Résumé
Résumé de Les Quatre Cavaliers de l’Apocalypse
Go deeper: the whole of Les Quatre Cavaliers de l’Apocalypse
About 9 h 30 min to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who love family sagas, big historical settings and stories where private passions meet public events. It suits anyone curious about Paris in 1914, the pampas of Argentina, or the clash of two cultures inside one family.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Imagine a family split by two flags, and a young man who thinks war is only nerves. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, written in Paris and finished in 1916. It opens in the summer of 1914, as Julio Desnoyers returns from Buenos Aires to a Paris that talks of nothing but war. Then it steps back to his grandfather, a gaucho millionaire, and his father, a French woodcarver turned rancher. Two sisters marry, one a Frenchman and one a German, and their children grow up to face each other.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A Dancer Returns to a Nervous ParisFree
- 2The Centaur Who Built a Fortune
- 3Two Sisters, Two Countries
- 4A Millionaire Family in Paris
- 5The Cousin from Berlin Speaks
- 6The Russian and the Four Horsemen
- 7Don Marcelo Pays His Debt
- 8A Lover Lost and a Son Found
- 9What the Story Is Really About
Point clé 1 sur 9
A Dancer Returns to a Nervous Paris
Julio Desnoyers, twenty-seven and born in Argentina to a French father, arrives early in a small Paris garden. He waits for Margarita Laurier, the married woman he loves. Around him, people talk about war, but Julio shrugs it off as nerves.
On the German steamer he watched the band play the Marseillaise and heard the captain toast peace. Then he saw the wealthy German passengers change their tune once news of an Austrian ultimatum arrived.
Margarita keeps asking him to promise there will be no war. He promises, and the reader senses how little it is worth. Here is a young man who loves pleasure and dodges every serious thought, just before history stops letting him dodge.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Les Quatre Cavaliers de l’Apocalypse
About 9 h 30 min to read.Who’s who
- Marcelo Desnoyers
- A wealthy Frenchman settled in France, Marcelo is Julio’s father and Karl von Hartrott’s brother-in-law.
- Julio Desnoyers
- Marcelo’s pleasure-seeking son enjoys fashionable Parisian society and has a love affair with the married Marguerite Laurier.
- Marguerite Laurier
- A married woman involved with Julio, Marguerite faces competing claims of romantic love and personal duty.
- Karl von Hartrott
- Marcelo’s German brother-in-law belongs to the rival branch of a household divided by national pride and loyalties.
- Tchernoff
- A Russian living in Paris, Tchernoff interprets the approaching European catastrophe through the biblical image of four horsemen.
- The four horsemen
- These biblical figures embody conquest, war, famine, and death in Tchernoff’s account, rather than acting as supernatural characters.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 131,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 8 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Les Quatre Cavaliers de l’Apocalypse
What is The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse about?
It follows a wealthy Argentine family of French and German descent from the pampas to Paris in 1914. A young painter, his father and their relatives face the First World War, with love, occupation and trench life told through their eyes.
What do the four horsemen mean in the book?
They come from the Book of Revelation and stand for conquest or plague, war, famine and death.
Who is Tchernoff?
Tchernoff is a Russian exile living near Julio's studio. A translator who once reported from Berlin, he reads old books, drinks wine, and explains the war's causes. He is the character who speaks about the Apocalypse.
When was The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse written?
Blasco Ibáñez wrote it in Paris in 1915 and 1916, in the first years of the First World War. The battles, politics and daily scenes come from real events.
Is The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse worth reading?
Yes, if you enjoy sweeping stories with a clear voice. The book mixes humor, romance, argument and vivid scenes, and its chapters move from ranch to ballroom to battlefield, so you rarely stay in one mood for long.
Cite this edition
Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse.
Blasco Ibáñez, V. (2026). The four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse (Original work published 1916)
Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse.
@book{blascoibanez2026four,
author = {Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente},
title = {The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse},
note = {First published 1916}
}