u de chagrin_, one of the crudest, but according to some
estimates, one of the greatest of the works, full of romantic extravagance
and surplusage, but with an engrossing central idea--the Nemesis of
accomplished desire--powerfully worked out; _La Maison du chat qui pelote_,
a triumph of observation and nature, together with a crowd of things less
in bulk but sometimes of the first excellence--_El Verdugo_, _Etude de
femme_, _La Paix du menage_, _Le Bal de sceaux_, _La Vendetta_, _Gobseck_,
_Une Double Famille_, _Les Deux Reves_, _Adieu_, _L'Elixir de longue vie_,
_Sarrazine_, _Une Passion dans le desert_ and _Un Episode sous la Terreur_.
In 1831, _La Peau de chagrin_ appeared complete, accompanied by _Le
Requisitionnaire_, _Les Proscrits_, _Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu_ (a
masterpiece fortunately not unrecognized), _Jesus Christ en Flandre_ and
_Maitre Cornelius_. 1832 gave _Madame Firmiani_, _Le Message_, _Le Colonel
Chabert_ and _Le Cure de Tours_ (two stories of contrasted but
extraordinary excellence), _La Bourse_, _La Femme abandonnee_, _Louis
Lambert_ (autobiographical and philosophic), _La Grenadiere_ and _Les
Marana_ (a great favourite with the author). In 1833 appeared _Ferragus,
chef des devorants_, the first part of _L'Histoire des treize_ (a
collection in the more extravagant romantic manner, very popular at the
time, and since a favourite with some, but few, good judges), _Le Medecin
de campagne_ (another pet of the author's, and a kind of intended document
of his ability to support the cause of virtue, but, despite certain great
things, especially a wonderful popular "legend of Napoleon," a little heavy
as a whole), the universally admitted masterpiece of _Eugenie Grandet_, and
_L'Illustre Gaudissart_ (very amusing). 1833 also saw the beginning of a
remarkable and never finished work-out of his usual scope but exceedingly
powerful in parts--the _Contes drolatiques_, a series of tales of Old
France in Old (or at least Rabelaisian) French, which were to have been a
hundred in number but never got beyond the third batch of ten. They often
borrow the licence of their 15th and 16th century models; but in _La
Succube_ and others there is undoubted genius and not a little art. 1834
continued the _Treize_ with _La Duchesse de Langeais_ and added _La
Recherche de l'absolu_ (one of Balzac's great studies of monomania, and
thought by some to be the greatest, though others prefer _Le Chef-d'oeuvre
inconnu_), _La Femme de tr