“Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Les Belles-de-nuit ou les Anges de la famille (Beauties of the Night or The Angels of the Family) is an adventure novel by Paul Féval. It was first published as a roman feuilleton in the French newspaper L’Assemblée nationale from the September 21 1849 to the April 27 1850.^[1] The story takes place from November 1817 to November 1820 in Brittany and in Paris. The book is divided in five parts of unequal length.

Summary

Part 1, Le Déris (The Flood)

In November 1817, in the Breton town of Redon, three strange characters – two men and a woman – stay at the inn of the Mouton Couronné (The Crowned Sheep). They are Robert and his accomplice Blaise, aka l'Américain (The American) and l'Endormeur (Sleepy-Maker), and beautiful but soulless Lola. The two men are hard up and Robert, who has just discovered the existence of the Viscount René de Penhoël, decides to get hold of his estate and fortune. He manages to wrest from the inn-keeper Géraud the Penhoëls' story and pretends to be a friend of Louis's, Renés elder brother, who left Brittany fifteen years before, following an unhappy love affair: both he and René had fallen in love Marthe, an orphan. Everyone thought that Marthe was in love with Louis but the latter went away and Marthe eventually married René. Yet the Viscountess is still very melancholy and Robert thinks that she never stopped loving Louis.

Robert and Blaise go to the Manor – although the boatman Benoît Haligan, who guessed the truth, warned René – and introduce themselves as Louis's friends.

Part 2, Le Manoir (The Manor-House)

Nearly three have passed by. The first steamboat left London for Bordeaux. On board is Major Berry Montalt, a mysterious English adventurer who hates Brittany and Bretons. Nevertheless, he rescues a young Breton sailor who tried to drown himself. The young man is none other than Vincent, René's young cousin, who left the Manor five months before: one day he was suffering from fever and drunkenness, he raped his cousin Blanche, with whom he is desperately in love. As Vincent tells Montalt this story, the adventurer goes into a towering rage and accuses Vincent of recalling his own crime to him.

Meanwhile, in Penhoël, René, in love with Lola, gambled his fortune and estate. Robert, his accomplices, the Marquess de Pontalès and his son Alain are nearly the masters of the estate. During a party, Marthe discovers that her daughter Blanche is pregnant and thinks that Robert is the father of the unborn child. Her pain is all the more great since she thinks Blanche underwent the same fate as she did.^[2]

Diane and Cyprienne de Penhoël, René's cousins, have found out Robert's schemes. They decide to rob some documents that René signed in the name of Louis and that can help Robert to become the master of the estate. The girls are unmasked and drowned by Bibandier, one of Robert's accomplice. Robert kidnap Blanche and has Étienne Moreau, a painter, and Roger de Launoy, René's adoptive son, thrown out of Penhoël. Soon after the young men departed, the others members of the family are also forced to leave the manor. The Marquess de Pontalès, now master of Penhoël, throws out Robert and Blaise too.

Part 3, Le Voyage (The Journey)

In Rennes, a stagecoach is about to leave, bringing Montalt to Paris. Étienne Moreau, who has just left Redon, meets the mogul and tells him his story, without telling him Penhoël's name. In spite of the respect he instinctively feels towards Montalt, the young man is appalled his immorality. As for Montalt, he is very interested by two girls who travel in another mail coach going to Paris. Strangely enough, they pull down the blinds when Étienne turns cast an eye upon them. Upon their arriving in Laval, Étienne and Montalt stop in an inn and the young man meets Roger, whose departure he did not know of.

When the stagecoach reaches Paris, Montalt suggests Étienne and Roger to settle as painter and secretary. Presently one of the mysterious passengers of the second stagecoach throws out two notes signed "BEAUTY OF THE NIGHT" and addressed to Étienne and Roger, arranging to meet them at Notre Dame de Paris. The young men, faithful to Diane and Cyprienne, whom they love, refuse to go.

