Honore de Balzac 
Cousin Betty 

La Cousine Bette (Cousin Bette) is an 1846 novel by French author Honore de Balzac. Set in mid-19th-century Paris, it tells the story of an unmarried middle-aged woman who plots the destruction of her extended family. Bette works with Valerie Marneffe, an unhappily married young lady, to seduce and torment a series of men. One of these is Baron Hector Hulot, husband to Bette’s cousin Adeline. He sacrifices his family’s fortune and good name to please Valerie, who leaves him for a well-off merchant named Crevel. The book is part of the Scenes de la vie parisienne section of Balzac’s novel sequence La Comedie humaine ("The Human Comedy").