in the nebulous and ardent future; no setback could turn him aside from
the path which he had traced for himself.



Chapter 3.

His Apprenticeship.

The precious hours of liberty, in the mansarde garret, had taken
flight. After fifteen months of independence, study and work, Honore
returned to the family circle, summoned home by his mother. She
desired, no doubt, to care for him and restore his former robust health
which had been undermined by a starvation diet, but she also wished to
keep him under strict surveillance, since privation had failed to bend
his will and the disaster of his tragedy had not turned him aside from
his purpose. Honore, unconquered by defeat, had asked that they should
assure him an annual allowance of fifteen hundred francs, in order that
he might redeem his failure at an early date. This request was refused,
and nothing was guaranteed him beyond food and lodging, absolutely
nothing, unless he submitted to their wishes.

What years of struggle those were! Honore de Balzac refused to despair
of his destiny, and he valiantly entered upon the hardest of all his
battles, without support and without encouragement, in the midst of
hostile surroundings. He used to go from Villeparisis to Paris, seeking
literary gatherings, knocking at the doors of publishers, exhausting
himself in the search for some opening. And how could he work under the
paternal roof? Nowhere in the house could he find the necessary quiet,
and he was practically looked upon as an incapable, an outcast who