Wonderful tale set in the provincial town of Besançon, and focusing on the de Watteville family the fiercely religious and independently wealthy wife, the ineffectual husband, who absents himself, spending his days working his lathe and 19-year-old daughter, Rosalie. She falls in love with the mysterious stranger who took up residence a few yards away from her familys home.
Through her maid, herself in love with Savaruss butler, Rosalie intercepts Savaruss letters to Paris and learns why this brilliant man established himself in Besançon and what he proposes to achieve. In correspondence since 1832, lovers in 1834, Balzac and Madame Hanska were promised to be married.
