The Illustrious Gaudissart

Honoré de Balzac's short story ´The illustrious Gaudissaart´ reveals the arrogance and prejudice on both sides of the city-country divide.

When a slick salesman from the big city visits the provincial town of Vouvray, he is confident that the locals will buy anything.

But Gaudissart's apparent belief in the doctrine of Saint-Simonianism, which teaches that industrialisation will empty the countryside and create a Utopian society of workers, riles a local man named Vernier.

He tricks him into selling items to his unstable neighbour Margaritis, who convinces the salesman to buy two non-existent wine barrels.

This vindictive practical joke then escalates into legal action and a dramatic duel ensues.

For more insights into life in 1830s Europe, try Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Ruth' and 'North and South'.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist and playwright, most famous for a sequence of novels, collectively called 'The Human Comedy'. His signature style was a warts-and-all representation of post-Napoleonic French life, rich in detail and featuring complex, unfiltered characters.

The style means Balzac is regarded as one of the pioneers of European literary realism. He is named as an influence on writers including Emile Zola, Henry James, Charles Dickens, and Gustave Flaubert.

The first novel he published under his own name was 'Les Chouans' in 1829. In 1834 he hit upon the idea of grouping his novels together to record all of society. The result, over a period of years, was 'The Human Comedy', which comprised three categories: 'Analytic Studies'; 'Philosophical Studies'; and 'Studies of Manners'.