| Lost Illusions | Lucien Rubempre |
| The Splendours and Miseries of Courtesans | Lucien Rubempre |
| The Vendetta | Failed career of the soldier who marries the young Corsican girl. |
| A Start in Life | Oscar Clapart (Failed Lawyer, Successful Soldier) |
| A Daughter of Eve | Raoul Nathan (in the end he becomes the embodiment of a certain type of mediocrity, the complascence of old age) |
| Z. Marcus | Z. Marcus (politics), the doomed career's of all young men in France. |
| The Lesser Bourgeousie | La Peyrade (lawyer for the poor, gold-digger extroadinaire) |
| Gobseck | Derville (lawyer, protege of the usurer Gobseck) |
| Honorine | The Consul (politics) |
| Pierre Grassou | Pierre Grassou (painter) |
| The Vicar of Tours | Abbe Birotteau (socially inept priest) |
| Cesar Biroteau | Cesar Birotteau (merchant who stretches himself too far), Jean-Jules Popinot (merchant rising) |
| The Trial of the Inventor (Lost Illusions III) | (David Sechard, printer, inventor) (the minor lawyer hired to handle the Sechard case) (Cerizet, printer, con man) |
| Father Goriot | Eugene Rastignac (Politics) |