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De Surville mentions having lost anchors in a place he calls Double Bay, during a storm "ABOUT 22nd December," and it may possibly have been the one Cook encountered on the 28th off the north end of the island.

The first letter in the series is addressed to his elder sister, Laure, who afterward became Mme. de Surville, and who, after her illustrious brother's death, published in a small volume some agreeable reminiscences of him. For this lady he had, especially in his early years, a passionate affection.

Though the garrison did not exceed twelve I weakened battalions, and four squadrons of dragoons, the place was so strong, both by art and nature, and lieutenant de Surville, the governor, possessed such admirable talents, that the siege was protracted contrary to the expectation of the allies, and cost them a great number of men, notwithstanding all the precautions that could be taken for the safety of the troops.

The dying man's almost complete isolation is strange, and the servant's news that M. Surville had not yet gone to bed has a callous ring about it. Perhaps, however, the doctors had told Madame de Balzac and Madame Surville that Balzac was unconscious, and they had therefore withdrawn, utterly exhausted by the fatigues of the night before.

Unfortunately one of De Surville's boats was stolen, and in return he not only burnt the nearest village and a number of canoes, but kidnapped the innocent Kinui, who pined away on shipboard and died off the South American coast a few days before De Surville himself was drowned in the surf in trying to land at Callao.

Decidedly, the only fine epitaphs are these: La Fontaine, Messena, Moliere, a single name, which tells all and makes one dream." Probably Madame Surville remembered these words and repeated them to Madame Honore de Balzac, for the monument erected to Balzac is a broken column with his name inscribed on it. The fortunes of the inhabitants of the Rue Fortunee were not happy after Balzac's death.

He changed publishers and, in 1822, he brought out through Pollet, within the space of a few months, The Centenarian or the Two Beringhelds, by Horace de Saint-Aubin, in eight volumes, and The Vicar of the Ardennes, which appeared over the same pseudonym, and for which he had requested the collaboration of his sister and his brother-in-law, Surville. This was a year of unbridled production.

The Ngapuhi tribe received them with pleasure and gave them all the assistance in their power, but some of them stole a boat. The captain, named De Surville, then seized one of the chiefs and put him in irons. The boat not being given up, he burnt a village and sailed to South America, the chief dying on the road.

Laure became the wife of an engineer of bridges and highways, M. Midy de la Greneraye Surville, and was intimately associated with the life of her older brother, whom she survived down to 1854; Laurence died a few years after her marriage in 1821 to M. de Montzaigle; Henri, the youngest, went through divers ups and downs; but finding himself unable to achieve a position of independence, he finally went into exile in the Colonies.

He witnessed the preparations for the marriage of his sister, Laurence, to M. de Montzaigle, visiting inspector of the city imposts of Paris, and he drew this picturesque portrait of his future brother-in-law: "He is somewhat taller than Surville; his features are quite ordinary, neither homely nor handsome; his mouth is widowed of the upper teeth, and there is no reason for assuming that it will contract a second marriage, since mother nature forbids it; this widowhood ages him considerably, but on the whole he is not so bad as husbands go.