Introduction : the prime movers -- Mimetic figures of semiosis -- From heteronomy to unity : Les Chouans -- Tenebrous affairs and necessary explications -- Self-narration and the fakery of imitation -- The double representation of the history of César Birotteau -- La maison Nucingen, a financial narrative -- Myth and mendacity : Pierrette and Beatrice Cenci -- The corset of La vieille fille -- Genealogy and the unmarried in La rabouilleuse -- Ursule Mirouët : genealogy and inheritance -- Un prince de la bohème and Pierre Grassou, or how love makes money -- Voyages of reflection, reflections on voyages -- Balzac and Poe : realizing magnetism -- Chemistry and composition : la recherche de l'absolu -- The capital of money and the science of magnetism : Melmoth réconcilié -- Love, music, and opium : medical semiotics of Massimilla Doni -- The languages of sex -- Composed past and historical present -- Problems of closure -- Conclusion : Balzac's invention of realism.