Histoire of the Thirteen is a Romance of Honore de Balzac published between 1833 and 1839.

Under this title, Balzac gathered:

• Ferragus , Romance appeared for the first time in 1833 in the Revue of Paris under the title Ferragus, chief of devouring the
• the Duchess of Langeais , Romance appeared in of 1833 in the Echo of Young France under the title do not touch with the axe , which it will keep until in 1839.
• the Girl with the eyes of gold , Romance appeared in 1834.

the Thirteen , according to the introduction of Balzac, are Thirteen also struck men of the same feeling, all endowed with a rather great energy to be faithful to the same thought, enough honest not to betray itself, while at the same time their interests were opposite, rather deeply political to dissimulate the bonds crowned which linked them, enough strong to put itself at the top of all laws, bold enough for all to undertake, and enough happy to have almost always succeeded in their intentions (...). Lastly, so that nothing missed with dark and mysterious poetry of this history, these thirteen men remained unknown, though all carried out the oddest ideas that with imagination the fantastic power allotted to Manfred, Faust, Melmoth suggests; and all today are broken, dispersed at least.

It is acted in fact of a secret society which makes rock the human Comedy in a universe Fantastique, the famous one Fantastic Social such as Charles Nodier defines it, a kind in which Eugene Sue will excel with the Mysteries of Paris .

The secret society is in the middle of the dream of many writers of the 19th century. Balzac itself, set on Science S Occults S, tried to found a Franc-maçonnerie Littéraire, with the idea of an unbounded capacity. Its association bore the name of Red horse because it conceived the whole of its members as a stable of impetuous talents which would end up obtaining the stations - keys of the literary world, theatrical and journalistic. Leon Gozlan and Théophile Gautier joined it more by friendship than by conviction: This wretched fellow, said it, had such a power of vision that it described us with each one, in the smalllest details, the splendid and glorious life that association would get to them. Balzac did not have a great success in this company which was dissolved about 1840.