“Yes, Monsieur,” said Gaudissart, “but
not habitable on account of the people. You get
into duels every day. Why, it is not three months
since I fought one just there,” pointing to the
bridge of La Cise, “with a damned dyer; but
I made an end of him,—he bit the dust!”
The following personages appear in other stories of
the Human Comedy.
Finot, Andoche
Cesar Birotteau
A Bachelor’s Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life
The Firm of Nucingen
Gaudissart, Felix
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Cousin Pons
Cesar Birotteau
Honorine
Popinot, Anselme
Cesar Birotteau
Cousin Pons
Cousin Betty
II
THE MUSE OF THE
DEPARTMENT
By HONORE
DE BALZAC
Translated
by
James Waring
DEDICATION
To Monsieur le Comte Ferdinand de
Gramont.
MY DEAR FERDINAND,—If the chances
of the world of literature— habent
sua fata libelli—should allow these
lines to be an enduring record, that will still
be but a trifle in return for the trouble you have
taken—you, the Hozier, the Cherin, the King-at-
Arms of these Studies of Life; you, to whom the Navarreins,
Cadignans, Langeais, Blamont-Chauvrys, Chaulieus,
Arthez, Esgrignons, Mortsaufs, Valois—the
hundred great names that form the Aristocracy of
the “Human Comedy” owe their lordly mottoes
and ingenious armorial bearings. Indeed, “the
Armorial of the Etudes, devised by Ferdinand de
Gramont, gentleman,” is a complete manual of
French Heraldry, in which nothing is forgotten, not
even the arms of the Empire, and I shall preserve
it as a monument of friendship and of Benedictine
patience. What profound knowledge of the old
feudal spirit is to be seen in the motto of the Beauseants,
Pulchre sedens, melius agens; in that of the
Espards, Des partem leonis; in that of the
Vandenesses, Ne se vend. And what elegance
in the thousand details of the learned symbolism
which will always show how far accuracy has been carried
in my work, to which you, the poet, have contributed.
Your old friend,
DE BALZAC.
THE MUSE OF THE
DEPARTMENT
On the skirts of Le Berry stands a town which, watered
by the Loire, infallibly attracts the traveler’s
eye. Sancerre crowns the topmost height of a
chain of hills, the last of the range that gives variety
to the Nivernais. The Loire floods the flats at
the foot of these slopes, leaving a yellow alluvium
that is extremely fertile, excepting in those places
where it has deluged them with sand and destroyed them
forever, by one of those terrible risings which are
also incidental to the Vistula—the Loire
of the northern coast.
