 These quartiers of the city serve as <unk> which Rastignac seeks to master ; Vautrin , meanwhile , operates in stealth , moving among them undetected . Rastignac , as the naive young man from the country , seeks in these worlds a new home . Paris offers him a chance to abandon his far @-@ away family and remake himself in the city 's ruthless image . His urban exodus is like that of many people who moved into the French capital , doubling its population between 1800 and 1830 . The texture of the novel is thus inextricably linked to the city in which it is set ; " Paris " , explains critic Peter Brooks , " is the looming presence that gives the novel its particular tone " . 
