Before he is nurtured and directed by Bette, Steinbock's genius languishes under his own inertia and he attempts suicide. Later, when he leaves Bette's circle of influence, he fails again. Thus he demonstrates Balzac's conviction that genius alone is useless without determination. Bellos organizes Steinbock and Bette into a duality of weakness and strength; whereas the Polish artist is unable to direct his energies into productive work, Bette draws strength from her virginity and thus becomes powerful by denying the lust to which Steinbock falls prey. Steinbock's drive is further eroded by the praise he receives for his art, which gives him an inflated sense of accomplishment. One critic refers to the artist's downfall as "vanity ... spoiled by premature renown". Style If Balzac's goal was (as he claimed) to write a realist novel from his "own old pen" rather than mimic the style of Eugène Sue, history and literary criticism have declared him successful. William Stowe calls La Cousine Bette "a masterpiece of classical realism" and Bellos refers to it as "one of the great achievements of nineteenth-century realism", comparing it to War and Peace. Some sections of the book are criticized for being melodramatic, and Balzac biographer V. S. Pritchett even refers to a representative excerpt as "bad writing". Most critics consider the moralistic elements of the novel deceptively complex, and some point out that the roman-feuilleton format required a certain level of titillation to keep readers engaged. Others indicate that Balzac's interest in the theatre was an important reason for the inclusion of melodramatic elements. Balzac's trademark realism begins on the first page of the novel, wherein Crevel is described wearing a National Guard uniform, complete with the Légion d'honneur. Details from the 1830s also appear in the novel's geographic locations. The Hulot family home, for example, is found in the aristocratic area of Paris known as the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Bette's residence is on the opposite end of the social spectrum, in the impoverished residential area which surrounded the Louvre: "Les ténèbres, le silence, l'air glacial, la profondeur caverneuse du sol concourent à faire de ces maisons des espèces de cryptes, des tombeaux vivants." ("Darkness, silence, an icy chill, and the cavernous depth of the soil combine to make these houses a kind of crypt, tombs of the living.") Descriptions of her meager quarters are – as usual in Balzac's work – an acute reflection of her