de
Lovenjoul.

Under Balzac's will his widow might have refused to acknowledge any
liability for his debts, but she set to work bravely, with the aid of
MM. Dutacq and Fessart, to make as much money as she could out of
Balzac's published works, and to bring before the public those that
were still unpublished. In this way, "Mercadet le Faiseur" was acted a
year after Balzac's death, and "Les Petits Bourgeois" and "Le Depute
d'Arcis" were published, the latter being finished, according to
Balzac's wish, by Charles Rabou. "Les Paysans," which was to have
filled eight volumes, and of which, as we have already seen, only a
few chapters were written, presented great difficulty; but at last
Madame de Balzac, aided by Champfleury and by Charles Rabou, managed
to give some consistency to the fragment, and it appeared in the
_Revue de Paris_ in April, May and June, 1855. Unfortunately, however,
no information was given as to the unfinished state in which it had
been left by Balzac, and therefore no explanation was offered of the
insufficiency of the _denouement_, and the inadequacy of the last
chapters. Madame de Balzac worked hard, and long before her death in
April, 1882, the whole of Balzac's debts were paid off.

This was most creditable to her; but side by side with her admirable
conduct in this respect, she seems to have either actively abetted, or
at any rate acquiesced in mad extravagance on the part of Madame
Georges Mniszech, who with her husband, had come to live in the Rue
Fortunee after Balzac's death. Perhaps Madame de Balzac was too busy
with her literary and business arrangements, to pay attention to what
was happening, or possibly maternal devotion prevented her from
denying her beloved daughter anything she craved for. At all events
the results of her supineness were lamentable, especially as M.
Georges Mniszech was not capable of exercising any restraint on his
wife; he being for some years before his death in 1881, in the most
delicate state of health, both mental and physical.

Madame Georges Mniszech--after years of the wild Russian steppes,
suddenly plunged into the fascinations of shopping in Paris, and left
to her own devices--seems to have shown senseless folly in her
expenditure. Additions were made to the house in the Rue Fortunee,
though Balzac's rooms were left untouched; and the Chateau de
Beauregard, at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, was bought as a country
residence. Madame de Balzac and her da