The Recruit Honore De Balzac Katharine Prescott Wormeley 9781495213496 Books
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On an evening in the month of November, 1793, the principal persons of Carentan were assembled in the salon of Madame de Dey, where they met daily. Several circumstances which would never have attracted attention in a large town, though they greatly preoccupied the little one, gave to this habitual rendezvous an unusual interest. For the two preceding evenings Madame de Dey had closed her doors to the little company, on the ground that she was ill. Such an event would, in ordinary times, have produced as much effect as the closing of the theatres in Paris; life under those circumstances seems merely incomplete. But in 1793, Madame de Dey's action was likely to have fatal results. The slightest departure from a usual custom became, almost invariably for the nobles, a matter of life or death. To fully understand the eager curiosity and searching inquiry which animated on this occasion the Norman countenances of all these rejected visitors, but more especially to enter into Madame de Dey's secret anxieties, it is necessary to explain the role she played at Carentan. The critical position in which she stood at this moment being that of many others during the Revolution the sympathies and recollections of more than one reader will help to give color to this narrative.
The Recruit Honore De Balzac Katharine Prescott Wormeley 9781495213496 Books
The Recruit, also known as The Conscript, was originally published in 1831 under the French title Le Réquisitionnaire. It was written by Honoré de Balzac as part of his monumental series of works known as the Comédie Humaine. Though it is a short story of maybe 50 pages at most, like all pieces in the Comédie Humaine it is considered a stand-alone work of literature, and it is thus offered by Amazon in a Kindle file unto itself.The story takes place shortly after the French Revolution. The royal court of Louis XVI has fled Paris and the palace at Versailles, and an overwhelming tide of anti-royalist sentiment has swept the nation. Madame de Dey is a wealthy and socially prominent widow living in the sleepy provincial town of Carentan, in Lower Normandy. She is beset by a flock of suitors who arduously strive for the attainment of her hand and her property, and surrounded by nosey neighbors of republican inclination who are just waiting for her to make a slip and betray her royalist sentiments. Her son, a soldier who has remained loyal to the royal cause, has followed the royals in their exile, leaving his mother alone to defend herself. When she cancels her weekly salon and closes her doors to visitors, it inspires a great deal of speculation and rumor among the suspicious citizens of Carentan.
Balzac does a brilliant job of encapsulating the paranoia and vindictive opportunism that pervaded provincial France following the Revolution. For American readers, imagine what it would be like if there were a civil war between liberals and conservatives in this country, and the persecution members of the losing side would face at the hands of the winners. While the Terror was taking place in Paris, with heads falling to the guillotine, personal dramas like those of Madame de Dey's were taking place throughout the provinces, where the newly victorious Republicans looked for any excuse to confiscate the property of the rich. Here Balzac captures the danger and urgency of this situation in a lively and suspenseful tale.
Balzac does, however, commit a sin that is common to his short stories, which is capping the story off in an all too abrupt ending. He manages to cleverly tie up all the loose ends in one pithy paragraph, but the reader feels slightly cheated. The conclusion of the plot is itself satisfying, just the curt manner in which it is handled leaves one with the feeling of a door slammed in the face. I've always preferred Balzac's novels to his short stories, and this story does little to change that, but there's no denying this master's Herculean literary talents in any format, large or small. The primary value of The Recruit lies in its role as a scrap in the grand quilt of the Comédie Humaine. When judged on its own merits, it's a good story, but not a must-read for casual fans of Balzac's work.
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The Recruit Honore De Balzac Katharine Prescott Wormeley 9781495213496 Books Reviews
The Recruit, also known as The Conscript, was originally published in 1831 under the French title Le Réquisitionnaire. It was written by Honoré de Balzac as part of his monumental series of works known as the Comédie Humaine. Though it is a short story of maybe 50 pages at most, like all pieces in the Comédie Humaine it is considered a stand-alone work of literature, and it is thus offered by in a file unto itself.
The story takes place shortly after the French Revolution. The royal court of Louis XVI has fled Paris and the palace at Versailles, and an overwhelming tide of anti-royalist sentiment has swept the nation. Madame de Dey is a wealthy and socially prominent widow living in the sleepy provincial town of Carentan, in Lower Normandy. She is beset by a flock of suitors who arduously strive for the attainment of her hand and her property, and surrounded by nosey neighbors of republican inclination who are just waiting for her to make a slip and betray her royalist sentiments. Her son, a soldier who has remained loyal to the royal cause, has followed the royals in their exile, leaving his mother alone to defend herself. When she cancels her weekly salon and closes her doors to visitors, it inspires a great deal of speculation and rumor among the suspicious citizens of Carentan.
Balzac does a brilliant job of encapsulating the paranoia and vindictive opportunism that pervaded provincial France following the Revolution. For American readers, imagine what it would be like if there were a civil war between liberals and conservatives in this country, and the persecution members of the losing side would face at the hands of the winners. While the Terror was taking place in Paris, with heads falling to the guillotine, personal dramas like those of Madame de Dey's were taking place throughout the provinces, where the newly victorious Republicans looked for any excuse to confiscate the property of the rich. Here Balzac captures the danger and urgency of this situation in a lively and suspenseful tale.
Balzac does, however, commit a sin that is common to his short stories, which is capping the story off in an all too abrupt ending. He manages to cleverly tie up all the loose ends in one pithy paragraph, but the reader feels slightly cheated. The conclusion of the plot is itself satisfying, just the curt manner in which it is handled leaves one with the feeling of a door slammed in the face. I've always preferred Balzac's novels to his short stories, and this story does little to change that, but there's no denying this master's Herculean literary talents in any format, large or small. The primary value of The Recruit lies in its role as a scrap in the grand quilt of the Comédie Humaine. When judged on its own merits, it's a good story, but not a must-read for casual fans of Balzac's work.
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