8 (p. 211) figs from Provence: Vautrin assumes he will be returned to the prison in Toulon, in southern France, from which he escaped. In fact he will be sent to Rochefort; see Splendeurs et miseres des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, 1847).
Appendix
Personages in Balzac’s Human Comedy
Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy) is populated by hundreds of recurring characters. Below is a list of characters who appear in Père Goriot and other stories in the cycle in which they also appear.
Ajuda-Pinto, Marquis Miguel d’
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan (The Secrets of a Princess, or The Secrets of the Princess Cadignan)
Béatrix
Beauséant, Marquis
Un Episode sous la Terreur (An Episode Under the Terror)
Beauséant, Vicomte de
La Femme abandonnée (The Abandoned Woman)
Beauséant, Vicomtesse. de
La Femme abandonnée (The Abandoned Woman)
Albert Savarus
Bianchon, Horace
La Messe de l’Athée (The Atheist’s Mass)
Grandeur et decadence de César Birotteau (The Rise and Fall of César Birotteau)
L’Interdiction (The Commission in Lunacy)
Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)
Un Grand homme de province à Paris (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris)
Un Ménage de garçon (A Bachelor’s Establishment, or The Two Brothers, or The Black Sheep)
Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan (The Secrets of a Princess, or The Secrets of the Princess Cadignan)
Les Employés (The Government Clerks, or Bureaucracy)
Pierrette
Étude de femme (A Study of Woman)
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Honorine
L‘Envers de l’histoire contemporaine (The Seamy Side of History, or The Brotherhood of Consolation)
La Peau de chagrin (The Wild Ass’s Skin, or The Magic Skin)
Une Double famille (A Second Home)
Un Prince de la Bohème (A Prince of Bohemia)
Mémoires de deuxjeunes mariées (Letters of Two Brides)
La Muse du département (The Muse of the Department)
La Fausse maîtresse (The Imaginary Mistress, or Paz)
Les Petits bourgeois (The Middle Classes, or The Lesser Bourgeoise)
Cousine Bette (Cousin Bette)
Le Cure de village (The Country Parson, or The Village Rector)
In addition, M. Bianchon narrates the following: Autre étude de femme (Another Study of Woman) La Grande Bretêche
Bibi-Lupin (chief of secret police, calls himself Gondureau)
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de
Sarrasine
Collin, Jacques
Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)
Un Grand homme de province à Paris (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris)
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Le Depute d’Arcis (The Member for Arcis, or The Deputy for Arcis)
Derville
Gobseck
Un Début dans la vie (A Start in Life)
Une Ténébreuse affaire (The Gondreville Mystery, or An Historical Mystery)
Le Colonel Chabert (Colonel Chabert)
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Franchessini, Colonel
Le Depute d’Arcis (The Member for Arcis, or The Deputy for Arcis)
Galathionne, Princesse
Une Fille d’Eve (A Daughter of Eve)
Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
Gobseck
Grandeur et decadence de César Birotteau (The Rise and Fall of César Birotteau)
Les Employés (The Government Clerks, or Bureaucracy)
Les Comédiens sans le savoir (The Unconscious Humorists, or The Unconscious Comedians)
Jacques (M. de Beauseant’s butler)
La Femme abandonnée (The Abandoned Woman)
Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de
Histoire des treize (The Thirteen)
Marsay, Henri de
Histoire des treize (The Thirteen)
Les Comédiens sans le savoir (The Unconscious Humorists, or The Unconscious Comedians)
Autre étude de femme (Another Study of Woman)
Le Lys dans la vallée (The Lily of the Valley)
Les Rivalites (The Jealousies of a Country Town)
Ursule Mirouët
Le Contrat de mariage (A Marriage Settlement, or A Marriage Contract)
Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)
Un Grand homme de province à Paris (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris)
Memoires de deuxjeunes mariées (Letters of Two Brides)
Le Bal de Sceaux (The Ball at Sceaux)
Modeste Mignon
Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan (The Secrets of a Princess, or The Secrets of the Princess Cadignan)
Une Ténébreuse affaire (The Gondreville Mystery, or An Historical Mystery)
Une Fille d’Eve (A Daughter of Eve)
Maurice (de Restaud’s valet)
Gobseck
Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de
Histoire des treize (The Thirteen)
Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)
Un Grand homme de province à Paris (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris)
Autre étude de femme (Another Study of Woman)
Pierrette
Le Depute d’Arcis (The Member for Arcis, or The Deputy for Arcis)
Nucingen, Baron Frédéric de
La Maison Nucingen (The Firm of Nucingen)
Pierrette
