Sarrasine is a novella written by Honoré de Balzac . It was published in 1830, and is part of his Comédie Humaine .
146-430: Balzac , who began writing in 1819 while living alone in the rue Lesdiguières, undertook the composition of Sarrasine in 1830. Although he had steadily produced work for over a decade (without commercial success), Sarrasine was among his earliest publications to appear without a pseudonym. During the period in which the novella was written, Balzac was involved in many salons , including that of Madame Recamier . Around
292-487: A castrato , a boy had to give up his "manhood", i.e., have his testes removed at a very early age. Because of the popularity of Italian opera throughout 18th-century Europe (except France), castrati such as Farinelli , Ferri, Pacchierotti, and Senesino became the first operatic superstars, earning enormous fees and hysterical public adulation. However, many did not survive the surgery, or did not last very long after it. Castrati developed many health problems, as testosterone
438-533: A classified advertisement in the Gazette de France , hoping that his anonymous critic would see it. Thus began a fifteen-year correspondence between Balzac and "the object of [his] sweetest dreams": Ewelina Hańska . Ewelina ( née Rzewuska) was married to a nobleman twenty years her senior, Marshal Wacław Hański , a wealthy Polish landowner living near Kyiv . It had been a marriage of convenience to preserve her family 's fortune. In Balzac Countess Ewelina found
584-458: A pallbearer and the eulogist at Balzac's funeral. Some modern researchers have attributed a factor in his death to excessive coffee consumption or a caffeine overdose (Balzac reportedly drank over 50 cups a day) but this has yet to be proved. Balzac is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. At his memorial service, Victor Hugo pronounced "Today we have people in black because of the death of
730-406: A type foundry . His inexperience and lack of capital caused his ruin in these trades. He gave the businesses to a friend (who made them successful) but carried the debts for many years. As of April 1828 Balzac owed 50,000 francs to his mother. Balzac never lost his penchant for une bonne spéculation . It resurfaced painfully later when—as a renowned and busy author—he traveled to Sardinia in
876-456: A "Horace de Saint-Aubin". These books were potboiler novels, designed to sell quickly and titillate audiences. In Saintsbury's view, "they are curiously, interestingly, almost enthrallingly bad". Saintsbury indicates that Robert Louis Stevenson tried to dissuade him from reading these early works of Balzac. American critic Samuel Rogers, however, notes that "without the training they gave Balzac, as he groped his way to his mature conception of
1022-526: A Polish aristocrat and his longtime love. He died in Paris six months later. Honoré de Balzac was born into a family which aspired to achieve respectability through its industry and efforts. His father, born Bernard-François Balssa, was one of eleven children from an artisan family in Tarn , a region in the south of France. In 1760 he set off for Paris with only a Louis coin in his pocket, intent on improving his social standing ; by 1776 he had become Secretary to
1168-602: A bridge over the river Loire . In 1816 Balzac entered the Sorbonne , where he studied under three famous professors: François Guizot , who later became Prime Minister , was Professor of Modern History; Abel-François Villemain , a recent arrival from the Collège Charlemagne , lectured on French and classical literature; and, most influential of all, Victor Cousin 's courses on philosophy encouraged his students to think independently. Once his studies were completed, Balzac
1314-506: A cardinal, who is Zambinella's patron, and is told that Zambinella is a castrato . Sarrasine refuses to believe it and leaves the party, seizing Zambinella. Once they are at his studio, Zambinella confirms that she is a castrato. Sarrasine is about to kill him as a group of the cardinal's men barge in and stab Sarrasine. The narrator then reveals that the old man around the household is Zambinella, Marianina's maternal great uncle. The story ends with Mme de Rochefide's expressing her distress about
1460-460: A clay mold of her. After spending time together at a party, Sarrasine attempts to seduce Zambinella. She is reticent, suggesting some hidden secret or danger of their partnership. Sarrasine becomes increasingly convinced that Zambinella is the ideal woman. Sarrasine develops a plan to abduct her from a party at the French embassy. When Sarrasine arrives, Zambinella is dressed as a man. Sarrasine speaks to
1606-437: A closely plotted novella of only fifty pages. According to the literary critic Kornelije Kvas, "Balzac's use of the same characters (Rastignac, Vautrin) in different parts of The Human Comedy is a consequence of the realist striving for narrative economy". Balzac's work habits were legendary. He wrote from 1 A.M. to 8 A.M. every morning and sometimes even longer. Balzac could write very rapidly; some of his novels, written with
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#17328694365401752-442: A garret furnished in the most Spartan fashion, with a starvation allowance and an old woman to look after him", while the rest of the family moved to a house twenty miles (32 km) outside Paris. Balzac's first project was a libretto for a comic opera called Le Corsaire , based on Lord Byron 's The Corsair . Realizing he would have trouble finding a composer, however, he turned to other pursuits. In 1820 Balzac completed
1898-558: A good knowledge of hanging wallpaper. Balzac transferred this to his descriptions of the Pension Vauquer in Le Père Goriot , making the wallpaper speak of the identities of those living inside. Some critics consider Balzac's writing exemplary of naturalism —a more pessimistic and analytical form of realism, which seeks to explain human behavior as intrinsically linked with the environment. French novelist Émile Zola declared Balzac
2044-521: A gradual revival of the pope's temporal power in the Papal States. Throughout the 16th century, virtually independent fiefs such as Rimini (a possession of the Malatesta family) were brought back under Papal control. In 1512 the state of the church annexed Parma and Piacenza, which in 1545 became an independent duchy under an illegitimate son of Pope Paul III . This process culminated in the reclaiming of
2190-416: A kind of contagion of castration, or may feel that manhood in general or the division between men and women is threatened by possibility of castration. The novella ends with Mme de Rochefide and the narrator's condemning the castrato tradition as barbaric. Homosexuality is a common theme found in many of Honoré de Balzac's works, for example Illusions perdues (1837–43). In Sarrasine , we meet Zambinella,
2336-510: A kindred spirit for her emotional and social desires, with the added benefit of feeling a connection to the glamorous capital of France. Their correspondence reveals an intriguing balance of passion, propriety and patience; Robb says it is "like an experimental novel in which the female protagonist is always trying to pull in extraneous realities but which the hero is determined to keep on course, whatever tricks he has to use". Marshal Hański died in 1841, and his widow and her admirer finally had
2482-481: A massive temporal rift; the first part (of four) covers a span of six years, while the final two sections focus on just three days. Le Cousin Pons (1847) and La Cousine Bette (1848) tell the story of Les Parents Pauvres ( The Poor Relations ). The conniving and wrangling over wills and inheritances reflect the expertise gained by the author as a young law clerk. Balzac's health was deteriorating by this point, making
2628-418: A near-fatal accident in 1832 (he slipped and cracked his head on the street), Balzac decided not to stand for election. 1831 saw the success of La Peau de chagrin ( The Wild Ass's Skin or The Magic Skin ), a fable-like tale about a despondent young man named Raphaël de Valentin who finds an animal skin which promises great power and wealth. He obtains these things, but loses the ability to manage them. In
