ille Fille/. The old-world honor of the Marquis d'Esgrignon,
the thankless sacrifices of Armande, the /prisca fides/ of Maitre
Chesnel, present pictures for which, out of Balzac, we can look only
in Jules Sandeau, and which in Sandeau, though they are presented with
a more poetical touch, have less masterly outline than here. One takes
--or, at least, I take--less interest in the ignoble intrigues of the
other side, except in so far as they menace the fortunes of a worthy
house unworthily represented. Victurnien d'Esgrignon, like his
companion Savinien de Portenduere (who, however, is, in every respect,
a very much better fellow), does not argue in Balzac any high opinion
of the /fils de famille/. He is, in fact, an extremely feeble youth,
who does not seem to have got much real satisfaction out of the
escapades, for which he risked not merely his family's fortune, but
his own honor, and who would seem to have been a rake, not from
natural taste and spirit and relish, but because it seemed to him to
be the proper thing to be. But the beginnings of the fortune of the
aspiring and intriguing Camusots are admirably painted; and Madame de
Maufrigneuse, that rather doubtful divinity, who appears so frequently
in Balzac, here acts the /dea ex machina/ with considerable effect.
And we end well (as we generally do when Blondet, whom Balzac seems
more than once to adopt as mask, is the narrator), in the last glimpse
of Mlle. Armande left alone with the remains of her beauty, the ruins
of everything dear to her--and God.

These two stories were written at no long interval, yet, for some
reason or other, Balzac did not at once unite them. /La Vieille Fille/
first appeared in November and December 1836 in the /Presse/, and was
inserted next year in the /Scenes de la Vie de Province/. It had three
chapter divisions. The second part did not appear all at once. Its
first installment, under the general title, came out in the /Chronique
de Paris/ even before the /Vieille Fille/ appeared in March 1836; the
completion was not published (under the title of /Les Rivalites en
Province/) till the autumn of 1838, when the /Constitutionnel/ served
as its vehicle. There were eight chapter divisions in this latter. The
whole of the /Cabinet/ was published in book form (with /Gambara/ to
follow it) in 1839. There were some changes here; and the divisions
were abolished when the whole book in 1844 entered the /Comedie/. One
of the greatest mistakes