L'étape.
Paul Charles Joseph Bourget (1852-1935)
Category
Books
Date
1903
Materials
Place of origin
France
Collection
Chartwell, Kent
NT 3116367
Summary
One of thirteen books gifted by the author to Lady Churchill, between 1889 and 1907. Paul Bourget received Lady Randolph Churchill at his residence called the Plantier de Costebelle (Palm House), his home from 1896 till his death in 1935, located in the commune of Hyères-les-Palmiers , in the department of Var, south France. There is correspondence sent by Paul Bourget to Lady Randolph Churchill found in the ‘Churchill Archive’, 1895-1899. L’Etape (The Stage): In ‘L’Étape’ Bourget shows the danger to a family of a too rapid change of social condition and standing. Jean Monneron, son of a poor peasant, becomes through tireless energy and broad intelligence a professor. Without transition he passes from the working class into the bourgeoisie. The family considered as a unit had no time to adjust itself to a new life for which no traditions, no heredity had prepared it. The eldest son commits forgery in order to lead a life of pleasure; the daughter strays from the right path, and, abandoned by her lover, shoots him; the second son would be the consolation of the father but for his love for the daughter of the Catholic philosopher Ferrand, a man who holds ideas abhorrent to the free-thinker and Jacobin Monneron. But Ferrand is a generous opponent and Monneron thoroughly honest; the happiness of their children is paramount for them both, and there lies the crudest part of the tragedy. The favorite son abandons the ideas so dear to his father, who realizes that in spite of apparent success his life is a dismal failure. Inscription & Translation: Respectueuse amitie - In sincere friendship
Bibliographic description
516p. ; 19cm. Provenance: inscribed "Respectueuse amitie" [i.e. Paul Bourget to Lady Randolph (Jennie) Spencer-Churchill, (née Jerome (1854-1921)]. Binding: twentieth-century calf.
Makers and roles
Paul Charles Joseph Bourget (1852-1935)