2774-571: A number of Italian cities. The cooperation between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty climaxed in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne ' Emperor of the Romans '. From the 9th century to the 12th century, the precise nature of the relationship between the popes and emperors – and between the Papal States and the Empire – was disputed. It was unclear whether the Papal States were a separate realm with
2920-480: 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;
3066-498: A partner: the cardinal. In Sarrasine , the cardinal is Zambinella's "protector", which means that Zambinella would be the complementary role of " mignon ". Barthes refers to Zambinella as " mignon " as it is used in French court society, where it means the homosexual lover, or "pet", of a man in power, in this case the cardinal, the "protector". Balzac 's use of a frame story is the most significant narrative strategy in Sarrasine . In
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#17328694365403212-474: A picture of the regular life of a majority of the population at the time the literature was written. From the people to the places, Realism strove to present everything in an undramatic and "true" manner. In Sarrasine , Realism is reflected in the ways that every situation is described in its positive and negative aspects. For example, as a member of the castrati Zambinella can be praised, adored, or treated as if he doesn't belong. The novella doesn't romanticize
3358-411: A quill, were composed at a pace equal to thirty words per minute on a modern typewriter. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He often worked for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in
3504-510: A real "woman" as Sarrasine—that "a real woman is born from the statue". Furthermore, the replication of the statue into marble, and into two separate portraits (Adonis, and Girodet's Endymion ) only perpetuates the symbolic notion that Sarrasine is always influenced by an intrinsic gender ambiguity. In 2014, Rachel Tapley translated into English Maria Rusana Mulesan's libretto for Richard Beaudoin 's opera Sarrasine after Balzac and Scève. On May 10, 2024, an opera pasticcio called Sarrasine
3650-476: A result, he was frequently sent to the "alcove", a punishment cell reserved for disobedient students. (The janitor at the school, when asked later if he remembered Honoré, replied: "Remember M. Balzac? I should think I do! I had the honour of escorting him to the dungeon more than a hundred times!") Still, his time alone gave the boy ample freedom to read every book which came his way. Balzac worked these scenes from his boyhood—as he did many aspects of his life and
3796-463: A seemingly beautiful woman whom Sarrasine admires, but who turns out to be castrato. Sarrasine, who took Zambinella to be his ideal woman, is deeply distressed when he learns this and tries to kill Zambinella. One possible explanation for Sarrasine's extreme reaction is that he fears that his love of La Zambinella is a mark of homosexuality. Sarrasine's reaction, then, can be seen as an attempt to protect his heterosexuality. Zambinella does, in fact, have
3942-452: A treatise on "the means of preventing thefts and murders, and of restoring the men who commit them to a useful role in society", in which he heaped disdain on prison as a form of crime prevention.) In 1814 the Balzac family moved to Paris, and Honoré was sent to private tutors and schools for the next two and a half years. This was an unhappy time in his life, during which he attempted suicide on
4088-553: A writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience. Balzac suffered from health problems throughout his life, possibly owing to his intense writing schedule. His relationship with his family was often strained by financial and personal drama, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, Balzac married Ewelina Hańska ( née Contessa Rzewuska ),
4234-487: A young poet trying to make a name for himself, who becomes trapped in the morass of society's darkest contradictions. Lucien's journalistic work is informed by Balzac's own failed ventures in the field. Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes ( The Harlot High and Low , 1847) continues Lucien's story. He is trapped by the Abbé Herrera ( Vautrin ) in a convoluted and disastrous plan to regain social status. The book undergoes
4380-616: Is commemorated on 16 May, four days before Balzac's birthday) was actually the second child born to the Balzacs; exactly one year earlier, Louis-Daniel had been born, but he lived for only a month. Honoré's sisters Laure and Laurence were born in 1800 and 1802, and his younger brother Henry-François in 1807. As an infant Balzac was sent to a wet nurse ; the following year he was joined by his sister Laure and they spent four years away from home. (Although Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's influential book Émile convinced many mothers of
4526-511: Is made much more believable by the fact that, due to their severe hormonal imbalance, castrati often developed real breast tissue, a condition called gynecomastia . Realism is an artistic movement originated in France in the 19th century by people who rejected both Idealism and Romanticism . The use of Romanticism in literature began to rise dramatically in the 18th century and was the predominant artistic movement in France until Realism. Realism
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4672-475: Is needed for healthy growth in boys, and without the glands that supply the majority of testosterone during a critical period of development, the body does not grow correctly. Besides the only wanted side effect (the lack of lengthening the vocal cords ), a castrato's arms and legs were often disproportionally long, they did not have much muscle mass, and other problems, such as osteoporosis and erectile dysfunction were common later in life. The story of Sarrasine
4818-419: Is part of its "Scenes de la vie parisienne". Balzac 's Sarrasine received little attention prior to Roland Barthes ' blow-by-blow analysis of the text in his book S/Z (1970). Barthes dissects the text in accordance with five "codes" ( hermeneutic , semic, symbolic, proairetic and cultural). Around midnight during a ball the narrator is sitting at a window, out of sight, admiring the garden. He overhears
4964-510: Is reflective of the author's own life, a possible attempt to stabilize it through fiction. "The vanishing man", wrote Sir Victor Pritchett, "who must be pursued from the rue Cassini to ... Versailles , Ville d'Avray , Italy, and Vienna can construct a settled dwelling only in his work". Balzac's extensive use of detail, especially the detail of objects, to illustrate the lives of his characters made him an early pioneer of literary realism . While he admired and drew inspiration from
5110-638: The départements of Tibre and Trasimène . Following the fall of the First French Empire in 1814, the Congress of Vienna formally restored the Italian territories of the Papal States, but not the Comtat Venaissin or Avignon, to Vatican control. Upon restitution of sovereignty to the Papal States, Pius VII decided to abolish feudalism, transforming all the noble titles (temporarily abolished during
5256-583: The Arian suzerainty of Odoacer in 473, and in 493, Theodoric , king of the Ostrogoths . The Ostrogothic kings would continue to rule much of Italy until 554. The Roman Church submitted of necessity to their sovereign authority, while asserting its spiritual primacy over the whole of Christendom. Beginning in 535, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I launched a series of campaigns to wrest Italy from
