Droll Stories

Balzac opens with a sly, combative defense of his bawdy historical tales, mocking critics who doubt his language, his invention, or the value of brief comic fiction. Set in turbulent old Touraine and the age of Catherine de' Medici, the collection celebrates a rough, inventive France where politics, religion, and speech are all in flux, and where wit, observation, and craftsmanship matter more than solemnity. What follows lives up to that promise: a world of inns, fairs, taverns, and households ruled by appetite, deception, and irreverent humor. At the Inn of the Three Barbels in Tours, a greedy landlord cheats wealthy guests while three law students pose as merchants and turn fraud into sport, until their unpaid feast becomes a storytelling contest. Their tales range from rustic drunken folly and comic penance to the miseries and stratagems of marriage, from a Picard girl's exploitative night among soldiers to the humiliations of a brutal sergeant and the quiet triumph of his patient wife. The final movement turns toward jealousy, adultery, and desire, as a corrupt advocate's neglected wife falls under the spell of a handsome Italian at church. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.