9 h 23 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 9 h 23 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if choosing a husband means choosing between your family’s expectations and your own heart?
In Gabrielle’s Marriage, Daniel Lesueur places a young woman’s choice within the world of the French social and romantic novel. Love stands beside money, family duty and rank. A marriage is never simply private: it carries the weight of family names, property and reputation, making the question of whom to marry reach far beyond affection.
Lesueur’s fiction centres on women’s choices and feelings. Here, the questions are quiet but searching: what does a woman owe her parents, and what does she owe herself? Read for the tension between personal feeling and social expectation, with the measured pace and attention to manners that belong to this tradition.
What you’ll discover
- Love beside duty Consider what happens when the claims of family press against the wishes of the heart.
- The weight of rank Explore a social world where wealth and standing shape who may hope for love.
- A woman’s inner life Look closely at feelings and choices through a novelist whose fiction gives women centre stage.
- The courage to choose Ask what choosing for yourself means when a woman’s freedom is limited.
- Quiet emotional stakes Discover the pull of a romance concerned with conscience, manners and the demands of others.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy French social novels, love across class lines, Paris drawing rooms, and heroines who think for themselves.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A count wakes up ruined in Paris
- A bargain is struck to save a name
- Gabrielle grows up between two worlds
- Two families meet at Montretout
- Captain Arnaud tells a story of courage
- Gabrielle hears why he wants her
- A rescue shows another side of René
- A ball ends in a challenge
- What the story says about birth and worth
- What love owes to honesty, and how it is told
Who’s who
- René de LaverdieA charming young count who has gambled and spent away his fortune, and who plans to marry for money to keep his way of life.
- Gabrielle DuriezA lively, thoughtful merchant's daughter of eighteen who wants to marry only for love and to be valued for herself.
- Marquise de Saint-VilliersRené's proud great-aunt and Gabrielle's godmother, who wants to see her two favourites married and her family name continued.
- Alphonse de LinièresRené's loyal friend, a poor viscount who values noble birth above everything and is shocked by the marriage plan.
- Monsieur DuriezGabrielle's kind, plain-spoken father, a rich commission merchant who adores his daughter but gives way to his wife.
- Madame DuriezGabrielle's mother, who longs to see her daughter become a countess and cannot behave naturally around titled guests.
- Captain Ernest ArnaudA cheerful, brave cavalry officer and friend of Émile who falls in love with Gabrielle at first sight.
- Émile DuriezGabrielle's stout, vain older brother, who distrusts the count and wants his sister to marry a man he admires.
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Le Mariage de Gabrielle
A ruined count sets out to marry a merchant's daughter, and she overhears exactly why.
Medium level5–10 hours to readfrançais
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In short
What does a man do when one night at the card table takes the last of his money? In Gabrielle's Marriage, a worried viscount rushes to the Paris bedroom of his friend, Count René de Laverdie, at eight in the morning.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A count wakes up ruined in Paris
The story opens in a Gothic bedroom in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Viscount Alphonse de Linières stands at the door, terrified that his friend has shot himself over a gambling loss of seventy thousand francs. Then he pushes the door open and finds René de Laverdie sleeping peacefully among tapestries, swords and carved wood.
René is twenty-eight, charming and the last of an old noble line. He has spent a princely fortune on antiques, thoroughbreds, women and cards. Alphonse is his opposite, poor, rigid and proud of his name.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 9 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
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- français
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Cite this edition
Lesueur, Daniel. Gabrielle's Marriage. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/gabrielles-marriage.
Lesueur, D. (2026). Gabrielle's marriage. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gabrielles-marriage
Lesueur, Daniel. Gabrielle's Marriage. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gabrielles-marriage.
@book{lesueur2026gabrielles,
author = {Lesueur, Daniel},
title = {Gabrielle's Marriage},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gabrielles-marriage}
}
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What is Gabrielle's Marriage about?
It tells of a ruined young Parisian count who plans to marry a rich merchant's daughter to clear his debts, and of the girl, Gabrielle, who wants to marry for love and refuses to be a bargain.
Who is Gabrielle Duriez?
Gabrielle is the eighteen-year-old daughter of a wealthy Paris commission merchant. She is also the goddaughter of the Marquise de Saint-Villiers, and she grows up between her parents' bourgeois home and her godmother's aristocratic world.
When is Gabrielle's Marriage set?
It takes place in France in the years after the war of 1870 and the fall of the Empire, when the Republic has replaced the old order and noble families are losing their place in society.
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