La Grande Bretèche

La Comédie Humaine #16

by Honoré de Balzac

Anthony Trollope was a prolific Victorian writer. Trollope's best-loved works were known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, which center on the imaginary county of Basetshire. He wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts. When Trollope returned to England after eighteen months in the colonies, he was horrified by the rampant immorality he found.

Genres: Classics, Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, France, French Literature, Gothic

48 pages, Paperback

Published June 17, 2004

About the author

French writer Honoré de Balzac (born Honoré Balzac), a founder of the realist school of fiction, portrayed the panorama of society in a body of works, known collectively as La comédie humaine .

Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.

Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.

Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.

Reviews

[Matthew Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the story is about 10 pages long it feels wrong to add this to my challenge but with the pipe-dream of reading the entire La Comédie humaine, I was surprised to find this story (installment 16 in the series) in one of my grandmother's giant old short story volumes. Honestly, this story is quite something, chilling and short, and if it can be found easily online (I expect it could be), I recommend. A talented man, this coffee-drinker.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

de Balzac may I introduce you to Mr Edgar Allan Poe? Mr Poe, M de Balzac

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reading La Comedie Humaine in its entirety, so I decided on re-reading "La Grande Breteche". I loved it more the second time, I added a link to the radio version in my 2018 review, which is superb.

I did not read this edition but a Delphi collection of his works which had the brief synopsis below.

Story in short-A doctor walks a neglected garden and wonders why, this property is not kept up. He finds the haunted reason which strikes terror in my heart.

"This short story was originally published in 1831 in Balzac’s collection Contes Bruns. The tale begins at the same dinner party as Another Study of Woman, with Dr Bianchon agreeing to tell one of his ‘appalling’ stories to entertain the other guests. The evening has grown late and it seems an apt time, he says, for this particular story. In contrast to Another Study of Woman Bianchon is the only narrator, and he is uninterrupted throughout the tale. It begins in a ruined château outside Vendome, where Bianchon was staying while attending a rich patient. He portrays himself as a rather romantic person, who liked to enter the estate through gaps in the walls and remain there in contemplation. But it is his discovery of a secret garden which provides the mystery of this tale. "

❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌ ❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌Adding the quote below after finding
Dr. Biachon telling the story in Balzac's The Muse of the Department.

"the doctor chose that which is known as La Grande Breteche, and is so famous indeed, that it was put on the stage at the Gymnase-Dramatique under the title of Valentine. So it is not necessary to repeat it here, though it was then new to the inhabitants of the Chateau d’Anzy. And it was told with the same finish of gesture and tone which had won such praise for Bianchon when at Mademoiselle des Touches’ supper-party he had told it for the first time. The final picture of the Spanish grandee, starved to death where he stood in the cupboard walled up by Madame de Merret’s husband, and that husband’s last word as he replied to his wife’s entreaty, “You swore on that crucifix that there was no one in that closet!” produced their full effect. There was a silent minute, highly flattering to Bianchon. “Do you know, gentlemen,” said Madame de la Baudraye, “love must be a mighty thing that it can tempt a woman to put herself in such a position? "

My review below is from 2018 and stands the test of time and re-read.

After hearing tonight an Old Time Radio show, one that I have heard several times and which brings such a chill and ache in my heart that when I first heard it I was horrified, and on numerous hearing my mind wants to help the wretched but I am unable to and also unable to turn away. Yes, it is just a story but does one not feel like characters are real and it is quite possibly a real reality to someone in the past? As you can see I take what I read to heart and as I read I also imagine, one of the great things about reading. Well to get back on track, the program is called "The Weird Circle" and this program takes nineteenth century authors and bring about a radio theater production. I have read and heard two other short stories from Honore de Balzac, Vendetta and El Verdugo. (If interested see those reviews under my Balzac shelf) La Grande Breteche was billed as "The Niche of Doom", February 6, 1944. So after hearing it I wanted to compare as I did the others and this one is almost the same yet different. It is well worth the READ and LISTEN too! A husband asks his wife to swear on her crucifix something and she does which brings horror to her life! I refuse to say more which in reality I said probably too much! I read this story and others in Delphi complete works of Balzac. My notes and highlights are listed there if you so desire to read but I also try not to spoil and many notes are private for that reason.


The radio link below
https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com...

Another version- CBS Radio workshop

https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com...


