the Rue Saint-Louis, and then at the establishment of Sganzer and
Bauzelin, in the Rue de Thorigny, where he continued to display the
same mediocrity and the same indifference regarding the tasks required
of him. Having finished the prescribed courses, he returned to his
family, which at this time was living at No. 40, Rue du Temple, and his
father decided that he should study law, supplementing the theoretical
instruction of the law school with practical lessons from an attorney
and notary. Honore was enrolled in the law school November 4, 1816, and
at the same time was intrusted to a certain M. de Merville, who
undertook to teach him procedure. He spent eighteen months in these
studies, and was then transferred to the office of M. Passez, where the
same lapse of time initiated him into the secrets of a notary's duties.
In the month of January, 1819, he passed his examinations in law.

During these three years the life of Honore de Balzac had been
extremely laborious. He faithfully attended the law school courses and
copied legal and notarial documents. Yet all this did not prevent him
from satisfying his literary tastes by attending the lectures given at
the Sorbonne by Villemain, Guizot and Cousin. Nor had he given up his
ambition to write and to become a great man, as he had predicted to his
sisters, Laure and Laurence. Mme de Balzac, severe mother that she was,
had regulated the employment of his time in such a way that he could
never be at liberty. His bed-chamber adjoined his father's study, and
he was required to go to bed at nine o'clock and rise at five, under
such strict surveillance that he could later write, in The Magic Skin,
"Up to the age of twenty-one I was bent beneath the yoke of a despotism
as cold as that of a monastic order." In the evening, after dinner, he
rendered an account of his day, and was then permitted to take a hand
at Boston or whist, at the card-table of his grandmother Mme.
Sallambier. The latter, sympathising with her grandson, who was so