These sojourns at Sache were longer or shorter according to the stage
of his work and the state of his purse. The servants at the chateau had
learned to tell from his expression whether he was prosperous or
hard-up; when he felt poor he met them with an affable air and kindly
words, for that was all he had to give them; when he was rich he moved
among them with the air of a prince. They pardoned his haughty manner
because he was generous. M. de Margonne often aided him with loans, but
in order to keep him as long as possible, he never gave him the money
until the moment of his departure.

On leaving Paris for he knew not how long, Honore de Balzac entrusted
his interests to his mother. They were of such opposite temperaments,
the one imaginative and extravagant, staking his whole life and fortune
on fabulous figures, and the other precise, calculating and rather
austere, that they could hardly be expected to understand each other,
and frequent clashes had blunted all their tenderer impulses. Mme. de
Balzac could not understand her son's blunders, and blamed him severely
for them. She suffered from his apparently dissipated life, his love of
luxury, his belief in his own greatness, of which no evidence had yet
been offered to her matter-of-fact mind. Still wholly unaware of his
genius, she could not fail to misjudge him. Yet she had already
sacrificed herself once to save him from bankruptcy; and, with all her
frowning and grumbling, she would never refuse her aid and experience
when he asked for it.

It was Mme. de Balzac who undertook to see the publishers and magazine
editors, to pass upon the contracts, to follow up the negotiations
already under way, and to conclude them; in short, she represented her
son in all respects in his badly involved business relations. From a