nt egotism of men
who bear a science, a nation, a code of laws in their bosom is the
noblest of passions; it is, as one may say, the maternity of the
masses; to give birth to new peoples, to produce new ideas they must
unite within their mighty brains the breasts of woman and the force of
God. The history of such men as Innocent the Third and Peter the
Great, and all great leaders of their age and nation will show, if
need be, in the highest spheres the same vast thought of which
Troubert was made the representative in the quiet depths of the
Cloister of Saint-Gatien.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Birotteau, Abbe Francois
The Lily of the Valley
Cesar Birotteau

Bourbonne, De
Madame Firmiani

Listomere, Baronne de
Cesar Birotteau
The Muse of the Department

Troubert, Abbe Hyacinthe
The Member for Arcis

Villenoix, Pauline Salomon de
Louis Lambert
A Seaside Tragedy

THE TWO BROTHERS

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated by

Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION

To Monsieur Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, etc.

Here, my dear Nodier, is a book filled with deeds that are
screened from the action of the laws by the closed doors of
domestic life; but as to which the finger of God, often called
chance, supplies the place of human justice, and in which the
moral is none the less striking and instructive because it is
pointed by a scoffer.

To my mind, such deeds contain great lessons for the Family
and for Maternity. We shall some day realize, perhaps too
late, the effects produced by the diminution of paternal
authority. That authority, which formerly ceased only at the
death of the father, was the sole human tribunal before which
domestic crimes could be arraigned; kings themselves, on
special occasions, took part in executing its judgments.
However good and tender a mother may be, she cannot fulfil the
function of the patriarchal royalty any more than a woman can
take the place of a king upon the throne. Perhaps I have never
drawn a picture that shows more plainly how essential to
European society is the indissoluble marriage bond, how fatal
the results of feminine weakness, how great the dangers
arising from selfish interests when indulged w