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It is somewhat remarkable that Balzac, dealing as he did with

traits of character and the minute and daily circumstances of

life, has never been accused of representing actual persons in the

two or three thousand portraits which he painted of human nature.

In “The Great Man of the Provinces in Paris” some likenesses were

imagined: Jules Janin in Etienne Lousteau, Armand Carrel in Michel

Chrestien, and, possibly, Berryer in Daniel d’Arthez. But in the

present volume, “Beatrix,” he used the characteristics of certain

persons, which were recognized and admitted at the time of

publication. Mademoiselle des Touches (Camille Maupin) is George

Sand in character, and the personal description of her, though

applied by some to the famous Mademoiselle Georges, is easily

recognized from Couture’s drawing. Beatrix, Conti, and Claude

Vignon are sketches of the Comtesse d’Agoult, Liszt, and the

well-known critic Gustave Planche.

The opening scene of this volume, representing the manners and

customs of the old Breton family, a social state existing no

longer except in history, and the transition period of the

vieille roche as it passed into the customs and ideas of the present century, is one of Balzac’s remarkable and most famous pictures in the “Comedy of Human Life.” K.P.W.