Part 4, Paris

Robert, Blaise, Lola and Bibandier went to Paris under false names, with Blanche. Robert decides to acquaint himself with Montalt, hoping to make him his accomplice to buy Penhoël's Manor.

Marthe, René, Uncle Jean and old Géraud live in a slum, and Diane and Cyprienne, who came through drowning, struggle to survive, singing in the streets. In desperation, they decide to go and ask Montalt, who is interested in her, to help them buying back Penhoël.

During a party at Montalt's residential hotel, Robert meets the adventurer and tells him the way he swindled Penhoël's out of his estate without telling any names. Meanwhile, two mysterious girls enter the ball, tell Étienne and Roger of the murder of Diane and Cyprienne, and charge Robert with the crime before Montalt.

Coming back to his hotel, Montalt hears that the girls of the stagecoach — Diane and Cyprienne — want to meet him. They tell him their story but call themselves Louise and Berthe. Montalt takes pity on them and decides to let them live in the hotel as his own daughters. Presently, Bibandier shows Étienne and Roger the girls, saying that Montalt seduced them.

In the meantime, Vincent, who heard of Blanche's being kidnapped and his family's having left Penhoël, managed to reach Paris but is arrested and imprisoned opposite the house that Lola is renting and where Blanche is imprisoned. The girl is pregnant and mourns her family. Diane and Cyprienne, disguised in men, come and set their cousin free, then take her at Montalt's.

Robert, who now wants to get rid of Montalt, asks Lola to persuade Alain de Pontalès to challenge the Englishman to a duel. Then he tells Vincent, who escaped and witnessed the kidnapping, that Montalt ordered it. Thus the young man challenges Montalt to a duel too. Then Étienne and Roger come, seeking compensation for Montalt's attitude towards them and the twin sisters. After that, Jean de Penhoël, who was also deceived by Robert, decide to challenge Montalt to a fifth duel.

Meanwhile, René de Penhoël, who has become nearly mad since he lost his estate, takes advantage of Jean's having left their slum and Géraud's being in hospital to try and kill Marthe and commit suicide. They are saved by Diane and Cyprienne. The girls come back to the hotel and Montalt encourages them to tell their real name. Then he tells them his story: he left his family several years before because both he and his best friend were in love with the same girl. Montalt would rather give up his love but he never forgot the girl. Then he gives Diane and Cyprienne a sandalwood box set with diamonds that contains a lock of the girl's hair. He asked Diane and Cyprienne to burn the lock if he dies and to keep the diamonds. After he left, the twins come and aid Blanche, who gives birth to her child.

Montalt comes in the Bois de Boulogne. He kills Alain de Pontalès but not the other four. Then Jean de Penhoël pronounces him to be his nephew Louis. As they come back to the hotel, they find Robert and his two accomplices, who were trying to rob the sandalwood box. Robert is then accused by Jean, Vincent the girls. Yet, Montalt accepts to save him if he gives him a letter that Marthe had written to him but never sent. Presently Jean explains that Diane and Cyprienne are Louis's and Marthe's natural children. They decide to come back in Brittany to buy back the estate. But they have got only three days left before Penhoël becomes Pontalès's property.

Part 5, Penhoël

Robert, Blaise and Bibandier came back to the Mouton Couronné, in Redon, bringing Marthe and René with them. They arrange to meet René on the riverbank, luring him into thinking that he may buy the estate back. Then the go to the boatman's lodge. Benoît Haligan is now dying. They force Mr. Le Hivain, the lawyer, to make Pontalès come. After the Marquess arrived, they order him to share help them if he wants to retain it, for Penhoël is coming back. Pontalès unwillingly agrees to share Penhoël's estate with Robert, Blaise and Bibandier and to kill René and Louis if necessary.

