one to
produce one of his works before the public until it had been brought
to the highest possible pitch of perfection. This intense anxiety to
do his best, which caused him the most painstaking labour, often
pressed very hardly on managers of magazines. He was generally paid in
advance, so that his money was safe; and though he could be absolutely
trusted to finish sooner or later what he had undertaken, he showed a
lofty indifference to the exigencies of monthly publication. Moreover,
as is shown in the evidence given later on during his lawsuit with the
_Revue de Paris_, he would sometimes, in his haste for money, accept
new engagements when he already had a plethora of work in hand.
Nevertheless, whatever the failures to fulfil a contract on his part
might be, he was implacable towards those who did not rightly
discharge their obligations to him; and Pichot was never forgiven. In
September, 1832, after endless disputes about the rate and terms of
payment, the most fertile source of recriminations between Balzac and
his various publishers and editors, a formal treaty was drawn up
between the great writer, who was at Sache, and Amedee Pichot, as
director of the _Revue de Paris_. By this, with the option of breaking
the connection after six months, Balzac undertook to write for the
_Revue_ for a year, being still entitled during that time to furnish
articles to the _Renovateur_, the _Journal Quotidienne Politique_, and
_L'Artiste_. In spite of this legal document, there were many disputed
points; and the letters which passed between the two men, and which
now began with the formal "Monsieur," were full of bickerings about
money matters, about Balzac's delay in furnishing copy, and about the
length of his contributions. On one occasion Pichot is severe in his
rebukes, because Balzac has prevented the Duchesse d'Abrantes from
providing a promised article, by telling her that his own writing will
fill two whole numbers of the _Revue_. On another, it is curious to
find that Balzac, who was rather ashamed of the immoral reputation of
his works, thanks M. Pichot quite humbly for suppressing a passage in
the "Voyage de Paris a Java," which the director considered unfit for
family perusal, and excuses himself on the subject with the naive
explanation that he was at the same time writing the "Contes
Drolatiques"![*] Finally, in March, 1833, after six months of the
treaty had expired, Balzac withdrew altogether from the _Revue d