' vanouit. Monsieur de Granville et sa femme qui habitent non loin de l , lui font respirer des sels...

Cette nouvelle est une des plus int ressantes tudes de femmes. On y retrouve des figures importantes du monde balzacien, notamment les ternels dandys: Eug ne de Rastignac, Maxime de Trailles, la marquise d'Espard. Mais ce monde-l joue un jeu beaucoup plus subtil que celui des salons aux intrigues mesquines. Il s'agit d'un jeu de s duction particuli rement raffin . travers les amours de la princesse se d couvre aussi, sous un jour nouveau, le tr s s rieux Daniel d'Arthez, sage conseiller du C nacle qui entourait Lucien de Rubempr dans Illusions perdues et qui le poussait travailler pour devenir un v ritable crivain. Ici, le mis rable d'Arthez qui vivait dans une chambre de bonne est devenu un crivain estimable. S'il n'a pas encore atteint la gloire, il est d j reconnu, fr quente le meilleur monde, et il a une position politique.

La marquise de Listom re ne laisserait jamais un galant lui faire la cour, m me si peu que ce soit. Jusqu'au jour o elle rencontre le tr s jeune, tr s beau Eug ne de Rastignac (il a un visage d'ange) qui attire son attention sans qu'il cherche la s duire. Le lendemain, Eug ne adresse deux lettres, l'une son avou , l'autre sa ma tresse Delphine de Nucingen. Par tourderie, il se trompe d'adresse et c'est la marquise de Listom re qui re oit une br lante lettre d'amour de quatre pages. Pr tendument choqu e, mais en r alit ravie, la marquise fait consigner Rastignac sa porte et lui interdit l'entr e de son h tel. Eug ne ne se rend compte de son erreur qu' ce moment-l et r tablit la v rit aupr s de la marquise, qui, de d pit, se calfeutre chez elle, pr textant une gastrite.

This novel begins with an overview of the main character's background. Louis Lambert, the only child of a tanner and his wife, is born in 1797 and begins reading at an early age. In 1811 he meets the real-life Swiss author Madame de Sta l (1766-1817), who - struck by his intellect - pays for him to enroll in the Coll ge de Vend me. There he meets the narrator, a classmate named "the Poet" who later identifies himself in the text as Balzac; they quickly become friends. Shunned by the other students and berated by teachers for not paying attention, the boys bond through discussions of philosophy and mysticism. After completing an essay entitled Trait de la Volont ("Treatise on the Will"), Lambert is horrified when a teacher confiscates it, calls it "rubbish", and - the narrator speculates - sells it to a local grocer. Soon afterwards, a serious illness forces the narrator to leave the school. In 1815, Lambert graduates at the age of eighteen and lives for three years in Paris. After returning to his uncle's home in Blois, he meets a woman named Pauline de Villenoix and falls passionately in love with her. On the day before their wedding, however, he suffers a mental breakdown and attempts to castrate himself. Declared "incurable" by doctors, Lambert is ordered into solitude and rest. Pauline takes him to her family's ch teau, where he lives in a near coma. The narrator, ignorant of these events, meets Lambert's uncle by chance, and is given a series of letters. Written by Lambert while in Paris and Blois, they continue his philosophical musings and describe his love for Pauline. The narrator visits his old friend at the Villenoix ch teau, where the decrepit Lambert says only: "The angels are white." Pauline shares a series of statements her lover had dictated, and Lambert dies on 25 September 1824 at the age of twenty-eight.

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. What he does not realise is that Roguin has money problems of his own, and that C sar's former shop assistant Ferdinand du Tillet, now a banker, is manipulating Roguin in order to have revenge against C sar. His financial situation becomes a crisis when Roguin absconds and leaves C sar with debts that he is not able to pay. His attempts to get financial assistance from various bankers such as Nucingen, the Keller brothers and Gigonnet fail, since all are friends of du Tillet and acting on his instructions. This leads him to declare bankruptcy, sell La Reine des Roses to his assistant Celestin Crevel and retire from business. Eventually C sar pays off all of his debts when his business venture with Popinot succeeds. He then dies suddenly, but happy that his honour has been restored.

