English

Colonel Chabert

LibriVox recording of Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac. (Translated by Clara Bell; Ellen Marriage.) Read in English by Bruce Pirie The short novel “Colonel Chabert” (1832) is part of Balzac’s great life work, the sprawling novel series titled “The Human Comedy.” Chabert, an officer in Napoleon’s army, is pronounced dead on the battlefield. His wife then inherits his estate and remarries. It turns out, however, that Chabert has in fact survived the war. When he regains his health, he returns to Paris and tries to take legal action to restore his position. This sets up a conflict between the old military virtues of honor and principle versus the avarice and amorality of society in post-Napoleonic France. - Summary by Bruce Pirie For further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page for this recording. For more free audio books or to become a volunteer reader, visit librivox.org . M4B Audiobook (83MB)

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