Beatrix
by Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
Beatrix is an 1839 novel by French author Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) and included in the Scenes de la vie privee section of his novel sequence La Comedie humaine.
It first appeared in the periodical Le Siecle in August 1839, and appeared in volume form the same year. Balzac based the characters in this novel on real figures: Felicite des Touches, a celebrated musician and writer, is based on George Sand. Beatrix de Rochefide is based on Marie d'Agoult (who wrote under the pen name of Daniel Stern); Gennaro Conti is based on Franz Liszt; Claude Vignon is based on Gustave Planche.
Plot
A handsome young man named Calyste du Guenic is in love with the older woman, Felicite des Touches, a famous writer who uses the pen name of Camille Maupin. Felicite at first does not reciprocate Calyste's feelings, and Calyste falls in love with the blonde marchioness Beatrix de Rochefide. Beatrix is a beautiful but selfish woman; one critic remarked in 1897 in regards to Beatrix that "for cold-blooded cruelty and vulgarity she is unexampled, and her efforts to keep her youth and her hold over men are drawn in Balzac's heaviest and most pitiless manner."
Beatrix had already had an affair with Gennaro Conti, and Calyste has an additional rival in the form of Claude Vignon. Felicite des Touches (Camille Maupin) tries to help Calyste win Beatrix's heart, thus sacrificing her own. Calyste's efforts are ultimately a failure, and Beatrix is taken away by Gennaro Conti.
Calyste is devastated by his failure, but promises his dying father to get married. Felicite des Touches enters a convent, but before she does, she uses her fortune to arrange a marriage for Calyste with a woman named Sabine de Grandlieu. When Calyste encounters Beatrix again in Paris, his wife Sabine struggles to win back her husband's affections after Calyste falls for Beatrix again. Subsequently, through the intercession of Count Maxime de Trailles, Beatrix falls for another young man, and Calyste comes to his senses."