Introduction

In keeping with Le Monde de Balzac declared intention of giving priority to analysing the effects of the Revolution, the references to the events of the Revolution and to the measures which it introduced are rigorously subordinated to the discussion of the long-term consequences to which they contributed. In turn, Balzac’s method is to treat the issues raised by the Revolution in terms of a series of opposing categories representing the forces of revolution and counter-revolution. In Balzac’s analysis of the social and economic effects of the Revolution, the proliferation of bourgeois categories contrasts with the narrow range of groups adversely affected by and opposed to the Revolution. In addition to marry Cardot, Le Pere Goriot, Eugenie Grandet and Jerome-Nicolas Sechard all owe their promotion from worker or artisan to bourgeois to a Revolution which, in its various effects, had made available to them the business of their ruined employer.