"The Chouans" is a good book but we feel too much reading it as an early work (it's not his first novel, but this is the first he published under his real name).
We recover all the qualities Balzac eventually develop (the property searched characters become types, analysis of human passions, ...) but all seems too disjointed and sometimes confused.
Therefore, although it is Balzac I do not give it full marks.
However, the great merit of this book (beyond a beautiful love story and unforgettable portraits of the protagonists on both sides) is to show the "reality" of this against-revolution. It is interesting to note that the royalist Balzac could not help but to side with the Republic ...
Read so even if it is the best Balzac.
