La France et l’étranger Les articles de politique extérieure

The foreign policy articles (“Lettres sur Paris” in Le Voleur, “Étranger” in Chronique de Paris, and “Lettres russes” in the Revue parisienne) represent a seldom-studied part of Balzac’s work, a drab counterpart to La Comédie humaine. Yet they cast sharp light on the author’s political evolution, from the liberal condemnation of the Congress of Vienna to the critique of the Entente Cordiale with England in favor of alliance with Russia.