Cousin Bette

About “Cousin Bette”

La Cousine Bette is an 1847 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac. Set in mid-19th-century Paris, it follows an unmarried middle-aged woman who plots the destruction of her extended family. She teams up with Valérie Marneffe, an unhappy young wife, to seduce and torment men. One of these men is Baron Hector Hulot, husband to Bette's cousin Adeline. He loses his family's fortune and reputation to please Valérie, who eventually leaves him for a wealthy merchant named Crevel. The novel is part of the Scènes de la vie parisienne section of Balzac's La Comédie humaine. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)