Colonel Chabert

Colonel Chabert is a short story by Honoré de Balzac . It appeared for the first time under the title La Transaction in 1832 in the magazine L'Artiste and in the same year in an anthology under the title Le Comte Chabert . In 1835 the story was published under the title La Comtesse à deux Maris as part of the novel cycle La comédie humaine as Volume V of the Scenes from Parisian Life . She later included Balzac in the Scenes from Personal Life section .

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Colonel Count Hyacinthe Chabert was seriously wounded in the Battle of Preussisch Eylau (1807) during Napoleon's campaign to East Prussia during the Fourth Coalition War . He was believed dead and buried, but was able to free himself from the mass grave and was nursed to health by farmers. Returning to Paris after a long odyssey, he was unable to prove his identity as he was officially declared dead (even by the emperor himself). His supposed widow had meanwhile married Count Ferraud (from whom she had also had two children) and, with the help of Chabert's fortune, had taken on a recognized position in Parisian society. She therefore has no interest in recognizing the colonel's return, while the impoverished Chabert has no means to initiate a process for the recognition of his rights. In his distress, Chabert turns to the lawyer Derville (the story begins). He can win Derville for himself, so that he is not only ready to take over Chabert's affair, but also provides him with means of subsistence. Due to a possibly lengthy process, Derville advises a comparison with Countess Ferraud.

Derville goes to the Countess to negotiate with her about it. In the meantime he has recognized its weak point, because Count Ferraud, for his part, has an interest in the annulment of the marriage, because he then has the prospect of a more advantageous role and appointment to the pair . The countess is therefore basically ready for a settlement in which her second marriage is recognized and Chabert receives an annuity from his assets. When she appears at Derville a week later to conclude the agreement, however, she explains that the required annuity of 24,000 francs is too high. This makes a process seem inevitable.

When Chabert leaves the office, the countess matches him and takes him to her country house, where she accommodates him for several days and plays for him with the desperate wife and mother who thinks above all about the welfare of their children. Chabert actually lets himself be spun and is ready, without Derville, to sign a very unfavorable contract for him, through which he would ultimately lose his name and all his assets for no consideration. At the last moment Chabert realizes the intrigue. Disgusted by the meanness of his wife, he voluntarily renounces his name and property. When Derville, who believes that Chabert has tacitly compared himself to Countess Ferraud, wants to claim his expenses from her, she lets him know that Chabert has admitted to being an impostor. Derville meets Chabert some time later in court, where he is convicted as a tramp. In a short conversation, however, Derville realizes that Chabert is not a fraud, but a man of honor whom his wife has brought down. Many years later (1840) Derville met Chabert one last time in a poor sanctuary ( bicêtre ), where the former colonel had been vegetating in his last years. Derville closes the story with the words: "... all the horrors that the novelists think they invented, still lag behind the reality ..."

Position in the Comédie humaine

The focus of the story is the typical comédie humaine confrontation of a louder, thoroughly honorable character with an egoistic opponent who does not shrink from meanness, to whom he ultimately has to succumb. Colonel Chabert is told from the perspective of the lawyer Dervilles, so that Balzac can incorporate his own experiences from his brief work at a lawyer, but also, especially towards the end, general considerations about the legal system and the moral constitution of society. “Among the early works, Colonel Chabert, along with Le curé de Tours (…), is the one in which Balzac criticizes the cruelty and egoism of a trivial society. The romantic, whom he cannot deny in other works, seems to be completely eliminated here. "

Otherwise Chabert does not appear in the Comédie humaine ; Countess Ferraud has a supporting role in the novel The Officials . Like the doctors Desplin and Biancon, Derville is one of the central figures of the cycle as a prime example of integrity and competence and appears in a total of 12 works, e.g. B. in Father Goriot , Gobseck or the shine and misery of the courtesans .

Expenses (selection)

• The human comedy . Ed. Ernst Sander, 12 volumes, Goldmann, Munich 1971–1972; as TB: Btb, Berlin 1998, Volume 3
• Übers. Ernst Weiß : Diogenes, Zurich 1981 ISBN 3257204515
• Translated by Felix Paul Greve : Insel, Frankfurt 1996 ISBN 3458336125

Film adaptations

• 1911: Le Colonel Chabert , by André Calmettes and Henri Pouctal
• 1920: Il colonnello Chabert , by Carmine Gallone
• 1932: Mensch ohne Namen (Un homme sans nom) , by Gustav Ucicky and Roger Le Bon , in German and French
• 1943: Le Colonel Chabert , by René Le Hénaff
• 1994: The Resurrection of Colonel Chabert (Le Colonel Chabert) , by Yves Angelo , with Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant

Opera

• Colonel Chabert , Hermann Wolfgang von Waltershausen , first performance January 18, 1912 in Frankfurt am Main.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Honoré de Balzac: La comédie humaine , twelve-volume complete edition, Volume III, Goldmann, p. 575 ff
2. ↑ Kindlers Literatur Lexikon in 25 volumes, dtv Munich 1974, Volume 6, pp. 2081f
3. ↑ frequent new editions also in other publishers

Web links

• Colonel Chabert in Project Gutenberg