father, who prided himself upon playing a very good game of checkers,
on one occasion tried a game with him. After several moves my father
said, "Why, Monsieur de Balzac, we are not playing Give-away! You are
letting me take all your men; you are not playing the game seriously."
"Indeed, I am," rejoined Balzac, "as seriously as possible," and he
continued to let his men be taken. At last he had only one man left,
but he had so managed the moves that, without my father being aware of
it, this last man was in a position to take all the men my father had
left in one single swoop,--and there were a good many, for M. de Balzac
had taken only six up to that move. From that time onward my father
regarded him as one of the keenest minds that had ever lived."
(Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Touraine, Volume XII.)

But Balzac was not staying at Sache for the purpose of playing
checkers, and in the same notice M. Salmon tells of his habits of work,
on the strength of an account given by M. de Margonne:

"He had a big alarm-clock," he writes, "for he slept very well and very
soundly, and he set the alarm for two o'clock in the morning. Then he
prepared himself some coffee over a spirit lamp, together with several
slices of toasted bread; and then started in to write in bed, making
use of a desk so constructed that he could freely draw up his knees
beneath it. He continued to write in this manner until five o'clock in
the evening, taking no other nourishment than his coffee and his slices
of toasted bread.

"At five o'clock he arose, dressed for dinner, and remained with his
hosts in the drawing-room until ten o'clock, the hour at which he
withdrew to go to bed. And he never in the least modified this settled
routine."