The Country Doctor

Commander Genestas, a battle-hardened Napoleonic officer, rides into an isolated corner of the French Alps and finds a village that Doctor Benassis has, in ten short years, lifted out of poverty and superstition into prosperity. As the two men talk, walk, and tend to patients, each reveals the private grief that steered him toward a life of service. Balzac folds in a famous fireside account of Napoleon told by an old soldier, along with a wider argument about how charity, industry, and honest governance might heal rural France. Warmer and more idealistic than much of his work, it belongs to the Comédie humaine’s scenes of country life. Offered here as a free PDF and EPUB edition.