Beatrix

Beatrix
by Honor de Balzac (1799-1850)

B atrix is an 1839 novel by French author Honor de Balzac (1799-1850) and included in the Sc nes de la vie priv e section of his novel sequence La Com die humaine.

It first appeared in the periodical Le Si cle in August 1839, and appeared in volume form the same year. Balzac based the characters in this novel on real figures: F licit des Touches, a celebrated musician and writer, is based on George Sand. B atrix de Rochefide is based on Marie d'Agoult (who wrote under the pen name of Daniel Stern); Gennaro Conti is based on Franz Liszt; Claude Vignon is based on Gustave Planche.

Plot

A handsome young man named Calyste du Gu nic is in love with the older woman, F licit des Touches, a famous writer who uses the pen name of Camille Maupin. F licit at first does not reciprocate Calyste's feelings, and Calyste falls in love with the blonde marchioness B atrix de Rochefide. B atrix is a beautiful but selfish woman; one critic remarked in 1897 in regards to B atrix that "for cold-blooded cruelty and vulgarity she is unexampled, and her efforts to keep her youth and her hold over men are drawn in Balzac's heaviest and most pitiless manner."

B atrix had already had an affair with Gennaro Conti, and Calyste has an additional rival in the form of Claude Vignon. F licit des Touches (Camille Maupin) tries to help Calyste win B atrix's heart, thus sacrificing her own. Calyste's efforts are ultimately a failure, and B atrix is taken away by Gennaro Conti.

Calyste is devastated by his failure, but promises his dying father to get married. F licit des Touches enters a convent, but before she does, she uses her fortune to arrange a marriage for Calyste with a woman named Sabine de Grandlieu. When Calyste encounters B atrix again in Paris, his wife Sabine struggles to win back her husband's affections after Calyste falls for B atrix again. Subsequently, through the intercession of Count Maxime de Trailles, B atrix falls for another young man, and Calyste comes to his senses.