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Optimal and Robust
Control
 Optimal and Robust
Control
Advanced Topics with MATLAB®
Second Edition

Luigi Fortuna
Mattia Frasca
Arturo Buscarino
MATLAB® is a trademark of The MathWorks, Inc. and is used with permission. The MathWorks
does not warrant the accuracy of the text or exercises in this book. This book’s use or discussion of
MATLAB® software or related products does not constitute endorsement or sponsorship by The
MathWorks of a particular pedagogical approach or particular use of the MATLAB® software.

Second edition published 2022

by CRC Press
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and by CRC Press

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© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

First edition published by CRC Press 2012

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Dedicated to our wives
Contents

Preface xiii

Symbol List xv

1 Modelling of Uncertain Systems and the Robust Control

Problem 1

1.1 Uncertainty and Robust Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.2 The Essential Chronology of Major Findings in Robust Con-
trol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 Fundamentals of Stability 11

2.1 Lyapunov Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2.2 Positive Definite Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Lyapunov Theory for Linear Time-Invariant Systems . . . . 16
2.4 Lyapunov Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.5 Stability with Uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.6 Further Results on the Lyapunov Theory . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.6.1 Hystorical Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.6.2 Lyapunov Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.7 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3 Kalman Canonical Decomposition 35

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.2 Controllability Canonical Partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.3 Observability Canonical Partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.4 General Partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.5 Remarks on Kalman Decomposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.6 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

4 Singular Value Decomposition 51

4.1 Singular Values of a Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

4.2 Spectral Norm and Condition Number of a Matrix . . . . . 53
4.3 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

vii
viii Contents

5 Open-loop Balanced Realization 59

5.1 Controllability and Observability Gramians . . . . . . . . . 59

5.2 Principal Component Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.3 Principal Component Analysis Applied to Linear Systems . 64
5.4 State Transformations of Gramians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.5 Singular Values of Linear Time-invariant Systems . . . . . . 68
5.6 Computing the Open-loop Balanced Realization . . . . . . 69
5.7 Balanced Realization for Discrete-time Linear Systems . . . 73
5.8 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

6 Reduced Order Models and Symmetric Systems 77

6.1 Reduced Order Models Based on the Open-loop Balanced Re-

alization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.1.1 Direct Truncation Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.1.2 Singular Perturbation Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
6.2 Reduced Order Model Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
6.3 Symmetric Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.3.1 Reduced Order Models for SISO Systems . . . . . . . 86
6.3.2 Properties of Symmetric Systems . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.3.3 The Cross-gramian Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6.3.4 Relations Between Wc2 , Wo2 and Wco . . . . . . . . . 90
6.3.5 Open-loop Parameterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
6.3.6 Relation Between the Cauchy Index and the Hankel
Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.3.7 Singular Values for a FIR Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.3.8 Singular Values of All-pass Systems . . . . . . . . . . 102
6.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

7 Variational Calculus and Linear Quadratic Optimal Control 107

7.1 Variational Calculus: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

7.2 The Lagrange Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
7.3 Towards Optimal Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
7.4 LQR Optimal Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.5 Hamiltonian Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7.6 Solving the Riccati Equation via the Hamiltonian Matrix . 127
7.7 The Control Algebraic Riccati Equation . . . . . . . . . . . 127
7.8 Optimal Control for SISO Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
7.9 Linear Quadratic Regulator with Cross-weighted Cost . . . 134
7.10 Finite-horizon Linear Quadratic Regulator . . . . . . . . . . 135
7.11 Optimal Control for Discrete-time Linear Systems . . . . . 136
7.12 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Contents ix

8 Closed-loop Balanced Realization 139

8.1 Synthesis of a Compensator for High-Order Systems . . . . 139

8.2 Filtering Algebraic Riccati Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.3 Computing the Closed-loop Balanced Realization . . . . . . 142
8.4 Procedure for Closed-loop Balanced Realization . . . . . . . 144
8.5 Reduced Order Models Based on Closed-loop Balanced Real-
ization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
8.6 Closed-loop Balanced Realization for Symmetric Systems . 149
8.7 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

9 Positive-real, Bounded-real and Negative-imaginary Systems 153

9.1 Passive Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

9.1.1 Passivity in the Frequency Domain . . . . . . . . . . 154
9.1.2 Passivity in the Time Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
9.1.3 Factorizing Positive-real Functions . . . . . . . . . . 160
9.1.4 Passive Reduced Order Models . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.1.5 Energy Considerations Connected to the Positive-real
Lemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.1.6 Closed-loop Stability and Positive-real Systems . . . 162
9.1.7 Optimal Gain for Loss-less Systems . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.2 Circuit Implementation of Positive-real Systems . . . . . . . 165
9.3 Bounded-real Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
9.3.1 Properties of Bounded-real Systems . . . . . . . . . . 169
9.3.2 Bounded-real Reduced Order Models . . . . . . . . . 170
9.4 Relationship Between Passive and Bounded-real Systems . . 170
9.5 Negative-imaginary Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
9.5.1 Characterization of Negative-imaginary Systems in the
Frequency Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
9.5.2 Characterization of Negative-imaginary Systems in the
Time Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
9.5.3 Closed-loop Stability and Negative-imaginary Systems 176
9.6 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

10 Enforcing the Positive-real or the Negative-imaginary

Property in a Linear Model 181

10.1 Why to Enforce the Positive-real and Negative-Imaginary

Property in a Linear Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
10.2 Passification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
10.3 Forward Action to make a System Negative-Imaginary . . . 187
10.3.1 The SISO Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
10.3.2 The MIMO Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
10.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
x Contents

11 H∞ Linear Control 195

11.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

11.2 Solution of the H∞ Linear Control Problem . . . . . . . . . 197
11.3 The H∞ Linear Control and the Uncertainty Problem . . . 205
11.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

12 Linear Matrix Inequalities for Optimal and Robust Control 209

12.1 Definition and Properties of LMI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

12.2 LMI Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
12.2.1 Feasibility Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
12.2.2 Linear Objective Minimization Problem . . . . . . . 212
12.2.3 Generalized Eigenvalue Minimization Problem . . . . 212
12.3 Formulation of Control Problems in LMI Terms . . . . . . . 213
12.3.1 Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
12.3.2 Closed-loop Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
12.3.3 Simultaneous Stabilizability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
12.3.4 Positive-real Lemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
12.3.5 Bounded-real Lemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
12.3.6 Calculating the H∞ Norm Through LMI . . . . . . . 215
12.4 Solving a LMI Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
12.5 LMI Problem for Simultaneous Stabilizability . . . . . . . . 218
12.6 Solving Algebraic Riccati Equations Through LMI . . . . . 221
12.7 Computation of Gramians Through LMI . . . . . . . . . . . 223
12.8 Computation of the Hankel Norm Through LMI . . . . . . 224
12.9 H∞ Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
12.10 Multiobjective Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
12.11 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

13 The Class of Stabilizing Controllers 237

13.1 Parameterization of Stabilizing Controllers for Stable

Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
13.2 Parameterization of Stabilizing Controllers for Unstable
Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
13.3 Parameterization of Stable Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
13.4 Simultaneous Stabilizability of Two Systems . . . . . . . . . 245
13.5 Coprime Factorizations for MIMO Systems and Unitary
Factorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
13.6 Parameterization in Presence of Uncertainty . . . . . . . . . 247
13.7 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Contents xi

14 Formulation and Solution of Matrix Algebraic Problems

through Optimization Problems 253

14.1 Solutions of Matrix Algebra Problems Using Dynamical Sys-

tems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
14.1.1 Problem 1: Inverse of a Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
14.1.2 Problem 2: Eigenvalues of a Matrix . . . . . . . . . . 256
14.1.3 Problem 3: Eigenvectors of a Symmetric Positive Def-
inite Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
14.1.4 Problem 4: Observability and Controllability Gramian 259
14.2 Computation of the Open-loop Balanced Representation via
the Dynamical System Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
14.3 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
14.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

