L'Interdiction (The Commission in Lunacy)
by Honoré de Balzac
L'Interdiction (The Commission in Lunacy) is part of the Parisian Life (Scènes de la Vie de Parisienne) subseries of La Comédie Humaine. It is published in 1836.
Madame d'Espard appears is a main character in this novella. She appears in many other stories of The Human Comedy. She and her husband are estranged. Their two children live with him. She is trying to come up with a scheme where she wants a judge to declare him insane so that she can take control of her husband's funds. But the judge assigned to the case is too smart to be taken in so easily.
About the Author
Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. In 1832, he conceived a project of writing a collection of books that would describe all aspects of society. Originally called Etudes des Mœurs (Study of Mores), it eventually became known as La Comédie Humaine, which became a slice of French life in the years after the fall of Napoleon. Honoré de Balzac's attention to detail and realist representation of society earns him the title of one of the founders of realism in European literature. His characters are complex, and not easy to pigeonhole (like real life). He influenced writers such Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino.
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