#Madame Grandet

[dr0oo0dus]

My favorite moment from Eugenie Grandet

[xxsycamore]

𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭, 𝐓𝐨𝐨

↬   🧡 Jin has been acting strange today. Before you can make a connection between all the strange things happening all day, he's got you head over heels for him once again.

Jin Grandet x f!Reader • rating: G • tags: Fluff; Established Relationship; Married Characters; Aged-Up Character(s)• wordcount: 1,111 • masterlist

For Cozytober 2023 by @randonauticrap . Prompt - No. 14: Lord Huron - The Night We Met Lyrics - "I had all and then most of you/Some and now none of you/Take me back to the night we met"

a/n: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADAME L!!! Here too, I want to wish you a very happy birthday, may your day be filled with all things you love, and I'll help a little bit by offering you this humble gift... I hope you enjoy, our dear resident Jin lover 🥺❤❤❤

Jin has been acting strange today.

It was around noon when you began looking around for him, remembering the plans you two made for your day off. It's strange that he hasn't monopolized your time since the very second you opened your eyes in the morning... which made you all the more determined to be the first to find him and not the other way around.

Strangely, everyone you ask gives a different reply as to where they saw him last. Leon for one sounded very confident about seeing him in the training grounds - while Yves was sure he had stopped by the kitchen just a couple of minutes ago.

You stand helpless in front of the palace gardens, autumn leaves dancing in the air with a gust of wind, as if to highlight the lack of any presence in the vast open space stretching out ahead of you. You sigh, noting the position of the sun and how it's been following you in your quest to find your lover, rolling across the sky faster now that the days are getting shorter.

You reach the sitting area and a gasp comes out of your mouth as if you refuse to believe your eyes. There, on the pink settee, that's definitely Jin just casually lounging around...

"Did you get lost in the palace?"

Lost? In the place you've been living for so long now?

"You look as if you just saw a ghost. Come here... this was our meeting spot for today, did you forget?"

Oh.

"Maybe I did? I don't know. I'm a bit distracted these days."

Jin smiles sweetly at you, standing relaxed as you take a seat next to him. As soon as you're close enough, however, his demeanor changes as he almost pounces on you, stealing your breath as he plants a passionate kiss on your lips.

You guess he missed you?

What you expected to end as soon as it began becomes deeper and fiercer, and even though you chuckle and pull away to ask him what's with him today, he doesn't let go. He just keeps on kissing you.

"I think I could spend my life with a girl like you."

Face burning red, you decide not to pay too much mind to the oddness of it and to enjoy his showcase of love instead.

It's evening when you get summoned to Leon's faction room. The fourth prince soothes your worries but still insists all of you wait for Jin before starting.

At last, Jin shows up. Takes out a lollipop. Banters with Yves. Tousless Yves' hair. Attempts to tickle Yves.

"Do we really have to do this part as well?!"

Huh?

Leon is quick to steal your attention with a well-timed cough before he addresses, at long last, the reason you're all gathered here. Apparently, it's something about an upcoming gathering with officials from abroad and it has to do with making a good first impression when it comes to introductions. You suggest Chevalier's faction should be the one working harder at these, but Leon only gives you an understanding look before asking Jin to introduce himself first.

"Jin Grandet. 34 years old, still in the prime of my youth. I'd say my best feature is those charming eyes of mine."

Before everyone can roll their eyes, and despite the fact that you feel the urge to do so yourself, you chime in: "Well, he's right."

Jin winks at you and continues.

"My hobbies are my wife, my wife, and my wife."

"You're the worst."

"You never shut up about your wife."

Noting the mood of the other princes based on these comments, Leon uncrosses his arms and calls it a night. Just like that. You thought he was way more tolerant and used to Jin's antics by now... and you also thought you'd be stuck here for much longer. But in the next second, you find yourself in the room alone with Jin who looks as if he has no intentions of getting up from the couch anytime soon.

He shifts the lollipop from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue, the hard piece of candy clinking softly against the back of his front teeth.

"Sooo?" You ask, approaching him. "Are you going to tell me what all of this is about, already?"

"Why don't you take a seat?"

You spend a whole two seconds considering his offer before you sit down close enough to him that your knees are touching. The question still present in your eyes, you hold his gaze demandingly.

"I was thinking about you a lot lately."

"Jin, you always think about me-"

"And about the night we met. Well, the night I introduced myself to you."

All the pieces fall right into their places. That day, two years ago... you got lost in the palace, wandering off until you accidentally witnessed Jin kissing a woman in the garden, and...

When your mind goes to that place, your new, fresh memory of Jin kissing you breathless right there just earlier today domineers over the initial one.

And then when night fell, you now remember, you were right here in this very room, and...everything was just as it happened just now.

"You...recreated that day? But why?"

"Because I hate myself for giving you a bad first impression like that. I was such a fool. I had no idea how special you're going to become to me and... I don't want you to look back at those memories and remember me by all those awful things. And I wish I could rewrite much more than that first day. But unfortunately, I can't."

You take hold of Jin's face, suppressing the urge to seal his lips with your own so he doesn't say another word. Emotion rushes through you, and you lay your forehead against his shoulder instead.

"Jin, I could never trade our first memories together for anything. You know why? Because they're the proof of the long path we walked towards here."

Jin is at a loss for words, evident by the way he freezes and only after a few silent moments does he shift a little so he can stroke your back. When that ceases being enough to communicate how touched he is, he gently guides you to look him in the eye again.

"I love you more than anything. I love you so damn much."

You chuckle, rubbing your thumb across his chin as you get closer.

"Do you remember your next line?"

"No, I don't."

"If you keep staring at me like that, you're gonna make me think the feeling is mutual."

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[monkeyssalad-blog]

Germaine Dermoz by Truus, Bob & Jan too! Via Flickr: French postcard. Edition Pathé Frères. Photo Félix. Germaine Dermoz (1888–1966), younger sister of actress Jeanne Delvair, was a French film and theatre actress of the early-to-mid twentieth century. She is most famous for her portrayal of Madame Beudet in Germaine Dulac's avant-garde film The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923). Germaine Dermoz was born as Germaine Deluermoz on July 30, 1888 in Paris. She acted on stage with Réjane (she stayed with Réjane’s troupe between 1907 and 1909) and Firmin Gémier and her many theatrical tours led her, before the First World War, as far as Argentine and Russia. She recounts in her memoirs the perilous conditions in which one day she and her comrades had to cross the Cordillera of the Andes on the back of a donkey, on the side of a mountain on narrow paths, resigning themselves to throwing a part of their costumes on the snowy slopes. In St. Petersburg, she played before Tsar Nicholas II and suffered the first shots of the October 1917 revolution. Contrary to some assertions, she never belonged to the Comédie-Française. Already from 1908 Dermoz acted in the Gaumont film Méprise (Maurice de Féraudy, 1908), followed by a few more shorts by De Féraudy, but soon she would also play in films by Pathè, Éclair and Eclipse as well. She was especially active in the historical genre, such as Dragonnades sous Louis XIV (1909), Beethoven (1909), Eugénie Grandet (1910), Le roi Philippe le Bel et les templiers (1910), all by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset for Éclair, but also La mort du duc d'Enghien en 1804 (Albert Capellani, 1909), La fin d'un tyran (Georges Le Faure, 1909), La duchesse de Langeais (André Calmettes, 1910), for Pathé, and L'assassinat d'Henri III (Henri Desfontaines, Louis Mercanton, 1911) , Olivier Cromwell (Desfontaines, 1911), and Milton (Desfontaines, 1911) for Eclipse. After the Éclair film Le mystère de Notre-Dame de Paris (Emile Chautard, Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, 1912), Dermoz mostly acted in Pathé productions, of which several were directed by Adrien Caillard, such as Les trois sultanes (1912), Zaza (1913), adaptation of the play by Berton and Simon, and L'héritage de Cabestan (1913). At Pathé Dermoz was often acting together with Henri Étievant and Jeanne Grumbach, as in L’absent (A Dutch Love Story, Albert Capellani, 1913), and Le petit Jacques (Little Jack, Georges Monca, 1913). After 1914 Dermoz took a break of the set during the First World War, during which Pathé drastically reduced fiction film production. In 1918 she returned with the Pathé film La masque de l’amour by René Plaisetty, with Mévisto and Grumbach, and she had the female lead in the Balzac adaptation La marâtre (Jacques Grétillat 1918). Other adaptations followed: L'énigme (Jean Kemm, 1918) after Hervieu, Fanny Lear (Robert Boudrioz, Jean Manoussi, 1919), after Halévy and Meilhac, Les cinq gentlemen maudits (Luitz-Morat, Pierre Régnier, 1920) after Reuze, Petit ange (Luitz-Morat, Pierre Régnier, 1920) after Vercourt. If it were necessary to point out a single film of that period, though, it would undoubtedly be the masterpiece of Germaine Dulac, La souriante Madame Beudet (1923), a feminist manifesto and typical avant-garde production. The film deals with an intelligent woman trapped in a loveless marriage with a man, who always points an unloaded revolver at his head for fun. Sick of him, she loads the gun, but repents and tries to empty the gun. Yet, the man seizes the gun first and points it at her. In her memoirs, Dermoz recounts the apprehension that had seized her when the film was broadcast forty years later on French television and surprised to find that her play did not have the dreaded exaggeration and grotesque that characterized [a part of] silent film acting. After the female lead in the operetta film La course du flambeau (Luitz-Morat, 1925), which she had performed on stage in 1907, Dermoz’s silent film career ended. Between the two wars, she preferred to devote herself almost exclusively to the theater. She played on the biggest Parisian stages, and enjoyed successes in contemporary plays by André Josset, Henri-René Lenormand, Charles de Peyret-Chappuis and Jean Cocteau. On November 14, 1938, directed by former actress Alice Cocéa, and performed at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs in Paris, Germaine Dermoz created the character of Yvonne in Les Parents terribles by Cocteau, with Gabrielle Dorziat and the very young Jean Marais, replacing almost instantly Yvonne de Bray for whom the role had been written but who, because of a serious heart problem, was no longer able to play. At the same time, Dermoz led a more relaxed film career, accepting shooting proposals only if they did not compromise her commitments to the theatre. When sound film set in in France she returned to the film set for supporting parts in Jacques de Baroncelli’s Daudet adaptation L'Arlésienne (1930), starring Blanche Montel, and Le rêve (Baroncelli, 1931) after Zola. Instead, Dermoz had the lead as Madame Kampf in Le bal (The Ball, Wilhelm Thiele, 1931), in which she played a middleclass woman who just like her husband (André Lefaur) turns into a snob when an inheritance looms. Their daughter (Danielle Darrieux in her first film role) torpedoes the plans when she throws all the invitations to the ball her parents organise in the Seine. The film was shot in a German version too by the same Thiele, Der Ball. After the court case drama Le crime du chemin rouge (Jacques Séverac, 1933), in which a lawyer (Marcel Vibert) suspects his wife (Dermoz) of murder, Dermoz had an endearing part in La porteuse de pain (The Bread Peddler, René Sti, 1934), as an innocently imprisoned woman, who after twenty years of hard labour, evades and goes to Paris where she survives as bread peddler. She finds back her children one by one, after which she unmasks the culprit, Jacques Garaud (Jacques Grétillat). By now Dermoz often played mature roles, as Annabella’s meddling mother in Les nuits moscovites (Moscow Nights, Alexis Granowsky, 1934), the wife of Fernand Charpin in the Mauriac adaptation Les anges noirs (The Black Angels, Willy Rozier, 1937), the wife of Raimu in Le héros de la Marne (Heroes of the Marne, André Hugon, 1938), Maria de Medici in Remontons les Champs-Élysées (Sacha Guitry, 1938), the mother of Katia Lova in La vie est magnifique (Maurice Cloche, 1939), the mother of Jean Chévrier in the smugglers drama Andorra ou les hommes d’airain (Andorra or the Bronze Men, 1942), and Raymond Rouleau’s mother and Constant Rémy’s wife in Monsieur des Lourdines (Pierre de Hérain 1943) after Chateaubriant. After the war she was Queen Anne of Austria in Monsieur Vincent (1947) on St. Vincent de Paul, played by Pierre Fresnay. In the comedy Le Rosier de Madame Husson (The Rosier of Madame Husson, Jean Boyer, 1950), after Maupassant’s classic tale, she leads a group of charitable ladies searching for a chaste girl, who will win a big sum of money. By lack of a chaste female they select a man (Bourvil), who, though, proves to be weak against female seductions. In Poil de carotte (Paul Mesnier, 1952), she was the ill-doing, hateful mother of the protagonist (Christian Simon). After a few minor parts, Dermoz almost made full circle with her early historical films when playing Catherine de Medici in Si Versailles m’était conté (Sacha Guitry, 1955), though two more minor parts followed. Dermoz’s last film part was in the spy comedy L'Honorable Stanislas, agent secret (Jean-Charles Dudrumet, 1963). Her stage career had already ended in the mid-1950s. Germaine Dermoz was the younger sister of Jeanne Delvourmoz, aka Jeanne Delvair (1877-1949), actress at the Comédie-Française, while her younger brother was animal painter Henri Deluermoz (1876-1943), illustrator, among others, of one of the first French editions of Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. After a first marriage, Germaine Dermoz married in second wedding the actor Jean Galland, whom she then divorced. From his first marriage, Germaine Dermoz had a daughter, Claude, and from her second, another daughter, Anne-Marie. She was also, by her first marriage, the aunt by marriage of the actress Annabella, called "Zette" for the intimates, with whom she maintained affectionate ties until the end of her life. The journalist Hélène Lazareff, comedian Noël Roquevert and his wife, and the actress Paulette Noizeux were among the close friends of Germaine Dermoz. Germaine Dermoz died on November 6, 1966 in Paris. Source: French Wikipedia, IMDB.

