Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 34.djvu/32

4 eminent has caused, but which the slightest sagacity in the world might have prevented, the author has found some compensation in the testimony of public sympathy which has been given him. M. Victor Hugo, among others, has shown himself as steadfast in friendship as he is pre-eminent in poetry; and the present writer has the greater happiness in publishing the good will of M. Hugo, inasmuch as the enemies of that distinguished man have no hesitation in blackening his character.

Let me conclude by saying that Vautrin is two months old, and in the rush of Parisian life a novelty of two months has survived a couple of centuries. The real preface to Vautrin will be found in the play, Richard-Cœur-d'Eponge which the administration permits to be acted in order to save the prolific stage of Porte-Saint-Martin from being overrun by children.

, May 1, 1840.