to his wife. According to several
Balzacian writers, Madame Carraud became the type of the _femme
incomprise_ for Balzac, but the present writer is inclined to agree
with M. Serval when he calls this judgment astonishing, since she was
a woman who adored her husband and sons, was an author of some moral
books for children, and nothing in her suggested either vagueness of
soul or melancholy. Madame Carraud herself gives a glimpse of her
married life in saying to Balzac that she and her husband are not
sympathetic in everything, that being of different temperaments things
appear differently to them, but that she knows happiness, and her life
is not empty.

Often when sick, discouraged, overworked or pursued by his creditors,
Balzac sought refuge in her home, and with a pure and disinterested
maternal affection, she calmed him and inspired him with courage to
continue the battle of life. It was indeed the maternal element that
he needed and longed for, and Madame Carraud seems to have been a rare
mother who really understood her child. He confided in her not only
his financial worries, but also his love affairs, his aspirations in
life, and his ideas of woman:

"I care more for the esteem of a few persons, amongst whom you are
one of the first, both in friendship and in high intellect--one of
the noblest souls I have ever known,--than I care for the esteem
of the masses, for whom I have, in truth, a profound contempt.
There are some vocations that must be obeyed, and something drags
me irresistibly towards glory and power. It is not a happy life.
There is in me a worship of woman, and a need of loving, which has
never been completely satisfied. Despairing of ever being loved
and understood as I desire, by the woman I have dreamt of (never
having met her, except under one form--that of the heart), I have
thrown myself into the tempestuous region of political passions
and into the stormy and parching atmosphere of literary glory.
. . . If ever I should find a wife and a fortune, I could resign
myself very easily to domestic happiness; but where are these
things to be found? Where is the family which would have faith in
a literary fortune? It would drive me mad to owe my fortune to a
woman, unless I loved her, or to owe it to flatteries; I am
obliged, therefore, to remain isolated. In the midst of this
desert, be assured that friendships such as yours, and the
assurance of finding a