A handsome young man named Calyste du Gu nic is in love with the older woman, F licit des Touches, a famous writer who uses the pen name of Camille Maupin. F licit at first does not reciprocate Calyste's feelings, and Calyste falls in love with the blonde marchioness B atrix de Rochefide. B atrix is a beautiful but selfish woman; one critic remarked in 1897 in regards to B atrix that "for cold-blooded cruelty and vulgarity she is unexampled, and her efforts to keep her youth and her hold over men are drawn in Balzac's heaviest and most pitiless manner." B atrix had already had an affair with Gennaro Conti, and Calyste has an additional rival in the form of Claude Vignon. F licit des Touches (Camille Maupin) tries to help Calyste win B atrix's heart, thus sacrificing her own. Calyste's efforts are ultimately a failure, and B atrix is taken away by Gennaro Conti. Calyste is devastated by his failure, but promises his dying father to get married. F licit des Touches enters a convent, but before she does, she uses her fortune to arrange a marriage for Calyste with a woman named Sabine de Grandlieu. When Calyste encounters B atrix again in Paris, his wife Sabine struggles to win back her husband's affections after Calyste falls for B atrix again. Subsequently, through the intercession of Count Maxime de Trailles, B atrix falls for another young man, and Calyste comes to his senses.

The Abb Fran ois Birotteau and the Abb Hyacinthe Troubert, both of whom are priests at Tours, have separate lodgings in the house belonging to the crabby spinster Sophie Gamard in that city. Birotteau is an other-worldly, gentle, introspective type; Troubert, who is ten years younger than his fellow boarder, is very much of the world: he is a careerist devoured by ambition. Birotteau prides himself on his furniture and fine library, inherited from his friend and predecessor as parish priest of Saint-Gatien de Tours. Without reading all its clauses, or at least without remembering them, he signs a document handed to him by Mlle Gamard, forfeiting his entitlement to his lodgings and making over their contents to her in the event of his vacating his premises for any considerable period. He leaves them for a fortnight's stay in the country, where he is served with a possession order by his landlady's lawyer. On returning home he finds Troubert installed in his apartments, in full possession of his furniture and his library, whilst he himself has been moved into inferior rooms. Birotteau abandons any prospect of a lawsuit to regain his property, as his friends in the provincial aristocracy of Tours gradually withdraw their backing. In return for giving up his rooms he had expected to be appointed to the vacant canonry of the cathedral. Instead, he is demoted to a much poorer parish two or three miles out of Tours. Deprived of his library and furniture, he leaves Mlle Gamard's, thinking that this will indirectly bring him, through Troubert, the canonry which never comes. Troubert, on the other hand, is first appointed Vicar-General of the diocese of Tours, then Bishop of Troyes, scarcely deigning to look in Birotteau's direction as he speeds past his colleague's dilapidated presbytery on his way to his diocese.

After having haughtily refused a number of suitors, under the pretext that they are not peers of France, milie de Fontaine falls in love with a mysterious young man who quietly appeared at the village dance at Sceaux. Despite his refined appearance and aristocratic bearing, the unknown (Maximilien Longueville) never tells his identity and seems interested in nobody but his sister, a sickly young girl. But he is not insensible to the attention milie gives him and he accepts the invitation of milie's father, the Comte de Fontaine. milie and Maximilien soon fall in love. The Comte de Fontaine, concerned for his daughter, decides to investigate this mysterious young man, and he discovers him on the Rue du Sentier, a simple cloth merchant, which horrifies milie. Piqued, she marries a 72-year-old uncle for his title of Vice Admiral, the Comte de Kergarou t. Several years after her marriage, milie discovers that Maximilien is not a clothier at all, but in fact a Vicomte de Longueville who has become a Peer of France. The young man finally explains why he secretly tended a store: he did it in order to support his family, sacrificing himself for his sick sister and for his brother, who had departed the country.