Other branch
Félicien de Hautecœur
Young nobleman
The young man at the centre of Le Rêve — the living embodiment of Angélique's hagiographic dreams. Son of Monseigneur de Hautecœur, the local bishop and head of a family of ancient piety and aristocratic descent, he has grown up in the shadow of the cathedral as Angélique has grown up in its literal shadow, and the two seem almost predestined to find each other. Zola treats him with unusual sympathy and without irony: he is precisely what he appears to be — genuinely noble, genuinely in love, genuinely troubled by his father's refusal to consent to their marriage. He fights for Angélique, brings his father to her bedside when she is dying, and Monseigneur's blessing is what saves her. They marry in the cathedral. She dies immediately after. Félicien is one of the very few Zola male characters who is not in some sense a predator, a failure, or a fraud.
Le jeune homme central du Rêve — incarnation vivante des rêves hagiographiques d'Angélique. Fils de Monseigneur de Hautecœur, il grandit dans l'ombre de la cathédrale comme elle l'a fait. Zola le traite avec une sympathie inhabituelle et sans ironie : il est exactement ce qu'il paraît être — noblement amoureux, sincèrement éprouvé par le refus de son père. Il obtient la bénédiction paternelle ; ils se marient ; Angélique meurt sur les marches.
Young, fine-featured, with the luminous quality that Angélique associates with the figures in her saints' lives — beautiful enough to seem fictional.
Young, fine-featured, with the luminous quality that Angélique associates with the figures in her saints' lives — beautiful enough to seem fictional.