gesture of charming welcome, or a gracious phrase. She was pious, but
without bigotry, a mystic whose religion was that of St. John, all
gentleness and impulse. She read Swedenborg, St. Martin, and Jacob
Boehm. She had an ardent and untrammelled imagination, but her
character was firm. Her decisions were promptly taken and she knew how
to enforce their execution. She was a woman of principle; she respected
social rules and customs and demanded that the members of her family
should observe them.

Four more children were born to this marriage, two sons and two
daughters: Honore, Laure, Laurence, and Henri, all of whom had widely
different destinies. Laure became the wife of an engineer of bridges
and highways, M. Midy de la Greneraye Surville, and was intimately
associated with the life of her older brother, whom she survived down
to 1854; Laurence died a few years after her marriage in 1821 to M. de
Montzaigle; Henri, the youngest, went through divers ups and downs; but
finding himself unable to achieve a position of independence, he
finally went into exile in the Colonies.

Madame de Balzac's first son having died, as was thought, in
consequence of the mother's attempt to nurse him herself, Honore was
placed with a nurse in the country district outside of Tours. He
remained there until four years of age, together with his sister Laure,
and it is there, no doubt, that they formed that tender and trusting
friendship which never wavered. When he returned to the paternal roof,
Honore was a plump, chubby-cheeked little boy with brown hair falling
in masses of curls, a contented disposition and laughing eyes. People
noticed him when out walking in his short vest of brown silk and blue
belt, and mothers would turn around to say, "What a pretty child!"