Le Contrat de mariage
![]() An 1899 illustration by W. Boucher for Le Contrat de mariage | |
Author | Honoré de Balzac |
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Language | French |
Series | La Comédie humaine |
Genre | Novel |
Publication date | 1835 |
Publication place | France |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 150 pp |
Le Contrat de mariage (English: A Marriage Contract or A Marriage Settlement) is an 1835 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) and included in the Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set in Bordeaux, it describes the marriage of a Parisian gentleman, Paul de Manerville, to the beautiful but spoiled Spanish heiress, Natalie Evangelista.
Plot summary
Paul de Manerville is a gentleman born of wealth and nobility who decides, over the objections of his worldly friend de Marsay, to give up his elegant bachelor's life and get married at the age of twenty-seven. He falls in love with a beautiful girl named Natalie Evangelista, the daughter of a proud Spanish matriarch whose financial assets have been diminishing since the death of her husband. Too naïve and full of illusions to see the hidden motives of Natalie Evangelista's mother, who wants Paul's wealth in order to procure for her daughter the lavish lifestyle she believes to be her birthright, or to recognize that his bride's loyalty is entirely with her mother and not with him, Paul gets himself stuck in a frigid and childless marriage. So strong are his illusions, that even at the end of the novel he remains unaware of his wife's infidelities.
Literary significance & criticism
A Marriage Contract is one of Balzac's great studies of human illusions, in this case the illusions of married life. Paul is a subtly conveyed example of the husband, "the voluntary dupe" who prefers "to suffer rather than complain." The novel is notable for treating not only the courtship leading up to the marriage, but the negotiations which follow. A Marriage Contract also has one of Balzac's classic dissections of the techniques and wiles of professional negotiators.
External links
- The Marriage Contract at Project Gutenberg
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- La Maison du chat-qui-pelote
- Le Bal de Sceaux
- La Bourse
- La Vendetta
- Madame Firmiani
- Une double famille
- La Paix du ménage
- La Fausse Maîtresse
- Étude de femme
- Autre étude de femme
- La Grande Bretèche
- Albert Savarus
- Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées
- Une fille d'Eve
- La Femme de trente ans
- La Femme abandonnée
- La Grenadière
- Le Message
- Gobseck
- Le Contrat de mariage
- Un début dans la vie
- Modeste Mignon
- Béatrix
- Honorine
- Le Colonel Chabert
- La Messe de l'athée
- L'Interdiction
- Pierre Grassou
- Ursule Mirouët
- Eugénie Grandet
- Pierrette
- Le Curé de Tours
- La Rabouilleuse
- L'illustre Gaudissart
- La Muse du département
- La Vieille Fille
- Le Cabinet des Antiques
- Le Lys dans la vallée
- Illusions perdues
- Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes
- Un prince de la bohème
- Un homme d’affaires
- Gaudissart II
- Les Comédiens sans le savoir
- Ferragus
- La Duchesse de Langeais
- La Fille aux yeux d'or
- Le Père Goriot
- César Birotteau
- La Maison Nucingen
- Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan
- Les Employés
- Sarrasine
- Facino Cane
- La Cousine Bette
- Le Cousin Pons
- Les Petits Bourgeois
- Une ténébreuse affaire
- Un épisode sous la Terreur
- Madame de la Chanterie
- L'Initié
- Z. Marcas
- Le Député d'Arcis
- Le Médecin de campagne
- Le Curé de village
- Les Paysans
- La Peau de chagrin
- La Recherche de l'absolu
- Jésus-Christ en Flandre
- Melmoth réconcilié
- Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu
- L'Enfant maudit
- Gambara
- Massimilla Doni
- Les Marana
- Adieu
- Le Réquisitionnaire
- El Verdugo
- Un drame au bord de la mer
- L'Auberge rouge
- L'Elixir de longue vie
- Maître Cornélius
- Sur Catherine de Médicis
- Louis Lambert
- Les Proscrits
- Séraphîta
- La Physiologie du mariage
- Petites misères de la vie conjugale
- Fernand Lotte: Armorial de la Comédie Humaine
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