Aeries and Muck: Illusions perdues

Abstract

Illusions perdues develops Balzac’s view of “Aeries and Muck” in a society controlled by money. It tells the story of the close friends David, who invents a new kind of paper, and Lucien, who has considerable talent as a poet. Just as Paris and the provinces are irredeemably separate, a disjunction that must be overcome for France to move into the modern age, so upper-class Angoulême is separated by distance and jealousy from commercial Houmeau. Balzac investigates a small town printing business, journalism, and the demi-monde. Little by little the emphasis on the capital city increases, as it has through the ten novels of the Scenes from Provincial Life. Balzac uses this concluding novel to insist once again on provincial stultification and the waste of youth.