not a sentence or an idea in it that has not
been revised, re-read, corrected again and again. It's terrible. But
when one wishes to attain the simple beauty of the Gospel, surpass the
_Vicar of Wakefield_ and put the _Imitation of Jesus Christ_ into
action, one must spare no effort. Emile de Girardin and our good
Borget (his co-tenant at the time) wager the sale will be four hundred
thousand copies. Emile intends to bring out a franc edition, so that
it may be sold like a Prayer Book."

What with his writing for the _Revue de Paris_, to which he was
contributing _Ferragus_, and the pains he gave himself with the
_Country Doctor_, he was unable to deliver the latter work to Mame at
the date stipulated, and the publisher brought a lawsuit against him,
the first of a series of legal disputes he was destined to wage with
publishing firms and magazine editors during his agitated life.

Notwithstanding the advertisement produced him by the lawsuit, the
_Country Doctor_ fell flat in the market. Most of the newspapers spoke
contemptuously of it. One reason given was its loose construction,
there being no plot, and the two love stories being thrust in towards
the end to explain the doctor's altruism and the vicarious paternity
of the Commandant Genestas.

This officer, who is stationed not far from the village close to the
Grande-Chartreuse, pays a few days' visit to a Doctor Benassis there,
under pretext of consulting him professionally. While on the visit he
is initiated into the transformation that has been wrought by the
doctor in the habits of the people and their homes and surroundings--a
regeneration accomplished quietly and gradually, vanquishing hostility
and lethargy and converting the peasant's distrust into love. The
placing of the Commandant's adopted child under the doctor's care, and
Benassis' death, which occurs shortly after, form rather a lame
conclusion to the love stories, which are mysteriously withheld to
tempt the reader to go on with his perusal. For all its dogmatism in
religion and politics, its long arguments in defence of the author's
favourite opinions, and its defective construction, the novel, if one
can call it a novel, is one of Balzac's best creations. The pictures
of country scenes are presented with close fidelity to nature and also
with real artistic arrangement. There are, moreover, delineations of
rustic character that are truer to life than many of the more
celebrated ones in the rest