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The Commission in Lunacy

Honoré de Balzac

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3.80
145 ratings

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .oulette consumes the possessions of a gambler, quite gradually. Popinot went from misery to misery, from charity to charity; then, by the time he had lifted all the rags which cover public pauperism, like a bandage under which an inflamed wound lies festering, at the end of a year he had become the Providence incarnate of that quarter of the town. He was a member of the Benevolent Committee and of the Charity Organization. Wherever any gratuitous services were needed he was ready, and did everything without fuss, like the man with the short cloak, who spends his life in carrying soup round the markets and other places where there are starving folks.

Popinot was fortunate in acting on a larger circle and in a higher sphere; he had an eye on everything, he prevented crime, he gave work to the unemployed, he found a refuge for the helpless, he distributed aid with discernment wherever danger threatened, he made himself the counselor of the widow, the protector of. . . Read More

Community Reviews

3.00
- Claudia - Oct 09, 2023

La muestra de que a veces las buenas intenciones no son suficientes. Popinot resulta ser objetivo y justo aunque al final ni siquiera eso parece alcanzar.

4.00
- Lucy - Dec 01, 2020

I love the way that the more Balzac I read, the better I know the characters. Familiar ones keep popping up and their stories rounded out. The descriptions of interiors in this are as good as any I have read, I took a star off for the slightly unsatisfactory if realistic end.

4.00
- Willy - Sep 23, 2019

Très intéressant, étude approfondie de la moralité dans des milieux différents.

4.00
- Stéphane - Jul 05, 2019

Dans la même trame que le Colonel Chabert mais en plus intéressant

5.00
- Tom - Mar 11, 2018

Superb

Beautifully written as always with a complex and moving human and political plot. The clever ending is unexpected. A gripping read.

3.00
- James - Nov 05, 2017

A short novel about a lower level Paris judge, who is assigned the case of a marquis (the marquis d'Espard) whose wife is trying to have him declared mentally incompetent (I think that the English translation is titled "the commission in lunacy"). The story of the marquis has similarities to the plo

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