Facino Cane Author: Honore de Balzac Translated By: Clara Bell and others FACINO CANE I once used to live in a little street which probably is not known to you–the Rue de Lesdiguieres. It is a turning out of the Rue Saint-Antoine, beginning just opposite a fountain near the Place de la Bastille, and ending […]

Domestic Peace Author: Honore de Balzac Translated By: Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell Dedicated to my dear niece Valentine Surville. The incident recorded in this sketch took place towards the end of the month of November, 1809, the moment when Napoleon’s fugitive empire attained the apogee of its splendor. The trumpet-blasts of Wagram were still […]

Christ in Flanders Author: Honore de Balzac Translated by: Ellen Marriage DEDICATION To Marcelline Desbordes-Valmore, a daughter of Flanders,of whom these modern days may well be proud, I dedicatethis quaint legend of old Flanders. DE BALZAC. CHRIST IN FLANDERS At a dimly remote period in the history of Brabant, communication between the Island of Cadzand […]

Juana by Honore de Balzac Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley JUANA (THE MARANAS) DEDICATION To Madame la Comtesse Merlin. CHAPTER I. EXPOSITION Notwithstanding the discipline which Marechal Suchet had introduced into his army corps, he was unable to prevent a short period of trouble and disorder at the taking of Tarragona. According to certain fair-minded […]

La GrenadiereAuthor: Honore de BalzacTranslated By: Ellen Marriage To D. W. La Grenadiere is a little house on the right bank of the Loire as you go down stream, about a mile below the bridge of Tours. At this point the river, broad as a lake, and covered with scattered green islands, flows between two […]

NAPOLEONDER[1] [Footnote 1: The Russian peasant’s name for Napoleon Bonaparte. The final syllable “der” has perhaps been added because to the ear of the peasant “Napoleon” sounds clipped and incomplete, as “Alexan” would sound to us without the “der.”] Long ago–but not so very long ago; our grandfathers remember it–the Lord God wanted to punish […]

Maitre CorneliusAuthor: Honore de BalzacTranslated By: Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATIONTo Monsieur le Comte Georges Mniszech: Some envious being may think on seeing this page illustratedby one of the most illustrious of Sarmatian names, that I amstriving, as the goldsmiths do, to enhance a modern workwith an ancient jewel,–a fancy of the fashions of the day,–but […]

Madame FirmianiAuthor: Honore de BalzacTranslated By: Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATIONTo my dear Alexandre de Berny.His old friend, De Balzac. MADAME FIRMIANI Many tales, either rich in situations or made dramatic by some of the innumerable tricks of chance, carry with them their own particular setting, which can be rendered artistically or simply by those who […]

The word /lorette/ is a euphemism invented to describe the status of a personage, or a personage of a status, of which it is awkward to speak; the French Academie, in its modesty, having omitted to supply a definition out of regard for the age of its forty members. Whenever a new word comes to […]

Leon de Lora, our celebrated landscape painter, belongs to one of the noblest families of the Roussillon (Spanish originally) which, although distinguished for the antiquity of its race, has been doomed for a century to the proverbial poverty of hidalgos. Coming, light-footed, to Paris from the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, with the sum of […]

At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at every ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for his neighbor’s eye; most of the younger women are there for one person only; when each woman has assured herself that […]

Nearly all young men have a compass with which they delight in measuring the future. When their will is equal to the breadth of the angle at which they open it the world is theirs. But this phenomenon of the inner life takes place only at a certain age. That age, which for all men […]

GAUDISSART II. Translated by Clara Bell and others DEDICATION To Madame la Princesse Cristina de Belgiojoso, nee Trivulzio. GAUDISSART II. To know how to sell, to be able to sell, and to sell. People generally do not suspect how much of the stateliness of Paris is due to these three aspects of the same problem. […]

EL VERDUGO Translated byKatharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATION To Martinez de la Rosa. EL VERDUGO The clock of the little town of Menda had just struck midnight. At that moment a young French officer, leaning on the parapet of a long terrace which bordered the gardens of the chateau de Menda, seemed buried in thoughts that […]

Z. MARCAS Translated by Clara Bell and others DEDICATION To His Highness Count William of Wurtemberg,as a token of the Author’s respectful gratitude. DE BALZAC. Z. MARCAS I never saw anybody, not even among the most remarkable men of the day, whose appearance was so striking as this man’s; the study of his countenance at […]

A Prince of BohemiaTranslated by Clara Bell and others DEDICATIONTo Henri Heine. I inscribe this to you, my dear Heine, to you that represent in Paris the ideas and poetry of Germany, in Germany the lively and witty criticism of France; for you better than any other will know whatsoever this Study may contain of […]

PIERRE GRASSOUTranslated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATIONTo the Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery, Periollas,As a Testimony of the Affectionate Esteem of the Author, De Balzac PIERRE GRASSOU Whenever you have gone to take a serious look at the exhibition of works of sculpture and painting, such as it has been since the revolution of 1830, have you […]

A STREET OF PARISTranslated by Henri Pene du Bois PREFACE This little Parisian silhouette in prose was written by Balzac to be the first chapter of a new series of the “Comedie Humaine” that he was preparing while the first was finishing. Balzac was never tired. He said that the men who were tired were […]

Study of a WomanTranslator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATIONTo the Marquis Jean-Charles di Negro. STUDY OF A WOMAN The Marquise de Listomere is one of those young women who have been brought up in the spirit of the Restoration. She has principles, she fasts, takes the sacrament, and goes to balls and operas very elegantly dressed; […]

By the double crest of my fowl, and by the rose lining of my sweetheart’s slipper! By all the horns of well-beloved cuckolds, and by the virtue of their blessed wives! the finest work of man is neither poetry, nor painted pictures, nor music, nor castles, nor statues, be they carved never so well, nor […]