Cousin Bette

Often described as Honoré de Balzac's masterpiece, Cousin Bette (in French, La Cousine Bette, and often) is a powerful tale of love, betrayal and family breakdown.

The titular character, Lisbeth "Bette" Fischer, is the Maiden Aunt for her beautiful and virtuous cousin Adeline's family, the Hulots. The Hulots, however, have several problems: the husband, Hector, is a philanderer; their children, Victorin and Hortense, are dilettantes. Bette is consumed by her envy towards her rich relatives and their contempt towards her, but she consoles herself by helping Wenceslas Steinbock, a young sculptor of talent sculptor, with the secret hope that the young man eventually return her affections. But when Hortense marries Wenceslas, it's the last straw for Bette, which then decide to ruin the family. Bette plots to use the family vices and their uneasy relationship with another family, the Crevels, to bring them to their knees, and takes Valérie Marneffe, a married woman that does a side track as courtesan, as her accomplice.

It has been adapted several times, albeit the most well known version is the 1998 film starring Jessica Lange. Said version had several changes, including trimming a lot of the cast (infamously, fusing the roles of Valérie and Jenny Cardine in the latter) and changing the ending to one where The Bad Guy Wins.

Tropes used in Cousin Bette include:

• Affably Evil: Crevel.
• Anti-Hero: Hector is a type V.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Played straight with Adeline and Hortense (who form a contrast with the ugly and evil Bette). Pointedly averted with Valérie and the other Gold Diggers (not to mention Hector).
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted so fucking hard in Valérie's case.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Bette and Valérie
• Big Good: Marshal Hulot is the benevolent overseer of his wayward brother's family - frequently rescuing them from ruin - and an all-around swell guy. It's really quite a thankless task, leading him to not just in despair, but from it.
• Big Screwed-Up Family
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Valérie is a classic example. Bette, despite her offputting appearence, manages to pull this off very effectively: she brings the Hulot family to its knees, while they never imagine her as anything other than their kindest benefactor.
• Bittersweet Ending
• Break the Cutie: This is Hortense's story arc. She has to endure not only the collapse of her own family, but also her husband's affair with Valérie.
• Brilliant but Lazy: Wenceslas - his artistic talent could have taken him to great heights had he been more diligent.
• Butt Monkey: Despite his place among the wealthiest of Brazilians, Montes is often at a loss to understand Parisian society. He is on the receiving end of many jibes and is a plaything to Valérie. He doesn't take it lying down by the end.
• The Casanova: Hector is a deconstruction and perhaps a subversion: his conquests come at great cost to him and his family. Which brings us to:
  • Casanova Wannabe: Hector beds almost every woman in the story. Why is he a "wannabe", then? They're all bleeding him dry.
• Character Title
• The Chessmaster: Valérie. She lines up various suitors to replace her dying husband, while at the same time aiding Bette in her revenge schemes. When she falls pregnant, she assures each of her suitors (at least initially) that he is the father. As smart as she is, though, she isn't as smart as she thinks: hence her downfall.
• Christmas Cake: Bette (albeit an atypical one, in that there's no indication of her ever having been attractive). Her ongoing solitude is a large part of what makes her so bitter.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Valérie. Deliberately infected with a tropical virus, she dies slowly and in agony, with her looks utterly ravaged.
• Dating Catwoman: Hector's dalliance with Valérie. Bette aims to invoke this by courting Marshal Hulot.
• Death by Despair: Both Marshal Hulot and Bette.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Montes!
• The Dog Bites Back: Montes on Valérie: see entry above.
• Downer Ending: yes, in the end Bette and everything that were involved with the ruin of the Hulots had either died or had a Fate Worse Than Death, and Bette even died believing that her cousin Adeline won in the end by having her husband and fortune return to her. But by this point the reputation of the Hulots is below the floor, and Adeline dies soon after Bette, as her mercy proved to be insufficient to redeem her family.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: Inverted: Bette's ugliness is the cause of much of the drama in her life that led to villainhood.
• Fat Bastard: Crevel: a petty, covetous and devious piece of work.
• Femme Fatale: Valérie. Zigzagged with The Vamp, as causing harm to every guy she meets seems often like her only objective. Then again, she seems genuinely repentant on her deathbed.
• Funny Foreigner: Shades of this in both Steinbock and Montes. This is a 19th-century French author we're talking about, after all.
• The Ghost: Jenny Cardine.
• Gold Digger: Josepha and Jenny Cardine are the most obvious examples. It's also on Valérie's extensive portfolio of villainous traits.
• Gonk: Bette. Her appearence is described in greater detail than any other character's and it's made clear that she's quite frightful to look at. This is the source of much of the drama that led up to villainhood.
• Hot Guys Are Bastards: A very handsome fellow in his youth, according to backstory, Hector is nonetheless a Dirty Coward who creates a litany of problems for his family.
• The Ingenue: Hortense.
• Jerkass: Most characters! The minor ones especially so - the major antagonists at least see a bit of nuance. Marshal Hulot, Adeline and Adeline's children are the only clear exceptions.
• Karma Houdini: While allowances should be made for all the humiliation and manipulation he went through, it's still a bit disturbing that Montes literally gets away with murder (and a remarkably gruesome one at that).
• Kavorka Man: Crevel. While perhaps not ugly per se, he's significantly overweight and never commended for his looks. Nonetheless, his list of conquests rivals Hector's. Of course, it isn't so much him they want, but rather his money.
• Les Yay: there are moments where Bette and Valérie's relationship has this vibe.
• Love Dodecahedron: And how!
• Love Makes You Evil: It sure did for Bette: see Woman Scorned below. While "evil" and "love" may both be putting it a bit strongly, Hector's insatiable lust makes him a Jerkass and stupid.
• Love Martyr: Adeline.
• Meaningful Name: Bette is a soundalike for "bête", French for "beast".
• Morality Pet: Wenceslas was this to Bette until he went off with Hortense and things soured: Bette's subsequent treatment of him cements her status as a villain. Bette is this to Hector: she's one of the few women he doesn't pursue, but he shows genuine concern for her at numerous points (none the wiser, of course, to the havoc she's wreaking on his family.)
• More Deadly Than the Male: Valérie's belief, and seemingly played out in her scheming. Ultimately subverted.
• Nice Guy: Marshal Hulot (Hector's older brother) is this, making his death the book's main Tear Jerker. Adeline and Hortense are female examples.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Bette is red to Valérie's blue. Marshal Hulot is the blue to Hector's red.
• The Resenter: Bette towards the Hulot family(Hortense especially). Crevel towards Hector.
• Revenge: A prime motive for Bette, among others.
• Sadistic Choice: Crevel's attempts to solicit sex from Adeline seem doomed for failure. They gain some traction, however, when the Hulot family's finances end up in the red. Adeline is therefore forced to choose between faithfulness to her husband and financial security. When she finally gives in, Crevel just rejects and taunts her, gloating over his victory.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful: Valérie (and, of course, the other Gold Diggers mentioned above). And Hector in his salad days (later to be replaced by Screw the Rules, I Have Money).
• Smug Snake: Valérie. Her snideness in accusing the genuinely devout Adeline of hypocrisy and fanaticism will likely make you want to throttle her. The sheer number of guys she manages to string along may by some accounts put her into Magnificent Bitch territory, but she's definitely overconfident. And lest we forget, she meets a gruesome end for messing with the wrong guy.
• Start of Darkness: Bette's abandonment by Wenceslas.
• The Stoic: Adeline. Painfully so. She bears Hector's many infidelities without complaint.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Bette and Valérie, respectively, are one of fiction's stand-out villainous examples.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Deconstructed savagely in the case of Valérie and her husband. She married him for money and has most likely never been faithful to him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Jenny Cardine: the cause of much of the Hulot family's financial woes, as well as Crevel's grudge against Hector.
• Villain Protagonist: Or Villain Title Character in any case.
• Villainous Breakdown: Oddly enough, Bette's villainy begins with quite a horrifying one!

The peasant-woman's face was terrible; her piercing black eyes had the glare of the tiger's; her face was like that we ascribe to a pythoness; she set her teeth to keep them from chattering, and her whole frame quivered convulsively. She had pushed her clenched fingers under her cap to clutch her hair and support her head, which felt too heavy; she was on fire. The smoke of the flame that scorched her seemed to emanate from her wrinkles as from the crevasses rent by a volcanic eruption

• Villainous BSOD: Bette, when the Hulot family reconciles, despite her best efforts. She dies of a non-specific illness shortly thereafter.
• Virgin Power: The narrative attributes Bette's ferocity and guile ("diabolical strength, or the black magic of the Will") to her (entirely unwanted) virginity.
• What the Hell, Hero?: If you can stomach calling Hector a hero, then yeah, he shows ever increasing levels of depravity throughout the story - culminating in his embezzling from the state and shacking up with girls who today would be considered minors. And it doesn't pass without comment from his family.
• Woman Scorned: There are definitely shades of this in Bette's treatment of Wenceslas -- calling in his debts in hope of having him imprisoned -- once it becomes clear that he's with Hortense. Then again, it's likely that Hortense is the primary target of Bette's revenge and Wenceslas is a proxy.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The likeliest reading of Bette. Having been plain while her cousin Adeline was beautiful, Bette was beaten and neglected while her cousin was pampered. Having failed to find a well-off suitor (the only sort for whom one could settle in those days), Bette had to do menial work for a living while Adeline led a (seemingly!) ideal life as a baroness. Bette finally crossed the Despair Event Horizon when the man she loved made clear his intention to marry her attractive young cousin Hortense (significantly, Adeline's daughter) and wants nothing but the family's destruction from then on.
• Your Cheating Heart: Hector, Valérie and Wenceslas.