of Balzac's _fleurs du mal_; he is studied and
personally conducted from beginning to end with an extraordinary and
loving care; but is he quite "of a piece"? That he should have
succeeded in defeating the combination against which his virtuous
mother and brother failed is not an undue instance of the irony of
life. The defeat of such adversaries as Flore and Max has, of course,
the merit of poetical justice and the interest of "diamond cut
diamond." But is not the terrible Philippe Bridau, the "Mephistopheles
_a cheval_" of the latter part of the book, rather inconsistent with
the common-place ne'er-to-well of the earlier? Not only does it
require no unusual genius to waste money, when you have it, in the
channels of the drinking-shop, the gaming table, and elsewhere, to
sponge for more on your mother and brother, to embezzle when they are
squeezed dry, and to take to downright robbery when nothing else is
left; but a person who, in the various circumstances and opportunities
of Bridau, finds nothing better to do than these ordinary things, can
hardly be a person of exceptional intellectual resource. There is here
surely that sudden and unaccounted-for change of character which the
second-rate novelist and dramatists may permit himself, but from which
the first-rate should abstain.

This, however, may be an academic objection, and certainly the book is
of first-class interest. The minor characters, the mother and brother,
the luckless aunt with her combination at last turning up when the
rascal Philippe has stolen her stake-money, the satellites and
abettors of Max in the club of "La Desoeuvrance," the slightly
theatrical Spaniard, and all the rest of them, are excellent. The book
is an eminently characteristic one--more so, indeed, than more than
one of those in which people are often invited to make acquaintance
with Balzac.

_Pierrette_, which was earlier called _Pierrette Lorrain_, was issued
in 1840, first in the _Siecle_, and then in volume form, published by
Souverain. In both issues it had nine chapter or book divisions with
headings. With the other _Celibataires_ it entered the _Comedie_ as a
_Scene de la Vie de Province_ in 1843.

_Le Cure de Tours_ (which Balzac had at one time intended to call by
the name of the Cure's enemy, and which at first was simply called by
the general title _Les Celibataires_) is much older than its
companions, and appeared in 1832 in the _Scenes de la Vie Privee_. It
was soon