There is, indeed, a class of unsuccessful villains, to be found chiefly amongst journalists, for whom Balzac has a special aversion; they live, he tells us, partly on extortion, and partly on the prostitution of their talents to gratify political or personal animosities, and are at the mercy of the longest purse. They fail in life, not because they are too immoral, but because they are too weak. They are the victims instead of the accomplices of more resolute evil-doers. Lucien de Rubempré is the type of this class. Endowed with surpassing genius and personal beauty, he goes to Paris to make his fortune, and is introduced to the world as it is. On the one hand is a little knot of virtuous men, called the _cénacle_, who are working for posterity and meanwhile starving. On the other is a vast mass of cheats and dupes. After a brief struggle Lucien yields to temptation, and joins in the struggle for wealth and power. But he has not strength enough to play his part. His head is turned by the flattery of pretty actresses and scheming publishers: he is enticed into thoughtless dissipation, and, after a brilliant start, finds that he is at the mercy of the cleverer villains who surround him; that he has been bought and sold like a sheep; that his character is gone, and his imagination become sluggish; and, finally, he has to escape from utter ruin by scarcely describable degradation. He writes a libel on one of his virtuous friends, who is forgiving enough to improve it and correct it for the press. In order to bury his mistress, who has been ruined with him, he has to raise money by grovelling in the foulest depths of literary sewerage. He at last succeeds in crawling back to his relations in the country, morally and materially ruined. He makes another effort to rise, backed up by the diabolical arts of Vautrin, and relying rather on his beauty than his talents. The world is again too strong for him, and, after being accomplice in the most outrageous crimes, he ends appropriately by hanging himself in prison. Vautrin, as we have seen, escapes from the fate of his partner because he retains coolness enough to practise upon the vices of the governing classes. The world, in short, is composed of three classes--consistent and, therefore, successful villains; inconsistent and, therefore, unsuccessful villains; and virtuous persons, who never have a chance of success, and enjoy the honours of starvation.