[dreams-of-mutiny]

MORTIMER ADLER’S READING LIST (PART 2)

Reading list from “How To Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler (1972 edition).

Alexander Pope: Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man

Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu: Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws

Voltaire: Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary

Henry Fielding: Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones

Samuel Johnson: The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets

David Hume: Treatise on Human Nature; Essays Moral and Political; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On the Origin of Inequality; On the Political Economy; Emile, The Social Contract

Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy; A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy

Adam Smith: The Theory of Moral Sentiments; The Wealth of Nations

Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals; Critique of Practical Reason; The Science of Right; Critique of Judgment; Perpetual Peace

Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Autobiography

James Boswell: Journal; Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D.

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier: Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (Elements of Chemistry)

Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison: Federalist Papers

Jeremy Bentham: Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Theory of Fictions

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust; Poetry and Truth

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier: Analytical Theory of Heat

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Phenomenology of Spirit; Philosophy of Right; Lectures on the Philosophy of History

William Wordsworth: Poems

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poems; Biographia Literaria

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice; Emma

Carl von Clausewitz: On War

Stendhal: The Red and the Black; The Charterhouse of Parma; On Love

Lord Byron: Don Juan

Arthur Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism

Michael Faraday: Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental Researches in Electricity

Charles Lyell: Principles of Geology

Auguste Comte: The Positive Philosophy

Honore de Balzac: Père Goriot; Eugenie Grandet

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative Men; Essays; Journal

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter

Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

John Stuart Mill: A System of Logic; On Liberty; Representative Government; Utilitarianism; The Subjection of Women; Autobiography

Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species; The Descent of Man; Autobiography

Charles Dickens: Pickwick Papers; David Copperfield; Hard Times

Claude Bernard: Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine

Henry David Thoreau: Civil Disobedience; Walden

Karl Marx: Capital; Communist Manifesto

George Eliot:��Adam Bede; Middlemarch

Herman Melville: Moby-Dick; Billy Budd

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers Karamazov

Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary; Three Stories

Henrik Ibsen: Plays

Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace; Anna Karenina; What is Art?; Twenty-Three Tales

Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Mysterious Stranger

William James: The Principles of Psychology; The Varieties of Religious Experience; Pragmatism; Essays in Radical Empiricism

Henry James: The American; ‘The Ambassadors

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Beyond Good and Evil; The Genealogy of Morals; The Will to Power

Jules Henri Poincare: Science and Hypothesis; Science and Method

Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams; Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis; Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

George Bernard Shaw: Plays and Prefaces

Max Planck: Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory; Where Is Science Going?; Scientific Autobiography

Henri Bergson: Time and Free Will; Matter and Memory; Creative Evolution; The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

John Dewey: How We Think; Democracy and Education; Experience and Nature; Logic; the Theory of Inquiry

Alfred North Whitehead: An Introduction to Mathematics; Science and the Modern World; The Aims of Education and Other Essays; Adventures of Ideas

George Santayana: The Life of Reason; Skepticism and Animal Faith; Persons and Places

Lenin: The State and Revolution

Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Things Past

Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy; The Analysis of Mind; An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth; Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits

Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain; Joseph and His Brothers

Albert Einstein: The Meaning of Relativity; On the Method of Theoretical Physics; The Evolution of Physics

James Joyce: ‘The Dead’ in Dubliners; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Ulysses

Jacques Maritain: Art and Scholasticism; The Degrees of Knowledge; The Rights of Man and Natural Law; True Humanism

Franz Kafka: The Trial; The Castle

Arnold J. Toynbee: A Study of History; Civilization on Trial

Jean Paul Sartre: Nausea; No Exit; Being and Nothingness

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The First Circle; The Cancer Ward

Source: mortimer-adlers-reading-list

[queengiuliettafirstlady]

Happy Birthday Madame Grandet may this day be filled with everything and everyone you love 🎊🎉🎉🎊🎁🎐🌌🌠⭐

Now a lil gift only for you sweetie from me 🎁😘💞💗💝💕💓💝

Tagging today special girl @randonauticrap I hope you may like it 🤗😘

[randonauticrap]

I Love You, Goodbye.

Pairing ~ self ship/Jin Grandet

Word Count ~ 825

Author's Note ~ Hey guys! This one is crazy personal for me. I normally don't post self ship fics because I'm not one to hoard a character to myself, and I don't like excluding anyone from getting in on the fun! But this one kind of tumbled out of me, and even though it's personal, and definitely kinda sad, I wanted to share it. It's kind of hurt/comfort, and it comes directly from Madame L's personal little fantasy bank. lol I hope you enjoy nonetheless!

I danced with him. He led me around the dance floor in a beautiful waltz, my waist encompassed by one of his large hands. He held me close, as if he knew; as if he could possibly know, that this dance was our goodbye. I fought the tears that threatened to fall, and let my head cradle into Jin’s chest, absorbing his warmth into my soul, and trying to memorize every stretch in his muscular body. His kiss imprinted itself on the top of my head, even after his lips left it. The hand that held mine squeezed it gently, reminding me of our promise; the promise we had pledged to one another, wrapped in pleasure and safety. Only I knew that it couldn’t be kept. Jin would remain blissfully unaware until it came to pass; until I had to leave him. 

I had no choice. 

Fate had dealt us the worst possible hand, and I could do nothing to change it; nor could he. So we danced. We danced once more in the wistful gaze of the sconces on the walls, our bodies mimicking those of the other guests around us. The rustle of skirts swinging in unison and the click of the ladies’ heels on the floor; the swish of each gentleman’s coat tails as he spun his lady in his arms, pulling her back to his chest with the intent of never letting her go. As Jin pulled me back into him, he grasped my chin, so gently I almost didn’t discern it, and tilted my head upwards, forcing me to meet his garnet eyes. “Something’s wrong,” he murmured, concern laced in every beautiful feature. “What is it?” 

“Jin,” I muttered softly, a rogue tear escaping my eye and traveling the length of my face before Jin caught it with a kiss and erased it from existence. But where there was one, there were many, and I knew that they would overwhelm even his intense love eventually. “I can’t-” I choked out the words, but the knot in my throat would allow no more to pass between my lips, and more tears found their way to the surface. I couldn’t do this, not here, so I grasped his wrist and pulled him behind me, away from the color, away from the light, out into the darkness on the balcony. The rain poured from the sky, drenching everything below it in its descent. This… this was a place suited for what was to come. “Jin, I can’t stay.” I whispered, so softly I almost hoped the rain swallowed the sound so that he didn’t have to hear it. 

But I knew he had. I knew because I felt him stiffen; though he was several feet from me, I felt the way his corded muscles pulled taut beneath his skin, and how each hair on his body pulled to stand on end. I felt the hurt build inside him as my words sunk in; the desperation, the betrayal, the fear. The fear. 

“What?” he managed to utter, a near-silent cry in the night. 

“I- I’m not real, Jin. Not.. not to you. Not to this place.” I stuttered, gripping the rain-soaked banister with all my might, as if it could steady the spiraling descent of my heart into war-torn pieces. 

“What does that even mean?” his forceful whisper had anger in it; misunderstanding; fear.     

“This,” I gestured to the scene before me. “All of this, is a dream for me. You are a dream. I don’t know when it will happen, but soon I’ll wake up. I’ll wake up and I’ll be alone, and you’ll be here.” The tears fell unhindered now, violent as the rain. “You’ll be here, and I’ll be there, without you. I always wake up without you. I always wake up alone. I try so hard to hold on to you, but you’re not there and you can’t be there. Just like I can’t stay here… no matter how much I want to, and God, do I want to.” I closed my eyes and let the sobs come, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop them anyway.

Strong arms wrapped around my trembling body and pulled me close. “You’re always here, to me. Let me always be there, for you.” he said, dropping a tender kiss to my head, then to my neck, and as I turned to meet his eyes, he captured my lips in a kiss filled with so much love that my heart broke again, just for him. “I’ll be there when you wake up too. You may not see me, but I’ll be there. Believe that. You have to.” 

“Why do I have to?” I asked through my tears.

“Because I do.” he replied, tears of his own staining his blush-tinted cheeks. 

I nodded and pressed my lips to his again, pulling him closer than should be possible. 

“I love you, Jin Grandet.”

~

Tags for the lovelies: @aquagirl1978 @violettduchess @ikehoe @rhodolitesroseforclavis @atelieredux

[violettduchess]

🤍✨️send this to ten other bloggers you think are wonderful. keep the game going✨️🤍😊

Cheers to you too Madame Grandet 💜

[byronsmuse]

Madame Grandet rapidly approached her end. Every day she grew weaker and wasted visibly, as women of her age when attacked by serious illness are wont to do. She was fragile as the foliage in autumn; the radiance of heaven shone through her as the sun strikes athwart the withering leaves and gilds them. It was a death worthy of her life,—a Christian death; and is not that sublime? In the month of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic patience, her love for her daughter, seemed to find special expression; and then she passed away without a murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to heaven, regretting only the sweet companion of her cold and dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to prophesy a destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures. "My child," she said as she expired, "there is no happiness except in heaven; you will know it some day."

Balzac, Eugenie Grandet

[nightkarmaqueen]

The Prince’s Mothers

So, I have something to share with you guys. Every time me and my sister play Ikemen Prince and they bring up the topic of their mother, we always call the mothers with out own nickname. Yes, we have our own way to calls the mothers of the princes. Like, we always adress them with this-- And this is what we calls them.

1. Jin Grandet’s Mother - “Lady Gradet” or “The Previous Lady Belle” (but mostly the first one). If we got “Prince Chevalier’s Favorite Mistress” then, Jin’s mother got “The King’s Favorite Mistress” BUT HOW THERE THEY TO SEPARATE THEM! THE KING NEED LOVE AND IF YOU JUST LET THEM BE, THE KING WOULDN’T BE THAT EMPTY AND LONELY! Well, but that’s okay, if that things didn’t happen, perhaps we wouldn’t have the other 5 princes like Clavis, Leon, Licht, Nokto, and Luke. (Yeah, I know the King still would take Queen Michel and Princess Kloss since it was political marriage).

2. Chevalier Michel’s Mother - “Her Majesty, Queen Michel” Myess, me and my sister call her “Her Majesty” since she was the 1st Wife and Queen of Rhodolite. But there is one moment in Leon Route when my sister called her “Her Highness, Princess Michel” before she engaged with the king. Also, me and my sister agreed that Chevalier would be the actual Crown Prince if there wasn’t the Belle System or something like that. Myess, Mama Michel bore a pretty beast for sure!

3. Clavis Lelouch’s Mother - “Lady Lelouch” or “Your Grace” (mostly the first one). For “Your Grace”, I mean like, I don't read jp servers, so I don't really know how Clavis is on the route. But I think, since Clavis is a bit of a hedon person, I feel that his mother comes from a fairly huge noble family. Let’s say from a Count/Countess family or more higher than that. Or a Princess like Queen Michel, perhaps?

[ Edit : Lady Lelouch is like housemaid or lady-in-waiting for Michel Household. Still, I still calls her 'Lady Lelouch'. ]

4. Leon Dompteur’s Mother - “Her Majesty, Queen Dompteur” since she was the 2nd Wife and Queen of Rhodolite. Idk why the king take another “official” wife. But perhaps Queen Dompteur was a concubine of the king then when Queen Michel died, she get promoted and became the 2nd Queen of Rhodolite? I mean, since Queen Michel died when Chevalier still 6? or 8? I forgot!!!

