Excelsior: Roman parisien

The narrative follows Jacques de Mérigue, a brilliant but headstrong youth from a poor, devoted family whose literary and scientific talents alternate with rebellious impulses. After academic success and a short-lived government post, his uncompromising royalist views bring dismissal and precarious poverty. Family conversations and domestic scenes reveal conflicting responses—practical concern, devout resignation, and proud political fervor—while the protagonist seeks consolation in poetry and expansive dreams of power. The work examines ambition, honor, social decline, and the clash between idealism and material necessity in Parisian life.