La Fausse Maîtresse is the tale of a love heroically sacrificed. Thaddée Paz, an exiled Polish gentleman, lives in the intimacy of the household of his friend and compatriot Count Adam Laginski and his young wife Clémentine. Paz, who manages the couple's affairs with absolute devotion, secretly loves Clémentine with a deep and hopeless love; but out of loyalty to his friend and out of greatness of soul, he forbids himself not only to betray this passion but even to let it be suspected. To divert all suspicion and preserve the peace of the household, he invents from whole cloth a liaison with a circus rider, Malaga, whom he displays as his mistress. This "false mistress" serves him as a screen: by passing for a man keeping a woman of the theater, he draws attention away from himself and protects Clémentine from any sentimental danger. The stratagem is so perfect that he condemns himself to misery in order to secure the happiness of those he loves. Clémentine, intrigued then touched, finally senses the truth of this devotion, but the order of the household is safeguarded. Balzac paints a figure of self-abnegation rare in his work, in which love, instead of unleashing itself and destroying, disciplines itself to the point of self-sacrifice. The character of Paz embodies honor, loyalty, and nobility of heart, within the setting of the Polish emigration that Balzac, out of fidelity to Mme Hanska, treated with sympathy. The tale illustrates a morality of self-mastery and fidelity in friendship, contrary to the ravaging passions that ordinarily people La Comédie humaine. It is a tribute to the silent grandeur of those who efface themselves.