5. Yves Kloss’ Mother - “Her Highness, Princess Kloss” since she was the Obsidianate Princess. I can imagine the misery of her! Like if you read “I’ll Become the Matriach in This Life” there is this one cousin of the female lead and she refused to go from the mansion and get married, crying and things-- BUT IN THE END, SHE STILL GOT MARRIED TO THE MAN! I CAN IMAGINE THIS TO YVES’ MOTHER AND THE KING!!!

6. Licht and Nokto Klein’s Mother - “Lady Klein”. Again, I didn’t read the jp serves--but we will got Nokto’s route soon enough. So let me see what we got from my prediction. I think the twins’s mother came from a fine noble family. Not too big, but not too small. Good enough to catch the King’s attention and fell in love, became the concubine of him, and BOOM! THEY HAVE THIS PRETTY AND HOT TWINS! Yeah, me and my sister calls her “Lady Klein”

[ Edit : The twins mother is a singer from abroad. I still can call her 'Lady Klein' tho. I also can call her 'Ms. Klein' ]

7. Luke Randolph’s Mother - “Lady Randolph” or “Madam Randolph” or again “Mrs. Randolph”. For the last time, again. Since I did not read jp server and we’re not sure about Luke’s story, this is how we adress Luke’s mother. Most likely we called her “Lady Randolph” but since Idk the background story of Luke’s mother and we know that Luke was born and raised as commoner, we often calls her with “Madam or Mrs. Randolph.”

SO YEAH! THAT’S HOW WE CALLS THE MOTHERS OF THE PRINCES. This actually just something me and my sister do. How about you? What do you think?

If there’s anything wrong in or with the post, please correct me. Have a lovely day/night~

[janiedean]

Hey, I've seen ur Italian Literature recoms. and it's really helpful. Do you, by any chance, read French Literature too? If so, can you suggest some?

hi anon, sorry for the lateness but I'm going to give this a crack - ofc for obvious reasons as in I'm italian and not french I'm entirely less familiar with french lit that you'd study in school than with italian ones and my knowledge of contemporary french lit is subzero so I can only help you with classics but

I'm going to go straight for it and start with the 19th century novelists for reasons sorry if I go like not in chronological order but

as alexandre dumas wrote my second-favorite book in existence (the three musketeers) and is also one of my favorite writers ever I'll recommend you the d'artagnan romances (musketeers, twenty years later and the viscount of bragelonne) which are long but are all very easy to go through - honest the best thing with dumas is that while he's everything but synthetic you don't feel it, do start with musketeers because it's honestly out of this world good

also honest dumas hasn't written a book that's not entertaining but do read the count of montecristo you really really do want to it's amazing and my second-fave of his after the aforementioned d'artagnan books

talking about 19th century novelists... I mean you really wanna read victor hugo, mind that you have to be in the mood for it because most of his stuff is heavy/long but it's also incredibly well-written and you breeze through it if you vibe with it - maybe you can start with his theater and in that case anything is good though I'm partial to le roi s'amuse for obv reasons (as in they got rigoletto from that plot xD), but wrt novels I'd go with notre dame de paris, les miserables and the man who laughs first, starting with notre-dame because it's shorter and you get a better idea, but my friend les mis is just... I mean I honestly think if you don't read that book you miss out on some of the most amazing literature that ever was so there's that

and going back to another of my fave books ever, do try stendhal - my favorite is the red and the black which has honestly the most delicious terrible amoral protagonist ever and I just really love it, but the charterhouse of parma is also p. great

discussing the other heavyweights of 19th century french novels I personally did enjoy what zola I read more than I enjoyed what balzac I read but I also have no idea what's translated in english or not since not all of them didn't get translated in italian anyway but like if you want to give it a go wrt what you can expect from it with zola I'd go with therese raquin and with balzac either eugenie grandet or lost illusions (?? idk the english title)

meanwhile moving wrt flaubert you really wanna read madame bovary

also alexandre dumas's son - who has the same name as the father so you'll find him as alexandre dumas fils - has the dame of the camelias/la dame aux camelias which is where they took la traviata from and T__T I love iittt

and to finish with 19th century people, you want to try out maupassant too - any short story collection will do you good I think but if you want to try novels I'd go for bel ami

that is to say I haven't touched 19th century genre fiction but I mean... jules verne is a classic™, try out around the world in 80 days, journey to the center of the earth and 20000 leagues under the sea first and then if you like them you'll probably enjoy everything else

talking about classics, another one of my favorite books ever™ is laclos's dangerous liasons which is previous century but like... go for it

for more modern novels I do like a lot radiguet's the devil in the flesh and camus's the plague, there's other stuff I've meant to check for a while especially genre but I haven't gotten around to it yet :(

aaand I mean.... if you're very daring and you're into it I mean I feel bad leaving marcel proust out of a post about classic french literature recs because like in search of lost time is a... founding thing in french literature but like it's the kind of thing that you should read a) when you have a lot of time b) when you're in the mood c) when you're already familiar with most of ^^^^ the above stuff because otherwise it would just go over one's head and it's like seven books so I'm mentioning it because I have to and it's a great book but like if you aren't familiar with previous french literature I'd advise starting from something easier XD

now that was what I can give you for the novels but for everything else:

theater wise you're good with anything by moliere - any play of his is good, I can give you tartuffe, don juan, the miser and the misanthrope to have a few titles but most of his stuff is good

voltaire's work is in general a+ from philosophy to anything else and he's also very accessible, I'd start with candide if you want one thing

if you want to try more philosophers montaigne's essays are great, pretty accessible and have influenced also english writers and so on so he's the one I'd go for

(do not for the love of yourself ever read rousseau DON'T DO IT ANON DON'T DO IT THIS IS AN ANTI-REC)

wrt poetry I mean... if you want to go back to medieval times you can have a knock out of the chanson de roland for like EPIC POEM TIMES - I enjoyed studying it in high school admittedly but I guess it's not fundamental™ unless that's what you're interested in but as half of the few poets I actually do like are french...

my favorite of them is paul verlaine - I checked wiki and in english you can find not all of them but like do try fetes galantes, songs without words and poems under saturn, then there's charles baudeleaire for which you can get les fleurs du mal (I SHOULD hope there's a decent english translation around at least), and then arthur rimbaud, personally I just got a book with his full works and it worked great for me but for specific ones, a season in hell is his most famous, and like I have no idea if they translated verlaine's les poets maudits into english but it could be a good start for that whole branch of poetry

aaand I mean... that's what I feel comfortable recommending but if any of my french followers/french speaking followers who know more about this than me would like to chime in do feel free to! :D I might tag someone in the comments when my brain like starts working because I've been copying notes for the entire afternoon while writing this and I'm braindead but if any of you finds it before I tag you really go ahead XD

[culturefrancaise]

Liste de films et séries historiques “français”

(Cette liste évoluera en un masterpost à travers des modifications du post originel).

On commence avec les oeuvres sorties en 2021 :

- Benedetta

- Le bal des folles

- Paris Police 1900

- Eugénie Grandet

- Eiffel

- Illusions perdues

- Emma Bovary (France Télévisions)

Si vous avez des recommandations à m’envoyer, n’hésitez pas. Je voudrais faire une très grande liste de séries et films historiques français (avec des acteurs français, réalisés par des français mais tournés en anglais, inspirés par l’histoire de France/des romans français/des artistes français).

Je ferai probablement un post séparé pour les films étrangers adaptant des oeuvres françaises (par exemple, “Madame Bovary” avec Mia Wasikowska).

[kissmetwicekissmedeadly]

MADAME GRANDET ARE YOU HORNY ON THIS BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY MORNING? I don't usually scroll too far on my dash first thing in the morning but your horny spam was impossible not to see...tsk tsk...

That being said , 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃

► "Do what you want with them sexy, but just so you know, no chance you can make me come just from that, alright?" "Can I do anything?" "Anything. They're all yours."

Jin Grandet x GN!Reader • rating: E (mdni) • tags: Breast Play; Suspenders; Rough Body Play; Muscles; Body Worship (Boob Woship); Groping; Nipple Licking; Nipple Play; Biting; Kissing; Pet Names; Established Relationship; Massage; Massage Oil; Overstimulation; Coming Untouched • wordcount: 2,404 • masterlist

a/n: This is it. A whole fic dedicated to showing Jin's boobs some love. And making him come by that. Enjoy. And Happy Birthday to Jin <3 (03/05)

"Do what you want with them sexy, but just so you know, no chance you can make me come just from that, alright?"

You eye Jin from head to toe; standing tall in all his big man beauty in that damn tight dress shirt with suspenders hanging for their dear lives clipped to his trousers. The sound of the key turning into the keyhole is listed among your favorite sex sounds, and when Jin does it, accompanied by this playful warning, all you hear is a challenge being posed for you. Biting your lower lip, you beckon him further inside the room.

"Can I do anything?"

"Anything. They're all yours."

You reach out and slide your index finger under the thin strap of his right suspender, pulling back as much as its elasticity allows. Then you release.

"Ow!"

The stretchy material reverts back to its original position, the slapping noise reaching to your ears seemingly before your eyes fixate the movement. But the spectacle ineluctably happens. Jin's tit jiggles from the impact, leaving you to imagine if it's only the slap that is at fault, or he flexed his chest muscles in response. You reach out for his left suspender this time, pulling it back just like the other.

"Starting off aggressively, aren't we?"

You look at his strawberry gaze just for a second, and it's almost begging you to be gentle with him, like a maiden's on her wedding night. But you know your lover better than that.

"You don't love it?"

"…I do—Ow-ow-ow!"

You don't wait until the words make it wholly out of his mouth until you punish him for asking for it so openly. This time the strike forces his remaining oxygen out of his lungs, making him inhale sharply once the damage is dealt. You observe the way his chest rises with the air intake, inflating like a balloon. The lower part of his suspenders withdraws from his taut stomach because of the curve that his tits make. Like two large mountains rising from the ground after a sizable tectonic collision. You want to be the cataclysm that rocks the ample mass of Jin's body.

It's not that fun when Jin knows what to expect… but after the third and fourth time, you start to notice even more cute things about him. The way he awkwardly balls his hands into fists and relaxes them, the expressions adorning his face… your head is all busy with the image of his man boobs released from the confines of not only the suspenders but the shirt too. Was the impact rough enough to leave marks? Is his skin flushed red on two glorious red stripes? There is no reason why you should hold back from finding out the answer.

"Ahh I thought you were going to slap them against my chest again…we're getting naked already?"

"YOU'RE getting naked."

Letting the thin straps fall to his sides instead of unclipping them, you start undoing the buttons on Jin's shirt. You nearly send them flying to all corners of the room, but the quality of the shirt handles your impatience somehow, saving Jin the shame of having to exit your room afterwards with torn apart shirt… though if you know him, he'd wear it like a trophy.

"Hey Jin…"

"Mm?"

You step back, admiring him in his full nude beauty from the waist up. He smiles at you in a typical "like what you see?" way, something that he's surely mastered…but maybe when it comes to some other part of his body. Sadly, your harsh treatment earlier didn't leave its mark on his skin. But you don't waste time moping about it.

"Do you think you can…make them juggle for me? Like, by flexing and relaxing your chest muscles? Pretty please?"

You observe the way his expression changes from smug to perplexed, but you truly have no evil back thoughts this time. You genuinely want him to do this for you.

"Uhh. Sure. Let me try."

Jin settles his hands on his hips, concentrating his strength on the task. He gets the hang of it quickly, the self-satisfactory smile returning to his lips.

Hypnotized, you watch as his pectoral muscles perform their lustful dance. Up and down, up and down, like two pendulums set at different frequencies. He finishes it off by raising his hands over his head, making different groups of muscles protrude before your thirsty gaze. He flexes his biceps as well, just for you.

"Can I touch?"

"Of course. That's why we're here."

You nod, reaching out to caress his bicep… but of course that's not your final destination. Just to make him happy you squeeze a little on his well-trained arm, but in the next second you're already trailing your fingers to his beautiful pecs.

"Mm.. So hard."

"Yeah? You like them?'

"I do." You answer in full honesty, fingernails scraping lightly across the broad terrain. "Relax them for me… I want to try squishing them too."

"As you wish, hot stuff."

Scoffing at the petname, you're already marveling at the difference. You can't decide if you like them more this way. You take handfuls of your boyfriend's tits, not hesitating for a second as you shove your face in the valley in the middle.

