Nothing can be more touching than that; Balzac's natural affections were as robust as his genius and his physical nature. The impression of the reader of his letters quite confirms his assurance that the man proper had no selfishness. Only we are constantly reminded that the man had almost wholly resolved himself into the worker, and we remember a statement of Sainte-Beuve's, in one of his malignant foot-notes, to the effect that Balzac was "the grossest, greediest example of literary vanity that he had ever known"--_l'amour-propre littéraire le plus avide et le plus grossier que j'aie connu_. When we think of what Sainte-Beuve must have known in this line, these few words acquire a portentous weight.
By this time (1832) Balzac was, in French phrase, thoroughly _lancé_. He was doing, among other things, some of his most brilliant work, certain of the "Contes Drôlatiques." These were written, as he tells his mother, for relaxation, as a rest from harder labor. One would have said that no work would have been much harder than compounding the marvellously successful imitation of mediæval French in which these tales are written. He had, however, other diversions as well. In the autumn of 1832 he was at Aix-les-Bains with the Duchess of Castries, a great lady, and one of his kindest friends. He has been accused of drawing portraits of great ladies without knowledge of originals; but Mme. de Castries was an inexhaustible fund of instruction upon this subject. Three or four years later, speaking of the story of the "Duchesse de Laugeais" to one of his correspondents, another _femme du monde_, he tells her that as a _femme du monde_ she is not to pretend to find flaws in the picture, a high authority having read the proofs for the express purpose of removing them. The authority is evidently the Duchess of Castries.
Balzac writes to Mme. Carraud from Aix: "At Lyons I corrected 'Lambert' again. I licked my cub, like a she bear.... On the whole, I am satisfied; it is a work of profound melancholy and of science. Truly, I deserve to have a mistress, and my sorrow at not having one increases daily; for love is my life and my essence.... I have a simple little room," he goes on, "from which I see the whole valley. I rise pitilessly at five o'clock in the morning, and work before my window until half-past five in the evening. My breakfast comes from the club--an egg. Mme. de Castries has good coffee made for me. At six o'clock we dine together, and I pass the evening with her. She is the finest type (_le type le plus fin_) of woman; Mme. de Beauséant [from "Le Père Goriot"] improved; only, are not all these pretty manners acquired at the expense of the soul?"