5402-626: The Byzantine emperors as their foremost temporal guardians for reasons such as increased imperial taxes, disagreement with respect to iconoclasm , and failure of the emperors, or their exarchs in Italy , to protect Rome and the rest of the peninsula from barbarian invasion and pillage. During the Renaissance , the papal territory expanded greatly, and the Pope became one of Italy's most important rulers as well as
5548-594: The Campagne and Maritime Province . Other titles like "Papal Vicar ", "Vicar General", and also several titles of nobility , such as "count" or even "prince" were used. However, throughout the history of the Papal States, many warlords and even bandit chieftains controlled cities and small duchies without having received any title from the Pope of the day. Historically the Papal States maintained military forces composed of volunteers , mercenaries (including Corsican Guard ) and Catholic military orders . Between 1860 and 1870
5694-457: The Catholic Church . In the preface to La Comédie humaine he wrote: "Christianity, above all, Catholicism, being ... a complete system for the repression of the depraved tendencies of man, is the most powerful element of social order". In the late 1820s Balzac dabbled in several business ventures, a penchant his sister blamed on the temptation of an unknown neighbour. His first enterprise
5840-577: The Duchy of Ferrara in 1598, and the Duchy of Urbino in 1631. At its greatest extent, in the 18th century, the Papal States included most of central Italy – Latium , Umbria , Marche , and the legations of Ravenna , Ferrara , and Bologna extending north into the Romagna . It also included the small enclaves of Benevento and Pontecorvo in southern Italy and the larger Comtat Venaissin around Avignon in southern France. The French Revolution affected
5986-559: The Duchy of Rome was completely cut off from the Byzantine Empire, of which it was theoretically still a part. The popes renewed earlier attempts to secure the support of the Franks . In 751, Pope Zachary had Pepin the Short crowned king in place of the powerless Merovingian figurehead King Childeric III . Zachary's successor, Pope Stephen II , later granted Pepin the title Patrician of
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6132-575: The King's Council and a Freemason (he had also changed his name to the more noble sounding "Balzac", his son later adding—without official recognition—the nobiliary particle : " de "). After the Reign of Terror (1793–94), François Balzac was despatched to Tours to coordinate supplies for the Army . Balzac's mother, born Anne-Charlotte-Laure Sallambier, came from a family of haberdashers in Paris. Her family's wealth
6278-600: The Kingdom of Italy . Only Lazio, including Rome, remained under the Pope's temporal control. In 1870, the Pope lost Lazio and Rome and had no physical territory at all, except the Leonine City within Rome, which the new Italian state refrained from occupying militarily, despite its annexation. In 1929, the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini , the head of the Italian government , ended
6424-650: The Manfredi in Faenza , and the Malatesta in Rimini all gave nominal acknowledgment to their papal overlords and were declared vicars of the Church. In Ferrara, the death of Azzo VIII d'Este without legitimate heirs (1308 ) encouraged Pope Clement V to bring Ferrara under his direct rule: however, it was governed by his appointed vicar, King Robert of Naples , for only nine years before
6570-662: The Ordelaffi of Forlì, the Montefeltro of Urbino and the da Polenta of Ravenna , and against the cities of Senigallia and Ancona . The last holdouts against full Papal control were Giovanni Manfredi of Faenza and Francesco II Ordelaffi of Forlì. Albornoz, at the point of being recalled, in a meeting with all the Papal vicars on 29 April 1357, promulgated the Constitutiones Sanctæ Matris Ecclesiæ , which replaced
6716-501: The Romantic style of Scottish novelist Walter Scott, Balzac sought to depict human existence through the use of particulars. In the preface to the first edition of Scènes de la Vie privée , he wrote: "the author firmly believes that details alone will henceforth determine the merit of works". Plentiful descriptions of décor, clothing, and possessions help breathe life into the characters. For example, Balzac's friend Henri de Latouche had
6862-575: The Second French Empire at the Battle of Sedan deprived Rome of its French protector. King Victor Emmanuel II at first aimed at a peaceful conquest of the city and proposed sending troops into Rome, under the guise of offering protection to the pope. When the pope refused, Italy declared war on 10 September 1870, and the Italian Army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna , crossed the frontier of
7008-420: The chateau is a museum dedicated to the author's life. In 1833, as he revealed in a letter to his sister, Balzac entered into an illicit affair with fellow writer Maria Du Fresnay, who was then aged 24. Her marriage to a considerably older man (Charles du Fresnay, Mayor of Sartrouville ) had been a failure from the outset. In this letter, Balzac also reveals that the young woman had just come to tell him she
7154-715: The " Prisoner in the Vatican " problem involving a unified Italy and the Holy See by negotiating the Lateran Treaty , signed by the two parties. This treaty recognized the sovereignty of the Holy See over a newly created territorial entity, a city-state within Rome limited to a token territory which became the Vatican City . The Papal States were also known as the Papal State (although
7300-541: The "rule by harlots". In practice, the popes were unable to exercise effective sovereignty over the extensive and mountainous territories of the Papal States, and the region preserved its old system of government, with many small countships and marquisates, each centred upon a fortified rocca . Over several campaigns in the mid-10th century, the German ruler Otto I conquered northern Italy; Pope John XII crowned him emperor (the first so crowned in more than forty years) and
7446-501: The 10 years that elapsed, Balzac had developed a political career, becoming heavily involved in high society , which influenced much of his writing. However, he continued to have financial difficulties despite his success, such as with La Cronique de Paris , a magazine he founded and abandoned, though he characteristically hid his worry in order to maintain appearances. The first volume of La Comédie humaine went on sale in July 1842. Sarrasine
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#17328694365407592-552: The Balzac Monument has stood since 1939 nearby the intersection of Boulevard Raspail and Boulevard Montparnasse at Place Pablo-Picasso. Rodin featured Balzac in several of his smaller sculptures as well. The Comédie humaine remained unfinished at the time of his death—Balzac had plans to include numerous other books, most of which he never started. He frequently flitted between works in progress . "Finished articles" were frequently revised between editions. This piecemeal style
7738-606: The Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the south were both restored. Popular opposition to the reconstituted and corrupt clerical government led to revolts in 1830 and in 1848 , which were suppressed by the intervention of the Austrian army. The nationalist and liberal revolutions of 1848 affected much of Europe. In February 1849 a Roman Republic was declared, and the hitherto liberally-inclined Pope Pius IX had to flee
7884-589: The Church (Italian: Stato della Chiesa [ˈstaːto della ˈkjɛːza] ; Latin: Status Ecclesiasticus ), were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the Pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the Unification of Italy , which took place between 1859 and 1870, and culminated in their demise. The state
8030-585: The Great , promulgated in 321, allowed the Christian Church to possess property and restored to it any property formerly confiscated; in the larger cities of this empire the property restored would have been quite considerable, the Roman patrimony not least among them. The Lateran Palace was gifted to the patrimony, most probably from Constantine himself. Other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in
