does not know where to
address his answer. To. L'E.--H. de B."[*]

[*] A copy of the _Quotidienne_ with this advertisement is in the
possession of the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, and I have
seen it.

After this, it is amusing to see that Balzac was most particular in
impressing on his publishers the necessity of advertising his
forthcoming works in the _Quotidienne_, one of the few French papers
allowed admission into Russia. On the other hand, the receipt of the
_Quotidienne_ with this announcement made Madame Hanska so bold, that
in a letter dated January 9th, 1833, she gave Balzac the welcome
information that she and M. de Hanski were leaving Ukraine for a time,
and coming nearer France; and that she would indicate to him some way
of corresponding with her secretly. As this is the last of her letters
that can be found, we do not know what method she pointed out to
Balzac; and his first letter to her is dated January, 1833, and after
their meeting at Neufchatel in September, he wrote a short account of
his day every evening to his beloved one, and once in eight days he
despatched this journal to its destination. As he kept to this plan
with only occasional interruptions whenever he was absent from her,
till his marriage four months before his death, these letters, some of
which are published in a volume called "Lettres a l'Etrangere," form a
most valuable record of his life. In one of the first, it is
interesting to see that he is obliged to soothe her uneasiness at the
strange variety of his handwritings, as Madame Carraud had answered
one of her letters in his name; and to allay her suspicions, he makes
the rather unlikely explanation, that he has as many writings as there
are days in the year. In the future, however, her letters are sacred,
no eye but his own being permitted to gaze on them; and with his usual
reticence where his feelings are seriously involved, he ceases to
mention to his friends his correspondent in far Ukraine.

A little later he comments with joy on the fact that Madame Hanska has
sent him a copy of the "Imitation of Christ,"[*] which represents our
Lord on the cross, just as he is writing "Le Medecin de Campagne,"
which portrays the bearing of the cross by resignation, and love,
faith in the future, and the spreading around of the perfume of good
deeds. To Balzac, believer in the power of the transmission of
thought, this coincidence was of good augury.

[*] "Lettres a l'