Bette is a wronged soul; and when her passion does break it is as Balzac says sublime and terrifying wrote V. S. Pritchett. A late masterpiece in Balzac''s La Comdie Humaine Cousin Bette is the story of a Vosges peasant who rebels against her scornful upper-class relatives skillfully turning their selfish obsessions against them. The novel exemplifies what Henry James described as Balzac''s huge all-compassing all-desiring all-devouring love of reality.