September 18.
The time to turn the page, and I find "La Gina" too difficult. Reasons have killed it. In "Othello" Iago is the pillar which supports the conception; I have only a money motive, instead of the motive of hidden love. I found my personage inadmissible. A vaudeville writer would not have been stopped by that difficulty. So I return to a former play, imagined some time ago, called "Richard Cœur-d'Éponge." I will tell you about it if I do it.
My house does not get on. I have the walls of the enclosure still to do, and much to the interior. It is alarming. I have found a source—not of fortune! only clear water.
October 1.
I am into money matters up to my neck. It is demoralizing. I have not had two hours to myself for reflection since I wrote you the above few lines. Do not be vexed with me. I need calmer times to relate to you a life like mine. I must say mass every second, and ring it. I have had the hope of buying out my publishers, who are ruining me, and I have just spent two weeks in Paris in crushing, killing efforts. You must remember that I have no help or succour, but, on the other hand, infinite obstacles, without number. If I cannot overcome them I shall go to you for six months' rest at Wierzchownia, where I can write my plays in peace before returning here. Many persons whom I love and esteem advise this, telling me to "go somewhere." But as for me, I cannot abandon a battlefield.
The two volumes containing "La Femme Supérieure," "La Maison Nucingen," and "La Torpille" are out.
October 10.
For the last seven years or so, whenever I have read a book in which Napoleon was mentioned, if I found any new and striking thought said by him, I put it at once into a cook-book that never leaves my desk and lies on that little book you know of, which will belong to you—alas, soon, perhaps—in which I put my subjects and my first ideas. In a day of distress (one of my recent days), being without money, I looked to see how many of those thoughts there were. I found five hundred; hence, the finest book of the century; I mean the publication of the "Maximes et Pensées de Napoléon." I sold the work to a former hosier, who is the big-wig of his arrondissement, and wants the cross of the Legion of honour, which he can have by dedicating this book to Louis-Philippe. It is about to appear. Get it. You will have one of the finest things of the day; the soul, the thought of that great man, gathered through much research by your moujik, Honoré de Balzac. Nothing has made me laugh so much as this idea of getting the cross for a sort of grocer, who may perhaps recommend himself to your Grace by his title of administrator of a charitable enterprise. Napoleon will have brought me four thousand francs and the hosier may get a hundred thousand. I had such great distrust of myself that I would not work my own idea. To the hosier, both fame and profit. But you will recognize the hand of your serf in the dedication to Louis-Philippe. May the shade of Napoleon forgive me![1]
[1] This book, extremely rare to-day, appeared at the close of the year 1838, without the name of any publisher, under the following title: "Maximes et Pensées de Napoléon, recueillies par J. L. Gaudy jeune. Paris. 1838."