It is an 1834 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac and included in the scenes of Paris life section of his novel sequence The Human Comedy.It is part of his 1839 trilogy Histoire des treize: Ferragus is the first part, Part Two is La Duchesse de Langeais and Part Three is The Girl with the Golden Eyes.

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled Human Comedy, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are morally ambiguous.