f /locus classicus/ for its subject. The whole
picture of country town society is about as good as it can be; and the
only blot that I know is to be found in the sentimental Athanase, who
is not quite within Balzac's province, extensive as that province is.
If we compare Mr. Augustus Moddle, we shall see one of the not too
numerous instances in which Dickens has a clear advantage over Balzac;
and if it be retorted that Balzac's object was not to present a merely
ridiculous object, the rejoinder is not very far to seek. Such a
character, with such a fate as Balzac has assigned to him, must be
either humorously grotesque or unfeignedly pathetic, and Balzac has
not quite made Athanase either.

He is, however, if he is a failure, about the only failure in the
book, and he is atoned for by a whole bundle of successes. Of the
Chevalier, little more need be said. Balzac, it must be remembered,
was the oldest novelist of distinct genius who had the opportunity of
delineating the survivors of the /ancien regime/ from the life, and
directly. It is certain--even if we hesitate at believing him quite so
familiar with all the classes of higher society from the /Faubourg/
downwards, as he would have us believe him--that he saw something of
most of them, and his genius was unquestionably of the kind to which a
mere thumbnail study, a mere passing view, suffices for the
acquisition of a thorough working knowledge of the object. In this
case the Chevalier has served, and not improperly served, as the
original of a thousand after-studies. His rival, less carefully
projected, is also perhaps a little less alive. Again, Balzac was old
enough to have foregathered with many men of the Revolution. But the
most characteristic of them were not long-lived, the "little window"
and other things having had a bad effect on them; and most of those
who survived had, by the time he was old enough to take much notice,
gone through metamorphoses of Bonapartism, Constitutional Liberalism,
and what not. But still du Bousquier /is/ alive, as well as all the
minor assistants and spectators in the battle for the old maid's hand.
Suzanne, that tactful and graceless Suzanne to whom we are introduced
first of all, is very much alive; and for all her gracelessness, not
at all disagreeable. I am only sorry that she sold the counterfeit
presentment of the Princess Goritza after all.

/Le Cabinet des Antiques/, in its Alencon scenes, is a worthy pendant
to /La Vie