rable being he is; I
have known him for seventeen years, and every day, I perceive that
there is a new quality in him which I did not know. If he could
only enjoy health! Speak to M. Knothe about it, I beg you. You
have no idea how he suffered last night! I hope his natal air will
help him, but if this hope fails me, I shall be much to be pitied,
I assure you. It is such happiness to be loved and protected thus.
His eyes are also very bad; I do not know what all that means, and
at times, I am very sad. I hope to give you better news to-morrow,
when I shall write you."

Comments have been made on the fact that Balzac wrote his sister his
wife's hands were too badly swollen from rheumatism to write and yet
she wrote to her daughter, but there is a difference between a
mother's letter to her only child, and one to a mother-in-law as
hostile as she knew hers to be. She probably did not care to write,
and Balzac, to smooth matters for her, gave this excuse.

The long awaited but tragic arrival took place late in the night of
May 20, 1850. The home in the rue Fortunee was brilliantly lighted,
and through the windows could be seen the many beautiful flowers
arranged in accordance with his oft repeated request to his poor old
mother. But alas! to their numerous tugs at the door-bell no response
came, so a locksmith had to be sent for to open the doors. The
minutest details of Balzac's orders for their reception had been
obeyed, but the unfortunate, faithful Francois Munch, under the
excitement and strain of the preparations, had suddenly gone insane.

Was this a sinister omen, or was it an exemplification of the old
Turkish proverb, "The house completed, death enters"? Our hero's
marriage proved to be the last of his _illusions perdues_, for only
three months more were to be granted him. MM. Hanotaux et Vicaire have
pertinently remarked that five years before his death, Balzac closed
_Les petites Miseres de la Vie conjugal_ with these prophetic words:
"Who has not heard an Italian opera of some kind in his life? . . .
You must have noticed, then, the musical abuse of the word
_felichitta_ lavished by the librettist and the chorus at the time
every one is rushing from his box or leaving his stall. Ghastly image
of life. One leaves it the moment the _felichitta_ is heard." After so
many years of waiting and struggle, he attained the summit of
happiness, but was to obey the summons of death and leave this worl