his youth in writing novels that were frankly hack-work; and it hurt
her also to see the condition of financial servitude in which his
family kept him. While the father, Francois de Balzac, watched his
son's efforts with indulgent irony, for he held that novels were to the
Europeans what opium is to the Chinese, and while the mother, irritated
at the rebellion of her first-born, maintained her attitude of hostile
distrust, Mme. de Berny alone had confidence in his future,
notwithstanding that appearances were all against him.

Mme. de Berny and Honore de Balzac undoubtedly put their heads
together, to seek for some means of bettering a situation so painful
and humiliating for a young man of twenty-five. Accordingly, when
chance seemed to offer them a good opportunity, they hastened to take
advantage of it.

The publisher, Urbain Canel, had conceived the idea of bringing out the
French classics in single compact octavo volumes, to be issued in
installments. He was to begin this collection with a Lafontaine, for
which he had ordered a preface from Balzac, who had previously done
work for him. We may well believe that he at the same time enlarged
upon his projects and that he aroused Balzac's interest by dwelling
upon the magnitude, the novelty and the large remuneration of his
enterprise. It was a question of nothing more nor less than the
production of an entire library. Balzac's imagination awoke to the
possibilities of this scheme which seemed to him a colossal one,
capable of laying the foundations of numerous fortunes. He calculated
what he might make out of it personally, and decided that at last
destiny had deigned to smile upon him. Canel was far richer in hopes
for the success of his project than in money to carry it out, and he
was ready to accept all offers of co-operation, if not actually to