8176-565: The Italian Kingdom, especially any proposal which required the Pope to become an Italian subject. Instead, the papacy confined itself (see Prisoner in the Vatican ) to the Apostolic Palace and adjacent buildings in the loop of the ancient fortifications known as the Leonine City , on Vatican Hill . From there it maintained a number of features pertaining to sovereignty, such as diplomatic relations since in canon law these were inherent in
8322-512: The Italian State and gave rise to the myth of the Breach of Porta Pia , in reality, a tame affair involving a cannonade at close range that demolished a 1600-year-old wall in poor repair. The defence of Rome was not however bloodless, with 12 dead and 47 wounded amongst the Papal forces and 32 dead plus 145 wounded of the Italian troops. Pope Pius IX ordered the commander of the Papal forces to limit
8468-454: The Italian territory recently regained by Byzantium. By the 7th century, Byzantine authority was largely limited to a diagonal band running roughly from Ravenna , where the emperor's vicar, or exarch , was located, to Rome and south to Naples , plus coastal exclaves. North of Naples, the band of Byzantine control contracted, and the borders of the "Rome-Ravenna corridor" became extremely narrow. With effective Byzantine power weighted at
8614-530: The Napoleonic occupation) into honorifics disconnected from territorial privileges. In 1853, Pius IX put an end to the centuries-old duality between the Papal nobility and the Roman baronial families by equating the civic patriciate of the city of Rome with the nobility created by the Pope. From 1814 until the death of Pope Gregory XVI in 1846, the popes followed a reactionary policy in the Papal States. For instance,
8760-571: The Ostrogoths which continued until 554 and devastated Italy's political and economic structures. Justinian established the Exarchate of Ravenna of which the Duchy of Rome , an area roughly coterminous with modern day Lazio , was an administrative division. In 568 the Lombards entered the peninsula from the north, establishing their own Italian kingdom, and over the next two centuries would conquer most of
8906-636: The Papal Army ( Esercito Pontificio in Italian) comprised two regiments of locally recruited Italian infantry, two Swiss regiments and a battalion of Irish volunteers , plus artillery and dragoons . In 1861 an international Catholic volunteer corps, called Papal Zouaves after a kind of French colonial native Algerian infantry, and imitating their uniform type, was created. Predominantly made up of Dutch, French and Belgian volunteers, this corps saw service against Garibaldi 's Redshirts , Italian patriots, and finally
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#17328694365409052-399: The Papal States, along with the rest of the Italian principalities, were effectively independent. From 1305 to 1378, the popes lived in the papal enclave of Avignon , surrounded by Provence and under the influence of the French kings. This period was known as the "Avignonese" or "Babylonian Captivity". During this period the city of Avignon itself and the surrounding Comtat Venaissin
9198-580: The Papal States, and in February 1798 General Louis-Alexandre Berthier declared a Roman Republic . Pope Pius VI fled from Rome to Siena and died in exile in Valence in 1799. In October 1799, Neapolitan troops under King Ferdinant invaded the newfound republic and restored Papal States, ending the republic. French quickly drove the Neapolitans out and reoccupied the Papal States, but didn't bother restoring
9344-401: The Papal territory expanded greatly, notably under Popes Alexander VI and Julius II . The Pope became one of Italy's most important secular rulers as well as the head of the Church, signing treaties with other sovereigns and fighting wars. In practice, though, most of the Papal States were still only nominally controlled by the Pope, and much of the territory was ruled by minor princes. Control
9490-557: The Pope as their sovereign ruler, or a part of the Frankish Empire over which the popes had administrative control, as suggested in the late-9th-century treatise Libellus de imperatoria potestate in urbe Roma , or whether the Holy Roman emperors were vicars of the Pope ruling Christendom , with the Pope directly responsible only for the environs of Rome and spiritual duties. The Holy Roman Empire in its Frankish form collapsed when it
9636-561: The Protestants, troops loyal to Emperor Charles V brutally sacked Rome and imprisoned Pope Clement VII , as a side effect of battles over the Papal States. Thus Clement VII was forced to give up Parma , Modena , and several smaller territories. A generation later the armies of King Philip II of Spain defeated those of Pope Paul IV in the Italian War of 1551–1559 fought to prevent growing Spanish dominance in Italy. This period saw
9782-646: The Romans . Pepin led a Frankish army into Italy in 754 and 756, defeated the Lombards, thus taking control of northern Italy, and made a gift of the lands formerly constituting the Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope. In 781, Charlemagne codified the regions over which the pope would be temporal sovereign: the Duchy of Rome, Ravenna, the Duchy of the Pentapolis , parts of the Duchy of Benevento , Tuscany , Corsica , Lombardy , and
9928-629: The administration of the church from imperial interference, the independence of the Papal States increased in importance. After the extinction of the Hohenstaufen dynasty , the German emperors rarely interfered in Italian affairs. In response to the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines , the Treaty of Venice made official the independence of the Papal States from the Holy Roman Empire in 1177. By 1300,
10074-399: The arts ( Girodet 's Endymion , Michelangelo ). The most important allusions are to the figures of beauty in Greek culture: Adonis , Endymion and Pygmalion . The intertextuality between Sarrasine and the myth of Pygmalion is a vital one, as it establishes the tragedy of misconception: Sarrasine creates a statue of the "female" La Zambinella, only to discover later that his subject wasn't
10220-427: The author to write short stories, which Le Poitevin would then sell to publishers. Balzac quickly turned to longer works, and by 1826 he had written nine novels, all published under pseudonyms and often produced in collaboration with other writers. For example, the scandalous novel Vicaire des Ardennes (1822)—banned for its depiction of nearly-incestuous relations and, more egregiously, of a married priest—attributed to
10366-506: The bourgeois title character) are dynamic and complex. It is followed by La Duchesse de Langeais , arguably the most sublime of his novels. Le Père Goriot ( Old Father Goriot , 1835) was his next success, in which Balzac transposes the story of King Lear to 1820s Paris in order to rage at a society bereft of all love save the love of money. The centrality of a father in this novel matches Balzac's own position—not only as mentor to his troubled young secretary, Jules Sandeau, but also
10512-410: The ceremony took a toll on both husband and wife: her feet were too swollen to walk, and he endured severe heart trouble. Although he married late in life, Balzac had already written two treatises on marriage: Physiologie du Mariage and Scènes de la Vie Conjugale . These works lacked firsthand knowledge; Saintsbury points out that "cœlebs cannot talk of [marriage] with much authority". In late April
10658-849: The chance to pursue their affections. A rival of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt , Balzac visited Countess Hańska in Saint Petersburg in 1843 and won her heart. After a series of financial setbacks, health problems and objections from Tsar Nicholas I , the couple finally received permission to wed. On 14 March 1850, with Balzac's health in serious decline, they travelled by carriage from her family seat at Verhivnya Park in Volhynia to St. Barbara's Catholic Church in Berdychiv (Russia's former banking city in present-day Ukraine), where they were married by Abbot Ożarowski. The ten-hour journey to and from
