The Hated Son

Honoré de Balzac's The Hated Son has two parts, How the Mother Lived and How the Son Died, whose chapters include The Bonesetter, The Heir, Gabrielle and The Crushed Pearl. The chapter headed A Bedroom of the Sixteenth Century has the Comtesse Jeanne d'Herouville, on a winter's night about two in the morning, feeling such violent pains that, in spite of her inexperience, she is conscious of an approaching confinement.

The text compares the count's forehead, threatening even while he slept, to the war then going on between the Church and Calvinism. A figure is described curled up in his granite grotto, whose entrance was as narrow as that of a charcoal kiln, with the warm rays of the sun creeping through the fissures onto the dainty seaweeds that adorned his retreat. Gabrielle says to her friend "Come with me to the gate of the courtyard," and a poor youth, stupefied by the dread of coming evil, leaves in the tower the torch he had brought to light the steps of his beloved.