L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine, which closes the Scenes of Parisian Life, sets against the theme of criminal secret societies that of a secret brotherhood devoted to good. Composed of two episodes, the work stages the "Brothers of Consolation," a discreet association of charitable souls who devote themselves, in shadow and anonymity, to relieving the hidden miseries of the great city. This society of good, led by the noble and pious Madame de la Chanterie, is the exact counterpart of the Thirteen: where the latter used their occult power for domination and vengeance, the Brothers of Consolation employ theirs for secret beneficence and redemption. The first episode follows a disillusioned young man, Godefroid, weary of the world and of his thwarted ambitions, who is received into this community and finds there, by devoting himself to the service of the unfortunate, a path of moral and spiritual regeneration. The second episode, The Initiate, shows him engaged in a concrete mission of charity: to bring help, with patience and delicacy, to a family struck by illness and misfortune. Balzac develops a Christian vision of active and discreet charity, and proposes, at the close of his depiction of Parisian vices and corruptions, an image of hope and redemption. The novel stands apart by its religious and moral inspiration from the habitual darkness of the Scenes of Parisian Life, as if the author wished to offer a luminous reverse to the history of the capital's passions and crimes. A work of maturity, marked by a spiritual gravity, L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine affirms the possibility of good in a society dominated by money and selfishness, and closes the great Parisian fresco of La Comédie humaine on a note of appeasement. ---