Small middle-class men

the Small Middle-class men is a Romance French of Honore de Balzac published in 1855 at Kiessling, editor with Brussels, then in 1856 at Potter, where it is classified in the Scènes of Parisian life of the human Comedy .

By small middle-class men , the author understood the white collars , i.e. the lower level of the middle-class of the time, as well intellectual as social. A class under development at the time, for which Balzac is not tender, expressing even sometimes a contempt insult.

Topic

Marie Jeanne Brigitte Thuillier, old maid and warned businesswoman, created a flourishing trade of bags for the Bank, which it then resold and which ensures a comfortable income to him. She was sacrificed for her brother, like Miss Armande d' Esgrignon in the Cabinet of the Antiques , but, like she, the sacrificed does not keep any resentment to him. On the contrary, it took even on her ascending brother benevolent, in spite of the mediocrity of the character who, although tempting man, does not arrive at nothing in his studies and finds simple employee. Brigitte Thuillier protects the illegitimate girl from her brother: Brigitte Colleville, whose natural mother, Flavie Colleville, are devoured of ambition and are surrounded lovers.

Balzac replonge in the world of the employees already largely treated in the Employees or the higher Woman , the higher woman being here Flavie Colleville mother, which intrigues near the powerful characters that it allures to advance the career of her husband. Indeed, Colleville, simple employee, just like Thuillier, hopes for a social advancement for itself and its children. The intrigues go good progress, especially when the Théodose lawyer of Peyrade interferes himself. It is a question of obtaining the hand and the dowry of Brigitte (Colleville) Thuillier already coveted by Minard (another employee). Théodose of Peyrade seeks to cram Miss Marie Jeanne Brigitte Thuillier by a real estate transaction whose benefit would go to Brigitte Colleville (to which Balzac gave the name of Modeste Thuillier to avoid confusion). But the novel remains confused all the same and the author ignores some at the point to leave it unfinished.

Undoubtedly it had a more important fresco at the head: the characters are innumerable, the complicated intrigues, and much of profiles already had been camped in the Employees or the higher Woman of which it recycled various parts. The initial manuscript stops brutally. Work of Charles Rabou, which managed to double the volume of the text of origin with Ewelina Hańska, was very discussed with the publication of the work and remains still debatable, so much and so that the Bibliothèque of the Pleiad publishes in volume VIII the manuscript of origin on the one hand and the additions of the other.

Random links: