secretary to the Grand Council under Louis XV, and Laure Surville, his
sister, wrote that under Louis XVI he was attorney to the Council. He
himself, in an invitation to the marriage of his second daughter,
Laurence, described himself as former secretary to the King's Council.
During the revolution he was secretary to the minister of the navy,
Bertrant de Molleville, and later was director of the commissary
department in the first division of the Armee du Nord, stationed at
Lille.

It is impossible to follow him through all the different wanderings
necessitated by his functions, but it is known that upon returning to
Paris he there married the daughter of one of his superior officers,
Sallambier, attached to the Ministry of War and at the same time
director of the Paris hospitals. At the time of the marriage, January
30, 1797, he was fifty-one years of age; his bride, Laure, was only
eighteen, a young girl possessed of culture, beauty and distinction of
manner. The first fruit of this union was a son, who, although nursed
by the mother, died at an early age. Through the influence of his
father-in-law, the elder Balzac obtained in 1799 the direction of the
commissary department of the twenty-second military division, and
installed himself at Tours, where the division was stationed, in the
early months of the same year.

Francois soon had a reputation throughout the province. He was a sort
of philosopher and reformer, a man with ideas. He despised the
currently accepted opinions, and proclaimed his own boldly, indifferent
to the consternation of his fellow townsmen. A large head emerging from
the high, thick collar of his blue, white-braided coat, which opened to
disclose an ample cravat, a smooth-shaven face and florid complexion, a
powerful chin and full cheeks, framed in short, brown "mutton-chop"