Albert Savarus by Honoré de Balzac - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)

By Honoré de Balzac

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Albert Savarus by Honoré de Balzac - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Collected Works of Honoré de Balzac’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Balzac includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

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* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781788775045

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist, short story writer, and playwright. Regarded as one of the key figures of French and European literature, Balzac’s realist approach to writing would influence Charles Dickens, Émile Zola, Henry James, Gustave Flaubert, and Karl Marx. With a precocious attitude and fierce intellect, Balzac struggled first in school and then in business before dedicating himself to the pursuit of writing as both an art and a profession. His distinctly industrious work routine—he spent hours each day writing furiously by hand and made extensive edits during the publication process—led to a prodigious output of dozens of novels, stories, plays, and novellas. La Comédie humaine, Balzac’s most famous work, is a sequence of 91 finished and 46 unfinished stories, novels, and essays with which he attempted to realistically and exhaustively portray every aspect of French society during the early-nineteenth century.

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HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Albert Savarus

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2014

Version 1

COPYRIGHT

‘Albert Savarus’

Honoré de Balzac: Parts Edition (in 116 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78877 504 5

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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Honoré de Balzac: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 7 of the Delphi Classics edition of Honoré de Balzac in 116 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Albert Savarus from the bestselling edition of the author’s Collected Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Honoré de Balzac, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Honoré de Balzac or the Collected Works of Honoré de Balzac in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

IN 116 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

Scenes from Private Life

1, At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

2, The Ball at Sceaux

3, Letters of Two Brides

4, The Purse

5, Modeste Mignon

6, A Start in Life

7, Albert Savarus

8, Vendetta

9, A Second Home

10, Domestic Peace

11, Madame Firmiani

12, Study of a Woman

13, The Imaginary Mistress

14, A Daughter of Eve

15, The Message

16, The Grand Breteche

17, La Grenadiere

18, The Deserted Woman

19, Honorine

20, Beatrix

21, Gobseck

22, A Woman of Thirty

23, Father Goriot

24, Colonel Chabert

25, The Atheist’s Mass

26, The Commission in Lunacy

27, The Marriage Contract

28, Another Study of Woman

Scenes from Provincial Life

29, Ursule Mirouet

30, Eugenie Grandet

The Celibates

31, Pierrette

32, The Vicar of Tours

33, The Two Brothers

Parisians in the Country

34, The Illustrious Gaudissart

35, The Muse of the Department

36, The Old Maid

37, The Collection of Antiquities

Lost Illusions

38, Two Poets

39, A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

40, Eve and David

The Thirteen

41, Ferragus

42, The Duchesse de Langeais

43, Girl with the Golden Eyes

44, Rise and Fall of César Birotteau

45, The Firm of Nucingen

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

46, Esther Happy: How a Courtesan Can Love

47, What Love Costs an Old Man

48, The End of Evil Ways

49, Vautrin’s Last Avatar

50, Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan

51, Facino Cane

52, Sarrasine

53, Pierre Grassou

The Poor Relations

54, Cousin Betty

55, Cousin Pons

56, A Man of Business

57, A Prince of Bohemia

58, Gaudissart II

59, Bureaucracy

60, Unconscious Comedians

61, The Lesser Bourgeoisie

The Seamy Side of History

62, Madame de La Chanterie

63, The Initiate

Scenes from Political Life

64, An Episode Under the Terror

65, An Historical Mystery

66, The Deputy of Arcis

67, Monsieur de Sallenauve

68, Z. Marcas

Scenes from Military Life

69, The Chouans

70, A Passion in the Desert

Scenes from Country Life

71, Sons of the Soil

72, The Country Doctor

73, The Village Rector

74, The Lily of the Valley

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES

75, The Magic Skin

76, Christ in Flanders

77, Melmoth Reconciled

78, The Unknown Masterpiece

79, Gambara

80, Massimilla Doni

81, The Alkahest

82, The Hated Son

83, Farewell

84, Juana

85, The Recruit

86, El Verdugo

87, A Drama on the Seashore

88, Maitre Cornelius

89, The Red Inn

Catherine de’ Medici

90, The Calvinist Martyr

91, The Secrets of the Ruggieri

92, The Two Dreams

93, The Elixir of Life

94, The Exiles

95, Louis Lambert

96, Seraphita

ANALYTICAL STUDIES

97, Physiology of Marriage

98, Little Miseries of Conjugal Life

Pathology of Social Life

99, Traité de La Vie Élégante

100, Théorie de La Démarche

101, Traité Des Excitants Modernes

The Short Stories

102, Droll Stories

103, The Napoleon of the People

The Plays

104, Introduction to Balzac’s Dramas by J. Walker Mcspadden

105, Vautrin

106, The Resources of Quinola

107, Pamela Giraud

108, The Stepmother

109, Mercadet

The Criticism

110, The Criticism

The Biographies

111, Honoré de Balzac by Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

112, Honoré de Balzac, His Life and Writings by Mary F. Sandars

113, Balzac and Madame Hanska by Elbert Hubbard

114, Balzac by Frederick Lawton

115, Women in the Life of Balzac by Juanita Helm Floyd

116, Glossary of Characters in ‘La Comédie Humaine’

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Albert Savarus

Translated by Ellen Marriage

This 1836 novella introduces the character Rosalie, who is the only daughter of the Wattevilles, a distinguished family of Besançon. Her father is timid and spends his time working on a lathe, while her mother is proud and domineering. The mother tries to encourage Rosalie to take an interest in the foppish M. de Soulas. At a dinner party, the Abbe reports the spectacular success of a lawyer Savaron, who has settled quietly in the town. Rosalie soon takes an interest in this dashing lawyer…

An original illustration

DEDICATION

To Madame Emile Girardin

ALBERT SAVARUS

One of the few drawing-rooms where, under the Restoration, the Archbishop of Besancon was sometimes to be seen, was that of the Baronne de Watteville, to whom he was particularly attached on account of her religious sentiments.

