they had not supported each other, bringing to the common work, M.
Christophe his painstaking method, M. Cerfberr his accurate memory,
his passionate faith in the genius of the great Honore, a faith that
carried unshakingly whole mountains of documents.

A pleasing chapter of literary gossip might be written about this
collaboration; a melancholy chapter, since it brings with it the
memory of a charming man, who first brought Messieurs Cerfberr and
Christophe together, and who has since died under mournful
circumstances. His name was Albert Allenet, and he was chief editor of
a courageous little review, _La Jeune France_, which he maintained for
some years with a perseverance worthy of the Man of Business in the
_Comedie Humaine_. I can see him yet, a feverish fellow, wan and
haggard, but with his face always lit up by enthusiasm, stopping me in
a theatre lobby to tell me about a plan of M. Cerfberr's; and almost
immediately we discovered that the same plan had been conceived by M.
Christophe. The latter had already prepared a cabinet of pigeon-holes,
arranged and classified by the names of Balzacian characters. When two
men encounter in the same enterprise as compilers, they will either
hate each other or unite their efforts. Thanks to the excellent
Allenet, the two confirmed Balzacians took to each other wonderfully.

Poor Allenet! It was not long afterwards that we accompanied his body
to the grave, one gloomy afternoon towards the end of autumn--all of
us who had known and loved him. He is dead also, that other Balzacian
who was so much interested in this work, and for whom the _Comedie
Humaine_ was an absorbing thought, Honore Granoux. He was a merchant
of Marseilles, with a wan aspect and already an invalid when I met
him. But he became animated when speaking of Balzac; and with what a
mysterious, conspiratorlike veneration did he pronounce these words: