<p><i>Letters of Two Brides</i> is an epistolary novel, largely consisting of letters between two women who become friends in a convent in their teenage years. They begin their correspondence when they depart the order as young women and embark on their lives in different areas of France. Louise is a woman of passion, a lover of love, who must have a great romance in order to be fulfilled. Renée is measured, a women of sense, desiring a love that will last a lifetime rather than (in her way of thinking) flame out like a comet. In several of their epistles, each takes the other to task over her approach to life and love. As their ages and respective marriages progress, it becomes obvious where <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/honore-de-balzac">Balzac’s</a> sympathies lie.</p> <p>One of the later additions to The Human Comedy, <i>Letters of Two Brides</i> was originally serialized (and heavily bowdlerized) in the French journal <i>La Presse</i> in 1841, in three parts rather than two. It was not until the second edition of the novel that it was repartitioned into its present form.</p>