whiskers, a small mouth with thick lips, a long straight, slightly
bulbous nose, an energetic face lit up by black eyes, brilliant and
slightly dreamy, beneath a broad, determined forehead overhung with
stray locks of hair, gathered back in the fashion of the Republic,--all
these features proclaimed a rugged personality, a dominant character,
conspicuously at variance with the placid bourgeoisie of Touraine.
Francois Balzac had furthermore an agreeable presence and a
self-satisfied manner, and it pleased him to boast of his southern
origin.

The citizens of Tours spoke of him as "an eccentric," but he was
greatly annoyed when the term reached his ears, for, good Gascon that
he was, and proud of himself, body and mind, he felt that it was
singularly humiliating to be treated with so little respect. In point
of fact, he was quite justified in refusing to accept an appellation
which, however well it might fit his manners as a well-intentioned
fault-finder, caustic and whimsical in speech, in no way applied to his
unusually broad and penetrating intelligence, teeming with new and
strictly original ideas.

He was a disciple of Rousseau; he held certain social theories, and he
was unsparing in his criticisms of existing governments. He had his own
views as to how society at large should be governed and improved. The
first of these views consisted in cultivating mankind, by applying the
method of eugenic selection to marriage, in such a manner that after a
few years there would be no human beings left save those who were
strong, robust and healthy. He could not find sufficient sarcasm to
express his scorn of governments which, in civilised countries, allowed
the development of weaklings, cripples and invalids. Perhaps he based
his theory upon his own example. Francois Balzac had the constitution