idegroom, _il troubadouro_, as with his
surroundings, and remarks that he has lost his top teeth, and is very
conceited, but will do well enough--as a husband. Every one is
delighted at the marriage; but Laure can imagine _maman's_ state of
nervous excitement from her recollection of the last few days before
her own wedding, and can fancy that he and Laurence are not enjoying
themselves. "Nature surrounds roses with thorns, and pleasures with a
crowd of troubles. Mamma follows the example of nature."[*]

[*] "H. de Balzac--Correspondence," vol. i. p. 41.

Laurence's death, in 1826, must have been a terrible grief to the poor
mother; but she may have realised later on that her daughter had
escaped much trouble, as in 1836 the Balzac family threatened M. de
Montzaigle with a lawsuit on the subject of his son, who was left to
wander about Paris without food, shoes, or clothes. We cannot suppose
that any one with such sketchy views of the duties of a father could
have been a particularly satisfactory husband; but perhaps Laurence
died before she had time to discover M. de Montzaigle's deficiencies.

Henry, the younger son, appears to have been brought up on a different
method from that pursued with Honore, as we hear in 1821 that Madame
de Balzac considered that the boy was unhappy and bored with school,
that he was with canting people who punished him for nothing, and must
be taken away. Evidently the younger son was the mother's darling; but
her mode of bringing him up was not happy in its effects, as he seems
to have given continual anxiety and trouble. He came back from the
colonies with his wife; and by threatening to blow out his brains, he
worked on his mother's feelings, and induced her to help him with
money, and nearly to ruin herself. In consequence she was obliged for
a time to take up her abode with Honore, an arrangement which did not
work well. Even when Henry was at last shipped off to the Indies, he
continued to agitate his family by sending them pathetic accounts of
his distress and necessities, and these letters from her much-loved
son must have been peculiarly painful to Madame de Balzac.

Honore and his mother seem never to have understood each other very
well; and she was stern with him and Laure in their youth, while she
lavished caresses on her younger children. Likeness to a father is not
always a passport to a mother's favour, and Madame de Balzac does not
appear to have realised her son's geniu