epeatedly and unsparingly, would have been better than
elaborately prepared accidents and duels, which were too honorable for a
Peeping Tom of this kind; and poisonings, which reduced the avengers to
the level of their victim. But the imbroglio is of itself stupid; these
fathers who cannot be made known to husbands are mere stage properties,
and should never be fetched out of the theatrical lumber-room by
literature.

_La Duchesse de Langeais_ is, I think, a better story, with more
romantic attraction, free from the objections just made to _Ferragus_,
and furnished with a powerful, if slightly theatrical catastrophe. It
is as good as anything that its author has done of the kind, subject
to those general considerations of probability and otherwise which
have been already hinted at. For those who are not troubled by any such
critical reflections, both, no doubt, will be highly satisfactory.

The third of the series, _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_, in some respects one
of Balzac's most brilliant effects, has been looked at askance by many
of his English readers. At one time he had the audacity to think of
calling it _La Femme aux Yeux Rouges_. To those who consider the story
morbid or, one may say, _bizarre_, one word of justification, hardly of
apology, may be offered. It was in the scheme of the _Comedie Humaine_
to survey social life in its entirety by a minute analysis of its most
diverse constituents. It included all the pursuits and passions, was
large and patient, and unafraid. And the patience, the curiosity, of the
artist which made Cesar Birotteau and his bankrupt ledgers matters of
high import to us, which did not shrink from creating a Vautrin and a
Lucien de Rubempre, would have been incomplete had it stopped short of a
Marquise de San-Real, of a Paquita Valdes. And in the great mass of the
_Comedie Humaine_, with its largeness and reality of life, as in life
itself; the figure of Paquita justifies its presence.

Considering the _Histoire des Treize_ as a whole, it is of engrossing
interest. And I must confess I should not think much of any boy who,
beginning Balzac with this series, failed to go rather mad over it. I
know there was a time when I used to like it best of all, and thought
not merely _Eugenie Grandet_, but _Le Pere Goriot_ (though not the _Peau
de Chagrin_), dull in comparison. Some attention, however, must be paid
to two remarkable characters, on whom it is quite clear that Balzac
expended a great