15 Time-delay Systems 265

15.1 Modeling Systems with Time-delays . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

15.2 Basic Principles of Time-delay Systems . . . . . . . . . . . 266
15.3 Stability of Time-delay Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
15.4 Stability of Time-delay Systems with q = 1 . . . . . . . . . 270
15.5 Direct Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
15.6 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Recommended Essential References 283

Appendix A. Norms 291

Appendix B. Algebraic Riccati Equations 295

Appendix C. Invariance Under Frequency Transformations 299

Index 303
Preface

The main aim of this book is to provide for undergraduate and graduate
students, as well as researchers, who already possess the main concepts of
automatic control and system analysis, a self-contained resource collecting
advanced techniques for linear system theory and control design. Selected
theoretical backgrounds are also presented in the book, together with many
numerical exercises and MATLABr examples.
We intend to offer a complete and easy-to-read handbook of advanced
topics in automatic control, including techniques such as the Linear Quadratic
Regulator (LQR) and H∞ control. Large emphasis is also given to Linear
Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) with the purpose of demonstrating their use as a
unifying tool for system analysis and control design.
In presenting the different approaches to control design, the books explic-
itly takes into account the problem of the robustness of the obtained closed-
loop control. Robustness, in fact, represents the capability of a control system
to guarantee the stability in the presence of uncertainty, due to the model itself
or to the use of approximated models, and as such is deemed as particularly
important in view of the practical implementation of the control techniques.
Many books on LQR control and H∞ control have been proposed since
1980. The LMI technique has become well-known in the control community,
and MATLABr toolboxes to solve advanced control problems have been de-
veloped. However, these subjects are often presented for a specialist audience
in materials that are excellent resources for researchers and PhD students.
This book, on the contrary, is oriented to illustrate these topics in an easy
and concise way, using a language suitable for students, yet maintaining the
necessary mathematical rigor.
This book is, therefore, a compendium of many ordered subjects. For spe-
cific proofs, the reader is often referred to the proposed literature. Many ex-
amples and MATLABr based exercises are included here to assist the reader
in understanding the proposed methods. The book can be considered as a
palimpsest of advanced modern topics in automatic control, including an ad-
vanced set of analytical examples and MATLABr exercises. The topics in-
cluded in the book are mainly illustrated with reference to continuous-time
linear systems, even if some results for discrete-time systems are briefly re-
called.
The book is organized into chapters structured as follows. The first chapter
is an introduction to advanced control, the second discusses some fundamental
concepts on stability and provides the tools for studying uncertain systems.

xiii
xiv Preface

The third presents the Kalman decomposition. The fourth chapter is on sin-
gular value decomposition of a matrix, given the importance of numerical
techniques for systems analysis. The fifth and sixth chapters are on open-loop
balanced realization and reduced order models. The seventh chapter presents
the essential aspects of variational calculus and optimal control and the eighth
illustrates closed-loop balancing. The properties of positive-real, bounded-real
and negative-imaginary systems are the subject of the ninth and tenth chap-
ter. In the eleventh and twelfth chapter, the essential aspects of H∞ control
and LMI techniques commonly used in control systems design are dealt with.
The thirteenth chapter is devoted to discuss the class of stabilizing controllers.
The fourteenth chapter reviews some of the problems already discussed in the
book by introducing an approach based on the steady-state solution of a non-
linear dynamical system. Finally, the fifteenth chapter briefly discusses some
fundamental aspects of time-delay systems. The book also includes numerous
examples and exercises, considered indispensable for learning the methodology
of the topics dealt with, and a list of essential references.
This book is targeted at electrical, electronic, computer science, space and
automation engineers interested in advanced topics on automatic control. Me-
chanical engineers as well as engineers from other fields may also be inter-
ested in the topics of the book. The contents of the book can be learned
autonomously by the reader in less than a semester.

For MATLABr and Simulinkr product information, please contact:

The MathWorks, Inc.

3 Apple Hill Drive
Natick, MA 01760-2098 USA
Tel: 508-647-7000
Fax: 508-647-7001
Email: info@mathworks.com
Web: www.mathworks.com
Other documents randomly have
different content
If you knew the harm your letter has done me. You do not know me
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Paris, Wednesday, October 23,

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To you, my love, to you a thousand tendernesses. Yesterday I was
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package to be full. So much the better if I am blamed; the
recollection will be all the more precious.
My darling, you can very well say that you saw me at Neufchâtel, for
that can no more be concealed than the nose upon one's face. It will
be known; it should therefore be told, soul of my soul.[1]
You see I answer all you write to me, but hap-hazard. I am in haste
to finish what I call the business of our love, to talk to you of love.
What! you have read the "Contes Drolatiques" without the
permission of your husband of love? Inquisitive one! O my angel, it
needs a heart as pure as yours to read and enjoy "Le Péché véniel."
That's a diamond of naïveté. But, dearest, you have been very
audacious. I am afraid you will love me less. One must know our
national literature so well, the grand, majestic literature of the
seventeenth century, so sparkling with genius, so free in
deportment, so lively in words which, in those days, were not yet
dishonoured, that I am afraid for myself. I repeat to you, if there is
something of me that will live, it is those Contes. The man who
writes a hundred of them can never die. Re-read the epilogue of the
second dizain and judge. Above all, regard these books as careless
arabesques traced with love. What do you think of the "Succube"?
My dear beloved, that tale cost me six months of torture. I was ill of
it. I think your criticisms without foundation. The trial of the
supposed poisoners of the Dauphin was held at Moulin's, by
Chancellor Paget, before the captivity of François I.; I have not the
time to verify it. Catherine de' Medici was Dauphine in 1536, I think.
Yes, the battle of Pavia was in 1525; you are right. I think you are
right as to the Connétable; it was Duc François de Montmorency
who married the Duchesse de Farnese. But all that is contested. I
will verify it very carefully, and will correct it in the second edition.
Thank you, my love; enlighten me, and for all the faults you find, as
many tender thanks. Nevertheless, in these Contes there must be
incorrectnesses; that's the usage; but there must not be lies.
Enough said, my beloved love, my darling Eva. Here is nearly half a
night employed on you, in writing to you. Mon Dieu, return it to me
in caresses! I must, angel, resume my collar of misery; but it shall
not be until I have put here for you all the flowers of my heart, a
thousand tendernesses, a thousand caresses, all the prayers of a
poor solitary who lives between his thoughts and his love.
Adieu, my cherished beauty; one kiss upon those beautiful red lips,
so fresh, so kind, a kiss which goes far, which clasps you. I will not
say adieu. Oh! when shall I have your dear portrait? If, by chance
you have it mounted, let it be between two plaques of enamel so
that the whole may not be thicker than a five-franc piece, for I want
to have it always on my heart. It will be my talisman; I shall feel it
there; I shall draw strength and courage from it. From it will dart the
rays of that glory I wish so great, so broad, so radiant to wrap you in
its light.
Come, I must leave you; always with regret. But once at liberty and
without annoyances, what sweet pilgrimages! But my thought goes
faster, and every night it glides about your heart, your head, it
covers you.
Adieu, then. À demain. To-morrow I must go to the Duchesse
d'Abrantès; I will tell you why when I get back.
[1] This sentence alone would show the falseness of these letters. On pp. 182,
183, vol. xxiv., Éd. Déf., are two letters of Balzac written from Neufchâtel; one to
Charles de Bernard, the other to Mme. Carraud. In the latter he says: "I have just
accompanied the great Borget to the frontier of the sovereign states of this
town.... I conclude here (Paris) this letter, begun at Neufchâtel. Just think that, at
the moment when I had ensconced myself by my fire to answer you at length and
reply to your last good letter, they came for me to go and see views [sites]; and
that lasted till my departure." A man who goes about sight-seeing with a family
party would not have written the sentence in the text.
The writer of it himself makes a slip, and forgets that he has said in the "Roman d'
Amour" letter that on one of these excursions (to the Lake of Bienne) the husband
was sent to order breakfast while they gave themselves a first kiss. Murder will out
in small ways.—TR.

