L'envers d'un homme de bien : roman

Monsieur Brossard preside over a house where every room reflects his rigid sense of order. He dismisses the salon as a useless space, preferring to keep the public eye at a distance while the boudoir—small and intimate—serves his wife. The heart of his world is the grand library‑study, a perfectly proportioned chamber of oak, gold‑trimmed shelves and a sumptuous Louis XIV desk guarded by bronze figures, where he sits more for the performance of authority than for actual work.

In the opening morning, Brossard conducts a meticulous rehearsal of an upcoming dinner, lecturing his cook Bathilde on the proper carving of a modest pheasant. His speech is florid, his posture aristocratic, and the household watches the spectacle as a demonstration of his self‑imposed grandeur. The scene is tinged with a quiet tension, hinting that the careful façade of this “man of virtue” may soon encounter the unruly realities of the lives that orbit him.