The Vicar of Tours

The Vicar of Tours is one of Balzac's best short novels. It tells of how the hapless aristos are wrapped around the fingers of the more devious lower classes, in this case the unholy alliance of the landlady Mlle Gamard with her favorite tenant, the Canon Troubert, against the hapless schmo the Abbé Birotteau. Although the local aristocratic party is all on the side of the Abbé, the power of Troubert and Gamard reaches all the way to Paris to convince the noble Listomeres to make peace with the enemy.