Summaries

Synopsis

Eugenie Grandet was the first of the interlinked novels included in nineteenth-century French author Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection, La Comedie Humaine, telling stories ranging from the Restoration through the July Monarchy era of French society, which, according to Balzac, was consumed by the desire for wealth and power. Published in 1833, Eugenie Grandet tells the story of a young woman whose wealthy but tightfisted father tries to arrange the most financially advantageous marriage for her when she falls in love with her penniless cousin. The novel's revised second edition was dedicated to Balzac's lover Maria Du Fresnay-it was later revealed that the character Eugenie was based on their daughter, Marie-Caroline Du Fresnay.

The story takes place in the town of Saumur in Western France. Felix Grandet used to work as a cooper (someone who makes and repairs casks and barrels) but became suddenly wealthy after he inherited three estates in one year and undertook several successful business ventures. Felix has a reputation as a miser and the family-consisting of Felix, his wife, their daughter, Eugenie, and a servant, Nanon-lives in an old house that has become run-down because Felix refuses to spend the money needed to make repairs. Eugenie, who is as closely protected by her father as his treasured wealth, has two primary suitors whose families make frequent visits to the house. The first, Adolphe, is the son of Felix's banker, des Grassins. The second, President Cruchot des Bonfons, is Felix's lawyer's nephew. Aware that both suitors are primarily after the fortune Eugenie stands to inherit, Felix pits the two families against each other to his own advantage.

One day in 1819, Felix's nephew Charles arrives out of the blue from Paris carrying a letter from his father for Felix. Unbeknownst to Charles, the letter is his father's suicide note; he has chosen to kill himself because he has gone bankrupt. Unwilling to support the spoiled and lazy Charles in his home, Felix resolves to send him away to make his own fortune overseas. Charles and Eugenie fall in love and secretly become engaged, planning to marry upon Charles' return to France. Eugenie gives Charles her own gold coins to help him get started in his ventures abroad. Before he leaves, Charles entrusts Eugenie with a small cabinet containing pictures of his departed parents.

Felix tells Cruchot des Bonfons that, to spare the family the shame of a bankruptcy, he has decided to liquidate his brother's business. Cruchot offers to go to Paris to make the arrangements if Felix will agree to pay his expenses. However, des Grassins overhears of this plan and offers to make the trip on his own dime, which Felix accepts. Felix pays off only about half of his brother's debts, collects the bills of exchange, and sells them for a profit, effectively cheating the creditors. Initially, Felix in enraged to learn that Eugenie gave her money to Charles and sequesters her in her room. Eventually, however, he forgives her and consents to her marriage to Charles.

Charles returns to France in 1827, having made his fortune, after both of Eugenie's parents have died, leaving her a large inheritance. Charles does not contact Eugenie for a month after returning home; when he does, it is to break off their engagement. He tells her that he plans to marry the daughter of an aristocrat who has fallen on hard times financially in the hopes that connection with them will lend respectability to his own name. He encloses a check repaying Eugenie for her gold coins. Heartbroken, Eugenie returns Charles' cabinet and agrees to marry Cruchot des Bonfons on the conditions that they will not consummate their union and that des Bonfons goes to Paris and pays off her uncle's cheated creditors in full.

Charles's marriage proposal is rejected by the aristocrats because they don't want to be connected to his father's bankruptcy. He briefly encounters des Bonfons, and it is revealed that he was not aware of the extent of Eugenie's personal wealth. The state of their home when her father was alive led him to believe that they were not well-off. Eugenie is widowed at thirty-three and is fabulously wealthy, now in control not only of her own inheritance but her husband's as well. Now single and childless, Eugenie finds that she is content. Disillusioned with the middle and upper classes, she forges friendships with members of the working class.