Marie makes her way to Viveterre where she is supposed to have safe passage after 'Le Gars' gave her his grey glove. But Mme de Gua is there, and she suspects Marie. A rumour that she was a Parisian courtesan circulates, and Montauran goes cold on her. Marie denies the rumours but she has to flee and the suspicion of treachery leads to the massacre of 65 of Hulot's men by the Chouans. Inevitably they meet up again and resolve the issue but the reader isn't sure who is duping whom.
Marie hides out in the house of a miser and witnesses his torture at the hands of Marche a Terre's cruel offsider Pille-Miche. She's so beautiful that after she pretends to be a ghost and the other men flee! Naturally she refuses but he helps her anyway and sends her off to the hovel of Galope-Chopin, a local whose help can be bought by either side. Hiding there, Marie is surprised by the Comte de Bauvac, also hiding out.
Anyway, he gives her safe passage to go to a Ball that Montauran is holding which seems a little odd in the middle of a war but I guess that's why the aristocrats lost the battle, eh? So off goes Marie, makes up with Montauran and confesses that yes, she is the illegitimate daughter of the Marquis de Vermeuill and has been forced by circumstances to fend for herself. After her mother went into a nunnery to absolve her shame and then died, her father the marquis took her in and left her money in his Will.
But when he died his son challenged the Will and - having become used to a life of luxury - Marie went to live with an elderly gent of 70 who became her guardian. Paris society of course thought that she was his courtesan and he left Paris in embarrassment, leaving her penniless. Imprudently she then married Danton, rival of Robespierre, but had to embark on her life of intrigue when he died leaving her again penniless. Montauran decides to overlook all this and to marry her so they agree to meet at Marie's house in Fougeres. He sets off to organise the priest and witnesses but meanwhile the hunt for him is on.
Corentin, Fouche's wily spy, manages to find out about his whereabouts from Barbette, the wife of Galope-Chopin, who doesn't realise she's dealing with the Blues Republicans because Corentin has disguised himself as a Chouan. It doesn't help the confusion that Balzac keeps using different names for his characters and the opposing sides. After Corentin has left, Galope-Chopin comes home, and discovers what Barbette has done. He's furious and sends her away, but it's too late. Marche a Terre and Pille-Miche arrive and behead him as a traitor. Barbette comes back to find his head swinging from the door and tells her son to serve the Blues to avenge his father's death.
She actually makes the child wear his father's bloodied boot! So now Barbette's allegiance really swings to the Republicans and she goes off to tell Hulot and Corentin about the smoke signal that will reveal Montauran's arrival at Fougeres. Now aware of Marie's treachery, Corentin plots her downfall using guile to do it.
He arranges for her to receive a letter purporting to be a love-letter from Montauran to Mme de Gua. Marie is furious, denounces him to Hulot and then sets off to confront him. When they meet, of course, she realises the letter was from Corentin and bitterly regrets her actions. They marry, spend a blissful night together and then try to flee.
Marie disguises herself in Montauran's clothes to try to draw fire away from him while he, dressed as a Chouan, climbs down a ladder provided by Marche a Terre but he is shot and they die in each others arms as Corentin and Hulot squabble about the dishonourable way the deed was done. So, things went badly awry for Marie. She fell for Montauran and ended up double-crossing herself and everyone else. She abandoned Corentin, her co-conspirator from Paris and because she couldn't stand the rough-and-ready Chouans, she came up with her own plan - to marry their leader, i. Corentin retaliated by fooling her into believing that Montauran loved her rival Mme de Gua and so Marie ordered Hulot to destroy the rebels.
She found out the truth too late, and she couldn't save Montauran. They died, the day after they were married. Well, what else could Balzac do? History was already written, and he couldn't have a Royalist leader and his traitorous bride live happily ever after, eh? At one point even a mustache is twirled! I will say it might have been helpful for one of fhe allied planners to have read this before DDay because Balzac gives a very detailed description of the Norman field system and the difficulty of military units passing through, let alone fighting in, the Bocage.
But with Les Chouans that changed. While this novel, written in the style of Sir Walter Scott, was not well-reviewed at the time of its publication, it set the stage for what was to follow, plus works by one of the most prolific of writers, who would come to be viewed as the father of Realism in literature and a major literary influence of the 19th century, the man who inspired Proust, Marx and Engels, Henry James, Charles Baudelaire, Flaubert and countless others.
Set in the days after the French Revolution this novel tells the story of the Chouans, Breton peasants who sided with the Royalists over the Republicans and fought to restore the throne in the days after the 18 Brumaire that brought Napoleon to power. Will Marie betray Montauran? Does Montauran really love Marie as he says he does? Does his heart really belong to the woman who poses as his mother, Madame du Gua? Can the vile spy Corentin woo Marie and win her over Montauran? Balzac plays with these ideas back and forth, like a cat swatting a ball of yarn to and fro between its paws, to the point of tedium.
