t been retired on a pension and had recently lost money in two investments. As there were a couple of daughters to be provided for, the family, for th

rented for him at No. 9 Rue Lesdiguieres, a street near the Arsenal, still bearing the same name. A small monthly allowance was made him, just enough to keep him from starving; and an old woman, Mother

t first to look with cheerful eye on his narrow s

about my way of living.

hat can you b

ent. When his master is hungry and thirsty, he has sometimes neither bread nor water to give him; he does not know how to protect himself against the wind, which blows through the doo

ys

s,

loud enough to deafen me, and at those bits of fluff un

I don't s

ld your tongu

my linen in the cupboard by the chimney, after papering the receptacle white; and, with a three-penny blue paper and borde

m my studious habits, and even that was study. I used to observe the manners of the Faubourg, its inhabitants, and their characters. Dressed as plainly as the workmen, indifferent to decorum, I aroused no mistrust, and could mix with them and watch their bargaining and quarrelling with each other as they went home from their toil. My faculty of observation had become intui

people to their homes, and to registering in note-book or bra

. . To quit my own habits and become another by the intoxication of my moral faculties at will, such was my diversion. To what do I owe this gift? Is it second s

The Two Philosophers, a farce in which a couple of sham sages mocked at the world and quarrelled with each other, while secretly coveting the good things they affected to despise, appears to have been worked at, but uselessly. Next a tragedy, tackled

-confidence. The piece, as sketched out in his correspondence, made large alterations in English history. Its interest hinged chiefly on the dilemma created in Cromwell's mind by his two sons falling into the hands of a small Royalist force, and by Charles's ordering them to be given up without conditions to their father, although the King was a

lan superb. How the interest grows from scene to scene! The incident of Cromwell's sons is most happily invented. Charles's magnanimity

"The time I spend in it will be sweet to look back upon," he said. "To live as I like, to work in my own way, to go to sleep conjuring up the future, which I imagine beautiful, to have Rousseau's Julie as a sweetheart, La Fontaine and Moliere as friends, Racine as a master, and Pere Lachaise as a promen

oticed that his audience first showed signs of being bored, then of being bewildered, and lastly of being frankly dissatisfied and hostile. Laure was dumbfounded. The candid gentleman broke out into uncompromising, scathing condemnation; and those who were most indulgent were obliged to pronounce that the famous tragedy was a failure. Honore defended his

ting his own neck, as he had hinted he might, if unsuccessful, the young author quietly re

nce could prevent from being so much felt.[*] His health besides had suffered during his fifteen months of self-imposed privations. In after-life he complained much to some of his friends-Auguste Fessart and Madame Hanska amongst others-of his parents' or rather his mother's hardness to him while he was in the Lesdi

twelve months after her sister. Her husband was Monsieu

his desire to enter the matrimonial state: "Look me out some widow who is a rich heiress," he said; "you know what I require. Praise me up to her-twenty-two years of age, amiable, polite, with eyes of life and fire, the best husband Heaven has ever

re partnerships with Le Poitevin de l'Egreville,[*] Horace Raisson, Etienne Arago. And the material turned out was of the coarsest kind, generally second-hand, a hash-up of stories already published, imitations of Monk Lewis, Maturin, Mrs. Radcliffe, and French writers of the same school, with

Le Poitevin

or boasting of it as a masterpiece." He could appreciate better achievement, and spoke of Kenilworth as the finest thing in the world. His excuse was that he had n

The notary was dead and the business had been taken over by some one else, so that this danger no longer threat

yet I am in the season when they bloom! What is the good of fortune and joys when youth is past? Of what use the actor's garments if one does not play the role? The old man is one who has dined and looks at

rly fitted to write, demanded maturity of experience that he could hardly acquire before another decade had passed over his head. Yet the stories he reeled off had a certain market value. The Heiress of Birague was sold for eight hundred

love, is, as Monsieur le Breton remarks in his study of Balzac, a romantic one in the manner of Byron, and has things in common with Walter Scott's Heart of Midlothian, Victor Hugo's Bug-Jargal, and Pixerecourt's Belveder. There is an atmosphere of imagination in it, the action is quick, and the characters are strongly though distortedly drawn. Moreover, a breath of healthy sentiment runs through the story, wh

Fairy, Don Gigadas, The Excommunicated Man, Wann-Chlore, or Ja

unfortunately grew rarer, bitterer, and even coarser often, in his later career. Some of his rapidly

ve me a gla

, Ma

se, I'm in a bad

nse, M

e than oth

. . .