"Hah…" Jin is genuinely entertained by your enthusiasm, standing still and letting you have your fun. Initially, you're just letting your plush lips linger across his flesh, but you can't keep them at bay for too long - they're too eager to love him. Kisses rain across Jin's chest, tiny and tickling at first, as evident by your lover's quiet chuckles. Then you start being not so nice…

"Ouch. Teeth already?"

He surely didn't expect the attack on his nipple to come so fast, but you just wanted to tease him a little by pulling it with your teeth. You kiss it better, silently apologizing, as you move on to the other side, licking a stripe across his pec. Your tongue just so happens to arrive at the edge of his nub… and you suckle it a little, playfully as ever. You throw Jin a gaze that is full of question - is he comfortable with this, how much would he let you do? And the reply you get, communicated through gazing all the same, is making you smirk against his chest. He looks quite flushed, but also, quite aroused. Eyes half-lidded and darkened by lust, lips parting to allow more fuel for his well-at-work lungs… yes - now you notice - his heart really did skip a beat. You're quite close to it to hear, after all.

You hold one breast in your hand, big enough to fill your whole palm - and you put your lips around his nipple, grazing it with your teeth. You tease him a little before directly sucking on it, but it's rewarded by a moan.

Alternating between breasts, you toy like that for him for a bit. It's only when he stops minding the volume of his groans that you let go, cupping his face in your hands to give him a nice surprise kiss. He melts into it, eagerly giving you permission to kiss him breathless, but you're modest unlike how you french-kissed his boobs just now. Just because you need him in his right mind for a little longer.

"I'll need you to sit down for this next one."

Jin whistles, seemingly back to his normal self.

"I'm not that sensitive of a guy, you know."

You sigh and palm the tent in his pants, as if to remind him that you're not blind to the reality of how big of an effect all of this has been having on him. He's not particularly shy about his obvious erection, but refuses to address it either way.

"I know, I know. But please sit down for me, you haven't seen what I'm talking about yet. Handsome."

Jin smirks at how you called him, already obeying. He casually plops down on the armchair nearby, long legs stretched out and spread, as if making room for you. True, you'll take his kind offer and nestle yourself right inbetween. Just after you retrieve an item that you were looking forward to introducing into this lovely adults' play.

"What is this?"

"Rose oil. Haven't you seen these vials before?"

Jin snorts, feeling it useless to state the obvious. "What's that for?"

"For them." You pop off the lid, nodding at the direction of his chest. Before Jin can sigh, or laugh, or give you a look of disbelief, you tip-toe your way behind the armchair, missing his reaction.

"The idea has actually crossed my mind before."

"For your breasts?"

"No, silly." Jin breathes out, gazing forward and not making much effort to turn and meet your gaze when it's only going to get in your way. He patiently waits for you to apply the rose-scented oily liquid on his skin, preparing himself for the initial tingle of coldness. But you're more thoughtful than that. Collecting some in the palm of your hand, you discard the vial and rub your other palm against it, letting it soak around evenly. The rubbing of your hands creates warmth that you're eager to share with Jin. So that’s what you do.

"Oh, that's actually very pleasant."

"Mmhm."

Resting his head against the backrest, Jin allows his eyelids to fall closed, enjoying the way the sensation grows tenfold when he goes. It's easy to slip in a trance cast by your warm, skillful hands as they traverse across his toned chest. It's your voice that makes him snap out of it.

"Jin. Open your pants for me."

Puzzled, Jin blinks into consciousness, hands a little clumsy as they hurry to comply with your soft order. He's always ready to show himself in his full wanton, no hesitation about the way his cocks springs free in all its glory, diamond hard and happy to see you. Neglecting it makes you almost sad, but you choose the bigger entertainment while the power is still in your hands.

Jin hisses when the edge of your fingernail gets caught on his nipple. He's visibly surprised by the added sensitivity, the twitch of his cock giving him away.

"What was that? You like it?"

"Mm? Well. It feels good actually."

"Uh-huh…" You nod even though he can't see you, giving him more of the sensation. You trail a path with your finger, right across his areola, lightly brushing against his hardened nub. The rising and falling of his chest nearly comes in the way of your teasing, but you're concentrated. When your finger returns in the opposite direction, it runs directly over his nipple.

"Ohh…"

Jin's moans are music to your ears. With a wide smile, you breathe in and continue to toy with him. Adding the ministrations of your other hand to the mix, you start getting bolder, directly stimulating his nipples. It's slow and delicate at first. Then you circle around them, progressively adding more pressure to the point of pleasure.

"Hn- hey, I think we should-"

"Shh. Jin. Relax."

Groaning and chuckling nervously, Jin fixes the position of his legs, clearly bubbling with built-up arousal. His cock is painfully hard and leaking on his abdomen, the pearly drops already having pooled on it and connected with his shaft by a thin string of precome.

It feels too good to tell you to stop now, Jin knows this and you do him a favor by not letting him cut this short. This is the most important part now. You concentrate, wetting your lips that have dried by your own heavy breaths, without you noticing… you want to savour this moment to the fullest.

It's almost like you're hugging him in that position, you think. He's reclining so comfortably, and even though you've been leaning over him for a while now, you feel like you can spend an eternity keeping that position. He's nice and relaxed, though his long legs twitch lightly as if he's worked up. You know it's going to get even worse (better) from now on, as you tease his nipples again. But it's not the usual teasing now. Your index fingers curl ever so slightly under his nipples, and your thumbs come to rest on the upper side. You pinch, and twist. Lightly.

"Oh!"

Jin exclaims and it grows into a moan, his massive body lifting slightly from the chair. You don't want to give him time for rest now, or you'll risk the shock getting out of his system. You roll his nipples between your fingers, following the movement of his broad chest as he pulses, twists, and jerks.

"I'm-"

Before Jin can mutter a coherent warning, the overwhelming pleasure of you giving direct and continuous stimulation to his nipples, sensitivity heightened by the massaging oil, shoots through his veins all the way down to his cock. It feels too good - to not be denied of your touch until he can overindulge in it - and the coil in his belly snaps, much to his own surprise, leaving him to gasp and moan as he feels himself coming. Untouched.

The spurts leaving his cock are not as plentiful as when hours are spent coaxing them out, but they're vigorous enough to reach up to his torso. And even a little further than that.

You smile at the dirty display, trying to burn the sight into your memory. This and, the fact that you successfully proved him wrong about what he said in the beginning. Oh Jin.

"Well that was… that was something."

"It was, wasn't it?" You giggle close to his ear, mocking him for trying to sound cool as if he didn't just come from having his tits played with… You bite his ear playfully, using the chance of him being too stunned to act upon your tease.

Jin is not yet fully recovered from the mind-blowing climax he had when he finds your pretty face sandwiched inbetween his boobs. You're not here to play this time, you simply clean him off the semen that sticks to his skin. Once you show off your tongue, white with his come, he curses and pulls you in until you're practically on top of him, losing your balance but landing safely in his embrace.

"Hey Jin? That was very hot. I think I get your love for boobs now."

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[butterflies-dragons]

Eugénie Grandet and Sansa Stark

Art credit: 1) Chinese Book Cover for "Eugénie Grandet" by Margarita Winkler; 2) Lady Sansa by Batata-Tasha

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother's queen.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

Channeling my inner Sansa Stark in order to avoid the terrible reality of late, I lost myself in some of the French, Spanish and Russian classics. Eugenié Grandet (1833) by Honoré de Balzac was one of them.

Eugenié Grandet is a book that Sansa Stark would love:

They were beautiful songs, but terribly sad. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa VI

Eugénie (23) and Sansa (13) are kind, generous, eager to please and extremely romantic girls.

Although they are both dutiful daughters, they have a strained relationship with their fathers and at some point they defy them out of love.

The main different between Eugénie and Sansa, aside their age, is their education. While Eugénie is a provincial girl from Saumur with almost zero formal education, Sansa, a northern girl, comes from high nobility and has been educated to be the perfect lady and queen.

Eugénie and Sansa aren't exactly the same, but while reading Balzac's novel it's very difficult not to find them similar. Even Eugénie's house in Saumur resembles Winterfell and the North, the same way Eugénie's walnut tree from her garden resembles the Heart Tree from Winterfell's godswood.

I'm sure that GRRM knows about Honoré del Balzac, however I have no certainty if he has read Eugénie Grandet. But I would not be surprised to know that he did read the novel, and in that case I would even suspect that Eugénie inspired him, even a little, while creating Sansa.

It could all be just a coincidence, of course.

FAIR WARNING : EUGÉNIE GRANDET SPOILERS

Saumur / The North & Winterfell

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

Such elements of sadness formed the physiognomy, as it were, of a dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at the end of the steep street leading to the chateau in the upper part of the town. This street—now little frequented, hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in certain sections—is remarkable for the resonance of its little pebbly pavement, always clean and dry, for the narrowness of its tortuous road-way, for the peaceful stillness of its houses, which belong to the Old town and are over-topped by the ramparts. Houses three centuries old are still solid, though built of wood, and their divers aspects add to the originality which commends this portion of Saumur to the attention of artists and antiquaries.

(...) The whole history of France is there.

(...) The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth, always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

The vast and frigid realm of the Kings of Winter, the Starks of Winterfell, is generally considered the first and oldest of the Seven Kingdoms, in that it has endured, unconquered, for the longest. The vagaries of geography and history set the North apart from their southron neighbors.

It is often said that the North is as large as the other six kingdoms put together, but the truth is somewhat less grand: the North, as ruled today by House Stark of Winterfell, comprises little more than a third of the realm. Beginning at the southern edge of the Neck, the domains of the Starks extend as far north as the New Gift (itself part of their realm until King Jaehaerys I convinced Winterfell to cede those lands to the Night's Watch). Within the North are great forests, windswept plains, hills and valleys, rocky shores, and snow-crowned mountains. The North is a cold land—much of it rising moorlands and high plains giving way to mountains in its northern reaches—and this makes it far less fertile than the reaches of the south. Snow has been known to fall there even in summer, and it is deadly in winter.

—The World of Ice and Fire - The North

Robert snorted. "Bogs and forests and fields, and scarcely a decent inn north of the Neck. I've never seen such a vast emptiness. Where are all your people?"

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

The rising sun sent fingers of light through the pale white mists of dawn. A wide plain spread out beneath them, bare and brown, its flatness here and there relieved by long, low hummocks. Ned pointed them out to his king. "The barrows of the First Men."

Robert frowned. "Have we ridden onto a graveyard?"

"There are barrows everywhere in the north, Your Grace," Ned told him. "This land is old."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

Sewing and Embroidery

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

By the window nearest to the door stood a straw chair, whose legs were raised on castors to lift its occupant, Madame Grandet, to a height from which she could see the passers-by. A work-table of stained cherry-wood filled up the embrasure, and the little armchair of Eugenie Grandet stood beside it. In this spot the lives had flowed peacefully onward for fifteen years, in a round of constant work from the month of April to the month of November. On the first day of the latter month they took their winter station by the chimney.

(...) Mother and daughter took charge of the family linen, and spent their days so conscientiously upon a labor properly that of working-women, that if Eugenie wished to embroider a collar for her mother she was forced to take the time from sleep, and deceive her father to obtain the necessary light. For a long time the miser had given out the tallow candle to his daughter and la Grande Nanon just as he gave out every morning the bread and other necessaries for the daily consumption.

(...) In short,—if it is possible to sum up the effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father’s clothes.

(...) "and your cousin (...) who will spend her life in darning towels.”

(...) Her treasuries were not the millions whose revenues were rolling up; they were Charles’s dressing-case, the portraits hanging above her bed, the jewels recovered from her father and proudly spread upon a bed of wool in a drawer of the oaken cabinet, the thimble of her aunt, used for a while by her mother, which she wore religiously as she worked at a piece of embroidery,—a Penelope’s web, begun for the sole purpose of putting upon her finger that gold so rich in memories.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

Sansa's needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. "Sansa's work is as pretty as she is," Septa Mordane told their lady mother once. "She has such fine, delicate hands."

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

Underestimated

"We will try to relieve the monotony of your visit here. If you stay all the time with Monsieur Grandet, good heavens! what will become of you? Your uncle is a sordid miser who thinks of nothing but his vines; your aunt is a pious soul who can’t put two ideas together; and your cousin is a little fool, without education, perfectly common, no fortune, who will spend her life in darning towels.”

