Le Médecin de campagne is a thesis-work animated by the ideal of social regeneration through individual devotion. Doctor Benassis, a physician retired to a poor mountain village of the Dauphiné, has made of this backward, wretched community the object of a true work of civilization. By his energy, intelligence, and generosity, he has transformed the place: he has drained the lands, encouraged agriculture and crafts, created roads and markets, instructed and moralized a population once sunk in ignorance and poverty, making of this forgotten corner a model of prosperity and harmony. An officer, Genestas, come to consult him, discovers in the course of his visit the extent of this regeneration and the nobility of the man who accomplished it. The narrative is punctuated by long conversations in which Benassis sets forth his ideas on administration, economy, religion, and the social role of the man of good, as well as by touching episodes, including the famous popular account of Napoleon's life recounted by an old soldier to the peasants. We also learn that Benassis devoted himself to this mission in expiation of a youthful fault and a deep sorrow, giving his devotion a dimension of personal redemption. Balzac develops his vision of a social order founded on benevolent authority, Catholicism, and labor, and proposes a reforming utopia embodied by a superior man at the service of the humble. The novel, more didactic than dramatic, blends the study of rural manners with the exposition of a conservative social and political doctrine. Le Médecin de campagne illustrates the idealist, constructive side of Balzac's thought, in which active charity and individual initiative regenerate a community, making of the doctor a lay apostle of progress and order.