A splendid and powerful novel from the "Scenes of Parisian Life"

In it, Balzac brings to bear his encyclopeadic knowledge of finance, fashionable intrigue and the ramifications both of the underworld and of the police system. The harlot of the title, elevated to the heights of lucury only to be reduced to the depths of misery, is no more than a pawn in what is essentially a duel of wits and ruthlessness fought between criminal master-minds. It is the figure of Vaytrin, the Satanic genius at the heart of the web and one of the great characters of world literature, that effortlessly dominates the whole novel.