TY  - BOOK
AU  - Bernard,Charles de
TI  - Les ailes d'Icare
AV  - PQ 
PY  - 2026///
CY  - Salt Lake City, UT
PB  - Project Gutenberg
KW  - French fiction -- 19th century
N1  - Release date is 2026-04-10; Ramón Pajares Box. (This file was produced from images generously made available by Gallica, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.); Originally published; Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, Libraires-Éditeurs, 1857
N2  - "Les ailes d'Icare" by Charles de Bernard is a novel written in the mid-19th century. It follows Victor Deslandes, a young provincial magistrate stifled by small-town boredom, whose ambition and envy are stoked by a flamboyant friend basking in Parisian glamour; the story explores the lure of Paris, the vanity of social climbing, and the gap between appearances and reality.

The opening of the novel paints the dreary provincial town of D*** and Victor’s acute ennui on Mardi Gras, then jolts him with a boastful letter from his Paris friend Gustave Blondeau—now styling himself “de Gustan”—who trumpets high-society pleasures while asking for money for a grand speculation. A wry courtroom vignette underscores the pettiness of local justice and Victor’s friction with his president, sharpening his resolve to leave. He secures a generous loan and a powerful introduction from the worldly M. de Loiselay and heads to Paris. There, the glittering front rooms of Gustan’s apartment mask a squalid back chamber, and the host’s “medical diet” proves to be simple want. When Victor reveals a thick wad of banknotes and a key recommendation, Gustan recovers his charm, the housekeeper scrambles to produce a lavish meal, and a brusque creditor bursts in with an unpaid silverware bill—laying bare, from the start, the tension between show and solvency. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
UR  - https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k70544843?rk=21459
UR  - 2
UR  - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78415
ER  -