Thursday, 24.
This morning, my cherished love, I have failed in an attempt which
might have been fortunate. I went to offer to a capitalist, who
receives the indemnities agreed upon between us for the works
promised and not written, a certain number of copies of the "Études
de Mœurs." I proposed to him five thousand francs à terme for three
thousand échus. He refused everything, even my signature and a
note, saying that my fortune was in my talent and I might die. The
scene was one of the basest I ever knew. Gobseck was nothing to
him; I endured, all red, the contact with an iron soul. Some day, I
will describe it. I went to the duchess that she might undertake a
negotiation of the same kind with the man who had the lawsuit with
me, her publisher, who cut my throat. Will she succeed? I am in the
agonies of expectation, and yet I must have the serenity, the
calmness, that are necessary for my enormous work.
My angel, I cannot go to Geneva until the first part of the "Études de
Mœurs" appears published, and the second is well under way. That
done, I shall have fifteen days to myself, twenty perhaps; all will
depend on the more or less money that I shall have, for I have an
important payment to make the end of December. I am satisfied
with my publisher; he is active, does not play the gentleman, takes
up my enterprise as a fortune, and considers it eminently profitable.
We must have a success, a great success. "Eugénie Grandet" is a
fine work. I have nearly all my ideas for the parts that remain to do
in these twelve volumes. My life is now well regulated: rise at
midnight after going to bed at six o'clock; a bath every third day,
fourteen hours of work, two for walking. I bury myself in my ideas
and from time to time your dear head appears like a beam of
sunlight. Oh, my dear Eva, I have but you in this world; my life is
concentrated in your dear heart. All the ties of human sentiment
bind me to it. I think, breathe, work by you, for you. What a noble
life: love and thought! But what a misfortune to be in the
embarrassments of poverty to the last moment! How dearly nature
sells us happiness! I must go through another six months of toil,
privation, struggle, to be completely happy. But how many things
may happen in six months! My beautiful hidden life consoles me for
all. You would shudder if I told you all my agonies, which, like
Napoleon on a battlefield, I forget. On sitting down at my little table,
well, I laugh, I am tranquil. That little table, it belongs to my darling,
my Eve, my wife. I have had it these ten years; it has seen all my
miseries, wiped away all my tears, known all my projects, heard all
my thoughts; my arm has nearly worn it out by dint of rubbing it as
I write.
Mon Dieu! my jeweller is in the country; I have confidence in him
only. Anna's cross will be delayed. That annoys me more than my
own troubles at the end of the month. Your quince marmalade is on
its way to Paris.
My dear treasure, I have no news to give you; I go nowhere, and
see no one. You will find nothing but yourself in my letters, an
inexhaustible love. Be prudent, my dear diamond. Oh! tell me that
you will love me always, because, don't you see, Eva, I love you for
all my life. I am happy in having the consciousness of my love, in
being in a thing immense, in living in the limited eternity that we can
give to a feeling, but which is an eternity to us. Oh! let me take you
in thought in my arms, clasp you, hold your head upon my heart and
kiss your forehead innocently. My cherished one, here, from afar, I
can express to you my love. I feel that I can love you always, find
myself each day in the heart of a love stronger than that of the day
before, and say to you daily words more sweet. You please me daily
more and more; daily you lodge better in my heart; never betray a
love so great. I have but you in the world; you will know in Geneva
only all that there is in those words. For the moment I will tell you
that Madame de C[astries] writes me that we are not to see each
other again; she had taken offence at a letter, and I at many other
things. Be assured that there is no love in all this. Mon Dieu! how
everything withdraws itself from me? How deep my solitude is
becoming! Persecution is beginning for me in literature! The last
obligations to pay off keep me at home in continual gigantic toil. Ah!
how my soul springs from this person to join your soul, my dear
country of love.
I paused here to think of you; I abandoned myself to revery; tears
came into my eyes, tears of happiness. I cannot express to you my
thoughts. I send you a kiss full of love. Divine my soul!

Saturday, 26.
Yesterday, my beloved treasure, I ran about on business, pressing
business; at night I had to correct the volumes which go to press
Monday. No answer from the duchess. Oh! she will not succeed. I
am too happy in the noble regions of the soul and thought to be also
happy in the petty interests of life. I have many letters to write; my
work carries me away, and I get behindhand. How powerful is the
dominion of thought! I sleep in peace on a rotten plank. That alone
expresses my situation. So much money to pay, and to do it the pen
with which I write to you—. Oh! no, I have two, my love; yours is for
your letters only; it lasts, usually, six months.
I have corrected "La Femme Abandonnée," "Le Message," and "Les
Célibataires." That has taken me twenty-six hours since Thursday.
One has to attend to the newspapers. To manage the French public
is not a slight affair. To make it favorable to a work in twelve
volumes is an enterprise, a campaign. What contempt one pours on
men in making them move and seeing them squabble. Some are
bought. My publisher tells me there is a tariff of consciences among
the feuilletonists. Shall I receive in my house a single one of these
fellows? I'd rather die unknown!
To-morrow I resume my manuscript work. I want to finish either
"Eugénie Grandet" or "Les Aventures d'une idée heureuse." It is five
o'clock; I am going to dinner, my only meal, then to bed and to
sleep. I fall asleep always in thoughts of you, seeking a sweet
moment of Neufchâtel, carrying myself back to it, and so, quitting
the visible world, bearing away one of your smiles or listening to
your words.
Did I tell you that persons from Berlin, Vienna, and Hamburg had
complimented me on my successes in Germany, where, said these
gracious people, nothing was talked of but your Honoré? This was at
Gérard's. But I must have told you this. I wish the whole earth would
speak of me with admiration, so that in laying it on your knees you
might have the whole world for yourself.
Adieu, for to-day, my angel. To-morrow my caresses, my words all
full of love and desires. I will write after receiving the letter which
will, no doubt, come to-morrow. Dear, celestial day! Would I could
invent words and caresses for you alone. I put a kiss here.

Sunday, 27.
What! my dear love, no letters? Such grief not to know what you
think! Oh! send me two letters a week; let me receive one on
Wednesdays and the other on Sundays. I have waited for the last
courier, and can only write a few words. Do not make me suffer; be
as punctual as possible. My life is in your hands:
I have no answer to my negotiations.
Adieu, my dear breath. This last page will bring you a thousand
caresses, my heart, and some anxieties. My cherished one, you
speak of a cold, of your health. Oh, to be so far away! Mon Dieu! all
that is anguish in my life pales before the thought that you are ill.
To-morrow, angel. To-morrow I shall get another letter. My head
swims now. Adieu, my good genius, my dear wife; a thousand
flowers of love are here for you.

Paris, Monday, October 28, 1833.

I have your letter, my love. How much agony in one day's delay. À
demain; I will tell you then why I cannot answer to-day.

