The Chouans,
the first volume in Balzac's magnificent novel sequence
La Comedie Humaine,
is the tale of the Royalist uprising in Brittany against the post-revolutionary republic.
Balzac tells it romantically and with passion. Yet his keen eye for documentary detail, together with his mastery of scene-painting, also give the novel authority as an expert study of guerrilla warfare. By interweaving history with adventure, past and present, comedy with tragedy, Balzac created in
The Chouans
a rich and vivid protrait of the varieties and conditions of men as they are affected by dramatic social and political change.