Other editions of book The Vicar of Tours

"The Vicar of Tours" by Honoré de Balzac (translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Early in the autumn of 1826 the Abbe Birotteau, the principal personage of this history, was overtaken bya shower of rain as he returned home from a friend’s house, where he had been passing the evening. Hetherefore crossed, as quickly as his corpulence would allow, the deserted little square called “The Cloister,”which lies directly behind the chancel of the cathedral of Saint-Gatien at Tours.The Abbe Birotteau, a short little man, apoplectic in constitution and about sixty years old, had alreadygone through several attacks of gout. Now, among the petty miseries of human life the one for which theworthy priest felt the deepest aversion was the sudden sprinkling of his shoes, adorned with silver buckles,and the wetting of their soles. Notwithstanding the woollen socks in which at all seasons he enveloped his feetwith the extreme care that ecclesiastics take of themselves, he was apt at such times to get them a little damp,and the next day gout was sure to give him certain infallible proofs of constancy. Nevertheless, as thepavement of the Cloister was likely to be dry, and as the abbe had won three francs ten sous in his rubberwith Madame de Listomere, he bore the rain resignedly from the middle of the place de l’Archeveche, whereit began to come down in earnest. Besides, he was fondling his chimera,—a desire already twelve years old,the desire of a priest, a desire formed anew every evening and now, apparently, very near accomplishment; inshort, he had wrapped himself so completely in the fur cape of a canon that he did not feel the inclemency ofthe weather. During the evening several of the company who habitually gathered at Madame de Listomere’shad almost guaranteed to him his nomination to the office of canon (then vacant in the metropolitan Chapterof Saint-Gatien), assuring him that no one deserved such promotion as he, whose rights, long overlooked,were indisputable.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist and playwright. Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature, on account of his keen observation of detail and his multifaceted characters. He influenced many famous authors, including Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Jack Kerouac and Henry James. The Vicar of Tours is an 1832 novella that tells the story of the Abbé François Birotteau and the Abbé Hyacinthe Troubert, priests at Tours, who have separate lodgings in the house of Sophie Gamard. Birotteau is a gentle, introspective type while Troubert is a careerist driven by ambition. Balzac brilliantly portrays the psychological warfare that the three characters wage among each other.

The Abbé François Birotteau and the Abbé Hyacinthe Troubert, both of whom are priests at Tours, have separate lodgings in the house belonging to the crabby spinster Sophie Gamard in that city. Birotteau is an other-worldly, gentle, introspective type; Troubert, who is ten years younger than his fellow boarder, is very much of the world: he is a careerist devoured by ambition.Birotteau prides himself on his furniture and fine library, inherited from his friend and predecessor as parish priest of Saint-Gatien de Tours. Without reading all its clauses, or at least without remembering them, he signs a document handed to him by Mlle Gamard, forfeiting his entitlement to his lodgings and making over their contents to her in the event of his vacating his premises for any considerable period. He leaves them for a fortnight's stay in the country, where he is served with a possession order by his landlady's lawyer. On returning home he finds Troubert installed in his apartments, in full possession of his furniture and his library, whilst he himself has been moved into inferior rooms.Birotteau abandons any prospect of a lawsuit to regain his property, as his friends in the provincial aristocracy of Tours gradually withdraw their backing. In return for giving up his rooms he had expected to be appointed to the vacant canonry of the cathedral. Instead, he is demoted to a much poorer parish two or three miles out of Tours. Deprived of his library and furniture, he leaves Mlle Gamard's, thinking that this will indirectly bring him, through Troubert, the canonry which never comes. Troubert, on the other hand, is first appointed Vicar-General of the diocese of Tours, then Bishop of Troyes, scarcely deigning to look in Birotteau's direction as he speeds past his colleague's dilapidated presbytery on his way to his diocese.