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Updated: June 21, 2025
The transaction was the best possible for Werdet, who was too poor to continue playing Maecenas to his Horace. Against such incurable improvidence, and such little regard for strict equity in money dealings, nothing but the impersonality of a syndicate could stand. Nevertheless, one cannot help regretting that the intercourse of the two men should have ceased.
Instead of acquitting this debt, the ingenious author endeavoured to squeeze a little more cash out of his long-suffering publisher. For once, Werdet lost his temper, and sent the great man off with a flea in his ear.
Carrying him off to Ville-d'Avray, she creates there a snug Paradise, where she fondles him as if he were a toy, until at length her feverish jealousy brings on her own illness and death. The novel in its earlier phases was being worked at together with the Sister Marie des Anges, which was promised to Werdet but never completed, and seems to have had some connection with it.
Seraphita, the subject inspired by Madame Hanska and dedicated to her, was but little to the taste of Buloz the editor; and he declared to Balzac, who was making him wait for copy, that it was hardly worth while taking so long and making so much fuss over a novel which neither the public nor he, the editor, could understand. Happily the dear Werdet was at hand to arrange the difficulty.
"But you are aware, Monsieur, that those who now publish my works require large capital, since I often need considerable advances." Proudly, young Werdet brought out his six notes of five hundred francs each, and spread them on the table. "There is all my fortune," he said. "You can have it for any book you please to write for me." At the sight of them Balzac burst out laughing.
The rest you shall have as soon as I get the last corrected proofs." "Dear publisher, your speech is golden," cried Balzac; "I accept." Nevertheless, the proofs were not delivered until 1829. The book immediately became popular. "From the day of its appearance," comments Werdet, "literature counted another master and France another Moliere."
However, he was at first much pleased with Madame Bechet, who, with unexpected liberality, herself paid 4000 francs for corrections; and in July, 1834, he got rid of publisher Gosselin, whom he politely designates as a "nightmare of silliness," and a "rost-beaf ambulant," and started business with Werdet, not yet the "vulture who fed on Prometheus," but an excellent young man, somewhat resembling "l'illustre Gaudissart," full of devotion and energy.
Two members of the Academy of Sciences taught him chemistry, so that he might be exact in his representation of Claes' experiments; and he read Berzelius into the bargain. Moreover, he had revised and modified the proofs of the novel no fewer than a dozen times. As Werdet tells, the real work of composition, with Balzac, hardly commenced until he had a set of galley proofs.
From its windows a good view was obtained of the Seine, the Champ de Mars, the Ecole Militaire, and the Dome of the Invalides. As a matter of fact, the house of the Rue des Batailles was for a time a supplementary dwelling rented by the novelist, so Werdet says, as a hiding-place from the myrmidons of the law.
A whole pile of perfumed epistles sent by feminine sympathizers was lying on the table, and the publisher had to open them and read them aloud to his companion. When a third day's confinement was decided on by the authorities, Werdet arranged to celebrate it by a dinner that should merit being put on record.
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