The Exiles

By Honoré de Balzac

Superstition, sorcery, dark strangers, and a great poet in disguise, Honoré de Balzac takes a new turn in 'The Exiles'.Set in 14th century Paris, this novella sees sergeant Tirechair host two strangers at his house near Notre-Dame. One is a regular at the royal court, while the younger man is the son of a countess. Both of them spook the sergeant, as he believes they are sorcerers - and they are clearly incognito. As he gets ready to throw them out, there is a big reveal - and plenty of poetic justice.Balzac's 'The Exiles' is a clever exploration of the price of fame and the pressure of being born into the upper classes.If you like 'The Canterbury Tales' by Geoffrey Chaucer and 'World Without End' by Ken Follett, ´The Exiles´ will be a great read! -

• Language: English
• Publisher: SAGA Egmont
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9788726668605

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

The Exiles

SAGA Egmont

The Exiles

Translated by James Waring

Original title: Les Proscrits

Original language: French

The characters and use of language in the work do not express the views of the publisher. The work is published as a historical document that describes its contemporary human perception.

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ISBN: 9788726668605

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This work is republished as a historical document. It contains contemporary use of language.

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In the year 1308 few houses were yet standing on the Island formed by the alluvium and sand deposited by the Seine above the Cite, behind the Church of Notre-Dame. The first man who was so bold as to build on this strand, then liable to frequent floods, was a constable of the watch of the City of Paris, who had been able to do some service to their Reverences the Chapter of the Cathedral; and in return the Bishop leased him twenty-five perches of land, with exemptions from all feudal dues or taxes on the buildings he might erect.

Seven years before the beginning of this narrative, Joseph Tirechair, one of the sternest of Paris constables, as his name (Tear Flesh) would indicate, had, thanks to his share of the fines collected by him for delinquencies committed within the precincts of the Cite, had been able to build a house on the bank of the Seine just at the end of the Rue du Port-Saint-Landry. To protect the merchandise landed on the strand, the municipality had constructed a sort of break-water of masonry, which may still be seen on some old plans of Paris, and which preserved the piles of the landing-place by meeting the rush of water and ice at the upper end of the Island. The constable had taken advantage of this for the foundation of his house, so that there were several steps up to his door.

Like all the houses of that date, this cottage was crowned by a peaked roof, forming a gable-end to the front, or half a diamond. To the great regret of historians, but two or three examples of such roofs survive in Paris. A round opening gave light to a loft, where the constable’s wife dried the linen of the Chapter, for she had the honor of washing for the Cathedral—which was certainly not a bad customer. On the first floor were two rooms, let to lodgers at a rent, one year with another, of forty sous Parisis each, an exorbitant sum, that was however justified by the luxury Tirechair had lavished on their adornment. Flanders tapestry hung on the walls, and a large bed with a top valance of green serge, like a peasant’s bed, was amply furnished with mattresses, and covered with good sheets of fine linen. Each room had a stove called a chauffe-doux; the floor, carefully polished by Dame Tirechair’s apprentices, shone like the woodwork of a shrine. Instead of stools, the lodgers had deep chairs of carved walnut, the spoils probably of some raided castle. Two chests with pewter mouldings, and tables on