t the Gymnase, stimulated other managers of theatres
to go on exploiting his _Comedy_. In September, the _Shagreen Skin_,
arranged by Judicis, was played at the Ambigu-Comique, with _tableaux_
of almost literal imitation, yet bringing to life again, in the
denouement, the chief _dramatis personae_, and making the whole drama
a dream.

At the Comedie Francaise, in 1853, Barriere and de Beauplan produced a
five-act prose play drawn from the _Lily in the Valley_. The novel was
an awkward one to dramatize, there being very few elements in it
capable of yielding situations for the stage. So the result was poor.
A better thing was made in 1859 by de Keraniou out of the _Sceaux
Ball_. On it he based an agreeable piece entitled _Noblesse Oblige_,
with a delicately interpreted love scene in it which met with
appreciative audiences at the Odeon.

One more example, that of _Cousin Pons_, may be given to close the
list of these adaptation, which are fully treated in Edmond Bire's
interesting book dealing with certain aspects of Balzac's life and
work. _Cousin Pons_ was staged at the Cluny Theatre in 1873. Alphonse
de Launay, the author of the play, keeps to his text fairly well; but
he adds a love episode which thrusts the friendship of the two
musicians into the second place. Moreover, after the death of Pons,
Schmucke lives to inherit his fortune and the Camusots are checkmated.

CHAPTER XVII

CONCLUSION: THE MAN AND HIS PORTRAITS

It may be affirmed, without thereby disparaging the _Comedie Humaine_,
that Balzac's personality is even more interesting than his work; and
this is a sufficient excuse for returning to it in a last chapter and
trying, at the risk of repetition, to make its presentment completer
by way of supplement and summary.

The interest does not arise alone from the contrasts of his foibles,
which, forsooth, are nearly always comic--when they are not tragic. We
are just as much attracted by the contrasts of his qualities, and by
the interplay of the former with the latter--the victories and
defeats, the glimpses of immense possibility, the struggles between
temperament and environment, all these having a fullness of display
rarely found in human nature.

Besides the portraits in painting or sculpture executed of the
novelist by Deveria, Boulanger, David d'Angers, and others, some
mention of which has already been made, there was one begun by
Meissonier, who