In 1830, the realist novel was to distinguish itself from the romance by legitimising a genre still considered both facile and aimed at a less-educated public. The example of the Secrets of the Princess of Cadignan shows how Balzac develops a fable in defence of the realistic novel by narrativising the strategies of mystification and paradoxical seduction : the point is to get the reader to understand that a fiction can reveal a truth. Balzac’s work marks a turning point in the way in which writers unveil the tricks of old-fashioned romances in order to promote the seriousness of the novel. The demand for realistic representation is what brings Balzac to use the fictional plot itself in order to comment on the romance in novels. It is what brings him to refine the thinking about the creative dynamics of the novel, according to which the desire for romance and the necessity for realism fuse.