When the five of them reach the place of their appointment with René, the latter goes in the boat, scared by a mysterious unknown man who has been following him since he left Redon. The stranger, Louis de Penhoël, manages to stop the boat before Bibandier can distance the bank. Pontalès stabs René, then is battered to death by Louis, who then kills Robert, Blaise and Le Hivain, while Bibandier runs away. After the killing, Louis tries to bring back his brother, whom he thinks to be alive, but René makes a last dying movement and lets himself slip into water. Then the boat goes away on the river and sinks with the four dead bodies in the Femme Blanche's (White Woman) chasm, in which Robert had ordered Diane and Cyprienne to be drowned.

Meanwhile, Jean de Penhoël brought Marthe back to the Manor. The latter is almost dying after enduring so much pain and she wakes up hearing the Beauties of the Night song. Seeing her daughters and Louis, who came back to the Manor, she prays: "My God! [...] if it is a dream again, make me never wake up!" (« Mon Dieu! [...] si c’est encore un rêve, faites que je ne m’éveille jamais ! »^[3]).

Characters

The Penhoëls

Other characters

Nicknames resulting from judicial slang

Robert's and Blaise's nicknames (American and Sleepy-maker) result from the slang of the time. Americain (American) results from the vol à l'américaine (American stealing). The crook pretends to be rich (and coming from America, which was considered to be a kind of El Dorado).^[13] Endormeur (Sleepy-maker) was a nickname given to the thieves who would operate in trains, putting a narcotic in the passengers' drinks and then robbing them.^[14]

Commentary

Paul Féval's novels are often about an heir who disappear several years before coming back. Yet there is an important difference between Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille and some others stories. In Le Bossu or Le Loup blanc, the heirs disappear against their will: Lagardère kidnaps Aurore de Nevers in order to protect her from Gonzague; Jean Blanc kidnaps Georges Treml after an attempted murder, but the child disappears once more — kidnapped by a street acrobat. In Les Belle-de-nuit, Louis goes away willingly.

Likeliness between the characters are also found in different novels by Féval. Diane and Étienne are as earnest as Lagardère and Aurore, whereas Roger and Cyprienne are much more like the Marquess de Chaverny and Flor. Séid, Montalt's manservant, symbolizes blind obedience; he never questions his master's orders and takes decision only when the circumstances require such a behavior (like Jude Leker in Le Loup blanc). On the contrary, Benoît Haligan does not hesitate to show René that he disagrees with him when he thinks he must do it to protect his master.

Publication

After the Belles-de-nuit were published in a newspaper, they were published in six volumes by a Belgian publisher in 1850. The novel will be published again in 1850, then in 1859, 1861, 1866 and 1874.^[15]

In the second 1850 publication, the novel is followed by Miss Olivia a short story by Paul Féval. 1859 and 1861 publication also contain the short story Les Armuriers de Tolède, also by Féval.

In the end of his life, converted to an uncompromising kind of Roman Catholicism. He rewrote most of his stories, including Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille in 1887. The story is the same, but some passages are changed, cut or added, and the author wrote an epilogue in which he explains the fate of the main characters. Vincent marries Blanche and makes Penhoël's estate thrive with help from his father Jean. Étienne and Diane settle in Paris and the painter lives on his talents without making use of the diamond Montalt gave his wife. The law having found that Pontalès had seized Penhoël's estate unlawfully, Roger de Launoy buy them back with Cyprienne's dowry. But Marthe dies — killed by the joy of seeing all those she thought dead and by the grieves she has endured for twenty years. Louis spends the rest of his life cherishing her memory, happy to see his own family happy. The end is thus a bit more dramatic because of Féval's new ideas. He must have thought that Louis, after living with impiety, had to repent himself. Louis could only repent with Marthe's dying.

The year before, the book had already been published again under another title: L'Oncle Louis (Uncle Louis).

In 1927 and 1928, the French publisher Albin Michel published the novel in three volumes:

Discrepancies in the novel

There some discrepancies in the story — in the description of the characters, in their age and in the date. At the beginning of the story, it is said that Louis went away fifteen years ago. The age of the characters is according to this statement: Diane are between fourteen and fifteen, Blanche is twelve, Vincent eighteen, René, thirty-five... The other parts of the story take place three years later, but Féval writes that Louis went away twenty years ago and the age of the characters also changes: Diane and Cyprienne are nineteen, Blanche is seventeen etc.

