César Birotteau

“Rise and Fall of César Birotteau” (1837) is part of Balzac’s great novel series titled “The Human Comedy.” The story is set in Paris, in the years following the restoration of the monarchy after the Napoleonic era. The masters of the old society — the aristocracy and the church — had been overtaken by a newly energized middle class, with its merchants, landlords, lawyers, and bankers. French society found itself in a new world of financial adventurism, floating on a sea of credit and speculatio