Vapor

Introduction

This novel has for character the main thing the fortune of the Grandet father. This one knew that Bonaparte would sign the Concordat and that one could without risk adapt oneself what belonged to the religious communities; but anticipating the possible return of noble rejoined to Napoleon or faithful to the Bourbons (Louis XVIII), it is arranged to spare them.

Summary

The father of Eugenie Grandet, probably the most important character of the novel, was Tonnelier. Thanks to an acute sense of the businesses and an avarice than pronounced more, it succeeded in making fortune while benefitting from the events of this unstable time. Formerly mayor of Saumur, it now makes bear fruit his great fortune while making accept in his wife and his daughter who they are fairly rich. The inhabitants of Saumur, more with the current of the fortune of the Grandet father, see as a Eugenie Grandet the most beautiful party of the city and thus court it ardently. This one, a real innocence, does not suspect nothing. Until the day when his/her cousin arrives, wire of the brother of the Grandet father. This one is sent by his/her father, rich negotiating of Paris which goes bankrupt and commits suicide. Eugenie falls in love with her cousin and the history turns around the schemes of the Grandet father to move away his nephew, to lose less possible money because of the bankruptcy of his/her brother and to obstinately make bear fruit his interests.

The Grandet father is undoubtedly, after the Avare of Molière, the portrait of miserly more completed French literature.

This work is instructive on mentalities under the reign of Louis-Philippe.

It is also an interesting study of the evolution of different natures during time, of the inflexibility of the Grandet father, the loss of the illusions of his/her daughter, and the transformation of its nephew, become Dandy gentleman to finish as an interested and cold character.

Extract

Portrait of Eugenie Grandet and her family, made by Lucienne of Grassins with Charles (the cousin of Eugenie), who has just arrived at Saumur:

Sir, if you want to make us the honor come to see us, you will do doubtless as much pleasure to my husband than with me. Our living room is only in Saumur where you will find joined together the great merchants and the nobility: we belong to the two companies, which want to meet only there because one has fun there. My husband, I say it with pride, is also considered by the ones and the others. Thus, us drudges to make diversion with the trouble of your stay here. If you remain at Mr Grandet, that you would become, good god! Your uncle is a grigou which thinks only of its layered branches, your aunt is an excessively pious woman who cannot sew two ideas, and your cousin is small stupid, without education, commune, without dowry, and which passes its life to mend cloths.

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