After hearing this short story portrayed on The Weird Circle tonight, I have heard it several times and every time I hear it, I feel the horror of it all. I heard his Vendetta too, which was also done on this old time radio show and wrote a review last year. So I had to read this quick story, I must go with my whims! LOL.
The radio version is more dramatic. The difference between the radio vs. Book. The radio the woman is kept isolated and a prisoner in her home but meets a man who is a new neighbor and they fall in love. The night they are to go away the husband comes home early and she swears she has nobody in the closet. He gets a mason and the young man is walled up but he starts to talk and she begs her lover's freedom which go unheeded by husband. The mason is paid for silence and the man dies and wife goes insane. In the book a doctor tells the story he heard from a maid who had a fiance that was instructed to wall off the closet which had a Spanish parole that was living nearby who the husband's wife was seeing. When the wall is being built the husband pretends to leave while she axes up the wall but her husband returned knowing this might happen and stays with his wife until the man is dead.



It makes Marie Gaston's story more complete and quite sad. He was brought up by a mother and brother who lived dearly and were of the best. I wonder about her whole history and her disease. Marie and Louis Gaston's history is known and how their mother takes them Saint-Cyr for time together and for her health. She has an illness unknown except knowing she will die soon. Her history is a little fuzzy but we find out that she had a lover affair and children with her lover that died defending her honor. Her husband abandoned her. She worries about her sons and prepared the oldest, Louis in charge of Marie, the younger boy. She gives him papers and money before she does so they will not seize it. He tells his mom that most of the money will go to their maid, Annette who is old but will help raise Marie and Louis goes to sea. Their mother dies and they must leave.
From Letter of Two wives we know that Marie marries Louise, who thinks he is cheating on him but finds out too late that the children are not his but his brother who died, Louis. She has poisoned herself.

[Ionuț Anastasiu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Povestirea cu final mai mult decât surprinzător este narată la persoana întâi de medicul Horace Bianchon, unul dintre numeroasele personaje ce populează un număr mare de opusuri ale Comediei Umane. Acțiunea are loc în afara Vendôme, un orășel pitoresc aflat pe malurile Loarei.
Bianchon se simte inexplicabil atras de casa de la Grande-Bretèche, ce zace abandonată, având acoperișul prăbușit și ușile încuiate. Paragina s-a întins atât asupra casei, cât și domeniului unde se află casa. Cum se explică această groaznică nepăsare a celor care dețin casa ce i-a aparținut contesei De Merret? Sau poate că însăși contesa a precizat foarte clar în testamentul său că această casă trebuie lăsată în paragină timp de cinci decenii? Lectură plăcută!

[Sara Jesus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uma pequena história com um ambiente sobrenatural. A escrita de Balzac é sublime. Mas esta história não me prendeu tanto como o último livro que li dele.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Wikipedia:

The doctor Horace Bianchon discovers near Vendôme an abandoned house whose ruins and the strange beauty of the intrigue. Every night he tried to enter the property without success. Back at the inn, he asks a thousand questions without receiving an answer. Until a lawyer explained to him the legacy left by its owner and why this legacy. Madame de Merret, the owner, has banned that one enters the mansion, that the repairs, we touch a single stone for fifty years. And she has the notary's heir on condition that he leave the property in the state for fifty years. The reason for this test is that Madame de Merret was a Spanish lover who came to join her at night while swimming in river. But one day, the husband returning earlier than usual, finds that there is someone in the little nook next to the room of his wife. So he wants to enter, Madame de Merret he argued that the act of distrust will sign the end of their relationship. Monsieur de Merret then summons an army of masons and manages to be completely walled place, preventing the escape of fine Spanish. Man dies suffocated slowly and Madame de Merret, still haunted by the man walled, survive her husband, in the deepest despair, considering the house as a tomb untouchable.

[Althea Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very familiar-feeling... perhaps I've read this before, possibly a different translation? Similar to Edgar Allan Poe in feel - and not just because it's got someone being bricked up and left to die .
I'm not at all sure the multiple 'layers' of the story are necessary: At a social gathering, a man tells a story about a man who is drawn to the grounds of a decrepit and abandoned mansion, who is then told a story about the circumstances of that abandonment, and then seeks out further information on the former inhabitants of that home and the appalling events that occurred there.

However, the story itself is quite effectively horrific, driving home its point about the cruelty and evil that men can do...

