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This work, the first that he signed with his own name, was finished in the beginning of 1829, and was published by Urbain Canel. On the eleventh of March he announced to the Baron de Pommereul that he was sending him a set. "Between four and six days from now," he wrote, "you will receive the four 12mo volumes of The Last Chouan or Brittany in 1800.
He succeeded in 1824 in publishing through Buissot Annette and the Criminal, in four volumes, which was a continuation of The Vicar of the Ardennes, and was confiscated by the police, and then through Delongchamps an Impartial History of the Jesuits. Finally Urbain Canel bought his Wann-Chlore in 1825, and that was the last of the novels of his youth.
"Abel and Canel," Lida whispered. "Cain and Abel," Laptev corrected her. A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette.
This novel, the first signed with his name, Honore Balzac, was published by Canel and Levavasseur in March, 1829, and in December of the same year the "Physiologie du Mariage by a Celibataire," appeared, and excited general attention; though many people, Madame Carraud among the number, were much shocked by it.
Just then Urbain Canel, the celebrated publisher of Romantic books, was thinking of putting on the market compact editions of the old French classics, beginning with Moliere and La Fontaine; and Balzac, either already knowing him or being introduced to him by a mutual friend, was admitted to join in the undertaking.
He was also the printer for two periodicals, the Gymnase, for Carnot and Hippolyte Auger, the editors of that review of social tendencies, and the Annales Romantiques, for Urbain Canel. The latter was the publisher of the younger literary school, and brought out in his magazine the works of Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Benjamin Constant, Chateaubriand, Delavigne, etc.
The Physiologie du Mariage, ou Meditations de philosophie eclectique sur le bonheur et le malheur conjugal is dated at Paris, 1824-29. It first appeared anonymously, December, 1829, dated 1830, from the press of Charles Gosselin and Urbain Canel, in two octavo volumes with its present introduction and a note of correction now omitted.
But when the installments of the Lafontaine were issued, during the months of April and May, in an edition of three thousand copies, they met with no success. Urbain Canel declared that he could go no further with the venture, the partners withdrew, and Balzac was left alone to bear the whole burden of the enterprise.
At all events, when a second partnership was formed later in that same month of April, with a view to the publishing of a Moliere, to form a part of the same collection as the Lafontaine, the only members left were Canel and Balzac, who agreed each to put up half the capital and divide the profits and losses equally.
The idea, which had already been thought of by Urbain Canel, was a good one; but unfortunately Balzac was not able to obtain support from the trade, and had not sufficient capital for advertising. Therefore by the end of the year not twenty copies were sold, and he lost 15,000 francs on this affair alone.
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