Not once in the six years' time was the boy allowed to go home or to visit his parents. Once a year, at Easter, his mother came to see him and expressed regret at the backward state of his mind.
Balzac's education was gotten in spite of his teachers, and by setting at naught the minute and painstaking plans of his mother. This mother lived her life a partial invalid, whimsical, querulous, religious overmuch, always fearing a fatal collapse; in this disappointed, for she finally died peacefully of old age, going to bed and forgetting to waken. She was long to survive her son, and realize his greatness only after he was gone, getting the facts from the daily papers, which seems to prove that the newspaper does have a mission.
Possibly the admiration of Balzac's mother for the little Corporal had its purpose in God's great economy. In any event her son had some of the Corsican's characteristics.
In the big brain of Balzac there was room for many emotions. The man had sympathy plus, and an imagination that could live every life, feel every pang of pain, know every throb of joy, die every death. In stature he was short, stout, square of shoulder and deep of chest. He had a columnar neck and carried his head with the poise of a man born to command.
The scholar's stoop and the abiding melancholy of the supposed man of genius were conspicuous by their absence. His smile was infectious, and he was always ready to romp and play. "He has never grown up: he is just a child," once said his mother in sad complaint, after her son had well passed his fortieth milestone.
The leading traits in the life of Balzac were his ability to abandon himself to the task in hand, his infinite good-nature, his capacity for frolic and fun, and his passion to be famous and to be loved.
Napoleon never took things very seriously. It will be remembered that even at Saint Helena, when in the mood, he played jokes on his guards, and never forgot his good old habit of stopping the affairs of State to pinch the ears of any pretty miss, be she princess or chambermaid, who traveled without an escort.
Upon a statuette of Napoleon, Balzac in his youth once wrote this: "What he began with the sword I will finish with the pen."
Only once did Balzac see Napoleon, probably at that last review at the Carrousel, and he describes the scene thus in one of his novels: "At last, at last! there he was, surrounded with so much love, enthusiasm, devotion, prayer—for whom the sun had driven every cloud from the sky. He sat motionless on his horse, six feet in advance of the dazzling escort that followed him. An old grenadier cried: 'My God, yes, it was always so—under fire at Wagram—among the dead in the Moskowa he was quiet as a lamb, yes, that is he!' Napoleon rode that little white mare, so gentle and under such perfect control. Let others ride plunging chargers and waste their energy and the strength of their mount in pirouettes for the admiration of the bystanders—Napoleon and his little white horse were always quiet when all around there was confusion. And the hand that ruled the Empire stroked the mane of the little white mare, so docile that a girl of ten would have been at home on her back. That is he—under fire at Wagram, with shells bursting all around—he strokes the mane of his quiet horse—that is he!"
And right here may be a good place to quote that other tribute to the Corsican, by a man who was best qualified to give it—the Iron Duke Wellington: "It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance."