A Man of Business
1844
Maxime de Trailles is what remains when French aristocracy meets modern finance: a man with a noble name, mountains of debt, and the survival instincts of a card shark. Balzac's savage comedy follows this irredeemable rake as he navigates Parisian society's only real religion: money. Through a tangled web of credit schemes, dodgy businessmen, and the women both ruinous and useful to him, Maxime proves that charm is the last currency of a man with nothing left to lose. The duel with businessman Cerizet is less about honor than about who can out-swindle whom in a world where everyone's credentials are fabricated and everyone's debts are criminal. This is Balzac at his most merciless, dissecting a society where lineage means nothing and liquidity means everything. For readers who want to see the 19th-century French equivalent of a con artist bending society to his will.
