a
convent. They are indeed the raw material of which the genuine _devote_
is made. The morbid sentimentality directed to the lover passes without
perceptible shock into a religious sentimentality, the object of which
is at least ostensibly different. The graceful but voluptuous mistress
of the Parisian salon is developed without any violent transition into
the equally graceful and ascetic nun. The connection between the
luxurious indulgence of material flirtations and religious mysticism is
curious, but unmistakable.

Balzac's reputation in this respect is founded, not on his little hoard
of cynical maxims, which, to say the truth, are not usually very
original, but on the vivid power of describing the details and scenery
of the martyrdom, and the energy with which he paints the emotion, of
the victim. Whether his women are very lifelike, or very varied in
character, may be doubted; but he has certainly endowed them with an
admirable capacity for suffering, and forces us to listen
sympathetically to their cries of anguish. The peculiar cynicism implied
in this view of feminine existence must be taken as part of his
fundamental theory of society. When Rastignac has seen Goriot buried,
the ceremony being attended only by his daughters' empty carriages, he
climbs to the highest part of the cemetery, and looks over Paris. As he
contemplates the vast buzzing hive, he exclaims solemnly, 'a nous deux
maintenant!' The world is before him; he is to fight his way in future
without remorse. Accordingly, Balzac's view of society is, that it is a
masquerade of devils, engaged in tormenting a few wandering angels. That
society is not what Balzac represents it to be is sufficiently proved by
the fact that society exists; as indeed he is profoundly convinced that
its destruction is only a question of time. It is rotten to the core.
Lust and avarice are the moving forms of the world, while profound and
calculating selfishness has sapped the base of all morality. The type of
a successful statesman is De Marsay, a kind of imaginary Talleyrand, who
rules because he has recognised the intrinsic baseness of mankind, and
has no scruples in turning it to account. Vautrin, who is an open enemy
of society, is simply De Marsay in revolt. The weapons with which he
fights are distinguished from those of greater men, not in their
intrinsic wickedness, but in their being accidentally forbidden by law.
He is less of a hypocrite, and scarcely a greater