La Rabouilleuse
Comme Balzac, venez vous ressourcer à Issoudun
Le grand écrivain Honoré de Balzac a séjourné trois fois à Issoudun (en avril 1834, en août 1835 et en février- mars 1838) à l’invitation de son amie Zulma Carraud. Comme elle à l’époque, nous serons « très honorés » de vous accueillir à notre tour. En guise de bienvenue – et en souvenir – l’Office de Tourisme a édité une petite gamme de produits estampillés #Très Honoré, à retrouver ICI.
« La Rabouilleuse » : a word on the novel
The link between Balzac and the town do not stop there. He made the principal place of a novel, to read urgently : " La Rabouilleuse ".
This is one of the most powerful novel of Balzac, but also one of the most cynical, foreshadowing from far away the black novel of the XXth century. The humor is most of the time cruel, to the like of the bad jokes of the Chevaliers de la Désœuvrance that go downhill.
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We meet two brothers that do not look alike, an old sluttish doctor, his jerk of a son and the idle soldier of Napoleon's army who "in private life act like on the battle field". Among them, the most dark character Balzac has ever though of : Phillipe Bridau. Duel, blackmail, family treason, broken destiny, he will not back of during his misfortune way.
In the middle of that, Flore Brazier. We find her at the age of 14, fishing for crayfish at the Rabouilleuse source, that will give it his name. But she is the one that will fell in the arms of that old doctor. She will try to attract the doctor's son to grab his money more easily, as looking for confort in Max's arms, before falling into Phillipe's claws... Black is Black !