teries d'epiderme_ necessary in intercourse with ordinary women.
He says of her: "She had no littleness of soul, and none of those low
jealousies which obscure so much contemporary talent. Dumas is like
her on this point. George Sand is a very noble friend."[*]

[*] "Lettres a l'Etrangere."

This is all anticipation; we must now go back to 1828 and 1829, and
picture Balzac's existence first in the Rue de Tournon and then in one
room at the Rue Cassini. Insufficiently clad and wretchedly fed, he
occasionally went to evening parties to collect material for his
writing; at other times he visited some sympathising friend, and
poured out his troubles to her; but he had only one real support--the
sympathy and affection of Madame de Berny. It was a frightfully hard
life. He took coffee to keep himself awake, and he wrote and wrote
till he was exhausted; all the time being in the condition of a
"tracked hare," harassed and pursued by his creditors, and knowing
that all his gains must go to them.

His only relaxations were little visits. He went to Tours, where he
danced at a ball with a girl with red hair, and with another so little
"that a man would only marry her that she might act as a pin for his
shirt."[*] He travelled to Sache, to see M. de Margonne; to
Champrosay, where he met his sister; and to Fougeres in Brittany, at
the invitation of the Baron de Pommereul. During the last-named visit,
as we have already seen, he not only collected the material, but also
wrote the greater part of his novel "Les Chouans," which proved the
turning-point of his career.

[*] "Correspondance," vol. i. p. 82.

This novel, the first signed with his name, Honore Balzac, was
published by Canel and Levavasseur in March, 1829, and in December of
the same year the "Physiologie du Mariage by a Celibataire," appeared,
and excited general attention; though many people, Madame Carraud
among the number, were much shocked by it. Each of these books brought
in about fifty pounds--not a large sum, especially when we think that
Balzac must at this time have owed about two thousand pounds; but he
had now his foot upon the first rung of the ladder of fame, and
editors and publishers began to apply to him for novels and articles.

It is a curious fact that Balzac, who answered a question put to him
during his lawsuit against the _Revue de Paris_ on the subject of his
right to the prefix "de," with the rather grandiloquent words, "My
name is on my cer