The Napoleonic Colonel Chabert is severely wounded in the winter battle at Eylau in East Prussia in 1807 and later declared dead. However, Chabert has survived and returns to Paris after a long journey, only to find that his wife has taken his fortune and remarried. All attempts by the deceived colonel to reclaim at least part of his property fail, as the malice and selfishness of the war profiteers prevail. The story by Honoré de Balzac concludes with the famous line: "All the horrors that an imaginative poet could invent are nothing compared to the truth.".