works.

Meanwhile, Mme. Carraud was proud of her guest. She entertained her
friends at the Powder Works, the father and mother of Alberic Second,
and M. Berges, principal of the high school, who was later to support
Balzac's candidacy in Angouleme. The local paper, the Charentais, had
announced the presence of the author of The Magic Skin, and when he
went to have his hair cut by the barber, Fruchet, in the Place du
Marche, he was the object of public attention. The young men of the
democratic club called upon him and assured him that they would support
his candidacy, in spite of his aristocratic opinions. Balzac awoke to a
consciousness of the value of his name, and in the letters to his
mother dealing with business relations with his publishers assumed a
more commanding tone. She need not trouble herself further, he wrote,
in calling on magazine editors; she was to send for M. Pichot, editor
of the Revue de Paris, to come to her house, and she was to lay down
certain conditions, which he could accept or refuse, according to
whether he wanted more of Balzac's copy or not. Pichot must agree in
writing to pay two hundred francs a page, with no reduction for blank
spaces. Balzac was to be at liberty to reprint the published articles
in book form, and no disagreeable paragraph in reference to himself or
his works was to be published in the magazine. So much for M. Pichot!
Next, she was to summon M. Buloz, of the Revue des Deux Mondes, to come
in his turn to her house, and here are the detailed instructions which
Mme. de Balzac was to follow in his case: "You will show him the
manuscript, without letting him take it with him, because you are only
an agent and do not know the usual customs. Be very polite.

"You will tell him that I wish him to write a letter promising not to
print anything displeasing to me in his magazine, either directly or