[Gem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this story was my first foray with Honoré de Balzac. I loved the descriptive writing, the details that made this story come to life. Albeit as short story it had the elements I enjoy in a mystery.

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic haunted house story in the vein of Poe’s House of Usher regarding a dark family mystery.

[Steve R · Rating 4 out of 5]

A twenty page short story which could easily have been extended into a longer novella or even novel, so rich is its characterization and palpable sense of mystery. It weaves an entrancing story of adultery, jealousy, dishonesty, revenge and avarice involving a husband, his wife, a young Spanish detainee, a helpful maid, an efficient stone mason and a curious notary.

The initial description of the shuttered, dilapidated, bleak, forbidding prospect of the property of the title, as well as the initial description of the mistress of the abode, with her cadaver-like pale visage brought to mind Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher', while the eventual development of the plot made an even stronger connection with the same author's 'Cask of Amontillado'. No, Balzac was not ripping off the American master of the horror story: the French story was published in 1831; Poe's two stories in 1839 and 1846. Could the unique genius of Edgar Allan have owed more than a little to that of Honore?

Whatever the case be with these minor considerations, this is a truly brilliant story, its only weakness being its brevity.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rather spooky story for Balzac -- in fact, a kind of haunted house story. The narrator is Horace Bianchon, then a medical student around the time Père Goriot is set. He is staying in Vendome on the Loir River, when he is strangely drawn to a beautiful old abandoned estate called "La Grande Bretèche." Rather than spoil the surprise for you altogether, I will note only that it is a tale of love and a diabolical revenge. It is one of Balzac's more well-written shorter works (most are merely studies that he chose not to follow up with) and well worth the trouble to read. A good edition is the Penguin translation of Balzac's Short Stories.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeously lush beginning with the description of the decaying mansion. Screamingly horrifying ending. Brrrrr.

What's funny is that not an hour before reading this, I had read a story with a very similar plot: "Black Dog," in Neil Gaiman's new collection Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the first and finest Gothic stories I have read. Balzac's description of the house is supreme and left such an impression on my younger senses, I immediately set about trying to mimic him by writing my own miserable failure of a rip-off named The House Beyond My Window.

Leave it to the greats, young man.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a review, it's a summary from my reading journal and contains spoilers throughout.

The story begins at the same dinner party as 'Another Study of Woman' with Dr Bianchon agreeing to tell one of his 'appalling' stories to entertain the other guests. It's late, but two o'clock in the morning seems an apt time, he says, for this particular story. In contrast to 'Another Study of Woman' Bianchon is the only narrator, and he is uninterrupted throughout the tale - but the way he tells it, it seems as if he is listening to the story himself because he uses other narrators as mouthpieces.

The tale begins in a ruined chateau outside Vendome, where he was staying while attending a rich patient. He portrays himself as a rather romantic soul who liked to enter the estate through gaps in the walls and sit there in quiet contemplation. There is a wild abandoned garden with a fairytale quality to it, and a sundial with the motto 'ultimam cogita'. He tells his listeners how he 'wove delightful romances and abandoned myself to little debauches of melancholy which enchanted me' and he likes to frighten himself by listening to its spooky noises and imagining what horrors took place for it to have been so comprehensively destroyed.

One day however he is told by Monsiur Regnault, a notary (lawyer) that under the terms of the testratrix's Will, he is forbidden to trespass in the garden any more. Indeed Regnault himself is contstrained from visiting it even though it is his job to administer the estate. This all seems very odd and Dr Bianchon is intrigued. Despite the prohibition he is determined to find out more about the secrets of the house. He asks Regnault to explain the mystery and so the notary takes over the narration...

Regnault explains how he came to Vendome and set up practice there, marrying the niece of one of his wealthy relations. One day the Comtesse de Merret sent for him late at night because she was dying. The Comtesse had led an eccentric life: after years of living apart from her husband within the walls of La Grande Breteche, she burned everything inside it when her husband abandoned her to live a life of dissipation in Paris, dying there shortly thereafter. On her death bed she said very little and Regnault departed with her Will. It turned out that he was Executor, and although as the attending lawyer he could not be a direct beneficiary, his heirs stood to inherit La Grande Breteche on condition that it is left in its ruined state for 50 years. (The estate at Merret is left to Vendome to become a hospital and there are some other minor legacies).

