page_title: Les Chouans
section_title: Social hierarchy
hierarchical_section_title: Les Chouans / Themes / Social hierarchy
caption_attribution_description: 1901 English edition of The Works of Honoré de Balzac, Volume XV: The Chouans, The Gondreville Mystery, and Other Stories
context_page_description: Les Chouans is an 1829 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac and included in the Scènes de la vie militaire section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set in the French region of Brittany, the novel combines military history with a love story between the aristocratic Marie de Verneuil and the Chouan royalist Alphonse de Montauran. It takes place during the 1799 post-war uprising in Fougères.
  Balzac conceived the idea for the novel during a trip to Brittany arranged by a family friend in 1828. Intrigued by the people and atmosphere of the region, he began collecting notes and descriptions for later use. After publishing an Avertissement for the novel, he released three editions – each of them revised significantly. The first novel Balzac published without a pseudonym, he used many titles as he wrote and published, including Le Gars, Les Chouans ou la Bretagne il y a trente ans, and Le Dernier Chouan ou la Bretagne en 1800.
  Following closely in the footsteps of Sir Walter Scott, the novel uses its truthful historical backdrop to tell a fictional story of people who sculpted the past.
context_section_description: The allure of class respectability is another constant in Les Chouans, as it is for Balzac's entire oeuvre. Marie's birth as an illegitimate child contributes to her position at the start of the novel. The ups and downs of her young adult life land her in Corentin's hands, yearning for the 300,000-franc reward promised to her on the capture of Montauran. Marie's focus changes from money to marriage, a sign of hope amid the tragedy of circumstances. When she first considers Montauran, she recognizes that a return of the king would bring privileges; still, her oscillating actions follow the path of her passions, not rational self-interest.
  Montauran, on the other hand, is devoted wholly to the royalist cause, and chafes against the ignorant nobles supporting it. He fights for the Chouan cause because he believes in it, not for the personal gain sought by the aristocrats in whose midst he works. He gives up the cause for Marie, but only as a result of an unclear series of events, the product of everyone's intertwined double-crossing.
caption: 1901 English edition of The Works of Honoré de Balzac, Volume XV: The Chouans, The Gondreville Mystery, and Other Stories
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