ght of sending her corrected
proofs to Russia; and that arrangements on a similar basis had been
made with Gustave Planche and M. Fontaney. The fact that exceptional
payments were made on these occasions was conclusive evidence against
simultaneous publication in Paris and St. Petersburg being the
received practice. Moreover, as Balzac observes with unanswerable
justice, even if this custom _did_ exist, it would count as nothing
against the agreement between him and Buloz. "M. Janin can take a
carriage and go himself to carry his manuscripts to Brussels; M. Sue
can get into a boat and sell his books in Greece; M. Loeve-Veimars can
oblige his editors if they consent, to make as many printed copies of
his future works as there are languages in Europe: all that will be
quite right, the _Revue_ is to-day like a publisher. My treaties,
however, are made and written; they are before the eyes of the judge,
they are not denied, and state that I only gave my articles to the
_Revue de Paris_, to be inserted solely _in_ the _Revue_, and nowhere
else."

Balzac won the case. It was decided by the Tribunal of Judges on
Friday, June 3rd, 1836, that he was not bound to give the "Memoires
d'une Jeune Mariee" to the _Revue de Paris_, as when promised, the
story had not been yet written, and the "Lys dans la Vallee" had been
substituted for it; also that the 2100 francs which he had already
offered to Buloz was all that he owed the Review. The judges left
unsettled the question as to whether the proprietors of the _Revue de
Paris_ were entitled to hand over their contributors' corrected proofs
to the _Revue Etrangere_; but decreed that they were certainly in the
wrong when they parted with unfinished proofs. They were therefore
condemned to pay the costs of the action.

Balzac's was a costly victory. Except the _Quotidienne_, which stood
by him consistently, not a paper was on his side. His clumsiness of
style, his habit of occasionally coining words to express his meaning,
and the coarseness of some of his writings, combined with the
prejudice caused by his literary arrogance, had always, to a certain
extent, blinded literary and critical France to his consummate merits
as a writer. Now, however, want of appreciation had changed to bitter
dislike; and in addition to abuse, indiscriminate and often absurd of
his writings, his enemies assailed his morals, ridiculed his personal
appearance, and made fun of his dress and surroundings. He w