Title: The Human Comedy, Vol. II
Subtitle: The Purse and Modeste Mignon
Description: ***“The innocence of a girl is like milk which is turned by a thunder-clap, by an evil smell, by a hot day, or even by a breath.”***

The chance meeting of a renowned painter and a mysterious girl blossoms into love, but when their ensuing courtship is marred by the disappearance of a purse full of money, their newfound happiness threatens to unravel . . .To the north of Paris in the port city of Le Havre, a drama of love and deception unfolds when the last and fiercely guarded daughter of a once prosperous family falls in love with the verses of a famous poet, but is this great man of letters with whom she enters into an impassioned correspondence really the person she believes him to be?

The theme of reality versus illusion, particularly in matters of love, dominates ***The Purse*** and ***Modeste Mignon***, the two works in this second volume of Balzac’s magnum opus.

***La Comédie Humaine***, left unfinished at the time of Balzac’s death, is a vast literary work comprising nearly one hundred short stories, novellas, and novels set in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy. Throughout, Balzac utilizes nineteenth century French society to examine humanity and the human experience with all its attendant virtues, vices, and peculiarities.
Subjects: Fiction, French Literature, Translations into English, Social life and customs
Places: Le Havre
Time periods: 19th Century France, The Bourbon Restoration, 1819, 1829