Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

In this novel, Balzac explores the Parisian life in 1821-22. He does it in a great way. The characters are ruthlessly impelled by the same motives with which we are all too familiar, sex, the acquisition of money and the jostling for social eminence, and all that is welded together in an ingeniously diabolical plot of high stakes and unexpected twists and double-turns. There’s a great cast of secondary characters, too, from the maids Herrera uses in his carefully orchestrated plans to various members of high society.