Book
The Black Sheep
First published 1842
Agathe Bridau places her hopes in her elder son Philippe, a former Napoleonic officer whose courage in war has hardened into arrogance, gambling and theft. Her younger son Joseph is a serious painter but receives little of his mother’s confidence. After Philippe consumes the family’s savings and repeatedly betrays those who help him, attention turns to Agathe’s wealthy brother Jean-Jacques Rouget and the inheritance controlled within his household at Issoudun.
Rouget has fallen under the influence of Flore Brazier, known as La Rabouilleuse, and her lover Maxence Gilet, the leader of a group of local young men. Philippe enters the contest for the estate with military discipline and ruthless calculation, defeating Max and forcing Flore into marriage. His victory restores the family fortune only temporarily, because the same appetite for power and speculation that secured the inheritance eventually destroys him.
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