in Balzac, here acts the /dea ex machina/ with considerable effect.
And we end well (as we generally do when Blondet, whom Balzac seems
more than once to adopt as mask, is the narrator), in the last glimpse
of Mlle. Armande left alone with the remains of her beauty, the ruins
of everything dear to her--and God.

These two stories were written at no long interval, yet, for some
reason or other, Balzac did not at once unite them. /La Vieille Fille/
first appeared in November and December 1836 in the /Presse/, and was
inserted next year in the /Scenes de la Vie de Province/. It had three
chapter divisions. The second part did not appear all at once. Its
first installment, under the general title, came out in the /Chronique
de Paris/ even before the /Vieille Fille/ appeared in March 1836; the
completion was not published (under the title of /Les Rivalites en
Province/) till the autumn of 1838, when the /Constitutionnel/ served
as its vehicle. There were eight chapter divisions in this latter. The
whole of the /Cabinet/ was published in book form (with /Gambara/ to
follow it) in 1839. There were some changes here; and the divisions
were abolished when the whole book in 1844 entered the /Comedie/. One
of the greatest mistakes which, in my humble judgment, the organizers
of the /edition definitive/ have made, is their adoption of Balzac's
never executed separation of the pair and deletion of the excellent
joint-title /Les Rivalites/.

George Saintsbury