t deal at
the time, and he therefore wished her to remain quietly somewhere in
France; moreover, despair seized him at her hesitation to become his
wife, when the course at last seemed clear. His trouble at this time
appears to have had a serious effect on his health, and some words
spoken half in malice, half in warning by Madame de Girardin, must
have sounded like a knell in his ears. He tells them apparently in
jest to Madame Hanska to give her an example of the nonsense people
talk in Paris. In his accuracy of repetition, however, we can trace a
passionately anxious desire to force Madame Hanska herself to deny the
charges brought against her; and perhaps lurking behind this, a wish
unacknowledged even to himself, to shame her if--even after all that
had passed--she were really not in earnest.

[*] See "Une Page Perdue de Honore de Balzac," p. 276, by the Vicomte
de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.

He says: "Madame de Girardin told me that she heard from a person who
knew you intimately, that you were extremely flattered by my homage;
that from vanity and pride you made me come wherever you went; that
you were very happy to have a man of genius as courier, but that your
social position was too high to allow me to aspire to anything else.
And then she began to laugh with an ironical laugh, and told me that I
was wasting my time running after great ladies, only to fail with
them. Hein! Isn't that like Paris!"[*]

[*] "Correspondance," vol. ii. p. 295.

The reader of Balzac's life is forced to the sad conclusion that
Parisian gossip had on this occasion sketched the situation tolerably
correctly; though the truth of the picture was no doubt denied with
much indignation by Madame Hanska.

CHAPTER XIV

1846 - 1848

Balzac buys a house in the Rue Fortunee--Madame Hanska's visit to
Paris--Balzac burns her letters--Final breach with Emile de
Girardin--Balzac's projects for writing for the theatre--He goes
to Wierzchownia--Plan for transporting oaks from Russia to France
--Balzac returns to Paris at the eve of the Revolution of 1848
--Views on politics--Stands for last time as deputy.

Much of Balzac's time, whenever he was in Paris in 1845 and 1846, was
taken up with house-hunting; and some of his still unpublished letters
to Madame Hanska contain long accounts of the advantages of the
different abodes he had visited. He was now most anxious to