Tuesday, 29.
My cherished Eva, on Thursday I have four or five thousand francs
to pay, and, speaking literally, I have not a sou. These are little
battles to which I am accustomed. Since childhood I have never yet
possessed two sous that I could regard as my own property. I have
always triumphed until to-day. So now I must rush about the world
of money to make up my sum. I lose my time; I hang about town.
One man is in the country; another hesitates; my securities seem
doubtful to him. I have ten thousand francs in notes out, however;
but by to-morrow night, last limit, I shall no doubt have found some.
The two days I am losing are a horrible discount.
I only tell you these things to let you know what my life is. It is a
fight for money, a battle against the envious, perpetual struggles
with my subjects, physical struggles, moral struggles, and if I failed
to triumph a single time I should be exactly dead.
Beloved angel, be a thousand times blessed for your drop of water,
for your offer; it is all for me and yet it is nothing. You see what a
thousand francs would be when ten thousand a month are needed.
If I could find nine I could find twelve. But I should have liked in
reading that delicious letter of yours to have plunged my hand in the
sea and drawn out all its pearls to strew them on your beautiful
black hair. Angel of devotion and love, all your dear, adored soul is in
that letter. But what are all the pearls of the sea! I have shed two
tears of joy, of gratitude, of voluptuous tenderness, which for you,
for me, are worth more than all the riches of the whole world; is it
not so, my Eva, my idol? In reading this feel yourself pressed by an
arm that is drunk with love and take the kiss I send you ideally. You
will find a thousand on the rose-leaf which will be in this letter.
Let us drop this sad money; I will tell you, however, that the two
most important negotiations on which I counted for my liberation
have failed. You have made me too happy; my luck of soul and heart
is too immense for matters of mere interest to succeed. I expiate my
happiness.
Celestial powers! whom do you expect me to be writing to, I who
have no time for anything? My love, be tranquil; my heart can bloom
only in the depths of your heart. Write to others! to others the
perfume of my secret thoughts! Can you think it? No, no, to you, my
life, my dearest moments. My noble and dear wife of the heart, be
easy. You ask me for new assurances about your letters; ask me for
no more. All precautions are taken that what you write me shall be
like vows of love confided from heart to heart between two caresses.
No trace! the cedar box is closed; no power can open it; and the
person ordered to burn it if I die is a Jacquet, the original of Jacquet,
who is named Jacquet, one of my friends, a poor clerk whose
honesty is iron tempered like a blade of Orient. You see, my love,
that I do not trust either the dilecta or my sister. Do not speak to me
of that any more. I understand the importance of your wish; I love
you the more for it if possible, and as you are all my religion, an
idolized God, your desires shall be accomplished with fanaticism.
What are orders? Oh! no, don't go to Fribourg. I adore you as
religious, but no confession, no Jesuits. Stay in Geneva.
My jeweller does not return; it vexes me a little. My package is
delayed: but it is true that the "Caricature" is not yet bound and I
wish you to receive all that I promised to send.
Mon Dieu! your letter has refreshed my soul! You are very ravishing,
my frolic angel, darling flower. Oh! tell me all. I would like more time
to myself to tell you my life. But here I am, caught by twelve
volumes to publish, like a galley-slave in his handcuffs.
I have been to see Madame Delphine de Girardin this morning. I had
to implore her to find a place for a poor man recommended to me
by the lady of Angoulême, who terrified me by her silent missive.
The sorrows of others kills me! Mine, I know how to bear. Madame
Delphine promised me to do all she could with Émile de Girardin
when he returns.
Apropos, my love, "L'Europe littéraire" is insolvent; there is a
meeting to-morrow of all the shareholders to devise means. I shall
go at seven o'clock, and as it is only a step from Madame Delphine's
I dine with her, and I shall finish the evening at Gérard's. So, I am all
upset for two days. Moreover, in the mornings I run about for
money. Already the hundred louis of Mademoiselle Eugénie Grandet
have gone off in smoke. I must bear it all patiently, as Monsieur
Hanski's sheep let themselves be sheared.
My rich love, what can I tell you to soothe your heart? That my
tenderness, the certainty of your affection, the beautiful secret life
you make me dwarfs everything and I laugh at my troubles—there
are no longer any troubles for me. Oh! I love you, my Eva! love you
as you wish to be loved, without limit. I like to say that to myself;
imagine therefore the happiness with which I repeat it.
I have to say to you that I don't like your reflected portrait, made
from a copy. No, no. I have in my heart a dear portrait that delights
me. I will wait till you have had a portrait made that is a better
likeness after nature. Poor treasure, oh! your shawl. I am proud to
think that I alone in the world can comprehend the pleasure you had
in giving it, and that I have that of reading what you have written to
me,—I who do these things so great and so little, so magnificent
and so nothing, which make a museum for the heart out of a straw!
My beloved, my thoughts develop all the tissues of love, and I would
like to display them to you, and make you a rich mantle of them. I
would like you to walk upon my soul, and in my heart, so as to feel
none of the mud of life.
Adieu, for to-day, my saintly and beautiful creature, you the principle
of my life and courage. You who love, who are beautiful, who have
everything and have given yourself to a poor youth. Ah! my heart
will be always young, fresh, and tender for you. In the immensity of
days I see no storm possible that can come to us. I shall always
come to you with a soul full of love, a smile upon my lips, and a soft
word ready to caress you in the ear. My Eva, I love you.

Thursday morning, 31.

No more anxieties, all is arranged! Here are six thousand francs
found, five thousand five hundred paid! There remains to the poor
poet five hundred francs in a noble bank-bill. Joy is in the house. I
ask if Paris is for sale. My love, you'll end by knowing a bachelor's
life!
Yesterday, all was doubtful. In two hours of time all was settled. I
started to find my doctor, an old friend of my family, seeing that I
had nothing to hope from bankers. Ah! in the course of the way I
met R... who took me by the hand and led me to his wife. They
were getting into a carriage. Caresses, offers of service, why did
they never see me? why...? A thousand questions, and Madame R...
began to make eyes at me as she did at Aix, where she tried to seize
my portrait on the sly.
Can't you see me, my love, in conference with a prince of money,—
me, who couldn't find four sous! Was anything ever more fantastic?
A single word to say, and my twelve thousand francs of notes of
hand went into the gulf. I said nothing about it, and certainly he
would not have taken a sou of discount. I laughed like one of the
blest, as I left him, at the situation.
I resume; seeing that I had nothing to hope from bankers, I
reflected that I owed three hundred francs to my doctor; I went and
paid them with one of my commercial notes, and he returned me
seven hundred francs, less the discount. From there I went to my
landlord, an old wheat-dealer in the Halle; I paid him my rent, and
he returned me on my note, which he accepted, seven hundred
more francs, less the discount. From there I went to my tailor, who
at once took one of my thousand-franc notes and put it in his
memorandum of discount [bordereau d'escompte—cash account?]
and returned me a thousand francs!
Finding myself in the humour, I got into a cabriolet and went to see
a friend, a double millionnaire, a friend of twenty years' standing. He
had just returned from Berlin. I found him; he turned to his desk
and gave me two thousand francs, and took two of my notes from
Madame Bêchet without looking at them. Oh! oh! I came home, I
sent for my wood merchant and my grocer to come and settle our
accounts, and to each I paid, in bank-bills, five hundred francs! At
four o'clock I was free, my payments for to-day prepared. Here I
am, tranquil for a month. I resume my seat on my fragile seasaw
and my imagination rocks me. Ecco, signora!
My dear, faithful wife, did I not owe you this faithful picture of your
Paris household? Yes, but there are five thousand francs of the
twenty-seven thousand eaten up, and I have, before I can go to
Geneva, ten thousand francs to pay: three thousand to my mother,
one thousand to my sister, and six thousand in indemnities. "Yah!
monsieur, where will you get all that?" In my inkbottle, dearly
beloved Eva.
I am dressed like a lord, I have dined with Madame Delphine, and,
after being present at the death agony of "L'Europe littéraire," I
went joyously to Gérard's, where I complimented Grisi, whom I had
heard the night before in "La Gazza ladra" with Rossini, who, having
met me Tuesday on the Boulevard, forced me to go to his opera-box
to talk un poco; and as on that Tuesday your poor Honoré had dined
with Madame d'A[brantès] who had to render him an account of the
great negotiation (which missed fire) with Mame, he had, your poor
youth, to drown his sorrows in harmony. What a life, ma minette!
What strange discordances, what contrasts!
At Gérard's I heard the admirable Vigano. She refused to sing,
snubbed everybody; I arrived, I asked her for an air; she sat down
at the piano, sang, and delighted us. Thiers asked who I was; being
told, he said, "It is all plain, now." And the whole assembly of artists
marvelled.
The secret of it is that I was, last winter, full of admiration for
Madame Vigano; I idolize her singing; she knows that, and I am a
Kreizler to her. I went to bed at two o'clock after returning on foot
through the deserted, silent streets of the Luxembourg quarter,
admiring the blue sky and the effects of moon and vapour on the
Luxembourg, the Pantheon, Saint-Sulpice, the Val-de-Grâce, the
Observatoire, and the boulevards, drowned in torrents of thought
and carrying two thousand francs upon me—though I had forgotten
them; my valet found them. That night of love had plunged me in
ecstasy; you were in the heavens! they spoke of love; I walked,
listening whether from those stars your cherished voice would fall,
sweet and harmonious, to my ears, and vibrate in my heart; and, my
idol, my flower, my life, I embroidered a few arabesques on the evil
stuff of my days of anguish and toil.
To-day, Thursday, here I am back again in my study, correcting
proofs, recovering from my trips into the material world, resuming
my chimeras, my love; and in forty-eight hours the charms of
midnight rising, going to bed at six in the evening, frugality, and
bodily inaction will be resumed.
We have had, for the last week, an actual summer; the finest
weather ever created. Paris is superb. Love of my life, a thousand
kisses are committed to the airs for you; a thousand thoughts of
happiness are shed during my rushing about, and I know not what
disdain in seeing men. They have not, as I have, an immense love in
their hearts, a throne before which I prostrate myself without
servility, the figure of a madonna, a beautiful brow of love which I
kiss at all hours, an Eve who gilds all my dreams, who lights my life.
Adieu, my constant thought, à demain. I may not be so talkative; to-
morrow comes toil.

