Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes

Splendor and misery of courtesans ( Splendeurs et misères of Courtisanes ) is a novel by Honoré de Balzac. He appeared in four parts 1838-1846 and includes the content of the novel partly at the same time resulting in Lost Illusions. Splendor and misery of courtesans heard within the Comédie Humaine ( The Human Comedy ) at the scenes of Parisian life.

Content

After the Abbe Carlos Herrera opaque, also known as Collin is in truth the runaway convict Vautrin, rescued the young poet Lucien de Rubempré from suicide has ( thus ending Lost Illusions ), returns this back in 1824 in the social life of Paris. Sponsored by Herrera / Vautrin / Collin, he is considered secret employees of various politicians and lovers of society ladies as the Duchess de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Sérizy. Lucien, however, is secretly allied with the courtesan Esther, who had let Collin educate temporarily in a monastery. She is being purified and now lives only for her love for Lucien. Collin continues to work on the rise of Lucien's in good society and equips him for generously with funds from; Lucien is to achieve representative social status and recognition, which is Collin denied as Outlaw ( in Father Goriot Collin approached Eugène de Rastignac already with a similar suggestion, but was rejected by this ). Lucien around the year 1829 to marry the view, the wealthy but ugly Clotilde de Grandlieu, but must present itself as a prerequisite a fortune. However, this exceeds even the possibilities Collins.

When by chance during a night ride, the banker Nucingen Esther looks and promptly falls in love with her, Collin sees his chance: He urges Esther to Advertise Nucingens to respond - ie to operate in spite of, but because of the love for Lucien again as a courtesan - and as long as exempting the banker until Lucien together with the endorsement necessary for his marriage assets. After the inauguration of a lavish palace, which has bought Nucingen for Esther, commits them internally broken suicide. She learns not, that she is the sole heir of the usurer Gobseck who has left her a million fortune that all problems have been solved Lucien. Meanwhile, the police spy Corentin and Peyrade, who had commissioned Nucingen to make Esther identify, to track down Collins. Through Esther's death, Nucingen looks bruised, the more than two domestic workers in securities which he had Esther passed away. Everything speaks against Collin and Lucien, both are arrested. In the police interrogation Collin can fool the officials and conceal his identity. However, the coroner Camusot succeeds in no time, Lucien to elicit the secret. Lucien now recognizes that he, even though his innocence turns on theft of securities is done as an accomplice of a wanted criminal society. Above all, he now has the last man who has stood always faithful to him, betrayed by Collin out of stupidity and selfishness, having previously been disappointed his friends and betrayed his relatives. Collin, who knows how unstable Lucien is, though still tries from the jail to mobilize Diane de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Sérizy for Lucien's rescue, but the ladies come too late: Lucien hanged himself in his cell. The news of Lucien's death can collapse Collin: He wants to end his decades-long struggle against justice and society, and put his skills to work for the other side. As a lever to serve him compromising letters of the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, of Madame de Sérizy and Clotilde de Grandlieu to Lucien, whom he kept in a safe hiding place, and that could trigger a state affair in a publication. Attorney General Granville recognizes that in this situation it brings advantages Collins proposal, and so Collin is actually ( like his real role model Vidocq ) successor of the corrupt police chief Bibi- Lupin. " After Jacques Collin had his functions exercised about fifteen years, he joined around 1845 to retire. "

How Illusions perdues counts splendor and misery of the courtesans of the core pieces of the Comédie Humaine. " In no other work of Balzac, the cross section of contemporary society is so broad, and in no is the sudden change from happiness to despair, to the point the headings shown in so many destinies ... The arc of the society groups represented spans from the Parisian aristocracy to the underworld ... "

Formation

Splendor and misery of courtesans is divided into four parts:

• Comment aiment les filles ( As little girls love )
• À combien l' amour aux revient vieillards (What old gentlemen can taste the love )
• Où les mauvais chemins mènent ( Where bad roads lead )
• La dernière incarnation de Vautrin ( The last figure Vautrin )

The first part is based on Balzac's novel La Torpille fragment, which was created before Illusions perdues and was first published in 1839 in book form. Revision it was printed with parts of the second part in 1843 in the arts section of the newspaper Le Parisien. Together with the entire second part of everything in 1844 under the title Splendeurs et Misères of Courtisanes and now inserted in the Comédie Humaine. The third part was published in 1846 in L' era and the first time in 1847 in book form. The fourth part in 1847 in the feature pages of La Presse and in the same year as a book; this part was only to 1855 recorded five years after Balzac's Comédie Humaine death in the.

The long and complicated formation face is reflected in the structure of the novel: The central themes and also the people are changing far more than in other novels of Balzac. So Lucien de Rubempré is initially the center of attention, but loses a vain, weak personality, increasing interest and is finally removed from the action while at first, but then increasingly come to the fore Esther Vautrin / Collin. This " is in the course of the novel as the dominant figure. This devilish yet ingenious man embodied in his wild energy evil of human society. "

Expenditure

• La comédie humaine, Paris 1977, vol 6
• Splendor and misery of courtesans I, in: The Human Comedy, Munich 1998 (TB ), vol VI, splendor and misery of courtesans II, supra Volume VII

Films

• Splendor and misery of courtesans, Germany in 1927, directed by M. Noa
• Vautrin, France in 1943, directed by Pierre Billon
• Splendeurs et Misères of Courtisanes, France 1975 TV series