t of necessity be posed in
elegant toilette, on a suitable background of costly brocades and
objects of art. Nevertheless, in spite of all his efforts, and of a
capacity and passion for work which seemed almost superhuman, he never
obtained freedom from monetary anxiety. Viewed in this light, there is
pathos in his many impossible plans for making his fortune, and
freeing himself from the strain which was slowly killing him.

Some of his projected enterprises were wildly fantastic, and prove
that the great author was, like many a genius, a child at heart; and
that, in his eyes, the world was not the prosaic place it is to most
men and women, but an enchanted globe, like the world of "Treasure
Island," teeming with the possibility of strange adventure. At one
time he hoped to gain a substantial income by growing pineapples in
the little garden at Les Jardies, and later on he thought money might
be made by transporting oaks from Poland to France. For some months he
believed that, by means of magnetism exercised on somnambulists, he
had discovered the exact spot at Pointe a Pitre where
Toussaint-Louverture hid his treasure, and afterwards shot the negroes
he had employed to bury it, lest they should betray its hiding-place.
Jules Sandeau and Theophile Gautier were chosen to assist in the
enterprise of carrying off the hidden gold, and were each to receive a
quarter of the treasure, Balzac, as leader of the venture, taking the
other half. The three friends were to start secretly and separately
with spades and shovels, and, their work accomplished, were to put the
treasure on a brig which was to be in waiting, and were to return as
millionaires to France. This brilliant plan failed, because none of the
three adventurers had at the moment money to pay his passage out; and no
doubt, by the time that the necessary funds were forthcoming, Balzac's
fertile brain was engaged on other enterprises.[*]

[*] "Portraits Contemporains--Honore de Balzac," by Theophile Gautier.

The foundation of his pecuniary misfortunes was laid before his birth,
when his father, forty-five years old and unmarried, sank the bulk of
his fortune in life annuities, so that his son was in the unfortunate
position of starting life in very comfortable circumstances, and of
finding himself in want of money just when he most needed it.

Balzac's father was born in Languedoc in 1746, and we are told by his
son that he had been Secretary, and by Madame Survill