Novel
Colonel Chabert
Le Colonel Chabert
Honoré de Balzac · 1832
Synopsis
A wretched man presents himself at the office of the attorney Derville and claims to be Colonel Chabert, a cavalry officer esteemed by Napoleon, reported dead at the battle of Eylau in 1807. Left for dead, he survived and, after years of wandering, has returned to Paris. There he discovers that his wife, who was put in possession of his property, has remarried a nobleman. Derville agrees to help him recover his name and his fortune, in the face of a wife who refuses to recognise him.
Context
The story first appeared as a serial in L'Artiste, in February and March 1832, under the title La Transaction. Balzac took it up again in 1835 under the title La Comtesse à deux maris, then in 1844, in the Furne edition of La Comédie humaine, under its definitive title. In it he sets the military honour of the Empire against a Restoration in which rank and inherited fortune count. It has been adapted several times for the cinema, notably by Yves Angelo in 1994.
Who it is for
A short narrative, centred on a legal case and on a few characters; it can be read independently of the rest of the cycle.
Prizes and reception
Adapted for the screen as early as 1943 by René Le Hénaff; Carol Cosman translated it into English for New Directions.
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