Résumé
Résumé de Monsieur Vénus
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who enjoy Paris in the 1880s, richly furnished scenes, bold heroines and stories of obsession will find much here. It also suits anyone curious about decadent fiction and its fascination with gender and desire.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Monsieur Venus is a short novel by Rachilde, the pen name of a French writer who published it in Paris in the early 1880s. It tells of Raoule de Vénérande, a rich and proud young woman, and Jacques Silvert, a poor flower maker with a beautiful face and a gentle nature. Their bond overturns the roles that society expects of a man and a woman.
The book is told in sixteen short chapters that move between a Paris garret, a studio on Boulevard Montparnasse, a grand mansion and a ballroom. It gives you a vivid picture of Parisian society at the end of the nineteenth century, with its salons, its fencing halls, its charity and its gossip. It also gives you a close study of desire, money and power, and of what happens when a woman decides to buy a lover and shape him to her will. The tale begins in a dark attic that smells of cooking apples, where a visitor in an otter coat climbs the stairs to order flowers.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A visit to a garret changes everythingFree
- 2Raoule plans a rescue and a purchase
- 3The bath, the tears and the first bargain
- 4A dream, a rival and a fake rendezvous
- 5Jaja learns to be a wife
- 6Violence, jealousy and a hole in the wall
- 7Society, scandal and a wedding
- 8What the story is about
- 9How the book is told
Point clé 1 sur 9
A visit to a garret changes everything
The story opens on a dark seventh floor in the Rue de la Lune. Mademoiselle Raoule de Vénérande is looking for a florist named Marie Silvert, and she cannot bear the smell of apples cooking on a cracked stove. She finds a young man at a table, wrapped in a garland of satin roses. He tells her he is Marie Silvert for the moment, since his sister is ill in the bed behind him.
The young man is Jacques, aged twenty-four, a redhead with red lips, a dimpled chin and the soft skin of a child. Raoule orders water plants for a costume ball and pays three hundred francs for work that costs far less. She sees his open smock and cannot stop herself from touching his chest.
Jacques is poor and proud, and the touch feels like an insult from a grand lady. He answers her roughly, and she leaves ashamed. Then the sister, Marie, sits up among the paper lilies and tells him that the lady has a liking for him. That one remark sets the whole story in motion.
The scene shows the pattern that will follow. Raoule has money, will and a hunger for sensation. Jacques has beauty, but he has no protection and no name. Marie watches from the bed and weighs what each of them is worth.
From the first pages, the author describes bodies with great care, and she does it through the eyes of a woman rather than a man. That choice already turns the usual order of things upside down.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about Monsieur Vénus
What is Monsieur Venus about?
It tells of Raoule de Vénérande, a wealthy Parisian, who falls for Jacques Silvert, a poor flower maker. She sets him up in a studio and tries to turn him into her ideal, which overturns the usual roles of man and woman.
Who wrote Monsieur Venus and when?
Rachilde, the pen name of the French writer Marguerite Eymery, published it in Paris in the early 1880s. It was one of her first novels and made her name in decadent literature.
What does the title Monsieur Venus mean?
The title joins a male form of address with the goddess of love. It points to Jacques, a man whose beauty and manners are described in feminine terms, and to the way the story reverses the roles of its lovers.
Is Monsieur Venus easy to follow?
Its sixteen short chapters each centre on one scene, with lively dialogue and clear settings such as a garret, a studio and a ballroom. The plot moves steadily and the characters are sharply drawn, so the story is easy to follow.
What is the main message of Monsieur Venus?
The novel suggests that roles of gender and class are made by society, and that treating a person as an object of desire or money harms both sides. It does this through scenes rather than argument.