With Lucien de Rubempré gone to Paris, his sister Eve and her husband David Séchard stay behind in Angoulême, where David runs a struggling print shop and works in secret on a cheaper way of making paper. Debts, a miserly father, unscrupulous rivals and Lucien’s selfishness close in on the couple as they try to keep the invention and the business.
The closing part of Lost Illusions, often published on its own, and one of Balzac’s sharpest portraits of money and loyalty. Download the free EPUB.