Many readers would put the companion novels ‘La Cousine Bette’ and ’Le Cousin Pons’ at the head of Balzac’s works.  They have not the infinite pathos of ‘Le Pere Goriot,’ or the superb construction of the first three parts of the ‘Splendeurs et miseres,’ but for sheer strength the former at least is unsurpassed in fiction.  Never before or since have the effects of vice in dragging down a man below the level of the lowest brute been so portrayed as in Baron Hulot; never before or since has female depravity been so illustrated as in the diabolical career of Valerie Marneffe, probably the worst woman in fiction.  As for Cousine Bette herself, and her power to breed mischief and crime, it suffices to say that she is worthy of a place beside the two chief characters.

‘Le Cousin Pons’ is a very different book; one which, though pathetic in the extreme, may be safely recommended to the youngest reader.  The hero who gives his name to the story is an old musician who has worn out his welcome among his relations, but who becomes an object of interest to them when they learn that his collection of bric-a-brac is valuable and that he is about to die.  The intrigues that circulate around this collection and the childlike German, Schmucke, to whom Pons has bequeathed it, are described as only the author of ‘Le Cure de Tours’ could have succeeded in doing; but the book contains also an almost perfect description of the ideal friendship existing between Pons and Schmucke.  One remembers them longer than one does Frazier, the scoundrelly advocate who cheats poor Schmucke; a fact which should be cited against those who urge that Balzac is at home with his vicious characters only.

The last novel of this group, ‘Cesar Birotteau,’ is the least powerful, though not perhaps the least popular.  It is an excellent study of bourgeois life, and therefore fills an important place in the scheme of the ‘Comedy,’ describing as it does the spreading ambitions of a rich but stupid perfumer, and containing an admirable study of bankruptcy.  It may be dismissed with the remark that around the innocent Caesar surge most of the scoundrels that figure in the ‘Comedie humaine,’ and with the regret that it should have been completed while the far more powerful ‘Les Petits bourgeois’ was left unfinished.

We now come to the concluding parts of the ‘Etudes de moeurs.’ the ‘Scenes’ describing Political and Military Life.  In the first group are five novels and stories:  ‘L’Envers de l’histoire contemporaine’ (The Under Side of Contemporary History, a fine story, but rather social than political), ‘Une Tenebreuse affaire’ (A Shady Affair), ’Un Episode sous la Terreur,’ ‘Z.  Marcas,’ and ‘Le Depute d’Arcis’ (The Deputy of Arcis).  Of these the ‘Episode’ is probably the most admirable, although ’Z.  Marcas’ has not a little strength.  The ‘Depute,’ like ’Les Petits bourgeois,’ was continued by M. Charles Rabou and a considerable part of it is not Balzac’s; a fact which is to be regretted,