A wounded soldier, Nicolas Chauvin, is discharged from Napoleon's army with high honors. A rogue soldier, Dibroc, is pardoned by Napoleon so that he can assist Chauvin in his return home. From the solicitude of Napoleon toward Chauvin is born, like Athena from the brain of Zeus, fully grown and fully armed, a new Chauvin, IChauvin, representing the obsessed Chauvin, the incipient ideology of "chauvinism".
Chauvin, with Dibroc, arrives home with two comrades, Picot and Souvan. Chauvin's wife, Adele, and the two children by Nicolas, Henri and Jeanette, welcome him, but he cannot escape his experience of war in the Napoleonic army, nor his alter ego in IChauvin.
Napoleon, fleeing from the advancing Allied armies and those who will restore the monarchy, comes through Rochefort, Chauvin's birthplace and hometown. He happens to stop for a brief respite at Chauvin's house where Chauvin's wife has a bakery. Chauvin recognizes the furtive Napoleon, but he is not accustomed to seeing this divine emperor in his deposed state. He acts brashly and almost gets the emperor captured by some royalist-terrorists before Napoleon makes his escape.
Chauvin concludes he must abandon his wife and children and pursue his transcendental view of reality elsewhere. He will travel around France carrying his ideology to every corner.
Chauvin has the true believer's affinity for the theatrical setting to exhibit his sentiments. At a theater in Paris he interrupts a play in progress with his ranting. One patron, Mme Germaine de Staël, a prominent literary figure of the time, opposes him. He equivocates, suffering from doubt, irresolution.
With finality, Chauvin is subsumed by his ideological alter-ego, IChauvin. In his new incarnation, he alienates Adele. IChauvin goes into the world with his followers, leaving a heartsick Adele behind.
The Chauvin pages:
Some of the ideas behind the plays are discussed in the Peroration page, which is a general summing up.
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