A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Name: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Author: Honoré de Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

Pages: about 440
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 8.1 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 4.5 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris is part two of a trilogy. Part one, Two Poets, begins the story of Lucien, his sister Eve, and his friend David in the provincial town of Angoulême. Part two is centered on Lucien’s Parisian life. Part three, Eve and David, reverts to the setting of Angoulême. In many references parts one and three are combined under the title Lost Illusions and A Distinguished Provincial at Paris is given its individual title. Following this trilogy Lucien’s story is continued in another book, Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien de Rubempré had left Angoulême behind, and were traveling together upon the road to Paris. Not one of the party who made that journey alluded to it afterwards; but it may be believed that an infatuated youth who had looked forward to the delights of an elopement, must have found the continual presence of Gentil, the man-servant, and Albertine, the maid, not a little irksome on the way. Lucien, traveling post for the first time in his life, was horrified to see pretty nearly the whole sum on which he meant to live in Paris for a twelvemonth dropped along the road. Like other men who combine great intellectual powers with the charming simplicity of childhood, he openly expressed his surprise at the new and wonderful things which he saw, and thereby made a mistake. A man should study a woman very carefully before he allows her to see his thoughts and emotions as they arise in him. A woman, whose nature is large as her heart is tender, can smile upon childishness, and make allowances; but let her have ever so small a spice of vanity herself, and she cannot forgive childishness, or littleness, or vanity in her lover. Many a woman is so extravagant a worshiper that she must always see the god in her idol; but there are yet others who love a man for his sake and not for their own, and adore his failings with his greater qualities.

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A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

From the opening

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