Places: Eugénie Grandet

Grandet Eugénie Grandethouse (gran-day). Home of Monsieur Grandet, his wife, his daughter, Eugénie, and his servant, Nanon. Located in Saumur, it is a typical provincial house of western France. Through highly detailed descriptions of both the exterior and the interior of the house, Honoré de Balzac reveals protagonists’ social status and character. Bleak and cold in appearance, the house defines the monotonous and melancholy existence of its three female residents, an existence that is completely controlled by the tyrannical and miserly Grandet. Life is in fact so stifling that only when Grandet is away on business can the women breathe and be themselves. It is not surprising, therefore, that the parents never leave and will die there and that Eugénie views this dismal house as her entire universe. Only her cousin Charles Grandet can free her, and when he chooses to marry another woman–despite making a promise to Eugénie of eternal love given in the Grandets’ ill-kept and overgrown garden–Eugénie ultimately lives out her years in her father’s home, unconsciously re-creating every detail of his own extreme frugality.

Large and in disrepair, the house has three rooms that have special significance. The poorly lit and heated gray parlor serves as the setting for family gatherings and penny-ante card games, always with the same six guests. Monsieur Grandet’s doubly impenetrable study, whose access is forbidden to all, is compared to an alchemist’s laboratory, since he “creates” real gold there out of shrewd economic sense and perfect market timing. Finally, Eugénie’s bedroom is the scene of her virtual imprisonment, following her single act of rebellious independence directed at her father.

*Saumur (soh-MUR). Small town in the Anjou province on the Loire River in western France, best known for its wines and fruit crops. In this closed–and close–setting, everybody knows everything about everybody else, which is then thoroughly discussed and analyzed as gossip runs from house to house and shop to shop.

*India. South Asian subcontinent, which–like America, the West Indies, and Africa–represents a land of opportunity for adventurers, such as Charles Grandet, who are willing to work hard and who are not afraid to engage in unsavory practices in order to build their fortunes.

Marie-Caroline. Passenger brig sailing between America and Europe. Returning on the ship to France are newly rich Charles and the impoverished but noble and well-connected d’Aubrions, whose daughter he courts and eventually marries.

Hôtel d’Aubrion (oh-brih-YOHN). Mansion in the rue Hillerin-Bertin (now rue de Bellechasse) in the aristocratic Faubourg Saint-Germain district of Paris. Because young Grandet pays off the mortgages and liens on this property, he is able to marry Mademoiselle d’Aubrion and move into her parents’ home.

*Angers (an-JEH). City in western France and capital of Anjou. Monsieur de Bonfons, Eugénie’s husband, and Eugénie often commute between Angers and Saumur after he receives several promotions and appointments in the judicial and legislative branches.

*Paris. The capital of France, though hardly mentioned in the novel, acts not only as the moral inferior to Saumur by showing worse forms of corruption evident in the behavior of Guillaume Grandet and his son, but also as its defeated rival in the financial operations of Old Grandet and his daughter.