Friday.
I have worked all day at two proofs which have taken me twenty
hours; then I must, I think, find something to complete my second
volume of "Scènes de la Vie de province" because to make a fine
book the printers so compress my manuscript that another Scene is
wanted of forty or fifty pages. Nothing to-day, therefore, to her who
has all my heart; nothing but a thousand kisses, and my dear
evening thoughts when I go to sleep thinking of you.
To-morrow, pretty Eve.

Saturday.
Certainly, my love, you will not act comedy. I have not spoken to you
of that. I have just re-read your last letter. It is a prostitution to
exhibit one's self in that way; to speak words of love. Oh! be
sacredly mine! If I should tell you to what a point my delicacy goes,
you would think me worthy of an angel like yourself. I love you in
me. I wish to live far away from you, like the flower in the seed, and
to let my sentiments blossom for you alone.
To-day I have laboriously invented the "Cabinet des Antiques;" you
will read that some day. I wrote seventeen of the feuillets at once. I
am very tired. I am going to dress to dine with my publisher, where I
shall meet Béranger. I shall get home late; I have still some business
to settle.
My cherished love, as soon as the first part appears and the second
is printed I shall fly to Geneva and stay there a good three weeks. I
shall go to the Hôtel de la Couronne, in the gloomy chamber I
occupied [in 1832]. I quiver twenty times a day at the idea of seeing
you. I meant to speak to you of Madame de C[astries], but I have
not the time. Twenty-five days hence I will tell you by word of
mouth. In two words, your Honoré, my Eva, grew angered by the
coldness which simulated friendship. I said what I thought; the reply
was that I ought not to see again a woman to whom I could say
such cruel things. I asked a thousand pardons for the "great liberty,"
and we continue on a very cold footing.
I have read Hoffmann through; he is beneath his reputation; there is
something of it, but not much. He writes well of music; he does not
understand love, or woman; he does not cause fear; it is impossible
to cause it with physical things.
One kiss and I go.

Sunday.
Up at eight o'clock; I came in last night at eleven. Here are my hours
upset for four days. Frightful loss! I awaited the old gentleman on
whose behalf I implored Delphine. He did not come. It is eleven
o'clock,—no letter from Geneva. What anxiety! O my love, I entreat
you, try to send me letters on regular days; spare the sensibility of a
child's heart. You know how virgin my love is. Strong as my love is, it
is delicate, oh! my darling. I love you as you wish to be loved, solely.
In my solitude a mere nothing troubles me. My blood is stirred by a
syllable.
I have just come from my garden; I have gathered one of the last
violets in bloom there; as I walked I addressed to you a hymn of
love; take it, on this violet; take the kisses placed upon the rose-leaf.
The rose is kisses, the violet is thoughts. My work and you, that is
the world to me. Beyond that, nothing. I avoid all that is not my Eva,
my thoughts. Dear flower of heaven, my fairy, you have touched all
here with your wand; here, through you, all is beautiful. However
embarrassed life may be, it is smooth, it is even. Above my head I
see fine skies.
Well, to-morrow, I shall have a letter. Adieu, my cherished soul!
Thank you a thousand times for your kind letters; do not spare
them. I would like to be always writing to you; but, poor
unfortunate, I am obliged to think sometimes of the gold I draw
from my inkstand. You are my heart; what can I give you?

Paris, Wednesday, November 6,

1833.
The agonies you have gone through, my Eve, I have very cruelly
felt, for your letter arrived only to-day. I cannot describe all the
horrible chimeras which tortured me from time to time; for the delay
of one of your letters puts everything in doubt between you and me;
the delay of one of mine does not imply so many evils to fear.
As to the last page of your letter, endeavour to forget it. I pardon it,
and I suffer at your distress. To be unjust and ill-natured! You
remind me of the man who thought his dog mad and killed him, and
then perceived that he was warning him not to lose his forgotten
treasure.
You speak of death. There is something more dreadful, and that is
pain; and I have just endured one of which I will not speak to you.
As to my relations with the person you speak of, I never had any
that were very tender; I have none now. I answered a very
unimportant letter, and, apropos of a sentence, I explained myself;
that was all. There are relations of politeness due to women of a
certain rank whom one has known; but a visit to Madame Récamier
is not, I suppose, relations, when one goes to see her once in three
months.
Mon Dieu! the man who seems to be justifying himself has just been
stabbed to the heart. He smiles to you, my Eve, and this man does
not sleep—he, rather a sleepy man—more than five hours and a half.
He works seventeen hours, to be able to stay a week in your sight; I
sell years of my life to go and see you. This is not a reproach. But
you may say to me, you, that perhaps I love the pages I write from
necessity better than my love. But with you I am not proud, I am
not humble. I am, I try to be, you. You have suffered; I suffer,—you
wished to make me suffer. You will regret it. Try that it may not
happen again; you will break the heart that loves you, as a child
breaks a toy to look inside of it. Poor Eva! So we do not know each
other? Oh, yes, we do, don't we?
Mon Dieu! to punish me for my confidence! for the joy that I feel
more and more in solitude! I don't know where my mother is; it is
two months that no one has any news of her. No letters from my
brother. My sister is in the country, guarded by duennas fastened on
her by her husband, and he is travelling. So I have no one to tell you
about. The dilecta is with her son at Chaumont, with the devil. I am
myself in a torrent of proofs, corrections, copies, works. And it is at
the moment when I expected to plunge into all my joys that, after
your first pages, I find the pompous praise of ..., mon Dieu! and my
accusation and condemnation, which will bleed long in a heart like
mine.
I am sad and melancholy, wounded, weeping, and awaiting the
serenity that never comes full and complete. If you wished that, if
you wished to pour upon my life as much pain as I have toil
(impossible now), Eva, you have succeeded. As to anger, no;
reproaches? what good are they? Either you are in despair at having
pained me, or you are content to have done so. I do not doubt you.
I would like to console you; but you have cruelly abused the
distance that separates us, the poverty that prevents my taking a
post-chaise, the engagements of honour which forbid me to leave
Paris before the 25th or 26th of this month. You have been a
woman; I thought you an angel. I may love you the better for it; you
bring yourself nearer to me. I will smile to you without ceasing. Ever
since I knew the Indian maxim, "Never strike, even with a flower, a
woman with a hundred faults," I have made that the rule of my
conduct. But it does not prevent me from feeling to the heart, more
violently than those who kill their mistresses feel, insults, and
suspicions of evil. I, so exclusive, tainted with commonness! made
petty enough to be lowered to vengeance! What! that love so pure,
you stain it with suspicion, with blame, with doubt! God himself
cannot efface what has been; he may oppose the future, but not the
past!
I cannot write more; I rave; my ideas are confused. After twelve
hours of toil I wanted a little rest, and to-day I must rest in
suffering. Oh! my only love, what grief to look on what I write to
you, to weigh my words, and not say all that is without evasion,
because I am without reproach. Oh! I suffer. I have not a passing
passion, but a one sole love!

