This is one of Balzac's fantastic reality tales, not only resounding in the supernatural and the occult, in diabolical elixirs, eternal life or in a piece of the conscious body that returns to the life of a corpse. There is a sharp criticism against some ways of the living of the bourgeoisie and especially on the institution of the Catholic Church. (Goodreads)
Honoré de Balzac, (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus. (Wikipedia)