A Woman of Thirty (1813-1844)

Basically, the story of a bad marriage, or rather a series of loosely coupled scenes. Some of the early scenes of the marriage bear an uncanny resemblance to the feminist classic "The Yellow Wallpaper" (by Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 1860-1935, also available for free in computer readable form from Project Gutenberg). Balzac asserts the superiority of women in their thirties "in depth and intensity of passion." (Hunt, 31) The plot:

"An impetuous love-match leads to rapid estrangement between a dull husband and a quickly dissatisfied wife; then to a romantic and improbable triangle situation from which the third party, the chivalrous young Englishman, Lord Arthur Grenville, reaps nothing but a painful death; and then to a guilty liaison whose consequences, some of them atrocious, extend to the second generation and beget, in the hearts of the children concerned, hatred, rebelliousness and cynicism." (Hunt, 30)

(Long, La Femme de trente ans, thrty10.txt)