ifferent
papers announcing that he had been imprisoned for debt--a report which
naturally ruined his credit, and caused a general gathering of those
to whom he owed money. It was not a pleasant home-coming; as Werdet
and Madame Bechet were in utter despair, and reproached Balzac
bitterly for his absence, while all his silver had been pawned by his
sister to pay his most pressing liabilities.

It is curious about this time to notice the reappearance of the early
romantic novels, "Jane la Pale," "La Derniere Fee," and their
fellows.[*] Balzac, as we have seen was in terrible straits for money,
and he knew that the Belgians, who at this time practised the most
shameless piracy, would reprint the books for their own advantage, if
he did not. Therefore, in self-defence, he determined to bring out an
edition himself; though, as he consistently refused to acknowledge the
authorship of these despised productions, the treaty was drawn up in
the name of friends. Nevertheless, with his usual caution, he drew up
a secret document which was signed by M. Regnault, one of those in
whose name the sale to the publisher was arranged, to the effect that
the works of the late Horace de Saint-Aubin were really the property
of M. de Balzac. "L'Heritiere de Birague" and "Jean Louis" did not
appear in this edition, probably owing to the intervention of M. Le
Poitevin, who considered them partly his property; but they were
published with the others in an edition printed in 1853, after a
lawsuit between Balzac's widow and his early collaborator.

[*] "Une Page Perdue de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.

The condition of the whole Balzac family at the close of 1835 was
tragic, M. Henri, back from abroad, and utterly incapable, as Balzac
says, of doing anything, talked of blowing out his brains; Madame
Surville was ill, Madame Balzac's reason or life was despaired of; and
Balzac chose this time to consult a somnambulist about Madame Hanska,
and was told the distressing news that she was in anxiety of some
sort, and that her heart was enlarged! Fortunately, in October, 1835,
the Hanski family returned to Wierzchownia, and the constant worry to
Balzac of their proximity to France was removed for the time.

In December another misfortune befell Balzac. A fire broke out at the
printing office in the Rue du Pot-de-Fer, and burnt the first hundred
and sixty pages of the third dizain of the "Contes Drolatiques," as
w