He expresses it time and again in his novels, and most pithily in Illusions perdues: “Everything is bilateral in the domain of thought. To those who would take this as sheer anecdotal curiosity in France’s long history of intertwinement of politics and literature, any connoisseur of Balzac would retort by pointing to the duality at the core of his work. Zemmour, on the other hand, decided to name the publishing company he recently founded after the main protagonist of the latter novel: Lucien de Rubempré, who, like him, embraced journalism as a means to rise. Macron wrote in his campaign manifesto "Revolution" that as a young man he “was excited by the passions of Balzac’s young wolves”-the most famous of whom being Eugène de Rastignac, whose rise to fame and power starts in Le Père Goriot, and unfolds across several Balzac novels, including Illusions perdues. Indeed, each identifies with one of the two versions Balzac gives us of the typical 19th century young man trying to find his way in the new world born of the French Revolution. What draws Macron and Zemmour to Balzac is his portrayal of the passion they have in common: ambition. Much of France’s political fate depends on whether his millions of electors will follow his instruction to vote for Le Pen in the second round. This is Emmanuel Macron, current “progressive” president up for reelection against “conservative” Marine Le Pen in the second round of the 2022 presidential election and “conservative” political newcomer Éric Zemmour, whose first campaign failed to make of him the new leader of the far-Right, yet whose ideas and media presence have left an important mark. In this context, one intriguing fact in today’s French politics has surprisingly remained unnoticed: two of the main representants of these political trends both explicitly find inspiration in Balzac’s work. Premiering at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, the piece makes no secret of its attempt to draw parallels between Balzac’s time and our own. Yet, as today’s “Progressives” and “Conservatives” champion ideological purity and sterilely denounce each other from their respective echo-chambers, one might think “these almost forgotten days” are in fact all-too present and wonder if Balzac’s “sociology” is not also one for the 21st century.īringing this question to the fore is the critical and popular success met by a new film adaptation of Illusion perdues, by director and screenwriter Xavier Giannoli. The lines above come from Honoré de Balzac’s novel Illusions perdues, published between 18, set between 18, and the keystone to his grandiose La Comédie humaine ( The Human Comedy): more than 90 works written between 18 with the expressed ambition to “rival the State” in its record of every layer of 19th century French society. You found the same hatred masquerading in either form, and no longer wondered at the scaffolds of the Convention." "In this time, party hatred was far more bitter than in our day.… In those almost forgotten days the same theatre could scarcely hold certain Royalist and Liberal journalists the most malignant provocation was offered, glances were like pistol-shots, the least spark produced an explosion of quarrel.… There were but two parties-Royalists and Liberals, Classics and Romantics.
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