The Vicar of Tours

THE HUMAN COMEDY – Honoré de Balzac Sixth volume of works of Honoré de Balzac edited by widow André Houssiaux, publisher, Hebert and Co, successors, 7 rue Perronet – Paris (1877)

Scenes from provincial life

LE CURE DE TOURS – (bachelor study)

Dedicated work A DAVID, STATUARY. The duration of the work on which I inscribe your name, twice illustrious in this century, is highly problematic; whereas you engrave mine on bronze that outlives the nations, even if struck by the coiner’s vulgar hammer. Won’t numismatists be embarrassed by so many crowned heads in your workshop, when they find among the ashes of Paris these existences perpetuated by you beyond the life of peoples, and in which they want to see dynasties? You have the divine privilege, I have the gratitude. De Balzac.

Analysis of the work Balzac had the idea for this short story in 1832, and when he first published it, it was in one of the volumes of Scènes de la vie privée published the same year, in which Le Curé de Tours was presented under the title Les Célibataires. It was only a year later that Le Curé de Tours was included in Les Scènes de la vie de province: simply because Balzac needed copies to complete one of the volumes in this series. Balzac’s classifications are not always to be trusted blindly. He’s a professional. It’s essential for him to honor the contracts he’s signed – that is, to deliver the works he’s promised on time, and which are rarely ready on the date they were supposed to be delivered. Suddenly, he’s making substitutions to plug the holes. What interested him in Le Curé de Tours was a certain quality of private life that describes and even models certain characters. As the original title suggested, this is a study of bachelors. According to Balzac, celibacy, when linked to certain conditions of life – the ecclesiastical state, for example – or to the social status of the spinster, becomes a solitary life that predisposes to egoism, that is often organized around habits, that favors the development of manias or, on the contrary, amplifies the asperities of character, and that thus produces, depending on the case, harmless automatons or fearsome human insects. He thus has a panel of bachelors, specimens he collects and pins with such interest that he eventually uses this primitive title Les Célibataires as a subdivision of Scènes de la vie de province, in which he presents his main samples. These are the lives he looks at through a magnifying glass. The characters in Le Curé de Tours are individuals who live outside the world and the society of other men. They focus their interest on little things that are events in their world. These little nothings are deeply linked to the only horizon they can perceive. They are of vital importance to them in terms of the hopes they entertain, or the disappointment they feel if those hopes are dashed. Every private life is a territory of the imagination in which covetousness and illusions have germinated, and which make sense only to the interests of the prized. Preface collected according to tome VIII, based on the complete text of the Comédie Humaine published by France Loisirs 1985 under the auspices of the Société des Amis d’Honoré de Balzac.

The Story Abbé Birotteau, a weak and naive person – unable to foresee and dominate events, inherits the apartment of his colleague and friend Abbé Chapeloud, his good furniture and the cozy life Chapeloud had arranged for himself. His dream is to become a canon. Her landlady, the elderly Sophie Gamard, also has a dream: she’d like to entertain after dinner and organize whist parties. This is where the drama begins. Everything is petty, small: the object of these ambitions, the twists and turns, the little maneuvers, the beings themselves. The denouement is a shattered life. The happiness that dazzled the good Abbé Birroteau included chest of drawers, including a magnificent bookcase, alb, surplice, well-ironed flaps, linen “smelling of iris”, his slippers neatly arranged… all the little things that make you feel pampered. The signs of hatred he recognizes from Mlle Gamard, his landlady, are an empty candlestick, an unlit fire, forgetting his slippers, and waiting in the rain. His faults, too, are small; he got bored at the whist game and prefers those given at Madame la Comtesse de Listomère’s. He didn’t know how to guess the wounds of a fastidious self-esteem. But also, his whole life is one of tiny confidences and childish preoccupations: he confesses to boarding schools. Balzac’s aim is to demonstrate the pettiness of certain minds, which function solely on the basis of their desires and passions. For example, Abbé Birroteau’s ambitions are focused on his wish to one day benefit from Abbé Chapeloud’s apartment and amenities, and the probable canonry. Mademoiselle Gamard’s only aim is to avenge her whist games and the meagre interest shown in her by Abbé Birroteau, while Abbé Chapeloud skilfully lavished her with the flattery and chatter necessary for her ego. When even the slightest discord is identified with a living being, the drama can begin. The scheming between Mademoiselle Gamard and Abbé Troubert will be the cause of the destruction of the good abbé’s existence. Mlle Gamard will find an ally in the devious, honeyed, hypocritical Abbé Troubert. Indeed, Abbé Troubert, who harbors a secret jealousy of his rival, will find in Mlle Gamard’s hatred of her tenant the soil in which to grow the plot to deprive Birroteau of his enjoyments: his apartment, his library, his canonry… in short, everything that makes up Birroteau’s life, leading him to complete ruin. Birroteau will be dispossessed of everything. He was demoted to the rank of village priest and transferred to Saint-Symphorien (suburb of Tours), where he lived out his days in poverty. Saint-Firmin, April 1832 The action takes place in 1826, and at the time of the events in this story, Villèle is still in power and his government is not threatened, the liberal opposition is still dormant and the province is not yet fueled by political hatreds. Le Curé de Tours is a placid novel. The story takes place in an enclosed, silent space. These are the monks’ apartments, part of the cloister surrounding the cathedral in the center of Tours. It’s a drama of private life set in the provinces.