10804-645: The citizens recalled the Este from exile (1317). Interdiction and excommunications were in vain because in 1332, John XXII was obliged to name three Este brothers as his vicars in Ferrara. In Rome itself, the Orsini and the Colonna struggled for supremacy, dividing the city's rioni between them. The resulting aristocratic anarchy in the city provided the setting for the fantastic dreams of universal democracy of Cola di Rienzo , who
10950-413: 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. James called him "really
11096-559: The city of Rome maintained the last Jewish ghetto in Western Europe. Italian nationalism had been stoked during the Napoleonic period but dashed by the settlement of the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which sought to restore the pre-Napoleonic conditions: most of northern Italy was under the rule of junior branches of the Habsburgs and the Bourbons . The Papal States in central Italy and
11242-572: The city. The revolution was suppressed with French help in 1849 and Pius IX switched to a conservative line of government. Until his return to Rome in 1850, the Papal States were governed by a group of cardinals known as the Red Triumvirate . As a result of the Second Italian War of Independence , Piedmont-Sardinia annexed Lombardy , while Giuseppe Garibaldi overthrew the Bourbon monarchy in
11388-560: The collapse of his businesses, Balzac traveled to Brittany and stayed with the De Pommereul family outside Fougères . There he drew inspiration for Les Chouans (1829), a tale of love gone wrong amid the Chouan royalist forces. Although he was a supporter of the Crown , Balzac paints the revolutionaries in a sympathetic light—even though they are the center of the book's most brutal scenes. This
11534-460: The completion of this pair of books a significant accomplishment. Many of his novels were initially serialized, like those of Dickens . Their length was not predetermined. Illusions Perdues extends to a thousand pages after starting inauspiciously in a small-town print shop, whereas La Fille aux yeux d'or ( The Girl with the Golden Eyes , 1835) opens with a broad panorama of Paris but becomes
11680-427: The conversations of passers-by regarding the origins of the wealth of the mansion's owner, Monsieur de Lanty. There is also the presence of an unknown old man around the house, to whom the family was oddly devoted, and who frightened and intrigued the partygoers. When the man sits next to the narrator's guest, Beatrix de Rochefide, she touches him, and the narrator rushes her out of the room. The narrator says he knows who
11826-561: The decision was also significant; as Robb explained: "The disappearance of the father coincides with the adoption of the nobiliary particle. A symbolic inheritance." Just as his father had worked his way up from poverty into respectable society, Balzac considered toil and effort his real mark of nobility. When the July Revolution overthrew Charles X in 1830, Balzac declared himself a Legitimist , supporting King Charles' Royal House of Bourbon , but not without qualifications. He felt that
11972-515: The defence of the city in order to avoid bloodshed. The city was captured on 20 September 1870. Rome and what was left of the Papal States were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy as a result of a plebiscite the following October. This marked the definitive end of the Papal States. Despite the fact that the traditionally Catholic powers did not come to the Pope's aid, the papacy rejected the 1871 " Law of Guarantees " and any substantial accommodation with
12118-625: The eastern two-thirds of the Papal States, cementing its hold on the south. Bologna, Ferrara, Umbria, the Marches, Benevento and Pontecorvo were all formally annexed by November of the same year. While considerably reduced, the Papal States nevertheless still covered the Latium and large areas northwest of Rome. A unified Kingdom of Italy was declared and in March 1861 the first Italian parliament , which met in Turin ,
12264-420: The end, his health fails and he is consumed by his own confusion. Balzac meant the story to bear witness to the treacherous turns of life, its "serpentine motion". In 1833 Balzac released Eugénie Grandet , his first best-seller. The tale of a young lady who inherits her father's miserliness, it also became the most critically acclaimed book of his career. The writing is simple, yet the individuals (especially
12410-415: The entire novella is male versus female. The story contemplates what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, and the degree to which those stand in opposition. The story also touches on oppositions between the generations, as Sarrasine himself is opposite to his father, on oppositions between the art world and the political world, on oppositions between France and Italy, and on oppositions between
12556-468: The fact that he had fathered a child, Marie-Caroline Du Fresnay , with his otherwise-married lover, Maria Du Fresnay , who had been his source of inspiration for Eugénie Grandet . In 1836 Balzac took the helm of the Chronique de Paris , a weekly magazine of society and politics. He tried to enforce strict impartiality in its pages and a reasoned assessment of various ideologies. As Rogers notes, "Balzac
12702-509: The father of the naturalist novel . Zola indicated that whilst the Romantics saw the world through a colored lens, the naturalist sees through a clear glass—precisely the sort of effect Balzac attempted to achieve in his works. Papal States The Papal States ( / ˈ p eɪ p ə l / PAY -pəl ; Italian : Stato Pontificio ; Latin : Dicio Pontificia ), officially the State of
12848-471: The father of us all." An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac had trouble adapting to the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he finished school, Balzac was apprenticed in a law office , but he turned his back on the study of law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as
12994-439: The five-act verse tragedy Cromwell . Although it pales by comparison with his later works, some critics consider it a good-quality text. When he finished, Balzac went to Villeparisis and read the entire work to his family; they were unimpressed. He followed this effort by starting (but never finishing) three novels: Sténie , Falthurne , and Corsino . In 1821 Balzac met the enterprising Auguste Le Poitevin , who convinced
13140-587: The forces of the newly united Italy. The Papal Army was disbanded in 1870, leaving only the Palatine Guard , which was itself disbanded on 14 September 1970 by Pope Paul VI ; the Noble Guard , which also disbanded in 1970; and the Swiss Guard , which continues to serve both as a ceremonial unit at the Vatican and as the Pope's protective force. A small Papal Navy was also maintained, based at Civitavecchia on
13286-526: The frame story, an unnamed, male narrator tells the story in the first person to Mme de Rochefide, his guest at a ball. They come into close contact with a mysterious old man and see a beautiful painting. The narrator promises to tell Mme de Rochefide the story of the painting and the old man. The body of the novella and the framed story that the narrator relates to Mme de Rochefide are about Ernest Jean Sarrasine and his unusual relationship with Zambinella. Balzac also employs nonlinear narration in Sarrasine :
13432-445: The framed story takes place many years earlier than it is related, and a few times the narrator jumps to the present and then returns to telling the framed story. Sarrasine gives us a closer look at the role of castrati in both common opera and in religious tradition. Catholicism in Italy dictated that there could be no female singers, and the high voice parts were usually sung by either prepubescent boys or castrati. In order to become
