A sure grasp of the purport of this work will make it clear that I
attach to common, daily facts, hidden or patent to the eye, to the
acts of individual lives, and to their causes and principles, the
importance which historians have hitherto ascribed to the events of
public national life. The unknown struggle which goes on in a valley
of the Indre between Mme. de Mortsauf and her passion is perhaps as
great as the most famous of battles (_Le Lys dans la Vallee_). In one
the glory of the victor is at stake; in the other it is heaven. The
misfortunes of the two Birotteaus, the priest and the perfumer, to me
are those of mankind. La Fosseuse (_Medecin de Campagne_) and Mme.
Graslin (_Cure de Village_) are almost the sum-total of woman. We all
suffer thus every day. I have had to do a hundred times what
Richardson did but once. Lovelace has a thousand forms, for social
corruption takes the hues of the medium in which it lives. Clarissa,
on the contrary, the lovely image of impassioned virtue, is drawn in
lines of distracting purity. To create a variety of Virgins it needs a
Raphael. In this respect, perhaps literature must yield to painting.

Still, I may be allowed to point out how many irreproachable figures
--as regards their virtue--are to be found in the portions of this
work already published: Pierrette Lorrain, Ursule Mirouet, Constance
Birotteau, La Fosseuse, Eugenie Grandet, Marguerite Claes, Pauline de
Villenoix, Madame Jules, Madame de la Chanterie, Eve Chardon,
Mademoiselle d'Esgrignon, Madame Firmiani, Agathe Rouget, Renee de
Maucombe; besides several figures in the middle-distance, who, though
less conspicuous than these, nevertheless, offer the reader an example
of domestic virtue: Joseph Lebas, Genestas, Benassis, Bonnet the cure,
Minoret the doctor, Pillerault, David Sechard, the two Birotteaus,
Chaperon the priest, Judge Popinot, Bourgeat, the Sauviats, the
Tascherons, and many more. Do not all these solve the difficult