It is an 1833 novel by Honoré de Balzac.It addresses the author's own preoccupation with social organisation, political power and religion. Some see the book as giving a sort of 20th century-type liberalism, while others see the premises of socialist thinking or fourierist tendencies. The book's romantic dimension has to be taken into account, despite quite a thin plot, connecting it with the world of Rousseau with an elogy on nature, peace and poetry.

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.