25 copies on Japan Paper, numbered 1 to 25.
375 copies on specially made paper, numbered 26 to 400.



PREFACE

This little Parisian silhouette in prose was written by Balzac to be
the first chapter of a new series of the "Comedie Humaine" that he was
preparing while the first was finishing. Balzac was never tired. He
said that the men who were tired were those who rested and tried to
work afterwards.

"A Street of Paris and its Inhabitant" was in its author's mind when
Hetzel, engaged in collecting a copy for the work entitled "Le Diable
a Paris" that all book lovers admire, asked Balzac for an unpublished
manuscript.

Balzac gave him this, after retouching it, in order that it should
have the air of a finished story. Why Hetzel did not use it in "Le
Diable a Paris," no one knows. He went into exile, in Brussels, at the
military revolution that made Napoleon III Emperor and, needing money,
sold "A Street of Paris and its Inhabitant" with other manuscripts to
Le Siecle.

Balzac's work was printed entire in three pages of the journal Le
Siecle, in Paris, July 28, 1845. M. le Vicomte Spoelberch de Lovenjoul
owns Balzac's autograph manuscript of it. These details are given by
him and might be reproduced here with his signature. But the
publishers wish not to be deprived of the pleasure of paying homage to