thors. But his endeavours
were ultimately understood and appreciated; and, not long afterwards,
in 1838, the Societe des Gens de Lettres was founded.

In connection with this campaign, which he waged for a while alone,
there was also his elaboration of the arrangement, first accepted by
Charpentier, which consisted in fixing the percentage of the author's
royalty on the octavo, three-franc-fifty volume at one-tenth of the
published price. One of his discussions with Charpentier on the
subject was overheard in the Cafe of the Palais Royal by Jules
Sandeau's cousin, who happened to be playing a game of billiards
there. After the departure of Balzac and the publisher, the cousin
remarked that a paper had been forgotten; and, on reading it through,
with his partner in the game, saw a crowd of figures that were so many
hieroglyphics to them. When the paper was restored to the novelist by
Jules Sandeau, who lived in the same set of flats as Balzac, it
transpired that the figures were the calculation of the sum that the
writer might obtain on the decimal basis, if a hundred thousand copies
of any one of his works were sold.

Two of the novelist's most important books appeared in 1833, his
_Country Doctor_ and _Eugenie Grandet_. The former he disposed of to a
new publisher, Mame, who was to print it, at first, unsigned, his old
publisher Gosselin having pre-emption rights, that had not been
redeemed. Referring to it in a letter to Mame, towards the end of
1832, he said: "I have long been desirous of the popular glory which
consists in selling numerous thousands of a small volume like _Atala_,
_Paul and Virginia_, the _Vicar of Wakefield_, _Manon Lescaut_, etc.
The book should go into all hands, those of the child, the girl, the
old man, and even the devotee. Then once, when the book is known, it
will have a large sale, like the _Meditations_ of Lamartine, for
instance, sixty thousand copies. My book is conceived in this spirit;
it is something which the porter and the grand lady can both read. I
have taken the Gospel and the Catechism, two books that sell well, and
so I have made mine. I have laid the scene in a village, and the whole
of the story will be readable, which is rare with me." How high his
hopes of its quality and saleableness were (the two things were oddly
mixed up in his mind), he imparted to Zulma Carraud. "The _Country
Doctor_ has cost me ten times more labour than _Louis Lambert_," he
informed her. "There is