The novel could have easily been a novella or could have been strengthened with richer subplots. This historical novel was enough to give Balzac his start and the rest is history. Mar 06, Casey rated it liked it Shelves: Be prepared for every character, place, and group in this book to be referred to by multiple names, even in the same paragraph. The Royalists are uprising against Bonaparte, and even though he has granted them amnesty for all past wrong-doings, the Royalists will not stand down.
Mademoiselle Marie de Verneuil, and her accomplice Francine, have been sent by Bonaparte to seduce Marquis de Montauran to undermine the Royalist uprising - to hand over The Gars to the Republicans. Verneuil meets Montauran in an inn by chance and she does not immediately know who he is, although she quickly concludes who he must be. Verneuil and Francine join Montauran on his travels because Verneuil and Montauran have an instant attraction to each other.
Chouans (Classiques de Poche) (French Edition) by Balzac, Honore De | eBay
Du Gua becomes fiercely jealous of Verneuil and suspects her of treachery. Verneuil begins to truly fall in love with Montauran and is faced with a crisis; Montauran is aware of what Verneuil has been sent to do, but he cannot help but have feelings for her as well. Parallel to this romance is Francine and Marche-a-Terre who are also in love under the same predicament. Madame du Gua spends her time declaring Verneuil a strumpet and plotting her downfall.
Покупки по категориям
One instance actually involves physically attacking Verneuil to get a letter out of her corset. In fact, the female characters act very dramatically in soap-opera like fashion. The man who pledged her so much love must have heard the odious jests that were cast upon her and stood there silently a witness of the infamy she had been made to endure. She might, perhaps, have forgiven him his contempt, but she could not forgive his having seen her in so humiliating a position, and she flung him a look that was full of hatred, feeling in her heart the birth of an unutterable desire for vengeance.
With death beside her, the sense of impotence strangled her. A whirlwind of passion and madness rose in her head; the blood which boiled in her veins made everything about her seem like a conflagration. Instead of killing herself, she seized the sword and thrust it through the marquis. But the weapon slipped between his arm, and side; he caught her by the wrist and dragged her from the room, aided by Pille-Miche, who had flung himself upon the furious creature when she attacked his master.
Half of the book seems to describe how they never take a bath. The rest of the book details this tumultuous relationship and the plight of Verneuil as she realizes that her life has been turned upside down by her love for Montauran and her responsibility to bring about his downfall. If I do not make him my lackey and my slave, I shall indeed be base; I shall not be a woman; I shall not be myself. As everything progresses, it is mainly one scene after another of Verneuil getting into some sort of scheme related to the Marquis, with various small skirmishes between the Chouans and the Republicans.
For some reason, Verneuil is often walking down the road right in the middle of these encounters. The Chouans could easily be updated to a modern harlequin romance today and leave much of the plot intact. Scott writes with more finesse and beauty. Even though I initially thought this might be an ode to the bravery and valor of the Chouans, it is not so. The two main characters in the romance are not Chouans, so I am not sure why Balzac decided on the title because he certainly did not give them a glorifying homage.
All that being said, the book is still a fun read and it is entertaining, even if it does drag on near the end. Balzac at his best A. Wonderful story of intrique,love sacrifice and history. Descrierile sunt imposibil de lungi. Apoi, bretonii razvratiti impotriva proaspetei republici franceze, e un subiect departe de mine.
Nov 08, Rhonda added it Shelves: I had the great fortune to stop by my local bookstore the day after they had received a number of books from an estate sale. I wanted to select them all, of course, because they were books from the days when people, well, read good books or perhaps I may say without giving offense, classic books. Judging from the signature inside the covers, they all belonged to the same woman and they were all dated from the late 19th and early 20th century. There were various partial collections of some great I had the great fortune to stop by my local bookstore the day after they had received a number of books from an estate sale.
There were various partial collections of some great names, names which no one reads all that much any more. Being in such a place always reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode titled "All the Time In the World," a veritable feast of what is wonderful in humanity, without Serling's bitterly ironic ending. Still I selected several with which I was not familiar and set about to peer into the lives of others, in several senses. Nevertheless, I digress away from the book, which is historical fiction and a pivotal point, according to experts, in Balzac's career.
I had to read about the uprisings in Brittany after the French revolution and even then, the history is difficult to follow. As with any civil strife, this group royalist is angry at something another republican group does and therein lies the end to it unless you wish to delve into the details of the Chouan uprising. It is not uninteresting, but it does become detailed for our purposes here.
In , a group of royalists banded together against the republic. However, the insurrection was put down and within two years the royalist forces had been routed. Still pockets of resistance remained and therein lies this story. Naturally the army would like to strike the critical blow and end the fighting. Naturally it doesn't exactly accomplish this. Balzac has been criticized for his boring commentary on military campaigning and, indeed, some parts do plod along.
