Sinópse: Excerpt from A Harlot’s Progress (Splendeurs Et Misères Des Courtisanes), Vol. 2 In the present book, or section of a book, which, it must never be forgotten, was one of his very latest, things are adjusted to a much more actual level. The thieves’ latin which it contains is only an indirect symptom of this. Ainsworth in England and others in France had anticipated him notably in this. But indirectly it shows us that he had come down many stages from his earlier heights. Bourignard and the early Vautrin worked in clouds, afar and apart; they had little to do with actual life: in La derniere Incarnation de Vautrin we find our selves face to face with the actual, or only slightly ‘dis realised realities of convict life. Some of these details may be disgusting, but most of them, as we know from unromantic authorities, are tolerably true; and where truth is, there, with an artist like Balzac, art never fails. It is the drawback of the youthful poet or novelist that he is insufficiently provided with veracity, of the aging novelist or poet that inspiration and the faculty of turn ing fact into great fiction fail him. But there was no danger of this latter with the author, at nearly twenty years’ interval, of Le dernz’er Chauan and La Courine Bette. He could only gain by the dispelling of illusion, and he could not lose by the practice of his craft. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.