Cousin Bette recap

The Hulot family is already strained by Baron Hector Hulot's affairs and debts when Adeline's resentful cousin Lisbeth Fischer loses her secret protégé, sculptor Wenceslas Steinbock, to Hortense Hulot. Lisbeth allies herself with the calculating Valérie Marneffe. Together they exploit Hector, Crevel, Wenceslas, and other admirers, using desire, money, and jealousy to damage the family. Hortense separates from Wenceslas, Adeline is driven to humiliation, and Hector's misuse of public funds forces him into hiding. Victorin turns to Madame Nourrisson for help ending Valérie's threat. Valérie marries Crevel but is killed with him through Henri Montès's revenge; Lisbeth also dies. Adeline finds and forgives Hector, only to catch him pursuing their kitchen maid. The shock kills her. Hector remains unreformed and eventually marries the maid, leaving his children to preserve what they can after the older generation's ruin.

The Hulot household's respectability conceals a long financial and emotional crisis caused by Baron Hector Hulot's pursuit of women. Célestin Crevel, a wealthy former perfumer, visits Adeline Hulot to demand that she accept him as a lover, presenting the proposal as revenge because Hulot once took the singer Josépha from him. Adeline refuses and tries to protect her husband and children. Her unmarried cousin Lisbeth Fischer, known as Bette, is treated as a poor relation despite her fierce pride and independence. Lisbeth secretly supports Wenceslas Steinbock, a Polish sculptor she rescued from poverty, and regards his future devotion as compensation for the family happiness she has never possessed. Hortense Hulot discovers that this hidden protégé exists and becomes eager to meet him.

Hortense meets Wenceslas, falls in love with him, and marries him with her family's approval. What the Hulots regard as a happy match feels to Lisbeth like the theft of the one person who belonged to her. She conceals her rage and forms an alliance with her attractive neighbor Valérie Marneffe. Valérie and her compliant husband live on a clerk's income but understand how to turn her admirers into money and advancement. Baron Hulot is quickly captivated by her. Lisbeth enters the Marneffe household as a trusted friend and makes herself useful to the Hulots at the same time, preserving an appearance of loyalty while directing Valérie toward the family's weaknesses. The revenge operates through ordinary social visits, flirtation, and financial dependence rather than open hostility.

Valérie keeps Baron Hulot and Crevel competing for her favor, extracting money, housing, and promises from both while Monsieur Marneffe benefits from the arrangement. Hector's expenses deepen the Hulot family's debts and make his public position vulnerable. Wenceslas, whose artistic discipline has weakened after marriage, is also drawn into Valérie's circle. Lisbeth encourages each attachment while presenting herself as the person best able to manage the resulting tensions. Adeline continues to endure humiliation and deprivation in the hope of preserving Hector and the family. Hortense, once confident that love secured her marriage, is forced to confront Wenceslas's vanity and unreliability. The cousins' original contrast has reversed: Hortense's household becomes unstable while Lisbeth gains influence over nearly everyone around it.

Evidence of Wenceslas's involvement with Valérie breaks Hortense's trust, and she separates from him. Valérie continues balancing several men, including the wealthy Brazilian Henri Montès, promising each a future incompatible with the promises made to the others. Hector's attempt to sustain his private life through patronage and public money produces scandal and threatens the honor attached to his brother, Marshal Hulot. He eventually disappears rather than face his family and creditors. Josépha, now successful and independent, offers a sharp contrast to the men who once treated her as a possession and helps the desperate Adeline search for Hector. Lisbeth remains close to the injured family and expects that her apparent devotion will earn her a secure place within it even as the scheme she built advances.

Victorin Hulot takes increasing responsibility for protecting his mother, sister, and family name. Concluding that Valérie cannot be defeated by respectable means, he accepts help from Madame Nourrisson, an expert in covert pressure. Monsieur Marneffe dies, freeing Valérie to plan a more profitable marriage. Crevel, still vain and infatuated, prepares to make her his wife, while she continues deceiving him and Montès. Lisbeth's hopes remain tied to the family's losses and to a possible marriage into the Hulot household, but the revenge has grown beyond her control. Adeline's search for Hector reveals the depth of his degradation without weakening her determination to forgive him.

Valérie marries Crevel, but Henri Montès learns the extent of her betrayals and takes fatal revenge. Valérie and Crevel die in terrible illness, destroying the fortune and future they expected to enjoy together. Lisbeth also declines and dies, never achieving the secure triumph over the Hulots that sustained her conspiracy. Adeline and the family locate Hector living under a false identity with another young woman. Adeline forgives him and restores him to the household, creating a brief appearance of reconciliation. Hector remains unchanged. He soon pursues the young kitchen maid Agathe; when Adeline discovers this final betrayal, the shock ends her life. Hector outlives the wife who repeatedly saved him and later marries Agathe. The surviving children preserve the family as best they can, but neither punishment nor forgiveness has cured the selfishness at the center of its ruin.

Valérie and Crevel die after Henri Montès takes revenge for Valérie's betrayals. Lisbeth, deprived of the future she expected from the family's ruin and exhausted by her own hatred, also dies before she can marry Marshal Hulot. Adeline and her children eventually locate Hector living under an assumed name with another young woman. Adeline forgives him and brings him home, briefly restoring the household. The reconciliation does not reform him: he soon propositions the young kitchen maid Agathe. Adeline discovers this final betrayal and dies after forgiving him once more. Hulot survives her and later marries Agathe, while the children retain what remains of the family. The revenge plot destroys its chief agents and victims alike, but Hector's appetite outlasts the suffering it caused.