However, I gathered that this was for the most part from the skill of the writer. The greater part of the book is a love story between an aristocratic young woman and a Chouan loyalist, recently returned from hiding in England. It seems that the government has placed a price on his head so the return is not only of the utmost importance but of critical secrecy. Where Balzac truly shines, however, is in his character development.
One can hardly imagine him writing more accurate people. There is a certain idealism, of course, but then we are writing a love story. There is treachery and villainy. Ultimately one is reminded of Romeo and Juliet especially at the end with the plot twist.
- Availability;
- Seismic Shift: From God to Goodness.
- Les Chouans (French Edition) eBook: Pierre-Marie Garnier de Kerigant: theranchhands.com: Kindle Store?
- My Shopping Bag.
Although the entire book centers around the romance of Montauran and Marie de Verneuil, it does little to overwhelm it. Balzac is a master at weaving the various issues in and out so that ultimately you wonder whether anything besides the love affair matters very much at all. This book is said to have gone through three revisions, the last of which is said to be both much more sympathetic to the royalist position and also, far more expansive in his treatment of women.
As such, one might enjoy reading an earlier version for comparison, but as it is, this is a superb book which deserves far more credit than it deserves, in my opinion. May 08, Daniel rated it really liked it Shelves: Romeo and Juliet set during the late 18th century with Napoleon on the charge, war on many fronts and civil strife erupting within. The brutality consistent throughout the other 7 Balzac novels I have devoured - all of which felt a part of my life for the duration - remains prevalent in The Chuoans, yet rather than manifesting through cunning manipulation and society high and low's quest for improving their situation, it appears far more carnal.
The blood letting is horrid, feels real. The narra Romeo and Juliet set during the late 18th century with Napoleon on the charge, war on many fronts and civil strife erupting within. The narrative flows brilliantly, with the pauses offered to thought and pondering between the gunshots and slaughter never veering too far into obvious breaks in the flow of the thing. To say I enjoyed the novel would be a lie.
Yet as with every Balzac offering I have voyaged through I kept the pages close to my own existence, the book never further than a metre from my passage, and when I recalled the events that had most recently unfolded, my first instinct was to conjure the characters in the flesh, for such was and remains the sublime genius of dear Honore that his wordsmithery conjures imagery with such zeal that its often remarkably tricky to understand at first glance back towards the experience that these were lines and words on a page, not a film I had seen.
An event of which I had been a part, if not an emotive witness. The mark of wondrous talent. I was of course startled, yet excited, by the appearance of Corentin, in awe of Marie and I couldn't help but find myself won over by The Gars. Trouble indeed to thicken my tear ducts during the final flurry which had long been coming, yet nonetheless caused me to ache and feel grief become me. I shall now be sad for many days.
Camping les Chouans Campground, Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez
One of many passages of glorious genius Monsieur, believe me,' she went on, grasping his arm with some intensity, 'if you were able to prove you loved me truly no human power should part us. Yes, I wish I could be linked with some great man's life, help further some vast ambition, realize some fine ideal.
Noble hearts are not fickle, for constancy is one of their strengths; and so I should be for ever loved, for ever happy. But I would play my part too, for I would always be ready to make myself a stepping-stone to raise the man who had won my love, to sacrifice myself for him and endure everything from him, and love him always, even when he no longer loved me.
Le sous-titre est explicite: Nov 16, Ed Lehman rated it it was ok. I was disappointed by this one. The beginning was promising because I had never read much, if anything about the resistance to the French Revolution amongst the folks in the countryside…known as the Chuoans. However, Balzac quickly alienated me by making this a love story in the midst of war.
An aristocratic lady, supportive of the Revolution, falls in love with an undercover aristocrat who is one of the leaders of the Chouans. Can the parties really trust each other? Th I was disappointed by this one. They quickly fall out of love when they believe their suspicions…and fall back…and then out again…and then in again. It was too much. I found it all very confusing and it was a slog to finish. Oct 22, Scott rated it it was ok. I had a hard time with this one. But I was committed because in the musical "the Music Man", Balzac was referred to as being trash.
Since I had read Rabelais and thought it enjoyable, I sat down and read this one to be able to formulate my own opinion. I had a hard time following the many flighting characters and how they overlapped with one another. I also lost interest quickly not knowing French geography well. Our editors will review what you've submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we'll add it to the article. Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Keep Exploring Britannica
Learn More in these related Britannica articles: French Revolution , the revolutionary movement that shook France between and and reached its first climax there in France, country of northwestern Europe. Historically and culturally among the most important nations in the Western world, France has also played a highly significant role in international affairs, with former colonies in every corner of the globe.
Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the…. Although social movements differ in size, they are all essentially collective. That is, they result from the…. Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback. You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources.
At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context.