54 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 54 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if guilt begins its punishment long before a court can pass sentence?
In The Marquise's Crime, E. T. A. Hoffmann brings together forbidden love, a troubled conscience, and the slow machinery of justice in old France. This Gothic tale explores the pressure between private feeling and public judgment, where love runs against society's rules and guilt carries a weight of its own.
Hoffmann knows the law from his work as a judge. Here, legal judgment meets the dark feeling of Romantic fiction. The law remains a human thing, shaped by people who can be wise, hasty, proud, or afraid. The suspense lies as much in questions of conscience as in questions of justice.
What you’ll discover
- Guilt before judgment Explore how a secret can become a punishment before any court speaks.
- Love against duty Feel the pull of forbidden love as private desire presses against society's demands.
- The human face of law Consider justice shaped by human wisdom and weakness, rather than certainty alone.
- A judge's Gothic imagination Discover the meeting of courtroom knowledge and dark feeling in Hoffmann's crime fiction.
- A slower kind of suspense Settle into an older pace that leaves room for fear and moral questions.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this tale if you like courtroom mysteries, Gothic atmosphere, secret feelings and mistaken judgment, or short classics that stay with you for days.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A salon blames the poor, then hears a shock
- A stern father teaches Franziska to fear love
- A cold marriage ends with a ghostly confession
- A husband comes home in anger and vanishes
- Rumor becomes a charge and a court closes in
- Testimony is only as sure as the people giving it
- Feeling, memory and the way the tale is told
Who’s who
- Franziska, the Marquise de la PivardièreRaised by a stern father to fear love, she marries without passion and is later accused of killing her husband.
- CharostThe Augustinian monk who once loved Franziska and now serves as her confessor, trying to offer peace through the Church.
- The Marquis de la PivardièreA debt-ridden, restless husband who lives a secret life in Auxerre and returns to Nerbonne to get money.
- The Duchess d'AiguillonA society hostess who loves moral lessons and tries to arrange Franziska's happiness.
- Count de Saint-HermineA lively officer who is shaken by the news of the marquis's death and names the marquise as the killer.
- BonnetThe passionate magistrate who is sure of the marquise's guilt and drives the investigation.
- Chevalier ChauvelinFranziska's severe father, who teaches her that love is a weakness and a danger.
- HybertThe marquis's valet, who overhears the quarrel and spreads the rumor that his master is dead.
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Il delitto della marchesa
A count at a Paris salon names a marquise as her husband's killer, and a court sets out to prove it.
ChallengingUnder 2 hours to readItaliano
Excellent
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In short
All Paris is in an uproar over a murder. A man named Barré has lured his fiancée Antoinette into the Bois de Boulogne and stabbed her, because he loves someone else.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A salon blames the poor, then hears a shock
The tale opens with a crime that has nothing to do with the marquise. The murder is the talk of the small circle at the home of the Duchess d'Aiguillon.
The count challenges her lesson by describing Barré's education and religious observance. It keeps crime far from their own drawing room.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- Italiano
- Reading time
- 35 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Marquise's Crime. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-marquises-crime.
Hoffmann, E. T. A. (2026). The marquise's crime. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-marquises-crime
Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Marquise's Crime. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-marquises-crime.
@book{hoffmann2026marquises,
author = {Hoffmann, E. T. A.},
title = {The Marquise's Crime},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-marquises-crime}
}
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What is The Marquise's Crime about?
It follows Franziska, a marquise accused of murdering her husband with the help of her confessor, Charost. The story goes back through her strict upbringing, her loveless marriage and a lost first love, then follows the rumors and the trial.
Who is Charost in The Marquise's Crime?
Charost is an Augustinian monk who once loved Franziska as a young man. After years in the monastery he becomes her confessor and the chaplain at Nerbonne Castle, and later stands accused beside her.
Is The Marquise's Crime based on a true story?
Hoffmann based it on a French criminal case of the late seventeenth century. He wrote it shortly before his death in 1822, shaping the real events into a story about love, rumor and justice.
The author
E. T. A. Hoffmann
1776–1822 · German Romantic writer
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) was a German writer, composer, and lawyer. He was born in Königsberg and died in Berlin. He wrote The Golden Pot (1814), The Devil’s Elixirs (1815–1816), Night Pieces (1816–1817), and The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr (1819–1821).
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