13578-465: The grindstone, doing the same thing over and over again.... I am hungry and nothing is offered to appease my appetite". He announced his intention to become a writer. The loss of this opportunity caused serious discord in the Balzac household, although Honoré was not turned away entirely. Instead, in April 1819 he was allowed to live in the French capital—as English critic George Saintsbury describes it—"in
13724-420: The head of Western Christianity . At their zenith, the Papal States covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio (which includes Rome ), Marche , Umbria , Romagna and portions of Emilia . The popes' reign over these lands was an exemplification of their temporal powers as secular rulers, as opposed to their ecclesiastical primacy. By 1860, much of the Papal States' territory had been conquered by
13870-436: The headmaster to contact his family with news of a "sort of a coma". When he returned home, his grandmother said: " Voilà donc comme le collège nous renvoie les jolis que nous lui envoyons! " ("Look how the academy returns the pretty ones we send them!") Balzac himself attributed his condition to "intellectual congestion", but his extended confinement in the "alcove" was surely a factor. (Meanwhile, his father had been writing
14016-499: The hideous wrangling of heirs over corpses not yet cold, the human heart grappling with the Penal Code". In 1819 Passez offered to make Balzac his successor, but his apprentice had had enough of the Law. He despaired of being "a clerk, a machine, a riding-school hack, eating and drinking and sleeping at fixed hours. I should be like everyone else. And that's what they call living, that life at
14162-502: The hopes of reprocessing the slag from the Roman mines there. Near the end of his life Balzac was captivated by the idea of cutting 20,000 acres (81 km ) of oak wood in Ukraine and transporting it for sale in France. After writing several novels, in 1832 Balzac conceived the idea for an enormous series of books that would paint a panoramic portrait of "all aspects of society". The moment
14308-493: The idea came to him, Balzac raced to his sister's apartment and proclaimed: "I am about to become a genius!" Although he originally called it Etudes des Mœurs (literally 'Studies of manners', or 'The Ways of the World') it eventually became known as La Comédie humaine , and he included in it all the fiction that he had published in his lifetime under his own name. This was to be Balzac's life work and his greatest achievement. After
14454-465: The ideal and the real. Roland Barthes identifies castration as one of the novella's main concerns. Zambinella is a castrato. Because women were not allowed on stage in most of the Papal States , castrati regularly played the parts of women. The tradition of the castrati never extended to France, and when Sarrasine arrives in Italy and meets Zambinella, he does not know about it. Because Zambinella has
14600-547: The lives of those around him—into La Comédie humaine . His time at Vendôme is reflected in Louis Lambert , his 1832 novel about a young boy studying at an Oratorian grammar school at Vendôme. The narrator says : "He devoured books of every kind, feeding indiscriminately on religious works, history and literature, philosophy and physics. He had told me that he found indescribable delight in reading dictionaries for lack of other books." Balzac often fell ill, finally causing
14746-463: The man is and says he will tell her his story the next evening. The next evening, the narrator tells Mme de Rochefide about Ernest-Jean Sarrasine, a passionate, artistic boy, who after having trouble in school became a protégé of the sculptor Bouchardon . After one of Sarrasine's sculptures wins a competition, he heads to Rome where he sees a theatre performance featuring Zambinella. He falls in love with her, going to all of her performances and creating
14892-516: The man of talent; a nation in mourning for a man of genius". The funeral was attended by "almost every writer in Paris", including Frédérick Lemaître , Gustave Courbet , Dumas père and Dumas fils , as well as representatives of the Légion d'honneur and other dignitaries. Later, a statue (called the Monument to Balzac ) was created by the celebrated French sculptor Auguste Rodin . Cast in bronze,
15038-492: The middle. Balzac revised obsessively, covering printer's proofs with changes and additions to be reset. He sometimes repeated this process during the publication of a book, causing significant expense both for himself and the publisher. As a result, the finished product quite often was different from the original text. Although some of his books never reached completion, some—such as Les employés ( The Government Clerks , 1841)—are nonetheless noted by critics. Although Balzac
15184-413: The mosaic of local law and accumulated traditional 'liberties' with a uniform code of civil law. These Constitutiones Aegidianae (as they are informally known) mark a watershed in the legal history of the Papal States; they remained in effect until 1816. Pope Urban V ventured a return to Italy in 1367 that proved premature; he returned to Avignon in 1370 just before his death. During the Renaissance ,
15330-630: The name used varied with the preferences and habits of the European languages in which it was expressed. For its first 300 years, within the Roman Empire , the Church was persecuted and unable to hold or transfer property. Early congregations met in rooms set aside for the purpose in the homes of wealthy adherents, and a number of titular churches located on the outskirts of Rome were held as property by individuals, rather than by any corporate body. Nonetheless,
15476-619: The new July Monarchy (which claimed widespread popular support) was disorganized and unprincipled, in need of a mediator to keep the political peace between the King and insurgent forces. He called for "a young and vigorous man who belongs neither to the Directoire nor to the Empire, but who is 1830 incarnate...." He planned to be such a candidate , appealing especially to the higher classes in Chinon . But after
15622-550: The newly-weds set off for Paris. His health deteriorated on the way, and Ewelina wrote to her daughter about Balzac being "in a state of extreme weakness" and "sweating profusely". They arrived in the French capital on 20 May, his fifty-first birthday. Five months after his wedding, on Sunday, 18 August 1850, Balzac died of gangrene associated with congestive heart failure , in the presence of his mother—his wife, Eve de Balzac (formerly Countess Hańska) had gone to bed. He had been visited that day by Victor Hugo, who later served as
15768-466: The northeast end of this territory, the pope, as the largest landowner and most prestigious figure in Italy, began by default to take on much of the ruling authority that the Byzantines were unable to exercise in the areas surrounding the city of Rome. While the popes legally remained "Roman subjects" under Byzantine authority, in practice the Duchy of Rome became an independent state. Popular support for
15914-567: The novel, and without the habit he formed as a young man of writing under pressure, one can hardly imagine his producing La Comédie humaine ". Biographer Graham Robb suggests that as he discovered the Novel, Balzac discovered himself. During this time Balzac wrote two pamphlets in support of primogeniture and the Society of Jesus . The latter, regarding the Jesuits , illustrated his lifelong admiration for
16060-450: The official records of homosexuals once maintained by the Paris police were finally released, his name was found listed. In February 1832 Balzac received an intriguing letter from Odessa —with no return address and signed simply " L'Étrangère " ("The Foreigner")—expressing sadness at the cynicism and atheism in La Peau de Chagrin and its negative portrayal of women. His response was to place
