a fortune,
and in view of this prospect was most pleasing to Madame de Balzac.
However, this matrimonial plan fell through, and Balzac himself was
never enthusiastic over it. He felt that his attentions to Madame
D---- would consume his very precious time, and that the affair could
not come off in time to serve his interests. Could it be that Balzac
was alluding to this same Madame D---- when he wrote some time later:
"My beloved mother,--the affair has come to nothing, the bird was
frightened away, and I am very glad of it. I had no time to run after
it, and it was imperative it should be either yes or no."

This marriage project, like many others planned either for or by
Balzac, came to naught, and his mother evidently became displeased
with him, for she left him on his return, when he was in great need of
consolation and sympathy. As frequently happened under such
circumstances, Balzac expressed his deep regrets at his mother's
conduct to one of his best friends, Madame Carraud, and confided to
her his loneliness and longings.

Madame de Balzac was much occupied with religious ideas, and had made
a collection of the writings of the mystics. Balzac plunged into the
study of clairvoyance and mesmerism, and his mother, interested in the
marvelous, helped him in his studies, as she knew many of the
celebrated clairvoyants and mesmerists of the time.

At various times, Balzac's relations with his mother were much
estranged; at one time he did not even know where she was. When she
was disappointed in her favorite child, Henri, she seemed to recognize
the great wrong involved in her lack of affection for Honore and his
sister Laure. But she never gave him the attentions that he longed
for. In May, 1840, he wrote to Madame Hanska that he was especially
sad on the day of his _fete catholique_ (May 16) as, since the death
of Madame de Berny, there was no one to observe this occasion, though
during her life every day was a _fete_ day; he was too busy to join
with his sister Laure in the mutual observance of their birthdays, and
his mother cared little for him; once the Duchesse de Castries had
sent him a most beautiful bouquet,--but now there was no one.

The same year (1840) he took his mother to live with him _Aux
jardies_. This he regarded as an additional burden. Her continual
harassing him for the money he still owed her, her nervous and
discordant disposition, her constant intrigues to force him to marry,
and her nu