Popinot

Jean-Jules Popinot belongs to that rare breed of magistrate who treats the law as an instrument of compassion rather than mere procedure. Moving through the glittering world of diplomats, artists, and salon hostesses — the world of Camille Maupin and the Genoese villa — he reads character the way others read briefs, patient and unillusioned. His presence in the collection anchors Balzac's recurring faith that somewhere in the machinery of society there remains a man willing to look closely at what everyone else prefers not to see.