The
latter's claims were partly met by her son's taking over the business
with Laurent, the other partner. Being thus reconstituted, the firm
subsequently prospered. To-day it still carries on its affairs under
the control of a Monsieur Charles Tuleu, who succeeded Monsieur de
Berny. Madame Surville would have us believe that, if her parents had
only supported Honore more unreservedly at the commencement, he could
have realized a fortune; but all the facts of her brother's life go to
prove the contrary.
Referring, a decade later, to these dark days, which loaded him with a
burden of debt that he never shook off but increased by his natural
inability to balance receipts and expenditure, he spoke of Madame de
Berny's kindness, and declared that he had repaid the _Dilecta_ in
1836 the last six thousand francs he owed her, together with their
five per cent interest. As on many other occasions, Balzac imagined
something which had not been done, though he apparently believed what
he asserted. The following anecdote re-establishes the facts of the
case.
Monsieur Arthur Rhone, a friend of the de Berny family, who used to
visit the son Alexander in the office of the Rue des Marais, often
admired on the mantelpiece a fine bust of Flora, modelled by Marin.
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