Colonel Chabert (novella)
Le Père Goriot | |
Followed by | La Messe de l'athée |
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Le Colonel Chabert (English: Colonel Chabert) is an 1832
Plot summary
Colonel Chabert marries Rose Chapotel, a prostitute. Colonel Chabert then becomes a French
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 Charles Le Bargyand 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
- Honoré de Balzac
- La Comédie humaine
- List of characters of La Comédie humaine
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
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