POOR RELATIONS

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC



INTRODUCTION


_La Cousine Bette_ was perhaps the last really great thing that Balzac
did--for _Le Cousin Pons_, which now follows it, was actually written
before--and it is beyond all question one of the very greatest of his
works. It was written at the highest possible pressure, and (contrary
to the author's more usual system) in parts, without even seeing a
proof, for the _Constitutionnel_ in the autumn, winter, and early
spring of 1846-47, before his departure from Vierzschovnia, the object
being to secure a certain sum of ready money to clear off
indebtedness. And it has been sometimes asserted that this labor,
coming on the top of many years of scarcely less hard works, was
almost the last straw which broke down Balzac's gigantic strength. Of
these things it is never possible to be certain; as to the greatness
of _La Cousine Bette_, there is no uncertainty.

In the first place, it is a very long book for Balzac; it is, I think,
putting aside books like _Les Illusions Perdues_, and _Les
Celibataires_, and _Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes_, which are
really groups of work written at different times, the longest of all
his novels, if we except the still later and rather doubtful _Petits