" And, if, in _Albert Savarus_, we have a confession of
his political ambitions and campaigns, we get in _Cesar Birotteau_ and
the _Petty Bourgeois_ his financial projects, which never brought him
anything; in _A Man of Business_--as well as elsewhere--his continual
money embarrassments. How deeply he felt them, he often lets us gather
from his fiction. "I have been to a capitalist," he wrote in one of
his epistles to Madame Hanska, "a capitalist to whom are due
indemnities agreed on between us for works promised and not executed;
and I offered him a certain number of copies of the _Studies of
Manners and Morals_. I proposed five thousand francs with deferred
payment, instead of three thousand francs cash. He refused everything,
even my signature and a bill, telling me my fortune was in my talent
and that I might die any time. This scene is one of the most infamous
I have known. Some day I will reproduce it."
And he did, with many things else that happened to him in his dealings
with his fellows. There is biography too, as well as autobiography in
the _Comedy_--this notwithstanding his disclaimers. Exact portraiture
he avoided for obvious reasons, but intentional portraiture he
indulged in largely; and life and character were sufficiently near the
truth for shrewd contemporaries to recognize the originals.
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