Grandeur et decadence de César Birotteau (The Rise and Fall of César Birotteau)
Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)
Un Grand homme de province à Paris (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris)
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Autre étude de femme (Another Study of Woman)
Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan (The Secrets of a Princess, or The Secrets of the Princess Cadignan)
Un Homme d’affaires (A Man of Business)
Cousine Bette (Cousin Bette)
La Muse du département (The Muse of the Department)
Les Comédiens sans le savoir (The Unconscious Humorists, or The Unconscious Comedians)
Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de
Histoire des Treize (The Thirteen)
Eugénie Grandet
Grandeur et decadence de César Birotteau (The Rise and Fall of César Birotteau)
Melmoth réconcilié (Melmoth Reconciled)
Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)
Un Grand homme de province à Paris (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris)
L’Interdiction (The Commission in Lunacy)
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Modeste Mignon
La Maison Nucingen (The Firm of Nucingen)
Autre étude de femme (Another Study of Woman)
Une Fille d’Eve (A Daughter of Eve)
Le Depute d’Arcis (The Member for Arcis, or The Deputy for Arcis)
Poiret
Les Employés (The Government Clerks, or Bureaucracy)
Un Début dans la vie (A Start in Life)
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Les Petits bourgeois (The Middle Classes, or The Lesser Bourgeoise)
Poiret, Madame (née Christine-Michelle Michonneau)
Sp
lendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Les Petits bourgeois (The Middle Classes, or The Lesser Bourgeoise)
Rastignac, Baron and Baronne de (Eugène’s parents)
Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)
Rastignac, Eugene de
Un Grand homme de province à Paris (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris)
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Le Bal de Sceaux (The Ball at Sceaux)
L’Interdiction (The Commission in Lunacy)
Ètude de femme (A Study of Woman)
Autre Ètude de femme (Another Study of Woman)
La Peau de chagrin (The Wild Ass’s Skin, or The Magic Skin)
Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan (The Secrets of a Princess, or The Secrets of the Princess Cadignan)
Une Fille d’Eve (A Daughter of Eve)
Une Ténébreuse affaire (The Gondreville Mystery, or An Historical Mystery)
La Maison Nucingen (The Firm of Nucingen)
Cousine Bette (Cousin Bette)
Le Depute d’Arcis (The Member for Arcis, or The Deputy for Arcis)
Les Comédiens sans le savoir (The Unconscious Humorists, or The Unconscious Comedians)
Rastignac, Laure-Rose and Agathe de
Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions)
Le Depute d’Arcis (The Member for Arcis, or The Deputy for Arcis)
Rastignac, Monseigneur Gabriel de
Le Cure de village (The Country Parson, or The Village Rector)
Une Fille d’Eve (A Daughter of Eve)
Restaud, Comte de
Gobseck
Restaud, Comtesse Anastasie de
Gobseck
Selerier
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low, or Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life)
Taillefer, Jean-Frédéric
La Maison Nucingen (The Firm of Nucingen)
La Peau de chagrin (The Wild Ass’s Skin, or The Magic Skin)
L’Auberge rouge (The Red Inn)
Taillefer, Victorine
L’Auberge rouge (The Red Inn)
Thérèse
Une Fille d’Eve (A Daughter of Eve)
Tissot, Pierre-François
Un Prince de la Bohème (A Prince of Bohemia)
Trailles, Comte Maxime de
Grandeur et decadence de César Birotteau (The Rise and Fall of César Birotteau)
Gobseck
Ursule Mirouët
Un Homme d’affaires (A Man of Business)
Le Depute d’Arcis (The Member for Arcis, or The Deputy for Arcis)
Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan (The Secrets of a Princess, or The Secrets of the Princess Cadignan)
Cousine Bette
Béatrix
Les Comédiens sans le savoir (The Unconscious Humorists, or The Unconscious Comedians)
Inspired by Père Goriot and La Comedie humaine
Balzac is at the head of the French
literature of tomorrow.
—EMILE ZOLA
Honoré de Balzac stands alone among literature’s giants for his lifelong dedication to a single, overarching purpose in his work. Everything Balzac wrote—beginning with the first novel he published under his own name, Les Chouans (1829)—he wove together into a great cycle known as La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy) . Though he did not initially intend for his various novels to grow into the interconnected epic they became, Balzac codified his literary method around 1834 when he decided to create a tapestry that would encompass the whole of contemporary Parisian society. Balzac’s ambition further gelled in 1842 when he titled his ever-expanding oeuvre La Comédie humaine, the title of Balzac’s secular work was meant to echo that of Dante’s Christian allegory La Divina commedia (The Divine Comedy) .
