Les Célibataires

_The Bachelors_ tells the story of two impoverished members of the French

provincial aristocracy, the baron de Coëtquidan and his nephew the comte de

Coantré, who live in the suburbs of Paris, each pursuing an eccentric,

decaying existence cut off from the pressures of the twentieth century. This

is a story of family intrigues and physical and mental disintegration.

Neglected and humiliated by society, each lives in his private world of near

madness. Finally one is helped by a rich relative whilst the other dies of

neglect. Montherlant portrays with a mixture of irony and sympathy and a

terrifying realism the strange twilight world inhabited by these two

characters.