Dr Bianchon is keen to know more, but soon regrets his decision to pry further because Regnault is a pompous old windbag and he doesn't reveal anything else of interest - except at the very end when he rouses Bianchon from his apathy by making a mysterious remark as he leaves.

No sooner has Regnault departed than Dr Bianchon's landlady appears, itching to tell him more about the story. And so the widow Madame Lepas takes over the narration.

During the Napoleonic period she had been required to provide lodging for a Spanish prisoner-of-war from the nobility. She was much taken with this Spaniard, a Count Feredia, who (like Dr Bianchon) was a devout churchgoer and also liked to while away the hours in the neglected gardens of the chateau. One night, however, he did not come home, and when they searched his rooms they found a large sum of money and some diamonds, with instructions to use it to pay for masses for the repose of his soul in the event of his death. Madame Lepas's husband then found the Count's clothes by the river bank opposite La Grande Breteche, and he burnt them, announcing that the prisoner had escaped. A search was made, but he was never found.

Madame Lepas's husband thought that the Count had drowned, but Mme Lepas thinks otherwise. She suspects some dalliance with the Comtesse because she insisted on being buried with an ebony and silver crucifix, one which was exactly the same as one that the Spanish Count had worn. Presumably because she thinks that consorting with a POW is collaboration, Mme Lepas considers herself entitled to keep the doubloons and the diamonds.

Now the source of Mme Lepas's information about the crucifix is Rosalie, the servant at the inn, and so Dr Bianchon seeks her out. She's as thick as two planks and not particularly attractive but he decides to 'make love to her' to winkle out the secrets of the house.

Rosalie was formerly servant to Mme de Merret at La Grande Breteche and was witness to the domestic arrangements. Mme de Merret had rooms on the ground floor while her husband lived on the floor above. His routine when he came home from gambling at his club was to confirm with Rosalie that her mistress had gone to bed. However, one night when his losses had been extreme, he took it into his head to go directly to his wife, perhaps for some consolation about the card game.

He caught a glimpse of someone in the closet in his wife's room, and when it was obvious that it wasn't Rosalie, his suspicions were aroused. He - believing that no one as saintly as she would ever swear a falsehood on a crucifix - demanded that she swear that there was no one in the closet. She did so, betraying not only her husband but also her faith. He also asked her where she got the crucifix from. She told him that she had bought it at the jeweller Duvivier's and that he had acquired it when the Spanish POWs were in Vendome.

He didn't believe her, and so - without leaving his wife's room - bribed Gorenflot (a mason in the village) and Rosalie with promises of money so that they could afford to marry - so that they would keep their silence. Gorenflot bricked up the closet, but when de Merret wasn't looking, the Comtesse bribed Rosalie to get Gorenflot to leave a little gap in the brickwork through which the Spaniard can be seen (though not by M. de Merret.

M. de Merret sleeps in his wife's bedroom and in the morning he tells her that he's leaving to get a passport to Maire but of course it's a ruse. He returns to find the brickwork partially undone. At the same time the jeweller arrives to conform that the Comtesse didn't buy the incriminating crucifix from him. She faints away, and for 20 days M.de Merret stays in her room, during whcih time some 'noise' was heard from the closet. When the Comtesse begged to intervene, her husband refused to listen, reminding her that she 'swore on the cross that there was no one there.'

At the conclusion of Bianchon's tale there is silence at the dinner party, but (presumably because they have guilty consciences) some of the ladies are seen to shiver.

I suspect that the word 'appalling' is used here in a different sense to its modern shock-and-dismay usage but rather as 'schlok-horror' to denote a mock-gothic story i.e. scary stuff as entertainment.

Balzac uses the role of doctor as a character because it allows him to move in and comment on circles rich, poor and middle-class (the bourgeoise) to observe changes in post-revolutionary, post-Napoleonic society.

I am not sure because there is no synopsis on the site but I think that in 1973 as part of a TV series called Great Mysteries, La Grande Breteche was made into a film starring Orson Welles, Peter Cushing and Susannah York. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0592515/

[Camille · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

'La Grande Bretèche', also known as 'The Mysterious Mansion', is number sixteen in Honoré de Balzac's La Comédie Humaine. And only the third one I've read out of the lot. And it didn't disappoint! What a story! Being so short it's hard to say what it's about without giving something crucial away so all I'll say is that it's a bit of a dark tale with some moderate suspense and I enjoyed it.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ah! Madame," replied the doctor, "I have some appalling stories in my collection."