November, 10, 1833.

I posted a letter last night, not expecting to be able to write again; I
suffered too much. My neuralgia attacked me. That is a secret
between me and my doctor; he made me take some pills, and I am
better this morning. But, can I help it? your letter burns my heart. I
will go to Geneva, I will pass my winter there. At least you shall not
have the right to emit suspicions. You shall see my life of toil, and
you will perceive the barbarity there is in arming yourself with my
confidence in opening my heart to you. I, who want to think in you!
I, who detach myself from everything to be more wholly yours!
Deceive you! But, as you say yourself, that would be too easy.
Besides, is that my character? Love is to me all confidence. I believe
in you as in myself. What you say of that compatriot [Madame de
Castries is meant] makes me surfer, but I do not doubt it. I shall not
speak to you of the cause of your imprecation, "Go to the feet of
your marquise" [Va aux pieds de ta marquise], except verbally.[1]
I have five important affairs to terminate, but I shall sacrifice all to
be on the 25th in Geneva, at that inn of the Pré-l'Évêque. But we
shall see each other very little. I must go to bed at six in the
evening, to rise at midnight. But from midday till four o'clock every
day I can be with you. For that I must do things here that seem
impossible; I shall attempt them. If they cause me a thousand
troubles I shall go to Geneva, and forget everything there to see but
one thing, the one heart, the one woman by whom I live.
I would give my life that that horrible page had not been written. To
reproach me for my very devotion! Do you believe that I would not
leave all, and go with you to the depths of some retreat? You arm
yourself with the phrase in which I sacrifice (the word meant
nothing, there is no sacrifice) to you all!
Why have you flung suffering into what was so sweet? You have
made me give to grief the time that belonged to the toil which
facilitates my means of going to you sooner.
I await, with an impatience beyond words, a letter, a line; you have
completely upset me. No, you do not know the childlike heart, the
poet's heart, that you have bruised. I am a man to suffer, then!
Adieu. Did I tell you the story of that man who wrote drinking-songs
in order to bury an adored mistress? To work with a heart in
mourning is my fate till your next letter comes. You owe me your life
for this fatal week. Oh! my angel, mine belongs to you. Break, strike,
but love me still. I adore you as ever; but have mercy on the
innocent. I do not know if you have formed an idea of what I have
to do. I must finish with the printing of four volumes before I can
start, I must compound with five difficulties, pay eight thousand
francs; and the four volumes make one hundred feuilles, or one
hundred times sixteen pages, to be revised each three or four times,
without counting the manuscripts.
Well, I will lose sleep, I will risk all, but you will see me near you on
the 20th at latest.
To-morrow I shall write openly to Madame Hanska to announce my
parcel.
May I put here a kiss full of tears? Will it be taken with love? Make
no more storms without cause in what is so pure.
It is midday. That you may get this in time, I send it to the general
post-office.
[1] This whole presentation of Madame Hanska justifies, and even demands, a few
words here. Judging her by the genuine letters in this volume,—which are, so far
as I know, our only means of judging her at all at this distance of time,—she was
a woman of principle, dignity, intelligence, and good-breeding; with a strong sense
of duty, and a certain deliberateness of nature, shown in the fact that it was eight
years after M. Hanski's death before she consented to marry Balzac. Her love for
him was plainly much less than his for her; but she was proud of his devotion, and
always unwilling to lose it. That a woman of her position and character ever wrote
to Balzac those words, "Va aux pieds de ta marquise," is an impossibility. There
are certain things that a woman of breeding cannot do or say; though some who
do not know what such women are do not perceive this.
Writing a few weeks later than the above letter (from Geneva in January, 1834) to
his intimate friend, Madame Carraud, Balzac bears the following little testimony to
Madame Hanska's feeling to his friend: "I hope you know what the security of
friendship is, and that you will not say to me again, 'Bear me in memory,' when
some one here [Madame Hanska] says to me, 'I am happy in knowing that you
inspire such friendships; that justifies mine for you.'" (Éd. Déf. vol. xxiv, p. 192).
This is the woman whose memory a few men are now endeavouring to smirch.—
TR.

