Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (Lettres à Trebutien) The letter-writer and comedy

In his letters to Trebutien, the letter writer shows off his skill by setting up comical auctorial scenographies to his advantage and denounces the human comedy offered up to his alternately amused and irate gaze by the vices and the ridiculousness of the society of his time. The fact is that in these correspondences, comedy comes to life under the gaze of a recipient who inspires and justifies it—sometimes at his expense.