The twelvemonth which was marked by the achievement of his most
perfect novel also brought him into regular business relations with
Werdet, destined to be one of his biographers, who now became his
chief publisher and remained so during several years. Incorrect in
many details which lay outside his own ken, and which he had gleaned
from hearsay or books hastily written, Werdet's own book, a familiar
portrait of Balzac, is nevertheless a valuable document. If the author
was unable to fathom the whole of the genius and character of the man
he described, he yet sincerely appreciated them; and not even the
soreness he could not help feeling when ultimately thrown aside,
destroyed his deep-rooted worship of him whom he regarded as one of
the highest glories of French literature.
Werdet, when he was introduced to the writer of the _Physiology of
Marriage_, had already tried his luck at publishing, but had been
compelled to abandon the master's position and to enter as an employee
into the house of a Madame Bechet, who was engaged in the same line of
business. Having read and liked some of Balzac's earlier works, he
persuaded the firm to entrust him with the task of negotiating a
purchase of the exclusive rights of the novelist's _Studies of Manners
and Morals in the Nineteenth Century_.
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