certain amount of calculation entered in, since literary success is
judged by the money profits and the expenditures and fashionable
appearance of the writer, or whether he also obeyed his own fondness
for a broad and sumptuous scale of living, no one knows; probably
something of all three entered in; but the fact remains that after he
knew Mme. de Castries Balzac became transformed into a dandy, a man of
fashion. He was a lion in that circle of gilded youth which frequented
the Opera and the Bouffes, that shone in famous salons, that diverted
itself in cabarets, and distinguished itself by wealth, gallantry and
impertinence.

Balzac now had money. He possessed an unusual faculty for disposing of
his copy advantageously. To begin with, he was paid by the magazines to
which he gave the first serial rights, the Revue de Paris and the Revue
des Deux Mondes; and, secondly, in disposing of the book rights he
never gave his publishers more than the right to bring out one edition
and for a limited time; and the result was that frequent new editions,
either of single works or groups of works, taken together with his new
works, formed altogether a considerable production of volumes.
Furthermore, he received advances from publishers and editors, he
trafficked in endorsed notes, he borrowed and lived on credit. This was
in a measure the prosperity that he had so greatly coveted, yet he
gained it at the cost of countless toil, activity and worriment.

Balzac now acquired carriages and horses, he had a cabriolet and a
tilbury painted maroon; his coachman was enormous and was named
Leclercq, while the groom was a dwarf whom he called Anchises. He
engaged servants, a cook and a valet named Paradis. He patronised the
most fashionable tailor of the time, and dressed in accordance with the
decrees of the latest style. Mme. Ancelot states that he ordered no