At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

What It's About

Set on the Rue Saint-Denis in Paris, this is the story of Augustine Guillaume, the younger daughter of a rigid, tradition-bound cloth merchant whose shop bears the sign of the "Cat and Racket." When the ambitious young painter Théodore de Sommervieux glimpses her through the shop window, he falls instantly in love, paints her portrait, and exhibits it to public acclaim. Marriage follows swiftly, but the story is really an examination of what happens next, as the gulf between Augustine's sheltered, dutiful upbringing and Théodore's restless artistic temperament is put to the test.

Key Concepts

Balzac sets the closed, orderly world of Parisian tradespeople against the volatile emotional life of the artist, asking whether a woman raised for domestic devotion can sustain a marriage with a man of genius. Class, gender expectations, and the tension between commercial and artistic values run through the story, which opens the "Scenes from Private Life" section of La Comédie humaine and establishes themes Balzac returns to throughout the wider cycle.

About the Author

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a French novelist and playwright, widely regarded as one of the founders of literary realism. Raised in Tours, he trained in law before turning to writing full time, going on to produce an enormous body of work chronicling French society in the decades after the fall of Napoleon.

About This Edition

This is an 1895 translation by Clara Bell.