The Firm of Nucingen

This mid-length work demonstrates the hazards or joys and the enlightenment involved in eavesdropping. The narrator is in a private room at a fashionable restaurant in Paris. Several journalists are in the next private room. They begin discussing Rastignac and the Nucingens. One recalls that Rastignac came from a poor, though noble family and recalls when Rastignac and Bianchon lived in a very shabby boarding-house in the Latin Quarter; he wonders how Rastignac made his money. Bixiou relates the story of the beginnings of his fortune. Then Blondet begins the story of the firm of Nucingen. The eavesdroppers hear of various neferious money-making schemes and intrigues.