Great Obligations to be fulfilled by the French (1804), An Essay on the
Methods of preventing Thefts and Assassinations (1807), A Pamphlet
regarding the Equestrian Statue which the French People ought to raise
to perpetuate the Memory of Henry IV (1815), The History of Hydrophobia
(1819), etc. In the first of these works Francois Balzac proposed that
a monument should be raised to commemorate the glory of Napoleon and
the French army. Might that not be almost called the origin of the
Arc-de-Triomphe?

The singularities of Francois Balzac in no wise hurt him in the
estimation of the inhabitants of Touraine. He served as administrator
of the General Hospice from 1804 to 1812, and introduced there a
practical reform in providing remunerative work for the old men. As an
attache of the Mayor's office, he had the mayoralty offered him in
1808, but he refused it in order to consecrate himself entirely to the
sick and convalescent.

At Tours the Balzac household led the life of prosperous bourgeois
folk. The father had acquired a house with grounds and farm lands. The
Balzacs entertained and were received in society. People enjoyed--
perhaps with some secret smiles--the unexpected outbursts of the
husband, and they liked him for his kindly ironies which had no touch
of malice. As for the subtle and witty Madame Laure Balzac, who had
preserved all the graces of the eighteenth century, she was found
delightful by all those whom she admitted to the honour of entering her
circle of acquaintances.

She was a young woman of distinguished manner, with a somewhat oval
face and small, delicate features, overcast at times with a shade of
melancholy. She had a somewhat distant manner which she redeemed by a