Used Book – Édouard, Madame de Duras, Claudine Herrmann

Around 1785, Édouard, son of a distinguished lawyer from Lyon, falls in love with a young widow, Natalie, Duchess of Nevers. She loves him too, but Édouard understands that, in society as it is, he risks debasing Natalie by marrying her. He exiles himself to America. When he learns that Natalie, consumed by grief, has allowed herself to die, he gets himself killed. This romantic story, admirably written by the Duchess of Duras, was to inspire a large number of other works, among them Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir. Yet the Duchess of Duras is rarely cited in literary history works and Édouard has been out of print for a long time.