Paris, Thursday, November 12,

1833.
It is six o'clock; I am going to bed, much fatigued by certain errands
[courses] made for pressing affairs; for I have hope, at the cost of
three thousand francs in money, of compromising on the litigious
affair which causes me the most anxiety. On returning home I found
your letter sent Friday, with that kind page which effaces all my pain.
O my adored angel, as long as you do not fully know the bloom of
sensitiveness which constant toil and almost perpetual seclusion
have left in my heart, you will not understand the ravages that a
word, a doubt, a suspicion can cause. In walking this morning
through Paris I said to myself that commercially the most simple
contract could not be broken without attainting probity; but have
you not broken, without hearing me, a promise that bound us
forever?
This is the last time that I shall speak to you of that letter except
when, in Geneva, I shall explain to you what gave rise to it. Fear
nothing; I have finished all my visits, and shall not go again to
Gérard's. I refuse all invitations, I hibernate completely, and the
woman most ambitious of love could find nothing to blame in me.
But alas! all that I have been able to do has been to take one more
hour from sleep. I must sleep five hours. My doctor, whom I saw this
morning, and who knows me since I was ten years old (a friend of
the house), is always fearful on seeing how I work. He threatens me
with an inflammation of the integuments of my cerebral nerves:—
"Yes, doctor," I told him, "if I committed excess upon excess; but for
three years I have been as chaste as a young girl, I never drink
either wine or liquors, my food is weighed, and the return of my
neuralgia comes less from work than from grief."
He shrugged his shoulders and said, looking at me:—
"Your talent costs dear! It is true; a man doesn't have a flaming look
like yours if he addicts himself to women."
There, my love, is a very authentic certificate of my sobriety. The
doctor is alarmed at my work. "Eugénie Grandet" makes a thick
volume. I keep the manuscript for you. There are pages written, in
the midst of anguish. They belong to you, as all of me does.
My dear love, listen; you must content yourself with having only a
few sentences, a line perhaps, per day, if you wish to see me in
November at Geneva. Apropos, write me openly in reply to my open
letter, to come to the inn on the Pré-l'Évêque, and give me its name.
I shall come for a month, and write "Privilège" there. I shall have to
bring a whole library.
My love, à bientôt. Nevertheless, I have a thousand obstructions.
The printers, and there are three printing-offices busy with these
four volumes, well, they do not get on. I, from midnight to midday, I
compose; that is to say, I am twelve hours in my arm-chair writing,
improvising, in the full meaning of that term. Then, from midday to
four o'clock I correct my proofs. At five I dine, at half-past five I am
in bed, and am wakened at midnight.
Thank you for your kind page; you have removed my suffering; oh!
my good, my treasure, never doubt me. Never a thought or a word
in contradiction of what I have said to you with intoxication can
trouble the words and thoughts that are for you. Oh! make humble
reparations to Madame P... Bulwer, the novelist, is not in Parliament;
he has a brother who is in Parliament, and the name has led even
our journalists into error. I made the same mistake that you did, but
I have verified the matter carefully. Bulwer is now in Paris,—the
novelist, I mean. He came yesterday to the Observatoire, but I have
not seen him yet.
You make me like Grosclaude [an artist]. What I want is the picture
he makes for you, and a copy equal to the original. I shall put it
before me in my study, and when I am in search of words,
corrections, I shall see what you are looking at.
There is a sublime scene (to my mind, and I am rewarded for having
it) in "Eugénie Grandet," who offers her fortune to her cousin. The
cousin makes an answer; what I said to you on that subject was
more graceful. But to mingle a single word that I have said to my
Eve in what others will read!—ah! I would rather fling "Eugénie
Grandet," into the fire. Oh, my love! I cannot find veils enough to
veil it from everyone. Oh! you will only know in ten years that I love
you, and how well I love you.
My dear gentille, when I take this paper and speak to you I let
myself flow into pleasure; I could write to you all night. I am obliged
to mark a certain hour at my waking; when it rings I ought to stop,
and it rang long ago.
Till to-morrow.
 Wednesday.
After the 22nd, including the 22nd, do not post any more letters; I
shall not receive them. Oh! I would like to intoxicate myself so as
not to think during the journey. Three days to be saying to myself, "I
am going to see her!" Ah! you know what that is, don't you? It is
dying of impatience, of pleasure! I have just sent you the licensed
letter, and I am now going to do up the parcel and arrange the box.
I have returned the remainder of the pebbles; I had not the right to
lose what Anna picked up; and I would not compromise
Mademoiselle Hanska by keeping them.
Oh! let me laugh after weeping. I shall soon see you. I bring you the
most sublime masterpiece of poesy, an epistle of Madame
Desbordes-Valmore, the original of which I have; I reserve it for you.
To-morrow, Thursday, I hope to be delivered of "Eugénie Grandet."
The manuscript will be finished. I must immediately finish "Ne
touchez pas à la hache."
I do not know how it is that you can go and put yourself so often
into the midst of that atmosphere of Genevese pedantry. But also I
know there is nothing so agreeable as to be in the midst of society
with a great thought, oh! my beautiful angel, my Eva, my treasures,
of which the world is ignorant.
Nothing could be more false than what that traveller told you about
Madame C... You understand, my love, that the ambitious manner in
which I now present myself in society must engender a thousand
calumnies, a thousand absurd versions. To give you an example: I
have a glass I value, a saucer, out of which my aunt, an angel of
grace and goodness who died in the flower of her age, drank for the
last time; and my grandmother, who loved me, kept it on her
fireplace for ten years. Well, my lawyer heard some man in a literary
reading-room say that my life was attached to a talisman, a glass, a
saucer; and my talent also. There are things of love and pride and
nobleness in certain lives which others would rather calumniate than
comprehend.
Latouche has said a frightful thing of hatred to one of my friends. He
met him on the quay; they spoke of me,—Latouche with immense
praises (in spite of our separation). "What pleases me about him,"
he said, "is that I begin to believe he will bury them all."
Mon Dieu! how I love your dear letters; not those in which you
scold, but those in which you tell me minutely what happens to you.
Oh! tell me all; let me read in your soul as I would like to make you
read in mine. Tell me the praises that your adorable beauty receives,
and if any one looks at your hair, your pretty throat, your little
hands, tell me his name. You are my most precious fame. We have,
they say, stars in heaven; you, you are my star come down,—the
light in which I live, the light toward which I go.
How is it that you speak to me of what I write. It is what I think and
do not say that is beautiful, it is my love for you, its cortège of ideas,
it is all that I fain would say to you, in your ear, with no more
atmosphere between us.
I do not like "Marie Tudor;" from the analyses in the newspapers, it
seems to me nasty. I have no time to go and see the play. I have no
time to live. I shall live only in Geneva. And what work I must do
even there! There, as here, I shall have to go to bed at six o'clock
and get up at midnight. But from midday to five o'clock, O love!
what strength I shall get from your glances. What pleasure to read
to you, chapter by chapter, the "Privilège" or other tales, my
cherished love!
Do not think that there is the least pride, the least false delicacy in
my refusal of what you know of, the golden drop you have put
angelically aside. Who knows if some day it might not stanch the
blood of a wound? and from you alone in the world I could accept it.
I know you would receive all from me. But no; reserve all for things
that I might perhaps accept from you, in order to surround myself
with you, and think of you in all things. My love is greater than my
thought.
Find here a thousand kisses and caresses of flame. I would like to
clasp you in my soul.

Paris, Wednesday, November 13,

1833.
Madame,—I think that the house of Hanski will not refuse the slight
souvenirs which the house of Balzac preserves of a gracious and
most joyous hospitality. I have the honour to address you, bureau
restant at Geneva, a little case forwarded by the Messageries of the
rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. You have no doubt been accusing the
frivolity and carelessness of the "Frenchman" (forgetting that I am a
Gaul, nothing but a Gaul), and have never thought of all the
difficulties of Parisian life, which have, however, procured me the
pleasure of busying myself long for you and Anna. The delay comes
from the fact that I wanted to keep all my promises. Permit me to
have some vanity in my persistence.
Before the sublime Fossin deigned to leave the diadems and crowns
of princes to set the pebbles picked up by your daughter, I had to
entreat him, and be very humble, and often leave my retreat, where
I am busy in setting poor phrases. Before I could get the best
cotignac [quince marmalade] from Orléans, inasmuch as you want to
be a child again and taste it, there was need of correspondence. And
foreseeing that you would find the marmalade below its reputation, I
wanted to add some of the clingstone peaches of Touraine, that you
might feel, gastronomically, the air of my native region. Forgive me
that Tourainean vanity. And finally, in order to send you a "La
Caricature" complete, I had to wait till its year was ended and then
submit to the delays of the binder,—that high power that oppresses
my library.
For your beautiful hair nothing was more easy, and you will find
what you deigned to ask me for. I shall have the honour to bring you
myself the recipe for the wonderful preservative pomade, which you
can make yourself in the depths of the Ukraine, and so not lose one
of your beauteous black hairs.
Rossini has lately written me a note; I send it to you as an offering
to Monsieur Hanski, his passionate admirer. You see, madame, that I
have not forgotten you, and that if my work allows I shall soon be in
Geneva to tell you myself what sweet memories I preserve of our
happy meeting.
You admire Chénier; there is a new edition just published, more
complete than the preceding ones. Do not buy it; arrange that I may
read to you, myself, these various poems, and perhaps you will then
attach more value to the volumes I shall select for you here. That
sentence is not vain or impertinent; it is the expression of a hope
with wholly youthful frankness.
I hope to be in Geneva on the 25th; but, alas! for that I have to
finish four volumes, and though I work eighteen hours out of the
twenty-four, and have given up the music of the opera and all the
joys of Paris to stay in my cell, I am afraid that the coalition of
workmen of which we are now victims will make my efforts come to
nought. I wish, as I have to make this journey, that I might find a
little tranquillity in it, and remain away from that furnace called Paris
for a fortnight, to be employed in some far niente. But I shall
probably have to work more than I wish to.
Give the most gracious expression of my sentiments and
remembrances to Monsieur Hanski, kiss Mademoiselle Anna in my
name, and accept for yourself my respectful homage. Will you
believe me, and not laugh at me if I tell you that, often, I see again
your beautiful head in that landscape of the Île Sainte-Pierre, when,
in the middle of my nights, weary with toil, I gaze into my fire
without seeing it, and turn my mind to the most agreeable memories
of my life? There are so few pure moments, free of all arrière-
pensées, naïve as our own childhood, in this life. Here, I see nothing
but enmities about me. Who could doubt that I revert to scenes
where nothing but good-will surrounded me? I do not forget either
Mademoiselle Séverine or Mademoiselle Borel.
Adieu, madame; I place all my obeisances at your feet.

