Forced to leave this company,
Bottle-wine and horn-ale,
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as door-nail.
Pledging, though, a quick return,
Soon my anchor sticking
On the shore for which I yearn—
I’m alive and kicking.
A great name that ushers in the Nineteenth century is that of Honoré de Balzac, chief of the realistic school of French novelists. His humor is keen and is never lacking in his somewhat diversified writings.
From his well known Contes Drolatiques we give two stories.