The Thirteen
1833
Paris, 1830. A secret society called The Thirteen operates in the shadows of the city, thirteen powerful men bound by an oath that supersedes law, morality, and conventional loyalty. When young officer Auguste de Maulincour becomes obsessed with the beautiful Madame Jules, he stumbles into a web of intrigue far more dangerous than a simple affair. As he trails her through the dark streets of Paris, witnessing her visits to a mysterious mansion, he uncovers not just evidence of infidelity but something far more sinister: the workings of a cabal that controls destinies from behind closed doors. Balzac constructs a Paris of Gaslight intrigue and dangerous passion, where the boundaries between desire and destruction blur. The novel pulses with romantic obsession, class tension, and the terrible allure of hidden power. This is Balzac at his most shadowy and seductive, exploring what happens when men decide they are above the rules that govern ordinary lives.
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“Misfortune is a kind of talisman whose virtue consists in its power to confirm our original nature; in some men it increases their distrust and malignancy, just as it improves the goodness of those who have a kind heart.””
— Honoré de Balzac
“Mais que peuvent les malheureux? Ils aiment, voilà tout.””
— Honoré de Balzac
“Do you know, my dear fellow,” Derville went on after a pause, “there are in modern society three men who can never think well of the world”
— Honoré de Balzac
“Truth is less complete in its utterance; it does not put everything on the outside; it allows us to see what is within.””
— Honoré de Balzac
“J’ai été enterré sous les morts ; mais, maintenant, je suis enterré sous des vivants, sous des actes, sous des faits, sous la société tout entière, qui veut me faire rentrer sous terre!””
— Honoré de Balzac
“Physical pain pales beside moral suffering, but arouses more pity since it can be seen.””
— Honoré de Balzac
“an old mother with whom he shares the thirty or forty francs allocated to him per month. “If he’s a man, why do you call him ‘old greatcoat’?” said Simonnin, with the expression of a schoolboy catching his teacher out. And he went back to eating his bread and cheese, leaning his shoulder against the stile of the window, since he took his rest standing up, like the cab-horses of Paris, with one of his legs bent and propped on his other shoe’s toe. “Think of the fun we could have with that old codger!” muttered the third clerk, Godeschal by name, as he paused in the middle of a line of argument he was developing in a petition to be copied out in a fair hand by the fourth clerk, the draft copies of which were””
— Honoré de Balzac
“acabo de ouvir uma história que me custará talvez vinte e cinco luíses. Se for roubado, não lamentarei o dinheiro, porque vi o mais talentoso comediante da nossa época””
— Honoré de Balzac
“Enfim, todos os horrores que os romancistas pensam que inventam estão sempre aquém da verdade””
— Honoré de Balzac
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Balzac, Honoré de. The Thirteen. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-thirteen-e5e97bde-fd8a-4042-97df-e8e9d4d464d6.Balzac, H. D. (1833). The Thirteen. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-thirteen-e5e97bde-fd8a-4042-97df-e8e9d4d464d6Balzac, Honoré de. The Thirteen. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-thirteen-e5e97bde-fd8a-4042-97df-e8e9d4d464d6.
