This is a mistake.
However, he was now on the point of scoring a literary success. In the
same year as his _Chouans_ appeared his _Physiology of Marriage_, a
book of satire and caricature having a distinct stamp of his maturer
manner. Werdet, for a number of years his publisher and friend,
relates in his _Portrait Intime_ that Balzac, while still in the
Lesdiguieres Street garret, had gone one day to Alphonse Levavasseur
and offered, in return for a royalty and a cash installment of two
hundred francs, to supply him with a book to be entitled: _Manual of
the Business Man, by a former Notary's Clerk_. It was agreed that the
manuscript should be handed in at the end of the month; and the two
hundred francs were paid down. In vain the publisher waited for his
Manual. Ultimately he hunted out his debtor; and the latter had to
confess that the long-promised manuscript had never been written. In
order to calm the creditor's indignation, Balzac read to him some
fragments of another book which he was really engaged upon. After
listening for a while, Levavasseur's countenance grew serene: "I will
pay you two thousand francs for this production when finished,
Monsieur," he said; "and we will cancel the old transaction.
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