After the death of his father, the writer Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly hoped to inherit a financial windfall capable of covering his debts, but he also intended to appropriate the bust of an idolized maternal grandmother.
Out of the question that his brother gets it:
“If I don't have the bust, it will be the “Remember the Soissons vase”.
(…) I will not kill Ernest, but I will kill our relations
,” the author of Les
Diaboliques
wrote to a friend .
This anecdote, told by the psychoanalyst and writer Patrick Varane in
Hériter.
A
family story
(PUF) is a good illustration of how the moment of succession can represent a turning point in fraternal relations.
"The loss of a parent is a special moment marked by great fragility
," he explains.
Everything that has not been resolved with this one resurfaces, as well as the rivalries that the siblings had put under a bushel.
And the parents are no longer there to enjoin their children not to argue.
Most parents want...
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