Eugenie Grandet - French Edition Author:Honore de Balzac French Description: — Monsieur Grandet, viellard fortuné mais d'une avarice maladive, règne en tyran sur sa maisonée, où vivent sa femme, sa fille Eugénie et leur servante Nanon. Eugénie, considérée comme un des plus beaux partis de la villle et courtisée, tombe amoureuse de son c... more »ousin Charles. Mais Charles est criblé des dettes de son père, et Grandet, craignant pour son or, ne veut surtout pas le voir devenir son gendre. Il cloitre Eugénie, et meurt peu après avoir initié sa fille aux économies. Quand Charles revient, c'est pour annoncer qu'il en épouse une autre. Eugénie se marie alors sans amour à l'un de ses prétendants, et, devenue veuve très tôt, vit dans la frugalité en distribuant sa fortune aux bonnes oeuvres.
English Description:
Who is going to marry Eugenie Grandet? This is the question that fills the minds of the inhabitants of Saumur, the setting for Eugénie Grandet, one of the earliest and most famous novels in Balzac's Comédie Humaine.
The Grandet household, oppressed by the exacting miserliness of Grandet himself, is jerked violently out of routine by the sudden arrival of Eugénie's cousin Charles, recently orphaned and penniless. Eugénie's emotional awakening, stimulated by her love for her cousin, brings her into direct conflict with her father, whose cunning and financial success are matched against her determination to rebel. Eugénie's moving story is set against the backdrop of provincial oppression, the vicissitudes of the wine trade, and the workings of the financial system in the aftermath of the French Revolution. It is both a poignant portrayal of private life and a vigorous fictional document of its age.« less