BEATRIX

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC




Translated by
Katharine Prescott Wormeley




NOTE

It is somewhat remarkable that Balzac, dealing as he did with
traits of character and the minute and daily circumstances of
life, has never been accused of representing actual persons in the
two or three thousand portraits which he painted of human nature.

In "The Great Man of the Provinces in Paris" some likenesses were
imagined: Jules Janin in Etienne Lousteau, Armand Carrel in Michel
Chrestien, and, possibly, Berryer in Daniel d'Arthez. But in the
present volume, "Beatrix," he used the characteristics of certain
persons, which were recognized and admitted at the time of
publication. Mademoiselle des Touches (Camille Maupin) is George
Sand in character, and the personal description of her, though
applied by some to the famous Mademoiselle Georges, is easily