(...) “Not at all, monsieur l’abbe. This young man cannot fail to see that Eugenie is a little fool,—a girl without the least freshness. Did you notice her to-night? She was as yellow as a quince.”

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

"I … I had not thought, my lord." "Your Grace," he said sharply. "You truly are a stupid girl, aren't you? My mother says so."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

The king studied her a moment. "Perhaps you're not so stupid as Mother says." He raised his voice. "Did you hear my lady, Dontos? From this day on, you're my new fool. You can sleep with Moon Boy and dress in motley."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

. . . ah, you're still a stupid little bird, aren't you? Singing all the songs they taught you . . .

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

Sansa reddened. Any fool would have realized that no woman would be happy about being called "the Queen of Thorns." Maybe I truly am as stupid as Cersei Lannister says.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

The woman that calls Eugénie a "little fool" is Madame des Grassins, who despite underestimating Mademoiselle Grandet, wants her to marry her son Adolphe.

In a similar way, Cersei Lannister underestimates Sansa, believing her unworthy of her beloved son Joffrey.

Romantics

They were able to examine Charles at their leisure without fearing to displease the master of the house. Grandet was absorbed in the long letter which he held in his hand; and to read it he had taken the only candle upon the card-table, paying no heed to his guests or their pleasure. Eugenie, to whom such a type of perfection, whether of dress or of person, was absolutely unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin a being descended from seraphic spheres. She inhaled with delight the fragrance wafted from the graceful curls of that brilliant head. She would have liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She envied Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and refinement of his features. In short,—if it is possible to sum up the effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father’s clothes, and whose life flowed on beneath these unclean rafters, seeing none but occasional passers along the silent street,—this vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion of delicate desire like that inspired in a young man by the fanciful pictures of women drawn by Westall for the English “Keepsakes,” and that engraved by the Findens with so clever a tool that we fear, as we breathe upon the paper, that the celestial apparitions may be wafted away. Charles drew from his pocket a handkerchief embroidered by the great lady now travelling in Scotland. As Eugenie saw this pretty piece of work, done in the vacant hours which were lost to love, she looked at her cousin to see if it were possible that he meant to make use of it. The manners of the young man, his gestures, the way in which he took up his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness, his contemptuous glance at the coffer which had just given so much pleasure to the rich heiress, and which he evidently regarded as without value, or even as ridiculous,—all these things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des Grassins, pleased Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed long dreams of her phoenix cousin.

(...) In the pure and monotonous life of young girls there comes a delicious hour when the sun sheds its rays into their soul, when the flowers express their thoughts, when the throbbings of the heart send upward to the brain their fertilizing warmth and melt all thoughts into a vague desire,—day of innocent melancholy and of dulcet joys! When babes begin to see, they smile; when a young girl first perceives the sentiment of nature, she smiles as she smiled when an infant. If light is the first love of life, is not love a light to the heart? The moment to see within the veil of earthly things had come for Eugenie. —Eugénie Grandet * * * All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs.

(...) It was a great honor to ride with the queen, and besides, Prince Joffrey might be there. Her betrothed. Just thinking it made her feel a strange fluttering inside, even though they were not to marry for years and years. Sansa did not really know Joffrey yet, but she was already in love with him. He was all she ever dreamt her prince should be, tall and handsome and strong, with hair like gold. She treasured every chance to spend time with him, few as they were.

(...) He took her by the arm and led her away from the wheelhouse, and Sansa's spirits took flight. A whole day with her prince! She gazed at Joffrey worshipfully. He was so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants, or Prince Aemon the Dragonknight championing Queen Naerys's honor against evil Ser Morgil's slanders.

The touch of Joffrey's hand on her sleeve made her heart beat faster. "

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I Sansa rode to the Hand's tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the thousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took Sansa's breath away; the shining armor, the great chargers caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the banners snapping in the wind … and the knights themselves, the knights most of all. "It is better than the songs," she whispered when they found the places that her father had promised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more fabulous than the last.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

She loved King’s Landing; the pagaentry of the court, the high lords and ladies in their velvets and silks and gemstones, the great city with all its people. The tournament had been the most magical time of her whole life, and there was so much she had not seen yet, harvest feasts and masked balls and mummer shows. She could not bear the thought of losing it all.

[…] They were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and her prince, everything, they were going to send her back to the bleak grey walls of Winterfell and lock her up forever. Her life was over before it had begun.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

Eugénie and her deep infatuation with her Parisian cousin Charles Grandet, reminds me a lot of Marianne Dashwood and John Willoughby from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.

Charles was a prince in Eugénie's eyes, with all his dandy manners and Parisian refinement. Charles was the South and the pretty songs for Eugénie, the same way Prince Joffrey and even Ser Loras were the South and the pretty songs for Sansa.

Dressing well as a weapon

An early riser, like all provincial girls, she was up betimes and said her prayers, and then began the business of dressing,—a business which henceforth was to have a meaning. First she brushed and smoothed her chestnut hair and twisted its heavy masses to the top of her head with the utmost care, preventing the loose tresses from straying, and giving to her head a symmetry which heightened the timid candor of her face; for the simplicity of these accessories accorded well with the innocent sincerity of its lines. As she washed her hands again and again in the cold water which hardened and reddened the skin, she looked at her handsome round arms and asked herself what her cousin did to make his hands so softly white, his nails so delicately curved. She put on new stockings and her prettiest shoes. She laced her corset straight, without skipping a single eyelet. And then, wishing for the first time in her life to appear to advantage, she felt the joy of having a new gown, well made, which rendered her attractive. —Eugénie Grandet * * * "Do remind her to dress nicely today. The grey velvet, perhaps. We are all invited to ride with the queen and Princess Myrcella in the royal wheelhouse, and we must look our best." Sansa already looked her best. She had brushed out her long auburn hair until it shone, and picked her nicest blue silks. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa I Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa II "I will need hot water for my bath, please," she told them, "and perfume, and some powder to hide this bruise." The right side of her face was swollen and beginning to ache, but she knew Joffrey would want her to be beautiful. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI Knowing that Joffrey would require her to attend the tourney in his honor, Sansa had taken special care with her face and clothes. She wore a gown of pale purple silk and a moonstone hair net that had been a gift from Joffrey. The gown had long sleeves to hide the bruises on her arms. Those were Joffrey's gifts as well. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa I I have to look pretty, Joff likes me to look pretty, he's always liked me in this gown, this color. She smoothed the cloth down. The fabric was tight across her chest. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

Here, while Eugénie uses the business of dressing to try to impress and gain the affections of her cousin Charles, Sansa uses the same resource as a shield against Joffrey's ill temper and to cover the bruises left on her skin by Joffrey's ill temper.

Complimenting someone's name

“Is anything the matter, my cousin?” he said. “Hush!” said Madame Grandet to Eugenie, who was about to answer; “you know, my daughter, that your father charged us not to speak to monsieur—” “Say Charles,” said young Grandet. “Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!” cried Eugenie. —Eugénie Grandet * * * "I don't even know your name." "Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower." "That's pretty." He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. He could not help the girl, but perhaps the courtesy would please her. "Is it Craster who frightens you, Gilly?" —A Clash of Kings - Jon III "I . . . I could call myself after my mother . . ." "Catelyn? A bit too obvious . . . but after my mother, that would serve. Alayne. Do you like it?" "Alayne is pretty." Sansa hoped she would remember. —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

Kissing Cousins

“My dear cousin—” “Hush, hush! my cousin, not so loud; we must not wake others. See,” she said, opening her purse, “here are the savings of a poor girl who wants nothing. Charles, accept them! This morning I was ignorant of the value of money; you have taught it to me. It is but a means, after all. A cousin is almost a brother; you can surely borrow the purse of your sister.” —Eugénie Grandet

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,— “I did right to trust Alphonse; he has done famously. He has managed my affairs with prudence and good faith. I now owe nothing in Paris. All my things have been sold; and he tells me that he has taken the advice of an old sea-captain and spent three thousand francs on a commercial outfit of European curiosities which will be sure to be in demand in the Indies. He has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other farewell—perhaps forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten thousand francs, which two of my friends send me, are a very small beginning. I cannot look to return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to you—” “Do you love me?” she said. “Oh, yes! indeed, yes!” he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed an equal depth of feeling. “I shall wait, Charles—Good heavens! there is my father at his window,” she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her. She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When she saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and opened the swing-door; then, scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached the corner near Nanon’s den, in the darkest end of the passage. There Charles caught her hand and drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about her waist, he made her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted; she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the most unreserved of kisses. “Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry you,” said Charles.

(...) After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin. Those who have known that most endearing of all passions,—the one whose duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, by human chances and fatalities,—they will understand the poor girl’s tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet which could be locked, where the now empty velvet purse was lying. This deposit was not made without a goodly number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

“It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she said.

“Then my heart will be always there.”

“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though she blamed him.

“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy promise,—then take mine.”

“Thine; I am thine forever!” they each said, repeating the words twice over.

No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man’s love.

—Eugénie Grandet * * * How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?" —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms around her and kissed her. It was a little boy's kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn did was clumsy. If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her . . . and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. —A Feast for Crows - Alayne II "I don't want you to marry him, Alayne. I am the Lord of the Eyrie, and I forbid it." He sounded as if he were about to cry. "You should marry me instead. We could sleep in the same bed every night, and you could read me stories." (...) She put a finger to his lips. "I know what you want, but it cannot be. I am no fit wife for you. I am bastard born." "I don't care. I love you best of anyone. " (...) "You must have a proper wife, a trueborn maid of noble birth." "No. I want to marry you, Alayne." Once your lady mother intended that very thing, but I was trueborn then, and noble. (...) "The Lord of the Eyrie can do as he likes. Can't I still love you, even if I have to marry her? —The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

Eugénie and her cousin Charles's brief romance is nothing like any of Sansa's experiences with suitors, but it reminds me a bit of Sansa and her little cousin Robert Arryn interactions.

Despite looking at his provincial relatives with disdain at first, after knowing about the financial disgrace and death of his father, Charles gets use to the humble and monotonous life of Saumur and especially gets fond of Eugénie's kindness and generosity.

In a similar way, despite the violent events from Sansa's snow castle chapter in A Storm of Swords, after the the death of his mother Lysa, Sweetrobin clings to Sansa/Alayne as a mother figure and later love interest.

Charles is nothing like Sweetrobin though, he is more similar to men like Harrold Hardyng and John Willoughby from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.

At the end, similar to John Willoughby's actions, Charles Grandet chooses to marry a girl he doesn't love to re-gain his high status in Parisian society and a nobility title, unbeknownst that Eugénie had become extremely rich, richer than him and his new bride combined.

Harrold Hardyng is not Sansa's cousin but Robert Arryn's cousin and heir. Harry consented the betrothal to Alayne only to gain the political support from Petyr Baelish.

And while cousin Charles's kisses mean love's kisses to Eugénie, cousin Robert's unrequited kisses remind Sansa of another forced and unrequited kisses from the past that left only trauma and fear in her.

But despite all her awful experiences from unworthy suitors, Sansa still longs to know kisses of love, and she associates those with Snow and she happens to has a cousin named Snow. More about this later.

You will know it some day / You may learn that one day

It was a death worthy of her life,—a Christian death; and is not that sublime? In the month of October, 1822, her virtues, her angelic patience, her love for her daughter, seemed to find special expression; and then she passed away without a murmur. Lamb without spot, she went to heaven, regretting only the sweet companion of her cold and dreary life, for whom her last glance seemed to prophesy a destiny of sorrows. She shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures. “My child,” she said as she expired, “there is no happiness except in heaven; you will know it some day.” (...) Terrible and utter disaster! The ship went down, leaving not a spar, not a plank, on a vast ocean of hope! Some women when they see themselves abandoned will try to tear their lover from the arms of a rival, they will kill her, and rush to the ends of the earth,—to the scaffold, to their tomb. That, no doubt, is fine; the motive of the crime is a great passion, which awes even human justice. Other women bow their heads and suffer in silence; they go their way dying, resigned, weeping, forgiving, praying, and recollecting, till they draw their last breath. This is love,—true love, the love of angels, the proud love which lives upon its anguish and dies of it. Such was Eugenie’s love after she had read that dreadful letter. She raised her eyes to heaven, thinking of the last words uttered by her dying mother, who, with the prescience of death, had looked into the future with clear and penetrating eyes: Eugenie, remembering that prophetic death, that prophetic life, measured with one glance her own destiny. Nothing was left for her; she could only unfold her wings, stretch upward to the skies, and live in prayer until the day of her deliverance. “My mother was right,” she said, weeping. “Suffer—and die!” —Eugénie Grandet * * * "Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow." —A Game of Thrones - Sansa III "Life is not a song, sweetling," he'd told her. "You may learn that one day to your sorrow." —A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI The moment came back to her vividly. "You told me that life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my sorrow." —A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

This is a parallel but also a contrast between Eugénie and Sansa.

