Balzac: Epistemophilia and the Collapse of the Restoration

Abstract

Near the end of Balzac's Splendeurs et miseres des courtisanes, when Jacques Collin, alias Vautrin, alias Carlos Herrera, passes from chief of the underworld to chief-designate of the police and aids the leaders of society in their effort to suppress evidence and pervert justice in order to prevent a scandal that would throw discredit on some of the Faubourg Saint-Germain's greatest ladies-deeply compromised by their passion for Lucien de Rubempre-the Garde des Sceaux, Comte des Lupeaulx, explains to the Procureur-General, Comte de Granville: