, and (it must be added) his disregard of them when the whim
took him, brought him into frequent legal difficulties, the most serious of
which was a law-suit with the _Revue de Paris_ in 1836. In 1831, and again
in 1834, he had thought of standing for election as Deputy, and in the
latter year he actually did so both at Cambrai and Angouleme; but it is not
certain that he received any votes. He also more than once took steps to
become a candidate for the Academy, but retired on several occasions before
the voting, and when at last, in 1849, he actually stood, he only obtained
two votes.

As early as the Genevan meeting of 1833, Madame Hanska had formally
promised to marry Balzac in the case of her husband's [v.03 p.0300] death,
and this occurred at the end of 1841. She would not, however, allow him
even to visit her till the next year had expired, and then, though he
travelled to St Petersburg and the engagement was renewed after a fashion,
its fulfilment was indefinitely postponed. For some years Balzac met his
beloved at Baden, Wiesbaden, Brussels, Paris, Rome and elsewhere. Only in
September 1847 was he invited on the definite footing of her future husband
to her estate of Wierzschovnia in the Ukraine; and even then the visit,
interrupted by one excursion to Paris and back, was prolonged for more than
two years before (on the 14th of March 1850) the wedding actually took
place. But Balzac's own _Peau de chagrin_ was now reduced to its last
morsel. His health, weakened by his enormous labours, had been ruined by
the Russian cold and his journeyings across Europe. The pair reached the
house at Paris in the rue Fortunee, which Balzac had bought for his wife
and filled with his collections, at the end of May. On Sunday, the 17th of
August, Victor Hugo found Balzac dying, attended by his mother, but not by
his wife. He actually died at half-past eleven that night and was buried on
the 20th, the pall-bearers being Hugo himself, Dumas, Sainte-Beuve (an
enemy, but in this case a generous one) and the statesman Baroche, in Pere
La Chaise, where Hugo delivered the speech cited above.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The extraordinarily complicated bibliography of Balzac will
be found all but complete in the _Histoire des oeuvres_ (1875 and later),
attached by M. Spoelberch de Lovenjoul to the _Edition definitive_, and
supplemented by him in numerous smaller works, _Autour de Balzac_, _Une
Page perdue de Balzac_, &c. Summaries of it will be foun