le, almost black, and was inclined to the
right. He was unshaved, his grey hair was cut short, and his eyes open
and fixed. I saw his profile, and it was like that of the Emperor
Napoleon.

"An old woman, the nurse, and a servant, stood beside the bed. A
candle was burning on a table behind the head of the bed, another on a
chest of drawers near the door. A silver vase was on the stand near
the bed. The women and man were silent with a kind of terror, as they
listened to the rattling breathing of the dying man.

"The candle at the head of the bed lit up brilliantly the portrait of
a young man, fresh-coloured and smiling, which was hanging near the
fireplace. . . .

"I lifted the coverlet and took Balzac's hand. It was covered with
perspiration. I pressed it. He did not respond to the pressure. . . .

"I went downstairs again, carrying in my mind the memory of that livid
face, and, crossing the drawing-room, I looked again at the bust
--immovable, impassive, proud, and smiling faintly, and I compared
death with immortality."

Balzac died that night, Sunday, August 17th, 1850, at half-past
eleven, at the age of fifty-one.

The dying man's almost complete isolation is strange, and the
servant's news that M. Surville had not _yet_ gone to bed has a
callous ring about it. Perhaps, however, the doctors had told Madame
de Balzac and Madame Surville that Balzac was unconscious, and they
had therefore withdrawn, utterly exhausted by the fatigues of the
night before. In any case, it seems sad, though possibly of no moment
to the dying man, that several of his nearest relations should have
deserted him before the breath had left his body. Our respect for the
elder Madame de Balzac is decidedly raised, because, though there had
occasionally been disagreements between her and her son, the true
mother feeling asserted itself at the last, and she alone watched with
the paid attendants till the end came.

However, some one was busy about the arrangements, as Balzac's
portrait was taken by Giraud directly after his death, and a cast was
made of his beautifully-shaped hand. His body was taken into the
Beaujon Chapel before burial, so that he passed for the last time, as
Victor Hugo remarks, through that door, the key of which was more
precious to him than all the beautiful gardens which had belonged to
the old Farmer-General.

The funeral service was held on Wednesday, August 20th, at the Church
of Sainte Philippe du Roule. Th