Le Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac A good story of a colonel who comes back to life...briefly

 Le Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac

A good story of a colonel who comes back to life...briefly

 

My gold and blue macaw is named Balzac.

This is because I loved Le Père Goriot and a few other works of the great author and I was trying to create a minset, whereby the parrot would turn out to have an extensive vocabulary and talk as much as Balzac wrote, and as exquisite. The other macaw that I have, Puccini is much more talkative though- he says hello, Hannah, papa and a few other things I am still trying to decipher.

Le Colonel Chabert is presumed dead and left on the battlefield.

He recovers, only to face other shocks, in what sounds familiar from a few Hollywood productions. The hero suffers a trauma, in war, accident or an attack and cannot remeber, until we start unfolding an extraordinary plot, wherein there are secret organizations, the CIA, KGB and others involved trying to get hold of nuclear devices, rockets, etc.

A recent film on Universal Channel had Harrison Ford coming back to life after suffering a random attack, which turns out to have been an orchestrated attempt on his life.

Le Colonel is shocked by the changes that had taken place before he waked up. He fought for the emperor and knew that the Revolution had won. Well, on his waking up, the aristocracy is back and the face of France had changed.

His wife had married again, thinking him dead, but becoming a bigam in the process.

This is where a lawyer comes into the frame, and he is as loathsome at times as the figurehead in American jokes on lawyers.

I recall two such jokes:

-          What do you call 100 (or was it more?) lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

-          A good start

Scientists have decided to stop using lab rats for testing and use lawyers instead. Why?

1.       People get attached to rats

2.       We seem to have fewer rats

3.       There are some things even rats won’t do…”

Having said that, I must add that we have a different attitude where I come from, and perhaps all over Europe. And there is something which Americans miss when they call lawyers ambulance chasers and other such demeaning names- the lawyer profession is the Most exposed to depression. Having a negative attitude, expecting and preparing for the worst scenarios is the duty of a lawyer and he or she becomes negative and predisposed to depression.

From what I know, they have the highest suicide rates of any profession.

The lawyer in the story is strangely enough representing both le Colonel and his estranged wife. There are various deals proposed, whereby the Colonel receives some money and the wife retains her status, fortune and children.

The alternative, as presented by the lawyer -would be a long series of trials with financial costs as well as other penalties and losses- the husband would flee, society would be very harsh and so on.

The money figure is 24,000 francs if I remember well, but Countess Ferraud, who used to be Madame Chabert refuses and is outraged at the sum.

Colonel Chabert enters the room, in spite of the request from the lawyer that the two parties stay separated until the deal is sealed, and is horrified in his turn by the position of his former wife. There is a heated exchange and Countess Ferraud refuses to recognize Chabert.

But we have been there before: the lawyer had already exposed her lying, when he first came and talked about the letters received from her “dead” husband:

-          “You have received letters which informed you he is not dead

-          I have received no letters

-          The first one had important valuables!

-          There were no valuables

-          Ah! You see Madame how easy it would be to expose your lying in court”

I have listened to this very good story in the form an adapted play for the National Radio.