The characters Abbé Birotteau: Vicar of Saint-Gatien Cathedral. Short little man with an apoplectic constitution, a sixty-year-old gout sufferer awaiting a place as canon in the Metropolitan Chapter of Saint-Gatien. The old abbé is a frank and awkward person. His personality does him a disservice with Sophie Gamard. Birroteau is one of those people who are predestined to suffer everything, because good and upright, they can’t see anything and can’t avoid anything – everything happens to them. L’abbé Chapeloud: late canon of Saint-Gatien cathedral, confrere and friend of Birroteau. Chapeloud bequeathed his furniture, including a magnificent library, his paintings and his estate to Birroteau. Abbé Chapeloud is a clever, witty egotist who knows how to please Mlle Gamard. He understood that if he was to live well with his landlady’s bitter, cynical character, he and her should establish only those points of contact strictly ordered by politeness and those that exist between people living under the same roof. Abbé Poirel: the beneficiary of the canon’s position at the expense of Abbé Birroteau. Sophie Gamard: Bitter 38-year-old spinster with high self-esteem. She’s proud, egotistical, envious and vain. Happy to live on a feeling as fertile as revenge, the spinster enjoys harassing the vicar. Starting out as a simple flu shot, she developed a boundless hatred for Birroteau. She set about destroying him by seizing his property (bequeathed to her by Chapeloud) through a lease contract drawn up at the time of the man’s conversion. Although she ruined the good man, she died from the poison of resentment and the perfume of scandal she spread through Tours society. Marianne : Miss Gamard’s maid. She colludes with her mistress to make Birroteau a whipping boy. Abbé Troubert: Canon at Saint-Gatien cathedral. An envious, ambitious character. He harbors a secret hatred for Birroteau, who has not only inherited his friend Chapeloup’s estate, but is occupying the apartment he feels should be his by right. A deeply evil man, he will pretend to be interested in Birroteau’s misery, seeking to confound him by any means necessary. His personal hatred will combine with Sophie’s to lead the man to his doom. She will transfer Troubert to the Birroteau apartments. On her death, Troubert inherited Birroteau’s stolen furniture. The Countess de Listomère: An important figure in Tours’ high nobility and a friend of Abbé Birroteau. With her nephew, Monsieur de Listomère, a lieutenant in the navy, she set out to help the priest and alienate the clergy. The controversy fueled by the city’s various political parties on the one hand, and by the ecclesiastical establishment on the other, were detrimental to the interests of the de Listomère family, who eventually abandoned their friend. Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix: Birroteau’s friend, who entertains Tours’ most aristocratic society. Mlle Salomon only goes to Sophie’s weekly soiree out of pure friendship for her friend Birroteau, as these mindless soirees bore her. M. de Bourbonne: Friend of the Countess de Listomère. He will inform him of the risks his family runs in taking in Abbé Birroteau.

Sources: 1) analysis/history according to preface in tome VIII, based on the complete text of the Comédie Humaine published by France Loisirs 1985 under the auspices of the Société des Amis d’Honoré de Balzac – Notes complémentaires : Wikipedia.