Madame Balzac, too, was
unwell at Chantilly; and her illnesses always affected Honore, who,
at such moments, reproached himself for not being able to do more on
her behalf. Not that his year's budget was a poor one. The seventy
thousand francs at which he estimated his probable earnings for the
twelvemonth were not on this occasion so very much beyond the truth,
if his author's percentages were included. Werdet--the illustrious
Werdet, who, he said, somewhat resembled the _Illustrious Gaudissart_
--bought an edition of his philosophic novels for fifteen thousand
francs; and, besides two principal books to be mentioned further on,
both of which appeared before the close of the year, there were parts
of _Seraphita_ and _The Cabinet of Antiques_ which the _Revue de
Paris_ was publishing as serials. His notorious quarrel and lawsuit
with this Review was yet to come. But there was storm in the air even
now. _Seraphita_, the subject inspired by Madame Hanska and dedicated
to her, was but little to the taste of Buloz the editor; and he
declared to Balzac, who was making him wait for copy, that it was
hardly worth while taking so long and making so much fuss over a novel
which neither the public nor he, the editor, could understand.
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