L'Auberge rouge (English "The Red Inn") is a short story by Honoré de Balzac.
[1] The plot was inspired by a story told to Balzac by a former army surgeon, whose friend had been unjustly tried and executed.
The inn is full, and the only place for the three new arrivals to spend the night is in the main dining room.
Over dinner Walhenfer confesses to the two young doctors that he is carrying a bag full of gold and diamonds.
Whilst Hermann has been telling this story, the narrator notices that another guest, a wealthy man named Frederic Taillefer has been very agitated.
The narrator has in the meantime fallen in love with a girl that he has seen at the party, and is shocked to discover that she is Taillefer's daughter Victorine.
The narrator is then in a dilemma, and hosts a dinner party to which he invites 17 of his friends to ask them whether he should marry Victorine, even though he believes her father is a murderer.
The story concludes with one of the older guests telling the narrator that he was foolish to ask Taillefer whether he was from Beauvais.