Summary
Summary of Beatrix
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Love becomes a fixed idea
Calyste du Guénic has never seen the world. Beatrix, the Marquise de Rochefide, has broken with it. Their encounter brings a sheltered young man into contact with a woman whose experience lies far beyond his own. Around them, an old noble family faces a new age of money, fashion and ambition.
Balzac makes this more than a story of attraction. What matters is how an imagined version of another person can take hold of the mind and hide the person who is actually there.
Key idea 2
A family places its hopes on Calyste
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Key idea 3
Camille opens a wider world
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Key idea 4
Beatrix captures Calyste's whole attention
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Key idea 5
The real Beatrix escapes his vision
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Key idea 6
Paris turns feeling into a bargain
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Key idea 7
Devotion can hide truth and cost
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Key idea 8
Each person wants something different
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
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 this book is
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. Balzac sets an old noble family, proud and poor, against a new age of money, fashion and ambitious women.
At its centre stands a very young man, Calyste du Guénic, who has never seen the world, and a woman who has broken with it, the Marquise de Rochefide, known as Beatrix. Balzac drew her partly from real figures of the Paris literary and musical scene, and readers in his day looked for those faces behind the characters. What you get is a study of how a fixed idea of love can blind a person. You also get sharp portraits of provincial pride, Parisian vanity and the women who run both. Let us begin where Balzac does, in the crumbling Breton house of the Guénics.
In this summary
- 1A Breton house clings to its pastFree
- 2A famous woman writer lives nearby
- 3A visitor arrives and Calyste is lost
- 4Beatrix is proud, wounded and hard to read
- 5Paris sharpens the game of love
- 6What the novel says about love and how it is told
Key point 1 of 6
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.
Around them are neighbours who matter to the plot. There is Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoël, a sharp-eyed older woman with money and plans for the family. There are the Kergarouëts, who stand for a more worldly branch of provincial society. Balzac shows how marriage, property and gossip tie every household together.
The only son is Calyste, and the whole family hopes for his future. They think of him as the last bearer of an old name, and they expect him to marry well and keep the line alive. He is handsome, honest and untouched by the world. That innocence is the first thing the reader should notice, because everything that follows will test it.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
Why does Calyste struggle to see Beatrix clearly?
Right. “Calyste loves a Beatrix he has made in his own mind, and the real woman cannot match her.”Not quite. “Calyste loves a Beatrix he has made in his own mind, and the real woman cannot match her.”
How does Calyste respond to Camille's love?
Right. “Yet Calyste does not return it in the way she hopes.”Not quite. “Yet Calyste does not return it in the way she hopes.”
What does Paris reveal about the treatment of love?
Right. “The Parisians are witty and often kind in their way, but they treat feeling as a form of currency.”Not quite. “The Parisians are witty and often kind in their way, but they treat feeling as a form of currency.”
Who’s who
- Calyste du Guénic
- The sheltered young heir of a poor Breton noble family becomes captivated by Beatrix.
- Beatrix, Marquise de Rochefide
- A proud noblewoman separated from her husband, she travels with Gennaro Conti and attracts Calyste’s devotion.
- Félicité des Touches (Camille Maupin)
- A wealthy Parisian writer living near Guérande, she feels deep tenderness for the inexperienced Calyste.
- Gennaro Conti
- A fashionable, gifted musician, he is Beatrix’s companion and places considerable value on his own comfort.
- Madame Schontz
- A shrewd woman of the Parisian demi-monde, she pursues her interests among wealthy and aristocratic acquaintances.
- Arthur de Rochefide
- Beatrix’s estranged husband is a wealthy aristocrat whose position remains important within her social circle.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 118,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 7 h 55 min
- Listening time13 h 10 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Beatrix
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.
Is Beatrix part of The Human Comedy?
Yes. Balzac placed it among the scenes of private life in his huge series The Human Comedy. Some of its characters, such as Camille Maupin, appear in other works of the series.
Is Beatrix hard to read?
No. The story is easy to follow: a sheltered young man from Brittany falls for a woman from Paris. Balzac, as narrator, describes the houses, clothes and faces, then moves quickly into dialogue and action, so each scene is clear.