Part of La Comédie Humaine. Stanley Hollingsworth had great success in 1957 with an NBC Opera Theatre production of "La Grande Bretèche".

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this Poe-like tale, set in an old gray house, a man exacts a bizarre revenge on his unfaithful wife and her lover.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This haunting and suspenseful tale of cold vengeance is very evocative of Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.”

“In the beginning, when there were sounds in the walled closet, and Josephine attempted to implore his pity for the dying stranger, he replied, ‘you have sworn on the cross that there is no one there.’”

[Jaime Fernández Garrido · Rating 4 out of 5]

La novena novela de "La comedia humana" tiene como protagonista a una casa, a la Gran Bretèche del título. Una mansión sobre la que vamos conociendo detalles, poco a poco, hasta un final terrible para el protagonista español y bajito, porque si en "Otro estudio de mujer", Balzac arremetía contra los ingleses aquí les pega duro a los españoles.

De hecho, el libro está narrado por el mismo doctor que cuenta historias en "Otro estudio de mujer", aunque aquí cambia totalmente el estilo al que nos tiene acostumbrado Balzac. Deja de lado el diálogo y narra, sin un punto y aparte, toda la historia desde principio a final, como si se tratara de una novela de Juan Benet.

Balzac se centra en una casa que está en ruinas y que atrae al narrador con un aire al más puro estilo Edgar Allan Poe. De hecho, el final, con el destino cruel para el amante español, podría perfectamente haberlo escrito el autor estadounidense.

Entre las perlas sobre los españoles: "[...] es un hermoso joven para ser español, que dicen que son todos feos".

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The lugubrious silence which reigns at the mansion is only broken by birds, cats, martins, rats and mice, free to course to and fro, to fight and to eat each other. Everywhere an invisible hand has graven the word mystery." --From the description on The Classic Tales Podcast

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few other reviews have said how like this story feels like it was written by E A Poe. I must agree, the tone, language and overall ideas make me think of Poe, which is a very good thing because I adore him. First experience of Balzac; will definitely be reading more.

[Fazackerly Toast · Rating 3 out of 5]

what a horrible implausible little story. surely no one would let someone else be immured alive, even if it meant social ruin? especially if they were just going to die of guilt 3 months later?

[Matthew Sterner · Rating 3 out of 5]

While not actually spooky or scary, it still has that great sense of suspense I remember from reading it in high school or college English class...

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Poe-esque plot, though not nearly as well written. The story divulges the dark secrets of a crumbling manor, leading to a husband's macabre revenge for his wife's infidelity.

[Ida Aasebøstøl · Rating 4 out of 5]

La Grande Bretéche, THe Mysterious Mansion, The Thing at Ghent - a prime example of how a text changes according to reader/listener, language and translator.

[Katia M. Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple theme and quite thought provoking. Not one of those terrifying pieces, but rather one that focusses more on emotion.

[Anais · Rating 5 out of 5]

A chilling tale, a must read.

[Tay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it starts off slow (as most classic stories do) it leaves you with a vague sense of horror and shock by the end of it.

[Tristan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published in 1832, this short story is part of the Scènes de la Vie Privée within La Comédie Humaine. This particular edition seems to have been clumsily digitised from a larger collection, which affects the quality of the read.

That aside, this is a nicely presented nested story, with bits told by an obsequious notary, a garrulous landlady, and a complicit chambermaid, to a travelling doctor whose curiosity about a gothic abandoned house reveals, layer after layer, a domestic dispute built on something much more grisly.

It’s what is left *unsaid* that is the most chilling and it is what the arguing spouses *don’t do* that is most revealing about their utterly callous personalities. But similarly, their victim’s sense of duty is such that that he dies without revealing his presence, which would impugn the lady’s honour.

A more modern author simply could not convey the understated horror that flows from these three characters whose unnatural pride and sense of social propriety override abominable mortal suffering. They’d just go straight for the hysteria of Grand Guignol.

I mean how could the victim die in silence whilst his murderers watched, waited, and *listened* for twenty days outside of his tomb, yet none of them could overcome the battle of prides that sealed (literally) one man’s doom?

Sadly, this is one of those stories with a twist that are effective only on first reading. I don’t intend to revisit, as there is just so much more Balzac to read, but this snippet has whetted my appetite.