Midy de la Greneraye Surville, and from the first the marriage was not
very happy, as Honore writes, a month after it took place, to blame
Laure for her melancholy at the separation from her family, and to
counsel philosophy and piano practice. Possibly Balzac's habits of
ascendency over those he loved, and his wonderful gift of fascination
--a gift which often provides its possessor with bitter enemies among
those outside its influence--made matters difficult for his
brother-in-law, and did not tend to promote harmony between Laure and
her husband. M. Surville probably became exasperated by useless attempts
to vie in his wife's eyes with her much-beloved brother--at any rate,
in later years he was tyrannical in preventing their intercourse, and
we hear of the unfortunate Laure coming in secret to see Balzac, on
her birthday in 1836, and holding a watch in her hand, because she did
not dare to stay away longer than twenty minutes. There were other
worries for Laure and her husband, for, like the rest of the Balzac
family, they were in continual difficulty about money matters. M.
Surville seems to have been a man of enterprise, and to have had many
schemes on hand--such as making a lateral canal on the Loire from
Nantes to Orleans, building a bridge in Paris, or constructing a
little railway. Speaking of the canal, Balzac cheerfully and airily
remarked in 1836 that only a capital of twenty-six millions of francs
required collecting, and then the Survilles would be on the high road
to prosperity. This trifling matter was not after all arranged, if we
may judge from the fact that in 1849 the Survilles moved to a cheap
lodging, and were advised by Balzac, in a letter from Russia, to
follow his habit of former days, and to cook only twice a week. In
fact, they were evidently passing through one of those monetary crises
to which we become used when reading the annals of the Balzacs, and
which irresistibly remind the reader of similar affairs in the
Micawber family.