in the monetary disappointments of his later life, by thinking and
talking of the millions his children would inherit from their
centenarian father. For their sakes it was necessary that he should
take care of his health, and he considered that, by maintaining the
"equilibrium of the vital forces," there was absolutely no doubt that
he would live for a hundred years or more. Therefore he followed a
strict regimen, and gave himself an infinite amount of trouble, as
well as amusement, by his minute arrangements.

Unfortunately, however, the truth of his theories could never be
tested, as he died in 1829, at the age of eighty-three, from the
effects of an operation; and Madame de Balzac and her family were left
to face the stern facts of life, denuded of the rose-coloured haze in
which they had been clothed by the kindly old enthusiast. Balzac's
mother certainly had a hard life, and from what we hear of her
nervous, excitable nature--inherited apparently from her mother,
Madame Sallambier--we can hardly be astonished when Balzac writes to
Madame Hanska, in 1835, that if her misfortunes do not kill her, it is
feared they will destroy her reason. Nevertheless, she outlived her
celebrated son, and is mentioned by Victor Hugo, when he visited
Balzac's deathbed, as the only person in the room, except a nurse and
a servant.[*]

[*] "Choses Vues," by Victor Hugo.

She was many years younger than her husband--a beauty and an heiress;
and she evidently had her own way with the easy-going old M. de
Balzac, and was the moving spirit in the household: so that the ease
and absence of friction in her early life must have made her
subsequent troubles and humiliations especially galling. Besides
Honore, she had three children: Laure, afterwards Madame Surville;
Laurence, who died young; and Henry, the black sheep of the family,
who returned from the colonies, after having made an unsatisfactory
marriage, and who, during the last years of Honore de Balzac's life,
required constant monetary help from his relations.

Her two young children were Madame de Balzac's favourites, and they
and their affairs gave her constant trouble. In 1822 Laurence married
a M. Saint-Pierre de Montzaigle, apparently a good deal older than
herself; and Honore gives a very _couleur de rose_ account of his
future brother-in-law's family, in a letter written at the time of the
engagement to Laure, who was already married. He does not seem so
charmed with the br