Eugénie's mother wasn't happy with her husband. Monsieur Felix Grandet was an awful husband and father. His only love was gold. That's why at her hour of death, Madame Grandet envisions a destiny of sorrows for her daughter, knowing well that not only the Cruchots and des Grassins coveted Eugénie's inheritance, but it was her own father, Monsieur Grandet, the most dangerous threat to Eugénie's welfare.

On the other hand, Catelyn Stark, Sansa's mother, was very happy with Eddard Stark. Ned was a good husband but a terrible father. Being aware of her good luck in her marriage, Catelyn said this to his firstborn son Robb: "We're all just songs in the end. If we are lucky." —A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V.

Catelyn's words of hope to her son contrast to Petyr Baelish's words of sorrow to Sansa, not only because the bad omen, but because he is an active player in the sorrows that await Sansa and her family.

Strained relationship with their fathers

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

On the morrow Grandet, in pursuance of a custom he had begun since Eugenie’s imprisonment, took a certain number of turns up and down the little garden; he had chosen the hour when Eugenie brushed and arranged her hair. When the old man reached the walnut-tree he hid behind its trunk and remained for a few moments watching his daughter’s movements, hesitating, perhaps, between the course to which the obstinacy of his character impelled him and his natural desire to embrace his child. Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her father secretly in the mirror before which she stood. If he rose and continued his walk, she sat down obligingly at the window and looked at the angle of the wall where the pale flowers hung, where the Venus-hair grew from the crevices with the bindweed and the sedum,—a white or yellow stone-crop very abundant in the vineyards of Saumur and at Tours. Maitre Cruchot came early, and found the old wine-grower sitting in the fine June weather on the little bench, his back against the division wall of the garden, engaged in watching his daughter. —Eugénie Grandet * * *

He had only to look at Sansa's face to feel the rage twisting inside him once again. The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher's boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

Monsieur Felix Grandet and Lord Eddard Stark were awful fathers to Eugénie and Sansa. They both used their daughters for their own business but they never tried to understand the girls. They both could only watch them from apart not knowing how to approach them.

The severity of Père Grandet and Lord father Stark towards their daughters made Eugénie and Sansa defy them for the first time when they fell in love with Charles and Joffrey.

Ned was not the awful person that Monsieur Grandet was, though. Despite all his flaws as Sansa's father, he gave his own life in order to save Sansa from the same fate.

Melancholic Beauty

When his daughter came down the winding street, accompanied by Nanon, on her way to Mass or Vespers, the inhabitants ran to the windows and examined with intense curiosity the bearing of the rich heiress and her countenance, which bore the impress of angelic gentleness and melancholy. (...) “Mademoiselle, the best way to stop such rumors is to procure your liberty,” answered the old notary respectfully, struck with the beauty which seclusion, melancholy, and love had stamped upon her face. —Eugénie Grandet * * * Their litter had been sitting in the sun, and it was very warm inside the curtains. As they lurched into motion, Tyrion reclined on an elbow while Sansa sat staring at her hands. She is just as comely as the Tyrell girl. Her hair was a rich autumn auburn, her eyes a deep Tully blue. Grief had given her a haunted, vulnerable look; if anything, it had only made her more beautiful. —A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

Although it is a bit morbid to find beauty in someone's grief and misery, this image of our heroines being graceful while in disgrace got my attention.

This regard of Eugénie and Sansa comes from two men that wanted to reach them and gain their favor. Monsieur Cruchot, the notary, wanted Eugénie to marry his nephew, President Cruchot de Bonfons, while Tyrion Lannister, already married to Sansa, wishes to get her affections despite their forced marriage.

This is the point of view of two men that wanted to play the hero of a damsel in distress, but they are not the heroes that those fair maids wished for.

Love's kisses / Lover's kisses

Her imprisonment and the condemnation of her father were as nothing to her. Had she not a map of the world, the little bench, the garden, the angle of the wall? Did she not taste upon her lips the honey that love’s kisses left there? She was ignorant for a time that the town talked about her, just as Grandet himself was ignorant of it. Pious and pure in heart before God, her conscience and her love helped her to suffer patiently the wrath and vengeance of her father. —Eugénie Grandet A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here. Yet she stepped out all the same. Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound. Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she were still dreaming. Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams. —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

While Eugénie's love to Charles gives her strength and dignify her in her tribulations, Sansa, in front of a beautiful winter scenery, feels soiled by her southern experiences. She feels that she doesn't belong in that pure, innocent world, as white as Snow.

Yet Sansa, defying her supposed maculated fate, embraces the beauty of the falling Snow that reminds her of home, and compared the sensation of the snowflakes brushing her face to lover's kisses.

The calling of the Snow at dawn was too powerful for Sansa to resist it. It was like the Snow telling her, you are wrong, you belong with me, let me kiss you to prove it.

"Jon Snow?" she blurted out, surprised.

"Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose."

She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

No one will ever marry me for love

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

Only six individuals had a right of entrance to Monsieur Grandet’s house. The most important of the first three was a nephew of Monsieur Cruchot. Since his appointment as president of the Civil courts of Saumur this young man had added the name of Bonfons to that of Cruchot. He now signed himself C. de Bonfons. Any litigant so ill-advised as to call him Monsieur Cruchot would soon be made to feel his folly in court. The magistrate protected those who called him Monsieur le president, but he favored with gracious smiles those who addressed him as Monsieur de Bonfons. Monsieur le president was thirty-three years old, and possessed the estate of Bonfons (Boni Fontis), worth seven thousand francs a year; he expected to inherit the property of his uncle the notary and that of another uncle, the Abbe Cruchot, a dignitary of the chapter of Saint-Martin de Tours, both of whom were thought to be very rich. These three Cruchots, backed by a goodly number of cousins, and allied to twenty families in the town, formed a party, like the Medici in Florence; like the Medici, the Cruchots had their Pazzi.

Madame des Grassins, mother of a son twenty-three years of age, came assiduously to play cards with Madame Grandet, hoping to marry her dear Adolphe to Mademoiselle Eugenie. Monsieur des Grassins, the banker, vigorously promoted the schemes of his wife by means of secret services constantly rendered to the old miser, and always arrived in time upon the field of battle. The three des Grassins likewise had their adherents, their cousins, their faithful allies. On the Cruchot side the abbe, the Talleyrand of the family, well backed-up by his brother the notary, sharply contested every inch of ground with his female adversary, and tried to obtain the rich heiress for his nephew the president.

This secret warfare between the Cruchots and des Grassins, the prize thereof being the hand in marriage of Eugenie Grandet, kept the various social circles of Saumur in violent agitation. Would Mademoiselle Grandet marry Monsieur le president or Monsieur Adolphe des Grassins?

(...) “If I had a man for myself I’d—I’d follow him to hell, yes, I’d exterminate myself for him; but I’ve none. I shall die and never know what life is. Would you believe, mamz’elle, that old Cornoiller (a good fellow all the same) is always round my petticoats for the sake of my money,—just for all the world like the rats who come smelling after the master’s cheese and paying court to you? I see it all; I’ve got a shrewd eye, though I am as big as a steeple. Well, mamz’elle, it pleases me, but it isn’t love.”

(...) She (Eugénie's mother) shrank from leaving her ewe-lamb, white as herself, alone in the midst of a selfish world that sought to strip her of her fleece and grasp her treasures.

(...) (Eugénie) Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

—Eugénie Grandet

* * *

“If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

A pity Ned Stark had taken his daughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfell by marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by now likely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in the clutches of the Lannisters. A shame.

—A Clash of Kings - Theon IV

It came to her suddenly that she had stood in this very spot before, on the day Lord Eddard Stark had lost his head. That was not supposed to happen. Joff was supposed to spare his life and send him to the Wall. Stark’s eldest son would have followed him as Lord of Winterfell, but Sansa would have stayed at court, a hostage. Varys and Littlefinger had worked out the terms, and Ned Stark had swallowed his precious honor and confessed his treason to save his daughter’s empty little head. I would have made Sansa a good marriage. A Lannister marriage. Not Joff, of course, but Lancel might have suited, or one of his younger brothers. Petyr Baelish had offered to wed the girl himself, she recalled, but of course that was impossible; he was much too lowborn. If Joff had only done as he was told, Winterfell would never have gone to war, and Father would have dealt with Robert’s brothers.

—A Dance with Dragons - Cersei II

“I will be safe in Highgarden. Willas will keep me safe.” “But he does not know you,” Dontos insisted, “and he will not love you. Jonquil, Jonquil, open your sweet eyes, these Tyrells care nothing for you. It’s your claim they mean to wed.” “My claim?” She was lost for a moment. “Sweetling,” he told her, “you are heir to Winterfell.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

“Yes. You are a ward of the crown. The king stands in your father’s place, since your brother is an attainted traitor. That means he has every right to dispose of your hand. You are to marry my brother Tyrion.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

“The girl’s happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark.” […] “She must marry a Lannister, and soon.” “The man who weds Sansa Stark can claim Winterfell in her name,” his uncle Kevan put in.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

“How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?” The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy, and sickly. It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. But lying came easy to her now. “I … can scarcely wait to meet him, my lady. But he is still a child, is he not?”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

As you can see, Monsieur Grandet's banker des Grassins wished Eugénie to marry his son Adolphe, while his lawyer Monsieur Cruchot wished Eugénie to marry his nephew President Cruchot de Bonfons. Both, the Cruchots and des Grassins, coveted Eugénie's inheritance.

In a similar way, the Lannisters, the Tyrells, Theon Greyjoy, Petyr Baelish, Harrold Hardyng, and even Lysa Tully in the name of his son Robert Arryn, coveted Sansa's claim to the North and Winterfell, with all the lands, money, armies and political power that come with the name Stark.

So, when I read these lines, 188 years after Balzac wrote them:

(...) and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

I couldn't help but think about Sansa Stark and one of the saddest quotes from the ASOIAF series:

It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love.

Walnut Tree / Heart Tree

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

When the two lovers were alone in the garden, Charles said to Eugenie, drawing her down on the old bench beneath the walnut-tree,— (...) I cannot look to return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to you—”

“Do you love me?” she said.

“Oh, yes! indeed, yes!” he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed an equal depth of feeling.

“I shall wait, Charles—Good heavens! there is my father at his window,” she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her.

(...) When Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

“It shall never leave that place, my friend,” she said.

“Then my heart will be always there.”

“Ah! Charles, it is not right,” she said, as though she blamed him.

“Are we not married?” he said. “I have thy promise,—then take mine.”

“Thine; I am thine forever!” they each said, repeating the words twice over.

(...) In the mornings she sat pensive beneath the walnut-tree, on the worm-eaten bench covered with gray lichens, where they had said to each other so many precious things, so many trifles, where they had built the pretty castles of their future home. She thought of the future now as she looked upward to the bit of sky which was all the high walls suffered her to see; then she turned her eyes to the angle where the sun crept on, and to the roof above the room in which he had slept. Hers was the solitary love, the persistent love, which glides into every thought and becomes the substance, or, as our fathers might have said, the tissue of life.

(...) Sometimes he sat down on the rotten old bench where Charles and Eugenie had vowed eternal love; and then she, too, looked at her father secretly in the mirror before which she stood.

(...) At the beginning of August in the same year, Eugenie was sitting on the little wooden bench where her cousin had sworn to love her eternally, and where she usually breakfasted if the weather were fine. The poor girl was happy, for the moment, in the fresh and joyous summer air, letting her memory recall the great and the little events of her love and the catastrophes which had followed it.

—Eugénie Grandet

As you can see, Eugénie's walnut tree is the heart of her house in Saumur. In the old wooden bench beneath that immense tree, the cousin lovers Eugénie and Charles Grandet exchanged vows of eternal love. As Charles said later, beneath that walnut tree they got married.

Eugénie sat in that same wooden bench for years, remembering and waiting for her lover. Charles, on the other hand, forget his promises of eternal love, broke those vows and married another woman.

