this last letter was written, for she was interested in his
prospective marriage. Although her full name is never mentioned, the
women in question, Madame D----, was evidently a widow with a fortune,
and in view of this prospect was most pleasing to Madame de Balzac.
However, this matrimonial plan fell through, and Balzac himself was
never enthusiastic over it. He felt that his attentions to Madame
D---- would consume his very precious time, and that the affair could
not come off in time to serve his interests. Could it be that Balzac
was alluding to this same Madame D---- when he wrote some time later:
"My beloved mother,--the affair has come to nothing, the bird was
frightened away, and I am very glad of it. I had no time to run after
it, and it was imperative it should be either yes or no."

This marriage project, like many others planned either for or by
Balzac, came to naught, and his mother evidently became displeased
with him, for she left him on his return, when he was in great need of
consolation and sympathy. As frequently happened under such
circumstances, Balzac expressed his deep regrets at his mother's
conduct to one of his best friends, Madame Carraud, and confided to
her his loneliness and longings.

Madame de Balzac was much occupied with religious ideas, and had made
a collection of the writings of the mystics. Balzac plunged into the
study of clairvoyance and mesmerism, and his mother, interested in the
marvelous, helped him in his studies, as she knew many of the
celebrated clairvoyants and mesmerists of the time.

At various times, Balzac's relations with his mother were much
estranged; at one time he did not even know where she was. When she
was disappointed in her favorite child, Henri, she seemed to recognize