As for Mr. Géraud, the inn-keeper, he is first described as an old bachelor, then it is said that he was married even when he was cook on a boat.

The physical description of the characters also changes. When they are first described, it is said that Diane's eyes are dark blue,^[16] while Cyprienne's are dark. Later, Diane is said to have brown eyes and Cyprienne dark blue ones. Then Paul Féval changed his mind and made Benoît Haligan tell the twins: "You have his [Louis's] wide fiery eyes" ("Vous avez ses grands yeux de feu"), meaning that Louis, Diane and Cyprienne have dark eyes.

René too is described differently in some parts of the story. It is first said that he has chestnut brown hair, then that his hair was blond and became white.^[17]

As for Marthe, Féval first describes her as a fair-haired woman, then writes "her black let down hair".^[18]

Stage adaptation

The very year of the beginning of the publication, the novel is adapted as play by Amédée Achard, Paul de Guerville and Paul Féval in 1849. Many changes occurred, more particularly in the number of characters and the end of the story.

Translations

The novel was translated into several languages, more particularly once into Russian (Ночные красавицы, [Beauties of the Night] and twice into Gertman (Die Nachtschönchen, oder: die Schutzengel der Familie, [Beauties of the Night, or the Guardian Angels of the Family], in 1850 and Die Engel des Hauses, [The Angels of Home], in 1851).

Beauties of the night

Beauties of the night (in Breton Boked ar sterenn, plural form Bokidi ar sterenn) are creatures of Breton folklore who remind one of the Willis. They are girls who died of a broken heart. Bretons also call "Beauties of the night" the Mirabilis jalapa and the stars.

The Beauties of the night in the story are Diane and Cyprienne de Penhoël, who are also named "Angels of the Family". Blanche may be called a Beauty of the night too, since she is nicknamed the "Angel" and Benoît Haligan always talks of the beauties of the night as if there were three of them.

The legend of the Beauties of the night gave birth to a Breton lament that Paul Féval rewrote in his novel.

Notes

1. ^See on Auction.fr
2. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 2, Chapter 4: « Perdue!… […] perdue comme moi!… innocente comme moi!… Qu’ai-je fait, mon Dieu! pour être punie jusque dans mon enfant ? » ("Lose!... (...) Lose like me!... Innocent like me!... What did I do, my God, to be punished even in the person of my child?")
3. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 5, Chapter 3
4. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 2, Chapter 6
5. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 2, Chapter 7
6. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 4, Chapter 20
7. ^¹Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 2, Chapter 2
8. ^¹Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 2, Chapter 17
9. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 2, Chapter 2: "He and Roger were friends and devoted to each other, although they never made any protestations of tenderness ("Roger et lui étaient amis jusqu’au dévouement, bien qu’ils ne se fussent jamais fait de grandes protestations de tendresse)
10. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 2, Chapter 14
11. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 1, Chapter 3
12. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 4, Chapter 1
13. ^See on
14. ^See on
15. ^[https://www.amazon.fr/gp/search/ref=sr_adv_b/?search-alias=stripbooks&__mk_fr_FR=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&unfiltered=1&field-keywords=&field-author=paul+f%E9val&field-title=belles-de-nuit&field-isbn=&field-publisher=&field-collection=&node=&field-binding_browse-bin=&field-dateop=&field-datemod=&field-dateyear=&sort=relevancerank&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0 Les Belles-de-nuit on Amazon]
16. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 1, Chapter 4
17. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 2, Chapter 8
18. ^Les Belles-de-nuit ou Les Anges de la famille, Part 4, Chapter 4

Summary

Part 1, Le Déris (The Flood)

Part 2, Le Manoir (The Manor-House)

Part 3, Le Voyage (The Journey)

Part 4, Paris

Part 5, Penhoël