Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, translated variously as The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans, A Harlot High and Low, or as Lost Souls, is an 1838–1847 novel by French novelist Honoré de Balzac,[1] published in four initially separate parts: It continues the story of Lucien de Rubempré, who was a main character in Illusions perdues, a preceding Balzac novel.

When Vautrin realizes that Nucingen's obsession is with Esther, he decides to use her power as a tool to help advance Lucien by extrapolating the maximum amount of money from the Baron as possible.

They also need one million francs to buy the old Rubempré land back, so that Lucien can marry Clotilde, the rich but ugly daughter of the Grandlieus.

Things don't work out as smoothly as Vautrin would have liked, however, because Esther commits suicide after giving herself to Nucingen for the first and only time (after making him wait for months).

Although Vautrin actually manages to fool his interrogators into believing that he might be Carlos Herrera, a priest on a secret mission for the Spanish king, Lucien succumbs easily to the wiles of his interviewer.