And thus Bureaucracy, the giant power wielded by pygmies, came into the world.

Balzac’s aphorism compresses a recurring theme in his fiction: modern administrative systems can accumulate immense, impersonal power while being operated by small-minded, mediocre, or timid individuals. “Giant power” points to bureaucracy’s capacity to regulate lives through rules, paperwork, and procedure; “pygmies” suggests that those who exercise this power may lack imagination, moral stature, or responsibility, yet can still obstruct, delay, or ruin others. The line also implies a historical irony: institutions meant to rationalize governance end up creating a self-perpetuating machine whose authority exceeds the qualities of its agents. It is a warning about the mismatch between institutional power and personal merit.