Paris, Sunday, November 17,

1833.
Thursday, Friday, and yesterday it was impossible for me to write to
you. The case does not start till to-morrow, Monday, so that you will
hardly get it before Thursday or Friday. Tell me what you think of
Anna's cross. We have been governed by the pebbles, which prevent
anything pretty being made of them. The cotignac made everybody
send me to the deuce. They wrote me from Orléans that I must wait
till the fresh was made, which was better than the old, and that I
should have it in four or five days. So, not wishing it to fail you as
announced, I rushed to all the dealers in eatables, who one and all
told me they never sold two boxes of that marmalade a year, and so
had given up keeping it. But at Corcelet's I found a last box; he told
me there was no one but him in Paris who kept that article, and that
he would have some fresh cotignac soon. I took the box; and you
will not have the fresh till my arrival, cara.
As for Rossini, I want him to write me a nice letter, and he has just
invited me to dine with his mistress, who happens to be that
beautiful Judith, the former mistress of Horace Vernet and of Eugène
Sue, you know. He has promised me a note about music, etc. He is
very obliging; we have chased each other for two days. No one has
an idea with what tenacity one must will a thing in Paris to have it.
The smaller a thing is, the less one obtains it.
I have now obtained an excellent concession from Gosselin. I shall
not do the "Privilège" at Geneva. I shall do two volumes of the
"Contes Philosophiques" there, which will not oblige me to make
researches; and this leaves me free to go and come without the
dreadful paraphernalia of a library. I am afraid I cannot leave here
before the 20th, my poor angel. Money is a terrible thing! I must pay
four thousand francs indemnities to get peace; and here I am forced
to begin all over again to raise money on publishers' notes, and I
have ten thousand francs to pay the last of December, besides three
thousand to my mother. It is enough to make one lose one's head.
And when I think that to compose, to work, one needs great
calmness, to forget all!
If I have started on the 25th I shall be lucky. Of one hundred feuilles
wanted to-day, Sunday, I have only eight of one volume and four of
another printed, eleven set up of one and five of the other. I am
expecting the fabricators this morning to inform them of my
ultimatum. Why! in sixteen hours of work—and what work?—I do in
one hour what the cleverest workmen in a printing-office cannot do
in a day. I shall never succeed!
In the judgment of all men of good sense, "Marie Tudor" is an
infamy, and the worst thing there is as a play.
Mon Dieu! I re-read your letters with incredible pleasure. Aside from
love, for which there is no expression, we are, in them, heart to
heart; you have the most refined of minds, the most original, and,
dearest, how you speak to all my natures! Soon I can tell you more
in a look than in all my letters, which tell nothing.
I put in a leaf of sweet-scented camellia; it is a rarity; I have cast
many a look at it. For a week past, as I work I look at it; I seek the
words I want, I think of you, who have the whiteness of that flower.
O my love, I would I could hold you in my arms, at this moment
when love gushes up in my heart, when I have a thousand desires, a
thousand fancies, when I see you with the eyes of the soul only, but
in which you are truly mine. This warmth of soul, of heart, of
thought, will it wrap you round as you read these lines? I think of
you when I hear music. Adoremus in æternum, my Eva,—that is our
motto, is it not?
Adieu; à bientôt. What pleasure I shall have in explaining to you the
caricatures you cannot understand.
Do you want anything from Paris? Tell me. You can still write the day
after you receive this letter. The camellia-leaf bears you my soul; I
have held it between my lips in writing this page, that I might fill it
with tenderness.

Paris, November 20, 1833, five in

the morning.
My dear wife of love, fatigue has come at last; I have gathered the
fruit of these constant night-watches and my continual anxieties. I
have many griefs. In re-reading "Les Célibataires" which I had re-
corrected again and again, I find deplorable faults after printing.
Then, my lawsuits have not ended. I await to-day the result of a
transaction which will end everything between Mame and me. I send
him four thousand francs, my last resources. Here I am, once more
as poor as Job, and yet this week I must find twelve hundred francs
to settle another litigious affair. Oh! how dearly is fame bought! how
difficult men make it to acquire her! No, there is no such thing as a
cheap great man.
I could not write to you yesterday, or Monday; I was hurrying about.
Hardly could I re-read my proofs attentively. In the midst of all this
worry I made the words of a song for Rossini.
I was Sunday with Bra, the sculptor; there I saw the most beautiful
masterpiece that exists; and I do not except either the Olympian
Jupiter, or the Moses, or the Venus, or the Apollo. It is Mary, holding
the infant Christ, adored by two angels. If I were rich I would have
that executed in marble.
There I conceived a most noble book; a little volume to which "Louis
Lambert" should be the preface; a work entitled "Séraphita."
Séraphita will be two natures in one single being—like "Fragoletta,"
with this difference, that I suppose this creature an angel arrived at
the last transformation, and breaking through the enveloping bonds
to rise to heaven. This angel is loved by a man and by a woman, to
whom he says, as he goes upward through the skies, that they have
each loved the love that linked them, seeing it in him, an angel all
purity; and he reveals to them their passion, he leaves them love, as
he escapes our terrestrial miseries. If I can, I will write this noble
work at Geneva, near to you.
But the conception of this multi-toned Séraphita has wearied me; it
has lashed me for two days.
Yesterday I sent Rossini's autograph, extremely rare, to Monsieur
Hanski, but the song for you. I am afraid I cannot leave here before
27th; seventeen hours of toil do not suffice. In a few hours you will
receive my last letter, which will calm your fears and your sweet
repentance. I would now like to be tortured—if it did not make me
suffer so much. Oh! your adorable letters! And you believe that I will
not burn those sacred effusions of your heart! Oh! never speak of
that again.
To-day, 20th, I have still one hundred pages of "Eugénie Grandet" to
write, "Ne touchez pas à la hache" to finish, and "La Femme aux
yeux rouges" to do, and I need at least ten days for all that. I shall
arrive dead. But I can stay in Geneva as long as you do. This is how:
if I am rich enough I will lose five hundred francs on each volume to
have it put in type and corrected in Geneva; and I will send to Paris
a single corrected proof, and they will reprint it under the eyes of a
friend who will read the sheets. It is such a piece of folly that I shall
do it. What do you say to it?
Yesterday my arm-chair, the companion of my vigils, broke. It is the
second I have had killed under me since the beginning of the battle
that I fight.
When people ask me where I am going, and why I leave Paris, I tell
them I am going to Rome.
Coffee has no longer any effect upon me. I must leave it off for
some time that it may recover its virtues.
My dearest Eva, I should like to find in that inn you speak of, a very
quiet room where no noise could penetrate, for I have truly much
work to do. I shall work only my twelve hours, from midnight to
midday, but those I must have.
I cannot tell you how these delays of the printer annoy me; I am ill
of them. All the day of Monday was occupied by an old man of sixty-
five, a man belonging to the first families of Franche-Comté, fallen
into poverty, for whom I was entreated by the lady in Angoulême to
find a situation. My heart is still wrung at the sight of him. I took him
to Émile de Girardin, who gave him a place at a hundred francs a
month. A man with white hair who lives on bread only, he and his
family, while I, I live luxuriously, my God! I did what I could. People
call these good actions; God thinks of those who compassionate the
miseries of others. Just now God is crushing me a good deal. But it
is true that you love me, and I worship you, and that enables me to
bear all. I had to dine with Émile and his wife, and lose a day and a
night; what a sacrifice! Ten years hence to give away a hundred
thousand francs would be less.
Adieu for to-day. I have rested myself for a moment on your heart,
oh, my dear joy, my gentle haven, my sole thought, my flower of
heaven! Adieu, then.

Saturday, 23rd.
From Thursday until to-day I have often thought of you, but to write
has been impossible. I have a weight of a hundred thousand pounds
on my shoulders. Yes, my angel, I am quit of that publisher at the
cost of four thousand francs. My lawyer, my notary, and a procureur
du Roi have examined the receipt. All is ended between us;
agreements destroyed; I owe him neither sou nor line. I have
deposited the document, precious to me, with my notary.
The next day I completed, also at a cost of three thousand francs
(making seven thousand in a week), my other transaction. But as I
had not enough money I drew a note for five days, and by
Wednesday, 27th, I must have twelve hundred francs! I have,
besides, a little procillon to compound for, but that is only for money
not yet due. I have still two other matters concerning my literary
property to bring to an end before I can start. I am absolutely