"The Duchesse of Langeais" by Honoré de Balzac is a novel published in 1834. A decorated General becomes obsessed with a married aristocrat who delights in flirtation but denies him her affections before vanishing entirely. With help from a mysterious occult society called The Thirteen, he tracks her to a remote Spanish monastery where she has taken vows. This portrait of Parisian society explores the dangerous games played between desire and power in post-Napoleonic France. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
These books are free to read. Each is in the public domain in the United States; check your own country's rules before you copy or share one.