In a similar way, the weirwood trees are called heart trees, the weirwood from Winterfell's godswood is called the Heart of Winterfell, and godswoods are a sacred places for praying and meditation, under the weirwood tress lovers kiss and make promises, and heroes vows to protect the realms of men:

At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. “The heart tree,” Ned called it.  The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise around them. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

The sun was sinking below the trees when they reached their destination, a small clearing in the deep of the wood where nine weirwoods grew in a rough circle. Jon drew in a breath, and he saw Sam Tarly staring. Even in the wolfswood, you never found more than two or three of the white trees growing together; a grove of nine was unheard of. The forest floor was carpeted with fallen leaves, bloodred on top, black rot beneath. The wide smooth trunks were bone pale, and nine faces stared inward. The dried sap that crusted in the eyes was red and hard as ruby. Bowen Marsh commanded them to leave their horses outside the circle. "This is a sacred place, we will not defile it."

When they entered the grove, Samwell Tarly turned slowly looking at each face in turn. No two were quite alike. "They're watching us," he whispered. "The old gods."

"Yes." Jon knelt, and Sam knelt beside him.

They said the words together, as the last light faded in the west and grey day became black night.

"Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow," they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. "Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."

The woods fell silent. "You knelt as boys," Bowen Marsh intoned solemnly. "Rise now as men of the Night's Watch."

—A Game of Thrones - Jon VI

Robb bid farewell to his young queen thrice. Once in the godswood before the heart tree, in sight of gods and men. The second time beneath the portcullis, where Jeyne sent him forth with a long embrace and a longer kiss. And finally an hour beyond the Tumblestone, when the girl came galloping up on a well-lathered horse to plead with her young king to take her along.

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

In contrast to Eugénie, who fervently clung to her walnut tree that became the symbol of her vows of eternal love to Charles, since Sansa left Winterfell, she only found godswoods without a weirwood tree:

The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned’s cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon’s breath surrounded the girls where they lay. “I dreamed of Bran,” Sansa had whispered to him. “I saw him smiling.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard V

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home. The Eyrie was no home. […] When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Even the gods were silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. Only the wind answered her, sighing endlessly around the seven slim white towers and rattling the Moon Door every time it gusted. It will be even worse in winter, she knew. In winter this will be a cold white prison.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

But despite the absence of a weirwood tree, those empty godswoods became a metaphor of Sansa herself, lost in the south and longing to come back home:

A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

But Sansa Stark has started her journey back home, she is going back North to take back her heart:

But when Brienne asked about Sansa, she said, “I’ll tell you what I told Lord Tywin. That girl was always praying. She’d go to sept and light her candles like a proper lady, but near every night she went off to the godswood. She’s gone back north, she has. That’s where her gods are.”

—A Feast for Crows - Brienne II

A veil of courtesy / Courtesy is a lady's armor

She appeared in the evening at the hour when the usual company began to arrive. Never was the old hall so full as on this occasion. The news of Charles’s return and his foolish treachery had spread through the whole town. But however watchful the curiosity of the visitors might be, it was left unsatisfied. Eugenie, who expected scrutiny, allowed none of the cruel emotions that wrung her soul to appear on the calm surface of her face. She was able to show a smiling front in answer to all who tried to testify their interest by mournful looks or melancholy speeches. She hid her misery behind a veil of courtesy.

—Eugénie Grandet

What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady's armor is courtesy, that was it. She donned her armor and said, "I'm sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

Courtesy is a lady's armor. You must not offend them, be careful what you say.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

"Courtesy is a lady's armor," Sansa said. Her septa had always told her that.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

A lady's armor is her courtesy. Alayne could feel the blood rushing to her face. No tears, she prayed. Please, please, I must not cry.

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

Agency, richness, power... And loneliness

At the end, life gives Eugénie her revenge, especially against the people that always coveted her vast wealth.

Eugénie was at last free, independent, rich and powerful, but she was very lonely. Her only comfort was the company and loyalty of la Grand Nanon:

Eugenie Grandet was now alone in the world in that gray house, with none but Nanon to whom she could turn with the certainty of being heard and understood,—Nanon the sole being who loved her for herself and with whom she could speak of her sorrows. La Grande Nanon was a providence for Eugenie. She was not a servant, but a humble friend.

—Eugénie Grandet

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

La Grand Nanon was often compared to a loyal dog and she was in charge of the wolf-dog that protected the old Grandet House in Saumur.

Nanon did everything. She cooked, she made the lye, she washed the linen in the Loire and brought it home on her shoulders; she got up early, she went to bed late; she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected the property of her master like a faithful dog, and even, full of blind confidence, obeyed without a murmur his most absurd exactions.

(...) Like a watch-dog, she slept with one ear open, and took her rest with a mind alert.

(...) Nanon went to bolt the outer door; then she closed the hall and let loose a wolf-dog, whose bark was so strangled that he seemed to have laryngitis. This animal, noted for his ferocity, recognized no one but Nanon; the two untutored children of the fields understood each other.

—Eugénie Grandet

La Grand Nanon and the wolf-dog remind me of the Stark children's direwolves, of course. Loyal companions and protectors until the very end.

After the deaths of Monsieur et Madame Grandet, only Nanon remains to Eugénie. Then, thanks to the new financial independence of Mademoiselle Grandet, La Grand Nanon became rich as well, and she even got married to her old suitor Antoine Cornoiller.

Illustration by René ben Sussan for Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac - Heritage Press, 1961.

The day on which Maitre Cruchot handed in to his client a clear and exact schedule of the whole inheritance, Eugenie remained alone with Nanon, sitting beside the fireplace in the vacant hall, where all was now a memory, from the chair on castors which her mother had sat in, to the glass from which her cousin drank. “Nanon, we are alone—” “Yes, mademoiselle; and if I knew where he was, the darling, I’d go on foot to find him.” “The ocean is between us,” she said. While the poor heiress wept in company of an old servant, in that cold dark house, which was to her the universe, the whole province rang, from Nantes to Orleans, with the seventeen millions of Mademoiselle Grandet. Among her first acts she had settled an annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who, already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich and enviable match. In less than a month that good soul passed from single to wedded life under the protection of Antoine Cornoiller, who was appointed keeper of all Mademoiselle Grandet’s estates. Madame Cornoiller possessed one striking advantage over her contemporaries. Although she was fifty-nine years of age, she did not look more than forty. Her strong features had resisted the ravages of time. Thanks to the healthy customs of her semi-conventual life, she laughed at old age from the vantage-ground of a rosy skin and an iron constitution. Perhaps she never looked as well in her life as she did on her marriage-day. She had all the benefits of her ugliness, and was big and fat and strong, with a look of happiness on her indestructible features which made a good many people envy Cornoiller.

Eugénie became so rich that she was considered a Queen and the sovereign of her own court:

It seemed unlikely that Mademoiselle Grandet would marry during the period of her mourning. Her genuine piety was well known. Consequently the Cruchots, whose policy was sagely guided by the old abbe, contented themselves for the time being with surrounding the great heiress and paying her the most affectionate attentions. Every evening the hall was filled with a party of devoted Cruchotines, who sang the praises of its mistress in every key. She had her doctor in ordinary, her grand almoner, her chamberlain, her first lady of honor, her prime minister; above all, her chancellor, a chancellor who would fain have said much to her. If the heiress had wished for a train-bearer, one would instantly have been found. She was a queen, obsequiously flattered. Flattery never emanates from noble souls; it is the gift of little minds, who thus still further belittle themselves to worm their way into the vital being of the persons around whom they crawl. Flattery means self-interest. So the people who, night after night, assembled in Mademoiselle Grandet’s house (they called her Mademoiselle de Froidfond) outdid each other in expressions of admiration. This concert of praise, never before bestowed upon Eugenie, made her blush under its novelty; but insensibly her ear became habituated to the sound, and however coarse the compliments might be, she soon was so accustomed to hear her beauty lauded that if any new-comer had seemed to think her plain, she would have felt the reproach far more than she might have done eight years earlier. She ended at last by loving the incense, which she secretly laid at the feet of her idol. By degrees she grew accustomed to be treated as a sovereign and to see her court pressing around her every evening. Monsieur de Bonfons was the hero of the little circle, where his wit, his person, his education, his amiability, were perpetually praised. One or another would remark that in seven years he had largely increased his fortune, that Bonfons brought in at least ten thousand francs a year, and was surrounded, like the other possessions of the Cruchots, by the vast domains of the heiress.

Later, after knowing about Charles's betrayal, Eugénie chooses to marry President Cruchot de Bonfons under certain conditions. It was a sham marriage, only in name, but never consummated:

(...) “Monsieur le cure,” said Eugenie with a noble composure, inspired by the thought she was about to express, “would it be a sin to remain a virgin after marriage?” (...) “Monsieur le president,” said Eugenie in a voice of some emotion when they were left alone, “I know what pleases you in me. Swear to leave me free during my whole life, to claim none of the rights which marriage will give you over me, and my hand is yours. Oh!” she added, seeing him about to kneel at her feet, “I have more to say. I must not deceive you. In my heart I cherish one inextinguishable feeling. Friendship is the only sentiment which I can give to a husband. I wish neither to affront him nor to violate the laws of my own heart. —Eugénie Grandet

And even when President Cruchot de Bonfons was waiting to Eugénie's early death, he was the one that died and made his widow even richer by adding the Cruchot's fortune to the already vast Grandet's fortune:

Nevertheless, Monsieur de Bonfons (he had finally abolished his patronymic of Cruchot) did not realize any of his ambitious ideas. He died eight days after his election as deputy of Saumur. God, who sees all and never strikes amiss, punished him, no doubt, for his sordid calculations and the legal cleverness with which, accurante Cruchot, he had drawn up his marriage contract, in which husband and wife gave to each other, “in case they should have no children, their entire property of every kind, landed or otherwise, without exception or reservation, dispensing even with the formality of an inventory; provided that said omission of said inventory shall not injure their heirs and assigns, it being understood that this deed of gift is, etc., etc.” This clause of the contract will explain the profound respect which monsieur le president always testified for the wishes, and above all, for the solitude of Madame de Bonfons. (...) Endowed with the delicate perception which a solitary soul acquires through constant meditation, through the exquisite clear-sightedness with which a mind aloof from life fastens on all that falls within its sphere, Eugenie, taught by suffering and by her later education to divine thought, knew well that the president desired her death that he might step into possession of their immense fortune, augmented by the property of his uncle the notary and his uncle the abbe, whom it had lately pleased God to call to himself. The poor solitary pitied the president. Providence avenged her for the calculations and the indifference of a husband who respected the hopeless passion on which she spent her life because it was his surest safeguard. To give life to a child would give death to his hopes,—the hopes of selfishness, the joys of ambition, which the president cherished as he looked into the future. —Eugénie Grandet

But Eugénie's vast riches were an empty victory for her. The avarice of her father marked her life.

Due to the frugal life style imposed by Monsieur Grandet, Eugénie was never attached to money and gold like her father was:

In spite of her vast wealth, she lives as the poor Eugenie Grandet once lived. The fire is never lighted on her hearth until the day when her father allowed it to be lighted in the hall, and it is put out in conformity with the rules which governed her youthful years. She dresses as her mother dressed. The house in Saumur, without sun, without warmth, always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her life. She carefully accumulates her income, and might seem parsimonious did she not disarm criticism by a noble employment of her wealth. Pious and charitable institutions, a hospital for old age, Christian schools for children, a public library richly endowed, bear testimony against the charge of avarice which some persons lay at her door. The churches of Saumur owe much of their embellishment to her. Madame de Bonfons (sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most part reverential respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who is all feeling.

“I have none but you to love me,” she says to Nanon.

The hand of this woman stanches the secret wounds in many families. She goes on her way to heaven attended by a train of benefactions. The grandeur of her soul redeems the narrowness of her education and the petty habits of her early life.

Such is the history of Eugenie Grandet, who is in the world but not of it; who, created to be supremely a wife and mother, has neither husband nor children nor family.

—Eugénie Grandet

Eugénie was meant to be a wife and a mother, she wanted to love and be loved, but life only gave her sorrows and riches.

This sad ending reminds me a bit of Show Sansa's ending. She was a Queen of an independent Kingdom, but she didn't get any of her siblings with her at Winterfell.

But, unlike Eugénie that only knew the likes of Charles Grandet, the Cruchots and the des Grassins, and even if Sansa doesn't know it yet, there is someone who despite being offered Sansa's claim, had chosen her over Winterfell and the North and the name Stark:

“By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

Unlike Tyrion, Willas, Theon, Littlefinger or even little Robert, who pursued Sansa’s claim over her, Jon Snow chose Sansa over her claim. Among all the high lords interested in becoming the Lord of Winterfell by marrying Sansa Stark, the bastard Jon Snow refused to despoil his sister Sansa of her rights, even if her claim is the one thing he has wanted as much as he had ever wanted anything.

