The splendour and misery of courtesans

A four-part novel depicting the connection between the financial world (played by the banker Nucingen) and the Parisian underworld. Lucien (the hero of Balzac's earlier Lost Illusions) has already learned "the art of living". He has remained a weakling, chasing only amorous gratification or social success. His mistress Esther, a courtesan who has been thrown by social conditions into the role of a woman who delights in male society but whom she deeply despises, also suffers from his character.