ck the
slanderers by outdoing them. When some one sneeringly remarked to
Dumas that his father was a nigger, he answered: 'My grandfather was a
monkey.'"

His scolding for once did good. Eve did not like his "wounding prose,"
but she talked no more of breaking with him. On the contrary, she
relented as far as to remove the embargo on his going to Dresden; so
in May he went. And, what was more, she came in August to Paris;
incognito, since the visit was without the Czar's permission, she and
her daughter Anna travelling from the frontier under the names of
Balzac's sister and niece.

In the novelist's correspondence, there is a curious letter written on
the 2nd of August to Madame Emile de Girardin. In it the writer
excuses himself for not calling on her, being obliged to remain at
home on account of the disquieting condition of a lady friend of his
who had hurt herself and was under medical treatment. The inference is
that the lady in question was staying in his house; and a note written
to Madame Hanska, on the 4th of September, with its allusion to the
Passy garden in which they had walked so much together, makes it
sufficiently plain that she was the August guest. Although no proofs
have yet come to light which we can accept as irrefutable, there seems
to be ground for the supposition put forward that a premature
confinement was the illness, carefully concealed from every one.

If the supposition be correct, it explains the convalescent's being
joined by Balzac again in September at Baden-Baden, where the
arrangements were made for Eve and himself to meet in October at
Chalon-sur-Saone and to travel together to Italy. It was during this
second stay in Germany that the play of the _Saltimbanques_ they had
seen suggested to the novelist the amusing nicknames which he
henceforth adopted when writing to Madame Hanska's family. Anna was
dubbed _Zephirine_; her betrothed, _Gringalet_; Eve, _Atala_; and
himself, _Bilboquet_. Georges, the betrothed, who was a Pole bearing
the title of Count Mniszech, was a young man of scientific tastes and
considerable learning, for whom Balzac conceived a great liking, and
whom he helped in his entomological researches.

The ramble southwards was probably the most pleasurable experience in
the novelist's life, being an anticipated honeymoon. From Chalon they
journeyed along the banks of the Rhone, visiting no fewer than
twenty-three towns on the way. At Naples they parted, and the
pr