Z. Marcas is an 1840 novelette by French author Honoré de Balzac. Set in contemporary Paris, it describes the rise and fall of a brilliant political strategist who is abandoned by the politicians he helps into power. Destitute and forgotten, he befriends a pair of students who live next door to him in a boarding-house. The story follows their many discussions about the political situation in France. Balzac was inspired to write the story after he spotted the name "Z. Marcas" on a sign for a tailor's shop in Paris. It was published in July 1840, in the Revue Parisienne, a magazine he had founded that year. One year later it appeared in a collection from various authors under the title La Mort d'un ambitieux ("The Death of an Ambitious Man"). Balzac later placed it in the Scènes de la vie politique section of his vast novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Although Z. Marcas features characters from other Balzac stories and elements of literary realism – both hallmarks of Balzac's style – it is remembered primarily for its political themes. Balzac, a legitimist, believed that France's lack of bold leadership had led to mediocrity and ruin, and that men of quality were being ignored or worse. He maintained that the youth of France were in danger of being abandoned by the government, and predicted unrest in the years to come. The story also explores Balzac's conviction that a person's name is a powerful indicator of his or her destiny, an idea he drew from the work of Laurence Sterne. The title character, with his keen intellect, is based on Balzac's conception of himself: a visionary genius who fails to achieve his true potential because of less talented individuals with more social power.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z._Marcas

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

962:

Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city of Aleppo, recovering the tattered tunic of John the Baptist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine%E2%80%93Arab_Wars_%28780%E2%80%931180%29

1620:

Construction of the Plymouth Colony, an English colonial venture in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, began two days after the first landing party arrived at the site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony

1823:

A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was first published anonymously. Authorship was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visit_from_St._Nicholas

1888:

During a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh stalked his friend French painter Paul Gauguin with a razor, and then afterwards infamously cut off the lower part of his own left ear and gave it to a prostitute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

1972:

The Nicaraguan capital of Managua was struck by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 10,000 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Nicaragua_earthquake

1986:

Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing in California's Edwards Air Force Base after a nine-day trip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

dulse (n): A seaweed of a reddish-brown color (Palmaria palmata) which is sometimes eaten http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dulse

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Working together, we can build a world in which the rule of law — not the rule of force — governs relations between states. A world in which leaders respect the rights of their people, and nations seek peace, not destruction or domination. And neither we nor anyone else should live in fear ever again. --Wesley Clark http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark