13 h 9 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the love you defend most fiercely is the very thing that blinds you?
In the damp, granite town of Guérande, Calyste du Guénic grows up within an old Breton family, proud but poor. He knows little of the world and is ready to give his whole heart. Then Beatrix, Marquise de Rochefide, arrives from Paris: a noblewoman who has left her husband and her place in society.
Nearby lives Félicité des Touches, the clever, generous writer known as Camille Maupin, who feels deep tenderness for Calyste. Against her wisdom stands his consuming ideal of love. In Beatrix, Honoré de Balzac brings provincial pride into contact with Parisian vanity, asking what happens when desire refuses to see the person before it.
What you’ll discover
- A house holding firm Enter the crumbling Guénic home, where old rank and stubborn habits outlast wealth.
- A heart without experience Follow Calyste as his readiness to love leaves him exposed to obsession.
- A woman beyond convention Meet Camille Maupin, whose independence, wisdom and tenderness offer a counterpoint to Calyste's passion.
- The need for admiration Look closely at Beatrix, a proud, wounded woman who wants admiration as much as freedom.
- Love among worldly interests Step into Parisian salons and back rooms, where money, rank and desire shape relationships.
Who will love it
For readers who love Balzac's social panoramas, stories of love as a kind of illness, and the Paris of the 1830s, with its vanity, ambition and schemers.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Breton house clings to its past
- A famous woman writer lives nearby
- A visitor arrives and Calyste is lost
- Beatrix is proud, wounded and hard to read
- Paris sharpens the game of love
- What the novel says about love and how it is told
Who’s who
- Calyste du GuénicThe young heir of an old, poor Breton family, honest and untouched by the world, who is ready to give his whole heart.
- Beatrix, Marquise de RochefideA proud, clever noblewoman who has left her husband and her place in society, and who wants admiration as much as freedom.
- Félicité des Touches (Camille Maupin)A Paris woman of letters, wise and generous, who has retired near Guérande and feels a deep tenderness for Calyste.
- Gennaro ContiA fashionable musician and the companion of Beatrix, gifted but self-centred and attached to his comfort.
- Madame SchontzA shrewd Parisian woman of the demi-monde who understands the trade of money and love and pursues her own plans.
- Arthur de RochefideThe husband Beatrix has left, a man of rank whose position and wealth still matter to the people around her.
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- Audiobook
- 13 h 9 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Beatriz
by Honoré de Balzac · 1839
Calyste du Guénic gives his whole heart to a Parisian marquise, and love becomes a fixed idea.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Beatrix is a novel by Honoré de Balzac, first published in the late 1830s and later placed in his huge series The Human Comedy, among the scenes of private life. It begins in the damp, granite town of Guérande in Brittany and ends in the salons and back rooms of Paris.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Breton house clings to its past
The story opens in Guérande, a walled town in Brittany where the old nobility still live as though the Revolution had barely touched them. Balzac spends real time on the place, its streets, its silence and its habits. He wants you to see that these people are shaped by their town as much as by their blood.
The chief house is that of the Guénic family. The old baron is a loyal royalist of the old stamp, brave, simple and almost without money. His wife, who comes from an Irish family, loves their only son with a devotion that fills her whole life. A maiden aunt, Zéphirine, also lives in the house, and the household is a small kingdom of habit and quiet sacrifice.
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What is Beatrix by Balzac about?
It tells of Calyste du Guénic, a sheltered young Breton noble, who falls deeply in love with Beatrix, a Parisian marquise who has left her husband. The book follows his passion from Brittany to Paris.
Who is Camille Maupin in Beatrix?
Camille Maupin is the pen name of Félicité des Touches, a rich and learned woman writer. Balzac drew her partly from George Sand. She befriends Calyste and Beatrix and loves the young man herself.
Is Beatrix based on real people?
Partly. Readers in Balzac's day saw in Beatrix and her musician companion echoes of real figures from the Paris artistic world. Even so, the book is a novel, and its plot and characters are Balzac's invention.
The author
Honoré de Balzac
1799–1850 · French novelist
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright born in Tours in 1799. He lived and worked in Paris, where he died in 1850. He wrote The Magic Skin in 1831, Eugénie Grandet in 1833, and Father Goriot in 1835. Many of his works belong to La Comédie humaine.
More by Honoré de Balzac
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