A word as to this lady, the most important lady of Besancon.

Monsieur de Watteville, a descendant of the famous Watteville, the most successful and illustrious of murderers and renegades — his extraordinary adventures are too much a part of history to be related here — this nineteenth century Monsieur de Watteville was as gentle and peaceable as his ancestor of the Grand Siecle had been passionate and turbulent. After living in the Comte (La Franche Comte) like a wood-louse in the crack of a wainscot, he had married the heiress of the celebrated house of Rupt. Mademoiselle de Rupt brought twenty thousand francs a year in the funds to add to the ten thousand francs a year in real estate of the Baron de Watteville. The Swiss gentleman’s coat-of-arms (the Wattevilles are Swiss) was then borne as an escutcheon of pretence on the old shield of the Rupts. The marriage, arranged in 1802, was solemnized in 1815 after the second Restoration. Within three years of the birth of a daughter all Madame de Watteville’s grandparents were dead, and their estates wound up. Monsieur de Watteville’s house was then sold, and they settled in the Rue de la Prefecture in the fine old mansion of the Rupts, with an immense garden stretching to the Rue du Perron. Madame de Watteville, devout as a girl, became even more so after her marriage. She is one of the queens of the saintly brotherhood which gives the upper circles of Besancon a solemn air and prudish manners in harmony with the character of the town.

Monsieur le Baron de Watteville, a dry, lean man devoid of intelligence, looked worn out without any one knowing whereby, for he enjoyed the profoundest ignorance; but as his wife was a red-haired woman, and of a stern nature that became proverbial (we still say as sharp as Madame de Watteville), some wits of the legal profession declared that he had been worn against that rock — Rupt is obviously derived from rupes. Scientific students of social phenomena will not fail to have observed that Rosalie was the only offspring of the union between the Wattevilles and the Rupts.

Monsieur de Watteville spent his existence in a handsome workshop with a lathe; he was a turner! As subsidiary to this pursuit, he took up a fancy for making collections. Philosophical doctors, devoted to the study of madness, regard this tendency towards collecting as a first degree of mental aberration when it is set on small things. The Baron de Watteville treasured shells and geological fragments of the neighborhood of Besancon. Some contradictory folk, especially women, would say of Monsieur de Watteville, He has a noble soul! He perceived from the first days of his married life that he would never be his wife’s master, so he threw himself into a mechanical occupation and good living.

The house of the Rupts was not devoid of a certain magnificence worthy of Louis XIV., and bore traces of the nobility of the two families who had mingled in 1815. The chandeliers of glass cut in the shape of leaves, the brocades, the damask, the carpets, the gilt furniture, were all in harmony with the old liveries and the old servants. Though served in blackened family plate, round a looking-glass tray furnished with Dresden china, the food was exquisite. The wines selected by Monsieur de Watteville, who, to occupy his time and vary his employments, was his own butler, enjoyed a sort of fame throughout the department. Madame de Watteville’s fortune was a fine one; while her husband’s, which consisted only of the estate of Rouxey, worth about ten thousand francs a year, was not increased by inheritance. It is needless to add that in consequence of Madame de Watteville’s close intimacy with the Archbishop, the three or four clever or remarkable Abbes of the diocese who were not averse to good feeding were very much at home at her house.

At a ceremonial dinner given in honor of I know not whose wedding, at the beginning of September 1834, when the women were standing in a circle round the drawing-room fire, and the men in groups by the windows, every one exclaimed with pleasure at the entrance of Monsieur l’Abbe de Grancey, who was announced.

Well, and the lawsuit? they all cried.

Won! replied the Vicar-General. The verdict of the Court, from which we had no hope, you know why —  —

This was an allusion to the members of the First Court of Appeal of 1830; the Legitimists had almost all withdrawn.

The verdict is in our favor on every point, and reverses the decision of the Lower Court.

Everybody thought you were done for.

And we should have been, but for me. I told our advocate to be off to Paris, and at the crucial moment I was able to secure a new pleader, to whom we owe our victory, a wonderful man —

At Besancon? said Monsieur de Watteville, guilelessly.

At Besancon, replied the Abbe de Grancey.

Oh yes, Savaron, said a handsome young man sitting near the Baroness, and named de Soulas.

He spent five or six nights over it; he devoured documents and briefs; he had seven or eight interviews of several hours with me, continued Monsieur de Grancey, who had just reappeared at the Hotel de Rupt for the first time in three weeks. In short, Monsieur Savaron has just completely beaten the celebrated lawyer whom our adversaries had sent for from Paris. This young man is wonderful, the bigwigs say. Thus the chapter is twice victorious; it has triumphed in law and also in politics, since it has vanquished Liberalism in the person of the Counsel of our Municipality. — ’Our adversaries,’ so our advocate said, ‘must not expect to find readiness on all sides to ruin the Archbishoprics.’ — The President was obliged to enforce silence. All the townsfolk of Besancon applauded. Thus the possession of the buildings of the old convent remains with the Chapter of the Cathedral of Besancon. Monsieur Savaron, however, invited his Parisian opponent to dine with him as they came out of court. He accepted, saying, ‘Honor to every conqueror,’ and complimented him on his success without bitterness.

And where did you unearth this lawyer? said Madame de Watteville. I never heard his name before.

Why, you can see his windows from hence, replied the Vicar-General. Monsieur Savaron lives in the Rue du Perron; the garden of his house joins on to yours.

But he is not a native of the Comte, said Monsieur de Watteville.

So little is he a native of any place, that no one knows where he comes from, said Madame de Chavoncourt.

But who is he? asked Madame de Watteville,