Bureaucracy depicts the inefficient bureaucratic administrations, where one's talents is hidden in a napkin. It chooses bureaucracy, which threatens civilization, as the subject investigated. Thus it can be seen that the author has his own unique insight and judgment as a master of realism.

The chief position of a government department is vacant, after its former chief has passed away. And a struggle for the position between two candidates is getting under way. They scheme against each other. The corrupt practice of bureaucracy during The Restoration of Charles X of France is exposed with nothing left. This novel presents a general picture of the Paris society in the 19th century and it is also a reveal of the original state of officialdom.

Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 —18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. He is generally regarded as a founding-father of realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comidie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works (stories, novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon. His masterpieces: Eugenie Grandet and Father Goriot.