the Vicomte Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.

He has made in the biography of Balzac, in editions of his books, in
the pious collection of his unpublished writings, the ideal literary
man's monument.

H. P. du B.



I

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE STREET

Paris has curved streets, streets that are serpentine. It counts,
perhaps, only the Rue Boudreau in the Chaussee d'Antin and the Rue
Duguay-Trouin near the Luxembourg as streets shaped exactly like a
T-square. The Rue Duguay-Trouin extends one of its two arms to the Rue
d'Assas and the other to the Rue de Fleurus.

In 1827 the Rue Duguay-Trouin was paved neither on one side nor on the
other; it was lighted neither at its angle nor at its ends. Perhaps it
is not, even to-day, paved or lighted. In truth, this street has so
few houses, or the houses are so modest, that one does not see them;
the city's forgetfulness of them is explained, then, by their little
importance.

Lack of solidity in the soil is a reason for that state of things. The
street is situated on a point of the Catacombs so dangerous that a
portion of the road disappeared recently, leaving an excavation to the