he move by a triumphant artistic success.
From this time onward her artistic faculty dominated her life, often,
probably, unknown to herself an invincible force of instinct she obeyed,
whilst assigning, in all good faith, other motives for her course of
action, and for real or apparent inconsequences, that have been
constantly misrepresented and misunderstood.

So sudden and abrupt a change would have turned all heads but the
strongest. Publishers competed with one another to secure her next work.
Buloz, proprietor of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, engaged her to write
regularly for his periodical, to which, for the next ten years, she
never ceased to be a regular and extensive contributor. Although the
scale of remuneration was not then very high she was clearly secure, so
long as she allowed nothing to interfere with her literary work, of
earning a sufficient income for her own needs. She had learnt the
importance of pecuniary independence, and never pretended to despise the
reward of her industry. To luxury she was indifferent, but the necessity
of strict economy was a burden she was impatient of; she liked to have
plenty to give away, and was always excessively liberal to the poor. Her
little dwelling on the Quai Malplaquet was no longer the hermitage of
an anonymous writer of no account. The great in art and letters,
leading critics, such as Sainte-Beuve and Gustave Planche, came eager to
seek her acquaintance, and delighting to honor the obscure student of a
year ago.

Writing to M. Boucoiran after her return to Paris in December, 1832, she
describes her altered position:--

All day long I am beset with visitors, who are not all
entertaining. It is a calamity of my profession, which I am partly
obliged to bear. But in the evening I shut myself up with my pens
and ink, Solange, my piano, and a fire. With all these I pass some
right pleasant hours. No noise but the sounds of a harp, coming I
know not whence, and of the playing of a fountain under my window.
This is highly poetical--pray don't make game of me!

There was another side to her success. Fame brought trials and
annoyances that fell with double severity on her as a woman. Her door
was besieged by a troop of professional beggars, impostors, impertinent
idlers, and inquisitive newsmongers. Jealousy and ill-will, inevitably
attendant on sudden good fortune such as hers, busied themselves with
direct calumny and insidious m