16206-474: The old capital of Piedmont, declared Rome the capital of the new kingdom. However, the Italian government could not take possession of the city because a French garrison in Rome protected Pope Pius IX. The opportunity for the Kingdom of Italy to eliminate the Papal States came in 1870; the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July prompted Napoleon III to recall his garrison from Rome and the collapse of
16352-523: The papacy. In the 1920s, the papacy – then under Pius XI – renounced the bulk of the Papal States. The Lateran Treaty with Italy (then ruled by the National Fascist Party under Benito Mussolini ) was signed on 11 February 1929, creating the State of the Vatican City , forming the sovereign territory of the Holy See , which was also indemnified to some degree for loss of territory. As
16498-461: The papal territory on September 11 and advanced slowly toward Rome. The Italian Army reached the Aurelian Walls on September 19 and placed Rome under a state of siege. Although the Pope's tiny army was incapable of defending the city, Pius IX ordered it to put up more than token resistance to emphasize that Italy was acquiring Rome by force and not consent. This incidentally served the purposes of
16644-821: The plural is usually preferred, the singular is equally correct as the polity was more than a mere personal union ). The territories were also referred to variously as the State(s) of the Church , the Pontifical States , the Ecclesiastical States , the Patrimony of St Peter or the Roman States ( Italian : Stato Pontificio , also Stato della Chiesa , Stati della Chiesa , Stati Pontifici , and Stato Ecclesiastico ; Latin : Status Pontificius , also Dicio Pontificia "papal rule"). To some extent
16790-458: The plural name Papal States indicates, the various regional components retained their identity under papal rule. The Pope was represented in each province by a governor, who bore one of a number of titles. These included " papal legate ", as in the former principality of Benevento , or at Bologna , in Romagna , and the March of Ancona ; and " papal delegate ", as in the former Duchy of Pontecorvo and in
16936-483: The pope relied mainly on diplomacy to achieve as much. In practice, these papal efforts served to focus Lombard aggrandizement on the exarch and Ravenna. A climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries contained in the Lombardic King Liutprand 's Donation of Sutri (728) to Pope Gregory II . When the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell to the Lombards in 751,
17082-571: The popes in Italy enabled several to defy the will of the Byzantine emperor: Pope Gregory II excommunicated Emperor Leo III during the Iconoclastic Controversy . Nevertheless, the Pope and the exarch still worked together to limit the rising power of the Lombards in Italy. As Byzantine power weakened, though, the papacy assumed an ever-larger role in protecting Rome from the Lombards, but lacking direct control over sizable military assets,
17228-500: The property held nominally or actually by individual members of the Roman churches would usually be treated as a common patrimony handed over successively to the legitimate "heir" of that property, often its senior deacons , who were, in turn, assistants to the local bishop. This common patrimony became quite considerable, including as it did not only houses etc. in Rome or nearby but also landed estates, such as latifundia , whole or in part, across Italy and beyond. A law of Constantine
17374-590: The provinces of the Roman Empire. However, the Roman Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, not as a sovereign entity. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the papacy found itself increasingly placed in a precarious and vulnerable position. As central Roman authority disintegrated throughout the late 5th century, control over the Italian peninsula repeatedly changed hands, falling under
17520-512: The rebirth of ancient Rome was one that would not prevail." The Rienzo episode engendered renewed attempts from the absentee papacy to re-establish order in the dissolving Papal States, resulting in the military progress of Cardinal Albornoz , who was appointed papal legate, and his condottieri heading a small mercenary army. Having received the support of the archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Visconti , he defeated Giovanni di Vico , lord of Viterbo , moving against Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini and
17666-605: The relationship between Zambinella and Sarrasine, either. The author depicts real and imperfect emotions between the two characters, from love to vengeance. Though Realism in literature was usually used for portraying the activities of middle and lower-class people, it was sometimes used in situations like this, and indeed often focused on characters and situations that might otherwise be socially marginalized. Sarrasine makes many references and allusions to other sources, often to literature ( Lord Byron , Ann Radcliffe , Jean-Jacques Rousseau ), music ( Gioacchino Rossini ), religion, and
17812-536: The republic, as they continued their invasion to Naples, where they established another republic . In June 1800, French Consulate formally concluded the occupation and restored the Papal States, with the newly elected Pope Pius VII taking residence in Rome. Yet, in 1808 the French Empire under Napoleon invaded again, and this time on 17 May 1809 the remainder of the States of the Church were annexed to France, forming
17958-450: The second he would not have been at home there.... [H]e felt it was his business not to frequent society but to create it". However, he often spent long periods at the Château de Saché , near Tours , the home of his friend Jean de Margonne, his mother's lover and father to her youngest child. Many of Balzac's tormented characters were conceived in the chateau's small second-floor bedroom. Today
18104-462: The south. Afraid that Garibaldi would set up a republican government, the Piedmontese government petitioned French Emperor Napoleon III for permission to send troops through the Papal States to gain control of the south. This was granted on the condition that Rome be left undisturbed. In 1860, with much of the region already in rebellion against Papal rule, Piedmont-Sardinia invaded and conquered
18250-546: The story she has just been told. Sarrasine is marked by oppositions. The story opens with a description of the extremes of inside and out, day and night, beauty and ugliness, age and youth, male and female that prevail in French high society and at the de Lanty's ball. Whereas the ball is young and full of life, the mysterious old man who enters it stands out as the mark of opposition. "If I look at him again, I shall believe that death itself has come looking for me," says one beautiful young woman. The most significant opposite in
18396-633: The temporal territories of the Papacy as well as the Roman Church in general. In 1791 an election in Comtat Venaissin and Avignon was followed by occupation by Revolutionary France. Later, with the French invasion of Italy in 1796, the Legations (the Papal States' northern territories ) were seized and became part of the Cisalpine Republic . Two years later, French forces invaded the remaining area of
18542-704: The time in which Sarrasine was published, Balzac experienced great success with another work, La Peau de Chagrin (1831). As his career began to take off and his publications began to accumulate, Balzac developed increasingly lavish living habits and frequently made impulsive purchases (such as new furniture for his apartment and a hooded white cashmere gown designed to be worn by a monk, which he wore at night while writing), likely to distance himself from his family's prior debt, which had resulted from his business as an editor and printer's liquidation. In 1841, an ill Balzac reached an agreement with Furne & Co., Dubochet, Hetzel and Paulin to publish La Comédie humaine . In
