A handsome young man named Calyste du Gu�nic is in love with the older woman, F�licit� des Touches, a famous writer who uses the pen name of Camille Maupin. F�licit� at first does not reciprocate Calyste's feelings, and Calyste falls in love with the blonde marchioness B�atrix de Rochefide. B�atrix is a beautiful but selfish woman; one critic remarked in 1897 in regards to B�atrix that "for cold-blooded cruelty and vulgarity she is unexampled, and her efforts to keep her youth and her hold over men are drawn in Balzac's heaviest and most pitiless manner."B�atrix had already had an affair with Gennaro Conti, and Calyste has an additional rival in the form of Claude Vignon. F�licit� des Touches (Camille Maupin) tries to help Calyste win B�atrix's heart, thus sacrificing her own. Calyste's efforts are ultimately a failure, and B�atrix is taken away by Gennaro Conti. Calyste is devastated by his failure, but promises his dying father to get married. F�licit� des Touches enters a convent, but before she does, she uses her fortune to arrange a marriage for Calyste with a woman named Sabine de Grandlieu. When Calyste encounters B�atrix again in Paris, his wife Sabine struggles to win back her husband's affections after Calyste falls for B�atrix again. Subsequently, through the intercession of Count Maxime de Trailles, B�atrix falls for another young man, and Calyste comes to his senses.