his new home, his health became so bad that
he could not finish the work outlined during the summer. No sooner had
he recovered from one malady than he was overtaken by another. Unable
to work, distracted by bad news from his family, and being the witness
of several financial failures incurred by Madame Hanska, Balzac
naturally was supremely depressed. At this time, a touch of what may
not uncharitably be termed snobbishness is seen in his letters to his
family when he extols the unlimited virtues of his _Predilecta_ and
the Countess Anna.

After seventeen long years of waiting, with hope constantly deferred,
Balzac at last attained his goal when, on March 14, 1850, Madame
Hanska became Madame Honore de Balzac. His joy over this great triumph
was beyond all adequate description, but he was unable to depart for
Paris with his bride until April. After a difficult journey, the
couple arrived at Paris in May, but the condition of Balzac's health
was hopeless and only a few more months were accorded him. With his
usual optimism, he always thought that he would be spared to finish
his great work, and when informed by his physician on August 17 that
he would live but a few hours, he refused to believe it.

Unless he had been self-centered, Balzac could never have left behind
him his enormous and prodigious work. In spite of certain unlovely
phases of his private character and failure to fulfil his literary and
financial obligations, he was a man of great personal charm. Though at
various times he was under consideration for election to the French
Academy, his name is not found numbered among the "forty immortals."
But he was the greatest of French novelists, a great creator of
characters, who by some competent critics has been ranked with
Shakespeare, and he has left to posterity the incomparable, though
unfinished _Comedie humaine_, which is in itself sufficient for his
"immortality."

CHAPTER II

RELATIVES AND FAMILY FRIENDS

BALZAC'S MOTHER

"Farewell, my dearly beloved mother! I embrace you with all my
heart. Oh! if you knew how I need just now to cast myself upon
your breast as a refuge of complete affection, you would insert a
little word of tenderness in your letters, and this one which I am
answering has not even a poor kiss. There is nothing but . . . Ah!
Mother, Mother, this is very bad! . . . You have misconstrued