Jon Snow is not some fancy suitor from the South like Charles Grandet was to Eugénie, like John Willoughby was to Marianne Dashwood, like Joffrey, Loras and even Harry were/are for Sansa/Alayne. Jon Snow has Stark blood, he was raised by Ned Stark, he worships the old gods, and he knows very well that you can't make false promises in front of a weirwood tree:

Jon said, “My lord father believed no man could tell a lie in front of a heart tree. The old gods know when men are lying.”

—A Clash of Kings - Jon II

So, there is hope.

The end.

[This post is very personal and was written during somehow convulsed times. So, if you have come this far, thanks for reading.]

[factoringprimes-blog]

Balzac's La Comédie humaine ordered by length

When I started this, I knew it would be useless, but I did not realize that it would be so difficult.

His works were serialized in different publications and often republished in different configurations, even within his lifetime. It is sometimes hard to tell what counts as a singular work. Titles change. Two related stories might be published in one place as a novella and in another as two separate works. Different collected editions might have prefaces or linking material added. For the purposes of this list, I used the list in Wikipedia as the official "list" and determined lengths from versions I was able to find copies of online, primarily from Œuvres complètes de H. de Balzac, A. Houssiaux, 1855 as displayed on Wikisource. It is not comprehensive. For instance, he wrote three pieces under the theme Pathologie de la vie sociale, but only one of them is listed on the Wikipedia page. I had to draw the line somewhere, so forgive me for not including these other works.

The shortest are around 3000 words, the longest are over 100,000.

SHORTEST

1830 - Étude de femme 1844 - Gaudissart II 1830 - El Verdugo 1833 - Le Message 1837 - Facino Cane 1830 - Les Deux Rêves 1830 - Une passion dans le désert 1831 - Le Réquisitionnaire 1831 - Jésus-Christ en Flandre 1842 - Un épisode sous la Terreur (avant-propos à La Comédie humaine) 1837 - La Messe de l'athée 1844 - Esquisse d’Homme d’affaires d’après nature 1839 - Pathologie de la vie sociale (Traité des excitants modernes) 1839 - Pierre Grassou 1834 - Un drame au bord de la mer 1832 - Madame Firmiani 1831 - La Grande Bretèche (Autre étude de femme) 1831 - L'Élixir de longue vie 1833 - La Grenadière 1840 - Z. Marcas 1831 - Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu 1832 - Le Bourse 1831 - Les Proscrits 1831 - Sarrasine 1840 - Un prince de la bohème 1831 - L’Auberge rouge 1830 - La Paix du ménage 1833 - L'Illustre Gaudissart 1839 - Autre étude de femme 1830 - Adieu ! 1833 - La Femme abandonnée 1831 - L'Enfant maudit 1835 - Melmoth réconcilié 1842 - La Fausse Maîtresse 1846 - Les Comédiens sans le savoir 1830 - Gobseck 1830 - La Maison du chat-qui-pelote 1839 - Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan 1830 - Le Bal de Sceaux 1832 - Maître Cornélius 1837 - Gambara 1834 - Les Marana 1832 - Le Colonel Chabert 1832 - Le Curé de Tours 1838 - La Maison Nucingen 1830 - La Vendetta 1837 - La Confidence des Ruggieri 1830 - Une double famille 1836 - L'Interdiction 1835 - La Fille aux yeux d'or 1843 - Honorine 1839 - Massimilla Doni 1846 - Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (3. Où mènent les mauvais chemins) 1848 - L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine (1. Madame de la Chanterie ; 2. L'Initié) 1832 - Louis Lambert 1842 - Albert Savarus 1838 - Une fille d'Ève 1834 - Ferragus 1843 - Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (2. À combien l'amour revient aux vieillards) 1836 - La Vieille Fille 1835 - Le Contrat de mariage 1837 - Illusions perdues (1. Les Deux Poètes) 1847 - Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (4. La Dernière Incarnation de Vautrin) 1834 - Séraphîta 1838 - Le Cabinet des Antiques 1840 - Pierrette 1834 - La Duchesse de Langeais 1830 - Petites misères de la vie conjugale (Traité de la vie élégante) 1844 - Un début dans la vie 1843 - La Muse du département 1844 - Sur Catherine de Médicis (Le Martyr calviniste) 1838 - Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (1. Comment aiment les filles ou Esther heureuse) 1833 - Eugénie Grandet 1834 - La Femme de trente ans 1834 - La Recherche de l'absolu 1843 - Illusions perdues (3. Ève et David ou Les Souffrances de l'inventeur) 1841 - Une ténébreuse affaire 1838 - Les Employés ou la Femme supérieure 1841 - Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées 1839 - Béatrix 1841 - Ursule Mirouët 1833 - Le Médecin de campagne (Théorie de la démarche) 1841 - Le Curé de village 1844 - Modeste Mignon 1835 - Le Père Goriot 1831 - La Peau de chagrin 1836 - Le Lys dans la vallée 1837 - César Birotteau 1842 - La Rabouilleuse (Un ménage de garçon) 1847 - Le Cousin Pons 1829 - Physiologie du mariage 1839 - Illusions perdues (2. Un grand homme de province à Paris) 1829 - Les Chouans 1846 - La Cousine Bette

LONGEST

no plain text found - 1824 - Du Droit d'aînesse no plain text found - 1833 - (Dialogue d'un vieux grenadier de la Garde impériale surnommé le Sans peur)

[flintism]

Books read - 2020

fiction - novels & short stories

the adolescent, dostoevsky

dead souls, gogol

the gambler, dostoevsky

the steppe, chekhov

l’élégance du hérisson, muriel barbery (/r)

madame bovary, flaubert (/r)

the house of mirth, edith wharton

hangul express part 2, léa silhol

first love, turgenev

between the acts, virginia woolf

the house of the dead, dostoevsky

embers, sandor márai

bouvard et pécuchet, flaubert

les paysans, balzac

the idiot, dostoevsky

divorce à buda, sándor márai  

the rebels, sándor márai

albert savarus, balzac

the emperor’s tomb, joseph roth

les mouettes, sándor márai

du côté de chez swann, proust

à l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, proust

z. marcas, balzac

le côté de guermantes, proust

sodome et gomorrhe, proust

la paix du ménage, balzac

une passion dans le désert, balzac

la prisonnière, proust

assassin’s apprentice, rh (/r)

royal assassin, rh (/r)

assassin’s quest, rh (/r)

fool’s errand, rh (/r)

the golden fool, rh (/r)

fool’s fate, rh (/r)

fool’s assassin, rh (/r)

fool’s quest, rh (/r)

assassin’s fate, rh (/r)

albertine disparue, proust

le temps retrouvé, proust

séraphîta, balzac

louis lambert, balzac

sur catherine de médicis, balzac

un épisode sous la terreur, balzac

les comédiens sans le savoir, balzac

l’enfant maudit, balzac

honorine, balzac

la princesse de clèves, madame de lafayette (/r)

el verdugo, balzac

histoire de la princesse de montpensier, madame de lafayette (/r)

les petits bourgeois, balzac

eugénie grandet, balzac (/r)

la reine margot, dumas

des saisons adolescentes

musiques de la frontière, léa silhol (/r)

l’héritage d’esther, sandór márai

don quixote part 1 & 2, cervantes

amok, zweig

letter from an unknown woman, zweig

moonbeam alley, zweig

confusion of feelings, zweig (/r)

la tentation de saint antoine, flaubert

trois contes, flaubert

lettres persanes, montesquieu

salammbô, flaubert (/r)

the god of small things, arundhati roy

beloved, toni morrison

the bluest eye, toni morrison

song of solomon, toni morrison

home, toni morrison

love, toni Morrison

sula, toni morrison

the age of innocence, edith wharton

tar baby, toni morrison

jazz, toni morrison

a mercy, toni morrison

god help the children, toni morrison

the custom of the country, edith wharton

paradise, toni morrison

the portrait of a lady, henry james

anna karenina, tolstoy (/r)

un roman russe, emmanuel carrère

le maître et marguerite, boulgakov

vies minuscules, pierre michon

les géorgiques, claude simon

obermann, senancour

runaway, alice munro

white nights, dostoevsky 

notes from underground, dostoevsky 

the snowstorm and other stories, tolstoy 

dernier jour à budapest, sandor márai

resurrection, tolstoy 

the death of ivan ilyich and other stories, tolstoy

family happiness, tolstoy

the kreutzer sonata, tolstoy

the devil, tolstoy

hadji murat,  tolstoy

humiliated and insulted, dostoevsky 

the crocodile, dostoevsky 

molloy, beckett

the brothers karamazov, dostoevsky (/r)

[blah-blah-boogie]

Lista de libros:

Esta es la lista de todos los libros que he leído. Evolucionará a medida que continúe leyendo y a medida que recuerde los títulos. Los libros están separados según el idioma en que los leí (mayoritariamente mi lengua materna, el español). El asterisco señala el libro que leo actualmente.

Libros en español:

Bruno Gröning durante su vida y hoy - Thomas Eich Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone - J. K. Rowling El amor en los tiempos del cólera - Gabriel García Márquez Relato de un náufrago - Gabriel García Márquez Donde surgen las sombras - David Lozano Gárbala Mi planta de naranja lima - José Mauro Valladares El hogar de Miss Peregrine - Ramson Riggs La ciudad desolada - Ramson Riggs La biblioteca de almas - Ramson Riggs Cuentos de peculiares - Ramson Riggs Aura - Carlos Fuentes Alicia a través del espejo - Lewis Carroll El curioso accidente del perro a medianoche - Mark Haddon Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell Buscando a Alaska - John Green Bajo la misma estrella - John Green The Maze Runner - James Dashner The Scorch Trials - James Dashner The Death Cure - James Dashner Thirteen reasons why - Jay Asher Divergente - Veronica Roth Insurgente - Veronica Roth Allegiant - Veronica Roth Los juegos del hambre - Suzanne Collins En llamas - Suzanne Collins Sinsajo - Suzanne Collins Ciudades de papel - John Green Asesinato en el Oriente Express - Agatha Christie Los diez negritos - Agatha Christie Mira si yo te querré - Luis Leante Las ventajas de ser invisible - Stephen Chbosky La lección de August - Raquel Palacio Bodas de sangre - Federico García Lorca La neblina del ayer - Leonardo Padura Se llamaba Luis - Marina Mayoral Delirio - Laura Restrepo La tregua - Mario Benedetti 20 poemas de amor y una canción desesperada - Pablo Neruda Cartas de invierno - Agustín Fernández Paz La autopista del sur - Julio Cortázar El viejo que leía novelas de amor - Luis Sepúlveda La vida es sueño  - Pedro Calderón de la Barca Don Quijote de la Mancha - Miguel de Cervantes El burlador de Sevilla - Tirso de Molina La biblioteca secreta de La Escondida - Leonor Bravo Matilda - Roald Dahl

Libros en inglés:

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets - J. K. Rowling Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix - J. K. Rowling Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling Harry Potter and The Cursed Child - J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, John Tiffany (*) Deep Work - Cal Newport  The Hobbit - J.R.R Tolkien  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde

Libros en francés:

La Chartreuse de Parme - Stendhal  Songe d’une nuit d’été - William Shakespeare L’aventure, l’ennui et le sérieux - Vladimir Jankélévitch L’Odyssée - Homère Au cœur des ténèbres - Joseph Conrad Les Misérables - Victor Hugo Le dernier jour d’un condamné - Victor Hugo Le Cid - Pierre Corneille Dom Juan - Molière Tartuffe - Molière Le Malade imaginaire - Molière Andromaque - Jean Racine Phèdre - Jean Racine Fables - Jean de La Fontaine La Princesse de Clèves - Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette Lettres persanes - Montesquieu Le Père Goriot - Honoré de Balzac Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert Les Fleurs du mal - Charles Baudelaire Bel-Ami - Guy de Maupassant Le Horla - Guy de Maupassant Boule de Suif - Guy de Maupassant Germinal - Émile Zola Voyage au bout de la nuit - Céline L’étranger - Albert Camus Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antigone - Jean Anouilh Robinson Crusoé - Daniel Defoe Eugénie Grandet  - Honoré de Balzac Micromegas - Voltaire Interprétation des rêves - Sigmund Freud Les Poètes Maudits - Paul Verlaine Les Hauts de Hurlevent - Emily Brontë La nausée - Jean-Paul Sartre Fin de Partie - Samuel Beckett La leçon - Eugène Ionesco