The doctor was to examine No. 1 flannel, and by it to determine the
seat and the cause of the affection, as well as the treatment to be
followed; then he was to examine No. 2, and to give certain
instructions as to its further use. Balzac asked his mother to touch
the flannels only with paper, so as not to interfere with their
effluvia. This belief of his in magnetism of an occult kind was an
inheritance. His mother, it has already been said, was a mystic. Her
books of this doctrine comprised more than a hundred volumes of
Saint-Martin, Swedenborg, Madame Guyon, Jacob Boehm, and others. All
these writers he was familiar with. Throughout his life, the influence
of their teaching and his mother's firm belief remained with him. On
his conduct and practice their effect was harmless; but in his literary
work they were a disturbance, and, wherever they intruded, detracted
from its quality.
Happily, he was beginning to be tempted more and more by the artistic
side of things in his daily experience. Of the lesser novels composed
before the end of 1832, several were directly inspired by incidents
brought to his knowledge. The _Red Inn_ was related to him by a former
army surgeon, a friend of the man that was unjustly condemned and
executed.
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