Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac

This is the seventh book that I have finished in my year of reading classic 19th century French literatire, and my fifth Balzac novel--it is also written at the end of his short but ever so productive life, and a culmination of the level of contempt he has for the rich--men are ruled by their sexuality (and are also easily fooled) and women want to have thier money. This was written in 1846 and is set in mid-19th century Paris, so comtemporaneous to its publication. It tells the story of an unmarried middle-aged woman, cousin Bette, who plots the destruction of her extended family. Bette works with Valérie Marneffe, an unhappily married young lady, to seduce and torment a series of men. The first of these is Baron Hector Hulot, husband to Bette's cousin Adeline. He sacrifices his family's fortune and good name to please Valérie, who leaves him for a tradesman named Crevel. The goings on are hard to keep up with, who is sleeping with whom and why, but in the end most come out okay or persih, largely based on the lack of predictablity in who is in charge, the Royaltists or those who support Nalopeon, and fortunes sway back and forth. The book is part of the Scènes de la vie parisienne section of Balzac's novel sequence La Comédie humaine.