A Woman of Thirty · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in A Woman of Thirty by Honoré de Balzac.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Julie d'Aiglemont
major
Also known as Julie, poor Julie, the Marquise, Madame la Marquise, Madame d'Aiglemont, Marquise, Madame
A young wife who weds a soldier for love and discovers too late that marriage can be a slow, elegant form of abandonment.
Charles de Vandenesse
major
Also known as Charles, M. Charles de Vandenesse, Vandenesse, M. de Vandenesse
A rising diplomat of thirty who has schooled himself to cool calculation, yet finds his carefully guarded heart ambushed by a woman already bound to another.
Colonel Victor d'Aiglemont
major
Also known as Victor, Colonel d'Aiglemont, Victor d'Aiglemont, the General, General, D'Aiglemont
A dashing officer who wins Julie in a whirlwind courtship, then leaves her to the long silence of a marriage he never learned to inhabit.
Hélène d'Aiglemont
supporting
Also known as Hélène, little Hélène
Julie's eldest daughter, a dark-eyed, vehement child whose sombre intensity and hungry heart set her on a course her mother cannot forgive.
Lord Grenville
supporting
Also known as Arthur, Monsieur Arthur
An English nobleman abroad in France whose passion for Hélène collides with the d'Aiglemont family's pride and Julie's bitter experience.
Moïna de Saint-Héreen
supporting
Also known as Little Moïna, Moïna, The Comtesse Moïna de Saint-Héreen, la Comtesse
Julie's youngest and most beloved daughter, beautiful and instinctive, whose effortless charm becomes the axis of her mother's late, anxious devotion.
Madame de Sérizy
supporting
Also known as Mme. d'Aiglemont, Mme, de Sérizy, Mme. de Saint-Héreen
Madame de Sérizy moves through Parisian drawing rooms as a mother whose grown daughter, Moïna, has become the reigning attraction — her salon, her box at the Italiens, her flirting. The dowager's devotion is genuine but costly: she is admired for her patience and quietly pitied for her solitude, her own musical past and social standing displaced by the younger woman's brilliance. Her tender, self-effacing love, and the gossip it provokes, sets the emotional weather of the novel's later movement, where maternal sacrifice and filial indifference are weighed without easy verdict.
Marquis de Vandenesse
minor
Also known as The Marquis de Vandenesse, Marquis, de Vandenesse
Charles's elder brother, a conservative aristocrat.
Crottat
minor
A notary or legal figure involved in family affairs.
Alfred de Vandenesse
minor
Also known as Alfred
A younger relative of Charles, appearing in social scenes.
Louisa de Wimphen
minor
Also known as Louisa, de Wimphen
A friend of Julie's family, involved in social intrigues.
Ronquerolles
minor
Also known as M. de Ronquerolles, M. d'Aiglemont
A nobleman and occasional advisor to the d'Aiglemont family.
Madame de Listomère
minor
Also known as Mme. de Listomère, Mme. de Listomère-Landon
A society matron and relative of the Vandenesse family.
Captain Gomez
minor
Also known as Gomez
A Spanish officer who courts Hélène during her travels.
Abel d'Aiglemont
minor
Also known as Abel, little Abel
Julie and Victor's young son, who dies in childhood.
Pauline
minor
A servant or companion in the d'Aiglemont household.
Gustave
minor
A young man briefly associated with Moïna's social circle.
Fox
minor
Also known as young Fox
An English acquaintance of Lord Grenville.