In Alençon, the rich and pious Mademoiselle Cormon longs to marry, and three men want her fortune: the elegant, impoverished Chevalier de Valois, the coarse self-made du Bousquier, and the shy young poet Athanase Granson. Balzac turns their courtship into a sharp comedy of provincial society, politics and vanity in Restoration France.
A witty, cruel little masterpiece from The Human Comedy, in Katharine Prescott Wormeley’s translation. Download the free EPUB.