Colonel Chabert (novella)
Author | Honoré de Balzac |
---|---|
Original title | Le Colonel Chabert |
Cover artist | Édouard Toudouze |
Language | French |
Series | La Comédie humaine |
Genre | Scènes de la vie privée |
Publisher | Mame-Delaunay |
Publication date | 1832 |
Publication place | France |
Preceded by | Le Père Goriot |
Followed by | La Messe de l'athée |
Le Colonel Chabert (English: Colonel Chabert) is an 1832 novella by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). It is included in his series of novels (or Roman-fleuve) known as La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy), which depicts and parodies French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–1830) and the July Monarchy (1830–1848). This novella, originally published in Le Constitutionnel, was adapted for six different motion pictures, including two silent films.
Plot summary
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. Seeking to regain his name and money that were wrongly given away as inheritance, he hires Derville, a lawyer, to win back his money and his honour. Derville, who also represents the Countess Ferraud, warns Chabert against accepting a settlement bribe from the Countess. In the end, Chabert walks away empty-handed and spends the rest of his days in an asylum.
Themes
In Le Colonel Chabert Balzac juxtaposes two world-views: the Napoleonic value-system, founded on honour and military valour; and that of the Restoration. Chabert was not killed at the Battle of Eylau, though it was thought that he was. He struggles back to life, but cannot reclaim his identity. His "widow", who is actually his wife, and who fittingly was a prostitute in her early adult years, is now the Comtesse Ferraud, married (or so it would seem) to an important Restoration nobleman and politician. She repudiates her "former" husband (just as Ferraud, in changed political circumstances, would now be happy to repudiate her). All that matters in the modern era is social rank based upon the possession of money, especially inherited wealth.
This theme of the trenchant purity of the military way of life is something to which Balzac returns in La Rabouilleuse, but there the subject is treated quite differently.
Characters
- Hyacinthe Chabert, Colonel
- Countess Ferraud (formerly Chabert)
- Count Ferraud
- Derville
- Bouchard
- Godeschal
- Desroches
- Simonin
- Boutin
- Chamberlain
- Delbecq
- A Notary
Film adaptations
- 1911: Le Colonel Chabert. France. Directed by André Calmettes and Henri Pouctal.
- 1920: Il Colonnello Chabert. Italy. Directed by Carmine Gallone. Starring Charles Le Bargy and Rita Pergament.
- 1932: Man Without a Name (Mensch ohne Namen). Germany. Directed by Gustav Ucicky. Starring Werner Krauss, Mathias Wieman, Hans Brausewetter and Helene Thimig.
- 1943: Colonel Chabert (Le Colonel Chabert). France. Directed by René Le Hénaff. Starring Raimu.
- 1978: Colonel Chabert (Полковник Шабер). Russia. Starring Vladislav Strzhelchik, Oleg Basilashvili, Mikhail Boyarsky.
- 1994: Colonel Chabert (Le Colonel Chabert). France. Directed by Yves Angelo.
See also
Footnotes
External links
- The Human Comedy by Honoré de Balzac hosted by Carnegie Mellon University.
- Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac from Project Gutenberg (English translation by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell), hosted by the University of Pennsylvania
- (in French) Le Colonel Chabert, audio version
- Colonel Chabert public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- v
- t
- e
- La Maison du chat-qui-pelote
- Le Bal de Sceaux
- La Bourse
- La Vendetta
- Madame Firmiani
- Une double famille
- La Paix du ménage
- La Fausse Maîtresse
- Étude de femme
- Autre étude de femme
- La Grande Bretèche
- Albert Savarus
- Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées
- Une fille d'Eve
- La Femme de trente ans
- La Femme abandonnée
- La Grenadière
- Le Message
- Gobseck
- Le Contrat de mariage
- Un début dans la vie
- Modeste Mignon
- Béatrix
- Honorine
- Le Colonel Chabert
- La Messe de l'athée
- L'Interdiction
- Pierre Grassou
- Ursule Mirouët
- Eugénie Grandet
- Pierrette
- Le Curé de Tours
- La Rabouilleuse
- L'illustre Gaudissart
- La Muse du département
- La Vieille Fille
- Le Cabinet des Antiques
- Le Lys dans la vallée
- Illusions perdues
- Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes
- Un prince de la bohème
- Un homme d’affaires
- Gaudissart II
- Les Comédiens sans le savoir
- Ferragus
- La Duchesse de Langeais
- La Fille aux yeux d'or
- Le Père Goriot
- César Birotteau
- La Maison Nucingen
- Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan
- Les Employés
- Sarrasine
- Facino Cane
- La Cousine Bette
- Le Cousin Pons
- Les Petits Bourgeois
- Une ténébreuse affaire
- Un épisode sous la Terreur
- Madame de la Chanterie
- L'Initié
- Z. Marcas
- Le Député d'Arcis
- Le Médecin de campagne
- Le Curé de village
- Les Paysans
- La Peau de chagrin
- La Recherche de l'absolu
- Jésus-Christ en Flandre
- Melmoth réconcilié
- Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu
- L'Enfant maudit
- Gambara
- Massimilla Doni
- Les Marana
- Adieu
- Le Réquisitionnaire
- El Verdugo
- Un drame au bord de la mer
- L'Auberge rouge
- L'Elixir de longue vie
- Maître Cornélius
- Sur Catherine de Médicis
- Louis Lambert
- Les Proscrits
- Séraphîta
- La Physiologie du mariage
- Petites misères de la vie conjugale
- Fernand Lotte: Armorial de la Comédie Humaine
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