A late novel in Balzac's Human Comedy, this book continues the story of Lucien de Rubempré and the criminal mastermind Vautrin, who disguises himself as a priest. Moving between elegant salons, the world of the courtesans and the police and prisons of Paris, it follows love, secrecy and scheming. Balzac uses its crime-tinged plot to reveal how society's respectable and hidden worlds are bound together, in a fast, richly detailed panorama of the city.