Eugenie Grandet: Classic French Literature
About this ebook
On Eugénie's birthday, in 1819, Felix's nephew Charles Grandet arrives from Paris unexpectedly at their home having been sent there by his father Guillaume. Charles does not realise that his father has gone bankrupt and is planning to take his own life. Guillaume reveals this to his brother Felix in a confidential letter which Charles has carried.
Charles is a spoilt and indolent young man, who is having an affair with an older woman. His father's ruin and suicide are soon published in the newspaper, and his uncle Felix reveals his problems to him. Felix considers Charles to be a burden, and plans to send him off overseas to make his own fortune. However, Eugénie and Charles fall in love with each other, and hope to eventually marry. She gives him some of her own money to help with his trading ventures.
Meanwhile, Felix hatches a plan to profit from his brother's ruin. He announces to Cruchot des Bonfons that he plans to liquidate his brother's business, and so avoid a declaration of bankruptcy, and therefore save the family honour. Cruchot des Bonfons volunteers to go to Paris to make the arrangements provided that Felix pays his expenses. The des Grassins then visit just as they are in the middle of discussions, and the banker des Grassins volunteers to do Felix's bidding for free. So Felix accepts des Grassins' offer instead of Cruchot des Bonfons'. The business is liquidated, and the creditors get 46% of their debts, in exchange for their bank bills. Felix then ignores all demands to pay the rest, whilst selling the bank bills at a profit.
By now Charles has left to travel overseas. He entrusts Eugénie with a small gold plated cabinet which contains pictures of his parents.
Later Felix is angered when he discovers that Eugénie has given her money (all in gold coins) to Charles. This leads to his wife falling ill, and his daughter being confined to her room. Eventually they are reconciled, and Felix reluctantly agrees that Eugénie can marry Charles.
In 1827 Charles returns to France. By now both of Eugénie's parents have died. However Charles is no longer in love with Eugénie. He has become very wealthy through his trading, but he has also become extremely corrupt. He becomes engaged to the daughter of an impoverished aristocratic family, in order to make himself respectable. He writes to Eugénie to announce his marriage plans, and to break off their engagement. He also sends a cheque to pay off the money that she gave him. Eugénie is heartbroken, especially when she discovers that Charles had been back in France for a month when he wrote to her. She sends back the cabinet.
Eugénie then decides to become engaged to Cruchot des Bonfons on two conditions. One is that she remains a virgin after marriage, and the other is that he agrees to go to Paris to act for her to pay off all the debts due Guillaume Grandet's creditors. Cruchot des Bonfons carries out the debt payment in full. This comes just in time for Charles who finds that his future father-in-law objects to letting his daughter marry the son of a bankrupt. When Charles meets Cruchot des Bonfons, he discovers that Eugénie is in fact far wealthier than he is. During his brief stay at Saumur, he had assumed from the state of their home that his relatives were poor.
Cruchot des Bonfons marries Eugénie hopeful of becoming fabulously wealthy. However, he dies young, and at the end of the book Eugénie is a very wealthy widow of thirty-three having now inherited her husband's fortune. At the end of the novel, although by the standards of the time she should be unhappy - childless and unmarried - she is instead quite content with her lot. She has learned to live life on her own terms, and has also learned of the hypocrisy and shallowness of the bourgeois and that her best friends will come from the lower classes.
Ratings and reviews
About the author
Honoré de Balzac (1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie Humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are morally ambiguous. His writing influenced many subsequent novelists such as Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Edgar Allan Poe, Eça de Queirós, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Oscar Wilde, Gustave Flaubert, Benito Pérez Galdós, Marie Corelli, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Many of Balzac's works have been made into or have inspired films, and they are a continuing source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics.
An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac had trouble adapting to the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he finished school, Balzac was apprenticed in a law office, but he turned his back on the study of law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie Humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience.
Balzac had health problems throughout his life, possibly brought on by scant attention to proper nutrition, strict nightly rest, or daily heart-healthy exercise. His relationship with his family was often strained by financial and personal difficulties, and he ended several friendships over critical reviews.
In 1850 Balzac married Ewelina Hańska, a Polish aristocrat and his longtime love; he died in Paris five months later.
