crown myself with glory, the one mistress whom I hoped some day to
attain."

What he actually said lacked the precision and the form of these
phrases, but he was eloquent, and his father, who had no reason to
suppose that he had an imbecile for a son, was the first to yield, in a
measure, to his arguments. His mother still resisted, frightened at the
risks he must run, far from convinced by his words, and without
confidence in the future. Nevertheless, she was forced to yield. It was
decided to try an experiment,--but it was to be kept a close secret,
because their friends would never have finished laughing at such
parental weakness. Two years were accorded to Honore, within which to
give some real proof of his talent. Hereupon he became joyously
expansive, he was sure that he would triumph, that he would bring back
a masterpiece to submit to the judgment of his assembled family and
friends. But, since a failure was possible and they wished to guard
themselves from such a mortification, his acquaintances were to be told
that Honore was at Albi, visiting a cousin. Furthermore, in the hope of
bringing him back to the straight path, through the pinch of poverty,
his mother insisted that nothing more should be granted him than an
annual allowance of fifteen hundred francs (less than 300 dollars), and
that he should meet all his needs out of this sum. Honore would have
accepted a bare and penniless liberty with equal fervour and enthusiasm.

For the sake of economy, the Balzac family decided upon a provincial
life, and removed to Villeparisis, in the department of Seine-et-Oise,
where they secured a small yet comfortable bourgeois house. This was in
the early months of 1819; Honore, at the age of twenty-one, was left
alone in Paris.