Most likely, the second phase of her relations with Balzac coincided
with his temporary abandonment of authorship for business. It was in
1825 that he resolved to embark on publishing,[*] partly urged by the
mute reproaches of his parents and partly allured by the prospect of
rapidly growing rich. He had likewise some intention of bringing out
his own books, both those previously written and those in preparation.
Of these latter there were a goodly number sketched out in a sort of
note-book or album, which his sister Laure called his _garde-manger_
or pantry. It was full of jottings anent people, places, and things
that he had come across in the preceding lustrum.
[*] The initiator of this project was not Balzac, although his early
biographers, Madame Surville included, gave him the credit for it.
The idea of taking up business was mooted to him first by a Monsieur
d'Assonvillez, an acquaintance of Madame de Berny, whom he used to see
and talk with when staying, as he occasionally did, at the small
apartment rented by his father in Paris. Just then Urbain Canel, the
celebrated publisher of Romantic books, was thinking of putting on the
market compact editions of the old French classics, beginning with
Moliere and La Fontaine; and Balzac, either already knowing him or
being introduced to him by a mutual friend, was admitted to join in
the undertaking.
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