Note 1 — HONORÉ DE BALZAC (continued 11)

This letter is among those which Mme. de Balzac gave to the Édition Définitive (vol. xxiv., pp. 273-282). The passage relating to Louis XIV. is so evidently false in "Lettres à l'Étrangère" that I give it here in Mme. de Balzac's version. In "Lettres à l'Étrangère" it begins thus: "To well-informed minds Louis XIV. is a petty mind, a man nul." This being totally out of keeping with Balzac's published opinion of Louis XIV. ("Six Rois de France," Éd. Déf., vol. xxiii., pp. 525-535, written in 1837), I think it more just to Balzac to follow his wife's version here. The following passages are from "Six Rois de France" and give his opinion briefly: "He had known adversity and even misfortune in his youth; it was, no doubt, to this circumstance that he owed the perspicacity, the knowledge of man that distinguished him almost constantly." "This prince, in his adversity, remained ever worthy of the title of Great, which history has preserved to him." See Appendix concerning Mme. Hanska's letters in the Édition Définitive.—TR.