 Many critics of the time, though, were positive: a review in Le Journal des femmes proclaimed that Balzac's eye "penetrates everywhere, like a cunning serpent, to probe women's most intimate secrets". Another review, in La Revue du théâtre, praised his "admirable technique of details". The many reviews, positive and negative, were evidence of the book's popularity and success. One publisher's critique dismissed Balzac as a "boudoir writer", although it predicted for him "a brief career, but a glorious and enviable one".
