An Historical Mystery: (The Gondreville Mystery)

by Honore de Balzac, Katharine Prescott Wormeley (Translator)

Overview

The heroine of the story is Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, a young aristocrat living in the Aube region of France. An elderly aristocratic couple, the d'Hauteserres have come to live with her. Their sons, Robert and Adrien have gone into exile to fight against Napoleon. The story starts in 1803 when Laurence is taking part in a Royalist conspiracy to overthrow Napoleon who is then First Consul. Her cousins the Simeuse twins, and Robert and Adrien d'Hauteserre, who are all exiled aristocrats, return secretly to France to take part in the plot, and she helps to hide them.

However the plot is discovered, and Corentin and Peyrade who are spies working for Police Minister, Joseph Fouché travel to Aube to find the conspirators. Senator Malin, a leading politician who now owns the Simeuse brothers' confiscated property of Gondreville, also travels there to hide evidence of his own dealings with Louis XVIII.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940185742679
Publisher:	Anthony Bly
Publication date:	01/09/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Honoré de Balzac (born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence "La Comédie humaine," which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus.

Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, and filmmakers François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films and continue to inspire other writers.