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Buloz remained as a partner, but M. Auffray had long since given up his interest in it: he had been succeeded by Alexander Bixio, and the latter by Messrs. Florestan and Felix Bonnaire, the owners of the Revue de Paris. Messrs. Bonnaire in 1845 proposed to buy out Buloz for a sum exceeding one hundred thousand francs.
MM. Buloz and Bonnaire refused this arrangement, declaring that it would be extortion; and after giving them twenty-four hours for reflection, Balzac announced his intention of writing no longer for the Revue de Paris, and prepared to bring an action against the proprietors.
Balzac, after this, refused to receive him on friendly terms; but a meeting was arranged at the house of Jules Sandeau, at which Balzac and the Comte de Belloy met Buloz and Bonnaire. Sandeau and Emile Regnault, who were friends of both the contending parties, were also present; and they, after this conference, became for a time exclusively Balzac's friends, as he remarks significantly.
After consulting with Mérimée, Sainte-Beuve and others, Buloz declined the proposal, and with the aid of his friends bought out the brothers Bonnaire for a sum just double that which they had offered him.
However, in 1834, when Pichot retired from the management, the new directors, MM. Anthoine de Saint-Joseph, Bonnaire, and Achille Brindeau, tried to satisfy their readers by recalling Balzac; and "Seraphita" began to appear in the pages of the Revue.
Buloz and Bonnaire, however, decided that it would be good policy for the first attack to be on their side, and as Balzac could not obtain his proofs from Russia for a month at least, they sued him for breach of contract in not writing "Les Memoires d'une Jeune Mariee," and claimed 10,000 francs damages for his refusal to finish the "Lys dans la Vallee"; as well as fifty francs for each day's delay in his doing this.
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