The Muse of the Department

by Honoré de Balzac

THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT

By Honore De Balzac

Translated by James Waring

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DEDICATION
To Monsieur le Comte Ferdinand de Gramont.
MY DEAR FERDINAND,—If the chances of the world of literature
—habent sua fata libelli—should allow these lines to be an
enduring record, that will still be but a trifle in return for the
trouble you have taken—you, the Hozier, the Cherin, the
King-at-Arms of these Studies of Life; you, to whom the Navarreins,
Cadignans, Langeais, Blamont-Chauvrys, Chaulieus, Arthez,
Esgrignons, Mortsaufs, Valois—the hundred great names that form
the Aristocracy of the “Human Comedy” owe their lordly mottoes and
ingenious armorial bearings. Indeed, “the Armorial of the Etudes,
devised by Ferdinand de Gramont, gentleman,” is a complete manual
of French Heraldry, in which nothing is forgotten, not even the
arms of the Empire, and I shall preserve it as a monument of
friendship and of Benedictine patience. What profound knowledge of
the old feudal spirit is to be seen in the motto of the
Beauseants, Pulchre sedens, melius agens; in that of the
Espards, Des partem leonis; in that of the Vandenesses, Ne se
vend. And what elegance in the thousand details of the learned
symbolism which will always show how far accuracy has been carried
in my work, to which you, the poet, have contributed.
Your old friend,
DE BALZAC.

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