The shutters are slamming; it's enough to

nyms. And "Lord R'hoone," he told Laure, "will soon be the rage, the most amiable, fertile author; and ladies will regard him as the apple of their eye. Then the little Honore will arrive in a coach with head held up, proud look, and fob well garnished. At his approach, amidst flattering murmurs from the admiring crowd, people will say: 'He is Madame Surville's brother.' Then men, women, and children, and unborn babes will leap as the hills. . . . And I s

e my mark and write books to last." This was not altogether true nor just to his parents. He had his bread and cheese and a home to eat it in, which authors have not always enjoyed who have gained immortality by their unaided pen. Although his family were

ts between the young man of twenty and the man of thirty! I am reflecting; my ideas are ripening. I recognize that Nature has treated me favourably in giving me my heart and my head. Believe in me, dear sis

him to sign an agreement binding him to deliver a couple of these stories by the 1st of October. Six hundred francs were paid cas

whole, Balzac did not manage to hit the public fancy with his work in this line. The further he went with it the less he liked it, and such bits of better stuff as he introduced in lieu of the blood and mystery rather lessened than increased the saleableness of his books. For the printing of the Last Fairy he had to pay, himself; and he was obliged to own, a

er than his own family, became a second mother to him. Attracted by him, in spite of his weaknesses of conceit, loudness, and vulgarity, she pol

ch Balzac made her acquaintance has been variously stated. Basing themselves upon his Love-story at School, some writers have supposed he knew her when he was a boy, but there is no evidence to confirm this hypothesis. The first definite mention of her and her family occurs in a gossipy letter he wrote to Laure in 1822 from Villeparisis, where the de Berny family were settled: "I may tell you," he says, "that Mademo

s, there was the young de Berny, who was considerably his junior. But to none of them could he talk unreservedly of his ambitions literary and political. For a man between twenty and thirty years of age, whose mind is seething with evolving thought, there is no more sympathetic and appreciative adviser than a woman some years his senior. Madame de Berny listened to his expression of Imperialistic opinions tinged with Liberalism, as she listened to his confession of hopes and disappointments; and, in turn, talked with persuasive accents of those pre-Revolution days which she had known as a child. She was able also to draw the curtain aside and show him somet

was not happy with her husband, and can surmise that she entered upon the role she played without clearly foreseeing its dangers. No doubt, her desire to form this genius in the rough carried her away from her moorings, which, indeed, had

of his parents and partly allured by the prospect of rapidly growing rich. He had likewise some intention of bringing out his own books, both those previously written and those in preparation. Of these latter there were a

zac, although his early biographers, Madame S

eing introduced to him by a mutual friend, was admitted to join in the undertaking. The money necessary for the partnership was lent to him by Monsieur d'Assonvillez, who, as a sharp business man, imposed conditions on the loan which secured him from loss in case of failure. The editions were to be library ones, illustrated by the artist Deveria (who about this time painted Balzac's portrait), and were to be published in parts. The price was high, twenty francs for each work;

losses by adding a printing to his publishing business. The stock and goodwill of a printer were to be bought, and a working type-setter, named Barbier, was to be associated as a second principal in the affair, on account of his practical experience. The project was approved, and the elder Balzac was persuaded to come forward with a capital of ab

sociations, indeed, are attached to it. At No. 19 died Jean Racine in 1699, and Adrienne Lecouvreur in 1730. No. 17 was a new construction when Balzac went to it, having probably been built on the site where Nicolas Vauquelin

dow and on the inner yard-side by a casement." The passage in Gothic style led to the office; and on the floor above were the living rooms, one of which was hung with blue calico, was furnished with taste,

ave financed the concern with all the more wariness as d'Assonvillez, the principal supplier of capital, had a mortgage upon the whole estate, allowed himself to be paid for his printing, more often than not, in bills for which no provision was forthcoming and in securities that were rotten. One debt of twenty-eight thousand francs was settled by the transfer of a lot of old unsaleable literature, which would have been dear at a halfpenny a volume. And then, when everything was in confusion-debtors recalcitrant and creditors pressing-what must he do but launch on another venture, buy the bankrupt stock of a type-founder, and start manufacturing. A fresh partner, Laurent, was admitted into the firm in December 1827, with a view to his exploiting the presumably

py himself with the liquidation, she authorizing him at the same time to make whatever arrangement he should judge best, and promising to accept it. She was most anxious to spare her husband, at present eighty-three years of age, the grief he must feel if informed of t

rny. The latter's claims were partly met by her son's taking over the business with Laurent, the other partner. Being thus reconstituted, the firm subsequently prospered. To-day it still carries on its affairs under the control of a Monsieur Charles Tuleu,

e, he spoke of Madame de Berny's kindness, and declared that he had repaid the Dilecta in 1836 the last six thousand francs he owed her, together with their five per cent interest. As

"Do you know how much that bust cost me? . . . Fifteen thousand francs. I got it from Balzac, who owed me a great deal of money. Once when I was at his house in Passy, he exclaimed: 'Since I can't pay you, take what you like from here t

, he confessed: "Without her (Madame de Berny) I should have died. She often divined that I had not eaten for several days (here he was proba

rms the thread of the story. Possibly, during the bankruptcy proceedings, there may have been a fit of despair which urged the insolvent printer to end his own troubles in the

evisions of my conscious mind, from my modest prosperity. . . . For the last month I have been engaged on an historical work of the highest interest; and I hope that, in default of a talent altogether problematic with me, my sketch of national custom

" And he went. It was his definite entrance into litera