YMMV / Honoré de Balzac

• The Woobie: Colonel Chabert. He is severely wounded, left for dead, and buried alive. Under the most difficult conditions, he manages to dig himself out, spend years away from home, and finally find his way back to France, but his wife has remarried, liquidated his assets, and will not acknowledge him. She tries to trick him into signing a declaration that he is an imposter in exchange for financial compensation; he refuses, is left peniless, and lives out the rest of his life in an asylum.