
CONTES BRUNS. - Par - Honoré de Balzac, Philarète Chasles et Charles Rabou - MDCCCXXXII.
Step into a late‑winter Parisian drawing‑room where the air hums with the clash of ideas rather than the clink of glasses. Artists, poets, scholars, and curious gentlemen fill the space, each eager to trade sharp wit for thoughtful observation. The narrator sketches the scene as a living tableau, where laughter, brushstrokes, and spontaneous anecdotes swirl together like a bright firework of conversation.
The evening unfolds between eleven and midnight, a cascade of lively exchanges that feel both polished and impromptu. Voices rise and fall, revealing hidden passions, gentle teasing, and a generosity of thought that seems rare in the public sphere. As the night deepens, the narrator strives to preserve the fleeting brilliance of that gathering, offering listeners a glimpse of the intellectual camaraderie that defined a bygone Parisian salon.
Language
fr
Duration
~6 hours (358K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Tonya Allen, Renald Levesque and PG Distributed Proofreaders
Release date
2004-04-01
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects

1799–1850
A giant of French fiction, he turned the people, money troubles, ambitions, and hypocrisies of 19th-century France into stories that still feel vivid and human. His great unfinished cycle, La Comédie humaine, helped shape the modern realist novel.
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1798–1873
A lively French critic and man of letters, he helped open English and German literature to French readers in the 19th century. His career mixed scholarship, journalism, travel, and political exile, giving his writing an unusually wide horizon.
View all books1803–1870
A lively figure in 19th-century French literary life, this novelist and journalist moved easily between newspapers, serialized fiction, and the world around Honoré de Balzac. He is best remembered today both for his own popular novels and for helping complete several of Balzac’s unfinished works.
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