Make-believe worseners of human nature and human life, Wertherian, Byronic or à la Musset have given way to the trio of the blackening pen, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, and later on their heels comes a wit as brilliant and versatile as Voltaire's, but without Voltaire's hopefulness and faith in humanity — Anatole France. Balzac's work has immensely enriched the intellectual capital of the world, has it made the multitude, the "rascal many," happier or better?