Colonel Chabert

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Read by Nicole Lee · 2 h 2 min · 7 parts

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Part 1
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Part 2
17:42
Part 3
12:04
Part 4
19:01
Part 5
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Part 6
14:29
Part 7
22:45

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About this book

Mocking clerks turn a poor visitor's arrival at a Paris law office into an occasion for jokes. Against this noisy opening, Honoré de Balzac sets a veteran's struggle to establish his identity through the legal system. Colonel Chabert seeks help from the attorney Derville, whose advice reveals the distance between a soldier's sense of his own worth and the documents required to support his claim.

The dispute brings military service, marriage, money and social standing into the same conversation. Chabert remembers his actions at Eylau, while Derville explains the expense of proving his identity and pursuing a case. Detailed descriptions of the office, from food on the mantelpiece to bundles of papers, give the legal world a tangible everyday presence. This French historical novel offers readers a study of how institutions treat a vulnerable person, with sharp humor in the clerks' behavior and sympathy for the veteran's distress.

About the author

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist whose vast Human Comedy, a connected series of novels and stories, is a monument of literary realism and one of the great achievements of world literature.