Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac was widely acclaimed during his lifetime as a master of French prose. His various writings successfully balance the demands of a native French aristocratic public against those of the humanist legacy, wherein Latin was the basis of a European Republic of Letters. He was the quintessential man of letters: he, in fact, wrote primarily letters, a genre that then served as a vehicle for the public expression of ideas, opinions, and taste. He was actively writing in a period that, strictly speaking, had just witnessed what Alain Viala has called La Naissance de l'écrivain (The Birth of the Writer, 1985)--that is, someone who earns his living by writing. Such a profession was not only considered vulgar by his peers, but also his letters earned him little or no compensation, apart from wide popularity and authority in literary matters, though not without controversy...