18688-406: The time to nurse their own children, sending babies to wet nurses was still common among the middle and upper classes.) When the Balzac children returned home, they were kept at a frosty distance from their parents, which affected the author-to-be significantly. His 1835 novel Le Lys dans la vallée features a cruel governess named Miss Caroline, modeled after his own caregiver. At age ten Balzac
18834-540: The two of them ratified the Diploma Ottonianum , by which the emperor became the guarantor of the independence of the Papal States. Yet over the next two centuries, popes and emperors squabbled over a variety of issues, and the German rulers routinely treated the Papal States as part of their realms on those occasions when they projected power into Northern and Central Italy. As the Gregorian Reform worked to free
18980-415: The voice of a woman Sarrasine assumes La Zambinella is a woman. La Zambinella suggests that her womanhood might be in question, but Sarrasine is too enthralled with Zambinella as the perfect woman to pay any attention. When Sarrasine finally learns Zambinella is a castrato, he first denies the possibility, then tries to kill Zambinella, upon which he is himself killed. Critics point out that Sarrasine may fear
19126-433: Was "by turns a hermit and a vagrant", he managed to stay in tune with the social spheres which nourished his writing. He was friends with Théophile Gautier and Pierre-Marie-Charles de Bernard du Grail de la Villette , and he was acquainted with Victor Hugo . Nevertheless, he did not spend as much time in salons and clubs of Paris like many of his characters. "In the first place he was too busy", explains Saintsbury, "in
19272-415: Was 30 years old at the time). This was the first work signed "Honoré de Balzac". He followed his father in the surname Balzac but added the aristocratic-sounding nobiliary particle to help him fit into respected society, a choice based on skill rather than by right. "The aristocracy and authority of talent are more substantial than the aristocracy of names and material power", he wrote in 1830. The timing of
19418-451: Was a considerable factor in the match: she was eighteen at the time of the wedding, and François Balzac fifty. As the author and literary critic Sir Victor Pritchett explained, "She was certainly drily aware that she had been given to an old husband as a reward for his professional services to a friend of her family and that the capital was on her side. She was not in love with her husband". Honoré (named after Saint-Honoré of Amiens , who
19564-512: Was acclaimed Tribune of the People in 1347, and met a violent death in early October 1354 as he was assassinated by supporters of the Colonna family. To many, rather than an ancient Roman tribune reborn, he had become just another tyrant using the rhetoric of Roman renewal and rebirth to mask his grab for power. As Guido Ruggiero states, "even with the support of Petrarch , his return to first times and
19710-663: Was added to the Papal States; it remained a papal possession for some 400 years even after the popes returned to Rome, until it was seized and incorporated into the French state during the French Revolution . During the Avignon Papacy , local despots took advantage of the absence of the popes to establish themselves in nominally papal cities: the Pepoli in Bologna, the Ordelaffi in Forlì ,
19856-411: Was always contested; indeed it took until the 16th century for the Pope to have any genuine control over all his territories. Papal responsibilities were often in conflict. The Papal States were involved in at least three wars in the first two decades of the 16th century. Julius II, the "Warrior Pope", fought on their behalf. The Reformation began in 1517. In 1527, before the Holy Roman Empire fought
20002-498: Was created at the Göttingen International Handel Festival . Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( / ˈ b æ l z æ k / BAL -zak , more commonly US : / ˈ b ɔː l -/ BAWL - ; French: [ɔnɔʁe d(ə) balzak] ; born Honoré Balzac ; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine , which presents
20148-503: Was in publishing which turned out cheap one-volume editions of French classics including the works of Molière . This business failed miserably, with many of the books "sold as waste paper". Balzac had better luck publishing the Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantès , with whom he also had a love affair. Balzac borrowed money from his family and friends and tried to build a printing business, then
20294-552: Was interested in any social, political, or economic theory, whether from the right or the left." The magazine failed, but in July 1840 he founded another publication, the Revue Parisienne . It produced three issues. These dismal business efforts—and his misadventures in Sardinia—provided an appropriate milieu in which to set the two-volume Illusions perdues ( Lost Illusions , 1843). The novel concerns Lucien de Rubempré,
20440-419: Was legally established in the 8th century when Pepin the Short , king of the Franks , gifted Pope Stephen II , as a temporal sovereign, lands formerly held by Arian Lombards , adding them to lands and other real estate formerly acquired and held by the bishops of Rome, as landlords , from the time of Constantine onward. This donation came about as part of a process whereby the popes began to turn away from
20586-442: Was persuaded by his father to follow him into the Law; after a stint in the office of the avoué Jean-Baptiste Guillonnet-Merville for three years he trained and worked at the office of the notary Édouard-Victor Passez, a family friend. During this time Balzac began to understand the vagaries of human nature. In his 1840 novel Le Notaire , he wrote that a young person in the legal profession sees "the oily wheels of every fortune,
20732-448: Was pregnant with his child. In 1834, 8 months after the event, Maria Du Fresnay's daughter by Balzac, Marie-Caroline Du Fresnay, was born. This revelation from French journalist Roger Pierrot in 1955 confirmed what was already suspected by several historians: the dedicatee of the novel Eugénie Grandet , a certain "Maria", turns out to be Maria Du Fresnay herself. Balzac had also long been suspected of being attracted to males as well. When
20878-513: Was sent to the Oratorian grammar school in Vendôme , where he studied for seven years. His father, seeking to instill the same hardscrabble work ethic which had gained him the esteem of society, intentionally gave little spending money to the boy. This made him the object of ridicule among his much wealthier schoolmates. Balzac had difficulty adapting to the rote style of learning at the school. As
21024-508: Was subdivided among Charlemagne 's grandchildren. Imperial power in Italy waned and the papacy's prestige declined. This led to a rise in the power of the local Roman nobility, and the control of the Papal States during the early 10th century passed to a powerful and corrupt aristocratic family, the Theophylacti . This period was later dubbed the Saeculum obscurum ("dark age"), and sometimes as
21170-496: Was the first book Balzac released under his own name, and it gave him what one critic called "passage into the Promised Land". It established him as an author of note (even if its historical fiction-genre imitates that of Sir Walter Scott ) and provided him with a name outside his past pseudonyms. Soon afterwards, around the time of his father's death, Balzac wrote El Verdugo —about a 30-year-old man who kills his father (Balzac
21316-570: Was widely appreciated by people who opposed the inflated ideas of passion and drama that mark Romanticism. Those in the Realist movement wanted instead to portray the truth in every situation, avoiding exaggerating a scenario to emphasize only its good or bad qualities. Realism also strove to represent life as it was experienced in its more mundane details by imperfect men and women rather than idealized characters in idealized situations. Realism tends to describe middle or lower class milieux in order to paint
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