''La Grenadière'' is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly ; ; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence ''La Comédie humaine'', which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is ...

. It was published in

1832 Events January–March * January 6 – Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison founds the New-England Anti-Slavery Society. * January 13 – The Christmas Rebellion of slaves is brought to an end in Jamaica, after the island's white pla ...

and is one of the ''Scènes de la vie privée'' of ''

La Comédie humaine (; English: ''The Human Comedy'') is Honoré de Balzac's 1829–48 multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48). ''La Com� ...

''.

Plot summary

La Grenadière is the name of a farm house overlooking the

Loire The Loire ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône. It rises in the so ...

Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire (, literally ''Saint-Cyr on Loire'') is a Communes of France, commune in the department of Indre-et-Loire in central France. It is located northwest of Tours on the other side of the Loire. It is the third largest city in the ...

near

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

. A woman named Madame Willemsens comes to rent the house, and stays there with her two young sons Louis Gaston and Marie Gaston, and her elderly servant Annette. Her past life is not explained. She reveals to her older son, 13-year-old Louis that she is terminally ill. The family then spend the last few months of her life trying to enjoy their life and their idyllic surroundings. Louis also dedicates himself to study, particularly mathematics, as he plans to join the navy in order to support himself and his brother. On her death bed, she asks Louis to write a letter to her husband Lord Brandon in England announcing her death. She also charges Louis to act as a father to Marie and gives him her entire life savings of 10,000 francs. Louis explains that he has already decided to give the funds to Annette who will care for Marie while he attends a technical college in Tours. Louis, meanwhile will join the French Navy in order to secure his fortune. Madame Willemsens is greatly consoled by Louis' maturity in the moments prior to her death.

Setting

La Grenadière was the name of a real house in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire where Balzac stayed for a few months in 1830 with his lover Laure de Berny. He attempted to buy the house in 1834, but the deal fell through because of lack of money.

Recurring characters

Marie Gaston as an adult is also a character in the novel ''

Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées ''Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées'' (''Letters of Two Brides'') is an epistolary novel by the French writer Honoré de Balzac. It was serialized in the French newspaper ''La Presse'' in 1841 and published by Furne in 1842 as the first work in t ...

''. In this novel we learn about the adult lives of both Louis and Marie.

Adaptation

An animated film adaptation of ''La Grenadière'' was released in 2006, directed by

Kōji Fukada is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Career Born in Tokyo, Fukada had a father who was a film aficionado and he watched many films on VHS when he was young. It was when he was 19 years old studying at Taisho University and discov ...

. It mixed painting with animation.

References

External links

"La Grenadiere", translation (by Ellen Marriage) at Project Gutenberg (full text)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grenadière 1832 short stories French short stories adapted into films Books of La Comédie humaine Short stories by Honoré de Balzac