Abstract: Where can one look for “Balzacian morality”? In Une ténébreuse affaire, the figure of Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, a woman and warrior, presents a Balzacian version of heroism. Her decisive confrontation with Napoleon before the battle of Jena reaches a sublimity comparable to that of Corneille’s Cinna. Balzac’s conception of heroism as self-transcendence is in fact very similar to the Cornelian ethic of glory.
