Honore de Balzac

A Start in Life Honore de Balzac

Monsieur Pierrotin drives a ramshackle stagecoach between Paris and Presle, a nondescript village about twenty miles away from the French capital. Presle is too small for the main post chair service so Pierrotin has a monopoly on a road no one else wants. His cart holds four people comfortably, but he usually squeezes nine passengers and sometimes ten. The passengers include Georges Marais, a handsome charmer who entertains himself by getting the innocent in trouble, and Oscar Husson, an innocent but frustrated youth. Next to them sits a count travelling incognito to check how his steward is managing his estate, and it is the steward who has invited Oscar to spend a few weeks on his master's estate. Despite his mother's warning to avoid gossiping with his fellow passengers, Marais goads Oscar into revealing things about his host, who happens to be the steward the count is going to meet. For once in a nineteenth century novel the coincidence is not outlandish. People unknown to each other but travelling to an obscure destination will likely have some connection to each other without realizing it.