La Comédie humaine comprises more than ninety novels and novellas; 137 were planned. In it, Balzac showcases three kinds of novel, each with a different aim: Etudes analytiques (“analytic studies”) explore the principles and social factors that govern human life; études philosophiques (“philosophical studies”) examine the psychological factors that drive human action; and, by far the largest category, études de moeurs (“studies of manners”) are subdivided into novels of country, military, political, Parisian, private, and provincial life. Père Goriot, a novel of manners dealing with private life, is in many ways the perfect novel with which to begin reading La Comédie humaine. In Père Goriot, Balzac for the first time brings back characters featured in previous works while introducing a number who will reappear in later novels; Rastignac, for example, appears in more than twenty novels. See the Appendix for a list of characters in Père Goriot who appear in other parts of La Comédie humaine.
Placing all of his work under one thematic umbrella allowed Balzac to chronicle a large gallery of recurring characters over a long period of time—from the French Revolution to the eve of the 1848 Revolution, roughly the author’s lifetime. It is the continuing reappearance of his characters that places Balzac apart from other writers. In addition, the progenitors of Marxism—Karl Marx and Frederich Engels—praised Balzac for his gritty realism, his “industrial literature,” as the critic C. A. Sainte-Beuve put it. Later novelists such as Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoevsky, who both published expansive novels in installments, would attempt to emulate Balzac’s unflinching attention to detail, his fanatical work ethic, and his impressive breadth of subject matter and human sentiment. And many later writers would consult La Comédie humaine as a reference for Balzac’s historical moment—“The Nineteenth Century,” as Oscar Wilde wrote, “is largely an invention of Balzac’s.” Fundamentally, however, Balzac is remembered for the community of characters who populate the pages of La Comédie humaine.
French novelist Èmile Zola (1840-1902), who was born around the time Balzac came up with the umbrella name for his novels, also wrote a sweeping literary saga that has its roots in La Comédie humaine. Zola, influenced by Balzac’s realist techniques, was the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction, and his collective work Les Rougon-Macquart essentially picks up where La Comédie humaine leaves off. Comprising twenty novels, the Les Rougon-Macquart which carries the subtitle The Natural and Social History of a Family Under the Second EmPire-was published between 1871 and 1893. The first novel in the series, La Fortune des Rougon (1871; The Rougon Family Fortune or The Fortune of the Rougons) , introduces the powerful Rougons and the lower-class Macquarts. The ninth novel in the series, Nana (1880), which chronicles the life of Gervaise Macquart’s daughter as she is forced to become a courtesan, shocked readers of its day; Henry James wrote, “We stand aghast at the want of tact it has taken to make so unreadable a book as Nana.” The thirteenth Rougon-Macquart novel, Germinal (1885), considered by some to be Zola’s finest work, documents the relations between the bourgeoisie and the working class in a miserable mining community where the conditions are inhuman and treacherous.
Deeply fascinated and philosophically influenced by social determinism, Zola believed that human character was shaped by heredity, environment, and the cultural moment. Zola coined the term “naturalism” to describe this approach to literature, and it quickly became a national movement. In the Rougon Macquart books, Zola places his characters in various socio-economic and professional contexts—the Provençal countryside, a laundress’s working-class neighborhood, the Parisian art scene, the bleak battlefield at Sedan—and documents their interactions and developments. Zola followed Les Rougon-Macquart with two shorter cycles: Les Trois Villes: Lourdes, Rome, Paris (The Three Cities; 1894, 1896, 1898), a scathing attack on the Church of Rome; and Les Quatre Evangiles (The Four Gospels, 1899-1903), the last volume of which was left unfinished at Zola’s death.
Though the results are deeply imaginative, Zola regarded his novels as “experiments.” Rather than a creative excursion, each novel is akin to a study in which Zola record
s his observations with strict, even scientific exactitude. Zola’s almost detached approach to his fiction pays homage to Balzac’s studies. According to Zola (translation by Noah David Guynn): “[Balzac] created the naturalist novel, the exacting study of society, and all of a sudden, through his audacious genius, he dared to bring to life in his vast fresco an entire society copied directly from the society that posed before him. It was the most resounding affirmation of modern evolution.”
Comments & Questions
In this section, we aim to provides the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled , from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the work’s history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Honoré de Balzac’s Père Goriot through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.
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