Nucingen book

“...some sort of elaborate fraud of the sort perpetrated by Balzac’s Nucingen.…”

“He is a “banker of German origin who had been made a baron of the Holy [Roman] Empire,” speaks with a thick, phonetically-spelt German accent (for example, “quelque chose” becomes “keke chausse”) and lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, “in one o…”

“When the bankrupt parfumier Birotteau finally secures an audience with him—again the “superb staircase” and “sumptuous apartments” are described—he is subjected to a baffling interview and referred back to another banker, du Tillet, who is …”

“In fact, she is the lover of the amoral, ambitious Lucien Chardon, who is himself in thrall to the Mephistophelean master-criminal Vautrin, and the three aim to extort a million francs from the lovesick Nucingen.…”

“In Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes (1838-47), he is cast in a wholly different light, as the world-weary vieil lard who falls in love with a prostitute he has glimpsed in the bois de Vincennes.…”