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Poor Relations by Honoré de Balzac
page 8 of 1043 (00%)
more pathetic if less "grimy," than its companion, full of its
author's idiosyncracy, and characteristic of his genius. It may not be
uninteresting to add that _Le Cousin Pons_ was originally called _Le
Deux Musiciens_, or _Le Parasite_, and that the change, which is a
great improvement, was due to the instances of Madame Hanska.

The bibliography of the two divisions of _Les Parents Pauvres_ is so
closely connected, that it is difficult to extricate the separate
histories. Originally the author had intended to begin with _Le Cousin
Pons_ (which then bore the title of _Les Deux Musiciens_), and to make
it the more important of the two; but _La Cousine Bette_ grew under
his hands, and became, in more than one sense, the leader. Both
appeared in the _Constitutionnel_; the first between October 8th and
December 3rd, 1846, the second between March 18th and May of the next
year. In the winter of 1847-48 the two were published as a book in
twelve volumes by Chlendowski and Petion. In the newspaper (where
Balzac received--a rarely exact detail--12,836 francs for the
_Cousine_, and 9,238 for the _Cousin_) the first-named had
thirty-eight headed chapter-divisions, which in book form became a
hundred and thirty-two. _Le Cousin Pons_ had two parts in _feuilleton_,
and thirty-one chapters, which in book form became no parts and
seventy-eight chapters. All divisions were swept away when, at the end
of 1848, the books were added together to the _Comedie_.

George Saintsbury




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